diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29178-0.txt | 11328 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29178-0.zip | bin | 0 -> 245592 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29178-8.txt | 11329 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29178-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 245425 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29178-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 308245 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29178-h/29178-h.htm | 11811 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29178-h/images/logo.png | bin | 0 -> 11588 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29178-h/images/title.jpg | bin | 0 -> 32479 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29178.txt | 11329 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 29178.zip | bin | 0 -> 245308 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
13 files changed, 45813 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/29178-0.txt b/29178-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9573b22 --- /dev/null +++ b/29178-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11328 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands +of Scotland, by Daniel Turner Holmes + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland + +Author: Daniel Turner Holmes + +Release Date: June 20, 2009 [EBook #29178] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY TOURS *** + + + + +Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +_LITERARY TOURS_ + + + + + Literary Tours in + The Highlands and + Islands of Scotland + + By D. T. Holmes, B.A. + + + "Gaudia, discursus, nostri est farrago libelli" + --_Juvenal_, i. 74 + + + _PAISLEY: ALEXANDER GARDNER_ + Publisher by Appointment to the late Queen Victoria + 1909 + + + * * * * * + + + _To_ + _James Coats, Junr., Esq.,_ + _Ferguslie House, Paisley._ + + + _You, but for whom I'd never been + Much further north than Aberdeen; + Whose mandate sent my willing feet + To realms of heather, broom, and peat: + Accept this record of my tours + As something less my own than yours._ + + _D. T. HOLMES._ + + + + +_PREFACE._ + + + _White stands the long Kilpatrick row + Of hills with deep and dazzling snow, + And eastward, in a glimmering haze, + Stretch to the Forth the Campsie Braes._ + + _But see! beyond the Clyde, a stain + Of smoke that runs across the plain, + And flecks for miles the vivid gleam: + It is the tireless steed of steam._ + + _An old acquaintance! Ben and Strath + Daily behold his thunderous path, + That ceases not, until he feels + The breeze of Mallaig cool his wheels._ + + _And Memory, fondly gazing back + On many a journey by that track + Of splendour, would, at home, retrace + The charms and lore of every place;_ + + _Yea, pass, in thought, to storied Skye, + Where all the glens in glamour lie; + And, lightly scorning gust and spray, + Leap o'er the Minch to Stornoway._ + + _And many a northern beach besides, + Splashed by the foam of racing tides, + Rises in thought: from here to there, + Let Fancy's coinage pay the fare,--_ + + _Fancy, that wafts us o'er the main + To utmost Thule and home again, + Through mingled din of sea and sky, + Even in the twinkling of an eye._ + + _D. T. H._ + + _Ingleholm, Bridge of Weir, + 16th January, 1909._ + + + + + +CONTENTS. + + PAGE + +CHAPTER I.--INTRODUCTORY, 9 + + Village libraries--Difficulties of travel--Literary Societies in + the Highlands--Gaelic books--Happiness and geniality of + natives--Oban to Gairloch--Winter sailing--A crofting + village--Horrors of the Minch--Notes on Lewis--Highland + doctors--Hotels and anglers--Recent books--Military--Moray + Firth--Among the miners--Handloom weaving--Professor Blackie and + the Highlands. + +CHAPTER II.--MUSIC, SPEECHES, AND LITERATURE, 60 + + Scotch a reading nation--Hardships of students in old + days--Homer in Scalloway--When education ends--Objects of + chapter--Music--M.P.'s--Rural depopulation--Its + causes--Emigration--Village halls--The moon--A lecture in + Islay--Mental and material wealth--Real greatness--A Highland + laird on literature--Varieties of chairmen--"Coming to the + point"--Moral obligation--Compliment to Paisley--Oratory at + Salen--Lecture in a dungeon--Surprises--A visit to the + Borders--Tarbolton--Scotch language--Choice books--The + essayists--A Banff theory--Goldsmith in Gaelic--_Biblia + abiblia_--Favourites for the road--Horace--Shakespeare's + Sonnets--Xenophon--French literature and journalism--Romance and + Augustanism--Victorian writers--Celt and Saxon. + +CHAPTER III.--ECCLESIASTICAL, 134 + + Sectarian feeling--Typical anecdotes--Music and + religion--Ethical teaching in schools--The Moderates--A savoury + book--The Sabbath--"The Men of Skye"--The auldest kirk--The + Episcopal Church--An interlude of metre--The Christian + Brethren--Drimnin in Morven--Craignish--A model + minister--Ministerial trials in olden times--An artful + dodger--Some anecdotes from Gigha--Growing popularity of Ruskin. + +CHAPTER IV.--EDUCATIONAL, 180 + + Some Insular Dominies--Education Act of 1872--Education in the + Highlands--Feeding the hungry--Parish Council + boarders--Dwindling attendances--Arnisdale--Golspie Technical + School--On the Sidlaws--Some surprises--Arran schools--Science + and literature--Study of Scott--The old classical dominie--Vogue + of Latin in former times--Teachers and + examinations--Howlers--Competing subjects. + +CHAPTER V.--A TRIP TO SHETLAND, 217 + + Aberdeen--En route--Lerwick--Past and present saints--Some notes + on the islands--A Shetland poet--A visit to Bressay--From + Lerwick to Sandwick--Quarff--"That holy man, + Noah"--Fladibister--Cunningsburgh--"Keeping off"--The indignant + elder--Torquil Halcrow--Philology--A Sandwick gentleman--Local + tales--Foulah and Fair Isle--The fishing season. + +CHAPTER VI.--COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS AND THEIR ANECDOTES, 255 + + Trials of commercials--The two-est-faced knave--Mary, the maid + of the inn--Anecdotes of the smoking-room: Sonnet to + Raleigh--Peelin's below the tree--"She's away!"--A mean + house--One of the director's wives--Temperance hotels--A + memorial window--The blasted heath--The day for it--The + converted drummer--A circular ticket--A compound + possessive--Sixteen medals--"She's auld, and she's thin, and + she'll keep"--The will o' the dead--Sorry for London--"Raither + unceevil"--An unwelcome recitation--A word in season--A Nairn + critic--A grand day for it--A pro-Boer--"Falls of Bruar, only, + please!"--A bad case of nerves. + +CHAPTER VII.--LEGENDS AND LITERARY NOTABILIA, 278 + + Gairloch folk-lore: Prince Olaf and his bride--A laird who had + seen a fairy--Tales from Loch Broom: The dance of death--The + Kildonan midwife--The magic herring--Taisch--Antiquities of + Dunvegan--Miscellaneous terrors--St. Kilda--Lady + Grange--Pierless Tiree--Lochbuie in Mull--Inveraray Castle--The + sacred isle--Appin--Macdonald's gratitude--Notes on the + Trossachs--Lochfyneside: Macivors, Macvicars, and + Macallisters--Red Hector--Macphail of Colonsay--Tales from + Speyside: Tom Eunan!--Shaws and Grants--The wishing well--Ossian + and Macpherson--At the foot o' Bennachie--Harlaw--Lochaber + reivers--Reay and Twickenham--Rob Donn--Rev. Mr. Mill of + Dunrossness. + +CHAPTER VIII.--METRICAL AND SUPPLEMENTARY, 340 + + Arrival of the Mail-train at a Highland Station--Defoe, the + Father of Journalism--A Village Toper--A Reverend + Hellenist--Antigone--Shadows of the Manse--"My Heart's in the + Highlands"--Saddell, Kintyre--Springtime in Perthshire--Dr. + George Macdonald's Creed--Abbotsford--Carlyle--Shelley--Picture + in an Inn--Rain-storm at Loch Awe--Kinlochewe--General + Wade--Sound of Raasay in December--Les Neiges d' Antan--The + Islands of the Ness--American Tourist Loquitur--The Miners--In a + Country Graveyard--No Place like Home. + +INDEX, 369 + + + + +LITERARY TOURING. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +INTRODUCTORY. + + Village libraries--Difficulties of travel--Literary Societies in + the Highlands--Gaelic books--Happiness and geniality of + natives--Oban to Gairloch--Winter sailing--A crofting + village--Horrors of the Minch--Notes on Lewis--Highland + doctors--Hotels and anglers--Recent books--Military--Moray + Firth--Among the miners--Handloom weaving--Professor Blackie and + the Highlands. + + +VILLAGE LIBRARIES. + +At pretty frequent intervals, during the last four years, I have sallied +forth from my home in Renfrewshire, north, south, east, and west, to +some of the most remote and isolated nooks of insular and provincial +Scotland, on a mission so uncommon as to justify the writing of a book +of impressions and experiences. The Highlands and Islands of Scotland +are, of course, visited every summer by a great host of excursionists, +who go thither to fish, play golf, lounge, climb hills, and otherwise +picturesquely disport themselves. A few earnest devotees of science +spend their holidays botanising in the glens, scanning the geological +strata, looking for fossils, measuring the outlines of brochs and +prehistoric forts, or collecting relics of Culdee churches. My journeys +were undertaken for none of the objects named: they were entirely +connected with _libraries_ and _lecturing_, and, being undertaken mainly +in the months of winter and spring, they have given me the opportunity +of noting a great many interesting particulars that the summer +traveller, bent on recreation or science, cannot be expected to notice. + +_I do not think any finer gift could be given to a village community +than a collection of useful and entertaining books._ The libraries with +which my work was connected were sent, free of charge, to strath and +glen, and nothing was asked in return, except that the volumes should be +well housed and delivered to the people to read by some local librarian. +You will find these libraries in all the townships of the Hebrides, from +Ness in Lewis, down the long chain of islands, to Islay and Jura. About +thirty of them are established in the Shetlands, and as many in the +Orkneys. Scores of little villages in Aberdeen, Ross, Sutherland, +Argyle, Bute, and Perth, have been gratuitously supplied with them. The +same is true of many a weather-beaten, quaint, red-tiled little +fishing-village along the shores of the Moray Firth. In the barracks of +Fort-George, Inverness, and Dingwall, the soldiers can solace their +leisure hours by delightful, patriotic, and instructive reading, +furnished to them without money and without price. Even in quiet, +pastoral Roxburghshire, at a spot near the birthplace of Dandie +Dinmont, you will find one of these serviceable collections of books. + +It is a pleasure to me to be able to say that I have visited a great +number of the districts mentioned, for the purpose of speaking to the +people in a familiar and non-academic way on some of the books which +have been presented to them. In this way I have spoken to about 40,000 +people, the majority of whom had never previously been present at a +discourse on a literary topic. Most of them had, of course, been in the +habit of attending religious services and election meetings: but neither +of these is the very best preparation for a literary evening. Some of my +experiences have been intensely amusing, and I do not think any lecturer +has ever, as regards rough roads, inclement weather, and amazing votes +of thanks, had quite the same joys and sorrows as I have come through. I +have often laughed (good-naturedly, I hope) at what came under my +notice, but I am not so conceited as to suppose that the hilarity was +always on one side. + + +DIFFICULTIES OF TRAVEL. + +It can very easily be seen that he who proposed to visit all the above +districts would have some hard and continuous work in prospect. Even on +the mainland of Scotland there are many villages of difficult access. +The nearest railway station to Durness on Loch Eriboll is Lairg, sixty +miles away. Gairloch in Ross-shire is thirty miles distant from the +railway station of Achnasheen. In the great county of Aberdeen there are +a good many villages that can only be reached by long and tiresome +driving in a mail coach. At different parts of the Moray Firth little +townships lie huddled at the foot of precipitous cliffs, and, at first +sight, seem inaccessible except by sea. To one accustomed to the +sumptuous equipment of the Clyde steamers, even the journey to the +shrine of Hugh Miller at Cromarty is pleasant only in good weather: a +wee, puffing, hard-wrought steam-launch takes a slant course of five +miles from Invergordon to Cromarty pier, accomplishing the journey in +forty-five minutes. The fare between the two piers is one shilling, and +there is no extra charge for the use of the cabin, which is reached by a +perpendicular and very slippery ladder, and would be better suited for +philosophical reflection in a gale if the crew did not use it as a +store-room for engine-grease and old oilskins. In the Outer Islands, +Watt's machine is, of course, unknown, and many of the roads which +imaginative cartographers have inserted in their maps, will perhaps be +finished when the last trump is about to sound. + +Railway travelling, too, is attended with some inconveniences in winter. +The Glasgow-Inverness train, for example, may, on the coldest night of +the year, break down at Dalnaspidal; and in such a case the passengers +will have to sit, entertained by howling blasts, till a fresh engine +comes up from Blair Atholl. Such an experience was once mine, and I +always think of it when I read the ninth ode of Horace's first book. +Outside were the great snow-sheeted mountains, and the moon was gazing +in blear-eyed compassion through a screen of haze. From end to end of +the train resounded the rhythmic beat of cold-footed passengers striving +to bring some warmth of blood to the toes. + +In Grantown-on-Spey, I got an uncommon surprise one February. There had +been some snow in the Lowlands, but at Grantown the fall had been +excessive, and the roads were encumbered. On arriving at the station, +the travellers saw a sleigh waiting to convey them to the hotel. The +conveyance suited the weather admirably, and the horses seemed to be +enjoying the fun. No wheeled vehicles were to be seen: even the milkmen +sleighed their commodity from door to door. "_If we had a brace of +grand-dukes and a bomb or two, we could fancy ourselves in Russia_," +said the facetious hotel-porter. He asserted that it was well for the +country when abundant snow came down early in the year. It seems that +Grantown is apt to suffer from drought in a hot summer following on a +rainless spring. A copious fall of snow early in the year is retained in +the mountains, and ensures plenty of moisture during the months of heat. +Moisture is needed in summer, for the population is trebled then, and +most tourists require a little water, sometimes, to qualify their +potations. + +It is evident from what I have said, that the pedantic and vexatious +system adopted by Euclid in his Elements of Geometry could not be +employed in arranging the chapters of this book. The stern +consecutiveness of that immortal but unpopular author would be out of +place in describing journeys which might have been taken in the reverse +order without much difference in the results. + + +LITERARY SOCIETIES IN THE HIGHLANDS. + +Winter with its long nights gives leisure to the remote glensmen and +crofters. The distractions of the town are not there to take their minds +away from study and meditation. Books may not be abundant, but what +literature is available is eagerly fastened on and thoroughly digested. +In the Lowlands we skip over our books and know nothing thoroughly. The +Highlander, with his limited means and choice, is forced to peruse and +re-peruse, even though he has nothing more lively than Boston's +_Fourfold State_, or Hervey's _Meditations among the Tombs_. But he +knows well what he has so often read, and is quite competent to discuss +and criticise his little row of volumes. A few of the Highland townships +have literary societies in which every variety of subject is debated: +the meetings are usually opened with prayer, but not always closed in +that way. There is a tiny clachan, some twenty miles distant from +Ullapool, on the side of a hill, in view of the grotesque peaks of +Suilven, which has a most flourishing literary society--with president, +vice-president, rules, minutes, and committees. Not once, but twice a +week does this society meet, and when the full moon is propitious for a +clear journey home through the morasses, the debates are often unduly +prolonged and the chairman's summing-up luxuriantly prolix. How many +politicians of note in London have been raked fore and aft in that +little schoolroom! What measures and enactments, plausible to the +unthinking metropolitans, have been cut and slashed there, while the +conscious moon, gleaming in at the window, strove vainly to disperse +the loquacious throng! Listen to the chairman's modest remarks: "_I do +not wish_," he says, "_to embarrass the Government, but_...." Unthinking +Asquith, here is a man who does not wish to embarrass you; he could do +it, but he is merciful! You may breathe freely, you and your Cabinet, +for spite of your slips and blunders, the Ross-shire crofters will not +turn round and rend you. They do not wish to embarrass the Government; +but have a care: their eyes are on you, and forbearance has its limits. +Think not because they live remote from train and telegraph, that you +are immune from their censure. Far from it! Round the hill-side at a +stated hour every day, in shine or shower, gust or calm, comes the +mail-coach of King Edward VII., bringing its pile of letters and +newspapers. I see the little throng of village politicians, eager-eyed, +peruse the latest parliamentary news. There they get all the needed +pabulum for the next political debate. If the answers to Mr. Galloway +Weir have been shifty and evasive, it will go hard with the Government +to-night in the little schoolroom, and the plaster will fall in showers +of dust from the ceiling as the iniquities of our rulers are ruthlessly +shown up. I should not like to feel the rough side of that chairman's +tongue. + +A library of representative English works, presented to a remote +provincial society like the one I speak of, is a centre of unspeakable +entertainment and instruction. The _entertainment_, during the long +nights of winter, when the natives gather round the ingle and someone +reads aloud, is a very palpable addition to the joys of life. The +_instruction_ is perhaps slower in coming, but is none the less sure. +Only by comparison of books can their relative value as literature be +determined. Bigotry and narrow-mindedness in literature and religion are +almost always the result of ignorance. In the Highlands it is oftenest +the local teacher who is the librarian, and the books are accommodated +in the school. The teacher is thus able to make his instruction in +literature vivid and interesting to his senior pupils; he can authorise +a pupil to take a particular volume home and require an essay to be +written on it within a given time; and he can, in school, read aloud +typical passages of good prose to supplement the limited extracts of the +class text-books. The books have been selected (i.) to form useful +reading for adults; (ii.) to supply suitable pabulum for literary +societies; (iii.) to aid the schemes of the Education Department in +connection with what is called the "Supplementary Course of Instruction +in English Literature." The selection of the books for the use of senior +scholars has been, as a rule, easy enough. Dictionaries of the French +and German languages, good atlases, and works of reference have, in most +cases been included.[1] + + [1] Let the southern reader remember that a boy born in a city + like Glasgow has, as respects opportunities of getting on, + infinitely better chances than a lad of equal ability born in a + Highland village. The crofter's son has no reading-room with + costly works of reference, scientific manuals, English + translations of Latin authors, etc., to go to when he is in need + of help. He begins the battle of life at a very serious + disadvantage, and often gives up the fight altogether. Anything + that tends to equalise the chances of town and country, from the + point of view of mental equipment, would do more general good to + Scotland, by bettering the available brain power, than any + half-dozen Acts of Parliament taken at random. + + +GAELIC BOOKS. + +In selecting the books specially intended for the perusal of the older +people, an attempt is made to meet the needs of the various localities. +In the bi-lingual districts there is always a shelf of Gaelic books, +such as the original texts of Norman Macleod's exquisite sermons, +M'Rury's religious compilations, Macleod's clever poetry _The Lyre of +the Grove_, Campbell's _Popular Tales of the West Highlands_, and Magnus +Maclean's manuals of Celtic Literature. There being a distinct dearth of +comely Celtic reading that the ordinary native can understand, +arrangements have been made for the translation into Gaelic in several +volumes by competent scholars, of extracts from Mr. Lang's _True Story +Book_, and from other sources. + +The regrettable thing about Gaelic is its hopelessly bewildering +spelling. The sounds are pleasing and melodious in a high degree, but +they hide themselves behind most peculiar disguisements of print. Most +people will admit, I think, that a language which spells Avon, +_Amhuinn_, and Rory, _Ruaridh_, would benefit greatly by a visit from +Pitman. The utility of sane phonetics was brought home to me very +forcibly by a story I heard from a gentleman in the west of Skye. This +gentleman is an excellent English scholar, can speak Gaelic but is +unable to read it. He got a letter once from St. Kilda composed by an +islander who spelt Gaelic by ear and not according to the awe-inspiring +orthography of the dictionary. The gentleman, who could not have made +out the letter had it been spelt correctly, was able to read it as it +stood, without the slightest hesitation. If a more rational spelling +were generally adopted, an immense number of Lowlanders who are +interested in philology, would study the grand old tongue, were it only +to understand the numberless place names of Celtic origin that occur in +British geography. + +What I have said about Gaelic spelling explains the inability of a large +percentage of the population to read a book printed in the native idiom. +What is the use then, it may be asked, of translating the _True Story +Book_? The answer is obvious to one who knows the Highlands. In the +Outer Isles there are many old people who know no English and whose only +literary solace comes from listening to others reading. At the evening +_ceilidh_ a competent reader of Gaelic can usually be found. Then, +again, we are likely to see, in the near future, a notable revival of +interest in the old language, consequent on the efforts of the _Mod_, +and on the recognition of Gaelic by the Department as a fit subject of +study in the Highland schools. Such a revival, to be lasting in its +effects, must be enforced and sustained by a constant supply of pure and +interesting Gaelic books, both native and translated. Religious books +there are in abundance, thanks to the zeal of the Protestant clergy. +Needless to say, the compilations of the Dean of Lismore are as +unintelligible to the modern Gael as Cynewulf is to a London cab-driver. +I should like to see a round dozen of good English novels put into +Gaelic by translators who knew the idiom thoroughly. + +The fervour displayed at Highland gatherings, admirable as it is from a +sentimental point of view, is apt to grow cold at the prospect of +laborious work to be done. It is not creditable that the great majority +of Gaelic speakers are unable to read a page of Gaelic print. Nor is it +creditable that those who can both read and speak, do so little for the +interpretation of the literature. Blackie's books and translations are +still among the best, and Blackie was a Lowlander, was born, indeed, in +the Saltmarket of Glasgow. My frequent visits to the north and west have +convinced me that another difficulty in the way of a possible resurgence +of Gaelic is the lack of a recognised standard of colloquial speech. The +language is split up into many dialects, each possessing its own special +idioms and vocabulary. A Glasgow firm of printers not long ago conceived +the idea of printing post-cards with Gaelic greetings: they found that +every city Highlander they consulted had either in grammar or turn of +phrase some special way of framing the sentences. "Grand Gaelic to-day!" +is an exclamation sometimes heard at the door of a Highland church in +town, and indicates that the minister who has officiated comes from the +same strath as the person speaking. + +A moderate amount of encouragement to Gaelic is all that can reasonably +be expected from the Government, seeing that the prime duty of the +schoolmaster everywhere is to impart a sound knowledge of English.[2] + + [2] In an editorial of June 6, 1908, the _Glasgow Herald_ + excellently says:--"The first requisite for a Highlander is such + a knowledge of English as will open up to him the lucrative + employment from which ignorance of English must shut him out, + and it is no kindness to him to interfere with his acquisition + of this indispensable accomplishment.... So good a Gael as + Professor Magnus Maclean has observed that 'even more remarkable + than the dearth of philosophical and dramatic poems, and, we + might add, of narrative and pastoral poetry proper, is the + scarcity of Gaelic prose.' By all means, however, let a literary + knowledge of the Gaelic language be encouraged among + Gaelic-speaking children. It is a very different matter to + enforce such steps as would lead to the teaching of Gaelic to + children that live indeed in Gaelic-speaking districts but yet + speak only English." + + +HAPPINESS AND GENIALITY OF NATIVES. + +What has struck me most in my travels by land and sea, is the +extraordinary amount of happiness, geniality, and good humour that still +exists in the world. There is a substantial amount of felicity in the +majority of men. Every one knows the sentence of Emerson: "Give me +health and a day, and I will make the pomp of empires ridiculous." I +like to give concrete examples of philosophic maxims, and I should +particularise Emerson's dictum thus: "Bard Macdonald of Trotternish, +Skye, whose only cow came near being impounded by the Congested +Districts Board in order to pay for the price of seed-potatoes furnished +to him by the said Board, having good health, makes the pomp of empires +ridiculous three hundred and sixty-five days every year." Bard Macdonald +is a very poor man, yet he has contrived to hitch his waggon on to a +fixed star. He lives in one of those low thatch-roofed bothies that, +with the accompanying croft, are rented at from £2 to £4 a year. He has +a wife and a large family. Yet, tormented as he is by present poverty +and past arrears, he eyes the future with serenity. I heard him sing a +Gaelic poem of his own composition, containing twenty-five verses of +intricate versification, and at the conclusion he was far less exhausted +than any of the company. Then, again, Torquil M'Gillivray, schoolmaster +of a rainy township on the sea-edge of one of the Skye _nishes_, has +tranquillity of mind as great as any of the Seven Sages ever enjoyed. He +is perfectly contented with his lot of rural dominie, and when I, in my +presumption, ventured to speak critically of certain social conditions +in his beloved island, he rebuked me by crooning tenderly the following +lines: + + "Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome, + I would see them before I die, + But I'd rather not see any one of the three, + Than be exiled for ever from Skye!" + +We all know what a unique poetical gem Wordsworth composed after he +heard a Highland girl singing at Inversnaid. I witnessed many fine +examples of concentrated joy which might have resulted in metre if I had +not had the presence of mind to pull myself up and refrain. One was at +Acharacle, where in front of a croft a young fellow was dancing the +Highland fling with such whole-souled and consuming zeal that I stood +transfixed with wonder and awe. He was alone, and I came suddenly upon +him at a sharp bend of the road. He threw his legs about him with such +regardless glee, that for a moment I was afraid one of them would get +unfixed and come spinning through the air to hit me. I watched him like +one fascinated for fully ten minutes. When at length he saw me, the +glory flowed suddenly off his legs; he subsided into a country bumpkin, +and beat a hasty retreat indoors. "If Greek dances were as artistic as +this one," said I, "and if the lines of each chorus had a reference to +the diversity of the steps, it is little wonder that God in His +providence should have sent us so many commentators to explain the +mysteries of ancient scansion." + +Another instance of natural and spontaneous bliss came under my notice +about two miles along from Kinlochewe, on the banks of Loch Maree. It +was a glorious, sun-illumined spring morning, and every crevice in the +rough flanks of Ben Slioch was mirrored in the unwrinkled surface of the +noble loch. Ben Eay had a bright covering of Nature's whitest, softest +lawn. No sounds were heard except the low droning of a vagrant bee, the +whizzing of a sea-mew's pinions, or a bark from this croft answered by a +bark from that other a mile away. Suddenly the repose of the morning, in +which a pedestrian could hear the echo of his own feet, was startled by +the voice of a girl singing. For a moment I thought of the _Lorelei_; +but it was soon evident where the notes were coming from. A maiden of +ten or twelve was sitting in front of a cottage that faced the lake, +combing her long, black hair that glistened in the morning rays, and +pouring forth such exquisite trills as might have made Orpheus envious. +The whole beauty of ben, loch, and sky seemed to be gathered up in that +child's song. I had been wandering along in the sparkling air and +feeling that something ought to be done to intimate to Heaven that it +was a heavenly morning. The girl felt so happy in the gracious gift of +another blue day that her nature responded at once in a spontaneous +burst of melody. I was very grateful for her vicarious hymn of praise-- + + "Now thanks to Heaven! that of its grace + Hath led me to this lonely place. + Joy have I had; and going hence + I bear away my recompense." + + +OBAN TO GAIRLOCH. + +It is impossible for anyone who has a fair supply of the uncurdled milk +of human kindness to sail from Oban to Gairloch and not be struck with +the heartiness and good humour of the native population. Such a trip is +rarely accomplished without some memorable incident or some outstanding +impression. The landscape is doubtless magnificent, but the people one +sees on the way are infinitely more interesting. No one, I am sure, can +fail to observe the well-groomed, fresh, and imperial aspect of the pier +policemen. The general polish of their boots and belts, the +self-satisfied, Parnassian smile that never comes off, the spotless +gloves, the muscular frame, combine to make up a splendid type of +impressive Law grounded on Strength. I am ashamed to employ the term +"policemen" to a body of officials who command such instantaneous +respect. These men are King Edward's Highland satraps, and they both +know it and feel it: law in the North is never undignified or unkempt. +Then, again, the captain of the steamer is a man whom it is impossible +to regard without veneration. All Macbrayne's men are fine fellows; they +look well as they stand in stately fashion on the bridge: yet many a +scowling sky of torrential rain they have to face, many a time have +their beards been shaken by the hurricanes of the Minch. If you speak to +a ship-captain, you are certain to get the utmost civility and +politeness. It is true that most of them have several sets of +vocabularies: to passengers they are urbane and choice of speech; but +they have, within easy reach, another set of phrases, which they find of +service in addressing delinquent mariners. + +A student of Virgil in making the trip I have alluded to above, would +run the risk of recalling the passage in which the poet suggests that +the big island of Sicily was at one time connected with the mainland, +but that some huge convulsion of nature disjoined the twain and allowed +the Mediterranean to come roaring in a channel between. The scenery of +Western Scotland stirs the imagination to suppose that some similar +catastrophe permitted the sea to mangle the fair uniformity of a +prehistoric coast, submerge the low-lying lands, and leave a great +number of islands lying in lonely fashion out in the watery waste. +Heavy weather, truly, it must have been ere Coll, Tiree, Rum, and Eigg +were sundered from the mainland by the Atlantic flow. + +All the islands I mention (save Tiree) can be seen from the deck of the +_Gael_ during the earlier part of the daily passage of that boat from +Oban in the summer season. Tiree is off the main tourist track, but a +few antiquarians are now finding it worth their while to go and dig +there for relics of byegone civilisation. A friend of mine, a zealous +and erudite F.S.A., has spent many a pleasant holiday in Tiree, and has +come back with loaded trunks of valuable prehistoric remains. Certain +artists go out to the island regularly in order to transfer to canvas +some of Nature's most impressive aspects of cloud, wave, and crag. Nor +let me forget the doughty members of the _Faith Mission_, who evangelise +this and others of the outer isles, and sing such sweet melodies to the +natives as would melt any "Wee Free" heart, let alone an ordinary heart +of stone. Tiree has long been famous for its schools and for its +intelligent inhabitants; as a consequence, the libraries have been +enthusiastically welcomed in its townships, and are regarded by the +teachers there as a new and valuable adjunct of education. I have often +heard it said that Tiree produces more ministers than any other +district, of like population, in the Celtic part of Scotland. The Duke +of Argyll does not allow any licensed house on the island, but he has +not as yet suppressed the _Fingal_ and the parcels post. Should His +Grace ever unbend so far as to permit the temperance hotels to obtain +the licence, learned men might flock in greater numbers to Tiree, and +dazzle themselves and the world with further antiquarian finds.[3] + +Rum has not been dowered with a Paisley library, and I regret to say +that the natives have the reputation of not keeping the Sunday with +ostentatious strictness. Eigg, the little island contiguous, is a little +heaven below. The missionary there well deserves a word of commendation: +the island of Muck is under his spiritual supervision, and with a +sandwich and a sermon in his pocket, he often sets sail, scorning gust +and current, to preach to his parishioners in that tiny islet. + + [3] Coll is also a very interesting island for the antiquarian. + It contains distinct traces of twenty-nine Hill-forts or Duns, + so that there must have been lively times out there long ago. + Some fine shells, beads, pins and pottery have been found in the + prehistoric _kitchen-middens_. Before the Reformation the island + was thickly peopled, and sites of old churches and deserted + crofts are numerous. Coll has gone back in population; in 1901 + it had 432 inhabitants; in 1755 the number of natives was 1,193. + + +WINTER SAILING. + +The summer tourist knows Skye very imperfectly, for he goes there in a +commodious steamer and traverses the island at a season when the days +are long and the weather benign. No one should vaunt of knowing Skye +unless he has seen it in winter also. It is the small _Lochiel_ that, in +the dark days of December, bears the passengers along the chilly Sound +of Sleat, and through the narrows of Raasay, into the haven of Portree. +At such a time there is something fearsome and weird in the aspect of +the coast, as seen from the cabin window of the brave little boat as +she battles and plunges along in the teeth of the north-eastern gale. +Her progress is slow, for when passengers are few Macbrayne wisely +economises his coal. The long-stretching hills of Raasay (on the highest +of which Boswell danced a jig) are white from head to foot, and gleam +through the darkness of the afternoon, vivid and ghostly. As Raasay +House, with its lamp-lit windows shining in a snowy recess, is +approached, the engines slow down, and through the howl of the wind can +be heard the plashing of oars. The broad waves swirl and seethe cruelly +around the ferry-boat and toss it about at all angles, up and down, on +crest and in trough, till you fear it will end its struggles keel +upwards, and send the mail-bags down among the mackerel. But the boatmen +know their trade, and so do the dripping, top-booted seamen of the +_Lochiel_. Amid much running and shuffling and casting of ropes and +animated bandying of (I fear) strong expressions in Gaelic sung out upon +the night, the ship's ladder is cast down and the boat tied thereto. In +a few minutes the transfer of mails is over, the ladder up, and the +small boat leaping back to land. (I speak of December 22, 1904). A new +passenger has come on board and is seen to descend the cabin stairs to +unfreeze his fingers over the tiny stove. Half-an-hour's heaving still +remains before Portree. A lady who has been on the border-line of +squeamishness for the last hour, hurriedly leaves the cabin, probably to +see if her luggage is all right. Good news at last for all! Portree is +visible, and its lights are twinkling on the height. The moon comes +graciously out, silvering the snowy shoulders of Essie Hill. What a +contrast is this moonlit haven, with its background of terraced lights, +to the rough surges outside. Glad indeed is everyone to set foot on the +pier and trudge through disregarded slush to the warmth of home or +hotel. We are told by our island friends that all Skye is under snow and +that the roads are impassable. No mail-coach has ventured to Dunvegan +for two days and in other directions, the postmen, turned cavaliers, +have gone off on horseback with their letters. (Let me say in passing, +that a red-bearded Highland postman, clad in post-office livery and +seated on a sheltie, is a sight which any artist would go a hundred +miles to see.) + +Winter sailing may at times be as pleasant as a cruise in June. At 8 +A.M. in the snug cabin, the breakfast-table, with its tea, ham, eggs, +and sausages, is a welcome piece of scenery, and the genial talk of the +captain and his colleagues is far better than pepsine as a digestive. +After breakfast, a pipe on deck is a necessity. Who that has once seen +Ben-na-ceallich all white to the feet and softly veiled with airy mists, +but wishes he were a Turner to paint, or a Shelley to sing? The sail +from Broadford to Kyle on a calm, cold, snow-dazzling morning is (if one +is wrapped and coated well) absolutely majestic. The sun pours, if not +warmth, at least light and heat on the hundred bens of the mainland and +the breeze aiding, wakens a multitudinous smile on the glittering face +of the cold waters. + +I never take this trip without thinking of such books as _The Brave Sons +of Skye_, which gives a record of the brave men born in the misty island +who have come south and distinguished themselves in many a different +walk in life. It is a most inspiring thing to reflect on the dauntless +way in which genius treads the stony road that leads from poverty to +glory. There is not a district in Skye but has its great man, who forms +the subject of conversation round the peat fire when the winter winds +are blowing down the strath. "From Log Cabin to White House" is the +American way of putting it: in Scotland we might say "From Crofter's Cot +to Professor's Chair." + + +A CROFTING VILLAGE. + +The sight of a crofting village is at first rather surprising to one +accustomed to large towns. The low roofs are not far from the ground. +Often, while driving, if you turn a corner swiftly, you run the risk of +being thrown out of the trap on to one of the chimneys. It does not take +much imagination, especially in the dim dusk, to transform a +low-thatched cot into some weird animal that might begin to walk along +the hill-side at any moment. So irregularly grouped are the townships, +dropped here and there, as it were, that you might fancy the houses had +begun at one time to run a race with each other, and in the middle of it +had suddenly stopped. Dr. Johnson complained that the windows were fixed +into the walls and could not, in consequence, be opened to let in the +air. That fault exists to some extent still: I have been told, however, +that peat reek is very purifying, and that its thick fumes make short +work of any noxious germs that might lodge about the nooks of the +interior. Great changes are gradually coming over many of the clachans, +changes not loved by an artist or a devotee of the picturesque. Instead +of thatch, held down by ropes weighted with heavy stones, there is often +to be seen a roofing of tarred cloth or corrugated iron. Romance might +attach itself to a roof of thatch, but corrugated iron, with its +distressing parallelism, could never awaken a genuine lyric note. +Further, it does not make a very comfortable seat, whereas thatch is +soft. Now, children in the Highlands are rather fond of sitting and even +playing on the roof: thatch is less cruel on bare feet than iron is. + + +HORRORS OF THE MINCH. + +I have alluded to the distresses of winter voyaging to Skye. But there +are other routes worse, notably that from Tarbert in Harris to +Lochmaddy, which is a perfect Tartar of a trip. When the wind is high +and contrary, the traveller (if he can stay on deck and maintain an +interest in the scenery), beholds a sight of extreme grandeur. The waves +are to be seen all along the Harris coast leaping up to a terrific +extent with an unbroken line of foam extending for miles. So much does +the boat romp and dance, however, that most passengers forsake the deck +and retire inelegantly below. When a man lies in a stuffy cabin wishing +himself wedged into it to prevent the perpetual rolling to this side and +to that, and hearing the desperate thud of the Minch flinging itself +against the port-hole, a series of vivid panoramic pictures pass before +his mental eye. Home appears so lovely and reposeful: faces of friends +on shore arise, transfigured by the glow of love: the squeamishness and +retching he endures seem to the sufferer a special and direct judgment +on him for impiously endeavouring to find pleasure otherwise than by the +practice of the domestic virtues. Disquieting memories of bursting +boilers surge up to the surface of the mind, and old catches like the +weird ballad of Sir Patrick Spens lilt themselves to the clank of the +staggering ship's machinery-- + + "The anchor's brak and the tapmast lap, + It was sic a deadly storm, + And the waves dashed into the gude ship's side + Till a' her planks were torn." + +The romance of the sea is apt to vanish as you look out upon a +wilderness of foaming water, tossing the boat like an insignificant toy, +drenching the bulwarks and vehemently smiting everything in its riotous +anger. Neptune seems a mere blind force without reverence or mercy for +the works of man. It is good for a boy of romantic disposition to cross +to the Long Island in a gale: it will effectually cure him of all desire +to take up the profession of pirate. What a sad moment for such a youth +when he sees his breakfast where it shouldn't be, and reflects that he +has not the staying power of Sir Ralph the Rover! + +I regret to say that I have no specific to give as a preventive for +sea-sickness. Even the Phœnicians who had time, during the intervals +of their hardy voyaging, to invent the alphabet, were unable to devise a +remedy for the _mal de mer_. Custom does not create immunity, for even +the mighty Nelson, who had a life-long acquaintance with the ocean, was +afflicted with sea-sickness to the end of his days. In France there +exists a _Ligue contre le mal de mer_, commenting upon which a French +journalist says: _Avec une ligue on est toujours assuré d'une chose: à +défaut de progrès, qu'elle nous fera peut-être attendre, elle fera des +congrès: et c'est du moins une consolation que de pouvoir discourir de +son mal._ + +He that will to Cupar maun through Fife, and he that has business in the +Lews must brave the billows of the Minch. + + +NOTES ON LEWIS. + +The great island of Lewis, formerly so distant from Edinburgh and +Glasgow, can now be reached in fourteen hours by one who leaves the +latter city at 5.40 A.M. The old route was very tiresome and circuitous: +the traveller had to proceed to Inverness, take the Dingwall and Skye +line to Strome Ferry, and then sail over the Minch to Stornoway. The +opening up of the West Highlands by the railway to Mallaig has changed +all that. At Mallaig pier, when you leave the train, you find the +connecting steamer ready to set off, at noon, for its journey to +Stornoway, where it arrives about eight in the evening. + +I don't think anyone would want to stay more than a week at a time in +Stornoway. The town itself is just like the fishy part of +Boulogne-sur-Mer, only more so. There is a pervading odour of mussels, +bait, and herring, and the gulls go flapping overhead in crowds +everywhere. If the tourist remained a week in the place, he would go +every day to the Castle grounds. Here, if anywhere, is the paradise of +the Lews. There is a profusion of dells, burns, glades, ivy-grown +bridges, and far-extending vistas over sea, moorland, and town. As with +a knife (so precise is the division) the well-wooded policies are +separated from the barren and disheartening moor. When one gets to the +highest point of the grounds and gazes over the long, tiresome slopes of +the island, one's belief in _design in nature_ gets a sudden stab. A man +will think long and sore before he arrives at any _raison d'être_ for +including such a wilderness of bogs in the scheme of creation. + +The men of the island are, in the main, shrewd, resourceful, and +intelligent--qualities fostered by their constant fighting with the sea. +"The young fellows here," said one of the hotel-keepers to me, "will +either make a spoon or spoil a horn. They come to a decision speedily +and put it into practice at once. It is hit or miss with them, usually +hit. At sea, in a gale, there is no time for parliamenting; and Lewismen +act on land with the swift decision that is needed in a tempest." All +round the coast are fishing-villages, thickly populated by these +intrepid children of the tempest. + +Fishing is a precarious industry, and often fails. The harvest of the +land may fail at the same time as that of the sea: in such a case the +plight of the islanders is sad indeed. During the last five years, the +trade of weaving has been wisely fostered by the Government, so that in +future, when sea and soil are churlish, the loom will to some extent +supply the lack. The Duchess of Sutherland and the Congested Districts +Board have done excellent service in encouraging the tweed-weaving +industry all over the Long Island. Her Grace, some years ago, made a +progress through Lewis and addressed the people by means of an +interpreter, on the advantages of such industry in their homes. She also +instituted exhibition sales of work in the big cities of the south, with +the result that large quantities of cloth were sold and a precious +publicity given to the scheme. Depots for receiving the cloth from the +workers are now established in Stornoway and Harris. The Congested +Districts Board advance money without interest for the purchase of +looms, provide an experienced instructor to supply the people with new +patterns, and give an adequate supply of dye-pots free of charge. This +instructor goes over the whole of Lewis and Harris, spending month about +in each, erecting new looms and modernising old ones. There is a large +carding mill in Stornoway, where the natives can have the wool +expeditiously carded in the most approved modern style. An industry thus +fostered and supervised is bound to succeed. + +Educationally, the Long Island is making great progress. Higher +education is almost entirely centred in the Nicolson Institute, +Stornoway, a school admirably conducted and finely equipped. The pupils +of marked ability in the elementary schools of Lewis come here to +continue their higher studies, and, in many cases, to prepare themselves +for the University. I have seen specimens of a magazine, annually put +forth by the senior pupils of this school, and containing many +interesting essays and poems, grave and gay. The English of the essays +was remarkably good, and contained here and there some piquant +suggestions of Gaelic idiom. The pupils read French well, probably +because their native Gaelic contains such a rich reservoir of nasal +sounds to draw upon. + + +HIGHLAND DOCTORS. + +I have a great respect for the medical gentlemen who have taken up their +position in remote districts of Scotland, and devote themselves to the +healing art under most disadvantageous circumstances. The distances are +incredibly long and dangerous in winter: I have in my mind an insular +doctor who has a deal of midnight boating to do in glacial weather, and +whose bills are often paid not in coin but _in fleece newly off the +sheep's back_. As the population gets smaller, the doctor's work becomes +more laborious and less remunerative. The institution of district nurses +has been a great success, and I wish there were more of them. A +sympathetic and competent _nurse_ is a valuable asset in a crofting or +seafaring community. In one district of Mull, recently visited, I found +that the nurse was also the village librarian. She was quite at home +both with lotions and literature, and could recommend a poet or prepare +a poultice with equal skill. The ante-room to the village hall was her +dispensary: it seemed to me remarkably complete, and to have as +scientific an odour as any city pharmacy. I was glad to see that the +Clan Maclean was so well supplied with the resources of modern +civilisation. + +In every one of the village libraries there is a copy of Black's +_Medical Dictionary_, a most useful compilation, written in clear and +simple language, and detailing all the commonest remedies. Many rural +teachers and clergymen have considerable skill in coping with illness. +Every country minister should have at least a smattering of medical +knowledge.[4] + + [4] At Spean Bridge there is a worthy old farmer, Mr. Chalmers, + who has a widespread fame for dexterous bone-setting, a talent + which is said to have descended to him from a long line of + forbears. A young gentleman from Glasgow was in the hotel there + during my stay, and from personal experience spoke of Mr. + Chalmers's remarkable powers. He told me that patients come from + far and near (after eminent surgeons have failed to give + benefit), in order to be treated at Spean Bridge. + + +HOTELS AND ANGLERS. + +Wherever the angler goes, you find a good hotel. Uist is low-lying and +barren, with nothing to attract the eye--no tourist would go near the +place for anything it has to show in the way of scenery. But as it has +hundreds of small lochs, full of fish, ardent anglers go thither from +all parts of the British Isles; and so at Lochmaddy and Lochboisdale the +hotels are not merely good, they are excellent. The recording angel is +kept busy, during the season, in taking a note of all the myths told +there by the fishers in the evening over the whisky and soda. + +There may be heard, at night, in most hotels in the Western Isles, the +riotous scampering of rats overhead and along the walls. In Lochmaddy +hotel there used to be an old frisker (perhaps he is living still) that +gave great entertainment, though no one ever saw him. He lifted a stone, +evidently with his mouth, ran a yard or two with it, and then dropped it +with a great clatter. The game was a pleasure to him, for he would +practice it for half an hour at a time. The anglers who frequented the +hotel called him _the mason_. + +I have got into conversation with innumerable knights of the rod, and +can sympathise to a slight extent with their enthusiasm. Nothing seems +to take hold of a man so irrevocably as Walton's mania. Travelling by +night in the north lately, I looked out into the dusk from the carriage +window and beheld a bright flash of lightning, and by the gleam thereof +saw a midnight maniac with his rod silhouetted against the vast inane. +How few fishers nowadays, except perhaps Mr. Andrew Lang, can write +their experiences in good marrowy English-- + + The quaint loquacious wits of long ago, + Whose ease was never broken by the shrill + Whistle of engine panting round the hill, + Could by the brook where fishful waters flow, + Spend the long hours in angling to and fro, + And hooking lusty trout and salmon, till + The low-descending sun and evening chill + Would send them to the merry ingle-glow; + Then, after fit refection, pen and ink + Would consecrate on paper all their feats + In rippling phrases flashing with the blink + Of forest glades and living water-sheets; + The race is poorer now than it was then: + We have no anglers that can wield the pen. + +I believe the best region in all Scotland for trout is the wild and +picturesque county of Sutherland. In the district of Assynt alone there +are 150 lochs, fine sheets of water most of them, lying about among the +hills. Half-way between the two seas and just on the borders of +Sutherland and Ross, is the cosy wee hotel of Altnacealgach, with a +well-stocked loch at the door, from which hundredweights of trout are +taken every year. The air that blows about the house is to that of +London as champagne is to dish-water. + +There is a close connection, as I said, between the frequentation of a +district by anglers and the excellence of its hotels. Where there is no +great influx of tourists, the hotel accommodation is decidedly poor. I +remember one inn, at a cold windy clachan on the west coast, which only +stress of weather and dire necessity would make a man enter. Dirty stone +steps, worn and crumbled in the centre, led to an upper room which had +apparently not been swept out for a year or two. Not even the city of +Cologne in Coleridge's time could have produced from among its imposing +catalogue of stenches anything to match the complex ensemble of that +malodorous inn. There was stale fish intil't, and bad beer intil't, and +peat reek intil't, and mice intil't, and candle grease intil't, and the +devil and all intil't. Though I was the only visitor, I feared I should +not have the bed to myself: so I e'en wrapped myself in my Highland +plaidie (after the minimum of disinvestiture), and stretched my limbs on +an arthritic settee, with intent to sleep. No sleep came till the +quaffing roysterers of the clachan had ceased fighting under the moon +outside, about 2 A.M. namely. Rather than stay two nights in such a +place, I boated out early next day into the mid-channel of the Sound of +Mull, and clambered up the sides of Macbrayne's _Lapwing_, which took me +to Oban. + + +RECENT BOOKS. + +The most charming of recent works on the Outer Islands is that one of +which the preface was written in Jerusalem. I refer to the volume of +Miss Goodrich Frere, a lady whose vivacity, fervour, and picturesque +style are deserving of unqualified praise. All the libraries in the +bilingual districts contain the book, and few are so often asked for. In +conversation and publicly I have often given myself the pleasure of +recommending it, alike to Highlander and Lowlander. My admiration for +Miss Frere's talents makes me wish that one or two of her prejudices had +been less glaringly displayed. She speaks, for example, with something +like scornful reproach of Lochmaddy, because the habit of taking +afternoon tea is common in that township. It would have been more to the +purpose if Miss Frere had issued a general warning to the people of the +Hebrides not to drink tea as black as porter, and, above all, not to +boil it. The pale anæmic faces one so often sees in the north and west, +the mental prostration and actual insanity so alarmingly on the increase +in the Long Island, are unquestionably due, in great measure, to the +abominably strong tea that is swilled in such quantities there. A +Tarbert doctor told me that the medical profession now talk quite +familiarly of the Harris stomach just as drapers talk of Harris tweed: +the former is, he averred, as weak and devoid of tone as the latter is +strong and of good texture. This doctor was called up at two one morning +to attend a patient in one of the moorland townships. At that hour, away +over there on the gusty rim of the Atlantic, the natives were all afoot. +People were talking to each other at the doorsteps; lamps were lighted +inside, and tea that had been boiling for hours among the red peats, was +being imbibed with infinite gusto. This, the doctor assured me, was the +normal style of living.[5] + +Talking of North Uist, Miss Frere shows indignation at the invasion of +southern ideas, and thinks that everything is being vitiated by the +taint of Lochmaddy. Lochmaddy, characterised in so droll a way, is a +tiny township with a Sheriff Court, a church, a few well-built modern +houses, a school, and an excellent hotel. Cleanliness is a welcome +feature of the place, and I am sorry to say that the same can not be +said of certain crofting villages not far distant. I expect that the +visits of the Government Sanitary Officer, whom I met at Lochmaddy, and +who knows his business well, will ultimately work an enormous amount of +good. That gentleman gave me such unsavoury details regarding the +conditions of life in certain of the townships as made me hope that the +"taint of Lochmaddy," that is to say, the cleanliness and civilised +life of that village, may more and more become evident throughout both +the Uists. Improved sanitation would allow heaven's breath to circulate +through the low-lying cots and prevent them from being hot-beds of +malignant disease. + +One feature of Miss Frere's book which does honour to her fine sympathy, +but which is not ethnologically justifiable, is the persistent attempt +to draw a sharp racial distinction between Highlander and Lowlander. The +truth is, that no part of the Highlands is purely Celtic: the population +is a welter of Picts, Gaels, Norsemen, Danes, and Saxons. The Lowland +blood is, in like manner, a bewildering blend, there being no +uncontaminated Anglo-Saxon district in any single county of Scotland. +Mr. J. M. Robertson's clever book, _The Saxon and the Celt_, seems to me +to dispose finally of certain fallacies that Hill Burton and others have +light-heartedly written on the subject of racial characteristics. The +conditions of life, the ungeniality of sea and soil, the wild and grand +aspect of nature, influence thought, feeling, and character at least as +much as blood and heredity.[6] + +Another delightful book on the Outer Hebrides is that written by Mr. W. +C. Mackenzie. Proceeding in the order of chronology, the author gives a +vivid series of historic summaries (enlivened by many a piquant episode +and humorous touch) of the Long Island from the earliest times. The +wanderings of Prince Charlie, and the condition of the country after +Culloden, have never been better told than in Mr. Mackenzie's narrative. + + [5] The student of eugenics will note that among the tea-bibbing + islanders of the west the teeth of the natives are poor. My + experience tends to show that the best teeth in Scotland are to + be found in Aberdeenshire. When a Buchan audience laughs, there + is a gleam of polished ivory that is very impressive; but rural + Aberdeen has deviated less into slops than any other part of + Britain. + + [6] "There are probably now more persons of Highland descent in + the Lowlands than in the Highlands themselves."--_Scotland of + To-Day_, by Henderson and Watt, p. 300. See also note at end of + chapter on Inverness surnames, etc. + + +MILITARY. + +I hinted at the beginning of this chapter that the barracks of the +Highland regiments had been supplied with extensive libraries for the +use of the soldiers during their leisure hours. Fort-George, the +erection of which was directly due to the Highland rebellions, has been +presented with two fine libraries, and I am happy to say that the men +greatly appreciate the gift. I happened to be in the vicinity of +Fort-George when the Duke of Connaught was conducting an official +inspection. The little town of Ardersier, which is some two miles from +the Fort, was gay with bunting for the ducal visit. The books at the +Fort are under the charge of Sergeant-Major Markham, an able +elocutionist and one who, in his own sphere, does an immense amount of +good. He gets the young recruits to band themselves together in social +clubs, organises games and entertainments for them, and encourages them +to read and study. The philanthropic Sergeant-Major was engaged in +typing a catalogue of the books when the genial Duke came upon the +scene. His Royal Highness was astonished to see such a magnificent +selection of reading matter at the disposal of the soldiers, and eagerly +asked for information as to the origin of the boon. His curiosity was +satisfied, and when he heard that the same donor had given appropriate +libraries to the garrisons at Inverness, Dingwall, and Kinbrace, he +exclaimed, "Such a gentleman is indeed the Soldier's Friend." + +Since the Duke's visit, a small library of books has been sent to the +children's school at the Fort. The population of this military +community, containing as it does a great many married men with their +wives and families, is fully equal to that of Ardersier, and +necessitates a separate school. I was struck with the pronunciation of +the children in this part of the country. Many of the Fort children, +having mothers from the other side of the Border, speak with an +unmistakable English accent and are rather unscrupulous with respect to +the aspirate. The town of Inverness, which is at no great distance from +Fort-George, has long been famous for its clear and unprovincial English +speech, a fact which Johnson (oddly enough) thought due to some of +Cromwell's soldiers having settled there. + +Dr. Johnson devotes two pleasant little paragraphs to describe his visit +to Fort-George and his entertainment there by Sir Eyre Coote. I have +always admired the Doctor's sly way of avoiding a description of the +Fort: "I cannot," he says, "delineate it scientifically, and a loose and +popular description is of use only when the imagination is to be +amused." + +In spite of the menace of Fort-George, the Highlanders fondly cherished +the memory of Charlie for many a year. To no subject even now do their +descendants listen with such rapt attention as to his tragic story. I +have heard indeed of a Highland minister who was so displeased at the +homage paid to the Prince's memory by some of his flock, that he threw +at them the unanswerable question, "What will Prince Charlie do for you +at the day of judgment?" + +I have had the curiosity to ask some of the Session Clerks of country +parishes that were in the line of the insurgents' advance or retreat, if +any references to the rebellion appear in the minutes of the year 1745. +No references appear, as a rule, for that year; but, under 1746, there +are brief accounts of church discipline being exercised in the case of a +few illegitimate births,--the paternity being ascribed usually to _ane +sodger_.[7] + +At Inverness and Dingwall there exist similar libraries of great range +and excellence. The men show an interest in Miss Marie Corelli's works +that is rather astonishing. Their hard and strenuous drill does not +deprive them of a curiosity to know something about _Barabbas_ and _The +Sorrows of Satan_. Sir Conan Doyle and Dr. Neil Munro are also great +favourites, and deserve to be. + +A large number of the Inverness recruits come from the Long Island. They +almost invariably require to be taken to the hospital a week or two +after their arrival. Change of diet and new modes of life seem to upset +them at first. For those who have a mind to improve themselves, there +are abundant opportunities. The reading and recreation rooms are well +appointed and comfortable. Altogether, the regular life, physical drill, +and healthy tone of the barracks must have a most beneficial effect on +the men. + +I am bound to say that I do not greatly admire the English style of the +gentleman who composes the War Office placards that one sees at railway +stations in the north. These are meant to allure country labourers to +join the army, but the following piece of fatuous rhetoric must surely +act rather as a deterrent than otherwise:--"Are you, the descendants of +those who conquered India and carried the colours of the Gordon +Highlanders through the Peninsula and at Waterloo, _content to sit at +home, or be satisfied with dull labours in the fields or at the mills_, +whilst the ranks of your own regiment are filled by strangers from the +South?" I heard two freckled rustics, with difficulty and labour hard, +spelling out the phrases of the foregoing sentence at the little station +of Fyvie. They did not seem at all impressed by the fervent +interrogation nor by this picture of prospective delights: "_Many of +your countrymen have seen the wonders of the Indian Empire and enjoyed +the soft calm of Malta, and of Ceylon, the Paradise of the Ancients._" +It does not evince much knowledge of a ploughman's mind to seek to +awaken his martial ardour by old myths about the Garden of Eden; nor is +it specially alluring to him to mention, as the acme of glory, that he +may distinguish himself so much as to gain "_thanks from both Houses of +Parliament_." Such weak and watery declamation won't do for a country +that has had thirty-eight years of compulsory education. If our War +Office wishes to rouse patriotic feeling, it should cease to contrast +"the dull labour of the fields" with "the soft calm of Malta": the +veriest clown would not be caught by such chaff. It would be more to the +point to send gratuitous copies of _The Barrack Room Ballads_ to all the +village libraries. + + [7] I have heard it maintained by some zealots, whom I greatly + esteem, that Gaelic is a highly _moral_ language, that the use of + it conduces to purity of life and thought, and that everyone + would be improved in tone by contact with its roots. Those + ministers who have charge of Session Records, chronicling events + that happened before English was known in the West, cannot + unreservedly corroborate these views. + + +MORAY FIRTH. + +My various visits to the shores of the Moray Firth have convinced me +that a man may enjoy the majesty and terror of the sea without embarking +on a boat at all. All he need do is to take a ticket to Portsoy in the +month of March, when the wind is snell and the clouds low. I have never +seen a more grim or cruel-looking coast than that which stretches for +miles east and west of Portsoy. One shudders even at the thought of +those detestable, razor-edged rocks, tilted up at all angles, with the +tide for ever boiling and hissing about them. Neither by land nor sea, +at many parts of the coast, can you get to what might be reasonably +called a beach. The so-called shore-road is high up on the hills, and +gives a good view far out over the billows, but does not take the +traveller's feet near the water at all. Ill-advised would he be who +should strive to guide his skiff from the outer firth to any chance cove +on the shore, for the uncouth crags, huge and sombre, would have no +mercy on any timber jointed by the hand of man. Perhaps the summer sun +would give a gentler appearance to the rocky and wave-beaten shore, but +I am certain Mr. Swinburne would prefer to see it in March. + +The town of Portsoy in itself cannot be said to have much comeliness; +the streets are irregular, the houses dismal, and the shops few. God +has, as is meet, the best of the architecture, most of the churches +being graceful and well-spired. + +About twenty minutes by rail from Portsoy is the trim and typical +fishing village of Portknockie, high-raised on a hill, and with little +protection from any wind that Aeolus may send out of his cavern. The +population comes near 1,600 souls, and it is rare to find a native who +is not called by one of the following surnames: _Mair_, _Wood_, _Munro_, +_Pirrie_. I believe such a dearth of appellatives is the invariable rule +in the fishing villages of the North Sea. To counteract the confusion +that would inevitably arise, an agnomen or "tee-name" is usually +appended. The Portknockie tee-names are _Mash_, _Deer_, _Doodoo_, +_Bobbin_, and _Shavie_. Examples of postal addresses are-- + + John Wood (Bobbin), Portknockie. + Duncan Munro (Doodoo), " + Samuel Pirrie (Shavie), " + Daniel Mair (Mash), " + +I don't envy the young minister who, fresh from Lucian, has to read with +solemnity a roll of such communicants. + +Between Portknockie and the sea-town of Cullen is a charming stretch of +links and sea-sands. Over the broad Firth, as one looks north-west, may +be faintly seen the hills of Sutherland and Caithness. + +It is pleasant to read books amid the scenery in which they were +conceived, and among the people they portray. Those who spend their +holidays at Cullen would act wisely in reading George Macdonald's novels +there. No one has drawn the character of the Moray Firth fisherman so +lovingly, beautifully, and sympathetically as he. After reading such a +tale as the _Marquis of Lossie_ one looks upon places like Portknockie +and the sea-town of Cullen with different eyes. The toilers of the deep +that go forth on the waters from these seaboard shires are serious and +moral men. Contact with the sea and the presence of danger at all hours, +have made them alert, keen, and dexterous. Most of the crews carry a box +of choice books with them for their odd hours of leisure when they go to +the Yarmouth fishing. Let a stranger get into conversation with one or +two of these hardy heroes, and he will be surprised at their +intelligence and wide interests. He will certainly conclude that the +young fisherman, Malcolm Macphail, whom Macdonald introduces in the +novel mentioned, is no exaggeration, but true to the life. + +The sea-town of Cullen consists of some hundreds of houses closely +huddled together just at the edge of the sea. The rank odour of wreck, +tar, fishing-gear, and bait, pervades the air, and is effectually kept +from corruption by the searching sea-breezes that are ever blowing. When +not engaged on the water, the men are busy mending their nets, stitching +their sails, making fast the seams of their craft and tarring the big +inflated floaters that support the lines. They are quite ready to chat +with a stranger and discuss their methods of working, their gains, +mishaps, and partnerships. + +When the fishing season is over and the crews are known to be on the way +home, the excitement among the women is intense. No Bourse ever tingled +more feverishly with rumours and sinister fears than Sandhaven or +Rosehearty or Seatown at such a crucial time. Costly nets may be riven, +boats may be stove in by untoward accidents, or worse than all, fathers, +husbands and brothers may be drowned on the road home to their loved +ones. Rarely does a season pass without bringing sorrow to the heart of +some waiting wife or sister. + +The joys, hopes, and fears of these maritime townships have been +worthily made vocal by Dr. George Macdonald. He has done this with a +grace and an artistic conception that raise his stories to a very high +rank in pure literature. I am afraid Macdonald is not much read by the +present generation: his stories are too long, too philosophical, perhaps +too poetical, for the taste of to-day. Every book of his is saturated +from beginning to end with the religion of the Gospels--a religion of +love, beauty, tolerance, and sympathy. + +I am happy to say that I saw Dr. Macdonald once and heard him speak. His +venerable aspect and chaste elocution made a powerful impression on all +who heard him. His discourse could not be reported in cold print, for +the flash of the mystic's eye, the human kindness that emanated from his +whole being, and the felt emotion of his every tone could not be +reproduced by any artifice known to the printer. + +The Forfarshire fishwives have quite a Dutch mania for cleanliness. On +Saturdays they give their homes a complete overhaul, and the men are +driven out of doors during the ceremony. What man could stay at home +when his wife, supplied with a mop and a big pail of soapy water, is +sousing the floor and the walls? Furniture is scrubbed and dusted, glass +ornaments, porcelain hens, and shell-boxes have to be carefully wiped, +grates and fire-irons must be rubbed to a glittering polish. These +industrious women, panting with the enthusiasm of work, enjoy Saturday +more than any other day of the week. The enjoyment springs from various +causes. There is first the delight that comes from a vigorous exercise +of the muscles. This pleasure is heightened by the knowledge that the +work is for a good end, and that on Sunday the house will be +resplendent, immaculate, and peaceful. It is not to be denied that the +feeling of satisfaction at having evicted the husband is also an +important item. When he comes home from discussing politics with his +co-mates and brothers in exile, she will not fail to jibe him on the +general worthlessness of his existence, and accuse him of intemperance. + + +AMONG THE MINERS. + +A fishing village has a picturesqueness and a kinship with Nature and +the hills, utterly lacking in a mining locality. The squalid rows of the +latter, arranged in wretched, heart-breaking symmetry, are an offence to +the landscape. Mud and filth cumber the door-steps, runnels of +malodorous water ooze along the rows, ragged and ill-kempt bairns tumble +about like little savages. A pitiful sight it is to see the black squads +of colliers returning to their homes after a day in the damp bowels of +the earth: greasy caps with little oil-lamps attached, wet, miry +clothing and grimy faces, all make up a most saddening spectacle. The +wages given to these poor fellows are miserably meagre, considering that +after the age of forty-five, their limbs are stiffened with rheumatism +and their lungs the seat of chronic asthma. It is not surprising that +miners should be intemperate, and that their recreations should rise no +higher than dog-racing and cock-fighting. + +It is very unpleasant to think that so much good bone and muscle is +being ground and destroyed by work so brutalising and unnatural. Coal +must be brought to the surface for the wants of civilisation, and in the +process the collier is destroyed, body and soul. Society needs +constantly to be reminded of its duties towards those who, in Helot +fashion, clean the drains and work the mines. Those duties involve more +than the distribution of tracts. + +I had the opportunity of speaking to a crowded meeting of miners in the +county of Stirling quite recently, and was immensely pleased with the +behaviour and close attention of the audience. Before the speaking +began, the proceedings resembled a University Graduation Ceremony, that +is, there was a great deal of whistling, cat-calling, and rowdy +merriment. The audience kept on their caps, and many of them, disdaining +the use of chairs and benches, squatted against the walls in the +position so dear to subterranean workers. Once the lecture began, the +resemblance to a University gathering ceased, for the colliers behaved +like gentlemen. What subject, it may be asked, could possibly interest +an assembly of illiterate miners? It so happens that, in Scotland, we +have a great number of working-men poets, who have, in a homely but very +graphic way, voiced the feelings of the labouring classes, and given fit +expression to every joy and sorrow that men experience in this mortal +round. These hodden-gray bards furnish abundance of material for giving +even the humblest and most untrained mind a few glimpses of what is +meant by literature. Burns has a broad and brawny humanity that appeals +to all men, and, besides Burns, there are scores of major and minor +warblers that are interesting, quotable, and full of grace. + +The wild and unruly manners of some mining districts, even at the +present day, may partly be explained by remembering that up to the end +of the eighteenth century, colliers were serfs and, as such, were not +allowed to leave the mines and seek work elsewhere. When a pit was sold, +the workers passed as a matter of course into the hands of the new +proprietor. The son of a miner was compelled to follow the father's +occupation.[8] Slavery fixed a brutalising mark on generation after +generation that is not yet entirely erased. In the first half of the +nineteenth century the knights of the shuttle--intellectual, +disputatious, and lyrical--looked down with infinite contempt on the +ignorant and boorish slaves of the pick. Poetry has, in consequence, +little to say about the digger for coal. The song of "The Collier +Laddie," attributed to Burns, is one of the very few pleasant pieces of +verse associated with the miner. + +The Scotch mining villages of to-day contain a queer juxtaposition of +nationalities, and the proportion of native colliers is becoming less +and less. Thousands of Irish families from Ulster and Connaught are now +settled permanently in the counties of Lanark, Stirling, and Ayr. The +alien Pole, too, is to be found in the same regions uttering melodious +oaths learned on the banks of the Vistula. To complete the welter, +huckstering Orientals may be seen gliding about among the rows of +houses, fulfilling prophecy and selling highly-coloured pictures of the +Virgin Mary. + + [8] In his book, _Edinburgh and its Neighbourhood_, Hugh Miller + tells the following story, on the authority of Robert + Chambers:--"Though legally only transferable with the works and + the minerals to which they were attached, cases occasionally + occurred in which miners were actually transferred _by sale_ from + one part of the country to another. During the early part of the + XIXth century, the son of an extensive coal-proprietor was + examining with a friend the pits of another proprietor, and + finding a collier whose speech resembled that of the colliers of + his own district, he inquired where he came from. 'Oh!' exclaimed + the man with surprise, 'd'ye no' ken me? _Do ye no' ken that your + faither sell't me for a powny?_'" + + +HAND-LOOM WEAVING. + +The miner is still with us, but the weaver is almost obsolete in the +Lowlands. You must search diligently for him. In Laurencekirk (a quaint +village of one long street, in the shire of Forfar), and in similar +out-of-the-way nooks, can still be faintly heard the music of the +hand-loom. I went recently into a weaver's shop in Laurencekirk, and +found three old men and one aged woman plying their shuttles. The oldest +of the men was born four years after the battle of Waterloo, and there +he sat, like a vision of the vanished years, striving to weave a few +more yards of drugget before going to rejoin his contemporaries of the +reign of George III. He told me there were once seven hundred hand-loom +weavers in the place, and "_that young fellow_" said he, pointing to a +wrinkled carle of eighty on the loom behind, "remembers it as well as I +do." + +The industry of hand-loom weaving, which, a century ago, made every town +in Scotland resonant with the din of shuttles, is thus almost a thing of +the past, and the men who engaged in it have gone the way of their +shoe-buckles, knee-breeches, and seventeen-hundred linen. Yet weavers +were typical of all that was intellectual in Scottish life: every shop +was in its way a miniature university, and every weaver a man who +believed himself capable of giving Pitt a lesson or two on the +management of the war, and Dundas a few hints on political economy. They +had, indeed, far clearer views on politics than most of their +legislators; from their ranks at a subsequent period the Chartist +agitators--regrettably extreme as they were--were largely recruited; and +it is not too much to say that the minds of many of our leading +accredited reformers took the ply from these politicians of the loom. +These men who, in a way so characteristic of Scotland, managed to make +high-thinking subsist on homely fare, can never quite fade from memory +while their tuneful poetical exponent, Tannahill, is read and enjoyed. +In his works we have a page out of the past; and as we read his life and +poems, we behold the Scotch village as it was a century ago; we see the +old houses with their outside stairs, the antique boulder-paved cross, +and the assemblies of aproned craftsmen discussing news much older than +their ale. + +In Broadford, Skye, there is an old crofter who, in his early years, +worked at the loom with Alexander Bain, late Professor in the University +of Aberdeen. Half a century ago, John Stuart Mill said that Bain's +erudition was encyclopædic. From long residence in France, I know that +few British philosophers are better known than Bain (whose name the +French amusingly pronounce to rhyme with _vin_). This old crofter tells +how he used to chaff the future professor for invariably having a book +in front of him as the shuttle was plied. Bain, by slow and careful +work, overcame prejudice, and secured a high position among the leaders +of thought. Long ago, those who had to sit for the London degrees used +to regard him as the greatest thinker in Europe. When he retired from +the examinership at London, students lost some of their old veneration +for him, and when he married a second time, a Miss Barbara Something, +they even ventured to make a logical joke on him, and say that he had +been fascinated by _Barbara's perfect figure_. I know that many pupils +of our public schools, in love with football more than syntax, often +regretted that Bain ever composed his _English Grammar_. No book (unless +perhaps Morell's _Analysis_) has ever been more cordially execrated, and +no book ever more richly deserved it, for though, like Aberdeen granite, +it is stately and impressive, it is also ruthless, cold, and implacable. +The draught may be wholesome and medicinal, but there is no honey on the +rim of the cup. + + +PROFESSOR BLACKIE IN THE HIGHLANDS. + +One hears a great deal of Professor Blackie in the North and West, and +no wonder. He was a laughing, jocular, impressionable man, who hobnobbed +with landlords and amiably slapped drivers and policemen on the back, +throwing a Gaelic greeting at them as he did so. His faculty for writing +poetry is seen in many a guidebook; Oban, Inverness, Pitlochry, and +numberless other places, have had their beauties celebrated by this +animated writer. He was a good friend to the Highlands--studied Gaelic +most arduously, translated some of the finest of the Celtic bards, +worked assiduously for the establishment of a Celtic Chair in Edinburgh, +spoke many a good word for the crofters--in fact, did everything well +except what he was paid to do, viz., teach Greek to his students. Grave +D.D.'s could not understand or condone his cantrips. I have been assured +that on one occasion, when Professor in the College of Aberdeen, he +actually _stood on his head_ before a class of students. Mr. Barrie has +given a very amusing and quite unexaggerated account of the Professor's +normal demeanour in Edinburgh. Blackie's text books of _Greek Dialogues_ +are full of the most waggish remarks. + +The landlady of Kinlochewe Hotel gave some lessons in Gaelic to this +convulsive old scholar. He would come in with a Celtic Bible below his +arm, and, opening the sacred volume, read a chapter or two at a terrific +rate of speed, and whistle triumphantly when he had finished. Highland +folk did not care to converse with Blackie for three reasons: (1) he +spoke too quickly for the leisurely and composed conversation of the +Gael; (2) his pronunciation was bad, and people did not like to tell him +so or correct him--(no one ever pronounced Gaelic to perfection who did +not get the language with his mother's milk); (3) he was fond of using +literary words, taken from the older bards, in his ordinary +conversation; now, such words are obsolete in every-day talk and quite +unfamiliar to crofters and cottars. In the Highlands, Blackie's English +was better understood than his Gaelic. + +Blackie was undoubtedly a very able scholar--not, indeed, of that minute +burrowing kind famous in Germany, but rather of the class that delights +in the literature and vivid force of a language. He _spoke_ Latin and +Greek, and held views on the teaching of these tongues that seemed more +eccentric in his time than they do now. He declared that the linguistic +achievement of which he was proudest was his mastery, such as it was, of +the language of the Gael. + +It affords me pleasure in the retrospect to think of old Blackie at a +distribution of prizes to school-children in a town of the West some +years before his death. During the chairman's opening remarks the merry +old man continued to whistle like a mavis. When the chairman sat down, +Blackie embraced him and called him fellow-sinner. Some recitations +followed from the children, one of which was Burns's "Address to a +Haggis." When the young elocutionist came to the lines-- + + "Till a' their weel-swall'd kites belyve + Are bent like drums." + +Blackie rolled in his chair, held his sides and uproariously expressed +his approbation. Then came the distribution of prizes, during which the +Grand Old Boy made some pun or quaint remark on each of the children's +names, as he presented the books: _"Miss Minnie Morrow_: never put off +till to-morrow what you can do to-day; _James Glen_: be a real genuine +_Glen_ all through life, not a _valet_ or flunkey; _William Lindsay_: +Willie, my lad, imitate your ancestors at Otterburn: 'The Lindsays flew +like fire about till a' the fray was done'; _Mary Black_: black but +comely like the daughters of Jerusalem," and so on, in a bird-witted, +half-daft way that the audience contemplated with benevolent wonder. + + +NOTE ON INVERNESS SURNAMES, ETC. + +Let me mention here a very useful and interesting piece of philology +that was done by Dr. Macbain in 1895. That eminent scholar, working on +the _Inverness Directory_, analysed the names occurring there, explained +them on sound principles of etymology, and gave percentages of Celtic +and Saxon surnames in the Highland capital. + +Roughly speaking, the _Directory_ of 1894-1895 had 5,000 single entries, +and _750 distinct surnames_. Of these surnames, only 110 are pure +Gaelic. About 70 per cent. of the natives are, however, supposed to be +of Highland descent. + +Dr. Macbain points out that certain Highland clans have names that are +not Celtic: _Grant_ is from the French "grand"; _Fraser_ from the French +"fraise," a strawberry (the Frasers have a strawberry in their +coat-of-arms); _Chisholm_ is English and means "gravel-holm,"--the +Anglo-Saxon _ceosol_ (pebble) is preserved in _Chesil Beach_ and +_Chiselhurst_; _MacLeod_ signifies "son of Ljot"; and _ljotr_ is the +Norse word for "ugly." _Campbell_ is probably Norman-French, though Dr. +Macbain suggests _cam-beul_, Gaelic for "crooked mouth." In olden times +an external conqueror would sometimes subdue a district, and call the +natives after his noble self. + +The commonest names in the town are Fraser, Macdonald, Mackenzie, +Macintosh, Ross, Cameron, and Munro. About 1,200 of the population have +one or other of the first three names. The Frasers are an easy first, +and form more than 9 per cent. of the population. + +_John_, _Alexander_, and _William_, are the commonest Christian names in +Inverness. "It is remarkable and indeed regrettable," says Dr. Macbain, +"that the Gaelic Christian names (Donald, Duncan, Kenneth, Murdoch, and +Angus), are not higher in the list." + +The name of the first recorded inhabitant of Inverness (A.D. 1200) is +Geoffrey Blount, a feudal warrior no doubt (French _blond_). In the +thirteenth century we have the names _Noreys_, _Grant_, and _Hay_. In +the fourteenth century the leading name is Pilch, derived from +_peluche_, the French for "plush." In the fifteenth century, _Reid_, +_Vaus_, and _Cuthbert_ are prominent citizens. _Vaus_ is said to mean +"of the vales," _i.e._, _de Vallibus_; _Reid_ is Scotch for "red"; and +_Cuthbert_ is pure Lowland. Evidently the leading men were aliens and +interlopers. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +MUSIC, SPEECHES, AND LITERATURE. + + Scotch a reading nation--Hardships of students in old + days--Homer in Scalloway--When education ends--Objects of + chapter--Music--M.P.'s--Rural depopulation--Its + causes--Emigration--Village halls--The moon--A lecture in + Islay--Mental and material wealth--Real greatness--A Highland + laird on literature--Varieties of chairmen--"Coming to the + point"--Moral obligation--Compliment to Paisley--Oratory at + Salen--Lecture in a dungeon--Surprises--A visit to the + Borders--Tarbolton--Scotch language--Choice books--The + essayists--A Banff theory--Goldsmith in Gaelic--_Biblia + abiblia_--Favourites for the road--Horace--Shakespeare's + Sonnets--Xenophon--French literature and journalism--Romance and + Augustanism--Victorian writers--Celt and Saxon. + + +SCOTCH A READING NATION. + +I think it was Mr. Holyoake, the veteran lecturer, who, in a volume of +reminiscences, declared he found the audiences in Scotland more +intelligent than elsewhere. I cannot draw such comparisons, for I have +not spoken often south of the Tweed; this I can say with assurance, +however, that no one need hesitate to address an audience of Scotch +peasants on a topic of literary interest. Predestination and such +religious trifles may stir them to disrespectful heat, but pure +literature invariably draws forth their cool and critical attention. +Probably no nation has ever devoted so much attention to books, and, as +the result of this characteristic, Scotland, considering its size and +population, has produced far more than its proportion of eminent men. At +the Reformation epoch, when the comforts of a Lowland cottage would be +little in advance of those in a present-day Uist croft, writers like +George Buchanan and his fellows of the _Deliciæ Poetarum Scotorum_ made +the excellence of Scotch scholarship known in every university of +Europe. Buchanan was really a typical Caledonian man of +genius--open-eyed, sagacious, patriotic, and cosmopolitan--and I can +strongly recommend the occasional perusal of his Latin Psalms to all +modern readers who wish to keep their feelings of reverence fresh and +prevent their Latin quantities from getting amorphous. + + +HARDSHIPS OF STUDENTS IN OLD DAYS. + +Those who think highly of the Scotch intellect, point with pride to the +fact that for many a year the Prime Minister, the leader of the +Opposition, and the Archbishop of Canterbury all hailed from the North. +For my own part, I am chiefly interested in cases where eminence has +resulted from the cultivation of literature on a little oatmeal. A few +months ago, I had the pleasure of chatting, over a cup of tea, with the +suave old gentleman who combines the postmastership of Dunvegan with the +office of factor to the Macleod of Macleod. He held me spell-bound for +an afternoon as he narrated in graphic language the hardships of the +Skye students in former times. Many a Skye youth, I was told, bent on +studying the humanities at Aberdeen, would mount his sheltie, traverse +thereon the rough roads of his misty island as far as Kyleakin, cross +the ferry there, ride on east through the ben-shadowed track of Glen +Moriston, and finally bear down on the streets of the Granite City. +There the o'erlaboured sheltie would be sold to pay the matriculation +fees. + + +HOMER IN SCALLOWAY. + +Many little out-of-the-way townships in insular Scotland contain +scholars who would find themselves quite at home among a set of college +dons. In the course of my travels in Shetland I came to the tiny village +of Scalloway, and while standing on the pier gazing alternately at the +confusion of sea and island, and at the grim old ruined castle where +Earl Patrick, the wicked viceroy, once resided, I heard a conversation +on geology being carried on between a tall and brawny shopman and some +sailors. The latter, who were on board a ship, shouted their replies +over a few yards of water to the shopman, who was on the pier near me. I +was interested in the men's talk, which had to do with the subsidence of +the land at this part of the coast. One of the sailors alleged that his +grandmother's cabbage-patch was now covered by the water on which his +boat was floating. The big shopman, turning to me, quoted the well-known +passage of Tennyson (everyone can repeat it) of the sea flowing where +the tree used to grow. "O Earth, what changes thou hast seen." This +quotation led to a literary talk in which he remarked that of all poets +he preferred Homer. "What translator do you like best?" I enquired. +"Blackie's," he replied, "as being the most faithful to the original. +But I rarely read a translation, '_I prefer Homer in his own Greek._'" +This remark made by one whose fingers were glistening with +herring-scales, came to me as a pleasant surprise. Later on in the day, +I visited his house and saw his fine library and his splendid selection +of classical books. Not many teachers of my acquaintance have a better +array of the editions of Homer. He was not one of your ignorant +collectors who know only the outside of what they buy. He had read over +the whole forty-eight books of the text again and again, and could +discuss knotty passages in most interesting and original fashion. His +memory was evidently an excellent one. He informed me that most of his +reading was done in the early morning, and that he found five hours' +sleep quite adequate. I have a most agreeable recollection of my +interview with this self-taught scholar. I believe there are many like +him in not a few outlandish nooks of Scotland,--men who read books not +for any material advantages that result from their studies, but simply +and solely for the intense pleasure that comes from communion with the +masterminds of bygone generations. + +Travel in remote districts of Britain reveals the fact that our +provincials, whenever they have the chance, are a studious and +thoughtful race. The isolation and monotony of life in many parts are +bound to drive men to study and reflection if the means for these are at +hand. Sisyphus himself had hardly less variety of occupation than some +of our shepherds whose work on the hills involves long absences from +social intercourse. To such men (whose life is suggestive of a repeating +decimal) the access to an ell or two of good books often means mental +salvation. Nothing is so melancholy as to find a countryman of brains +who has never had the opportunity of cultivating his mind in such a way +as to eliminate prejudice and widen the range of interest. + + +WHEN EDUCATION ENDS. + +I am sometimes inclined to think that many of our rural clergymen, +intent on shielding their congregations from pestilent doctrine and +latitudinarism, are actuated by much the same spirit as the Sultan Omar +when he set fire to the great Library at Alexandria. The Bible is no +doubt the best of books, and it may be that the Confession of Faith +comes next: but when these have got their share, there still remains the +religious duty of educating the intellect by a wide perusal of the +inspired apostles of secular literature. A Highland teacher, who +presided at one of the lectures in the north, expressed himself very +appositely thus on the subject of education: "The supposition that +education is over when a boy leaves school, is far too prevalent," he +said. "Education properly considered comes to an end when the last +breath of life is drawn. Edward Young in his _Night Thoughts_ says: +'Were man to live coeval with the sun, the patriarch-pupil would be +learning still.' Young was undoubtedly right: some of the most forceful +and penetrating lessons of life are given to us long after we have cast +our text-books into some dusty corner, never to be opened more. In our +early days, we cannot choose our own teachers, and there is often a good +deal of force and constraint. The delightful thing about our education +in mature life is that we have the selection of our own masters. There +is no compulsion whatever. I am convinced that for everyone of us there +is some one author whose works will act as medicine for the mind and be +an unfailing tonic in all conditions of the soul." + + +OBJECT OF CHAPTER. + +I intend to devote this chapter to a description of a few of the +speeches delivered by some of the speakers at such literary evenings in +various parts of the country. After I had said my say, I sometimes +invited an expression of opinion. Almost invariably someone responded to +the invitation, with the object of asking a question, expressing +dissent, or intimating concurrence. I do not recollect a single meeting +out of hundreds that could be called monotonous. It did not in the +slightest detract from the interest of a meeting that many of the +remarks erred on the score of irrelevancy. The attention never flagged +from first to last, and it was no uncommon thing for the proceedings to +last for over three hours. In giving typical speeches delivered by +crofters, lairds, tradesmen, and clergymen, I mean to indicate to the +reader _the subjects that are of interest to our provincial population, +their attitude to questions of literature and social life, and +incidentally the great amount of humour that still exists in the world_. + + +MUSIC. + +The free and unconventional character of these meetings was perhaps seen +best of all in the musical part of the proceedings, which was always +arranged locally. Usually the songs were well-known Highland or Lowland +airs, in many cases so exquisitely rendered that it was quite evident +there had been much previous preparation. When my opinion was asked +beforehand, I invariably recommended national melodies. It was always a +treat to get a Gaelic song or two well rendered. At Acharacle (a little +place at the far end of Lochshiel) Mr. Rudd's piper gave some fine +Highland tunes, which evoked great enthusiasm. Personally I prefer the +pipes to every other instrument, for this reason, that even if I don't +understand all the music, I can appreciate the scenic effects. The +Acharacle piper was a fine specimen of the Celt, and his get-up was +glorious: + + "He screwed his pipes and gart them skirl + Till roof and rafters a' did dirl." + +Sometimes the phonograph formed part of the musical programme. I do not +approve of this demoralising instrument except to a very limited extent. +The cylinders usually gyrate with records of fatuous music-hall songs, +unedifying coster-airs and farcical speeches. The _vox humana_ +interpreting national melodies is infinitely better. What vigour and +illustrative expression the islanders can throw into their songs! I have +but to shut my eyes to see the policeman of Staffin interpreting "The +Bonnie House o' Airlie." When his big, manly voice threw out the +terrible threat, "_I'll no' leave a staunin' stane in Airlie_," his eyes +shot fire, his teeth gleamed, and his ponderous fist came thundering +down on the table in front of him. + +I still remember with infinite pleasure the strains of Mr. Cameron's +Poolewe Choir, heard in Gairloch school-house. That energetic and +complaisant conductor brought his clear-throated minstrels over to the +meeting in a brake. It was a luxury to see them with their white robes +and tartan sashes, while in front of them stood their genial leader clad +in kilts. The Gaelic _Mod_, which is now a regular institution in the +land, is bound to do splendid service towards keeping alive the fine old +music of the North. The Poolewe Choir, I am happy to say, won much +distinction at the _Mods_ of both Inverness and Greenock. _There is +great need for choirs, and great need, also, for innocent songs of a +secular character._ Before I spoke to the people of Eigg, I requested +the teacher to arrange, if possible, for a musical programme. The reply +staggered me: "No man, woman, or child in this island would for a moment +even dream of singing a worldly song. We are all converted here, except +a few benighted Catholics. The vain, fleeting joys of this world are as +dross to us. The missionary has a modulator, and he trains the young men +and women in the sol-fa so that they may sing Sankey's hymns in all the +parts." I was dreadfully floored by this answer, and could only mutter +mechanically, "_Dross_," "_Missionary_,'" "_Modulator_," in a vain +effort to seize the situation. Conversion I understood and approved of, +but where, in the wee island of Eigg, were the vain, fleeting joys? +There is no public-house in the place, and little temptation of any +kind. The most disquieting item of all was the modulator: I have not +seen one for a long time, and am not sorry, for there is nothing which +so spoils the appearance of a wall nor anything so dismal as practising +scales. A compromise was come to, and it was arranged that some Gaelic +readings, containing a dash of religion, should take the place of songs, +and give some variety to the evening's proceedings. + +At some of the meetings there was perhaps an _excess of realism_. +Bottom, in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," wishing to avoid excitement and +fear among the ladies when he is acting the part of Pyramus, says: +"Write me a prologue; and let the prologue seem to say, we will do no +harm with our swords, and that Pyramus is not killed indeed; and for the +more better assurance tell them that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but +Bottom the weaver: this will put them out of fear." I thought of +Bottom's extreme delicacy when I was present at a meeting in Tomatin not +long ago. An outstanding feature of the evening's proceedings was the +vividly dramatic rendering of the song, "Macpherson swore a feud," by +the local postman. The latter, a big, burly man, was extremely +formidable in his Highland attire. When he came to the verse dealing +with the untimely decease of Macpherson, he whipped the dagger out of +its sheath, flourished it as in act to kill, and terrified some of the +lady visitors by his vivid suiting of the action to the word. They were +as much astonished at the flash of the _skian dhu_ as the Commons were +when Burke threw a dagger on the floor of the House. + +A musical treat is sometimes got in the most unexpected places. I was +particularly struck with a children's glee-party in Jura (a rough island +known chiefly for its sterile Paps). The bairns admirably rendered Ben +Jonson's delightful ditty, "Drink to me only with thine eyes," and the +Shakespearian song, "Where the bee sucks, there suck I." In such islands +a musical teacher is a valuable asset. Let me add that all the libraries +have been gratuitously supplied with fine collections of Scottish music. + +At Acha, in the island of Coll, four sturdy farm-maidens, ruddy with +health and robed in white, gave various English and Gaelic airs in +admirable style. A divinity student sang a _coster song_ (think of this +in an island of craggy shores, gulls, wild-swans, and curlews!), and on +being encored, he gave a "Cradle Lullaby," and by gently swaying a chair +backwards and forwards on the platform, he strove to illustrate the +movements of childhood's earliest receptacle. + +A military gentleman--an ex-major--in proposing a vote of thanks, one +evening, to the singers, said he had sung a song but once in his life, +the occasion being his admission to the Royal Engineers, thirty years +before. It was a standing law in that body that every novice should sing +a song or drink a mixture consisting of whisky, ink, and cayenne pepper. +He chose the former alternative, and at the end of the first verse the +Royal Engineers had all left the room in a demoralised condition! + + +M.P.'s. + +At one of the meetings in Argyleshire, I had the joy of speaking under +the chairmanship of the glib and able Mr. Ainsworth, M.P. for that +county. Among the votes of thanks was one for the chairman: it made a +profound impression upon me, as much by its form as by its substance: "I +hope, Mr. Ainsworth, that you will take better care of your health in +future (hear, hear). No, no, you are not taking care of your health at +all (laughter). We all expect you to be Prime Minister, and that is the +reason we would like you not to roam about so much and undermine your +constitution (cheers). You are always travelling. You are like the +Wandering Jew. No! you are like a little bird on a bough. To-day, we see +you on a tree near the door; to-morrow, we see you on a tree a hundred +miles away" (great cheering). Mr. Ainsworth kindly promised that, in +view of his destiny, he would cease to range around the country so +indiscriminately. + +Unfortunately, I have never met Mr. Galloway Weir, but I have heard much +of the zeal of himself and his agents. The following story hinges on the +fact that _Weir_ and _wire_ have the same pronunciation in Lewis. An old +illiterate crofter came to record his vote by word of mouth, and told +the polling sheriff: "I will vote for the right man, yes, yes, it's the +right man I will be voting for this time." "That may be," said the +sheriff, "but unless you will tell me his name, you can't vote." "Well, +if you must know," said the old man, handing the sheriff a +stocking-wire, "_I will be voting for the man that has the same name as +that_." + + +RURAL DEPOPULATION. + +The mention of that eminent politician brings to my mind the frequent +references made at these meetings to the painful subject of rural +depopulation. Everyone regrets the exodus of young men from the country +to the town, a practice which depletes the rural villages and deprives +the land of the strong arms that should find employment in working it. +The ministers are not without hope that the rush city-wards may be +checked by improving the conditions of country life, rendering it more +attractive to the young, and enlisting the aid of Government in the +scheme of small-holdings. Motives of health, morality, and patriotism, +are all concerned in the fostering of a hardy peasantry. Everything that +makes country life attractive to young men must operate to make them +regret to quit it. I wish I could reproduce textually all the strong and +astounding speeches I have heard in the Highlands on this subject of +depopulation. + +"We often hear," said a farmer, "that it's healthy men and women that +make up the true wealth of a country, and if that is true, Scotland, for +all its increase of riches, is every year growing poorer. How can the +people left in the glens continue to propagate a hardy race, if all the +young healthy bloods leave for the cities and settle there? I am afraid +that both brain and brawn will continue to get feebler among us, unless +the Government give some kind of inducement for the peopling of the land +with bien, self-respecting men _that have a bit land of their own_. It's +impossible to get farm-hands round Tayside nowadays, and it's not to be +wondered at. Suppose a young man stays here, what prospect has he, what +incentive has he to work? At the age of seventeen he has earned the +highest wage he will ever earn. Thereafter his life is a slow, +monotonous serfdom; he has no hope whatever of rising, he is doomed to +live from hand to mouth all the years of his existence. But put before +that young man the hope that he can _become the owner_ of a morsel of +land, however small, and you put life and pride into him. He will work +in that case with intelligent purpose, knowing that every penny he saves +is to be employed in making him a landed proprietor, and every detail of +experience he gains will tell in the future for his direct benefit. Our +young fellows don't really want to leave the land and go to die +prematurely (as a great many of them do) in the slums of Glasgow and +Edinburgh. They go to the cities because there is at least _a chance_ of +bettering their lot there, a chance which is entirely lacking at home. +Some of them go away to the colonies and thrive as farmers there. I +rejoice to hear of such success; but I rejoice with trembling when I +think how much of Britain's best manhood has to leave her shores to till +Transatlantic fields, while so much land at home remains unoccupied. By +and by, if you want to see a good specimen of the Highlander, you will +have to go to Canada. Sooner or later, and the sooner the better, the +vigorous action of Government will be demanded to remedy the present +iniquities of land-tenure, and to put a stop to the compulsory +degradation of those who till the soil." + + +ITS CAUSES. + +The present seems to be an opportune time for directing public attention +to some remarkable changes that are taking place in the population of +the rural districts of Scotland. A great deal of speaking and writing +has been expended of late years in lamenting the depopulation of the +country. Young fellows do not like the monotony of village and farm +life: they prefer the stir and excitement of the cities. Such things are +not to be wondered at. Town life has always had an attraction for those +whose energy requires a wide scene of action. Energy and ambition go +together, and it is the possessor of such qualities that makes the +successful city man. The country does not give scope enough for their +adequate display. + +The railway train and the inventions of modern times are both answerable +for a certain amount of depopulation. I believe the condition of +farm-hands has been markedly improved of late years. They have now a +shorter day, higher wages, better food, and superior house +accommodation. Mechanical appliances have made farm-work lighter and +more agreeable. The drudgery of the threshing flail is now unknown; the +hook and the scythe have given way to the reaping-machine: in every way +hand labour has been lightened. But it is precisely this machinery that +lessens the need for large numbers of agricultural labourers. It is also +notorious that shoemakers, tailors, and blacksmiths, are not so much +required in the country as they used to be. Ready-made shoes and clothes +are brought by rail from the city, and local tradesmen are reduced in +numbers. + + +EMIGRATION. + +There seems to be in our day a competition among the Governments of the +New World, which of them can lure away the greatest number of our +peasantry. The latest candidate for our rural youth is the State of +Virginia, the legislature of which has voted a large sum of money to +pay the expenses of two delegates, who are at work in the East of +Scotland, hunting for likely emigrants. These Virginian delegates--Mr. +Koiner and Col. Talliafer--paid the passage-money of over a hundred +stalwart lads from Lochtayside in the autumn of 1906. + +No one who has the opportunity of travelling through Scotland can fail +to be struck by the absolute frenzy for emigration that exists +everywhere. There is a constant stream of emigrants from all our +agricultural counties to the wide plains of Canada. That great colony is +being "boomed" in a most energetic way. In Sutherlandshire, I saw a +large van, with placards and specimens of Canadian produce, being driven +through Strath Halladale, to tempt the crofters over the deep. I have +also, at the railway stations in the North, beheld heart-rending scenes +of parting as the young fellows said good-bye to their parents and +friends: + + "Who could guess + If ever more should meet these mutual eyes."[9] + + [9] Such emigration has, of course, nothing to do with the + systematic work instituted by Mr. William Quarrier of Bridge of + Weir. That devout philanthropist occupied himself with the waifs + and strays of Glasgow, taught them trades, and sent large numbers + of them to the colonies to learn farming. One Saturday, in 1907, + I saw a hundred and twenty of these lads, who were on Bridge of + Weir platform waiting for the train. The scene was pathetic in + the extreme--enough to melt a heart of nether millstone. Many of + the lads were in tears as they answered the roll-call for the + last time. In the afternoon they (and over two thousand + emigrants) left the Clyde, amid sobs, cheers, and the waving of + multitudinous handkerchiefs. These boys go, in the first + instance, to Brockville, in the province of Ontario, whence they + are distributed out among the Canadian farmers. + + +VILLAGE HALLS. + +In most of the places I have visited, the school-house is the only +available hall for public meetings. Now, a school-room, with its small, +cramped seats, its lack of platform, and its defective ventilation, is +not well adapted for large gatherings. No man likes to speak _up to the +waist in audience_, under a low roof, and in stifling air. If less money +were spent on needless church-building, every district in the Highlands +might have its hall for purposes of recreation, reading, and lecturing. +As it is, the churches should everywhere be used far more than they are +for secular gatherings of an elevating kind. Religion suffers greatly +from the closing of churches to concerts and lectures. + +The kindness of local lairds is nowhere more pleasantly shown than in +the giving of funds towards the creation of village halls and recreation +rooms. The little village of Alness has a splendid Working Men's Club, +furnished with everything requisite for pleasure and +profit--smoking-room, billiard-room, and reading-room. This Club owes +its existence to the generosity of Mr. Perrins--known everywhere for the +excellence of his famous condiment--who has an estate in the vicinity. +Kiltarlity and Beauly have, for similar instances of discreet bounty, +permanent reason for blessing the name of Mr. Phipps. Other instances +that occur to me are the spacious Dunbar Hall in Auldearn, due to the +kindness of the family of which the genial Sir Frederick Dunbar, Bart., +is the present representative, and the Astley Hall in Arisaig, named +after the family so long associated with that charming West Highland +village. + +It must not be supposed that the natives do not thankfully welcome such +work on their behalf. Many of the townships, it is true, have had +libraries and halls for many a year, and have established these entirely +on their own initiative; but outside help and enterprise stimulate local +effort in a way often impossible otherwise, as the natives themselves +admit. At Nethy Bridge, a fine hall, with club-room, has been recently +erected, largely owing to the enthusiasm of a London lady resident in +the vicinity. She was distressed to see the young fellows of the place +loafing aimlessly about at night, and proceeded to organise some +rational amusement for them. Her philanthropy has been greatly +appreciated. At Kilmartin, the jubilee of Queen Victoria was signalized +by the erection of the Poltalloch Victoria Hall--an enterprise in which +laird and crofter alike willingly co-operated. It is in this hall that +the Library is established. Mr. Dixon, the erudite historian of +Gairloch, set aside the profits of his book to help in furnishing the +reading-room at Poolewe, in Wester Ross. + +When a rural community has a library and a place to meet in, a literary +society is, as a rule, soon formed. Such a society, founded for an +elevating and educational purpose, forms a common meeting-ground for all +sects, schisms, and parties. I am aware that in most towns of any size +there are such societies in connection with the special churches. In the +Highlands it is better to eliminate the denominational element, for the +very good reason that, the population being small, no one of the too +numerous churches would furnish a representative enough roll of +members. I was charmed to find that the little town of Portree, of which +the population is not much more than eight hundred, has a fine literary +society, established on the broad and rational lines I have indicated. +As might be expected from the intellectual advancement and strong +literary bent of the inhabitants, the lectures given and the subjects +discussed at the meetings of the Portree society are of a more erudite +nature than anywhere else in the West Highlands. Most of the Portree +clergymen and professional men are on the list of members. + + +THE MOON. + +Very few city people pay much attention to the moon: in the country that +luminary has to be constantly deferred to when arrangements are being +made for social meetings, dances, or lectures. When many of the audience +have to come six, or even ten miles by land or water, light is needed, +and light from above is best. It increases a lecturer's pride to be told +that the plashing of oars over there on the argent face of the waters is +an indication that some of his audience are coming from the other side +of the loch. At the conclusion of many of the lectures, I have seen half +a dozen traps, boats, and bicycles speeding away merrily in different +directions. But for the bright moon, the audience would have been +limited to the immediate neighbourhood of the place of meeting. + +It has often happened that my hotel was as much as seven miles from the +lecture hall. As closed carriages are rare in certain districts, and as +it frequently rains--when it is not snowing--in the West and North of +Scotland, I had many good opportunities for gauging my powers of +endurance. The road from Killin to Ardeonaig is a fair example of a +Highland highway:-- + + "Rough, hilly roads, that stain the spokes with mire; + Thick folds of ebon night on loch and law; + The moan of breezes wailing through the shaw + Like the weird plaints of an Æolian lyre: + And intermittently through the clouds, the fire + Of lightning streaks the night with glitter and awe, + And lapses swiftly in the dismal maw + Of darkness, 'mid the din of thunder dire. + But to relieve the sad night's sullenness, + And clear the heavens for the timid moon, + The straight-descending rain riots like hail + For a fierce hour, in prodigal excess; + Anon the clouds unmuffle, and the pale, + Thin crescent of Diana gilds night's noon." + +The place of meeting at Ardeonaig was on the shores of Loch Tay, and the +main road from Killin is high up and does not go near the water at this +point. After alighting from the machine, I had to descend to the +loch-side by a steep, miry, and circuitous road through a wood. As the +"thin crescent of Diana," alluded to above, was not adequate to light my +footsteps here, I struck some futile vestas, which the dripping leaves +at once extinguished. Two elders, swinging lanterns and calling me by +name, by and by divided the night in my vicinity. Their appearance was +welcome, for the torrential rain had made the track one continuous +slippery quagmire. The hospitality of the Ardeonaig minister speedily +banished all recollection of the "sad night's sullenness."[10] + +A more trying, because a longer, drive is that from Kilmun to Strachur, +by way of Loch Eck. In the leafy month of June, nothing could be finer; +but in a winter blizzard, one's appreciation of the glory of nature is +somewhat less than rapturous. I mention the Strachur meeting because it +was graced by the presence of a large contingent of local volunteers in +civilian attire. The War Office ought to know that the inclement weather +prevented these warriors appearing in their uniform. + + [10] It is not often possible, in the _islands_, to get anything + but a trap or open coach. In Lochranza, on a day of dreary, + disheartening rain, I found on enquiry that there was no covered + vehicle to be had except the _hearse_. + + +A LECTURE IN ISLAY. + +The westerly leg of Islay contains one or two places that have public +libraries sent from Paisley: Portnahaven and Port Charlotte on the sea, +and Gruinart inland and more to the north. It is a weird experience to +drive along the shore road from Bridgend on a night of pitiless rain, +and see the heavy mists broken every now and then by the far-reaching +flash of the Portnahaven lighthouse. Equally weird is it to lecture in a +school with no lamps (as happened at Port Charlotte). At eight o'clock I +could see the faces of the audience well enough, but by and by the room +became quite dark, and I seemed to be addressing an audience of silent +and attentive ghosts. After I had finished, a Phantom arose in the far +corner of the room and proposed a vote of thanks; and thereafter a Voice +somewhere pronounced the benediction. Then there was a movement of feet, +and the shadowy spectres trooped out into the night. The foolish virgins +had no oil in their lamps; in Port Charlotte, there was neither oil +_nor_ lamps.[11] + + [11] Islay is yearly becoming better known. It is an undulating + island, covered with rich meadow-land, the home of horses, sheep, + and cattle. There should not be a hungry man within its + circumference. Under the old lairds--the Campbells--there were + 14,000 inhabitants, now there are 6000. + + +SOME SPEECHES. + + +MENTAL AND MATERIAL WEALTH. + +I never heard the difference between mental and material wealth more +forcibly expressed than by an old Perthshire shoemaker. "Supposing," +said he, "that I had fifty pounds in my pocket at the present moment. +What a wild supposition, but good enough for an illustration! What +inference would you draw from me having that sum of money? This, namely, +that no other person in the universe has the same fifty pounds. The same +pair of boots cannot be worn by two persons at the same time. The same +guinea cannot be twice spent by the same man. It is different with +spiritual things, and with works of art. Scores of people can +simultaneously enjoy a great painting or a fine piece of music: _my_ +enjoyment does not interfere with _yours_, indeed, it is more than +likely that my enjoyment will be greatly increased from knowing that +other people are enjoying it as I am. Then again, you can't eat the same +loaf of bread twice: but you can return a hundred times to the same +song, poem, or picture, and like them better the hundredth time than the +first. A pathetic old tune does not lose anything in being sung by +generation after generation. It is always as good as new. Like the +widow's cruise of oil, it can be used without being consumed. These +facts show that works of art--good books, good poems, good music--are, +in a certain sense, immortal and divine. A hundred years ago, our +ancestors sang 'Bonnie Doon'; we, to-day, sing it with undiminished +fervour; a hundred years after this, the song will be fresh. Aye, and a +humorous American writer thinks some of us will hanker for it in heaven: + + 'Perhaps in that refulgent sphere + That knows not sun or moon, + An earth-born saint would long to hear + One verse of Bonnie Doon.'" + + +REAL GREATNESS. + +The Rev. Chairman of this meeting emphasised the shoemaker's remarks in +the following admirable words: "I often wonder what is really the +greatest thing ever done by a citizen of this country of ours, by a man +of English speech. If we agree with our worthy shoemaker and his way of +thinking, we shall not look at the big accumulation of guineas as an +indication of greatness. Certain commercial men (who ought to know +better) seem to think God has sent us into this lovely world for the +sole purpose of piling up as much money as possible, and then, by death, +leaving it to others to spend. _That_ can hardly be considered our +reasonable service. Life is not so low-pitched as that. The best work of +man does not admit of being put into an equation with cash. The greatest +feat, to my mind, an Englishman ever performed was the writing of +_Paradise Lost_. How much did John Milton get in money for his +incomparable epic during his lifetime? _Five Pounds_: and if he had got +five million pounds, the recompense would have been absolutely +inadequate. History, however, has indemnified Milton for the neglect and +poverty he endured. He has shot up into stature while those of his +contemporaries who bulked largest in the eyes of the world have dwindled +and shrunk into insignificance in comparison with him. The witty, +dissolute king, Charles II., is now seen to be a wretched pigmy: Milton, +who died in blindness and political disgrace, is the real king of that +era, overtopping all the rulers, cabals, and intriguers. So, too, in +Scotland, Burns is the giant of _his_ period. During Burns's life, the +Earl of Dundas was to all intents and purposes king of the country. He +could say to whomsoever he pleased, '_Friend, come up higher; be you a +Sheriff, or Lord-Lieutenant, or Justice of the Peace_.' Dundas is pretty +well forgotten by this time: probably he will by and by be remembered +solely by Burns's description of him: _That slee, auld-farrant chiel +Dundas._ Kings and men of temporary renown do well to keep on good terms +with the men of letters." + +It is always a great treat to hear a working-man who has the power of +utterance deliver a speech in a straightforward and unrhetorical way. +There is _always_ a pith and vigour about such deliverances quite +unattainable in a formal harangue. The magnates of the little Fife +villages are specially notorious for their gift of the gab: when Bailie +M'Scales or Provost Cleaver gets up to speak, no one has any inclination +to fall asleep. + + +A HIGHLAND LAIRD ON LITERATURE. + +Max O'Rell has told us that his chairmen sometimes took advantage of +their position to push their claims for the Town Council. I have not had +the time at my disposal curtailed by any such municipal oratory, though, +occasionally, my remarks on literature have seemed to the chairmen to +stand in need of supplementing. One gentleman, in proposing a vote of +thanks, pulled a copy of Bacon out of his pocket and read the whole of +the famous essay on _Studies_. Another managed to bring in a lengthy +dissertation on radium! The following speech, delivered by a Highland +laird of a poetical turn, is noteworthy: "I am very fond of poetry," he +said, "and yet I turn with a very languid interest to the writings of +modern poets like Watson and Davidson. The verses of these gifted +singers are for others, not for me. The truth is, I don't want any more +lyrics and such like sugar pellets. My brain is already stocked with a +plenteous supply on which I browse in weal and woe, which I almost think +I personally composed, and to which I have attached a great many +emotions and extraneous incidents known to nobody but myself. My old +poetic favourites have been lying in various corners of my brain for +forty or fifty years; I know every turn, rhyme and rhythm of them; and +as they have served my need and alleviated my sorrow so long, I do not +intend to give them many fellow-lodgers more. I do not know at what +particular time literary nausea sets in, but Solomon had it when he said +that of the making of books there was no end. No doubt his father David +had primed him well in boyhood in the Psalms, and Solomon, feeling (like +many others since) that the paternal psaltery met all his need of +literary stimulus, would turn wearily from the heaps of presentation +copies of new verse sent by the rising poets of Judæa for their +sovereign's inspection. When a new book came out, Charles Lamb re-read +an old one,--an excellent practice and one which has the additional +recommendation of economy. It is not an unpleasant thing to find +yourself falling back on old favourites and losing interest in the +current hour. I knew a happy old gentleman whose reading was confined to +Walter Scott. Every evening the lamp was lighted in the trim snuggery, +and the appropriate _Waverley_ taken down from the shelf. For such a man +to begin a new novel would have been as irksome as travelling in a +foreign land." + +I am bound to say that I have great sympathy with the sentiments I have +quoted from the speech of this kilted critic. If it were possible to +retain the elasticity and adjustableness of the mind till the end of +life, new authors would perhaps fix our attention as much as the old. +But only a limited number of articulate-speaking men, such as the +omnivorous Professor Saintsbury of Edinburgh, preserve their appetite +tireless and intact. The Professor, like a literary Livingstone, can +grapple with the most arid and dusty libraries, and is the envy of all +scholars; but, alas! the majority of us have to take something less than +the whole of knowledge for our province. + +It must not be supposed that all the remarks made at these meetings were +like those I have quoted. An airy irrelevancy was quite as common as the +serious note. + + +VARIETIES OF CHAIRMEN. + +I have had experience of hundreds of chairmen, and admired most of them. +It is rather a painful thing to have one who is utterly unversed in +speaking. I remember being introduced in the ante-room to the chairman +of the evening, and, big bucolic giant as he was, he seemed fearfully +perturbed. His hand trembled, his lips were ashy-gray, and his laugh was +a nervous grin. "I am not much used to this sort of thing," said he, +with a poor attempt at mirth and a furtive movement of his hand to his +waistcoat pocket, where he had his introductory speech. "All you have to +do is to introduce me," I hinted; "you needn't say much." On the +platform he shook so much that the whole structure quivered. He rose, +and was received with loud applause. Happily he did not read his speech, +but simply pointed to me and said, "G-g-go on." He sank in his chair, +while runnels of sweat coursed down his cheeks. I admired that chairman +more than one in Caithness, who, after angling for the honour of taking +the chair, grew so terrified towards the hour of meeting, that he went +to bed and sent word he couldn't be present owing to flying pains in his +leg! In country districts, reluctance to take the chair arises from a +man's fear of making himself ridiculous; once he cuts a poor figure in +public, discredit is for ever attached to his name. + +Highlanders as a rule make excellent chairmen. The superior gifts of the +Celtic mind, in imagination and wealth of florid expression, nowhere +show themselves to better purpose than when compliments have to be paid. +Then again, the kilt is very impressive on a brawny chairman's legs: it +commands attention and respect at once. I have little knowledge of +colloquial Gaelic, though I have studied the grammar, and have some +skill in reading. A little Gaelic goes a long way in stirring the soul +of a Highland audience. Often I have heard a kilted chairman quitting +his English for a little and giving the audience a mellifluous Ossianic +sentence or two. The effect was electric: eyes gleamed, breath came +quick and fast, the souls of the hearers seemed to have tasted a tonic. +Spoken Gaelic is akin to the elements: it has a mystic affinity with the +winds that sough around the flanks of the mountains and along the +surface of the lonely lochs. There is perhaps not much business +precision about it, but for preaching, praying, and poetry, it is a +splendid medium. + +In Arran, a jovial chairman thus introduced me: "Before I left home, I +thought of a great many nice things to say as a preface to the remarks +of our friend from Paisley. (Here he coughed violently.) Unfortunately, +I am unable to bestow these tit-bits on the audience owing to a +_kittlin'_ in my throat. Instead of saying what I meant to say, I think +I had better tell you a story. A minister one Sunday had occasion to be +highly displeased with the precentor, who broke down twice in quite a +simple psalm-tune. 'Excuse me, minister,' said the precentor, 'but I've +got a kittlin' in my throat this morning.' '_Kittlin'!_' hissed the holy +man in scornful wrath: '_it's mair like a big tom-cat_.' Ladies and +gentlemen, after these few and decidedly imperfect remarks, I resume my +seat, merely expressing the hope that our friend will feel himself as +much at home here as the deil did in the Court of Session." + +Another chairman in an adjoining island, while engaged in tremulously +reading his introductory speech, came to a sudden stop. An irreverent +youth shouted, "_Is that a blot?_" After the laughter provoked by this +query had subsided, the chairman said: "I feel to-night like a square +pin in a round hole, or rather, like the Irishman who, when asked if he +was dead, replied, '_No, I'm not dead, I'm only spacheless._'" Having +said these words with a weird attempt at mirth, the chairman sat down +too hurriedly, and struck his head so violently against the back of his +chair, that the noise of the impact was heard in every part of the hall. + +I may hint to anyone who lectures or preaches in the Highlands, not to +adopt a patronising attitude or make it appear that he is talking down +to the audience. Such a feature would be at once detected and deeply +resented. A well-known Professor lectured to a Bute audience on +Electricity, and out of ignorance, spoke in a very elementary way to the +audience, defining the simplest terms, and interspersing a great many +"_you know's_" and "_you see's_." The chairman, in proposing a vote of +thanks, slyly remarked: "We have listened to-night to a very good +discourse, and I'm only sorry there are so few young people here. Next +time the Professor comes to speak to us, I hope to see all the +school-children in the hall, for the lecture to-night was admirably +adapted to their capacity." + + +COMING TO THE POINT. + +A very loquacious lawyer proposed a vote of thanks to the chairman in +the following fashion: "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "it is often a +very difficult thing to come to the point. When I was at College, I +consented once to write an essay on 'The Progress of America,' the +subject being one of my own choosing. I wrote twenty-five pages of +preliminary matter, and at the end of my writing, I found that Columbus +was not landed. As my essay was to bring my hearers up-to-date on +American progress, I became nettled at my failure to _get Columbus +ashore_ and went round canvassing among my friends to secure a +substitute. No one would relieve me, so I was forced to slaughter an +aunt. I was wired for, by arrangement, on the day before the meeting, +and responded with great alacrity, knowing that there would be no +funeral. Without wasting more words let me on _this_ occasion come to +the point, and ask you to accord to our worthy chairman a very hearty +vote of thanks for the brilliant way in which he has kept us all in +order this evening." + + +MORAL OBLIGATION. + +A minister of a western parish thought it his duty, in the course of his +introductory speech, to make some jovial remarks on the subject of +conscience and moral obligation. "A student of my acquaintance," said +he, "went to Arrochar on Loch Long by excursion steamer. At mid-day, +being thirsty, he _drifted thoughtlessly_ into the hotel and asked for a +cup of tea. With this beverage he washed over some dry biscuits he had +brought with him from home. Imagine his surprise on being told that the +cup of tea would cost him two shillings. Bang went not one sixpence but +four! He looked at the maid and his breath came quick and fast; but he +counted out the money nevertheless. Having occasion to visit the +bathroom to cool his throbbing brow, he perceived a razor on a little +shelf near the mirror there. At once he pocketed this razor and made +off, whistling _Scots Wha Hae_. He had recouped himself for the +overcharge on the cup of tea. Strange to say, every time he shaved with +the stolen razor he feared some impending calamity. He knew enough Greek +to be aware that Ajax committed suicide with the very sword that hero +got from the enemy. Whenever the student disfigured his chin and +reddened the lather with a new-made gash, he felt in his inmost soul +that a Nemesis was being wrought out. _By this simple tale, my friends, +one may see the sovereign power of conscience, which, though dormant for +a time, invariably asserts itself and flogs the culprit._" + + +COMPLIMENT TO PAISLEY. + +The following remarks made by a speaker at one of the meetings are worth +citing: "I do not wish our Paisley friend," he said, "to go back to the +banks of the Cart under the impression that we are not a very literary +people up here in Ross-shire. On the contrary, we are clean gone on +literature. Just look at our syllabus! One night we have a discussion on +Shakespeare. Eh? What do you think of that? Shakespeare no less! Next +night we deal with _an equally great poet--Tannahill_." (No doubt the +speaker meant to compliment Paisley in thus comparing the author of +_Lear_ and _Hamlet_ with the poet-laureate of the loom.) I have heard +Milton's _Paradise Lost_ and Pollok's _Course of Time_ clashed together +in the same ludicrous way. I was dreadfully nonplussed on one occasion +by hearing a speaker strongly recommend the audience to give their days +and nights to the study of Bunyan and M'Cheyne. "Bunyan by all means," +said I to myself, "but who is M'Cheyne that one should be mindful of him +and put him for importance alongside of the immortal tinker?" + + +ORATORY AT SALEN. + +I shall never forget a vote of thanks proposed in my hearing by the +excellent doctor of Salen, a pleasant little place situated on a +V-shaped creek of Loch Sunart. I never expect to meet a more genial or +more humorous man than the doctor, on this side of eternity. He knows +the roads of gusty Ardnamurchan better than any other living man, and, +night and day, by sun and by moon, in weather of clear blue, and under +the eddying blinding flakes, he is ever on the move. He found time to +come to the meeting and propose a vote of thanks to the donor of the +library. Everyone listened intently to him as he stood there in his +professional frock-coat,--a thin, wiry, twinkling-eyed gentleman. "If +the donor by any chance," said he, looking at me, "should ever sail up +Loch Sunart in his yacht, and land among the people of Salen, to whom +his books have given such pleasure, I should advise him not to stand too +near the edge of the pier, for fear some of the grateful natives might +push him over into the loch, _in order to have the pleasure of saving +his life!_" This unexpected sally convulsed the audience, and gave a gay +and rollicking touch to the speeches that came after. Mr. M'Gregor, a +farmer from Resipol, broad and brawny, rose to make a few remarks. The +schoolhouse was very hot and close, but he disdained to throw off the +thick and ample Highland cloak which he had on, and which he had worn +all day at the Oban Cattle Show, and on the deck of the boat that had +brought him thence. Mr. M'Gregor had been much struck by my remarks on +the knights of King Arthur, and their custom of sitting at the Round +Table, to avoid questions of precedence. He spoke to this effect: "I do +not wish the lecturer to go back to Paisley under the impression that +Salen is not a very bye-ordinary and consequential place. We have a +fleet of yachts out there, the like of which is not to be seen _between +this and Manch-oo-ria_. We have a blacksmith that can preach and quote +Scripture as well as any D.D. in the land; my friend the grocer over +there, will give you such bargains as you could never get in +Sauchie-_hall_ Street; and we have a choir here that might give the +angels singing-lessons. I am a very modest man, but I would like to say +just a word about this Round Table business. The lecturer says the Table +was round so that every knight might be at the head of it. That's the +theory, but what's the fact? I'll tell you. _One of King Arthur's +knights was an ancestor of mine, and his name was M'Greegor._[12] Now, +wherever M'Greegor sat, that was always considered the head of the +table." This contribution to Arthurian criticism was delivered with such +force, faith, and genial glee, that no one, considering the powerful +muscles of the speaker, was disposed to question it. (Mr. M'Gregor's +eulogy of Salen did not comprise a reference to the local hotel, which +is conducted on the Gothenburg system. It is comfortable and snug, but +not whole-heartedly patronised by some of the natives, as they consider +the system is an un-Celtic innovation, and believe further that every +drink they take is written down in a big book with an alphabet on the +edge of the leaves to facilitate reference). + + [12] Judging from the number of clans that make a similar claim, + we might fancy that all King Arthur's knights + + "Gartened low their leg, + And rowed their hurdies in a philabeg." + + + + +LECTURE IN A DUNGEON, ETC. + +I have an agreeable recollection of my stay in Saddell, on the coast of +Kintyre, as the guest of Colonel Macleod, son of the never-to-be-forgotten +Dr. Norman Macleod. The Colonel was born in 1820, was present at the +Eglinton Tournament, and is, to-day, in spite of his eighty-eight +years, hale in body, sound of wind, and perfectly clear in the +intellect. He is a walking encyclopædia of all the social and political +changes that have come about since the accession of Victoria. He is also +an authority on live stock, and it is intensely amusing to see his +horses scampering from the far-end of the field when they see him, in +the hope of getting some of the bits of sugar he always carries in his +pocket for their benefit. + +The school-house being badly situated for the convenience of the people, +the meeting was held in the _dungeon of the old castle_, a spacious and +airy place quite near the beach. Altogether, I reckon this meeting as +the drollest in all my experience. There were no windows in the +overhanging vaulted roof, and the long stone stair leading to the ground +above, was filled with the audience that could not get accommodation +below. The aged Colonel presided over about one hundred prisoners, and +humorously remarked that the table at which he was standing, was really +a _patent incubating apparatus_, under which four dozen of Mrs. +Macleod's chickens were coming to maturity. He hoped these embryo fowls +would not interrupt the lecture by any unseemly remarks. At the risk of +wearying the chickens, I spoke for an hour and a half, dealing in the +course of my remarks (to be as apposite as possible) with the dungeon +scene in "The Legend of Montrose," where Dugald Dalgetty squeezes the +windpipe of the Duke of Argyll. + +In one little village hall in Kintyre, I was much perturbed by some of +the placards that had been placed on the walls. The hall had been used +for evangelical purposes, and there, facing me, in yard-long type, was +the dreadful command, _Get right with God_. To speak on Hood and his +puns with those colossal letters burning their message into your soul, +would need nerves of steel. I have not nerves of steel, and I felt +dreadfully incommoded by the bill. For the space of five minutes I might +occasionally forget it, and then, in the midst of some light and +skittish quotation, my eye would light upon it, and the verses would +come feebly and falteringly off the tongue. _Vox faucibus haesit._ + + +SURPRISES. + +My narrative would be lacking in completeness if I did not frankly +confess that I have sometimes met with humiliations of a kind to wring +the heart and call forth a sigh. In one nook of the north I stayed in +the manse of an excellent clergyman, an eloquent preacher, but austere +and extremely devout. He took the chair at the lecture, which was very +well attended. Before the meeting began I was told that a local +gentleman wished to ask me _an important question_. This was good news +for me, as I thought the inquirer might have some literary difficulty +which it would be profitable to handle in the course of my remarks. The +anxious enquirer proved to be the local hotel-keeper, who, in a deadly +earnest whisper made the following request: "You have a big meeting," he +said, "and it's not likely there will be such a number of people so near +my hotel for many a long day. _Would it be asking too much of you to +finish up about half-past nine and give the audience time to sample +some of my commodities before departing homewards?_ It's chiefly the +minister I have to fear; for if he suspects I wish to do business, he'll +prolong the vote of thanks till after the stroke of ten." + +One of my compensations in wandering Scotland thorough has been the +heartfelt but rather naïve way in which some of the provincials have +expressed their gratitude. "_I've paid half-a-crown for worse_," said an +old man of Ross to me, shaking me warmly by the hand and believing he +was uttering a most delicate and hyperbolical compliment. (Now, during +my remarks, I had noticed this man taking copious pinches of snuff to +enable him, as I suspected, to sit out the meeting.) Another rustic, +this time an Aberdonian, was impressed by the number of authors +mentioned and the copious citations from their works. "Heavens!" he +cried, "what a memory that man has! That's the kind of partner I should +like to have at whist: he would never forget the cards that were out." + +I know not whether to laugh or weep when I think of the occasion on +which the following charmingly irrelevant remarks were made to me: "We +are all proud of our village library and _even prouder of the feeling +that prompted such a gift_. I am reminded," the speaker went on to say, +"of a cousin of mine who got a present of exquisite fruit (preserved in +wine) from a friend in a distant part of the country. He wrote to the +donor saying, 'Your fruit is delicious: I like it very much; but I like +even more _the spirit in which it has been sent_.'" + + +A VISIT TO THE BORDERS. + +In order that these pages may fitly represent all the districts of +Caledonia that I have traversed as an uncommercial traveller, I should +like to give a short sketch of how I reached Tweedside by way of Lanark, +at a season when the Glasgow people were beginning their Fair holidays. +Winter, as I remarked, is the time I prefer for travelling, but untoward +circumstances have now and again compelled me to be on the move when +"mid-summer, like an army with banners, was marching through the +mid-heavens." + +I may say at once that it is a great trial to leave Glasgow at that +particular date. The city pours forth its myriads at such a time. The +stations are surging and heaving with throngs of men, women, and +children, all in a hurry and all impatient. Families by tens and dozens +are swarming about. How pathetic it is to see the father with one child +in his arms and two clinging to his coat-tails, while the mother (poor +bedraggled soul) is vainly striving to quieten a squalling fourth! Some +children have lost their parents, and grope about underneath, nipping +the legs of tourists to attract attention and get hold of the right +father; others fall among bales of strawberries that were pulled +yesterday in the fresh country air, but are now being trampled into gory +pulp. Even in the fetid and dust-laden air, rendered almost unbearable +by the hot sunlight that blazes through the overarching glass of the +station roof, Cupid twangs his arrows, and soft eyes speak love to eyes +that speak again. Suddenly the train arrives, and on the already +crowded platform lands the human freight of twenty carriages--a fresh +addition to the welter and confusion worse confounded. What a wealth of +language one hears! Cyclists tinkle with bell and horn to secure the +needed lane of passage. Porters, in desperate madness, throw wooden +boxes down and rope-tied trunks of tin with little sympathy for injured +knees and fiery corns. The train just in will shortly leave with a new +load of passengers. A rush is made for the vacated seats: in tumbles the +surging crowd without regard for the class of ticket they have +purchased. A score of occupants per carriage is about the average; many +swarm into the guard's van, where they are regaled with pandemoniac +odours of ancient fish and decaying vegetables. The heavy train at +length steams out into the open, and in an hour's time Lanark is +reached. "_God made the country and man made the town_" is the +involuntary reflection of the city man as he steps out of the train and +breathes the fresh air of the hills. + +From Lanark to Peebles, by road, is thirty miles. The track is +excellent, and if the wind is not adversely strong the joy of cycling +the distance is difficult to parallel. + +On this route, no lumbering vehicles, laden with heavy merchandise, tear +up the soil into ruts. No cab-drivers cast sarcastic remarks at you from +their high perch. The only annoyance comes from the cast-off nail of a +horse-shoe or the sharp splinter of a macadamised stone. The air is as +fresh as on Creation's morn. Up hill and down again one can hurry on +without ever touching the brake. For the first ten miles, the stately +bulk of Tinto dominates the landscape. What a splendid range of scenery +the eye could grasp from the high vantage-ground of its summit in clear +weather! As one approaches the base of the big hill, the road turns +sharply to the east, and you feel about your ears innumerable breezes +that blow along from the little glens leading down from Tinto's breast. +By and by, the clean, trim, little town of Biggar appears. (The +inhabitants are proud of the fact that John Brown, author of the +beautiful story, _Rab and his Frien's_, was a native of the town.) One +notices the name of Gladstone prominent above the shops, and it is a +fact that the ancestors of the Grand Old Man were, in the days of yore, +denizens of those quiet hamlets. After a short rest here, we (for you +are with me, _ami lecteur_) shoot on and pass the sleepy street of +Broughton, lying clear and radiant in the slanting rays of the sun. Here +is the ideal spot for a country clergyman in love with Hebrew roots and +gardening and quiet contemplation. Soon we strike the tiny waters of the +infant Tweed, prattling and gushing up and bubbling clear over its +snow-white pebbles. Now the breeze of gloaming blows more snell. Away +low in the west the sun begins to gather golden clouds in pomp around +his setting. A gorgeous glimmer, gold and red, is thrown over the whole +sky. Keeping close beside the ever-widening stream, we dash through +little clachans on the bank, beneath long, over-arching avenues of +trees, and past the gates of ivy-mantled homes of blessed outlook. Here +a croquet party stops playing, for the grass is getting wet with +evening dew, and there, in the river, and up to the knees in it, are +half a dozen anglers sweeping the wave with their spurious fly. Peebles +is not far off, and the quiet nooks of the high road are filled with +pedestrians. The entrance to Peebles is exquisite. The long rows of +trees, the situation of the road high above the river in the dell, +combine to make an eerie blend of sound from sighing leaves and gurgling +waters. An old Border peel, Needpath Castle, stands near the straggling +outskirts of the town, and proves, by its choice situation on the knoll, +that our cattle-reiving ancestors were quite alive to the advantages of +a good view. It was a stirring quarter here in the days of the old +Scotch kings. The deadly thrust of lance has reddened every burn in the +wide Borderland. Every brae has had its gory bicker. + +On this _tournée_ I had the pleasure of giving a lecture on "Scotch +Ballads," at a little village not more than half a mile from the +birthplace of Dandie Dinmont. The place was full of sturdy, firm-knit +Borderers, descendants of the dare-devil troopers who wrought such +devastation along the Marches when the Stuarts reigned in Holyrood. +Fresh, ruddy faces, coloured by breeze and sun; hard, keen, inquisitive +looks; intelligence such as comes from knowledge of nature, hereditary +quickness and good circulation of blood: all these could be instantly +seen by glancing round the audience. (How insignificant a mere bookworm +or scholar feels among a company of brawny Liddesdale farmers!) During +the lecture, it was easy to note by the grim smile on their faces, their +flashing eyes and the way they gripped their big sticks, that the old +stirring rhymes of fight struck a sympathetic chord in their hearts. Now +and again, during the address, one could see the lips of the listeners +moving in soft repetition of the lines, as some typical quotations were +being made. + +It is not likely that there has been much change or influx of population +in these districts for centuries. The alertness and intelligence of the +natives must be to some extent an inheritance from the generations of +strenuous clansmen whose blood flows in their veins. Life in a +historical district is bound to have an ennobling effect on a man, +especially if he feels knit to the past by lineal descent from the +historical actors. A glamour of romance clings to hill and glen. The +dalesman you meet on the highway can tell you all the lore of his +parish, giving dates and citing illustrative lays. It is pleasant to +find that the stories of the Borderland are still known where they first +took birth, and that the local names, which to students instantly +suggest delightful bits of rhyme, have also to those who dwell near +them, a romance that is borrowed from the olden time.[13] + +Anyone who has travelled in the shires that run along the Cheviots and +the Tweed, will conclude that poetry and romance may ever find a home +there. The hills, with their green pastoral slopes and abundant leafage, +are a delight to the eye in fresh spring and tinted fall. The sound of +the streams, as Ruskin has pointed out, is sweet and rhythmic to an +extraordinary degree, combining with the sough of the winds to form an +undersong of Nature's own melody. As the traveller drives or cycles +along the roads, he now and again gets such impressive vistas of +long-stretching waterways, wooded to the brink with graceful trees, as +grave themselves on the memory for evermore. For rock, crag, and dashing +linn, the northern Highlands are supreme; but in the green Borderland, +there is a more sedate and proportioned beauty. Nature is none the less +attractive for losing somewhat of her wildness and austerity. + + [13] A favourite and appropriate book in this part of Scotland is + Wilson's _Tales of the Borders_. There are not many farm-houses + in the Lowlands of Scotland in which one does not find old + copies, bound and unbound, of Wilson's _Tales_. Usually they show + unmistakable evidence of having been frequently perused. One is + bound to admit that the modern reader, if he spends an evening + turning over these old pages, will find little reason to pride + himself on the superiority of the popular reading of to-day. The + short story, now in vogue, may be finely illustrated, and highly + sensational, but its matter is certainly inferior, as a rule, to + the general run of Wilson's stories. Wilson, in his humble way, + was a gleaner in the field so richly harvested by Sir Walter + Scott. _The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_ had called + attention to the great stores of poetry and romance lingering + among the peasantry of the Debateable Land. Wilson's _Tales_ + showed how much of the old spirit remained more than two + centuries after the Union, and, in spite of all Christianity and + an orderly Government had done for the softening of manners. + Hogg, in speaking of his own countryside, said: "The poor people + of these glens know no other entertainment in the long winter + nights than repeating and listening to the feats of their + ancestors recorded in songs which I believe to have been handed + down from father to son for many generations." Wilson and his + successors gathered up as much of the romantic material as they + found available, and printed it for the delight of their + generation. + + +TARBOLTON. + +In the agricultural lowlands of Scotland it is not rare to come upon +little villages that seem entirely left behind by modern progress. Not +long ago my work took me to Tarbolton, a quiet, uneven village in the +heart of the queenly shire of Ayr. The railway company has treated the +place very badly: a full fifteen minutes' drive is needed to reach the +town from the station. It is as if the company said: "Make what you can +of our line, ye insignificant Tarboltonians; our trains are in a hurry +to get from Ayr to Muirkirk; be thankful if we set you down only three +miles from your home." If it is not wet, the drive is a grand one. Five +miles to the right, Mauchline shows its red complexion on the green +hillside, and awakens lyric memories of Burns's imperishable mouse and +share-torn gowan. Over the pasture lands on the right come freshening +winds that hint of the heaving Firth not far away. The road pursued by +the coach meanders among all that is best of rural and pastoral scenery, +for coaly Annbank, defaced by the exhumed entrails of the earth, is +happily on the rear. At a turn of the road, a majestic spire, that of +Tarbolton Parish Church, suddenly stands before the view of the +traveller, and suggests Eternity even when tolling the hours of Time. +Soon the village is reached, and one is in a position to form an idea of +eighteenth century Scotland. The main street is built with that +irregularity so charmingly illustrative of the evolution of the +builder's art. Old cots roofed with thatch take the mind back to the +time when George I. was defending the faith and maltreating his wife. +Side by side with such are trim two-storey houses with all modern +elegancies. + +I have a pleasant recollection of this interesting village, not merely +from its associations with Burns (which Mr. T.F. Henderson in a dainty +little book has recently recounted anew), but also from the fact that +the natives keep alive the literary traditions of the place in quite a +worthy way. The local baker has written a fluent volume of Essays +dealing with village incidents and worthies, which proves, as Mr. Barrie +says, that life in every stage, if truthfully portrayed, is intensely +interesting, and that every window-blind is the curtain for some tragedy +or comedy. + + +THE SCOTCH LANGUAGE. + +Very fine Scotch is still spoken in the rural districts of Ayrshire, and +most of Burns's dialect words are in daily use, at least by the older +generation. The Education Department has most wisely given encouragement +to the study of Lowland Scotch, and I do not see why a special grant +should not be given for special excellence in that department. Some +national movement for a complete Dictionary of Modern Scotch with +explanations in up-to-date philology ought to be organised. + +During the lifetime of Sir Walter Scott, Dr. Jamieson published the +famous _Scottish Dictionary_, which still holds the field as the most +elaborate compendium of the Lowland dialects. Looked at in the light of +modern science, the derivations are often absurd and fanciful. +Jamieson's love for Gothic parallels led him constantly astray. +Nevertheless, his dictionary, as amended by various revisers, remains a +stately monument of industry and a necessary adjunct in the study of the +Scotch language. + +In our own day, Dr. Murray of Oxford has compiled an illuminating +grammar of the language, indicating the various dialects of the Lowlands +and their geographical areas. Local antiquarians have also written out +lists of words special to particular counties. Dialect books, such as +the entertaining _Johnnie Gibb of Gushetneuk_, as well as Mr. Barrie's +delightful sketches, have put excellent specimens of provincial speech +within the hands of a wide circle of readers. A good dictionary of +modern Scotch, dealing with what has been written during the last two +centuries, would be a very useful and a very interesting compendium. It +would show that a great many expressive words employed by thirteenth +century English writers are still in use on the Scotch side of the +Border. + +There is no denying the fact that book-English will soon push out the +relics of the old Scotch tongue. Burns will soon be read by lexicon, +even in the shire of Ayr. Men now write poetry in Scotch as boys at Eton +and Harrow write Latin verses, the result in both cases being, as a +rule, hideous and artificial doggrel. The little book, _Wee Macgregor_, +written in what may be called the Scotch Cockney dialect, was a brave +and amusing attempt to phonograph the talk of a Glasgow boy of the lower +middle class. The unlovely speech employed by the author is, happily, +quite unlike the careful and deliberate speech of the educated citizen +of Glasgow or Paisley. The main differences between the educated Scot +and the educated Englishman are that the vowel sounds of the former are +pure and that _r_ and _h_ have a real value in most words where these +letters occur. + +It seems to me a _very undesirable_ thing that a uniform system of +pronunciation should be aimed at in every country of the British Isles. +So long as clear and expressive enunciation of English is attained, +intelligible differences of vocalisation, pitch, and even of vocabulary, +are allowable, and at times positively charming. Monotony is the bane of +life. + + +CHOICE BOOKS. + + "Whether the books are borrowed books or no + That show their varied stature row on row + Along your walls, there will I truly find + The image of your character and mind. + Light, flimsy novels suit the flying train + Or _Western Isle_ excursions of Macbrayne, + Where, dazed by gleaming firths of visible heat, + The torpid soul disdains substantial meat; + But oft-read volumes, to which men recur + The whole year round, bespeak the character." + +The above lines, written by some unknown poetaster, indicate that it is +the book we read over and over again that has the greatest potency in +our education. I quite agree with the author, and I love to behold the +well-thumbed pocket-edition that speaks to the eye of much handling and +frequent perusal. There are very few books _worth_ reading once that are +not worth reading oftener. Hobbes used to say that if he had read as +much literature as the majority of men, he would have been as ignorant +as they. In that remark what depths of meaning lie! The sage of +Malmesbury attributed his success in philosophy to his habit of +judicious selection--to the fact that he concentrated his attention on +those authors who were likely to help the development of his powers. +Selection is more required now than in Hobbes's time. Few men would care +to read more than a hundred books through in a year, and yet there are +twenty thousand volumes added annually to the shelves of the British +Museum. + + +THE ESSAYISTS. + +It has been my privilege, during the last three or four years, to +examine with more or less care something like four hundred bookcases, +containing works on all departments of literature. _I am inclined to +turn away in disgust if the Essayists are not patronised._ + +Those delightful Essayists! Happy is the man who has his shelves full of +them--writers who talk sense with wanton heed and giddy cunning, who +spread their souls out on paper, who disarm hostility by taking you +completely into their confidence. Addison, with the roguish gleam in his +eye as he is calculating the number of sponges in the cost of a lady's +finery; Goldsmith, in his London garret, talking of the ludicrous +escapades of the Man in Black; Lamb luxuriating in reminiscences of Old +Benchers. All these splendid, unsystematic delights, mingled with the +breezes of byegone summers and the sunsets of long ago! Old ghosts +whisper you their secrets; you hear the brush of sweeping garments that +have been moth-eaten these hundred years. Crowded streets of people +appear before the eye of fancy--London in the days of Anne and the +Georges. In the company of such wits, there are no slow-moving hours: +you have in them friends who never need tire you, for should the +slightest tedium intervene, you may, without offence, stop their flow of +conversation. Our living intimates are prone to drynesses and huffs; but +these old prattling wits ever welcome us with a smile of affability. + + +A BANFF THEORY. + +While speaking of Essayists, I ought to mention a peculiar Banffshire +theorist who addressed me in the following words: "Give me an old set of +_Blackwood_ in the Kit North days, and I can easily forego your +pinchbeck stories and propagandist novels of to-day. I put the most +interesting period for reading at _sixty years ago_, and I think Scott +must have known the charm of that number when he gave the alternative +title to _Waverley_. It is pleasant to know how the world wagged when +your grandfather was a ruddy egg-purloining rogue of five. When I read +farther back than a century, I feel imagination flagging--the Merry +Monarch is not much more to me than John the Baptist. But the men of the +forties stand out clear and distinct. If I have never seen an +out-and-out fiery Chartist, I have at least seen some smouldering +specimens--men with much of the eloquence and a little of the enterprise +of the original five-pointers. It may be that as I grow older, my most +interesting historical period will move with me, keeping always at a +distance of sixty years from the present, until, when I get within hail +of the Psalmist's stint, I shall be most interested in childish things." +These words rather staggered me, and set me thinking of geometrical +_loci_. A man holding such views would find it difficult to obtain a +bird's-eye view of history. + + +GOLDSMITH IN GAELIC. + +If I had an adequate knowledge of Gaelic, combined with plenty of money +and leisure, I should set myself the task of translating the whole of +Goldsmith's Essays and Tales into that language, for the benefit of +those who had no English. It would be a great feat if one could impress +on the modern Celtic mind the conviction that piety and diversion are by +no means incompatible. Goldsmith's _Auburn_ introduces us to the most +delightful prospect on earth: a simple village community, unacquainted +with luxury and uncorrupted by vice. The inhabitants are full of health +and joy--they till the soil and gain ample satisfaction for their +unambitious wants. Life passes along bringing a pleasant succession of +happy hours. After the labours of the day, the young people dance +merrily on the green, and the old folk look on and regret that their own +legs are too stiff to keep time to the fiddles. Certain Highland +landlords might also read with advantage the exquisitely pathetic lines +in which the poet pictures the desolation and ruin of the rural +paradise, and perhaps conclude therefrom that, when glen and strath are +depleted of their inhabitants, and these latter driven over the seas to +seek a foothold in strange lands, it is the very heart's blood of +Britain that is being drained away. + +On the whole, probably no English writer has given such genuine delight +as Goldsmith, and such genuine instruction too. Ineradicably frivolous, +culpably negligent of the morrow, whimsically vain and living all his +days from hand to mouth, he had the faculty of drawing upon himself the +pity, and even the contempt, of his associates. But in the eyes of +posterity, his happy-go-lucky life is amply redeemed by the work he has +left behind him, for _it_ is pure and good. His river of speech flows +ever on shining like molten gold. No man of his time possessed the +adroit knack of bright writing in a more eminent degree. The pawky +humour of his side-hits, the blending of light and shade in the process +of the narrative, the beauty and melody that can be noted even in the +sound of the sentences, combine to delight the judgment, the ear, and +the fancy. Though the _Vicar of Wakefield_ is a prose production, it +produces all the effect of a poem on the affections of the heart. Of +wit, properly speaking, it is as full as any volume of _The Spectator_; +with humour it is flooded from beginning to end; and in those pathetic +delineations of life which no one can read without being profoundly +touched, there are few poems so rich. + + +BIBLIA ABIBLIA. + +In many (indeed most) houses I have visited, I see in the bookcase large +publications in six or seven well-bound parts and as good as new, +dealing with subjects of little interest to anyone who breathes the +vital air of heaven. Such titles as _Science for All_, _The Thames from +its Source to the Sea_, _The Queens of England_ are among the commonest +on the boards of the books I allude to. The presence of these editions +indicates that the possessor at a certain period of his life was shy and +could not say _no_ to that limb of the Evil One--the book-canvasser. The +latter individual is the forerunner of the colporteur, who will bring +you, if you wish poetry, an edition of the works of Shakespeare which is +peculiarly ill-adapted for holding in the hand and reading. The print is +large, the page is in size like a miniature wall-map, and the +illustrations are got up with an easy defiance of archeology. The +annotations, though stolen, are distinguished for extreme futility. +After you have begun the purchase of such a book, shame and chagrin +drive you to attempt the study of it; but it is of no use, and on each +occasion of the very regular advent of the colporteur, you are inclined +to swear horribly, after which a period of extreme dejection supervenes +when you recollect the many fine things you could purchase for the +half-guinea periodically expended. The knowledge of human nature +displayed by the man who books the order surpasses anything in the works +of the analytical philosophers. Every artifice of attack is his, and he +knows how to play on all the emotions so ably and exhaustively +catalogued in the manuals of Professor Bain. I believe a gay and +chaffing rejoinder is what he can least overcome. Suggest to him that +you are far gone in poverty and offer to _sell_ him a few of your own +books. Frequent exercise will confirm your principles, until finally, +when you see one of the book-canvassing tribe, you will foresee half an +hour's innocent amusement. + +Certain of the points he so feelingly brings before you may no doubt +awaken a responsive echo in your own bosom. You are well aware, for +example, that your knowledge of the Queens of England is culpably +imperfect. You know you are never likely to go in steadily for the study +of constitutional developments, and so are led to admit the +reasonableness of tackling history from a lighter and more entertaining +point of view. Again, as to the River Thames, one must really grant that +a considerable amount of self-complacency and internal sunniness would +result from the ability to contradict your friends as to the length in +miles of some of its minor tributaries. In science, too, you are no +Kepler or Linnaeus, and there is something satisfactory when pedants +talk of orbits, planes, bulbs, or beetles, in being able to say that +_you have a big book at home that tells all about those things_. + +Many people buy books, not because they have a present need for them, +but on the chance that at some time in the future such volumes as they +see for sale will solve a doubt or answer a need. The precise doubt or +the pressing need rarely arises. I met a Celt who had bought a copy of +Josephus in most irritating type, in the hope that it would help him to +confute a Roman Catholic on the Power of the Keys. Then again, people of +a wavering and bird-witted type of mind are constantly changing the +subject of their interest: this month they are attacked by the _furor +poeticus_, next month it will be a _furor botanicus_ or _politicus_. +Each separate frenzy means expenditure. When Browning is the temporary +subject of the mania, a host of expository books on that poet have to be +purchased, all of which are duly consigned to the topmost shelves when +the soreness of the fit is past. There is also a tendency to purchase, +because on the chance opening of a book you light on something that +pleases the whim of the moment. It is a thousand to one that when you +have bought the book you will not find another item worth perusing in +the entire contents. This tendency to buy a book in a panic may be +neutralised by remembering the story (whether true or not) of Defoe, who +is said to have boomed the languid sale of the dreary _Drelincourt on +Death_ by means of a spicy little ghost story as introduction! Buy in +haste, repent at leisure. + + +SECOND-HAND BOOKS. + +It is a much pleasanter sight to my eyes to see a bookcase with +second-hand books in it, for these are almost always bought to be read. +In a teacher's house near Elgin, I recently saw a most remarkable +collection--a veritable ragged regiment of books: single volumes of +Plutarch, unexpurgated plays by Farquhar and Mrs. Behn, Civil War +pamphlets, and rows of oddities. Mr. Forbes (the owner) was at one +period of his life assistant in Falkirk, and every Saturday morning, +rain or shine, he proceeded to the city of Glasgow, for no purpose but +to roam through the dusty byeways and side streets in quest of +bookstalls. He knew all the dealers by name, and they welcomed him, for +he never left them without a purchase, however slight. It was a saying +of his that while it took half-a-crown to purchase you two hours' +amusement at a theatre, for a couple of shillings, or even less, you +might divide out a whole Saturday most enjoyably in the old book-shops. +He simply rioted in haggling over a threepenny piece. Even old Henderson +feared him. This Henderson was a thirsty old bookseller who kept a shop +at the corner of Cowcaddens and Ingram Street, and whose leading +speciality was second-hand family Bibles, with the former genealogical +leaf riven out and replaced by a clean sheet pasted in for the family of +the next purchaser. To him, sitting enthroned on a pile of Bibles, +Forbes, entering, spake: "Have you a copy of the _Lives of the Twelve +Cæsars_?" "Aye, aye," said old Henderson, with a gracious smile; +"_thirteen_ if you like." The copy of Suetonius was produced, and "How +much do you want for Suet.?" queried Forbes. "Half-a-crown," said old +Henderson. "I'll give you ninepence," said Forbes. "Make it +one-and-six," said the bookseller, rising from his Biblical throne, "and +the book's yours." "I'll give you a shilling and a half of whisky," +retorted Forbes. "Say a whole glass and the shilling, and we'll do +business," quoth the vendor of volumes. This was agreed upon, and the +two retired into the nearest dram-shop to conclude the bargain. Every +Saturday evening, Forbes came home by the last train, carrying his +bundle of volumes. He was careful to fumigate them for the purpose of +destroying any microbes, and finally would sprinkle them with _eau de +Cologne_ to make them tolerable to the nose. On Sunday, he enjoyed the +luxury of desultory reading. + +Like Mr. Forbes, I enjoy a ramble among these old shops, and can say, as +he said to me at parting:-- + + "I love the trundling stall + Where ragged authors wait the buyer's call, + Where, for the tariff of a modest supper, + You'll buy a twelvemonth's moral feast in Tupper; + Where Virgil's tome is labelled at a groat, + And twopence buys what tittering Flaccus wrote; + Where lie the quips of Addison and Steele, + And the thrice-blessed songs of Rob Mossgiel; + And some that resurrection seek in vain + From the swart dust that chokes the lumbering wain." + + +FAVOURITES. + +I have often been asked: "You who are so much on the move, who have had +so much train-travelling to do, what books would you recommend for a +long railway journey?" I do not know that one man's likes and dislikes +in reading are of value save as showing his own limitations, yet there +are certain books of which I never tire. I never leave home without the +following books handy for perusal: (i.) The _Odes of Horace_, (ii.) The +_Sonnets of Shakespeare_, (iii.) A French novel and a few copies of the +Paris _Matin_, (iv.) A Greek book of some kind, (v.) Pope or Addison, +(vi.) Some Victorian classic. The list is varied enough, and has +furnished me with much of the material for my speaking. + + +HORACE. + +The pleasant thing about Horace is that his odes are so short: you can +read one in a few minutes--shut your eyes and enjoy the mental taste of +it--try to repeat it, and, if you fail, consult the original--then, +finally (as Pope and many others have done), endeavour to find modern +parallels. Suppose, _e.g._, you are reading, as is likely, the first Ode +of the first Book, you might find present-day resemblances like the +following:-- + +_Curriculo pulverem._ + + What mad attractions sway the world! + Some are unhappy save when whirled + In motor cars that madly race, + To leave a stench in every place, + And maim those foolish folk that stray + Abroad upon the king's highway. + +_Tergeminis honoribus._ + + Yon babbling wight, of sense forlorn, + Who thinks himself a Gladstone born, + Although a bailie, still must strain + To gain himself a Provost's chain. + And, after that, the worthy prater + Aspires to be a legislator; + Dreams of St. Stephen's, where he sees + Himself hobnobbing with M.P.'s. + +_Patrios agros._ + + But Farmer Bob is somewhat saner-- + He minds his stock and is the gainer; + Content to pass his life amid + The scenes that his old father did. + With hose in hand he cleans the byre, + And saves himself a menial's hire; + But gives his girls an education + That may unfit them for their station. + But don't ask Bob to tempt the tide, + Even on a turbine down the Clyde; + Neptune and Ceres don't agree, + And farmers hate the name of sea. + +_Mox reficit rates._ + + When Skipper Smith (whose usual goal + Is Campbeltown with Ayrshire coal) + Is labouring thro' Kilbrannan Sound, + He sighs for Troon and solid ground, + And swears, if he were safe on shore, + He'd never be a sailor more. + But once on shore--he thinks it dull, + And soon begins to tar the hull + And caulk the timbers of his ship: + "I'll try," he says, "another trip." + +_Lene Caput._ + + Some love to mangle turf: I see + Them drive their balls from sandy tee, + And think their day's delight begins + When they are up among the whins. + Some elders, full of godly zeal, + Turn crazy about rod and reel; + And ministers, reputed wise, + Take service with the Lord of Flies + (Beelzebub), and like the work + Better than prosing in a kirk. + +_Conjugis immemor._ + + Sir Samuel Crœsus (noble wight! + Who paid so dear to be a knight) + Forsakes his lady for the hills, + And aims at birds he never kills. + Too late in life he shouldered gun, + Breathless he toils beneath the sun, + Sips whisky every other minute, + Until his flask has nothing in it; + Then, at the end of strength and tether, + Falls tipsy in the blooming heather. + +_Praemia frontium._ + + But as for me, my wants are few: + £3,000 a year would do; + A villa built upon a height, + With ample view to left and right; + A garden with a sunny seat, + A grassy lawn with borders neat. + Inside, a study furnished well + (Like a true scholar's citadel) + With books and pipes and easy chairs; + Here, in despite of worldly cares, + If I should write a verse or two-- + A lyric that a _judge_ like you + Could read, without once yawning, through-- + I'd be as proud as any man + That scribbled since the world began. + +Horace is thus fit for all times and conjunctures, and is the most +modern of all the Latin writers-- + + "Horace still charms with pleasing negligence, + And without method talks us into sense." + +The translation of Horace's Odes into modern speech is generally +admitted to be one of the most difficult tasks to which a versifier can +apply himself. And yet there is no task so often essayed. It is a common +saying in France that, when a lawyer quits the bar and retires, he is +certain to publish a new translation of Horace after a year or two's +studious ease. M. Loubet, we know, is a zealous devotee of the Sabine +bard. Not the least droll of Mr. Gladstone's many feats was the +publication, shortly before his death, of a translation of Horace's +Odes, a translation wholly worthless indeed, in spite of the writer's +immense scholarship, but valuable as showing the fascination exercised +by Horace over the most austere and ecclesiastical of minds. It seemed +strange indeed to see the great statesman turn aside from his study of +Butler and the Fathers of the Church, in order to put into English verse +the gay, and often scandalous odes, of an old Pagan epicure. Mr. Morley, +who revised the translation, must have smiled as he read the old man's +rendering of-- + + "_Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa._" + +It is a fact, I suppose, that poetic translations of Horace are rarely +read, save by scholars, and the verdict is almost always unkind. Yet an +excellent anthology could be compiled by selecting the happiest +renderings of the most talented translators. Dryden's paraphrase of +III., 29, has been uniformly praised, and was a great favourite of +Thackeray's. Cowper's nimble wit and classic taste are seen in his +translation of II., 10, an ode beautifully rendered also by Mr. William +Watson. Sir Theodore Martin and Connington are always readable, Francis +is uniformly insipid, and Professor Newman, with his metrical capers, +absolutely absurd. Pope's "Imitations of Horace" are so brilliant, that +no student of English literature can afford to neglect them. Pope's +method of replacing ancient allusions by modern ones, was employed by +Johnson in some magnificent renderings of Juvenal, and no doubt +suggested to our Scotch vernacular poets a mode (still popular) of +translating Horace into Doric speech. Our Scotch bards preferred, as a +rule, to work on the Odes, and they succeeded best when they departed +most widely from the Latin text. + + +SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. + +The same blessed quality of brevity that attracts one in Horace is to me +one of the recommendations of Shakespeare's Sonnets. I am glad the +mystery of them is never likely to be discovered. From frequent perusal +of them in the train, I know the majority by heart, but despair of +finding any cryptogram in them. + +The cord on which these exquisite beads of poetry are strung is of the +most flimsy and frayed character. In other words, the characters are all +bad, and the verses that laud them are of the utmost brilliancy and +fascination. The poet himself supplies material that would justify us in +stigmatising his friend as a heartless and dissipated rogue. He also +lets us know that the pale-faced lady was an unwholesome and treacherous +minx. Yet he addresses the one in language that would be too laudatory +for Sir Galahad, and the other he idolises and insults by turns. + +How strange it is that the poet, while lingering fondly over the doings +of these two un-moral persons, should give utterance to some of the most +impressive lines in English literature! Certain of the sonnets pierce +the heart as with an arrow: such are those that deal, in broad and +pathetic fashion, with the ceaseless flux of all things human, the grim +realities of the grave, the ruthless sequence of earthly events, and the +measureless melancholy of the reflecting mind. The effect produced is +often like what we experience in reading Ecclesiastes or Omar Khayyam. +"Golden lads and lasses must, like chimney-sweepers, turn to dust." + +Though Shakespeare is dolefully impressed by the decay and destruction +of all material things and by the evanescent nature of beauty, he has no +doubt whatever of the immortality of the verses he is writing. He vaunts +as boldly as ever Horace did--indeed, in words that suggest the _Exegi +monumentum_ ode--that his verses will outlast the proudest works of man. +It is a sorry anti-climax to such a boast that the poet harps on the +immortality of the dissolute youth as a consequence of the sonnets +having an eternity of renown. Was there ever such a puzzling and +unworthy association of ideas? The puzzle is rendered more perplexing +still by the fact that Shakespeare took no pains to enlighten posterity +as to the identity of the youth he praises, or even to supervise the +publication of the sonnets. Thorpe's piratical edition was full of +misprints, but Shakespeare, so far as we know, took no notice of it, and +made no attempt, by giving the world a correct and authentic version, to +secure what his verses declare him to be anxious to bring about, viz., +the renown of his friend among generations to come. For us the youth +still exists, no doubt, but not as an historical character. _He takes +his place among the creatures of the poets imagination, and is far more +of a shadow or phantom than any one of them._[14] + +_If we suppose_ the sonnets to be connected with real life, it is not +easy to understand why the radiant youth, "the world's fresh ornament," +"only herald to the gaudy spring," etc., should need such an amount of +persuasion to marry. Seventeen sonnets of great poetical beauty and +felicitous language are devoted to this object. It is an exquisite treat +to read them as works of art, but taken literally they are unspeakably +absurd. No sane man would draw out such lengths of linked sweetness for +the purpose named; nor would any youth, however credulous, _take the +sonnets at their face value_. Shakespeare is merely practising his art, +and we may be perfectly sure that these "sugared" sonnets (as Meres +calls them), if they did circulate among the poet's private friends, +were regarded as rhetorical exercises. They are intensely interesting, +as showing the overpoweringly dramatic nature of Shakespeare's genius. +Being impressed with the desirability of perpetuating beauty, he is +driven to express the idea in the conventional form of a +sonnet-sequence. The result is an exhaustiveness of treatment, a wealth +of imaginative ornament, and a dramatic vividness of presentation that +makes the reader marvel how so much could be made out of so little. + + [14] Mr. Lee has collected an amount of evidence which seems to + prove that T. T., _i.e._, Thomas Thorpe, who wrote the + dedication, was not only a piratical publisher, but also a + humourist. The dedication, read in the light of these + observations, acquires a character of jocularity, and _begetter_ + means _procurer_ or _getter_. Thorpe thus becomes what we know + Curll to have been a century later, a printer of stolen copy, + with a turn for cynical waggery. Mr. W. H., the begetter, + accordingly, is not a glittering aristocrat, but an unscrupulous + go-between, who has made free with somebody's escritoire, and + handed the sonnets over to the gay T. T.! + + +XENOPHON. + +There is one Greek book, of which I have gone through three or four +copies by carrying it about in the pocket for my _moments perdus_. I +refer to the _Economist_ of Xenophon, a gem of a book, and one on which +I have often lectured. The title is not an attractive one, but the body +of the work is charming in the highest degree, and gives a better notion +of ancient Greek life than any other book in existence. Ruskin, who had +an unerring instinct for good literature, got two of his disciples to +put the book into English, himself furnishing a preface of +characteristic insight and brilliancy. He might well do such homage to +the old Greek soldier, for the _Economist_ contains teaching remarkably +like what is to be found in certain of the chapters of _Unto This Last_. +A reader cannot fail to be struck by the wonderful modernness of +Xenophon's writing, his love for the country, his simple and genuine +piety, his soldierly directness, and his practical common sense. Here is +a delightful sidelight on Greek family life, written twenty-three +centuries ago, but which might have been spoken yesterday: "_My wife_," +says one of the characters, "_often puts me on trial and takes me to +task--When I am candid and tell her everything, I get on well enough, +but if I hide or disguise anything, it goes hard with me, for I cannot +make black seem white to her._" + +The _Economist_ is an ideal volume for the country calm: it will not +deliver up its best to you in the city; but if it is leisurely perused +while hayrick fragrances are in the air, while butterflies are +fluttering round the lawns, and while the flow of a clear-gushing brook +chimes with your fancy and the quiet tone of the old Greek's musings, +then (be sure) the mellow sweetness of the "Attic Bee" will be +adequately enjoyed. + +It is a great pity that life is so short, that there are only +twenty-four hours in the day, and that, owing to the general scarcity of +money among the intellectual portion of the community, the possession of +free-will is a pathetic fallacy. Nobody, in these bonds of time and +space, can do precisely what he would like to do. Mr. T. P. O'Connor +once said that, if he were master of his fate, and his feet in every way +clear, he would at once proceed to Athens and learn Greek. I can +conceive no keener or greater joy than that: it is the wish of a genuine +lover of letters. At the age of ten, I came upon an old copy of Pope's +_Homer_, and have been in love with Greek literature ever since. The +cares of this world, including rates and taxes, prevent me likewise from +proceeding to the City of the Violet Crown, but there are plenty of +cheap copies of Homer to be had in Scotland, and it is no disadvantage +that some of them have the translation printed on the opposite page. + +So many things have to be learned at school now, that Greek is being +pushed out. In future, it will be a University subject solely. That is a +great pity, for although there are fine translations of the Greek +authors in English, these are not so much read as they ought to be. +Greek itself would be much easier to learn if editors would write fewer +and shorter notes.[15] + + [15] Penalties of a really deterrent kind might at least be laid + upon those gentlemen who write _more than three_ pages of notes + to one of the author's text: + + O that the Kaiser showing sense for once + Would loose his fury on each learned dunce, + And visit with his summary proceedings + The rogues who tease us with their _variant readings_. + + +FRENCH LITERATURE AND JOURNALISM. + +I am always delighted to see French books on the shelves of a rural +library. I notice Dowden's _French Literature_ in many a Highland +bookcase; and I am sure it will please that erudite and most excellent +professor to know he has hundreds of students who never saw his face. +Everybody should learn the French language: I don't know a better +intellectual investment. French is rich in precisely those qualities +that English lacks. It is not necessary, for proof of that statement, to +read Gautier, Bourget, or Hugo. A daily paper from Paris supplies all +the proof required. + +I freely admit that the French newspaper seems, on first acquaintance, +to be a wonderful and puzzling affair. It is never dull or tiresome, or +glum. You may have your dearest susceptibilities wounded by it, but you +won't fall asleep as you read its columns. Humour trickles from +paragraph to paragraph; wit coruscates in the accounts of the most +ordinary police cases; and abundant of dexterous literary workmanship is +to be found in the leading articles. In spite of such admirable +qualities, there is an element of frivolity, a lack of seriousness (I +speak of the typical Boulevard sheet) that is at first rather shocking +to a British reader. He finds grave subjects treated with a fineness of +touch and a lucidity of reasoning at once charming and full of +edification: but, lo! a pun trails accidentally off the journalist's +pen, or an odd collocation of ideas jostle each other in his brain: the +writer at once stops his instructive reasoning; he goes off the main +line and careers bounding down some devious side-path of entertaining +nonsense. Our home papers are almost uniformly staid; they are written +conscientiously, laboriously, commendably. But, after all, the French +are right in trying to inject as much entertainment as possible into the +daily record of mundane things. + +I regret to say that the majority of French newspapers do not give their +readers a quite fair or accurate account of events happening outside of +France. French topics, as is right, have the bulk of the space, and +foreign events are usually treated in a very prejudiced and perfunctory +way. The Frenchman's enthusiasm for home politics does not leave him +much emotion to spare for the rest of the world. Political life with him +is always more or less in a state of turmoil. There is usually some +scandalous _affaire_ afoot or impending, to which political import can +easily be given. Many of the most talented editors, being members of the +Chamber, import into their articles much of the heat and unreasoning +vehemence engendered by the violence of direct debate. There has always +been a feeling since the _great_ Revolution that _others_ might follow, +and that one or other of the royal gentlemen of this or that +disestablished race might, by some cyclone of popular or military +sympathy, be blown back to power in Paris. Unluckily, there are far too +many parties in France, far too many nicknames, badges, and shibboleths. +The language of political discussion is bitter, and heated beyond +anything the cooler Anglo-Saxon would tolerate. And yet, amid all such +electric discharges of wordy rancour, the French nation goes on its way +rejoicing, not a penny the worse, making wines, silks, and fashions, for +an ungrateful world. + +There is now, and always has been, a strange sympathy between France and +Scotland. A Scot learns French, as a rule, easily. One of the striking +differences between dialect Scotch and book English is precisely the +peculiar French ingredients in the former. For three hundred years the +two countries were allies, and the advantages to England may be gathered +from the remark of King Henry V. in Shakespeare's play-- + + "For you shall read that my great-grandfather + Never went with his forces into France, + But that the Scot on his unfurnished kingdom, + Came rolling like the tide into the breach." + + +GIL BLAS. + +One French book that has solaced my leisure (in train, steamer, and +trap), is that altogether delectable volume _Gil Blas_. It would be +worth learning French to be able to read the book in the original. The +characters are non-moral reprobates who lie, rob, and drink with the +most unaffected sincerity. Vice loses all its grossness, and becomes +intensely entertaining. The tone of the confessions is at once subtle +and naïve, tragic and trivial, comic and pathetic. The humour is +absolutely colossal: many English books, alleged to be humorous, do not +contain, in their entire bulk, as much humour as a single chapter of +this great work. For brilliancy of style it stands very high, and few +authors, either in France or elsewhere, have attained such admirable +clearness, precision, and pith. Read _Gil Bias_, say I, if you wish to +appreciate the possibilities of the French tongue, and taste all the +delicate flavour of its racy idiom. + + +ROMANCE AND AUGUSTANISM. + +There is a well-known text of Scripture, "In my father's house are many +mansions" which, with a slight turn, might be applied to the House of +Literature. There is room there for every pure and beautiful expression +of human thought and emotion. Romance and Augustanism have both the +right of entry. + +I am glad to see that Alexander Pope, the cleverest of our English +bards, is still a popular favourite wherever I go. It would be a pity if +this were not so, for he is head of the guild of Queen Anne wits, and +no one of them can rival his instinctive delicacy, careful workmanship, +and crystalline lucidity. His skill in the coining of impressive +aphoristic couplets is unrivalled: it is almost as good as a novel +addition to truth to find an old maxim supplied with the winged words of +such a consummate verbal artist. Pope is a writer who appeals directly +to all readers, for he never hides poverty of thought in a cloud of +vague words. + +In Pope and his fellows we miss the lavish magnificence and unchartered +freedom of the spacious times of great Elizabeth. Instead of Spenser's +amazing luxuriance of matter and metre, we have a neat uniformity and +trim array of couplets, which suggest the constant supervision of the +pruning craftsman. Compared with the Elizabethans, Pope's time has less +wealth but more careful mintage, less power but more husbanding of +strength, fewer flights of imagination but finer flutterings of fancy, +little humour but abundance of clear and sparkling wit. _It is not a +difficult task, by means of suitable selections, to bring home to an +audience of crofters the salient differences between the poetry of Pope +and of Spenser._ + +It is also easy to show to any audience that the quality which pleases +to such a high degree in poems like the _Highland Lass_ and _Yarrow +Revisited_, there is a romantic charm and thrilling magic which Pope +never could produce. A line or two from one of the poems cited has a far +more potent effect over the affections of the heart than the gorgeous +declamatory rhetoric of _Eloisa and Abelard_. But it would be foolish +to suppose that because Pope has not the passion for nature nor the glow +of self-oblivious benevolence, he has not highly educative and estimable +features. He should not be censured for what he never meant to supply: +we should rather strive to cultivate catholicity of taste by extracting +from his poems the information and enjoyment they are so well able to +furnish. + +The Prologue of Pope's _Satires_ is, of course, the best introduction to +a systematic study of the works of this writer. That poem is the +masterpiece of Pope's volume, and exemplifies better than any other +piece the striking and brilliant qualities for which he is so famous. In +perusing it, the reader soon discovers that he is in presence of a work +which is the result of incessant and prolonged labour, and which, +consequently, deserves patient study. The works of a great technical +artist require such elaborate treatment if the force of their genius is +to be adequately felt. + + +VICTORIAN WRITERS. + +If any man proposes to stay a month among scenery of hill, mountain, and +lake, I should advise him to slip a copy of Wordsworth into his pocket, +and read therefrom an hour daily; not hurrying over the pages, but +turning aside, now and again, to take in the glory of pinewood, heather, +and linn. In no volume, ancient or modern, can a tired man find such +soft and genial balm for his weariness as in the calm pages of the Rydal +singer. The poet is at his best in the broad region of natural religion. +He looks round on the beauties of the world with that solemn awe a man +feels in the hallowed precincts of a mediæval temple. The grandeur and +mystery of the world throw him into a kind of enchantment: his own soul +and that of the universe touch and commune with each other. In his rapt +verses we feel some of that mystic thrill felt by a devotee in the open +sanctuary of the Almighty. No man ever interpreted Nature in such +inspired strains as William Wordsworth. What supremely delights the +lover of scenery is that this poet's muse can overwrap the exact and +detailed knowledge of Nature with a superb mantle of idealistic glory. +He saw and understood the harmony of Nature's forms and colours through +all the seasons: at the quiet ingleside he meditated on what he had seen +and heard, enshrined these in verse, and added to them the warmth of his +own devout and sensitive soul. There is no exaggeration in Arnold's +tribute:-- + + "He laid us, as we lay at birth, + On the cool, flowery lap of earth, + Smiles broke from us, and we had ease; + The hills were round us, and the breeze + Went o'er the sunlit fields again. + Our foreheads felt the wind and rain, + Our youth returned; for there was shed + On spirits that had long been dead-- + Spirits dried up and closely furled-- + The freshness of the early world." + +Of Wordsworth and his successor, Tennyson, it is impossible to speak +save in terms of affectionate gratitude. God looked kindly on Britain +when he sent two such men to minister to us. Tennyson did more than all +the bishops of the Church of England to stifle crude infidelity and +equally crude religious bigotry. There is not a single line he ever +wrote of which in his last days he had need, from the point of view of +truth and morality, to be ashamed. He increased the world's stock of +happiness by poems which have been the solace of men and women in the +hours of darkness and doubt, which have led men to rise to nobler things +on the stepping-stones of their dead selves, and which, I am certain, +his grateful fellow-countrymen will not willingly let die. + +It is not the least of Tennyson's claims to our gratitude that his +genius was sensitive alike to the beauties of Celtic and of Anglo-Saxon +verse. It would be difficult to overpraise his masterly rendering of the +"Battle of Brunanburh," a vigorous old poem he found in the _Saxon +Chronicle_. Equally fine is his "Voyage of Maeldune," founded on a +Celtic legend of the seventh century. Those who wish to know what is +meant by Celtic glamour should read the last-named poem without delay. + + +CELT AND SAXON. + +Between the literatures of the Celt and the Saxon there are, indeed, +well-marked differences. The Anglo-Saxons were a set of enterprising +pirates, who drove their keels over the misty ocean, came to Britain and +took forcible possession of it, dispersing or enslaving the original +possessors. They left a literature which is, in many respects, highly +interesting, but is in the main devoid of sunshine, humour, and +sprightliness. The old poem of "Beowulf," with its rough and sturdy +verses, all splashed with brine, contains very few figures of speech: it +is a poem, but not markedly poetical; it is solid and impressive, but +not beautiful. Now, no one can read Celtic poetry, even in translation, +without being powerfully struck by its refined beauty and mystic +romance. The metaphors and similes are somewhat too abundant. The +typical Anglo-Saxon has a firm grip of the world, but is not poetical +enough; the Celt, on the other hand, is probably too much of a dreamer +and a poet--he sits on the hill-side (forgetting sometimes to till it) +and muses on fairies, second-sight, and enchantments. St. Paul used the +right word in speaking to the old world Gaels, _i.e._, Galatians: "O +foolish Galatians, who hath _bewitched_ you?" (τίς ὑμᾱς ἐβάσκανε;) + +Combine these two races in the right proportion, and you get an +admirable blend. It is not for me to say where the just man made perfect +is to be found, the man in whom the elements--practical and +poetical--are mixed in such exquisite proportion, that Nature might +stand up and say, "_There is a man_." What is certain, is that there is +a very pronounced strain of Celtic blood coursing through the veins of +the average Scotch Lowlander. Few Scots have to rummage far among their +ancestry before they find a piece of tartan: such mixture of genealogy +probably accounts for much that is best in their composition. + +The supposition that the Scotch race-combination is Celt and Saxon, and +only that, is of course erroneous. There is a very marked Scandinavian +element both in the east and the west of the country. In the year 1600 +A.D., the Norse tongue was spoken all over the Long Island from the Butt +of Lewis to Barra. Certainly, in Lewis and Skye, an enormous number of +the place-names are Scandinavian, and date from a time when the +sea-kings had dominion over the islands of the West. Many fascinating +problems of ethnology continue to occupy the attention of investigators, +and are not likely to be settled for a long time to come. One thing is +abundantly clear, viz., that purity of race and speech does not exist in +any county of Scotland: everywhere there is a mixture of blood and +language.[16] + + [16] Mr. Tocher, a Peterhead gentleman, has adopted a special + line of investigation. He has sent out schedules to every school + in Scotland asking for detailed information as to the colour of + the eyes and hair of the boys and girls. His desire is to + connect _pigmentation_ and race-origin. He believes it is still + possible to get definite information, by such means, of the + settlement and blending of Picts, Celts, Norsemen, and + Anglo-Saxons. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +ECCLESIASTICAL. + + Sectarian feeling--Typical anecdotes--Music and + religion--Ethical teaching in schools--The Moderates--A savoury + book--The Sabbath--"The Men of Skye"--The auldest kirk--The + Episcopal Church--An interlude of metre--The Christian + Brethren--Drimnin in Morven--Craignish--A model + minister--Ministerial trials in olden times--An artful + dodger--Some anecdotes from Gigha--Growing popularity of Ruskin. + + +SECTARIAN FEELING. + +In a small country township, all the influences that operate to divide +men into sects and parties are keenly and continuously felt. To a +dweller there, it is well-nigh impossible to keep out of the arena of +strife. Now that there is so much confusion and division in religious +matters, strong feeling is more easily stirred on any secular subject +that may happen to arise for discussion. If the Wee Frees, for example, +desire a new road in a certain direction, the United Frees will probably +deride the scheme and unanimously petition against it. Their antipathy +to each other becomes envenomed by their persistent proximity: if you +are a villager, you cannot get away from your adversary--in the morning, +when looking out of the window, you see him tilling his croft, mending +his nets, or washing his face in a tub at his front door. The fact that +he is there is an obstacle to your peace of mind. If you did not see +him so often, you would more readily come to believe that he possessed a +conscience and some shred of principle and decent doctrine. + +In a distant seaside town a library had been procured, and (though +doctrine was not at stake at all) a most virulent debate at once arose +as to where it should be housed. The United Frees voted for the school; +the Wee Frees called aloud for the post-office. It would require the pen +of Dean Swift (who did such justice to the strife between the +Big-Endians and Little-Endians) to recount in appropriate style the +intrigues and stratagems of the rival religionists. The local teacher +did not wish the books in school _because_ the proposal came from the +enemy. He was powerfully supported by all the young fellows of the +place, whose reverence for him, born of recent severe whackings, was +limitless. This teacher had an eloquent and vitriolic tongue, and +delivered himself thus: "What have I not done for the island? What have +these reprobates ever done? Who was it that got the frequent Macbrayne +connection with the mainland? _I did._ Who got up the concert to buy +seats for visitors coming north from Glasgow? And yet for every blessing +I give them, I get ten curses. _But I'll choke them yet._" It was +needless for the United Frees to demand a plebiscite--or, as they called +it, a _ple-biscuit_--the dominie was too forceful, persistent, and +phraseful for them, and at the public meeting he laughed down a teetotal +opponent by singing out: "Sit down on your seat, man; _it's the drink +that's speaking, no' you!_" + +No matter what the subject may be, there is usually a smack of +ecclesiasticism in the ordinary give-and-take of conversation. I cannot +illustrate this better than by giving the Lewis man's reply to an +enquiry as to _how his wooden leg was behaving_. The enquirer was a +newly-elected United Free elder, while he of the timber toes was a +staunch Disruptionist. "Well," said the latter, "my wooden leg is not +unlike a U. F. elder; it's not exactly perfection, but, considering +everything, we must just be putting up with what we can get." This was +said at a time when the Wee Frees were in a big majority in certain +parts of the Highlands, and when, as a consequence, United Free elders +had to be selected out of diminished congregations. + + +TYPICAL ANECDOTES. + +The venerable Lord Halsbury, so well known for his judgment in the great +Church case, resided, shortly after the decision, in the neighbourhood +of Forres. Men plucked each other by the sleeve as he passed along the +street, and pointed with awe to the keen-witted lawyer who had caused +such a kick-up in the realm. His most innocent doings were watched. One +day he went into a book-shop and made a purchase. When he came out, in +rushed a brace of theologians to enquire what he had bought. It turned +out that he had purchased a copy of _Comic Cuts_. The news was all round +Forres in an hour's time, and caused much consternation. "What great men +do, the less will prattle of," and it is so difficult for the former to +act up to their heroic rôle. + +How thoroughly our dear native land has enjoyed its theological battles! +Will there ever be a truce to the long wars of faith? One cannot see +much ground for a too sanguine hope. After a library had been given to a +little village in the West, I paid the usual visit to the place, and +requested a free expression of views as to the suitability of the books +that had been given. One venerable old native, with eyes of fire, called +out: "_This Paisley Library has one fatal lack: it contains no works on +controversial divinity._" I ventured to hint that perhaps the omission +was intentional, but that he absolutely refused to believe. + +Coming through the Sound of Mull one blustery November day, I heard a +most animated discussion on the question "Has the Deity unlimited Free +Will?" The disputants had all the appearance of sensible crofters--they +certainly talked more intelligibly than most commentators on Kant. Some +of the ship's crew joined in the talk in such a way as to show that they +understood perfectly well the question at issue. Every member of the +ring was wet (the rain was coming down in torrents during the whole +argument), but neither "Ayes" nor "Noes" would admit defeat. When the +boat touched the terminus of Tobermory, much still remained to be said, +and the amateur theologians retired to sum up in a local bar-room. The +incident is characteristic, and could have happened in no other country +but Scotland. Presbyterianism has made the Scot somewhat too +disputatious, but it is surely better to see a man interested in +religion than in nothing at all. + +Talking of the union of the Free and U.P. Churches, I am reminded of a +laughable tale told of a Hebridean minister. "Themselves and their +Union, I say, themselves and their Union," he remarked; "I will have +nothing to do with it. I was born Free, ordained Free; I have lived +Free, and I will die Free." "But what about the stipend, Angus?" said +his wife, douce and cautious woman. "Ah, the stipend! Well, if I lose my +stipend, you will have to put on a short petticoat, strap a creel on +your back, and sell _fush_." "And what will you do, Angus, when I'm away +selling _fush_?" "Oh, I will stay at home and pray for a blessing on +your efforts." + +The use of Scriptural expressions undoubtedly gives great force to the +language of every-day life. As is well known, certain classes in cookery +have recently been established in a few northern villages. A Highland +minister, in publicly commending these classes, remarked, with a rueful +grimace: "I _do_ wish such classes as these had been in existence when +my wife was young; for, as it is, every dinner she serves up to me is +either a _burnt offering or a bloody sacrifice_!" + +The following story comes from a minister in the neighbourhood of Loch +Awe. "A clergyman of my acquaintance was stationed in a poor parish near +my own, and he called on the local laird for financial aid to help on +some of the church schemes. This laird was a well-known philanthropist, +but the call was made at the wrong psychological moment, for he chanced +on this particular day to be in a very bad humour. He listened to the +minister with great impatience, and at last, bounding to his feet and +pointing to the door, he shouted: 'Silver and gold have I none, but such +as I have, give I unto thee: in the name of Beelzebub, rise and +_walk_!'" + +It was my unfortunate experience to witness a great amount of sectarian +strife in the north and west during my various visits. Sometimes my +prospective chairman was unable to preside, owing to his having taken +part in a doctrinal scuffle, and having his coat torn, and his church +captured. These fantastic doings are in no way edifying, and are +extremely shocking to our national pride. + +Theologically, many districts of the Highlands have not advanced beyond +the stage occupied by Lowland Scotland in the time of Burns. In certain +parishes, the communion is dispensed in the open air, in the way +familiar to readers of the "Holy Fair." Sky overhead, grassy turf +beneath, solemnity, sobs, and sighs all around, certainly make up a most +impressive whole. The sermon is unmercifully long--two hours, at least: +probably, if translated into English, and shorn of repetitions, it could +be given in one-fourth of the time. If you or I, dear Lowlander, should +stand on the outside of the crowd, and appear more curious than devout, +we should certainly be alluded to in the sermon as _those wicked +people_. The discourses are no gilt-edged harangues dealing with the +"larger hope," and larded with quotations from Tennyson and Browning. +They are, on the contrary, full of Tartarean sulphur and strange fire, +and rich in grotesque illustrations, of which this is a sample: "My +friends, crowds of loathsome fiends are sent by the Prince of the Power +of the Air to tempt us to our destruction. They hang over us waiting for +their opportunity, just like a regiment of black crows hovering over a +potato-field." + +I am afraid that crude Calvinism, as preached in certain parts of the +north, is nothing less than monstrous. The good God, beneficent Father +of us all, is unrecognizable when eternal reprobation is represented as +the inevitable fate of the vast majority of His children. In time, no +doubt (and the sooner the better), the results of modern theological +thought will penetrate into the uttermost nooks of the land. + + +MUSIC AND RELIGION. + +It is not easy to see why religion should be associated with gloom and +disheartening ugliness. The long-drawn music of an Old Testament psalm +is not without a certain doleful impressiveness, but the human soul +needs occasional stimulus, even on Sundays, of something less +lugubrious. Certain congregations hate hymns: they consider them carnal +and uninspired. As for organ-music in a church, that would be _praising +God by machinery_, a preposterous and intolerable approximation to +Popery. Not long ago, a poor crofter in a Hebridean township, came to +his minister, requesting that good man's offices for the christening of +a child. The crofter in question was the possessor of an asthmatic old +concertina, and the clergyman, before the rite of admission to the +visible church could be performed, insisted on the annihilation of the +ungodly instrument of music. The minister, in person, visited the croft, +and disabled the concertina with a hammer. The child was then +christened, and the clerical zany strode off victorious, feeling he had +done a good day's work for Heaven. "Who ever heard of the Apostle Paul +playing on an organ?" was the question once propounded by Dr. Begg. The +argument was a splendid _reductio ad absurdum_, and resembles the old +reason for the reluctance of the peasantry to eat potatoes, because no +mention was made of them in Holy Writ. But songs and music are filtering +into the glens, in an official way, by the agency of the Scotch +Education Department. Musical drill is a feature of the school-room, and +it is a joy to think that such is the case. Some of the old folk, +however, look on astounded and shocked; they shake their heads, and +would, if they could, abolish such frivolity. "Why all this singing and +tramping?" said a Skyeman to me once. "What good will all the songs of +the world do to a man when he comes to his death-bed? I would rather, +this very moment, sit down in a public-house, and drink till I was +intoxicated, than screech and howl these worldly airs." Life was not so +absurd in the days of the Catholic ascendency. But human nature is +slowly asserting itself, and the days of the glum tyrannical zealot are +assuredly numbered. + + +ETHICAL TEACHING IN SCHOOLS. + +In some districts of the North, the inspectors have considerable trouble +with certain teachers of the devout type who, from conscientious +scruples, refuse to read to the children anything in the nature of a +fairy tale. While examining a class in a remote Sutherland school, an +inspector requested the schoolmaster to narrate to the children, in +Gaelic, the story of Little Red Riding Hood, and get them thereafter to +put it into English. But the teacher most emphatically refused: "No, no, +I cannot do that: it is all a lie; wolves do not speak; _no animal +speaks_." The inspector, to refute him, unwisely alluded to the +Scripture account of Balaam's ass in the twenty-second chapter of +Numbers; whereupon, the dominie nearly swooned at the impiety of +comparing that inspired animal with a secular beast like Grimm's wolf. +For some time after, the inspector was bombarded with anonymous letters, +accusing him of habitually _sitting in the scorner's chair_. He was +terrified lest some Member of Parliament, eager for a grievance, should +be got to move the adjournment of the House of Commons, with the +righteous object of directing the attention of Government to Little Red +Riding Hood and the naughty inspector of schools.[17] + +The question of religious teaching in schools is capable of an easy +solution, and we in the south have come pretty near solving it. The best +solution is to have no dogma at all in the school-room. The Catechism +and Prayer-book are excellent in their way, but the school is no place +for them. We have a very complete and extensive organisation of churches +in the land, and an army of officials ordained to teach doctrines and +tenets: let them take up the inculcation of creeds and rites, but don't +let us perplex the school children with catechisms and metaphysical +definitions. It is easy to make a distinction between morality and +doctrine--a distinction which is alike clear and reasonable. Morality is +an earthly and secular affair, and has to do with matters of elementary +honesty such as every responsible citizen of a free country ought to +practice. Religion is a higher affair, dealing with our relationship to +the unseen: it is outside the province of the teacher, and should not be +thrust into the school programme along with history and geography and +grammar. Morality is of this world: religion of the next. Let everything +be kept in its proper place. As to that division of duty which deals +with right conduct, there is no controversy whatever. _Thou shalt not +steal_; _thou shalt not bear false witness_--these, and the like +elementary rules of conduct, are universally admitted to be right, for +they are the groundwork of society. Take these away, and the world +lapses into chaos. The following virtues are capable of being taught in +schools:--(1) a strict adherence to the truth; (2) the application of +the golden rule; (3) cheerful obedience at the call of duty; (4) +reverence and respect for everything noble and great in the history of +the world. These can all be taught, and are actually taught, by every +conscientious teacher in the country. They constitute not the whole of +duty, indeed, but the most difficult part of it--certainly all that need +come into the realm of pedagogy. + + [17] How differently the items in the Sacred Canon are regarded + in scholastic circles in the South! A Glasgow teacher, discussing + the Origin of Evil with a Government official, expressed great + resentment at the loss of paradise through Adam's sin, and added: + "It comes specially hard on me, seeing that I don't care a + _docken_ for apples." + + +THE MODERATES. + +_Ami lecteur_, have you ever heard of the _Moderates_? If, by chance, +you have dipped into the interminable controversies that gyrated round +the Disruption year, it is probable you may have heard more than enough +of them. One gets the impression that they were an unimpassioned, +easy-going, anti-brimstone, but highly estimable body of men. They were +blamed for preaching morality and not the penetrating mysteries of the +faith. In "The Holy Fair," Burns gives us an inimitable picture of the +moral philosopher in the pulpit:-- + + "But hark! the tent has changed its voice, + There's peace an' rest nae langer, + For a' the real judges rise-- + They canna sit for anger. + Smith opens out his cauld harangues + On practice and on morals, + An' aff the godly pour in thrangs + To gie the jars an' barrels + A lift that day. + + "What signifies his barren shine + Of moral powers an' reason? + His English style and gesture fine + Are a' clean out o' season. + Like Socrates or Antonine, + Or some auld pagan heathen, + The moral man he does define, + But ne'er a word o' faith in + That's richt that day." + +I confess to a certain liking for Smith. He knew what was good for the +Holy Willies and the other "chosen samples" and "swatches o' grace" in +his auditory. Like a sensible man, and like the Apostle James, he laid +more stress on "practice and on morals" than on lip-worship and faith. +"Faith without works is dead" is a dictum that needs to be incessantly +emphasised, and nowhere more than in certain ultra-orthodox localities +of Scotland at the present day. + +The Established Church is, with few exceptions, a negligible +denomination in the Hebrides. For some reason it is regarded as the +modern representative of the Moderate or Broad type of Calvinistic +Christianity, and, as such, an abomination to the zealots. To show what +a poor hold the Establishment has in Lewis, it is enough to remark that +there are in that island only 183 Auld Kirk communicants out of a +population of 32,947. Figures almost equally striking could be given for +the Presbyteries of Uist, Skye, and Glenelg. The chief occupation of +some parish ministers in insular Scotland must be that of killing time. +I once met one of these reverend gentlemen in one of the hotels in +Stornoway. He seemed to take a pleasure in running contrary to all the +darling prejudices of the islanders. Dancing he approved of; he did not +believe in prefacing his prayer or homily with a sanctimonious whine; +and he actually was willing to admit that a few Catholics might get to +heaven. An equally glaring fault--in the eyes of bigotry, I mean--was +that he _dropped into poetry_ at stated times, and sent his Gaelic +verses to one of the Highland newspapers. The Parish Church buildings, +in many localities of the West Highlands, are in a woeful state of +disrepair. They have a prevailing odour of must and damp; the seats are +hard deal, unkind to the human anatomy; doors and windows rattle and +shake during the service; creeping things move along the walls; +sometimes the floors are nothing but the uneven and unconcealed Scottish +earth. In such churches, there is some credit in being devout. + + +A SAVOURY BOOK. + +An outstanding member of the clan Macdonald, for some time minister at +Applecross, deserves a cordial vote of thanks for a savoury book he has +written on the social and religious condition of the Highlands. He is +not a bit scared by the Darwinian theory of evolution. "We have a good +deal in common," he says, "with the brute creation, and have no cause to +feel ourselves degraded on that account. The lower animals, not +excluding the much-despised monkey, are specimens of divine workmanship +which _reflect the highest honour on the skill and power of the Maker_." +Could any admission be more handsome or candid than that? + +I have learned a great deal from Mr. Macdonald's cheery and broad-minded +volume. He is strong in history, and has had, it would seem, access to +information that is closed to the general eye. There is a glorious +simplicity in his views on Caledonian ethnology. A roguish prince, +Gathelus, son of the king of Greece, migrated to Egypt, and married +Scota, daughter of that Pharaoh who persecuted the Israelites. The +various plagues "that o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung," terrified +Gathelus, and he flitted in hot haste to Spain, and called his followers +Scots, to please his wife. Later in life, he sent his son Hiber to +Ireland, where the lad settled, and named the island after his noble +self, Hibernia. Scots continued to pour into Ireland, _viâ_ the Bay of +Biscay, and finally, under Simon Brek, subdued the entire extent of the +Green Island. In 360 A.D., they came over to Argyllshire, and aided the +indigenous Picts (who were also Celts) against the legions of Rome. This +is so compact and clear an account, that I wish it were true. The way in +which sacred and profane history are blended strikes me as singularly +able. + +Mr. Macdonald has an intimate knowledge of Celtic superstitions, and +always castigates the right thing. Certain diseases of the brain were, +till quite recently, believed to be curable if the afflicted man could +procure a suicide's skull and take a drink out of it. Mr. Macdonald +rightly dwells upon the absurdity of such a specific, but confesses that +one might as well try to "bale out the Atlantic" as eradicate the +foolish pagan notions that still linger in the glens. + +Ministers have a great deal of captious criticism to stand, if we may +judge by Mr. Macdonald's anecdotes. They are blamed for terminating +their discourses _with a silver tail_ (_i.e._, intimating a special +collection). The sermon itself is not immune from cruel jests, as the +following report of a parishioner's criticism will show: "A minister is +like a joiner. The joiner takes a piece of wood and shapes it roughly +with the axe. Then he applies his rough plane, and smooths it down a +bit. After that, he takes his fine plane; and, lastly, he rubs it with +sandpaper, and finishes it with polish till he makes it appear like +glass. And so with the minister: he works his sermon, from sheet to +sheet, with pen and ink, till he makes it at last so smooth _that a +flea could not stand on it_."[18] + + [18] Ministers, being public men, are, of course, as Mr. + Macdonald means to point out, exposed to the criticism, + frequently so absurd, that eminence entails. I recently examined + the bye-laws of a literary association in Ross-shire, of which + the president is a sheep-farmer, and the secretary, a postman. It + is a rule of this association that no minister is ever to be + president, the reason assigned being that ministers would try to + elevate the natives _too hurriedly_. The people do not object to + be elevated, but they wish the process to be performed without + unnecessary haste. + + +THE SABBATH. + +I was not a little surprised during my attendance at Highland churches +to hear the ministers devoting much strong rhetoric to the sin of +Sabbath-breaking. Taking the air on the first day of the week for quiet +meditation and the good of one's health, has always seemed to me a +laudable practice, but in many Highland parishes, a Sunday stroll +implies ungodliness, even although the stroller may have attended one or +more diets of worship earlier in the day. Such a state of matters is +preposterously absurd, and, to my thinking, quite irreligious--it at +least tends to make hypocrites. Some years ago, I spent a week in a +typical insular village, lodging in the local inn. It was noticeable +that on Sundays, the front blinds of the house were never drawn up. When +the church-bells tolled the hour for public worship, the solemn devotees +could be seen (through holes in the blind) pacing along, looking fixedly +at the toes of their boots. The landlord of the house thought it no sin +to observe the passers-by, so long as he could do so in a clandestine +way. He had no desire to mend the blind. + +The restfulness and peace of a British Sunday is a blessed thing, as +every Briton who has been long resident abroad, will readily admit. +There is, however, a reasonable medium to be found between the unnatural +Calvinistic Sabbath (with its limited view of the world through a torn +blind) and the Continental Sunday, gay with skipping and junketing. +Within recent years, to some extent owing to the bicycle and motor-car, +the Sabbath has become rather too animated and bustling. The change is +perhaps not entirely regrettable. The terrible Sunday dulness of some of +our large towns has been, of late years, rendered less oppressive by the +opening of museums and art galleries. I heard a man of fifty confess +that in his boyhood he prayed fervently once, and only once, a week: the +prayer in question was said on Sunday evening, and consisted of a +heartfelt ejaculation of thanks to Heaven that the holy day was over for +another week. + +Church-going is a splendid and salutary practice, and every man who does +not base his life on some religious sanction, is leading a mutilated +life. There is such a thing, however, as ecclesiastical dyspepsia, a +disease engendered by forced attendance at too many religious services +when one is young. The disease is unfortunately apt to develop in mature +years, into complete indifference to doctrine of all kinds. + +After all, doctrine is largely useful as a mental exercise, and may +easily become divorced from practical honesty. Not once but fifty times +have I been told that the village experts in theology were precisely the +men who needed most watching in mundane matters. "So-and-so is a +specialist on the millennium: _beware of him_." "Old Duncan is the +strictest Sabbatarian in the island, but on Monday he's worth keeping an +eye on." "Many a man that keeps the fourth commandment is not so +particular about the others." Such are the phrases one is perpetually +hearing, and they go far to prove how inoperative are ritual, +profession, and form, in the life of some Christians. + +To keep the ten commandments, or rather, I should say, the eleven, is no +easy matter for either Celt or Saxon. It is far easier to be +ostentatiously religious than scrupulously moral, to say prayers than to +pay debts, to split hairs of doctrine than to love your enemies. I never +read a more markedly scriptural book than _The Men of Skye_, nor one +that displays such intolerance to the school of Laodiceans. I am not +insensible to the intense enthusiasm of the author for the memory of the +illiterate catechists who went round the island preaching to the people +in a homely and graphic way. The unlovely feature of the book is the +antagonism displayed towards those who wish to bring about a union of +the Presbyterian bodies. "Not all the cement outside of heaven," one man +says, "could bring about a union of the Free and U.P. Churches." The +Declaratory Act, secular teaching in schools, instrumental music, and +such like, all come in for severe treatment or ironical reference. + + +_THE MEN OF SKYE._ + +The book to which I have referred (_The Men of Skye_) gives a wonderful +insight into the religious psychology of the Celtic zealot. It was in +Portree that I first got a look at the little work, which consists of a +series of biographies of outstanding lay preachers. I enjoyed the +perusal of it immensely, and I am afraid the pious author will regard me +as little better than one of the wicked when I say that I had many a +hearty laugh at its contents. I am very unwilling to seek gaiety in +pious books, very averse to laugh at honest, heart-felt beliefs, but the +author of _The Men of Skye_ was too many for me. His quaint metaphors, +droll tenses and unlicensed syntax, were a perpetual feast of nectared +sweets. + +The language in which the book is written is not Gaelic, though it has +not quite reached the stage of English. The following extract is a +typical one: "John Mackenzie lived at Galtrigil, was a God-fearing man, +and professed religion, and his conduct was worthy of his profession, +consistent in all its parts. He was employed as fishcurer to Dr. Martin. +When he would be busy in the store, on the shore, his wife would go down +with his food. He had a large heap of salt beside him, but he was so +scrupulously conscientious that when she took down an egg, she would +need also to bring from his own house the grain of salt he would put in +it. He would not take so much as a grain of salt that was not his own. +He was careful about what belonged to the cause of Christ, and would +like to know that those who took up a profession of religion had +undergone what he termed a _clean conversion_." + +Some of the stories told of Angus Macleod, are altogether unique: "He +was one day entrusted with the herding of the minister's cattle, but +while he prayed, the cattle made their way into the corn. The minister +came out and began to advise and rebuke him, but Angus said, 'Let the +righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness; and let him reprove me, it +shall be an excellent oil which shall not break my head.'" (Psalm cxli. +5.) I consider that story and the two which follow quite equal, in their +diverting pointlessness, to any of those told by Cicero in _De Oratore_, +Book ii. At one time it was thought advisable to teach Angus how to +read, but he never could be got to master the alphabet. He would utter +aloud the following reflections: "_A_ _b_, _ab_: Ah! that is but dry. +There is no food there for my soul. There is no word about Christ or God +there, no word about forgiveness of sin. I would rather be at the back +of a dyke where I would get a moment of the presence of the Lord." As +Angus usually replied to his associates by a text of Scripture, he must +have had a good ear for Holy Writ. "His father was one day repairing a +dyke. Angus tried to assist him and broke the spade. His father's temper +was roused, and he ran after his son to punish him. Angus ran away +calling out, 'Oh, Lord, avenge me of mine adversary.'" On one occasion, +when asked why he had refused to pray in public, he replied that it was +out of his power to do so at the time. "Why," said his interlocutor, +"Jonah was able to pray even in the whale's belly." "Yes, yes," said +Angus, "but I was in a worse state than Jonah: for the whale was in my +belly." + +It may not be unnecessary to state that the word Men in the title of the +book is to be understood as meaning "men of exceptional piety." The word +is a technical one in that sense. All the _men_ I have read about were +fervid Frees, many of them being elders and catechists in that body. +After the Disruption, there was a wonderful crop of these men produced +in the Highlands, and through their means, _religion became a very real +and forcible affair_. Their attitude to life and general outlook on the +world are quite unlike anything to be found among the luke-warm +believers of the Laodicean South. We read of one zealot devoting a whole +winter to the task of combating shinty and tobacco. It is impossible to +withhold some measure of admiration from Christians so staunch, logical, +and uncompromising. _Logical?_ Well, here at least is a gem of +ratiocination. What, for example, was the cause that forced so many +Skyemen to emigrate to the Canadian plains and the Australian bush? The +fathers of Skye believed that the crofters, having insufficiently +appreciated the unique opportunities of divine worship at home, were +driven by a wrathful deity over the water to a land where there were +_few or no Presbyterian Churches_. + + +THE AULDEST KIRK. + +There are some parts of Scotland that the Reformation seems never to +have reached. I have been told that up till this day no Protestant +minister ever preached in Morar (the delightful spot, with lake of same +name, near Mallaig), and that in consequence Catholics call it "Blessed +Morar" (_Morar Bheanaichte_). There is a Catholic strip of country, +extending right through the heart of Scotland, along the Caledonian +Canal; aristocrats, chiefs, and crofters there boast that their +ecclesiastical history goes back, uncontaminated by schisms and private +judgment, right to the time of Ninian and Columba. + +It appears evident that the iconoclastic Parliament of 1560, which made +it unlawful to obey the Pope or say mass, pretty effectually paralysed +the Catholic Church in the land. Only in secluded districts, such as +Uist, Barra, Morar, Arisaig, and Glengarry, were the faithful safe from +prosecution. The organisation of the Church was maimed and broken, and +hundreds of priests took to flight. To use the cruel words of Milton-- + + "Then might ye see + Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, tossed + And fluttered into rags; then relics, beads, + Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls-- + The sport of winds." + +Having visited a fair number of Catholic districts in the West of +Scotland, I have given myself the pleasure of reading, as far as is +available, the historical records of the Pope's faithful adherents +there. _These are most interesting as showing the pertinacity of +religious faith among the most hostile surroundings._ The Scots College +at Rome, founded by Clement VIII., supplied a large number of priests, +who spread themselves abroad in the glens, and kept the old faith from +completely perishing. The Roman Catholic College at Scanlan, on the +Braes of Glenlivet, was a turf-built erection, dating from 1712. It was +often compulsorily closed and the students dispersed. The most important +school for priests in the West was at Buorblach, near Morar. Here the +aspirants for priesthood studied for a year or two, after which they +proceeded to some one of the Scots colleges abroad--such as Paris, +Ratisbon, Valladolid, or Rome. Those students who received the whole of +their instruction at home, and got ordained without going abroad, were +styled _heather priests_. + +The best-known Catholic township of the West Highlands at the present +time is undoubtedly Arisaig, a charming spot, where the mild air allows +the wild flowers to spring in profusion and where the fuchsia thrives +better than anywhere else in Scotland. There is a strikingly elegant +Catholic Church here, built on a commanding site that dominates the bay. +In September, 1904, I addressed a meeting in the Astley Hall of Arisaig, +under the genial chairmanship of the Clerk of the House of Commons. The +audience was overwhelmingly Catholic, and it was quite evident that all +were keenly appreciative of the library that had recently been sent to +the district. It gave me no ordinary pleasure to note that the literary +society of the place was made up of both Catholics and Protestants, and +that all the inhabitants, forgetting their religious differences, could +assemble together as friends on the common meeting-ground of literature. +Such an amalgamation is bound to mitigate the sectarian rancour that +too often works like a pestilence in small villages and rural +communities. It is an excellent feature, too, in such places as Arisaig, +that the local priest gives every encouragement to his people to read +and study secular books of an elevating character. It would be strange +indeed if the representative of a Church which in mediæval times gave +such splendid encouragement to art and letters, should deem it a duty to +prohibit his people from availing themselves of the means of culture. + +It undoubtedly comes as a surprise to a Lowlander, who is prone to think +that every born Scot is necessarily a born Protestant, to find in remote +nooks of his native country, home-grown specimens of the faith that was +once prevalent everywhere. He has to sit down and muse on the hillside +over the matter, and, if he is imaginative, he will see by fancy's eye +the skiff of St. Columba breasting the breakers on its way from Ireland +to Iona. + + +THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH. + +Of all the Churches or sects in Scotland, probably the most remarkable +is the Episcopalian. Many Englishmen settle in the Lowlands for purposes +of trade, and, in most cases, bring their religion with them. Such +immigration explains the numerous Episcopal chapels in the towns of +southern Scotland. But no such cause can explain the presence of scores +of small Episcopal congregations in the rural districts of Aberdeen and +Banff. These have not been imported from over the Border, but in reality +have a long history behind them. Many of them date from the sixteenth +and seventeenth centuries. The Stuart kings never liked Presbyterianism, +and James I. tried to make the Scotch Church as like the English one as +possible: in 1610, indeed, he managed to bring about the consecration of +a certain number of Scotch bishops. The Episcopalians in the North +showed a warm affection for the Stuarts during the distresses of that +royal house, and such Jacobitism did the scattered congregations a deal +of harm. The number of Episcopal chapels throughout the land is fairly +high, but the total of the communicants is relatively small. The clergy +are a most estimable and cultured body of men, and perform their duties, +which are often very laborious, in an eminently exemplary fashion. Their +stipends are ridiculously poor, and the scene of their labours is +frequently the reverse of lively. Very often, in the bleak moors and +glens of north-east Scotland, I have spent pleasant and memorable +evenings in the village rectory. The modes of speech and general +atmosphere of a Scotch rectory differ piquantly from those of the manse. +It is certain that a clergyman who is in constant touch with the +Anglican ritual, develops a special turn of talk and a characteristic +set of mannerisms. + +I am convinced that, in learning and culture, the Episcopal clergy +compare very favourably with those of the other Churches. Some of them +have written, both in the departments of theology and general +literature, works of outstanding and permanent value. In spite of all +that, however, it does not seem probable that they will make many +converts to their creed. Presbyterianism has a firm grip on the +country: symbol and ritual do not thrive well in the cold air of the +North. Once upon a time, in the Black Isle, as the records of the +Arpafeelie Episcopal Church show, there was a strong feeling of +antagonism to Presbyterianism; but that was in 1711, and was probably +more political than religious. + +It is a well-known fact that a large proportion of the aristocracy and +landed-gentry of Scotland are Episcopalians. This is due, not so much to +the leisure they have for studying theological problems, as to the fact +that most of them have been educated in English public schools. + +How pleasant it is to contemplate the broad-mindedness of the greatest +of our Scotch Episcopalians, Sir Walter Scott, as seen in the +thirty-seventh chapter of _Guy Mannering_! Speaking of religious +differences, he makes Pleydell say: "_A plain man may go to heaven +without thinking about them at all_." Even at the present day, there is +a most regrettable lack of such urbanity in the disputes of educated +theologians. I picked up a book not long since, which amused as well as +shocked me greatly. It purported to be a history of _the_ Church in +Scotland. The author was a facetious Episcopalian, for his history made +no mention of either the Free, the Established, or the United +Presbyterian denominations. The Episcopal sect alone had the honour of +being dubbed a Church. Now, if a writer ever took it on him to write a +history of the Church in England, he ought to devote space to _all_ the +bodies, and be careful not to omit mention even of the Plymouth +Brethren. I rather think that the Plymouth Brethren should have the +lengthiest treatment of all, seeing that no shred of the Church +resembles so closely the original type of Christianity. + + +AN INTERLUDE OF METRE. + +I have often endeavoured to fix discourses from the Highland pulpits by +embodying in metre (I do not say poetry) the leading thought or most +striking illustration that I carried away. For the sake of variety and +to prevent this chapter from appearing too frivolous, I, at this point, +give one or two "moderate" sermons in little. + + +I. + + When heavy-laden Christian, panting sore, + Had gained the home of the Interpreter, + He saw a sorry fellow with great stir + Ply a vile muck-rake on a filthy floor; + And the more mire the churl raked, the more + He smiled, although a winged messenger + Floating aloft was eager to confer + On him the crown that in her hands she bore. + So is it with those fools that waste their days + In raking stores of dross and minted gear, + Oblivious of the crown of deathless rays + That God is offering freely to them here. + Miser! your stay on earth is short indeed, + Renounce the dross and choose the heavenly meed. + + +II. + + He that is wise will not in haste decide, + But look and think before believing aught; + Then, having long reflected, will confide + To no breast but his own his finished thought, + Until experience warrants every jot. + Man! Suffer not thy soul to yield to pride + Of intellect. Small is thy mortal lot + Of wisdom. Others seek the truth beside + Thyself. Behold aloft in air there fly + Fowls diverse all in nature, strength of wing + And keenness: even so the men who hie + On the soul's quests. In genius differing, + They all some twinkling sparks of truth may see, + But the whole flaming round is hid from them and thee. + + +III. + + Thou who in folly thinkest Heaven's King + Has sent thee into this fair world to gain + As many guineas as, with toil and pain, + In threescore years thine avarice can wring + From poorer men, be warned! With tiger-spring + Fell death will leap upon your life amain + And rive you from your opulence, though fain + To tarry. Then the jovial heir will fling + To the four winds of heaven thy gathered hoard + In flaunting joys and unrestricted glee, + While costly dishes glitter on the board + And the wine flows in ruddy runnels free. + Thou, meanwhile, in the shady realms below + A bloodless ghost, wilt wander to and fro. + + +IV. + +I. + + Though lilies on their graceful stalk + Droop, fade, and die, + Earth's still renewing forces mock + Death's cruelty. + +II. + + For roots and seeds within the mould + Will thrust again + Their sheathed beauties manifold + Up to the plain. + +III. + + Though flowery hopes of dazzling gleam + Wither and die, + New hopes in the soul's garden teem + Unceasingly. + +V. + + O Lord of light, disperse my baffling fears, + Give me a look but for a moment's space + Upon the tranquil glory of Thy face, + To serve as force to fight the chilling years. + Clouds hide Thee from me, and the bitter tears + Run down my cheek in floods. Out of Thy grace + Let my heart's chamber be a dwelling-place + For Thee. Come for a little space. Mine ears + Strain for the hearing of a word divine + Straight from Thy holy lips. No single task + Can I at all accomplish or design + Without the full assurance that I ask + This, namely, that my soul is one with Thee, + And Thou dost work Thy purposes by me. + + +THE CHRISTIAN BRETHREN. + +It would be well-spent labour if some sympathetic historian could find +time to write a short account of the Plymouth Brethren, giving details +of the origin, tenets, divisions, and influence of the sect. I am +surprised that Mr. Barrie in his notable excursions into Scotch life and +religion, has never portrayed such a fine specimen of the working-man +turned theologian. + +It must not be supposed that only the rich and the leisurely have what +is called religious experiences and shadowed souls. The finest +developments, doubtless, of the religious sense require time and money. +That leisurely groping after tendencies, that introspective analysis of +the sins of omission and commission, that delightful perception of the +falling away from righteousness of your brethren and sisters--all these +choice sweets are, if they are to be adequately enjoyed, compatible only +with a minimum of £300 a year. The religious sense and the musical are +in many points alike. If you wish to develop an initially melodious +soul, it means expense: you must go to professors, study counterpoint, +practice many hours daily, and attend concerts of the most exclusive and +expensive kind. Similarly with religion in its finest flower. You need +slaves to cook and wash for you if you mean to ecstaticise and see +beatific visions: you must get the most fashionable and picturesque +specialists to come and feel your religious pulse, and you must on no +account neglect the subscription lists. But only those rich enough to be +hypochondriac can afford such luxuries. Now, in the toiling classes +there are often good ears for music, and exquisite responsiveness to +religious sensations. What satisfies such natures and such wants must be +cheap. The Plymouth Brethren (I ought rather to say _Christian_ +Brethren), have no General Assembly, little or no pedantry of a costly +kind, and yet, I believe, they supply all the exhilaration of schisms, +splits, counter-splits, and heresy-hunts. Every man his own General +Assembly! There may be a lack of the finer touches in such a system, but +what is lacking in elegance is fully made up in clearness of view and +rombustious vigour. + +In many of the fishing villages on the east coast of Scotland, there are +large congregations of these worthy men raising their Ebenezers, and +making a joyful noise on the first day of the week. I have a good deal +of sympathy with their democratic and direct style of worship. In +Scotland, when a man gets converted, he feels constrained to _do +something_, but very often there is little outlet for his energy in the +calm routine of the fashionable churches--hence the necessity for +bethels and mission-houses. At their revivals, let me add, one is in +presence of that mysterious awakening to which every religion owes its +birth. + +In the autumn of 1906, I had an interesting talk with the minister of a +seaside village on the shore of the Moray Firth, and was distressed to +find that he was sorely harassed by the lively sect I have mentioned. +Every now and again a wandering evangelist comes along the coast, +pitches a tent, and begins a series of gospel services. Those who are +converted, neglect the church and all its ordinances, and begin +preaching on their own account; nay, they even buttonhole the minister +and preach to _him_, accusing him of being an unjust steward, a +hireling, and no shepherd, and so on. Such conduct creates a very +painful situation. With a good deal of detail, the long-suffering +clergyman gave me an account of a visit he had paid to an old woman +recently converted. The narrative of her conversion as told by herself +was quaint and touching: "They were a' gettin' it," she said, "and I +wasna gettin' it. So I jist went to the door and steekit my e'en, and +raised them to the lift, and _I got it_. Isn't that the way o't, auld +man?" "Aye, aye, that's the way o't, auld wife," chimed in the husband. +The latter then took up the wondrous tale: "When she came in and tell't +me she had got it, I went doon on my knees to thank the Lord jist at the +fireside, and lo and behold, when I opened my e'en, I was at the street +door. The Spirit had taken me there, unbeknown to me. So I lifted up my +voice and called on God's people. And in five minutes the room and +kitchen were filled wi' saved folk, a' singing hymns, because my auld +wife had got it at last." + +I also remember meeting an old thatcher of eminent talents who seemed to +me to be on the straight road for Zion, for he fulfilled the Scriptural +injunction to be fervent in spirit as well as not slothful in business. +James had at one time been precentor in one of the regular churches, but +owing to some cantankerous criticism of his melody, he seceded to the +Brethren, who fearlessly accepted his services gratis. James was +specially lyrical on the roof, and it was a treat to hear him sing +"_There is rest for the weary_," as he pushed the thatch into its long +home:-- + + "There is rest for the weary, + There is rest for the weary, + There is rest for _you_" (with a forceful thrust). + +I must not omit to mention (and with reverence be it spoken) that James +had a reputation far and wide in the country-side, for the vigour and +extreme unction of his grace before meat. Though giving a humble tenor +to the initial phrases and using the tar-brush on himself, and the +hungry company as putrid sinners unworthy even of the least of the +mercies, he always contrived to reassure everyone by sunnily rounding +off the matter with some rich and racy allusions to the gracious and +ample promises of Holy Writ. One could have felt quite comfortable even +in a slight excess of gluttony after such introductory words of +blessing. You felt that the occasion had been met, that something like +perfection had been attained. James was willing to admit shortcomings in +thatching, or in any department of human activity, so long as his +superiority in pre-prandial supplication was admitted. But it so +happened that Fate, whose delight it is to imperil even the stablest +reputations, sent his way a South-country Brother with a gift in prayer +truly appalling. At a gathering at which James was present, this +stranger was honoured by being asked to say grace. In the process, he +soared to such heights of oratory and supplicatory fervour, that the +uniform opinion of the guests, as evinced by looks, demeanour, and even +congratulation, was that James had at last been beaten on his own +ground. Supreme dejection settled on the thatcher, and neither bite nor +sup could dislodge the settled melancholy of his soul. After long +pondering with chin on chest in a corner of that pious throng, he had an +idea. Sidling up to the matron of the house, he, with a terrible whisper +of earnestness, addressed her in these words: "Mistress, before we gang +hame, doon wi' a whang o' cheese and a farl o' cake--it'll no' cost ye +much--and _I'll ha'e a tussle wi' him for't yet_." She gladly complied +with his request. His excitement gave him inspiration, and over that +cheese and oatcake, he delivered himself of such a grace as had never +before proceeded from his lips. A murmur of involuntary admiration +greeted the conclusion. James was comforted, and once more held his head +erect. + +To talk of the Evolution of Religion to men like James would be a +complete waste of time. Such men regard themselves as the acme of the +process: whatever modifications may supervene after their day will be +deteriorations. It is quite impossible to persuade an enthusiast that he +is a mere phenomenon of development, and not, actually and now, the roof +and crown of things. Even if persuasion were possible, it would be a +cruelty to disillusionise these happy wights,--men who, with such +sublime confidence, can read their title clear to mansions in the sky. +They have a complete key to the universe, and are as happy as if they +had seen the whole vast circle of truth. + + +DRIMNIN IN MORVEN. + +How many of my readers know where Drimnin is? If I should say, "In the +parish of Morven," it is possible the majority of them would not be +greatly edified, unless they had acquaintance with the saintly Macleod's +_Reminiscences of a Highland Parish_. Well, Drimnin is on the mainland, +nearly opposite the entrance to the haven of Tobermory. The _Chevalier_ +nears into the coast when anyone wishes to land, and two boatmen, +obeying a signal, pull out from shore into the open, and the passenger +leaps, as gracefully as circumstances permit, into their arms--amid the +cheers of those left on the steamer. + +The clergyman of Morven ministers to a parish that has over a hundred +miles of seaboard, and, strange to say, there have been only three +incumbents in it during the last hundred and thirty years, himself being +the third, with twenty-six years' ministry to his credit so far. These +facts procured him an extraordinary reception in America, where he spent +a holiday recently. The Americans, with whom change is the permanent +element, looked with amazement on a minister who came from a parish with +such a record. They thronged round his hotel to get shaking hands with +him, while he blushed to think that homage was being paid to the +longevity of his predecessors. It is no treat to be a lion in Maine. + +The visitor to Drimnin should return to Oban by driving to Lochaline, +where there is a pier. A mere glance up that inlet of Lochaline is +sufficient to prove the unerring accuracy of Sir Walter's description: +"Fair Lochaline's woodland shore." Scott had a marvellous eye for +scenery, and having once seen a locality, could describe it better than +a native could do who had lived in the neighbourhood from youth +upwards.[19] + + [19] I may here refer to a pleasant three hours spent in rowing + on Lochaline in the company of Mr. Hugh Macintyre, an old + gentleman full of Scott and well versed in the lore of the + locality. He was a policeman in Glasgow for thirty-five years + (latterly as guardian of the Kelvingrove Picture Gallery), and + now, in the enjoyment of good health and a pension, spends his + time reading and doing good in his native district. Mr. + Macintyre's earliest recollection is of his father being evicted + from a small holding, at the head of the loch, in the "forties." + + Tennyson and Palgrave were visitors at Ardtornish, as Mr. Lang + tells us, but made no special impression on the natives, who + styled them respectively _Tinman_ and _Pancake_. + + +CRAIGNISH. + +At Craignish (two miles _or so_ from Ardfern, next pier to Luing on the +way from Crinan to Oban) I was astonished to find what I think is unique +in Scotland, an old clergyman, born in 1824, still, without any aid +whatever, performing all the duties of a parish minister in one of the +wildest parts of Argyllshire. I refer to the Rev. Mr. M'Michael, who was +chairman at the lecture. The old gentleman, who is remarkably hale in +body and never melancholy at meal-time (as he slyly puts it), is prone +to speak by preference of the events of "auld lang syne." He gave me a +most vivid account of Professor John Wilson (whom, as I do not now live +in Paisley, I may safely venture to call Paisley's _greatest_ son), who +was one of his teachers, and who, as "Christopher North," wrote so many +witty and solid articles that undeservedly perished in _Blackwood's +Magazine_ at the beginning of last reign. I have rarely had such a treat +as my talk with this hale-hearted octogenarian. His charming daughters +keep house for him, and employ their leisure time weaving at a loom of +their own. The sheep that graze on the glebe supply the wool, and the +intermediate stages between the back of the sheep and the woollen +overcoat on the back of the needy are all supervised by these dexterous +daughters of the manse. + +The coach to Craignish passes through a bit of Scotland that, in the +leafy month of June, must be glorious to behold. I passed along in a +fierce and chilling blizzard of sleet and snow. If a poet could keep +warm, thought I, this would be the spot for him to get impressive scenes +for his word-pictures. At one part, the road ziz-zags up a hill for +three miles, alongside a furious burn, to a height of six hundred feet; +from which eminence one sees, on the right, great bare crags and steep +heights, and, on the left, an inlet of the Atlantic foaming wildly +below. Ye gentlemen of the cloth, whose lot is cast in towns and who sit +at home in ease, think of the trials of your rural brethren in their +attempts to drive in winter through drifting snow to a presbytery +meeting fourteen miles away![20] + + [20] I could mention another rural parish, considerably further + north, where, two winters ago, the roads were so badly blocked + with snow that for five consecutive weeks no church services + could be held! Both minister and congregation were overcome with + grief. + + +A MODEL MINISTER. + +Not far from the city of Aberdeen is a little village of seafaring folk, +and the worthy minister, the Rev. Mr. Pollock, is guide, philosopher, +and friend to the entire community. Up to his manse, which is a mile +from the uneven and fishy streets, there is a constant _va-et-vient_ of +parishioners. One old widow wishes him to write to her son at the +Yarmouth fishing, herself being ignorant of English spelling; this old +man, painfully hobbling uphill on his stick, and muttering to himself as +he goes, desires the faithful pastor to come and cheer a bed-ridden wife +who is failing fast; that young fisher-lass will blush as she tells that +her young man is on the way home to claim her as his own, with the +Church's aid. Mr. Pollock is the confidential repository of all their +secrets: nothing in their lives is hidden from him; he knows all of +comic and tragic in their lowly careers. Along with his wife, he visits +every house in the place, and from intimate knowledge can tell you, +nodding his head to this or that house as he walks along, the worth or +worthlessness of every native of the village. His time is so fully taken +up with pure religion and undefiled, that he has no time to waste on the +Higher Criticism. + +A tout for some wandering minstrels recently came over from Aberdeen, +meaning to leave one of his red-and-yellow bills (announcing a +performance) in each of the local shops. The minister saw him as he +distributed the bills, and closely followed up on his trail. Mr. Pollock +entered each shop and said to the shopkeeper: "Please let me see the +bill you have there in the window." On getting it, he would scan it, and +request to get keeping it. In no shop was he refused, so that by the +time he got to the end of the village, he was carrying two dozen large +concert placards, while the tout, merrily whistling, and all unconscious +of the nullity of his labours, was on his way back to Aberdeen. "Lead us +not into temptation," said the minister, as he thrust the garish +announcements into his study stove. None of Mr. Pollock's flock were at +the concert that night. Perhaps, if any had gone, little harm would have +been done. The minister, however, thought they were better at home, or +at the local prayer-meeting. + +Mr. Pollock's predecessor was a thin, unemotional man--a geologist--who +spent an important percentage of his time chipping rocks and looking for +fossils. Owing to this mania, his flock were forgotten, and came to +forget _him_. No wonder if the church attendance dwindled! _Ab uno disce +omnes_, as Virgil says. One day this ordained geologist had agreed to +baptize a child in a hamlet some miles away, and set forth to walk to +the place in good time. Unhappily, by the roadside, there was a quarry, +into which, by instinct, the minister glided, keen and eager-eyed. He +stayed therein for four hours, and forgot all about the infant +(squalling, no doubt, in special robe, and impatient for the +christening), the waiting relatives, the inevitable decanter, and the +thick cuts of indigestible bun. The minister, I say, trudged home with +his treasure-trove of petrified ferns and foot-marked shale--a greater +fossil than any under his own cases of glass. His memory was stirred by +his wife's catechising, but it was too late to undo the mischief. + + +MINISTERIAL TRIALS IN OLDEN TIMES. + +In modern times, ministers are badly paid, considering the expenses of +their training and long education, but they are better paid than they +used to be. In 1756, the minister of Ferintosh, a big, active man, with +the object of adding something to his stipend, leased the meal-mill of +Alcaig from the laird of Culloden. The combination of miller and +minister did not please his parishioners. It never occurred to these +clowns that the occupation of miller is singularly adapted for +reflection: spiritual and bodily nourishment (thought of together) might +well form a field of thought fertile in instructive metaphors; "the dark +round of the dripping wheel," the work of separating husks and flour, +the topics of dearth and abundance, might all come to have a homiletic +value to a serious-minded teacher of religion. But a cry of scandal, +directed not against themselves for underpaying their minister, but +against that worthy man for being an _ordained miller_, arose in the +parish. A member of the congregation was deputed to give a gentle hint +to the minister that the two occupations were incompatible. The +interview took place on the high road. "What news this morning, Thomas?" +said the minister. "Have you not heard of the fearful news?" said +Thomas. "No, what is it?" "Well, everybody's saying," said Thomas, with +a whisper of affected horror, "that _the minister's wife has taken up +with the big miller of Alcaig_." The delicacy of this hint was such that +the minister resigned his lease. + +The trials of ministers long ago were truly great. Witches had to be +reckoned with, as the aforementioned Ferintosh minister, who was their +foe, knew to his cost. By their incantations they caused him to be +afflicted with somnolency. As this sleepy fit usually came on in church +between the first psalm and the prayer, it can be easily seen how awful +were the reprisals of these Satanic hags. + + +AN ARTFUL DODGER. + +The Rev. Mr. Rogers, minister of a parish in Fife, was, like many +another worthy man, in sore financial straits at one period of his life. +He was a widower, and probably this fact accounts for his displenished +exchequer. With supreme audacity he touched the bell of a rich old +maiden lady, and on entering her boudoir he bluntly admitted his lack of +funds, and said, "Give me £200 and I'll marry you." She gave him the +money, and for months after never saw his face. Finally she wrote asking +an interview. He came, and she tartly said, "Did you not say, Mr. +Rogers, that if I gave you £200, you would marry me?" "Certainly I did," +said the cunning minister, "and _I'm ready to marry you whenever you +produce your man: where is he_?" This anecdote shows the difficulty of +being unambiguous when speaking English, and furnishes an argument for +the adoption of French as the language of courtship as well as of +diplomacy. + +The same foxy ecclesiastic wished two things, both of which his heritors +flatly refused: (a) a new manse, and (b) a site with a wide +prospect. Finding them intractable, he professed humility, and craved +merely a species of scaffolding to buttress up one of the walls of the +old manse. The heritors marvelled a little at the strange request, but, +glad of being saved from the cost of a new building, authorised the +buying of some sturdy joists to prop up a wall that the minister averred +was off the plumb. No sooner was the buttressing timber in position than +Mr. Rogers appeared with a violent complaint in the Sheriff Court, +declaring that the manse was like to fall about his ears, and that the +heritors had palpably admitted the danger by erecting a scaffold. The +Sheriff expressed strong disapproval of the heritors' stinginess, and +ordered them to get a new manse built for the minister. Now as to the +site! To spite Mr. Rogers, the heritors determined to deprive him of a +good view, and directed the St. Andrews builder to erect the new manse +down in the valley on a broad bank by a burnside. The master-builder +placed pegs and marks in the ground at the prescribed place and returned +to St. Andrews, telling his workmen to proceed next day to begin the +work, and mentioning that they would know the site by marks he had +placed there. At cockcrow the minister was afoot, busy transferring the +pegs to the summit of a lovely knoll. The tradesmen came out to the +country, and looking for the site found it on the hill-top and began +their work. After they had been a week or more on the walls, out from +St. Andrews came the master to see how his men were progressing. He came +near a complete collapse when he saw his men on the hill instead of in +the valley. He spoke winged words to them, but it was too late. In such +fashion did Mr. Rogers outwit his heritors. I regret that no literary +relics of this acute divine are to be had. He seems to have been in his +way a kind of Higher Critic judging from a remark he made on the Ark: +"How did you manage," he said, as if addressing Noah in person, "how did +you manage to keep the first plank of your boat from getting rotten +before the last was nailed on, if you actually took 120 years to put the +whole thing together?" + + +SOME ANECDOTES FROM GIGHA. + +The late minister of Gigha, a small island community of 360 souls off +the coast of Kintyre was a cleric of great humour and full of stories. +His church was the only one in the island, a fact of which he was proud. +At a communion service, a minister from the mainland, struck off a +monumental phrase in one of his prayers. He said "Thou hast shown, O +Lord, Thy confidence in Thy servant, the devout minister of Gigha, for +lo! out of the plentitude of Thy great mercy Thou has seen fit _to give +him an island all to himself_." I have heard and do in part believe it, +that the effect of such a supplication in Gaelic is overpoweringly +strong. + +This same minister "of the island," whose digestion I may say, was so +perfect that he could triumphantly absorb strong tea and poached eggs as +a regular midnight meal, told me one night over this collation, the +story of a fisherman in one of the Western Islands, whose prayer before +going to sea was of a singular character. He invariably addressed the +Deity as _Sibshe_ (You) instead of the ordinary _Thusa_ (Thou). On one +occasion, when the weather was squally and danger was anticipated, he +prayed thus: "O Lord God, my Beloved, if You would be so good as to take +the care of Mary and Jessie, my daughters; but that She-Devil, my wife, +the daughter of Peter Macpherson, I am indifferent about her: she will +have another husband before I am eaten by the crabs!" + +Here follows another well-known story from the same authority. A +Lowlander, taking a week's sail on one of Macbrayne's cargo-boats +stepped ashore, on Sunday morning, at a remote insular port, to attend +church, as was fit and proper. The text was the well-known verse "Can +the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?" The minister, +strange to say, preached a long and painfully vivid sermon on _leprosy_. +The tourist waited, after sermon, in order to talk with the minister and +quietly remonstrate with him. He said: "You gave us an excellent +discourse to-day, but do you think it followed quite appropriately from +the text: surely you are aware that a _leopard_ and a _leper_ are two +different things." The minister, eying the tourist with a look of +indignant scorn for a second, lifted up his voice and denounced him +thus: "Out of my sight with you: I know what you are; you are one of +these pestilent fellows called Higher Critics. Begone!" + +In the Long Island, it is an article of fixed belief among the stricter +Presbyterians that Catholics are outside any scheme of salvation. +Episcopalians, too, are regarded as being in an extremely dubious +position. Any stick, however, is good enough to beat the partisans of +the Pope. "Brethren," said a minister near Stornoway, "I have forgotten +my sermon to-day: but _I'll just say a word or two against the +Catholics_." Such a philippic, he seemed to think, could never be out of +season. + +Denunciation has always been a favourite method of the religious bigot. +If the various sects of the Christian Church, could go on their way, +ameliorating the world, and leaving each other in peace, the millennium +would be within reasonable distance. I heard a U.F. say to a Wee Free: +"Donald, you'll no' gang to Heaven, _because I'm bad_." The sentence is +good enough for an epigram. Unfortunately, too many of our sectaries +think it the prime virtue of their faith to run down their neighbours. + + +GROWING POPULARITY OF RUSKIN. + +One of the most cheerful features in the present-day thought of +Scotland, and one from which we may anticipate excellent results in +every department of social and religious life, is the growing popularity +of the great apostle of the nineteenth century, John Ruskin. Though +dead, he continues to speak; and from close inspection of the registers +that show in detail the nature of the books asked for, at the various +village libraries, I have noted, with no small pleasure, that Ruskin's +works are eagerly read all over the Highlands and islands of Scotland. +This is something quite new, and will, I am certain, work immense good. + +For Ruskin's work in the department of religion, no words can be too +commendatory. His genius was in thorough accord with the spirit of the +Biblical writers, and his modes of speech and illustration perpetually +reminiscent of Scripture. He loses no opportunity of dwelling on the +culturing influence of the Bible. There is also a fine tolerance in his +religious teaching, which is alike helpful and suggestive. His is that +variety of teaching which we find most effectively outside of the ranks +of professional commentators, and which comes through the keen flashes +of genius that accompany the insight of the literary artist. He has +pointed out to us with great eloquence that, while specific doctrines +take at various epochs very different degrees of importance, and aspects +of rite, ceremony, and all that, appeal with changing force to different +generations, the essence of religious feeling, without which dogma +becomes harsh and rite insipid, hardly varies at all; seeing that in the +musings of the great minds of all ages, we have oftenest the pure gold +of devotion, mingled, though it may sometimes be, with the adhesive +dross of superstition. He also warns us of the danger of mistaking +pugnacity for piety, and earnestly urges that, at every moment of our +lives, we should be trying to find out, not in what we differ from other +men, but in what we agree. Ruskin considers this to be the correct +spirit in which to approach ancient as well as modern religion, +believing that if a reader cannot understand a spiritual agency, or +thinks that the best of ancient men were not dominated by any such, the +understanding of the very alphabet of history will be endangered. It +would tend greatly to salvation from arid formalism, if ministers would +teach that Plato, Sophocles, Browning, Carlyle, are all apostles of +religion. A living word from an intuitionist like the last-named not +unfrequently vivifies with new force the dark sayings of a Hebrew seer, +in much more direct fashion than half-a-score of mutilated Pentateuchs +made in the delirium of the Higher Criticism. + +In spite of his unsystematic procedure, Ruskin deserves to be numbered +among the men who have earned the gratitude of their fellows, by +translating some of the ever-vital aspects of religion into the +vocabulary of the hour. The language of religious discourse is liable to +a subtle kind of pedantry, requiring a vigorous intellect adequately to +dissolve. New illustrations, novel forms of definition, are often +helpful in expelling the dreariness of outworn and meaningless phrases. +Ruskin's task is facilitated by the nice balance of his intellectual and +imaginative endowments, by the fact that his words are not mere symbols +of definite connotation, but marvellous centres of emotional force. +Happily he did not seek to elaborate any system of religion: but now +here, now there, in his books, one comes upon the pure gold of religion, +enshrined in exquisite jewelries of diction, which glimmer on (if I may +say so) to the utmost verge of emotion, and more successfully than any +formal harangue, work out their intended function. Such works as _Unto +this Last_ and _Munera Pulveris_, however keen the mental antagonism +they may initially provoke, mark a period in the spiritual life of the +reader: no matter what the prepossessions of a man may be, these books +will modify them. He is reverent, but, like Plato, he is dynamic. You +can't sit at ease as you read his pages, for they are charged as much +with defiance as with guidance. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +EDUCATIONAL. + + Some Insular Dominies--Education Act of 1872--Education in the + Highlands--Feeding the hungry--Parish Council + boarders--Dwindling attendances--Arnisdale--Golspie Technical + School--On the Sidlaws--Some surprises--Arran schools--Science + and literature--Study of Scott--The old classical dominie--Vogue + of Latin in former times--Teachers and + examinations--Howlers--Competing subjects. + + +SOME INSULAR DOMINIES. + +It is by no means an easy matter for a teacher to get south again once +he is installed in a remote Highland school. He accepts a distant rural +or insular post, marries the girl of his heart, gets settled in the +schoolhouse of the glen or township, and rarely moves thence all the +succeeding years of his life. He becomes identified with local affairs; +plays whist maybe with the doctor, the factor, and the banker; and is +apt to magnify the cackle of his bourg into the great Voice that echoes +round the world. The monotony of his life is varied by such happenings +as a birth or a death in his own household, a visit from the emissary of +My Lords, an epidemic of measles, a general election, and the like. I +don't say these men are unhappy, but unless they develop a hobby, +torpidity is bound to settle like a mist upon their brains. Such studies +as geology, botany, and gardening, are sovereign for driving off the +vapours of ennui. Nor are golf, angling, and the composition of verse, +specifics that the rural dominie can afford to despise. + +I have in my mind at this moment the portraits of many notable gentlemen +(for true gentlemen they are, though their purses are thin) who have +given up their lives to educating the progeny of the inclement North. +Lamont, for example, whom I remember as a first-class mathematician, is +living in the marshy navel of an Outer Isle, amid wild-fowl and spirals +of peat-reek. If you want to visit him you have (1) to cross the billowy +western deep; (2) drive fifteen miles in a trap; (3) traverse a +four-mile arm of the sea in a ferry that needs baling; (4) proceed seven +miles to another ferry two miles in breadth; (5) hop, step, and jump +three miles along a narrow and tortuous track, enough to give vertigo to +a goat. Lamont is not unhappy: he keeps his mind active by solving stiff +quadratic equations and fiddling with Cartesian co-ordinates. I hope he +will get credit for all these studies, when the last trump sounds, for +he gets little enough at present. + +Ramsay, too, is a dweller among these treeless bogs, and is engaged, +during his leisure, on a translation of Anacreon which will never be +finished, or, if finished, will never be published. I called on him and +immolated myself on the altar of his Anacreon in order to give him a +little pleasure. He, later on, enlarged on his school, scholars, and +daily life. The horizon of the boys and girls is extremely limited: most +of them have never seen either a pig or a policeman. Cabbages have only +been recently introduced into the district, but are already thriving +wonderfully well considering the thin soil. There are of course no +trees: for what trees could stand against the buffeting of the fierce +wintry gales of the Atlantic? Ramsay's only chum is a missionary, who is +of an antiquarian turn, and goes fumbling about for arrow-heads and +prehistoric bracelets, especially after a storm, when the hill-sides are +laid bare. + +Neither Lamont nor Ramsay know a word of Gaelic, and there they are in +districts where English is a foreign language. Needless to say, the lack +of Gaelic is a terrible drawback to these two men. They should never +have been where they are, for they are aliens. The scholars, unbreeched +little rogues, have an advantage over their teacher, and in the +playground talk the tongue of the Celt invariably, and may be maligning +him for all he knows. I am afraid, too, that teacher and minister do not +always consider themselves as auxiliaries in these outer isles. The +younger generation of teachers have, as might be expected, a more +extensive knowledge of books than the old school of Presbyterian +ministers. The latter, feeling their literary inferiority, are inclined +to regard the teacher as an intruder whose work in the school-room will +cause the rising generation to look slightingly on the "essentials." I +have in my possession numerous letters from Highland teachers dealing +with this fear on the part of the clergy, that novels and secular +literature generally will pervert the minds of the people. The addition +of Mrs. Humphrey Ward's books to a library was recently likened to the +arrival of the Serpent in Eden. + + +EDUCATION ACT OF 1872. + +In one of the best-known chapters of _Rob Roy_, Bailie Nicol Jarvie, the +utilitarian Glasgow merchant, says to his cattle-reiving kinsman: "Your +boys, Rob, dinna ken the very multiplication table, which is the root o' +a useful knowledge, and it's my belief they can neither read, write, nor +cipher, if sic a thing could be believed o' ane's ain connections in a +Christian land." Rob replies in a sentence that is worthy of being put +alongside the remark of old Earl Douglas in the poem of _Marmion_: +"Hamish can bring down a blackcock on the wing with a single bullet, and +Rob can drive a dirk through a twa-inch board." These quotations +adequately explain the almost complete absence of prose remains in the +literature of the Gael. Bards there were in plenty, but they could +neither read nor write. + +In the year 1872, education was made the concern of the nation. It was +rightly considered to be a standing menace to the security of the realm +that ignorance, which is the parent of disorder and lawlessness, should +be the doom of a large proportion of the nation. Rather than hazard the +dangers of an illiterate population, education was undertaken by the +State, and paid for out of the national purse. The analogy between +disease and ignorance is, in truth, sufficiently close to justify both +sanitation and education coming into the wide domain of imperial duties. + +Looking back on the changes that resulted in the Lowlands from the +Education Act of 1872, we see grounds for criticism. The measure, like +all earthly things, was imperfect. There was something hard and +inelastic about the system fostered by the old Code. The psychology of +Child Nature was almost totally ignored. A system of examination was +established that assumed an equal and mechanical progress on the part of +every child every year. Yet, in spite of grave defects, the Act of 1872 +brought inestimable blessings with it. For one thing, the health +conditions of education were vastly improved. Many of the old schools +were absolute hovels. After 1872, large, airy, and spacious buildings, +were erected in every district of the land. It was no longer a case of +one old dominie facing singly a whole regiment of unruly youngsters: +every school was organised and disciplined into regular and seemly +order. We had the advantage in Scotland of a complete system of School +Boards, and that awakened an intense and universal interest in +educational affairs. The old parochial schools of Scotland had many +admirable features, but in 1872 they were quite unfit to cope with the +nation's needs. On the whole, the School Board system was a decided boon +to the land. + + +EDUCATION IN THE HIGHLANDS. + +It is only since the Act of 1872 that any education of a serious or +systematic kind has been attempted in the Celtic parts of Scotland. +Nevertheless, a word of praise is due to the Society for Promoting +Christian Knowledge and other civilising agencies of the Churches +(Established and Free), for their work during the educational night that +preceded the Act. These agencies were, of course, utterly inadequate to +meet the needs of the Highlands, as may be easily seen from the fact +that in 1862, over 47 per cent. of the men who married, could not sign +their own names. But, indeed, what resources, save those of the Imperial +Treasury, could ever be adequate to meet the expense of educating the +children spread over such wide and sparsely-peopled tracts? Sheriff +Nicolson, one of the most fervid Gaels that ever lived, made a report to +Government in 1865, characterising the education given in the Highland +schools as lamentably insufficient. + +The effects of the Act of 1872 were slow but sure, and in the course of +fifteen years a change, analogous to that effected by General Wade in +the state of the roads, was brought about in the realm of education. Yet +the expenses involved in the working of the measure were of an unduly +burdensome kind, in spite of the generous bounty of the Education +Department. In some of the large parishes of the Long Island, the heavy +school rate was such a cause of complaint that My Lords were forced to +take very drastic measures to relieve the financial strain. In summing +up the results of the Education Act, Professor Magnus Maclean says: +"Among the good things that education has brought the Highlanders, are a +knowledge of English, wider social and political interests, a brighter +intelligence and brighter outlook, freedom from mental vacuity and +traditional superstitions." + + +FEEDING THE HUNGRY. + +Probably, as I have hinted, one of the chief benefits of the Education +Act, was that teaching had to be carried on in conditions of space and +air. Given such conditions and an enthusiastic master, some good +progress will certainly be made. + +Connected with the physical side of education we have had, of late, +signs of a new departure. There is a talk of _feeding the hungry_. + +Every parent worthy of the name is proud to provide food and clothing +for his children. That's what he's there for. But it does not require +much keenness of vision to see that there are many parents unworthy of +the name, and that, by the dark and inscrutable degrees of Heaven, such +worthless individuals are often allowed to be parents of a numerous +progeny. We must (i) inject into these wastrels the feeling of +responsibility and (ii) prevent the children from dying of starvation. +The first problem requires lengthy treatment and is perhaps hopeless of +accomplishment; the second can be done at once by philanthropy, either +individual or national. + +However much it may wound the pride of our gilded youth, it can hardly +be asserted that birth and rank are matters that involve the slightest +personal merit. It seems to be an affair of the purest accident into +what class of society a child is born. We have overcome the difficulties +and dangers of youth--most of us--but it might well have been otherwise. +Soften your hearts, ye political economists, and cease to regard the +poor, the weak, and the wretched as criminals. If there is no wealth +but life, our country must soon be poor indeed should the rising +generation be sickly and underfed. Bairns must not be allowed to study +on an empty stomach. + + +PARISH COUNCIL BOARDERS. + +Let me here mention a point alluded to by more than one friend of the +Highlands. It has reference to one aspect of the new science called +Eugenics, which deals with the means for producing the maximum of vigour +in our nation. It is not well enough known that for years the +authorities have been pouring into a few of the islands and straths of +the North and West a great number of maimed, consumptive, and mentally +defective children. Some houses in the Hebrides have three or four of +these children, who, but for the action of the authorities, would be +living under the most deplorable conditions of life in the towns. The +results, as regarding improvement in health and physique, are of the +most encouraging kind.[21] + +After a certain age the official subsidy ceases, and the children as a +rule go to work on the farms and crofts. It is evident that such +extensive planting out of city boys and girls is bound by and by to work +a great change in the composition of our rural districts. It is believed +that some of the islands would soon be without children but for these +incomers: it is a well-known fact that the indigenous youthful +population of certain of them is very meagre indeed. We are thus in +modern times witnessing some most instructive operations of Nature: for +generations the country has been depleted to swell the bloated +population of the towns; and now the wastage of the cities is being sent +back to the country to get a renewal of vigour at the primeval fountain +of health. + +There is one further point of great moment. As a proportion, relatively +large, of these children come of morally dubious parentage, it is of +supreme interest to know their subsequent career and conduct. I have +seen reports and statistics which seem to prove that questionable +heredity can be overborne by healthy surroundings and good training; in +other words, that the offspring of criminals may, if rescued early from +a vicious environment, become respectable citizens. Such facts ought to +rejoice the hearts of all moral reformers. + + [21] In that part of South Arran which lies between Dippen and + Shannochie, there is high up on the hillside, a row of cottages + and crofts collectively nicknamed "Mount Misery." The reason for + this sinister name is that in most of the houses there is some + maimed, consumptive, or imbecile child boarded out by the Parish + Council. The children are better there than selling matches at + St. Enoch's Station: they are well looked after and almost + invariably improve in health. + + +DWINDLING ATTENDANCES. + +It is in the country school that the need for new blood is most apparent +to the eye. In schools capable of holding 120 children, you will often +find a shrunken roll of less than a dozen. A gentleman of mature years +usually does all the teaching and keeps himself from getting insane by +breeding hens and cultivating roses in his spare time. He has also, in +all likelihood, the little pickings of officialdom in the district, and +is registrar, session-clerk, and precentor. One facetious teacher, who +dwelt on a wide moor, headed his letter to me _Parish Council Chambers_, +thereby suggesting marble staircases and sumptuous furniture. It was +this same teacher who, on being asked to bring forward Standard V. for +inspection, had to admit that Standard V. was laid up with a broken leg. +For such small schools there is an increasing difficulty in finding male +teachers.[22] Widows, who in their ante-nuptial days, had been engaged +in teaching are often preferred to men, for reasons of salary. The lot +of such women, who have usually families to support out of their meagre +earnings, is hard indeed: if they keep their health, they manage +tolerably well, but when illness comes into the house, there must be a +deal of suffering and distress. The young pupils who attend the remote +schools of the uplands, also deserve much sympathy. During the heavy +snows and extreme cold of winter, these children--often ill-shod and +scantily fed--have to trudge along miles of country cross-roads or +hill-paths to their little school. Our country is a glory to the eye +when mid-summer and autumn are there, but think of the harsh winter +months with their torrents of driving rain, their whirlwinds of hail +and sleet and the icy nip of the blasts that blow down the snow-sheeted +glens. + + [22] A country teacher in Kintyre, with a roll of eight, said to + me: "We have had only one marriage in the district during the + last year, and the bridegroom was aged _three score and fifteen_. + I wonder what education is coming to: there is little or no + patriotism about Kintyre or my roll would be higher. I wish I + could get the people to think more imperially than they do at + present." + + +ARNISDALE, ETC. + +It will be perhaps interesting to the general reader if I strive, by +drawing on my reminiscences, to give him an idea of how education is +carried on in certain remote corners of Scotland at the present time. He +will, perhaps, be led to admire as much as I do the noble work that is +being done by teachers and inspectors for the rising generation of the +country. + +Arnisdale, on the mainland facing Skye, is a very destitute district, +and has suffered much from the failure of the once-flourishing +herring-fishery of Loch Hourn. One can see by the attire of the children +that the poverty must be exceptional, even for the Highlands. The +teacher says that in winter she has to think as much how to feed the +children as to teach them. By the charity of some benevolent visitors, +she was, last winter, able to give the pupils a mid-day meal of cocoa +and biscuits. It is a sad contrast to the extraordinary beauty of this +picturesque spot that such dire misery should overtake a proportion of +the natives during the winter season. + +Arnisdale is not very accessible, even in the height of the summer +traffic, and when one gets there, it is a problem how to get away. I +asked the captain of the _Glencoe_ to set me down near what is called +the _dry island_, in Loch Hourn, and thence I was rowed ashore by two +very wild-looking, unkempt boatmen. The school-house, where I lodged, is +right on the beach, and just at the base of the gigantic Ben Screel. +Twelve miles along the coast, by a road of the most awe-inspiring kind, +one comes to the interesting nook of Glenelg, with its Pictish towers +and ruined barracks. + +It was a mild and hazy morning when I traversed the road between +Arnisdale and Glenelg. On coming to the summit, a great breeze arose and +drove away the heavy white mists from the Sound of Sleat, and showed the +white, sentinel-like lighthouse of Isle Ornsay and great fertile +stretches of the near portion of Skye. Reluctantly the clouds finally +curled and rolled away before the wind and the glitter of the sun, until +the Cuchullins were visible beyond the water and the green peninsula of +Sleat. + +In a cosy recess near the highest part of the road, beside a bubbling +spring, a _gipsy family_ had pitched its tent. I admired the taste shown +in the selection of a place commanding such a view. The family was still +under canvas, but hanging on the branch of a tree was a worn and +mud-stained skirt. Do not ladies in hotels, in similar fashion, hang out +their dusty and travel-soiled attire at the doors of their chambers? And +perhaps the dark-skinned owner had hung up her dank and dripping weeds +in the hope that some silvan faun or Robin Goodfellow would, without a +tip, perform the dusting process, in this case so palpably necessary. We +do wrong in supposing that imagination is not the portion of these +woodland rovers. + +One of the most difficult problems of the Education Department is to see +that gipsy children get a suitable amount of schooling. "Here awa', +there awa', wandering Willie," is applicable to all their tribe. How +can progressive instruction be carried on where there is no fixity of +habitation? One day the camp is pitched on an eminence overlooking Loch +Hourn; but before twelve hours have passed, the nomads may have crossed +the ferry at Kyleakin and be warming their hands round a blaze of stolen +peats in the wild moorland between Portree and Dunvegan. Only in winter, +when frost and snow drive the gipsies into the city slums, do the +children get some smattering of the three R's. + + +GOLSPIE TECHNICAL SCHOOL. + +There are now in the Highlands a number of excellent higher class public +schools, in which the elements of secondary education are taught. The +pupils in these schools are drawn from wide areas, and, by means of +bursaries, can board away from their own homes. The Golspie Technical +School is an altogether unique higher-grade institution. At a library +lecture delivered in Golspie, the boys belonging to the school +(forty-eight in number, divided into four clans, each with a chief) were +present, accompanied by the Principal and his staff. My attention was at +once drawn to them by their fine physique, their gentlemanly bearing, +and their earnest attention. Next day, I had the pleasure of visiting +the school and seeing the working of the scheme initiated by the Duchess +of Sutherland. + +The institution is really a boarding-school for poor lads of talent +belonging to the northern counties. They are under the eye of some +teacher at every hour of the day, and are kept incessantly busy, not at +books alone. They are taught to do their own washing, dusting, +scrubbing, cooking, and darning. The training is excellent: one is +impressed by its practical character and educational thoroughness. Latin +and Greek are not attempted at all, the literary instruction being +entirely based on English and the modern tongues. The science part of +the curriculum is remarkably complete, and art is by no means neglected. + +Before a pupil has the good fortune to be admitted, the Principal visits +the parents. It is almost incredible (so he told me) the squalor of some +of the cots he had seen. Too often, in the Highlands, the one bedroom of +the family (frequently identical with the kitchen) has free +communication with a malodorous byre or stye. What a contrast with the +dormitory of the Technical School, where there is no lullaby of lowing +kine, but a tranquil, high-roofed hall that would do for the siesta of +the Duke of Sutherland himself! + + +ON THE SIDLAWS. + +High up on a spur of the Sidlaw Hills in the county of Forfar, there is +a wee school that supplies education for a wide and sparsely-peopled +countryside. The teacher is Mr. Brown, who was once a dominie in the +island of Whalsay. He is a jovial and courteous man, and leads you on +very astutely to ask him how long he taught there. Such a question gives +him the opportunity of replying with a laugh: "_I was there exactly the +length of time Napoleon was in St. Helena, five years and seven +months_." When in Whalsay, Mr. Brown took the service on Sunday, if the +minister happened to be ill. In this capacity he achieved great +popularity by the meritorious device of shortening the sermon to fifteen +minutes. He was so much in love with the first sermon he wrote, that he +never wrote another, contenting himself with giving it again and again, +and merely varying the text. If he could only hit upon a suitable title, +and a suitable publisher for this sermon, Mr. Brown would get it +printed, and scattered broadcast over the Shetland Islands. I believe it +would furnish unique food for thought even to sinners on the mainland. + +Mr. Brown received me with extreme kindness, and invited me inside to +see his school. I heard his senior class read, and thought the +pronunciation extremely good. About 12.55 the attention of the pupils +became visibly impaired; glances were furtively cast towards the door; +there was a feeling of expectancy all along the benches. Suddenly the +door sprang open, as if by some violent external impact, and a +middle-aged dame entered, carrying in each hand a large pail of steaming +potato-soup. Accompanying her was a young woman with dozens of small +pewter basins, and large spoons. I never saw such expeditious ladling, +such quick distribution, such speed of consumption, and such manifest +enjoyment all round. The steam of the soup obscured the wall-maps, and +the parsing exercise on the blackboard. The children could get as many +helpings as nature would permit, _for one farthing_. When the mist +cleared away, teacher and taught once more proceeded to tackle simple +proportion and analysis of sentences. I personally examined the soup, +and found it to be "nae skinking ware that jaups in luggies." + + +SOME SURPRISES. + +Some surprises are in store for one who calls in casually at some of the +remoter schools. I have more than once found the teacher _giving +instruction in his shirt sleeves_. In one school, I saw the master with +_a large melodeon_ (the Board being too stingy to supply a piano), +giving an inharmonious accompaniment to the musical drill. I got a +dreadful surprise on meeting the schoolmaster of a district in Jura: the +unfortunate gentleman was _stone-deaf_, his auditory nerves being +completely destroyed. Yet he managed, unaided, a school of forty-seven +pupils, and got excellent reports. The case is unparalleled in my +experience, and I should not have believed it possible had I not +personally seen the man at his work. He heard with his eyes, and could +most nimbly interpret what his pupils said by watching their lips. The +scholars liked him, and did not attempt to take advantage of his defect. +In another insular school, I was introduced to a lady-teacher who had +_lost both her arms in youth_, and who, in consequence, has been forced +to bring up her pupils entirely on the principles of moral suasion. By +holding the pen with her teeth, she can write a fine running _hand_ (if +I may say so without violence to language). She is an extremely clever +lady: it was a treat to see how well she could control the children with +a word or a glance. + +Some teachers in the Lowlands complain of children playing truant. That +vice is not common in the Highlands, but it exists to a slight extent. + +In my presence the teacher of a school in Skye made the absentees of +the previous day, write out their reasons for non-attendance. I give +some of the typical answers: + + (i.) Dear Sir,--I had to work all day at the peats. + + (ii.) I was kept at home for harrowing with the horses. + + (iii.) I was herding the lambs and keeping them from the sheep. + + (iv.) _I was on the shore all day, but I will not do it again._ + + +ARRAN SCHOOLS. + +The Arran schools that I had the pleasure of visiting struck me as being +very well managed. It is wonderful how much excellent work some of these +country children get through. The schools are almost all supplied with +Paisley libraries, and thus the pupils, under the guidance of their +masters, can overtake an extensive course of reading in British authors. +At Loch Ranza the higher pupils study Shakespeare, Shelley, and +Wordsworth.[23] + +There is no desire whatever on the part of the young people to be taught +the language of their forefathers. As a consequence, Gaelic is rapidly +dying out in the island. Twenty years ago it was the language of the +playground at Whiting Bay: now the pupils speak English only. At my +request the teacher there addressed a few Gaelic phrases to the +assembled children, but only two knew what he was saying. In the +neighbourhood of Lagg, there is a more general knowledge of the +venerable tongue. + +In spite of the decay of Gaelic, Arran has produced some Celtic scholars +of great brilliancy, the most eminent being the late Dr. Cameron of +Brodick. Mr. Kennedy of Caticol has made a great reputation for himself +in philology: he is in touch with Celtic scholarship on the Continent +and is also an adept in Irish Gaelic. In his manse, I saw a famous +Celtic manuscript, the _Fernaig MS._, a brown-leaved passbook, full of +old poems written carefully in a very small neat hand. It is said to be +worth £2,000, but not having that amount of loose cash about me, I could +not gratify myself by offering to purchase it. + + [23] A striking object-lesson on the instability of mortal life + is permanently given to the Loch Ranza pupils by the proximity of + the churchyard, which is just over the wall from the school. The + thoughtful visitor should not fail to read the tombstones. If a + lover of books, he will be interested in learning that the + founder of the famous publishing firm of Messrs. Macmillan + belonged to the North Cock farm near Loch Ranza. The pensive + moralist will perhaps be most affected by an old stone, A.D. + 1813, declaring that Elspa Macmillan left this _inhospitable + world_, aged 86. _That_ was no rash inference. + + +SCIENCE AND LITERATURE. + +Those rural teachers cannot be too strongly commended who combine +literary studies with work in the open air. I know some masters who +encourage their pupils to collect, say, all the flowers mentioned in +Wordsworth and Burns. That is idealising the study of botany in a most +delicious way. Wordsworth's descriptions of flowers are nothing less +than divine: to take a single example out of hundreds, his lines on the +daffodils beginning-- + + "I wandered lonely as a cloud." + +Even the gayest of our lyrists, Herrick, has something to say about that +flower that is as powerful as a sermon. Birds, trees, and flowers +should, as far as possible, be known by all the young people, and some +poetic word associated with each. It is astonishing how accurately our +best poets describe the objects of nature, and how their imaginative +touches show insight and give a pleasure above mere science. Spenser's +catalogue of the trees is worth knowing by heart. All the vicissitudes +of the changing months have their apt poetical descriptions if we only +look for them. Cowper, Thomson, and Wordsworth might be especially +recommended to pupils for their brilliant word-painting of landscape. I +cannot think of a finer adjunct to the teaching of open-air science than +the auxiliary descriptions of such great masters of verse. + +As Mendelssohn composed _songs_ without words, so may the schoolmaster +give _lessons_ of the most powerful import without a word being spoken. +A beautiful interior in a schoolroom is a silent lesson in order and +good taste. Beauty and order have a most valuable influence on the +emotions and the character. It is a pleasure to see the attention that +is now given to the cultivation of taste. Clean, bright class-rooms; +pictures of artistic merit on the walls; busts; collections of fossils, +sea-shells, and the like--these are to be found even in remote country +schools. Such spontaneous education of the eye is something that cannot +be overestimated for importance and fruitfulness. + +Lord Avebury puts the case for artistic environment very well indeed. +"Our great danger in education," he says, "is the worship of +book-learning--the confusion of instruction and education. We strain the +memory instead of cultivating the mind. The children are wearied by the +mechanical act of writing and the interminable intricacies of spelling; +they are oppressed by columns of dates, by lists of kings and places, +which convey no definite idea to their minds, and have no near relation +to their daily wants and occupations. We ought to follow exactly the +opposite course, and endeavour to cultivate their taste rather than fill +their minds with dry facts." + +There is one precious faculty that runs the risk of being stifled by too +much memory work. I mean the faculty of imagination. Youth is the time +when fancy is busy; it is the period when the brain can furnish +unlimited scaffolding for castles in the air. Wordsworth was so +impressed, indeed, by the opulence of the youthful fancy, that he could +only account for it by supposing recent contact with heaven. + + +STUDY OF SCOTT. + +I sometimes think that in the training of the youthful intellect and +imagination we have not made sufficient use of the novels and romances +of Scott. Of late years a great improvement is noticeable in this +respect, and Scott is coming to be regarded as (for school purposes) our +greatest historian. In some schools, as Lord Avebury has hinted, it was +formerly thought that pupils knew history adequately when they could +rattle off a list of dates and tell something of the deeds and misdeeds +of a set of unhappy persons who masqueraded as statesmen and courtiers. +Such unedifying farce has nothing to do with history, which is a +serious, instructive, and all-embracing study. The social life of the +great mass of a nation is far more important and interesting than the +eccentric deeds of a few high-placed rogues or saints. The old +school-history was, unfortunately, too often a glum compendium of +insignificant detail, told without breadth of view or fire of +restorative imagination. + +In the history of Scotland, most of what is worth knowing may be most +enjoyably learned from the pages of Sir Walter. Hardly any epoch of +Caledonian annals, hardly any county in the land has escaped the +treatment of his masterly hand. From the Borders to the rain-lashed +Shetlands (the _Pirate_ deals with gusty Thule), from Perth to Morven, +the great wizard has made his country known to all lands. In his stories +the past faithfully reproduces itself, and we are impressed, instructed, +and amused. + + +THE OLD CLASSICAL DOMINIE. + +It is a pleasure to think that a few of the old school of Scotch +dominies, who date from before the 1872 Act, are still to the fore, and +still engaged in teaching. They have all fixity of tenure, and so enjoy +the privilege of criticising, as adversely as they like, the degeneracy +of modern educational developments. These "_old parochials_," as they +are called, are men of good scholarship, well versed in Horace and +Virgil, and generally fond of snuff and Latin quotations. + +The Act of 1872 did a great deal for elementary education, but very +little indeed to encourage that type of higher instruction, which was +the glory of the old parish school. Ian Maclaren and other writers have +given pleasant sketches of country schoolmasters who were strong in the +ancient tongues, and who sent their pupils straight to the benches of +the University. I believe such men as "Domsey" were quite common in this +country. Porteous, whom I knew, was one of these. Porteous was a +philologist second to none in these realms, and was on intimate terms of +acquaintanceship with the famous Veitch, who gave such a _redding up_ to +the Greek verbs. It was very amusing to hear the complete way in which +Porteous could silence some imperial young examining professor on the +weighty subject of classical derivation. The latter would appeal to some +such authority as Curtius, whereupon Porteous would unlock the desk in +which lay the tawse, and taking therefrom a copy of the invoked Curtius, +open it at the root in question, and display the page all marked with +pencil corrections and emendations. In support of his views, would come +such a torrent of erudition from half a score of Classical, Sanscrit, +Gothic, and Anglo-Saxon rills, that the young professor would feel "like +one of sense forlorn," and be fain to put palm to forehead in dazed +amazement. A pupil learning the rudiments under such a teacher, was +dazzled rather than instructed by the ruthless surgery of words that +constantly went on. No word was too small for Porteous to operate upon: +he settled _hoti's_ business, and could so inflate Greek vocables by +supplying digammas and dropped consonants, that Plato would have +disowned them. Give him chalk, a blackboard, and a class of six, and he +would in ten minutes fill the board with hieroglyphics, curves, +arrow-headed diagonals, etc., all meant to illustrate the relationships, +divergencies, and contrarieties of the Aryan roots. His life was spent +in the company of these radicals, and he could call them forth out of +their trickiest hiding-places. In the midst of his chalky toil, he would +turn round with radiant glee as if to say, "This is a merry and exciting +trade: it is my fun and is as good as poaching or golf." But woe betide +the youth who showed levity. Soon would there be weeping and wailing and +tingling of palms. His reputation for strap-wielding made roots +respected. + +Another teacher of the school of Porteous was Thomas Taylor, whose death +I saw announced a few weeks ago. Where has all _his_ Greek lore gone to, +so assiduously cultivated, so continuously added to? If Taylor's soul is +ever re-incarnated in a mortal body, it is absurd to suppose that he +must begin to learn the Greek alphabet just like a novice. His clay is +indeed mixed with the clay of common men, but I love to think of him +dwelling on the other side of the River in the meads of asphodel, +discussing with kindred shades, the topics he delighted to handle when +he was here. With tearful eye I pen these doleful decasyllabics to his +memory:-- + + What chums Tom Taylor and Charles Lamb had been + O'er bottled porter and the _Fairy Queen_! + In youth, one day, seeking forbidden fruit + Tom tumbled from the branches with his loot, + And broken bones compelled the lad to go + On straddling crutches, warily and slow, + Counting the pebbles on his path below. + The noisy pleasures of the open air, + The football kicked exuberant here and there. + Cricket, beloved of sinewy juvenals, + And golf with all its hazards, clubs and balls, + Were not in Taylor's province: so he turned + To calmer pastimes where the ingle burned, + And when the whole world turned to _goals_ and _tees_ + He took to _Iliads_ and to _Odysseys_. + He'd croon like one possessed the magic strain + Of heroes tossed along the unvintaged main, + And, crutch aloft in air, would fondly beat + Time to the rushing of the poet's feet. + Poetry was all his solace: those bright dames + That old Dan Chaucer in his rapture names, + And those in Villon's pages that appear + As dazzling-white as snows of yester-year, + Trooped past his eye in long procession fair. + O, Sovereign Virgin, what a crowd was there! + Helen, alas! with Paris by her side, + On the high deck crossing the sunny tide, + Circé, bright-moving in her godlike bloom + Before the throbbing music of the loom. + The love-lorn heroines of Shakespeare's plays, + The red-cheeked country girls of Burns's lays, + Would to his raptured eye the tear-drop bring, + And set his crazy quill a-sonnetting. + + +VOGUE OF LATIN IN FORMER TIMES. + +The old-world schoolmaster believed Latin was a universal specific. He +loved the language and knew all the flock of frisky little exceptions of +gender and conjugation, even as a shepherd knows his sheep. He gave his +pupils gentle doses of the _Delectus_, and watched with eager, almost +menacing, eye, for the working of the charm. It is quite possible that +no pupil ever went over that _Delectus_, with its world-weary fragments +of trite morality, without a feeling of pleasure at the _Decline and +Fall of the Roman Empire_. Yet it was educative, and moreover a boy was +equipped for life with quotations suiting every juncture. Fate was +powerless against one who had mastered the _Delectus_. The faculty of +Latin quotation was to some extent also a badge of respectability. +Fancy, too, the glory of being the exclusive possessor in a mixed +company of the knowledge that Castor and Pollux came out of the one egg! +It was a sore drawback to a boy once upon a time if he were shaky on the +compounds of _fero_. + +"_The pest of the present day is the prevalence of examinations_:" +these, it is alleged, have destroyed the grand old freedom of learning +which gave full scope for the individuality alike of teacher and pupil. +Oh! those were days of the gods, when five hours were spent daily +burrowing in Virgil and Horace! Arcadia was realised--a sunny clime of +Nymphs, Fauns, and Graces. The supreme luxury of abundant time--the +leisurely chewing of sweet-phrased morsels--is gone: it is gone, that +chastity of phrase and perfection of idiom, which felt a bad quantity +like a wound. The examination craze has destroyed the classical dominie, +and the intrusion of science, falsely so-called, has well-nigh +asphyxiated the Napææ of the dells. It was formerly possible for the +teacher to develop to the full his literary taste and declaim the +sonorous tit-bits of Virgil till the tears started from his eyes. Now +the instructors of youth seem to regard the works of the tuneful Mantuan +as composed for the purpose of illustrating the use of the Latin +subjunctive. Youths cannot get at the Aeneid, the spirit and majesty of +it, I mean, owing to the pestilential numbers of grammatical +reminiscences recalled by almost every line. When once you begin to set +examination papers on a subject, the romance seems to evaporate. There +is something withering about test-questions. This modern disease of +grammatical annotation, engendered largely by prosaic examiners, who +have published grammars, is spreading to the English Classics, and we +may soon expect Burns to furnish a text for exceptional scansion, +bob-wheel metrics and general philological catechising. Items which +glide effortless into the brain in desultory reading are not so easily +remembered if the examination is in store. Certain gentlemen have +recently been reading Milton with a pair of compasses in order to +discover the exact point of the cæsural pause in every line: they give +figures, strike percentages, and set questions which even the leading +character in "Paradise Lost" couldn't answer. Literary microscopy is +likely to ruin Shakespeare's reputation in school and would have done so +long ago but for Lamb's _Tales_--a darling compilation and by far the +best introduction to the poet. "_Shakespeare is a horrid man_" is the +deliberate verdict of the schoolgirl who has been teased to death by the +notes within the tawny covers of the Clarendon Press Edition. And fancy +what Chaucer's Prologue must seem like, taught by a man bent only on +philological hunts, variant readings, and a complete explanation of all +the final e's. + + +TEACHERS AND EXAMINATIONS. + +It has always seemed to me a matter for surprise that those who had for +years studied the elements of Latin and Greek at school (and that with +no small difficulty), should entirely neglect these tongues afterwards +and read nothing composed in them. Most elaborate preparations are made +to reach the Promised Land, but the weary passenger never gets there. +Can it be that the preparations are too elaborate?[24] They are +certainly not very interesting, and are, indeed, well fitted to disgust +pupils with the classical tongues. Sir William Ramsay of Aberdeen, in a +letter to the _Herald_ some time ago, spoke strongly on this subject. + +Sir William says, with justice, that a teacher should teach his subject +without any thought of examination. Every teacher would like to do that +if he could. As a matter of fact, the secondary schoolmaster is forced +to become a crammer. He codifies the catch questions of previous +university preliminaries, excogitates similar weird lists of anomalies +and exceptions, and doses the pupils on such stuff instead of really +teaching the important parts of his subject. Experience seems to prove +that the most effective way of rendering a subject dry, uneducational, +and generally useless is to set examination papers on it. What can be +more outrageous and grotesque than the practice of setting +out-of-the-way questions because of the ease thus afforded to the +examiners in correcting the answers of the helpless and puzzled +candidates! Even though the questions set were plain and +straightforward, it would be absurd to suppose that an hour or two in an +examination hall could furnish sufficient data to pass or fail a +candidate. + +It used to be the glory of our universities that an average college +class contained representatives of every grade of society in the land. +Professor Ramsay says it is not so now: the professors have become +pedagogic coaches, and the students grind rather than study. Sir William +assures us that many who would make good students are frightened away by +the preliminary examination. It would be interesting to know where these +latter go when they leave school. Do they rush off to business at once, +or do they proceed with their education in some extra-mural way? If they +can afford the time, the university is certainly the place for them. Let +the university gates be opened as wide as possible to all serious-minded +youths, and let it be remembered that it is not necessarily those who +sweat most over their books or take the highest honours that get most +good from attendance at the lectures. + +It does not appear that, at present, our universities are adequately in +touch with the nation. The great commercial community of Glasgow does +not benefit nearly enough from having a famous seat of learning in its +midst. We might learn a lesson from the Sorbonne how best to nationalise +our universities. In Paris, the lecture halls are open to all, and it is +possible for either native or foreigner to listen for hours daily, if he +be so minded, to some of the finest and most erudite orators and +scholars of Europe. There are, it is true, special students' courses, +from which the general public is excluded, but the most important +lectures are open to all. Hence the Sorbonne is a national institution +in every sense of the word. I do not say that Glasgow does not benefit a +little from the corps of professors at Gilmorehill. But the benefit is +spasmodic, discontinuous, and extremely limited. Some of the professors +do at times come down into the open and speak words of wisdom. But more +is wanted than that if the universities are to be saved from +denationalisation. We hear of Dugald Stewart's class-room being, in the +old days, crowded with the keenest intellects of the Capital. But a +university was not then a kind of higher-grade secondary school. + + [24] It is a notorious fact that very few graduates, when they + leave college, are able to read Latin from an author they have + not specially studied, with ease or pleasure. For this melancholy + fact there are several reasons. The range of reading is miserably + meagre. Only a few authors are read, and almost every sentence of + these is cumbered with such an amount of annotation as to render + progress and literary appreciation alike painful. Composition in + Latin absorbs far too much time: the first duty of the teacher + ought to be to turn out pupils who can read Latin with fluency. + No amount of grammatical detail or laborious composition, as at + present practised, will ever make up for the lack of wide + reading. Professor Phillimore's recent suggestion that the + less-known authors should be read more than they are, is wise and + opportune. The authors he mentions would furnish a welcome relief + from the unspeakable dreariness of over-annotated texts. + + +HOWLERS. + +Almost every schoolmaster I have met, either in the Highlands or +Lowlands, has his budget of anecdotes, usually dealing with children's +answers or the droll eccentricities of the local School Board. The +answers of children are invariably entertaining; and I wish the +Educational Institute of Scotland would appoint a committee to codify +the howlers that come under the notice of its members. A collection of +genuine howlers would be no unimportant service to the science of +juvenile psychology. Let it be remembered that the eminent Professor +Sully considered it in no way derogatory to his philosophical status to +write on the subject of _dolls_. In bi-lingual districts children's +answers would have a special value. Children are everywhere, of course, +more or less bird-witted and inattentive. Here is a story which +illustrates what Latin scholars call _contaminatio_. A teacher had given +a lesson on the geography of Kent, laying special stress on Canterbury, +as giving a title to the Anglican primate, and on Greenwich as the place +through which, on the map, the first meridian is made to pass. At the +close of the lesson, he wished to test the scholars, and asked one of +them what Canterbury was famous for. At once came the glib reply: +"Canterbury is the seat of an _archbishop through whom the first +meridian passes_." The difficulty young pupils have in concentrating +their ideas, is largely accountable for many of the diverting essays we +have all heard and seen. On a recent visit to the romantic shores of +Skye, I was shown the following essay on Water: "Water is a liquid, but +in winter you can slide on it. In all kinds of water, little beasts +occur to a greater or to a less extent. Even a great amount of heat +cannot kill these curious little animals. _Hence some people prefer +spirits._" From the same quarter I procured this nugget on patriotism. +"Patriotism is love of country such as we see in Burns or Sir Walter +Scott. Burns and Sir Walter wrote beautiful lines about their native +land, and thousands of tourists came and circulated their money there. +_It would be telling us_ if writers would imitate these great patriots +in our day." Many of the young scribes on the mainland can also indulge +in a deal of brilliant irrelevancy. One of them being asked to write an +essay on "Rivers," began thus: "_In ancient times, the chief use of +rivers was for the baptizing of converts_." Another, in the course of a +short life of King Alfred, made a strong point of that monarch's +humility, adding, "In order to discover the plans of the Danes, he +demeaned himself so far as to go to their camp _disguised as a poet_." +The annual blue book of the Scotch Education Department used to include +a recreative series of howlers that had been sent up in the various +reports of the Government Inspectors. These tit-bits were well +calculated to keep up the gaiety of nations. Of late years these howlers +have been excised, but if Scotland had Home Rule they might re-appear. + +The finer attenuations of speech are unknown to the soaring human boy. +I was shown an essay on Ireland the other day in which the young writer +compendiously remarked, "_The Irish are a bloodthirsty, lazy, and +resentful race_." On Wordsworth, another juvenile critic thus expressed +himself: "_Wordsworth's compositions are utter bosh_." The following +extract is from an "Essay on the '15": "_The Rising of '15 was a failure +because the Old Pretender was an unmitigated ass. Fancy an ass trying to +take charge of a Rebellion!_" + +A genial gentleman, Mr. Sneyd-Kynnersley, who retired from the +Inspectorate some years ago, published in 1908 a book of choice +reminiscences, containing some good specimens of schoolboy answers. Some +of his howlers have long been known in the North: but a howler (like +history) is wont to repeat itself. I saw in a Paisley boy's essay on +Lambert Simnel the following sentence: "Lambert Simnel was a claimant +for the English crown, and went about the country boasting that he was +one of the princes who had been murdered in the Tower." Mr. Kynnersley's +examinee wrote thus: "Prince Charles Edward claimed to be one of the +little princes murdered in the Tower. He was found to be a deceiver, and +was put into the king's kitchen to work." + +A boy once told Mr. Kynnersley that _a quorum is a question asked at a +meeting which the chairman is unable to answer_. I saw a definition of +paradox, equally absurd: "_A paradox is something which is apparently +not what it seems to be_." + +It is a favourite geographical test to require a pupil to describe a +coast journey between two seaports, and mention capes, rivers, and towns +seen on the way. "Describe a trip from Greenock to the Isle of Man," +said a teacher to his class; "I give you an hour to write it out." Very +few were past Lochryan at the hour's end. One daring youth took his +boat, which he christened "_The Comet_," right round the Mull of +Kintyre, with intent to reach Douglas by way of Cape Wrath, the North +Sea, Dover, Land's End, and St. George's Channel. When time was up, the +_Comet_, all torn and tattered by the strumpet wind, was beating round +the north end of Skye. That boy will, in all probability, turn out a +deep-sea captain. + +"How many days are there in a year?" asked an inspector of a class of +Highland youngsters. No answer was given. "Tut, tut," said the inspector +testily, "this is ridiculous. Is there _no one_ who knows how many days +there are in the year?" "Oh, yes, sir," said a boy reproachfully, "_God +knows_." + +"What kind of king was William III.?" inquired another examiner. "He had +an aquiline nose, sir," said a boy. "What does that mean?" said the +examiner. "_It means_," answered the boy, "_that William III.'s nose was +turned up at the point like the beak of an eagle!_" "What right had +William to the English throne?" continued the examiner, changing his +ground. "_No right under heaven_," was the forceful Jacobite rejoinder. + +Here is a tale, from the eastern seaboard of Scotland. + +_Inspector_, M.A., Ph.D., LL.D., etc. (examining a class of ten-year +olds): "Now, boys, what is the shape of the earth?" + +_Boy:_ "Roon, like an orange." + +_Inspector:_ "But how do I _know_, how can I be _sure_ that the earth is +round like an orange?" + +_Boy:_ "_Because I tell't ye._" + +Pupils show great affection for the phrases of their text-books. Not +long ago, at a written examination, a lad wrote in reply to a historical +question which was puzzling him: "_The answer to this question is known +only to the Great Searcher of Hearts_." What could the boy mean? Was it +"cheek," ignorance, or piety? It was none of these. _It was Collier!_ +About thirty years ago, Dr. Collier, a modern Euphuist, composed a +_History of England_, which deserves to be reckoned among the glories of +the reign. Carlyle may be great, but Collier is greater: Collier is a +theologian, philosopher, and _a' that_. The style of his history is a +wondrous blend of _Ossian_ and Hervey's _Meditations among the Tombs_; +and its special peculiarity is that the words, owing to some feature, +never really analysed, linger in the mind long after the sentences of +the Shorter Catechism have become blurred. Collier is strong in +tropes--a highly-dangerous feature. It is no doubt true, as he says, +that William the Conqueror ruled with a rod of iron, but when a boy, +after reading this metaphor, asserts that that sovereign ruled his +subjects _with a long iron pole_, you begin to question the utility of +historical study. "Joy-bells pealed and bonfires blazed," is a phrase of +the Doctor's which sets all the caverns of the mind ringing, even though +its historical setting is long forgotten. But unction is the chief +feature of the history: there is a rotund finality about the author's +spacious utterances, and a dodging of investigation by means of pious +generalisations. The book has all the effect of a benediction. When it +is really too tiresome to inquire into all the authorities on some +affair of magnitude, it is so respectable to sum up in the phrase +imitated by the youth alluded to above. + +It is in the Secondary Schools of the country that the confusion of +thought is apt to be most painfully seen. Far too much is attempted, and +the pupils are overworked. A teacher in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, a +_laudator temporis acti_, has a manuscript collection of howlers, drawn +from elementary, secondary, and university sources, with the following +fearful lines as a preface:-- + + "Ye statesmen all, of high or humble station, + Collective conscience of the British nation, + Whether the frothing vat has made your name + Or tropes in carpet-bags begot your fame, + Behold the _product_ of the education + Wherewith is dosed the rising generation. + And see the modern devotee of cram + At midnight hour hard-grinding for the exam., + A moistened towel garlanding his brow, + And coffee simmering on the hob below. + High on a three-legged stool uncushioned, he + Sits glowering through his goggles painfully, + Nagging his brain with all a grinder's might + Till _one_ sounds on the drowsy ear of night. + Like Sibyl's leaves the papers strew his floor + Wrought-out examples, 'wrinkles' by the score, + Conundrums algebraic, 'tips' on Conics + And thorny 'props' remembered by mnemonics. + Betweenwhiles as the slow time lagging goes, + He takes the spectacles from off his nose, + Removes the damper from his aching head, + Pours out the coffee, cuts a slice of bread, + Sips wistfully the liquid from his cup: + The zeal to pass the exam. has eaten _him_ up. + Thrice happy ye! born 'neath the ancient reign + When _Tityre tu_ alone possessed the brain + (Ere Tyndall's tubes made sweating students numb) + And the whole aim of life was _di, do, dum_." + + +COMPETING SUBJECTS. + +So numerous indeed are the subjects of the school curriculum in our day +that howlers and confusion are bound to result. Formerly there was but +one scheme (containing classics, mathematics, and a little English), and +everybody took it. Now there is a kind of competition among the +departments of a school as to which is the most culturing. When a fond +mother asks the opinion of the masters as to what course of study her +boy (whom she is entitled to think a genius of the first order) ought to +pursue, she is often puzzled by the variety of answers. Mr. Test-tube, +the Science Master, invariably prescribes an extensive course of +chemistry. If a boy is to be a lawyer, he ought to know the principles +of atomic combination and the doctrine of gases; if he thinks of the +ministry, why then, having a thorough acquaintance with science, he will +be competent to close the mouths of heretics, infidels, and such vermin. +Dr. Aorist, on the other hand, believes that a sound knowledge of "_qui_ +with the subjunctive" is a splendid sheet-anchor for every squall in +life's rude sea. "I wish my boy to be a civil engineer; what advice +would you give me as to his studies?" "I have no hesitation in +affirming," the Doctor replies, "that the boy will build bridges all +the better if he has his mind expanded and (so to speak) broadened by +the study of subjects outside his special trade, such, _e.g._, as the +interesting fact that in ancient times 'All Gaul was divided into three +parts.'" + +The average boy has an impartial mind. As a rule, he has no prejudice in +favour of either science or letters, his maxim being never to do to-day +what he can put off till to-morrow. + + His favourite books for home + Are buccaneering combats on the foam, + Or grim detective tales of Scotland Yard, + Where gleams the bull's-eye lamp and drips the poniard. + +Parents may be reminded that the wide spaces of the colonies remain to +be peopled and that many a _stickit minister_ might have made a +first-class empire-builder. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +A TRIP TO SHETLAND. + + Aberdeen--En route--Lerwick--Past and present saints--Some notes + on the islands--A Shetland poet--A visit to Bressay--From + Lerwick to Sandwick--Quarff--"That holy man, + Noah"--Fladibister--Cunningsburgh--"Keeping off"--The indignant + elder--Torquil Halcrow--Philology--A Sandwick gentleman--Local + tales--Foulah and Fair Isle--The fishing season. + + +ABERDEEN. + +The most expeditious and comfortable way of getting to Shetland is by +way of Aberdeen. + +I have passed through the city of _Bon Accord_ about six times during +the last twelvemonth, and like it better the more I see of it. It is one +of the stateliest towns in Britain, and its main street, spacious, airy, +and symmetrical, is hard to match. The architectural taste of the new +University Buildings is perfect, and will be more striking still to the +casual visitor, when the unsightly buildings all round have been torn +down. It would be worth while going to Aberdeen if for nothing but to +see the superb stretch of sandy beach between the mouths of the Don and +the Dee: one could sit and dream away a whole forenoon there and be +entirely oblivious to the proximity of a large town. + +The finest tribute paid to Aberdeen was written nearly four hundred +years ago by the great Scotch poet, William Dunbar. Three years before +Flodden, Queen Margaret passed through the town, and Dunbar, who +accompanied her, was so delighted with the hospitality, loyalty, and +lavish expenditure of the magistrates, that he wrote a eulogistic poem +to commemorate the occasion. Dunbar carried away the impression that +Aberdeen was a _blythe_ place: + + "_Blythe_ Aberdeen thou beryl of all tounis, + Thou lamp of beauty, bounty and _blitheness_." + +I do not find that the town has produced many poets, but it has been the +cause of poetry in others.[25] A few years ago Mr. William Watson, out +of gratitude for the LL.D. bestowed on him by the University, wrote a +pleasant sonnet in which Aberdeen is represented as + + "Beaming benignant o'er the northern main." + +As I sat on the seashore, repeating to myself the lines of Mr. Watson's +poem, and breathing the fresh air, which an official of the bath-house +told me was _made in Germany_ (meaning thereby that the wind was blowing +from the east), the thought struck me that it would be a pardonable +pastime to employ the spare time I had before the boat started for +Lerwick, in writing a _Sonnet to Mr. William Watson_. In such +exercitations it is necessary to employ the second person singular: + + Watson! I would thy pen were fluenter, + And yet, perchance, thou usest stores of ink, + Ampler than any of thy readers think, + In blotting that wherein the first quick stir + Of thought and genius made the language err. + If Heaven had lent thy polished Muse a blink + Of saving humour for her crambo-clink, + Then never-dying fame had fallen to her. + Yet Heaven be thanked for what it has bestowed + On thee of what is tunefullest and best: + The trim epistle, the heart-stirring ode, + The witching freshness of a _Prince's Quest_, + The soft romance that dreams of years gone by, + Bright noons and dewy glades of Arcady. + + [25] A recent publication shows that Greek verse is well written + at the University. Paisley folk should know that an Aberdonian + Hellenist has put some of Tannahill's verses into Greek. + + +EN ROUTE. + +The little steamer that plies between Aberdeen and Lerwick is timed to +leave the former port at 11.30 a.m., _or as soon afterwards as the tide +will permit_. Often the boat does not leave for some hours after 11.30 +a.m., the tide not being always to blame. What a capacity the boat has +for empty barrels! I counted six heaped lorry-loads of them that were +rolled on board, destined, later on, to be filled with herring up north +among the islands. + +It is extremely interesting (see Virgil III., 690) to stand in calm +weather on the deck of a moving vessel and talk about the notable places +on the coast with one who knows them well. Much information of a varied +and piquant kind may thus be acquired. The Aberdeenshire coast is rather +unpicturesque, but many historical legends linger airily on the stern +old ruins that are passed from time to time. I omit mention of these, +preferring to tell an anecdote of recent years that is associated with +the immense rocky sea-caverns, of world-wide fame, not far from Cruden +Bay. During the Boer War, some Scotch journalists, strong in the science +of genealogy, undertook to prove that all the generals at the front had +Scotch blood in their veins. It seems that these patriotic penmen +succeeded quite easily in making their contention good with respect to +all the generals _save one_. No Scotch lineage could be found for +General Buller. The difficulty was at last surmounted by the felicitous +conjecture that he was one of the famous _Bullers of Buchan_! + +About eight miles past Cruden Bay is Peterhead, the most easterly town +in Britain. Great efforts are being made at present to boom this place +as a health resort. I have heard it said that "printers who die at 30 of +consumption elsewhere, weigh 21 stone at over threescore in Peterhead," +also that "centenarians there have been known to get up at 5.30 a.m., to +chop wood, no chill or bacillus daring to make them afraid." The Home +Office has long thought highly of Peterhead as a place of permanent +retreat for those afflicted with ethical infirmities. + +After Peterhead is left behind, the steamer soon gets entirely away from +land. All night long she battles through the surges, passes about 2 a.m. +the lonely Fair Isle, encompassed by the rushing roost, and two hours +later Sumburgh Head is visible. The approach to Bressay, especially if +the rocks and precipices are half seen through driving haze, is +suggestive, to a student, of the landscape of "Beowulf," with its _windy +walls_, _shadow-helms_, _broad nesses_, and _glimmering sea-cliffs_. + +As seen from the sea, Lerwick looks trim and picturesque, but when the +visitor lands, he is apt to lose his bearings among its tortuous lanes. +I followed a porter who was tottering under the weight of trunks, and +asked him, as we treaded a flag-paved vennel: "Is it far to the main +street?" He grimly replied: "This _is_ the main street, sir." The +response unnerved me, shaky as I was with seventeen hours' tossing on +the North Sea. Once in the hotel, my spirits rose. A most welcome and +savoury breakfast--consumed near an open window commanding a view over a +sun-lit sound--is well able to hearten the most downcast. + + +LERWICK. + +The town of Lerwick is indeed one of the finest of our island capitals, +and is constantly becoming finer. No visitor can fail to be impressed by +its unique natural harbour, gloriously screened by the God-given shelter +of the island of Bressay. Commercial Street, which runs along the +water's edge, is at the foot of a hill, and is so narrow in parts that +two vehicles can hardly get past each other. If I stayed in Lerwick, I +should not like to have any resident enemies, for it would be difficult +to keep from brushing clothes with them in the main street. Up from this +main street to the newer town, on a plateau at the top, run numerous +quaint wynds, sinuous, and not always well-scavenged. This new and +well-built part contains the far-seen and notable Town Hall, the +architecture of which would have pleased Ruskin, especially as its fine +windows are all appositely illustrative of Shetlandic annals. By +climbing the dusty clock-tower, one has a splendid view of all +surrounding slopes and seas. + +Here is a hint to prospective tourists. Take to the left when you quit +the hall, get down the lane leading to the sea-crags, and walk for two +miles in the direction of the rifle-range. It is a glorious and solitary +walk--not altogether solitary, for the sea is invariably good company. +Don't be so foolish as to keep on your hat: off with it, and let the +air-borne sea-spume wet your brow. It is also a good thing to recite +Byron's vigorous "Address to the Ocean,"--the odd cows you may pass will +not stop their grazing for that. There is no finer air in King Edward's +dominions than that which blows in this region, for the hill air meets +the sea air that has come all the way from Norway, and the two coalesce +to give the rapt pedestrian a mouthful of exhilarating ether. One who is +really a poet and not merely a casual sonneteer, should try to get a +site for his tent on this particular shore, and retire to compose an +epoch-making epic. The mediæval saints knew what they were doing when +they retired to little nooks and isles along this coast to pray and +meditate undisturbed: it is much easier to feel devout in a fresh +atmosphere, than in the squalor of a town. + + +PAST AND PRESENT SAINTS. + +What indeed astonishes the visitor to these northern isles is the +immense number of ecclesiastical ruins. The Christian missionaries seem +speedily to have translated their enthusiasm into stone and lime. What +hymns were chanted and what sermons preached up there in bygone times, +passes the wit of man to reckon! It is a far cry from Palestine to the +Shetland creeks and voes, but the voice of the lowly Nazarene +effectually reached the Celts and Norsemen of these treeless +storm-lashed isles. + +Many of the smaller islands have the appellation _papa_, which +indicates, as I hinted above, that some monk or hermit, withdrawing from +the world to pray and meditate, has bequeathed a whiff of sanctity to +headland and skerry. + +"The hermit good lives in the wood," says Coleridge, but for the +Shetland _papa_ there was no _nemorum murmur_:-- + + No sun-illumined leafage met his eye + Raised from perusal of the Holy Word, + No murmur of the woodland zephyr-stirred + Blended with his devotions sped on high, + Only the chiding of the billows nigh. + The clangour of the wheeling ocean-bird, + Or soul-astounding shriek of storm-fiend heard + From the dun cloud-battalions hurrying by, + Greeted his ear: yet piously through all + His life the austere anchorite remained, + On his lone island, buffeted by squall + And sea, and faithful unto death obtained + The promised guerdon that the Lord bestows + Upon the pure in heart, and only those. + +It has been asserted by those who have means of knowing, that the days +of theological rigidity are past and gone in the Shetlands. Thing +unheard of in the Hebrides--the shops are open on Sunday mornings for +the sale of Saturday's _Scotsman_ and _Herald_. In some parts of +Scotland you could not hire a trap for a Sunday drive; in others, you +_might_ manage, by salving the driver's conscience with a double fare. +In Shetland the tariff is the same for the first and the last days of +the week. To explain the ecclesiastical differences between the islands +of the North and the West would require a philosopher with all Buckle's +shrewdness and ingenuity. Buckle accounted for the sombre nature of +Scotch theology by dwelling on the awe-inspiring reverberations of +thunder among the Highland peaks. The easy-going creed of the Shetlands +might perhaps be accounted for by a reference to the happy-go-lucky way +in which the sea wanders at will among the confusion of peninsulas, +islets, and skerries. Any theory is better than none at all, and +geopsychical explanations are fashionable at present. + +The pulpit stars twinkle with great lustre in these boreal regions. A +country minister, with no preparatory groans, but sharp and trippingly +thus began his homily some Sundays ago: "It is now thirty-five years +since the Lord sent me to labour in this part of his vineyard, if +vineyard I may call it, where no grape was ever seen. On a bright summer +morning thirty-five years ago, I turned the corner of the road and came +among you. Young women, your mothers were in the fields, busy with the +work of the crofts. Your mothers were exceedingly fair to look upon, and +I am happy to say, my dear young sisters, that, by the providence of +God, the beauty of your mothers has lost nothing by being transmitted to +your comely selves. And now for my text, which you will find in Ezekiel, +chapter _x_ and verse _y_." + + +SOME NOTES ON THE ISLANDS. + +A century ago Shetland was almost an unknown land to the Lowlanders of +Scotland. When a Shetland minister was deputed to attend the General +Assembly, it might take him a year to get there and back. His journey +was a very circuitous one: he had to go in a trading vessel to Hamburg, +take boat from Hamburg to London, and from London proceed to Leith. To +return from Edinburgh, the journey was performed the reverse way. Now +that there is a regular service between Aberdeen and Lerwick, and +between Leith and several of the Shetland ports, the journey can be +performed with comfort and expedition. Tourists flock North in the +summer season to admire the scenery, catch the trout, and inhale the +health-giving breezes. + +The natives, being mainly of Norse descent, look with a kindly eye over +the water in the direction of Bergen. They do not love Scotland, and +they have their reasons. When the Shetlands were handed over to the +Scotch kings, numbers of needy adventurers, armed with cheaply-got +charters, swooped down on the islands and dispossessed the native +proprietors. This has neither been forgotten nor forgiven. Mr. Russell, +who lived for three years among them, says:--"They believe that the +present lairds are interlopers, and that they themselves have been +defrauded and despoiled. They speak of these things only among +themselves, and not openly; but those who have been in the country, and +have gained their confidence, know that there is a strong undercurrent +of feeling against Scotland and Scotsmen.... They conceive that they +have a claim even as things are, to dwell on the land, and that a +proprietor has no right to remove them from his estate." I was +dreadfully shocked to notice that in a volume of tales published by a +Lerwick author only four years ago, the leading villain was from the +mainland. "Scotland is nothing to us," said a Shetlander to an inspector +of schools. "What has Scotland ever done for us except send us _greedy +ministers and dear meal_?" + +In the old days, when communication with the mainland was uncertain and +fitful, the luxuries of civilised life were quite unknown. In one +outlying district a box of oranges was washed ashore from a wreck: these +the natives boiled, under the impression that the orange was a novel +kind of potato. A cask of treacle, come by in a similar way, was used +like tar to daub the bottom of a smack. By and by a cow was seen to lick +the boat with evident relish, and this opened the eyes of the natives to +the real nature of the substance. Nowadays the natives are well in line +with modern civilisation, one of the most convincing proofs being that +they buy drugs and patent medicines of every kind. One has only to scan +the advertisement pages of the Shetland newspapers to note the +persistent way in which quacks of all shades bring their nostrums before +the notice of the islanders. Dyspepsia and rheumatism are the commonest +ailments; and to combat these, myriads of pills and numberless elixirs +are annually swallowed. Faith does a lot even when the drugs of a +legitimate practitioner are concerned: the fact that you have swallowed +something with a bitter taste is often a distinct aid to recovery. Mr. +Russell, whom I referred to above, says: "To my surprise, I learned that +some who were in extreme poverty, and had hardly enough food to eat, +were in the habit of sending South for pills and patent medicines." + + +A SHETLAND POET. + +Long before I ever thought of visiting Shetland, I was acquainted with +the dialect spoken there, through having studied a most interesting +little book of poems called _Rasmie's Büdie_, published in Paisley. The +author of this book is Mr. Haldane Burgess, a very prolific and able +writer, but unfortunately afflicted with blindness. During my short stay +in Lerwick, I gave myself the pleasure of calling upon him, and I was +intensely delighted with my reception. When the sense of sight is lost, +that of touch becomes inordinately keen: Mr. Burgess has accordingly +excellent control over his type-writer, and can compose as nimbly as in +the days when his eyesight was unimpaired. He spoke of his most recent +novel, _The Treasure of Don Andreas_, and expressed himself as highly +pleased at the criticism passed upon it by a reviewer in the _Athenæum_. +Mr. Burgess begins composition every morning at seven, and regulates his +life with military precision. On all departments of Shetlandic history, +folk-lore, and dialect, he discourses with great knowledge, fluency, and +animation. But his interests in the general field of modern literature +are extremely wide. He speaks the Norse language almost as easily as +English, has studied Icelandic, and knows a good deal about the writers +of modern France. Some friend had been reading Arnold's _Literature and +Dogma_ to him shortly before my visit. He was loud in praise of that +book, the ironical insolence and pawky humour of which he had greatly +enjoyed. + +On parting from Mr. Burgess, I received from him a copy of his pleasant +Shetlandic story _Tang_, a careful and illuminating study of island life +and manners. The English style struck me as full, robust, and strongly +tinged with poetical figures, and the character sketches drawn with the +precision of intimate knowledge. All his prose works display great +wealth of material, and much psychological insight. His most +characteristic production, however, is his little book of poems +mentioned above, _Rasmie's Büdie_. Rasmie is a Shetland crofter who is +typical of the race: shrewd, kindly, thoughtful, and gifted with a touch +of quaint sarcasm. He has perfectly clear views of life, this old +peasant, and is quite free from cant, or superstition, or mystery. Some +of his metaphors are droll: after long pondering on the scheme of +creation, he comes to the conclusion that earth is the field, heaven the +house, and hell the "midden." Pope, speaking of _Paradise Lost_, +complains that-- + + "In quibbles angels and archangels join, + And God the Father turns a school-divine." + +What would the great Augustan have thought of verse in which God the +Father is likened to a cosmic Crofter? + + "Dis Universe is Güd's grit croft, + It's His by richt, wis never koft + Frae gritter laird + And ne'er sall be, laek laand o Toft + Wi' idder shared." + +For those who have the patience to pierce through the husk of Rasmie's +dialect, much amusement and delight is in store. + + +A VISIT TO BRESSAY. + +If Charles Lamb and Herbert Spencer had been sent to Lerwick and Bressay +to write a report on what they saw, I daresay the difference of their +accounts would have astonished every reader. Lamb would probably have +swilled porter in the _Ultima Thule_ Refreshment Bar and written a most +interesting account of Bressay without ever crossing the Sound. The ribs +of a big uncouth Dutch boat, square, cumbrous, shell-fretted, and tilted +up on the beach, would probably have bulked more in Lamb's narrative +than the modern steam-trawlers that abound in these waters. His +politico-economical reflections on the rise in price of peppermint +lozenges, consequent on the annual arrival of the Dutch fishing crews +would, I am sure, have furnished excellent reading. Spencer's report +would have dealt, I fancy, with the rotation of crops, the cause of the +different currents, the varieties of pigmentation (with percentages) +among the islanders, and the evolution of fishing gear from its +rudimentary forms--in sum with the definite combination of heterogeneous +changes both simultaneous and successive, in correspondence with +external coexistences and sequences. No two out of a hundred visitors +see the same things, a fact which may help to prove Bishop Berkeley's +theory that the universe is subjective entirely. + +I went over to Bressay with a genial and erudite clergyman to visit the +schoolhouse and inspect the ruins of an eighth century church. Three +Shetland women rowed us over the Sound and handled the oars splendidly. +The minister, a plump, jolly be-spectacled gentleman, who has not +"perpetrated matrimony," declared with a sigh that he was an unprotected +male, and on our arrival at the Bressay beach, he called aloud to the +oarswomen to lift him out of the boat. These muscular dames shrieked +with laughter and proceeded to unship their oars as if to buffet him: +he, thereupon, leaped lightly enough on the strand and, turning round, +would have improved the occasion by a word in season had not the +tittering Nereids begun to splash him as he stood on the shingle. + +Innumerable sheep pasture on the Bressay slopes, and on the sky-line of +some of the hills one can discern companies of rollicking Shetland +ponies. My friend, the minister, who is writing a book on Darwin, got +into conversation with Mr. Manson, the Bressay pony-breeder. The latter +spoke thus about his tiny steeds: "Pony-breeding is a more puzzling +business than anything else in God's universe. The parents, +grandparents, and great grandparents of a given pony have all been +perfect in every point. Good! You naturally expect that a pony with such +exceptionable ancestry will itself be without a flaw. But is it? No, +often it is not. Too frequently you get bitter water from sweet, and +thistles instead of grapes. Just look at that tricky, mischievous, +ill-tempered, wall-eyed little rascal. Where did he get his evil +cantrips and his wall-eye? I have known his ancestors for four +generations back and they were all without a blemish." The minister made +a note of this fact within the book and volume of his brain: it may be +useful in the pulpit, and I expect to see it in print when he publishes +his book on Darwin. + +The eighth century church was at last reached. It is about three miles +from the landing-place and quite near the water. Every point was most +lucidly explained by my ecclesiastical guide. To the outer eye the place +consisted of some low, ruined walls enclosing various species of rank, +wet grass. Such remains of olden piety are provocative of gloomy +reverie, which the rushing of the inconstant tide close by only serves +to deepen. Immediately after the Crucifixion and long before this church +was reared by saintly hands, the little Christian communities thought +the kingdom of God would shortly be established and all sin and +suffering be banished from the world. But the apostles died, and so +successively have + + "Priest, doctor, hermit, monk grown white + With prayer, the broken-hearted nun, + The martyr, the wan acolyte, + The incense-swinging child"-- + +the bishop, the church-builder, and the patriot in all those +generations, and the kingdom of God is not with us yet, seems, indeed, +to be as far off as ever. When the world has been at peace for a while +and the millennium seems imminent, all of a sudden a perverse, +stiff-necked, _wall-eyed_ generation supervenes, and evolution gives way +to deterioration! + +Lightly bounding down the ages, my companion turned my thoughts from +unrealised dreams of religion to those of politics. Along these waters +that cast their spray on the ancient ruin, James Hepburn, Earl of +Bothwell, third husband of Queen Mary, fled in hot haste, with a +pursuing squadron at his heels, in the year 1567. Kirkaldy of Grange +entered the Sound of Bressay as Bothwell was leaving by the northern +exit. + +Our walk lasted about four hours, and ended up in the school-house, +where the teacher's hospitable dame regaled us to a welcome and +excellent cup of tea. It did us good after the strain of so many +reminiscences. The teacher is a hearty and sociable gentleman, who loves +his books and his fireside. On the fine Saturdays, friends ferry across +from Lerwick for a round of golf with him over the Bressay links. The +fine library, recently sent from Paisley, furnishes a pleasant variety +of reading both for himself and his pupils. On my remarking that, as +chairman at the lecture next evening, he need not speak more than thirty +minutes, he replied, with visible emotion, that he would concentrate his +remarks into a space of thirty seconds. + +We got back to Lerwick in a lugsail that was full of passengers, +potatoes, and milk-cans. There was a good deal of loud, elementary chaff +during the twenty minutes' crossing. An old, wrinked, peat-smoked dame +gave us much good advice and (better still) a sprig of white heather +apiece. I found by subsequent experience that the trip is not always so +amusing. Next evening a boatman pulled us over, and it was stiff work +for him, as the Sound was lumpy and the wind contrary. Coming back, he +hoisted his sail, and we careered over in rollicking style. I was a +little scared at the swift-rushing currents and the switchback motion of +the boat. Overhead were moon, stars, and flying clouds; the hulls of big +steamers loomed like phantoms on the surface of the Sound; on the hill +opposite twinkled the ever-nearing light of Lerwick. + +Bressay, I may add, has a nice little hall, with all items of modern +convenience, including ventilation. The building is used for every +legitimate purpose, from worship to _weel-timed daffin'_. + + +FROM LERWICK TO SANDWICK. + +I have a vivid recollection of a day's drive from Lerwick to Sandwick, +down the long, narrow peninsula that terminates in Sumburgh head. I was +accompanied by the reverend gentleman already alluded to in connection +with Bressay. + +It is a common saying in the isles that Shakespeare had his eye on the +soil of Shetland when he pronounced the famous line: + + "'Tis true, 'tis _peaty_, 'tis _peaty_ 'tis, 'tis true." + +On all sides in the country you see acre after acre of bog, dripping +with moisture and exuding black runnels whenever the spade of the +peat-cutter begins to slice its fibrous bulk. Should a wayfarer leave +the road by mishap after nightfall, he would soon be plunging in the +treacherous morasses. It is well for him to have a lantern swinging at +his girdle when the sun has gone down. + +Such are the reflections suggested by a view of the country between +Lerwick and the little clachan of Quarff. + + +QUARFF. + +Quarff is the headquarters of a minister who is said to be the only +extempore preacher in Shetland, if the word can be appropriately applied +to one who, being blind, has to prepare his sermons in "the quick forge +and working-house of thought" without the succour of books. This +gentleman spent long years in the little islets called _Skerries_, and, +like a miniature Augustine or Columba, claims to have been the first to +preach the sublime truths of Christianity on these limestone formations. + +Though blind, he enjoys his pipe, and I had a smoke with him at the +fireside. Between the puffs, he indulged in a furious onslaught on the +Lord Chancellor and the Wee Frees. Lord Halsbury he considered a poor, +benighted creature, who didn't know the difference between a Trades +Union and a body of Christians. "_If he ever comes to Shetland_," said +the minister, "_he had better bring his woolsack with him, for I won't +let him down soft!_" After Lord Halsbury had been adequately trounced, +the talk turned on notable things that had happened in the district +within the last decade or two. One of the tales (which was very +divertingly told) had to do with the trite subject of intemperance, but +as it contains one or two novel touches, I here briefly rehearse it. + +An elder of the place, who, with his trap, had come to grief one market +night on the way back from Lerwick, told his session a strange tale to +account for the catastrophe. "When I got to Lerwick in the forenoon, I +said to the driver: 'Young man, if I mistake not, you have had no tip +from me for a long time.' 'That's very true, sir,' said he. 'Well,' said +I, 'there's half-a-crown; go and spend it judiciously.' During the day I +transacted business with various friends, omitting none of the usual +rites. About five o'clock my driver returned, and harnessed the horse +for the return journey. At first I thought he had brought his brother +with him, but, on rubbing my eyes, I found it was an optical delusion. +As I watched him narrowly, I saw the outlines of a bottle bulging out +from his buttoned coat, and distinctly heard, as he moved to and fro, +the gurgling sound of liquid in agitation. He was smiling in +self-approval, and when I reproved him for his slowness, he quoted +Habakkuk v. 5, 'Hurry no man's cattle,' adding that his authority was +the Revised Version. As we went rattling along the road, his tricks +were fantastic in the extreme. At a point about two miles from Lerwick, +I saw, a little in front of us, a tall individual enveloped in a long +waterproof, of which the collar was turned up to cover his ears. The +eyes of this person glowed like live coal as he peremptorily demanded a +lift. Not waiting for permission, he, with a sudden spring, vaulted on +the trap and squeezed himself between the driver and myself. The air +grew hot and close. The driver became ten times friskier than before. I +determined to unmask the unceremonious stranger, and, putting down my +hand, grasped him by the foot. He had no boots on, and what I seized was +a cloven hoof. I asked him there and then if he was Beelzebub. 'I am,' +said he, 'and clever and all as you are, it will take all your talents +to slip out of my clutches this night.' At this point there is a blank +in my souvenirs. I only remember sparks flying and the sensation of +falling down from my seat on to a steep embankment. On recovering +consciousness, I found myself lying on a crofter's bed, with aching +limbs. I told him the story of my escape, and he said, after hearing it: +'We live in troublous times, John, and the Arch-deceiver seems to be off +the chain. Watch and pray, or you may fall further next time.'" + + +"THAT HOLY MAN, NOAH." + +Particular stories are suggested by the place where one first heard +them. This profound remark is worked out in detail by Sir William +Hamilton and Professor Sully. As I look at the map of the road I +traversed that day, I am reminded of certain anecdotes retailed by my +genial and reverend guide. + +"After leaving college," said he, "I was appointed assistant to a worthy +D.D. who regarded the higher critics as a species of vermin. Hell with +him was not a mere unpleasant state passed in _this_ world, but an +actual raging bonfire specially prepared for everyone who could not +repeat the Shorter Catechism. The parishioners of this worthy man were, +in consequence, devoutly orthodox, and had, one and all, a keen nose for +bad doctrine. They did not like to be fobbed off with a sermon of the +spineless order; they liked bones, blood, and fire--not a mosaic of +cheery quotations from Tennyson about the larger hope and about worms +not being cloven in vain. They had also a great liking for the +patriarchs, especially Noah. By ill luck, I spoke one Sunday on the +patriarchs, and handled them pretty roughly. I felt that sacred +enthusiasm which every man feels in denouncing the sins of others. I +gave the Captain of the Ark a special lick of tar. This sermon caused a +mighty commotion in the district. I might as well have asserted that the +paraphrases were inspired, or that Sankey's hymns were canonical. I +could see that the elders began to look coldly upon me. In barn and byre +little groups discussed my preaching, and there was much wagging of the +head and shooting out of the lip. A deputation came out of a +potato-field to me one day as I was walking along the road, and the +leader, an old theological crofter, said bluntly: 'Your sermons are not +pleasing us, if you please, sir.' 'Is the doctrine bad?' I asked. 'Not +exactly that, but the folk say it's very unseemly.' 'What special sermon +do they object to?' 'They think you're not sound on that holy man, +Noah.' 'Do they go the length of saying Noah was perfect?' 'They don't +just go that length; but, while admitting Noah was human, they desire' +(here the old man raised his head, shut his eyes, and shouted) 'to hear +no more from a young inexperienced lad like you, a single word about the +patriarch's shortcomings. The man was a patriarch, and therefore a +saint. Talk about his virtues as much as you like, but don't fash about +his trespasses, there's a good boy, I speak as your friend.'" + + +FLADIBISTER. + +When my friend had delivered himself of this story, he pointed with his +pipe to a little confused collection of low, thatched cottages which we +were rapidly approaching on the left, and, oblivious of Noah, went thus +musing on: "You are now in the charmed domain of Fladibisteria, of which +the core or citadel, as it were, is this village of Fladibister. This is +no settlement of Norsemen: no, this is a Celtic nook where second sight +and such witchcraft flourished not so many years ago. Did not the +minister once rebuke them for their spells and mystic whims by aptly +applying to them the words of St. Paul to the Galatians: '_Oh, foolish +Fladibisterians, who hath bewitched you?_' There is an atmosphere of +tranquillity and Arcadian peace swimming over Fladibister such as is +nowhere else to be found in Shetland. The young men of the place roam +far over the sea, as mariners and fishers; but like the exiled +Jacobite-- + + 'Who sighed at Arno for his lovelier Tees,' + +they never feel happy till they are back home here under the roofs of +thatch. And what a work their women folks make with them when they +return! What feasting and merrymaking! What screwing of fiddle-pegs, +nimble motion of elbows and long-sustained dancing and skipping. I don't +deny that there is clink of glasses, too, at times, to aid the passage +of the hours far past the noon of night." + + +CUNNINGSBURGH. + +Cunningsburgh, the journey to which was shortened by these tales, is one +of those places you might pass through without being aware of it; that +is to say, there is no feature about it so startling or abrupt as to +impress itself at once on the attention. The district all round is well +tilled, and the houses bien and comfortable. + +The minister of the place arrests the attention instantly. His genial +face and hearty handshake have a more Christianising effect on the soul +than a ton of sermons. I have never heard a more kindly voice or seen a +face in which tenderness, merriment, and intellectual keenness, were all +so harmoniously blended. He does not smoke himself, but has that wise +and wide perception of things which leads him to press those who are +anxious to smoke, but say they are not, to take out their pipes in his +drawing-room. It was easy to see the man he was, by a hasty look at his +book-shelves. All the philosophers were represented there, from Plato +to the present-day mystical Germans. Lang's _Odyssey_ was side by side +with the Icelandic sagas and the Song of the Niebelungs. I did not see +many books of Systematic Theology; but the Greek tragedians, the Sacred +Books of the East, German and French novels, had all a place in the +bookcase of this cosmopolitan clergyman of a remote Shetlandic parish. + + +"KEEPING OFF." + +In secluded townships like Cunningsburgh where life's round has much of +the monotony of fashionable society, and involves a still recurring +succession of similar duties, the minister is indeed a power. If he is a +man of broad and enlightened mind, his influence for good is +incalculable. The Kirk-Session is a permanent Court of Justice, taking +cognisance of minor matters of morality, and enforcing its decisions by +religious sanctions. To be barred from participating in the communion +rites might not seem a very alarming punishment to the easy-going +Lowlander; but to a Shetland peasant, being _keepit off_, as it is +technically called, is a terrible and humiliating penalty. A crofter +came to the manse to complain about his wife's unruly and satirical +tongue. "But what can I do to her?" said the minister, "she's your wife, +and you must assert your authority." "I've tried everything," said the +man, "but she still continues to be a troubler in Israel." The minister +professed his inability to interfere. "I can do nothing at all," he +said. "Yes you can," said the crofter, with a wink and a fearful +whisper, "_You can keep her off!_" + + +THE INDIGNANT ELDER. + +Since the Reformation the people have lived and thriven under the +jurisdiction of the Session. In the records of the Session one finds a +chronicle of the sins, eccentricities, and merriments of the people for +the last two or three centuries. Several incidents based on these +minutes will make what I say abundantly clear. The Quarrel of the Elder +and the Minister's Housekeeper, for example, convulsed a still remoter +parish in much the same overmastering way as the Dreyfus Trial agitated +Paris. Herodotus is the only author I can think of who could have done +justice to this northern _affaire_. Let me briefly summarise it. Between +the minister's garden and that of one of his elders ran what was termed +a hedge. The shrubs which formed the base of this hedge were so +ill-grown that the minister's fowls could easily go, clucking and +scraping, from one garden into the other. Evidence was given to prove +that the cabbages and pot-herbs in the elder's plot were torn and +spoiled in parts. Every morning he stood at a gap in the hedge and sang +aloud like a skipper in a storm or Achilles at the trench of the Greeks: +"I am being ruined and brought to poverty by the minister's hens." This +cry grated upon the ears of the manse housekeeper, who by and by thought +it her duty to go out and reason with the elder. "It's no' the +minister's hens ava that's to blame, it's the craws o' the firmament." +"It's the hens." "No, the craws." "Hens I declare!" "You're a _deceitful +impostor_!" said the housekeeper. Now, no self-respecting elder could +stand that. Boiling with wrath as he was, he remembered his +ecclesiastical status, merely remarking that there was work for the +Session at last. By nightfall he had been in every croft within the +Session's jurisdiction, laying off his tale in each, and as he got +practice and more vehemence with constant repetition, he attained +extreme fluency and impressiveness before the day was done. An +unspeakable joy came over the community at the prospect of a delicious +scandal. To avoid the breach being healed by an apology, many of the +crofters sought to envenom the quarrel by refusing to believe that the +elder was altogether right. "Crows," they said, "had been known to play +havoc with cabbage. Elders were but human, and so, hasty in laying +charges on insufficient evidence. The case was certainly one for the +Church courts. The housekeeper must have a good defence to make, and +would no doubt make it at the proper time and in the proper place. We +must hear both sides." One may see by this that the spirit which +animates a great nation (the desire, namely, to divert itself with the +contentions of those who come before the public eye), animates also the +smallest communities in the realm. The great passion-stirring process, +_Hens versus Crows_, lasted for some seven months. Over and over again +the hedge was examined. Now the elder thought he had the best of it, +only to be damped by a revulsion of feeling in favour of the +housekeeper. The finding of the Session was adverse to the lady. The +fact that she had practically called the elder a son of Belial could not +be got over. The minister, holding the scales of justice, was forced, in +spite of himself, to declare against her. Considering her position, +some mildness was shown in pronouncing her condemnation and the penalty. +Having regard to the dignity of the offended man, nothing less than the +sentence of _keeping off_ could meet the ends of ecclesiastical law. But +one "keeping off" was deemed adequate. The elder was avenged. At the +ensuing communion, he was seen to smile and rub his hands diabolically, +as he glanced towards the back of the church, where sat, outside the +pale of the privileged elect, the unhappy and vanquished housekeeper, +who had called him an impostor. + + +TORQUIL HALCROW. + +Torquil Halcrow's case presents features of a different order. For some +reason a _fama_ spread abroad respecting him to the effect that his +language and demeanour left much to be desired, and that not even the +presence, or at least proximity, of women operated to mellow the +strength of his vocabulary. Nothing definite was openly formulated +against him, but Torquil became aware that in certain quarters his +reputation was being slowly undermined. It is precisely this vague kind +of aggression on a man's character that is the most difficult to combat. +He took the bull by the horns in a most heroic way. _He got up a public +testimonial to himself, and went round canvassing for signatures._ The +testimonial ran thus:--"We, the undersigned women of the parish, have +pleasure in bearing witness that we have known Torquil Halcrow for +twenty years, and never have we known him do an unseemly act or utter an +unworthy expression." Thereafter followed a list of forty names. +Furnished with this document, he strode up to the manse, fluttered it in +the minister's face with a gesture of triumph, laid it down on the study +table, then turned on his heel and walked away. The minister, when he +examined the paper minutely, found that Torquil, in the belief that the +heading of the testimonial was not sufficiently strong, had added this +further clause in his own handwriting: "_but many a precious word of +truth and gracious spiritual comfort have we heard proceeding from his +lips_." + +I have already referred to the beautiful and pathetic saying of Mr. +Barrie that every window-blind is the curtain of a tragedy. I thought of +that dictum as the minister of Cunningsburgh pointed to one cot after +another in the neighbourhood, and narrated the calamities that had +fallen upon them within recent years. Here, an old widow was mourning +the loss of a son who had gone to the deep-sea fishing and would never +return: his bright young life had been swallowed up in the insatiable +ocean, and she was left lamenting in her indigence. There, it was a +father who had been engulfed in the roost; or again, the illness of a +mother had cast a blight for years upon this other household. Sometimes +I have seen two old people, all their sons dead, living a kind of +stupefied half-life, automatically moving about, poor and wretchedly +clad, unable to understand anything except the welcome heat of the sun +and the animal comfort of a little food. There are many sad things in +this world: none is more sad than the sight of two old people outliving +their progeny and wandering about in decrepit second childhood with no +more substance than a dream. The sea is mainly answerable for the great +and deep tragedies of the Shetlands: it is like a pitiless monster, +howling in anger at their doors and claiming its yearly prey. No native +writer has as yet attempted to make vocal for us the immense dumb +sorrows of these fisher folks in the way Loti has done for the seafarers +of Brittany. + + +PHILOLOGY. + +Jakobsen, the Danish philologist, spent some years recently in +collecting the remains of the old Norwegian speech that still linger in +the conversation and the place-names of the islanders. Perhaps the most +interesting point brought out by Jakobsen is the prevalence in +comparatively recent times of lucky words, which the fishermen used when +at the deep-sea fishing, and only then. This practice is undoubtedly a +relic of pagan ages when the sea-depths were regarded as the dominion of +dread water spirits, who keenly watched those who intruded in their +realms. The strange feature about this deep-sea speech is that its +expressions were purely Norse, whereas the home idiom of the fishers was +overwhelmingly English. The pagan beliefs respecting the hostile powers +of the sea found expression in old words handed down from a +pre-Christian epoch. These old words may have been originally liturgical +or worship words, for the sea was an object of veneration and awe to the +Norsemen who, in the conquering days, made their home on its angry +waters. It was believed that the jealous powers of the ocean were +vehemently hostile to Christianity, and hence the Shetland fishers, up +till quite recently, carefully avoided any direct mention of _church_ +or _minister_ when on the water: the _haaf_ or lucky words being +respectively _benihoose_ (prayer-house) and _upstander_. Even the +domestic animals had special _haaf_ appellations. This conception of the +sea as filled with weird mysterious beings of unspeakable malignity, +ever ready to whelm the boat of an unwary intruder, carries the mind +back to the old alliterative lay of _Beowulf_, the contest of that hero +with the wallowing ocean-monsters, and the grim subterranean glow in the +sea-home of Grendel's mother. The Shetlanders have only too much reason +to brood over the cruelty of the sea. On July 20, 1881, during a +terrific squall, sixty-three breadwinners were engulfed in the thwarting +currents of the Sound of Yell. + + +A SANDWICK GENTLEMAN. + +During all the foregoing discussion in the Cunningsburgh manse and +garden, our driver had been wondering what subjects of talk could +possibly be keeping us from continuing our journey to Sandwick. The two +ministers--the original one and the Cunningsburgh man also--at length +mounted the trap with me, and we all went joyfully on the final lap. The +object of the journey was to visit Mr. Sinclair of Sandwick, a gentleman +well worth going fifty miles to see. Mr. Sinclair has many qualities +that make a man notorious. He went to Australia in an emigrant ship many +years ago, and wrote a book upon it, in which he playfully remarks that +he got the full value of his passage money, inasmuch as there was a +birth, a death, and a suicide, between Plymouth and Melbourne. Another +of his distinctions is great dexterity in playing the violin, his +favourite pieces being "The Scalloway Lasses" and "The Auld Wife ayont +the Fire." The title of the last-named piece rather staggered me, until +I was informed by one of the ministers, who is a scholar and an +antiquarian, that it relates to a time when the fire was in the middle +of the room and when the smoke escaped by a hole in the roof, or in +default of that, by the door. Mr. Sinclair rendered these pieces with +infinite gusto, and, like all true artists, got as much pleasure as he +gave. He had also the most diverting way of ejaculating the word _hooch_ +I have ever heard in my journey through life. It gives me pleasure to +add that he wrote a poem on fifty whales that were driven from the sea +by the local fishermen into Sandwick Bay. These whales were all +beautifully cooped in the narrow inlet and stranded on the beach, when +lo! the local landowners, citing some old statute, claimed from the +fishermen a share of the spoil. Mr. Sinclair, indignant and astute at +once, took upon himself the championship of the fishermen, and managed +matters so admirably that the lords of the soil were completely worsted +in the Edinburgh law-courts. Flushed with such signal success, he put +the whole story into metre. A printed and framed copy of the poem hangs +in a conspicuous place in his sitting-room. At our special request, he +favoured us by singing the impassioned stanzas. It was a unique treat to +hear him do so. There he was in the centre of the room holding the +framed verses in his hand, gazing fondly thereat even as a mother +regards her child. When the chorus came on, he laid down the poem, and +lifted up his voice with glorious enthusiastic force. Inspiration was in +his eye, his grey locks became dishevelled, his arms swung rhythmically +to the beat of the melody. The entire interview was intense: it was one +crowded hour, of which time is unable to cancel the memory. + + +LOCAL TALES. + +The evening was a glorious one, and we _walked_ back some miles of the +way. The Cunningsburgh minister was full of stories. He alluded +laughingly to one of his flock who, when under the influence of drink, +was powerful in prayer. "_When he gets a dram he goes to his knees at +once._" The anecdote seemed to me to run counter to the views of the +hymnologist who says "Satan trembles when he sees, the weakest saint +upon his knees." Another of his stories had reference to two old +crofters, both over eighty, who began one evening to talk of the follies +of the young fisher-lads when they took to dram-drinking. One of the two +remarked: "I wonder now what folly we two old men would commit if we +chanced to get intoxicated, say at a funeral." "Well," said the other +hoary-headed and infirm octogenarian, "I have no idea what you would do, +but I am certain of this, that if I ever got the least bit touched, I +would go and make love to the lasses at once." Thereupon the two feeble +old fellows skirled a wicked laugh, and nearly gasped out their slim +residue of life in unseemly merriment. + +Both ministers assured me that the belief in fairies still lingers on +among the Shetland peasantry. Up on the hill-side the trow is supposed +to wander about, and the little fellow can be seen skipping on the +moon-light sward, by all who have eyes and the necessary faith. It is +believed that he haunts the road-side even when the moon is not shining: +consequently, when the crofters have to go out of doors at night, they +protect themselves from his spells by carrying with them a blazing peat +gripped with tongs. This smokes and sparkles in the darkness and the +trow does not like it. It is easy for the electric-lighted citizens of +Glasgow and Edinburgh to laugh at the simple folk-lore of fisher and +crofter; but no one, however learned and sceptical, can quite escape +from the mystic influence of fairy-lore if he lives through a winter +among believing dalesmen. Let him look on the long silvery glimmer of a +sea-voe, and hear the natives tell of trows chasing the ebbing Neptune +down there on the dim sea-strand in a night of haze, before he says +(with Theseus, in the _Midsummer Night's Dream_): + + "I never may believe + These antick fables, nor those fairy toys." + +To the ear and eye of the philological Jakobsen, the Shetlanders both in +speech and looks are remarkably like the Norwegians of the Saettersdal. +In that part of Norway the trow is also a very popular terror. Children +of a disobedient and obstreperous turn are afraid to venture near a wood +at nightfall for fear of a little bogie with a red cap, who may suddenly +slide down a pine-tree and snatch them off. + + +FOULAH AND FAIR ISLE. + +I do not altogether envy the candidate for parliamentary honours who has +to _nurse_ a remote insular constituency like Orkney and Shetland. I met +Mr. Cathcart Wason in Lerwick, and learned that he had been going the +round of the islands and had even paid a visit to the isolated and +mountainous rock of Foulah. Now this was a very daring feat indeed, for +I have heard of a young man who went once to visit his friends there and +was kept a prisoner for five months owing to the squalls. The papers +complimented Mr. Wason on his intrepidity: he went over from Walls in a +smack, and did not make his address too lengthy, for fear the weather +might change and Westminster be deprived of his eloquence for a space. +Mr. Wason is a very tall gentleman, but in Foulah he met his peers in +point of stature. The islanders are a fine set of men, hardy and godly. +They are adroit fowlers and nimble cragsmen. It gives one a queer +sensation to hear that the face of their sheer precipices used to be +(like level land elsewhere) apportioned equitably among the various +families. If A did not wish to catch birds on his aerial lot, he could +let it to B and claim a certain percentage of the spoil. The population +of the island is about 250: owing probably to intermarriage, there are +many childless homes. + +I do not know if Mr. Wason has ever been to the Fair Isle, but I +understand an Ex-Moderator of the Church of Scotland visited the little +community there in 1903. There are two ways of getting to this islet: +(1) by means of a sailing boat which leaves Grutness for Fair Isle once +a fortnight with the mails; if the weather is bad, this mode of +communication is suspended, as in winter no sane man would venture +through the roost in such a boat; (2) by taking a passage on board the +S.S. _Pole Star_, which calls on the first of every month with stores +for the lighthouse. She is a strong, swift boat, and makes the journey +from Stromness, seventy miles away. I may remark that a lecturer wishing +to speak in the Fair Isle need not trouble himself about placards or +handbills: the whole population will be on the shore to welcome him when +he lands, and he could conveniently intimate his subject then, if he has +any breath left in his body. The Fair Isle possesses a church organ and +a non-surpliced choir. The islanders have a great appetite for sermons, +as the following story, told by Mr. Russell, amply proves. "The minister +of Dunrossness went one summer to dispense the communion in the Fair +Isle, and a storm came on which detained him there for about eight days. +The weather also prevented the boats from going to the fishing. As the +people had no pressing work to do at the time, and as it was only on +rare occasions that they enjoyed the presence of the parish minister, +they were anxious to avail themselves of his services while he was among +them. _Accordingly, at their desire, he preached every day during his +stay. In all, he preached thirteen times._ He had taken the precaution +of bringing a good stock of sermons with him. Before this was exhausted, +the weather providentially improved, so that he was able to get +home."[26] + +The cherished legends of one's youth get sorely demolished in the course +of travel and investigation. The school-books used to say that the +Shetlanders were taught to knit by Spanish women saved from the wreck of +the Armada. The islanders stoutly deny any indebtedness, and declare +that there never was the slightest friendship between their ancestors +and the crews of King Philip's galleons. + + [26] The prayers of as many righteous men as possible are + requested for the inspectors of schools who have to examine and + report on the state of education in the Orkneys and Shetlands. I + had the pleasure of conversing with one of these hard-worked + officials in November, 1906. He spoke very warmly of the improved + educational benefit of the libraries that have been sent from + Paisley to the isles and skerries. This gentleman inspects the + Fair Isle school once every two years. On the occasion of his + last visit, he was rowed from Lerwick in a "sixern," and had a + most tempestuous time going through the _roost_. Two of his + oarsmen sickened, and were helpless. On getting ashore at last, + he forgot all his sorrows and soaking, when he heard heartsome + strains of welcome being played on the _insular pianola_. + + +THE FISHING SEASON. + +To Lerwick, during the fishing season, thousands of women come from the +island of Lewis to gut the myriad herring that are daily brought into +the bay. There is an extemporised town for the strangers on the +outskirts, over which float many odours, weird, pungent, and unsavoury. +All the processes of gutting, curing, and kippering go on in grand +style. The women, clad in a kind of oilskin, handle their dangerous +implements in most dexterous fashion. It is a horrid business, but well +paid. Prolific Nature is never tired supplying these women with work, +for as many as 68,000 eggs have been found in the roe of one female +herring. My friend, Mr. M'Kenzie of Ullapool, who is in the service of +the Fishery Board, took me to see the official examination of several +hundred barrels of fish, preparatory to the branding thereon of the +official stamp. The owners pay for this examination, but the additional +value given to each barrel by the Government mark far surpasses the fee +exacted by the Board. The branding-officer selects at random a barrel +here and there, extracts some dozen fish from each, and satisfies +himself as to the size and quality. If the herring are puny or of +inferior sort, the officer refuses to brand, and the examination fee is +refunded. Mr. M'Kenzie remarked that this was the only case in which he +had ever seen men reluctant to receive money. I followed that gentleman +as he walked over the long lines of slippery herring barrels, lying in +horizontal juxtaposition, and I cannot recommend the exercise to those +who have had no training in gymnastics. + +The great success of the Shetland fisheries during the last year or two +has brought to Lerwick a palpable increase of business and droves of +business men. In the Grand Hotel there were, in August last, thirty +gentlemen resident who were in some way brought thither by the traffic +in herring--among the number a young Russian, who, with his wife, sat at +a little table apart, and kept jabbering their language with glib +expressiveness. His name was Walk-off, and his object was the +annexation of fish for Muscovite consumption. He had a flabby face and +long, dark hair, which he publicly combed. _She_ was small and +pretty--doll-like, indeed--with jewels in her ears, which glittered and +flashed in the gas-light. She was a very loquacious wee creature, and +her intonation reminded me of the caressing way the Swedes articulate +English. I heard him read the Russian newspapers to her with evident +emotion, but the only word I could make out was _Kouropatkin_. The +herring-agents at the hotel table were full of drollery. One of them, +hailing from Wick, addressed a neighbour abruptly to this effect: "I am +a rather expensive man to sit beside, and to one like you especially so, +for you seem to be a water-drinker. When I tell you who I am, however, +you will insist on standing me a bottle of champagne." He was frigidly +asked to state his grounds for such a preposterous expectation. "Prepare +to gasp," he replied; "you see before you one who is a model and a +beacon to all the men of Caithness. I am the sire of nine sturdy sons, +and _they have only three birth-days among them_, seeing that they came +into this vale of tears three at a time." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS AND THEIR ANECDOTES. + + Trials of commercials--The two-est-faced knave--Mary, the maid + of the inn--Anecdotes of the smoking-room: Sonnet to + Raleigh--Peelin's below the tree--"She's away!"--A mean + house--One of the director's wives--Temperance hotels--A + memorial window--The blasted heath--The day for it--The + converted drummer--A circular ticket--A compound + possessive--Sixteen medals--"She's auld, and she's thin, and + she'll keep"--The will o' the dead--Sorry for London--"Raither + unceevil"--An unwelcome recitation--A word in season--A Nairn + critic--A grand day for it--A pro-Boer--"Falls of Bruar, only, + please!"--A bad case of nerves. + + +TRIALS OF COMMERCIALS. + +The commercial traveller (that bustling and indispensable middleman) +leads a life of mingled joy and pain. He is constantly on the move, and +from meeting innumerable types of men, becomes very shrewd in judging +character. Resource, readiness, abundance of glib phrases must in time +become his. He must not, for fear of offence, show any marked bias in +politics or religion. His temper must be well under control; he must +have the patience of an angel; he must smile with those that are merry, +be lugubrious with those that are in the dumps, and listen, with +apparent interest, to the stock stories of hoary-headed prosers. It is +not enough that he should book orders. Some shaky customers are only too +ready to give these. It is his business to book orders only from those +that are likely to pay. A big order delivered to a scoundrel who means +to fail next week, is a horrible calamity, which, if it does not result +in pains and penalties, means a sharp reprimand and a loss of prestige +at headquarters, that may take years to redeem. + +He has to sleep in many a different bed. It is lucky for him if a damp +couch has not rheumatised his limbs. No one knows better than he that +what seems a bell-pull has often, owing to former violence and broken +wires, no connection with the bell. Here a chimney smokes, there the +flue is blocked with birds' nests. In certain country inns, the flimsy +gossamer of spiders makes an undesirable fretwork over the greenish +knobs of the ill-puttied panes. Mice, rats, and "such small deer" +scamper uncannily the live-long night along the worn waxcloths and +unspeakable carpets. As he undresses by the light of a three-inch +candle, he has his soul horrified by early Victorian prints, of Paul +tumbling from his horse on the way to Damascus, of the gory relief of +Lucknow, or of some towsy-headed clansman smiling out of perspective. He +is by no means a tourist on pleasure bent. He must face gust and surge, +for he cannot choose his time and weather. His duty is to cover as much +ground as he can in a given week, fill his order-book with +irreproachable orders, and get home to report, preparatory to another +sally in another direction. Competition stings him into feverish +activity. If he sells tea, he well knows that an army of rivals is +scouring the whole country with samples as good, or perhaps a great deal +better, than his own. + + +THE TWO-EST-FACED KNAVE. + +Nevertheless, the jovial facetiousness of these commercial gentlemen +knows no limits, and hotel-waiters are, at all times, fair game for +their stings and arrows. In one of the northern hotels, there used to be +a portly and rubicund waiter who might have passed for the High Priest +of the Goddess of Health. His face shone, if I may say so, with the +radiance of perfect digestion. A pert commercial, one day, approached +him with an affected look of deep concern and said, "_Well, I hope +you're keeping better_," accompanying the remark with a dig in the +waiter's stomach. The waiter, who had never known a minute's ill-health +in his life, swore vividly for fifteen minutes without repeating +himself, and among many references to the commercial's ancestry, called +him the _two-est-faced_ knave that had ever set foot on the Shetland +Islands. Such a superlative was felt by all to be a masterpiece of +language, and turned the laugh against the bagman.[27] + + [27] As to language, one hears, especially in the Hebrides, + phrases of amusing quaintness, due no doubt to the speaker + handling a foreign tongue. The school in one of the Mull villages + is very small, and I made a remark to that effect in the hearing + of the hotel-porter. "Oh, no," said he, "_it is a good deal + bigger than you would wonder_." The same waiter, who had a talent + for confusing his language, said in reply to an irate visitor who + had questioned his intelligence: "You need not talk like that; I + am as good as you; _I am as good as any other man put together_." + + +MARY, THE MAID OF THE INN. + +I have a great deal of sympathy with hotel-porters and waiters, and +think them unduly longsuffering at times. As to Mary, the exemplary maid +of the hotel alluded to, she can hold her own in repartee with any of +the visitors. She is a distinct character, and Molière could have made a +"type" of her. She has no sinecure of a situation, and, after eleven at +night, when the last supper is over, she has to polish the knives for +the morrow's breakfast. She is young, slim, and active, and wears a +string of red corals round her neck. The place is not frequented by +plutocratic tourists, and so her tips are meagre. In spite of her long +days and her slim perquisites, the girl is affable, smiling, and gay. +She trips out and in, sylph-like, can carve fowls most dexterously by +the light of nature, never spills the soup, and has a laughing and +appropriate word for all. Mary, I hope, will get some decent fellow for +husband, and be a stay and comfort to him all the days of his life. +Meanwhile, however (to use the historic present), a nice old gentleman +in the soft goods line, who hails from the flourishing village of +Dundee, is paying her marked attentions. She will have none of him, for +all his apostolic looks. He repeats to her, with a comically sentimental +air, the lines of Omar: + + "Here with a book of verse beneath the bough, + A loaf of bread, a cup of wine, and thou + Beside me singing in the wilderness, + The wilderness were Paradise enow." + +Mary looks in amazement at the old gentleman with the insinuating voice, +anon bursts into a merry peal, and trips off with the remark, "_There's +nae fules like auld anes_," which a listening Londoner takes to mean, +"There's nothing fills like onions!" + + +ANECDOTES OF THE SMOKING-ROOM. + + +SONNET TO RALEIGH. + +The conversation of an intelligent commercial traveller is, as I said, +of a facetious and entertaining turn. He speaks to so many people in the +course of a day and hears so many anecdotes as he rushes about, that his +sense of humour becomes very keen. Old Burton, author of the _Anatomy of +Melancholy_, used to dissipate his sombre thoughts by listening to the +coarse badinage of bargemen: a modern, afflicted with Burton's +complaint, might well find a cure in the smoking-room of a hotel among a +company of commercial travellers. One Saturday night, in a Shetland +hotel, I listened to a crowd of these merry gentlemen communicating to +each other their several collections of stories. Before doing so, they +all sang with great fervour the well-known hymn _The Sands of Time are +Sinking_, a whisky-traveller officiating at the harmonium. One of the +number ostentatiously beat time with his pipe. It was a very affecting +scene, and certain of the singers were moved to tears at their own +melody. + +The company then settled down, in a pleased frame of mind, to tell +stories. I noted some of these, and as they were new to me, I cherish +the hope that they may not be stale to others. The following +preliminary sonnet to Sir Walter Raleigh seems to be apposite and new; +it is needed to give atmosphere to the tales: + + Raleigh! the benefactor of thy kind, + May azure undulations ever roll + As incense to thee from the glowing bowl, + Thy rapt disciples fume with placid mind + In easy chair, by ingle-nook reclined! + Next to the mage, Prometheus, who stole + From Heaven's court with philanthropic soul, + The wonder-working fire, thou art enshrined + In mortal bosoms as a friend, for thou + Did'st bring from sunset isles the magic leaf + That weaves enchantment's halo round the brow, + Alleviates the pang of every grief + And stirs the bard, exempt from fretting cares, + To wail the weird of pipeless millionaires. + +And now for the stories. + + +"PEELIN'S BELOW THE TREE." + +A Sunday School teacher in the island of Luing was giving a lesson on +the disobedience of Adam and Eve, and the fruit of that forbidden tree +whose mortal taste brought death into this world, and other ills. At the +close of his harangue, which was rather above the heads of the children, +he said, "Can any of you tell me _how the Creator knew_ that Adam had +eaten the apple?" There was silence for a time. At last one boy, with a +glimmer of light in his eyes, shouted: "Please, sir, because He _saw the +peelin's below the tree_." + + +"SHE'S AWAY." + +An Englishman staying in Oban, wished to visit the island of Coll, and +discovered, on enquiry at Macbrayne's office, that the S.S. _Fingal_ +left for that outer isle at five in the morning. He accordingly gave +serious instructions to the "boots" of his hotel to rap him up at 4.30 +A.M., and to show him no mercy. At _six_ o'clock, the tourist was +awakened by a noise like that of a battering-ram at his door, and a +stentorian voice sternly enquiring: "Are you the gentleman that's going +with the early boat?" "Yes, yes, I am," said the tourist, leaping to his +feet. "_Well, she's away_," said the boots. (This is a story that grows +on one.) + + +A MEAN HOUSE. + +Another hotel story: Feeling somewhat thirsty in the middle of his +dinner and not judging that water was sufficiently slockening, a visitor +rang the bell and asked the waiter to bring him a bottle of lager. This +was done. "How much do you charge for this?" enquired the traveller. +"Ninepence," replied the waiter. Anger, consternation, and incredulity +were all depicted, by turns, on the visitor's cheek. "What!" he shouted, +"_ninepence_. Why, I could buy a dozen bottles for half-a-crown. It's +downright robbery to ask ninepence for one bottle. You've made a +mistake." "I've made no mistake," said the waiter; "I was told to ask +ninepence. _But_," (at this point he sidled up to the traveller and +whispered, with terrible accents, in his ear) "_it's a damp mean house +this you're in, and I'm leaving mysel' the morn!_" + + +ONE OF THE DIRECTOR'S WIVES. + +A gentleman who loved tobacco exceedingly well, went into a first-class +smoking compartment, filled his pipe, and settled down, with a newspaper +in front of him, to enjoy the luxury of a long and undisturbed worship +of the weed. He had a journey of fifty miles before him. Just as the +train was moving off, a lady, who was panting and flustered, was pushed +up into the compartment by a porter. It was soon evident that pipes and +tobacco were not congenial to this dame. She began to sniff in a very +haughty fashion, but the smoker, utterly indifferent to her presence, +continued to roll out with deliberate relish his dense tobacco fumes. +Soon she lost all patience, and said with extreme bitterness: "You +there, behind that paper, you have no manners. You have no right to +smoke before a lady. Do you know who I am? _I am one of the directors' +wives, sir._" Down went the journal, and "Oh, indeed," said he, "you are +one of the director's wives, are you? Well, let me tell you this, that +even if you were the director's _only_ wife, I do not intend to +encourage you, by any compliance of mine, in the bad habit of rushing +for trains and getting into the wrong compartment!" + + +TEMPERANCE HOTELS. + +An English clergyman--a pronounced teetotaler and temperance worker--was +being driven through the streets of a Scotch town in an open machine. +Looking round, with expansive benevolence, on the streets and people, he +was overjoyed to see such a large number of temperance hotels. "Driver," +he exclaimed, "I am delighted to see, by the hotels, that total +abstinence has got such a firm hold in this place." "Indeed, sir," said +the driver, "don't be too sure of that. We have two kinds of temperance +hotels here: the first kind would like the licence, but can't get it; +the second kind have had the licence, and lost it through bad behaviour +and disorderly conduct." + + +A MEMORIAL WINDOW. + +An inn-keeper in Ross-shire, with great enthusiasm, said to a visitor: +"There's nobody I work for with more satisfaction than an English +gentleman. Now, there's Sir Samuel Oatts, the wealthy Liverpool merchant +that has the shootings near here. He is a fine gentleman, and so +considerate. He is not very good at shooting, I must admit: he often +misses the birds, and he goes through a good number of dogs. One day he +shot the keeper in the right eye, and blinded it. But he gave the keeper +a handsome present and a fine new glass eye. We call that eye '_Oatts' +Memorial Window_,' and the keeper can sleep during the sermon now +without anybody knowing, provided he does not snore." + + +THE BLASTED HEATH. + +Two English tourists--big, hearty fellows--were travelling in the same +compartment with a communicative Scot, when the train stopped at Forres. +"Gentlemen," said the Scot, "this is Forres, and I'm sure you've read +about it; quite near Forres is the _blasted heath_ where Macbeth was +accosted by the witches." "How shocking," said one of the Englishmen; +"how really shocking! Well, you see, we haven't read about that yet: +we've been up North for some time, and _we have'nt seen the pypers for +ten dyes!_" + + +THE DAY FOR IT. + +The driver of the bus which goes through the delightful part of +Argyllshire known as Hell's Glen, is often chaffed by the summer +tourists rather unmercifully. One day, a nervous southern was +criticising him on his furious and careless driving: "You shouldn't be +on the box at all; I never saw such a wild driver." "Drive!" said Jehu, +in a voice of thunder. "Why, man, once every year, I drive the +mail-coach _down that steep hill-side_ among the bracken. _And this is +the day for it!_" So saying, the humorous fellow made as if to whip the +horses down the cliff, and the terrified tourist shrieked aloud. "Seeing +I've such a nervous passenger," said the driver, with a guffaw, "I had +better break my own rules, and keep to the main road." + + +THE CONVERTED DRUMMER. + +A dilapidated Scot, with a strong odour of the accursed, staggered into +a Salvation Army meeting one night, and was deeply impressed by the +service. He became a changed man, professed conversion, and got a +thorough moral overhaul. Like many others, he had great difficulty in +keeping his good resolutions, but persevered, nobly and successfully. +Latterly, he was admitted into the orchestra, and got command of the big +drum. He was so anxious to show his zeal, that he beat far too +vehemently, and drowned all the other instruments in his ecstatic +rataplan. The captain mildly remonstrated with him, and requested him to +beat a little more gently. "_Gently!_" shouted the reformed drummer, +"that's impossible. Since I've got salvation, I feel so happy, that I +could ding the whole slammed thing to bits!" (or rather "slim the whole +danged thing to bits"). + + +A CIRCULAR TICKET. + +Three commercials, travelling from Cork to Dublin, had a discussion on +the illiteracy of the Irish railway employés. "Look here," said one of +them, "the majority of the ticket collectors can't even _read_ the +tickets they are supposed to check." The other two refused to believe +him, but he stoutly maintained his assertion. Taking out of his pocket +the round ticket given him at the office of the Cork hotel, and +containing the number of his bedroom, he said, "I intend to offer this, +instead of my railway ticket, at the first station where tickets are +punched." Shortly thereafter, the train stopped, and a porter came round +the carriages to look at the tickets. There was silence deep as death +when the commercial handed his bedroom ticket to the official. The +latter looked long and carefully at the thing and muttered, "Bejabbers, +I never saw one like that before!" "Don't keep the train waiting," said +the commercial, in a pretended fury, "don't you see it's a _circular +ticket_." "Oh, and in faith it's you that's right: it _is_ a circular +ticket," said the porter. So saying, he punched the hotel check and +withdrew, leaving the three travellers to weep for joy all the way to +Dublin. + + +A COMPOUND POSSESSIVE. + +The following grammatical story will doubtless be new to most readers. A +Sunday School jaunt had been arranged in an Ayrshire town, and the +children were all ready to go in carts to a field, some miles away, for +games and open-air junketing. Everyone was impatient to set out, but the +piper was late, and the procession of carts could not start without +music. The minister became impatient, and sent a youth to tell the piper +to hurry up. The boy, on coming to the piper's house, saw a woman +standing at the door, and addressed her in these words: "_Are you the +man-that-plays-the-pipes's wife?_" + + +SIXTEEN MEDALS. + +Those who doubt the efficacy of self-lauding advertisement are refuted +by this story. A commercial traveller, representing a whisky firm, +craved an order from a small Highland innkeeper. "Come, Donald," he +said, "you must give me an order this time." "You will be getting no +order from me, for your whisky is no good whatever. Dewar of Perth has +got sixteen medals for his whisky; it is so good to drink, and makes +people drunk so nice and quiet. But _your firm never got a single medal +for filling folk fou_." The granting of medals for quiet and comely +intoxication is a brilliant, although droll, idea. + + +"SHE'S AULD, AND SHE'S THIN, AND SHE'LL KEEP." + +In a lone isle of the West, funerals are functions that cannot be +celebrated (at least in the way consecrated tradition prescribes) +without ample dispensing of whisky among the mourners. As there is no +pier on the island, the steamer very frequently may not be able to call +for days, during the terrific gales of winter. The legitimate stores of +insular whisky thus occasionally become exhausted, and should a death +occur during the period of dearth, a very regrettable situation arises. +In the epigrammatic style of King James I., who used to say "_No bishop, +no king_," we might express the difficulty by saying _No whisky, no +funeral_. While a gale of exceptional ferocity was raging some winters +ago, an old woman passed away, and there was not enough whisky on the +island to bury her with credit. Her son scanned the angry sky and sea +daily, in the hope that the weather would show signs of clearing up. +After a week's blighted hopes, he still refused to sanction interment, +remarking, "_She's auld, and she's thin, and she'll keep_." Next day the +sea was calm, the _Dunara_ called, and the old lady got her _munera +pulveris_. + + +THE WILL O' THE DEAD. + +The foregoing story suggested to one of the auditors the tale told in +connection with the death of Lord Forglen, one of the Judges of the +Court of Session, in 1727. After a long illness, in which he had endured +the expert advice of several eminent physicians, Forglen, one morning, +departed into the land of shadows. Not knowing of the fatal termination, +one of the medical men, Dr. Clark, called as usual and asked David Reid, +clerk to Forglen, how his master was. David's answer was: "I houp he's +well,"--a gentle euphuism, indicating that all was over, and also a +timid hope that Heaven had received a new inhabitant. The doctor was +shown into a room where he saw two dozen of wine under the table. Other +doctors arriving, David made them all take seats, while he detailed, +with much pathos, the affecting incidents of his master's dying hours. +As an antidote to their grief, the company took a glass or two, and +thereafter the doctors rose to depart, but David detained them. "No, no, +gentlemen; not so. It was the express will o' the dead that I should +fill ye a' fou, and I maun fulfil the will o' the dead." All the time +the tears were streaming down his cheeks. "And indeed," said Dr. Clark +afterwards, when telling the story, "he did fulfil the will o' the dead, +for before the end o't there was na ane of us able to bite his ain +thoom." + + +SORRY FOR LONDON. + +The following story is a good example of insular patriotism. Certain +shooting tourists in the island of Mull, who hailed from London, and who +were expecting important news from the capital, were greatly exasperated +to find, on calling at the local post-office, that telegraphic +communication with the mainland had broken down. Some very uncanonical +language was indulged in, which the local postmaster deeply resented. +One tourist after another, exclaimed with blank despair: "Alas, poor +Mull will get no news from London to-day." "What will Mull do without +the London news?" "No news from London, what a misfortune for Mull!" +This harping on the forlornness of the island caused the blood of the +postmaster to boil with indignation, and he shouted in ire: "It is not +Mull I will be sorry for, at all, at all. Mull can do without the +London news. But what will poor London do, when she finds she will not +be able to get any news from Tobermory, or from Salen, or from Dervaig, +or from Craignure, or from Lochdon, or from Lochbuie, or from Bunessan, +the whole of this blessed day!" + + +"RAITHER UNCEEVIL." + +A well-known boat, _The Stormy Petrel_, had been to Ardrossan for coal, +and was conveying the precious cargo to the romantic terminus of +Cairndow at the head of Loch Fyne. At St. Catherine's a great thirst +took possession of the crew, and they put in there for refreshments. The +conversation was most animated, and extended itself over a wide tract of +political and theological topics. On setting out for Cairndow early next +morning, all the crew had wistful, lustreless eyes, confused thoughts, +and bad consciences. He to whom the coal was being conveyed, was +awaiting them. He rowed out to _The Stormy Petrel_ in a small boat, and +on coming near assailed them, in English and Gaelic, with all the most +vituperative expressions he could remember. But the crew, each and all +of them, knew they had been guilty of culpable delay, and uttered not a +word, good or bad, as their assailant rowed round their boat and +withered them with his invective. They had no fight left in them, and +sat, with bowed heads, till the storm would subside. After enduring the +agony for half an hour, one of the crew looked up and said, "Do you no' +think, Mr. Sanderson, that you're _raither unceevil so early in the +morning_?" This remark, uttered in a quiet, sad, reproachful way, +staggered Mr. Sanderson far more than the most thunderous abuse would +have done, and brought home to him the undoubted fact that he had been +defective on the score of good taste. + + +AN UNWELCOME RECITATION. + +One of the travellers, on being asked to contribute his item to the fund +of anecdotes, said that instead of telling a tale, he would give a +recitation. Before doing so, he sneezed artificially six times, and then +recited a poem on + + _Influenza._ + + Influenza has come like the wolf on the fold, + And the duke and the ditcher are down with the cold. + The doctor is smiling, for business is here, + And the chink of the guinea resounds in his ear. + No household is spared: both the villa and cot + Their quota of swollen-nosed patients have got. + The clerk of the weather is gloating on high + At the lords of creation that bed-ridden lie. + Each chamber resounds with the echo of sneezing, + With deep-laboured coughing and bronchial wheezing. + While, loading the table, the victim can spy + Lotions, tonics, and ointments confusedly lie. + The druggist (douce man) is thanking his stars + For this nice epidemic of paying catarrhs, + He's making his hay, though no sunshine is seen, + And his till gleams with silver where copper has been. + + +A WORD IN SEASON. + +This dismal piece of verse effectually cleared the smoking-room, and +filled me with a great sorrow, since I had just recollected three or +four stories of my own. I now take the liberty of laying these before +the ingenuous reader. If he says they are dull, let me tell him (i.) +that he has no perception of humour, and (ii.) that occasional dulness +is the inalienable privilege of every free-born Briton. Many a spry +wight thinks it his duty to be _continuously funny and monotonously +merry_. Let a quiet and demure dulness be the foil of your +side-splitting sallies. Learn to keep the peace, yea for hours at a +time. If you are in a mixed company, cultivate the dictum of "give and +take." Be not for ever doling out your scraps of mirth to the dyspeptic +stomachs of your associates. A wise reciprocity and interplay of +merriment is the best rule--a fair share among the entire party. Burns +himself, sparkling talker as he was, is recorded to have been at times +sunk in gloom and shadow. But anon emerging from his moodiness, he would +utter such words as set the table in a roar. And now for these +masterpieces of humour. + + +A NAIRN CRITIC. + +Why is it that publishers, aye, and even booksellers, are so often out +of sympathy with the poets? I spoke once to a bookseller in Nairn about +a local poet's volume that was lying on the counter. "Do you personally +know this bard?" I asked. "Ay, that I do," was the reply; "he's an +eccentric wee chap. I've many a laugh at him as he goes along the +street, muttering to himself and picking his teeth with a fountain-pen. +Eccentric! bless my soul, how could a poet be anything but eccentric? +Besides, he's bound to be a liar: for if he can't get the end of a line +to come right with truth for a rhyme, he has got to make it _clink with +a whopper_. Why, man, it's a great worry for an honest man like me to +speak the truth in plain prose. If I were to send out my bills in metre +to my customers, there would be a rise of temperature soon in the town +of Nairn. No, no: the only thing that can be done with a poet's +manuscript is to take it to the head of the garden, sprinkle it with +paraffin, and apply a vesta." + + +"A GRAND DAY FOR IT." + +While one of the great six-day battles of the Eastern war was going on, +a country doctor, by some mistake in delivery, did not get his _Herald_ +to breakfast one morning. Anxious to get the news, he bolted his meal +and sallied forth to hear the latest from the seat of war. He saw a +wrinkled old churl trimming the roadside hedge with a bill-hook, and +humming a tune like the gravedigger in _Hamlet_, Act v. "Any news of the +war?" gasped the doctor. "Eh?" said the old man, without discontinuing +his work. "Are you not aware," said the doctor, "that there is a great +battle raging in Manchuria?" "No," said the man, "I know nothing about +it, and care less." "What!" shouted the doctor. "You care nothing about +it? Why, man, the Russians and Japanese are at this moment _fighting for +the hegemony of all Eastern Asia_." "Lord, do you say so?" replied the +old cock, lopping unconcernedly at his hedge; "well, all I can say is, +that _they're gettin' a grand day for it_." + + +A PRO-BOER. + +On one occasion, in the West Highlands, I availed myself of a lugsail +ferry to cross an arm of the sea and so avoid a long détour by land. The +boat was old, the sail was thick with big-stitched patches, and the +ferryman was an elder. I had much edifying talk with him, and at last +gliding from the Declaratory Act, of which he did not approve, I asked +him if he had any family. "Yes," he replied, "I have two sons. One of +them is a polissman in Glasgow, a nice lad, a very nice lad: he sends me +ten shillings every month; oh! an excellent lad is he indeed. But my +other son is a disgrace to me; he is bad, very bad. He is a drunkard and +a card-player and a Sabbath-breaker, and what's a thousand times worse +than all that, he's a _Pro-Boer_." This instance of patriotism in a +remote Highland nook was very refreshing for me to hear, and I gave the +anti-Krugerite elder a substantial fare for his trouble in ferrying me +over the loch. He invoked the blessing of Heaven on me, and I hope his +prayer will be answered. + + +"FALLS OF BRUAR, ONLY, PLEASE!" + +Some years ago, I had occasion to spend a day at Blair Athol, where I +was dosed with nothing but kindness by a genial son of the famous Clan +Macdonald. He put his trap and driver at my disposal, in order that I +might, with comfort and expedition, go and view the Falls of Bruar, +immortalised in one of Burns's cleverest poems. No sooner had we set off +than the driver began to calumniate Burns in unmeasured language, and to +throw withering scorn on the Falls, which, he declared, were utterly +unworthy of being visited by any sane man. "If you want to see real +falls," said he, "I'll take you to the Falls of Tummel, which could +knock those of Bruar into a cocked hat!" (such was the curious metaphor +he employed). I told him he could take me to both if there was time, but +Bruar I must see. He landed me at the Tummel, and drove on recklessly +himself a mile further to see his sweetheart. The desire to pay a visit +to his Bonnie Jean was the sole cause of his gibes at the poet. Back he +came in an hour, chanting merrily, and we drove to Bruar. I found the +varlet had lied most expansively: the Falls are gloriously fine, and +worth walking a good many miles to see. On the homeward road, I could +see he was ill at ease: he was dreadfully afraid that his amorous flight +would be discovered by his master. He said to me once every minute, +"_Falls of Bruar, only, please: keep your thumb on Tummel!_" Latterly he +set these words to a kind of rough music, and sang them continuously in +my ear, winking the while and smiling roguishly. I obeyed him. + + +A BAD CASE OF NERVES. + +While I was sitting alone in the smoking-room of the hotel, a tall, +thin, restless-eyed, aristocratic young fellow came quietly in. He went +up to the sideboard, poured out half a tumbler of water, and carefully +measured out about ten drops of phospherine therein. He swallowed the +mixture, smacked his lips, and sighed. He then remarked that it was a +nice evening and that he was very ill with a nervous complaint. "I +suppose, now," he said, "you would actually tell me not to worry, to +take everything easy, and, above all, to firmly believe there is nothing +whatever the matter with me?" "Most certainly," I said, "you ought to +consider yourself in perfectly good health; by and by you would come to +be so in reality. The Christian Scientists say you might even learn to +hold fire in your hand by thinking of the frosty Caucasus." "I suppose, +too, you would recommend me to have a hobby, such as golf, or gardening, +or amateur photography." "Yes, I believe a harmless hobby such as you +mention would relieve the mental strain and take you out of yourself." +"Well, I essayed golf, but, alas! I massacred a ram; I tried gardening, +and tired of it before the flowers began to show; and as to photography, +it only increased the number of my enemies." "What about cycling or +horse-riding?" "These won't do--I can _think_ at both of them. Now, I +_don't want to think: in fact, I mustn't_." "Fishing? wouldn't that be a +reposeful diversion?" "No, no," he said, "I could not stand the sight of +an animal enduring pain." "Well, you surely might try a little light +reading." "The strange thing about my reading is this," said he, "I look +at a sentence and understand it, but I am aware of something, either at +the back of my head or behind me, which says, 'All this is futile stuff +and nonsense: give it up, it's not for you; you are condemned to +everlasting emptiness, and your life will never know any more fulness or +joy.' + + "Immense vacuity of intellect! + I lift a volume, but a sentence tires; + Even a flimsy magazine requires + From me more concentration and direct + Volition than my vagrant wits elect + To give the pages. All my soul desires + Is to gaze without purpose on the fire's + Crackle of glowing cinders, and detect + Weird shapes of beasts and palaces and men + In the red mass of photographic coal; + Perchance my lazy mind may, now and then, + Without exertion, read as on a scroll + (While the glede sinks to ashes in the grate) + The dust and nothingness of mortal state." + +"Well," I said, "your case is a queer one, and I am at a loss to suggest +anything further." At this, the young man burst into a loud peal of +laughter. He was supremely delighted at finding himself so unique, so +singular. He took me by the hand, shook it most heartily, saying, "I +haven't enjoyed myself so much for a long time. If I were oftener in the +company of men like you, I might regain hope." + +The improvement was, unfortunately, of very short duration. He continued +his observations thus: + +"And yet, and yet: _Sunt lacrimae rerum_. What is this world but a +succession of fleeting images chasing each other across a background of +joy or pain! Now we quaff the sour cup of misery, by and by we drink the +intoxicating vintage of hope. Heaven alone stands firm, gemmed with the +pitiless stars. The day breaks, rises to its glory in the shimmering +height of noon, and dies away in the west: so does the utmost pride of +man's career fade away to nothing, a harvest for Time's scythe. On all +this growth and decay the stars gaze with their unpitying and eternal +eyes. I think I'll have a little more phospherine." + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +LEGENDS AND LITERARY NOTABILIA. + + Gairloch folk-lore: Prince Olaf and his bride--A laird who had + seen a fairy--Tales from Loch Broom: The dance of death--The + Kildonan midwife--The magic herring--Taisch--Antiquities of + Dunvegan--Miscellaneous terrors--St. Kilda--Lady + Grange--Pierless Tiree--Lochbuie in Mull--Inveraray Castle--The + sacred isle--Appin--Macdonald's gratitude--Notes on the + Trossachs--Lochfyneside: Macivors, Macvicars, and + Macallisters--Red Hector--Macphail of Colonsay--Tales from + Speyside: Tom Eunan!--Shaws and Grants--The wishing well--Ossian + and Macpherson--At the foot o' Bennachie--Harlaw--Lochaber + reivers--Reay and Twickenham--Rob Donn--Rev. Mr. Mill of + Dunrossness. + + +GAIRLOCH FOLK-LORE. + +I do not think anyone interested in local history and antiquities could +find a greater treat than that furnished by Mr. Dixon's _Account of the +Parish of Gairloch_. That romantic and lovely district is fortunate in +having found a historian of unlimited enthusiasm and untiring industry. +There is not a single dry page in his long and detailed narrative. Many +of the legends he tells are known to me from other sources, but I am +certain that no Scotch compiler (Mr. Dixon, let me say, is English) has +written of them with such enjoyable sympathy and poetical ardour. I have +been assured by local authorities that the facts adduced by Mr. Dixon +are invariably reliable. That I can well believe; but what is still more +rare, Mr. Dixon's facts are everywhere made to gleam and glitter in the +radiance of romance. Let me narrate, in concentrated form, one of the +legends which this clever writer has alluded to in more than one of his +chapters. + + +PRINCE OLAF AND HIS BRIDE. + +In the ninth century of the Christian era, one of the islands that in +such picturesque fashion dot the surface of Loch Maree, was honoured by +being the abode of a pious hermit, despatched thither from the sacred +isle of Iona. His presence there, implying as it did austerity, +perpetual worship of Heaven, and the reading of devout treatises, +inspired veneration in the minds of the obstreperous tribes around. They +felt themselves better from having such a good man near them. Wherever +in these old times of war and gore, a saintly pioneer established +himself, the kingdom of chaos and night was pushed back for miles around +his cell. + +The Picts of the ninth century revered this man, and his fame was known +also to the predatory seamen who came buccaneering among the islands of +the West. A Viking of royal blood, Prince Olaf, in the intervals of his +sea-roving, hied sometimes to the hermit's retreat, for instruction and +spiritual blessing. The young man, as tradition alleges, was not beyond +the need of guidance, for his temper was of the most fiery violence, +and, at the slightest provocation, his hand was on the hilt of his +sword. No doubt the saint of Isle Maree managed to moderate the Prince's +vehemence, and draw him somewhat away from wrath which (as Homer puts +it), waxeth like smoke in the breasts of warriors, and is far sweeter to +them than trickling honey. + +By and by, this youth fell in love, and in characteristic fashion he +loved with a whole-souled and overwhelming passion. The hot-tempered +Viking became a new man, and he thus communed with himself: "How can I +ask this maid to share my life on the stormy sea? She is too tender and +gentle to go under the dark clouds in a war-galley with me and my rude +mates, when we sail to meet the enemy. Nor, were she my wife, could I +leave her behind and unprotected. Marry her I must, but I can neither +take her with me thereafter, nor defend her in my absence. Go to, I'll +e'en visit the monk of Isle Maree and get counsel from _him_." + +It is pleasant to note that the holy father found a way out of the +difficulty. "Marry her, my son," said he, "and build a tower of strength +as her abode on this isle of mine. When you are away, she will be near +me. Old man as I am, the natives respect me for my devotion and my hoary +hairs." The prince's scruples, so honourable to his love, were overcome. +The marriage was celebrated with great pomp and rejoicing. The green +pathways of the isle were thronged with feasters; tents were erected +beside the thickets of oak and holly, and the Loch had little rest from +the plashing of oars. The hermit blessed the couple and blessed the +castle too in which the twain were for a time to reside. + +Prince Olaf and his lady were perfectly happy, and the golden hours of +their wedlock sped merrily by. But the hours that were short to them, +were long and dreary to the Norse rovers, lying inactive in the ships +anchored hard by in the waters of Loch Ewe. Murmurs, growing at length +in volume, were muttered by the men as they reflected, day by day, on +the soft uxoriousness of their leader. They wished to be at sea on an +expedition that had been planned aforetime ere the marriage had taken +place. These murmurs reached the prince's ears, and, with many tears, he +tore himself away from the bridal tower to take his place at the head of +the squadron. It was a bitter severance, but tempered by the expectation +of a speedy reunion. The prince took with him two pennons, a black and a +white. "If I am successful in my expedition," he said, "I will display +the white pennon on my galley; if misfortune befalls me (which God +avert) the black will be flying on the prow. Do you come to meet my +returning fleet and let a similar indication be visible on your barge to +tell of your safety or your misfortune. A lover feels his excitement +growing, the nearer he comes to his home: let us abridge, by such a +device, the length of our anxiety." + +Love did not make Olaf a worse fighter: rather, indeed, it improved his +prowess. The thought of the fair young wife in the lonely tower, +protected mainly by the sanctity of an old hermit, nerved his arm, and +he speedily got through the expedition with great applause. He swept +everything before him, and turned homeward in the expectation of a +cordial and meet welcome. During his absence, the lady had been +fretting. Finally, as the days passed, she became downright angry. "He +is neglecting me," she cried; "he goes away from my arms to the society +of rough seamen. I am a mere bauble, a plaything for his leisure. He is +tired of me, and perhaps on some distant coast he is dallying with a +newer sweetheart. But I will try his heart. When I hear of his +homecoming, I will go forth on my barge and have the black flag of +desolation flying from the prow. In this way I may obtain some hint of +his real feelings." + +Olaf came homeward in great glee, and on entering Loch Ewe from the +outer sea, the white pennon of success flapped gaily in the wind. The +princess, on the other hand, let prepare her boat, and, clothed in the +weeds of death, lay down on the deck, while simulated sobs of woe and +lamentation were raised by all her attendants. Slowly the boat, with its +ill-omened signal, moved to meet the conquering hero. Olaf, the +impetuous, was chilled to the heart, when he saw what he thought the +sure indication of his lady's misfortune. What a sight met his eyes when +he leapt on board! The princess stretched out in apparent death, and +robed in the garments of the grave! He could not endure the torment and +disillusion. He drove a dirk into his bosom with such passionate might +that he fell down, bereft of life, mighty and mightily fallen, on the +deck beside her. + +She had not expected such a tragic conclusion to her blamable artifice. +Remorse, of course, got hold of her, and drawing the gory weapon from +her dead lord's breast, she plunged it into her own. Too late was she +convinced of his true love for her: she had only one duty, and that was +to die with him. It is said in the legend that her life was not extinct +when the barge, with its weird freight, returned to the hermit's isle. +The old man, holding in his quaking hand the cross before her dying +eyes, strove to comfort her somewhat as her blood ebbed quickly away. + +"The bodies of the unhappy pair," says Mr. Dixon, "were buried within +the inclosure on the island, beneath the shade of the sacred hollies; +they were laid with their feet towards each other, and smooth stones +with outlines of mediæval crosses were placed over the graves, and there +they remain to this day. A few stones still indicate the site of the +hermit's cell, and a considerable mound marks where the tower stood." + +The last time I stood beside the little pier on Loch Maree, I noticed +many indications of the advent of southern tourists. Empty bottles were +floating on the waves, and the tiny steamer that plies on the loch was +getting ready for the summer traffic. Visitors from the Lowlands do not +suspect that such tales as I have narrated still live on the lips of the +Gairloch natives, and help to pass the hours at many an evening reunion. +How the centuries meet in such nooks of Ross! Steamers on Loch Maree, +and Olaf's cross still standing on the hermit's isle! The driver of the +mail-coach from Achnasheen to Gairloch will discuss creeds and schisms +with you, and tell you he does not believe in modern religious +developments at all; anon, as the coach passes the Gairloch Church, he +will point with extended whip to a grassy hollow on the left, and say: +"That is where the Free Church used to have its open-air Communion +Service: the place is called _Leabaidh na Ba Bhàine_, because Fingal +scooped it out as a bed where his white cow might calve." "But did +Fingal lodge in this neighbourhood?" you ask. "Oh yes, he did whatever," +the driver will reply, "and the best proof of it is, that if you go to +the north end of Loch Maree, you will see the _sweetheart's +stepping-stones_, placed there by Fingal to keep his feet dry when he +went that way to court Malvina." + + +A LAIRD WHO HAD SEEN A FAIRY. + +Bailie Nicol Jarvie, whom we all know so well, confessed that when he +heard the wild stories of the North, he felt his blood tingle and his +pulses leap. This fact, which as a sober man of business he felt bound +to apologize for, was probably due to heredity, his mother having been a +Macgregor. The Bailie lived at a time when rumours of witchcraft and +fairydom were more common than now, and when there was less +dissemination of Scripture truth. It is a saying in some parts of the +North that the profuse spread of the Shorter Catechism has been the +means of driving witches and fairies out of their old haunts. For my own +part, I know of nothing more likely to make them decamp.[28] + +I was lucky enough to meet a gentleman who declared, not with an oath, +but with a _pretty strong_ asseveration, that he had once seen a fairy. +It was in a railway train that I knit conversation with him. He was a +kilted country squire, tall, thin, and soulful: on his head was a +glengarry with a pair of flying ribbons. He spoke in rapt sentences, as +if he were looking on a vision. This is the substance of his remarks:-- + + One autumn morning, when the world lay fair + Under the radiant blue, I musing lay + By a green knoll, beside a rippling bay, + When, suddenly, gliding through the silent air, + A green-clad apparition, wrinkled, spare, + Angry, and grieving, passed along the way + Before me for a moment's space. The fay + Was old and did not see me lying there. + I grieved to see her sob in fretful mood, + And often since I marvel in my mind + What grievous heart-pang drove her from the wood + To ease her heart away from her own kind. + Strange, that these tiny, soulless beings should, + Like us, be grieved and be with passion blind! + +These are the words of a man who speaks with conviction. I ought to +mention that, ecclesiastically (and I hope in other ways, too,) he was a +Moderate. Two things annoyed him greatly: (1) that the fairy did not +deign to look at him; (2) that nobody but his little grand-daughter of +eight would believe he had seen a fairy at all. "Why," he said, "I could +draw that fairy now, if I had pencil and paper. I see her as plain as I +see you. _Her little bosom was heaving, and she wore a necklace of +twisted corn-stalks. I am sorry I did not offer her some refreshment._" + + [28] A very similar account is given, of the dearth of the little + folk in England, by the poet Chaucer; only, that eminent writer + declares that the phenomenon is due to the zeal and prayers of + the monks and begging-friars, who paced about the country + muttering blessings and exorcistic paragraphs. + + +TALES FROM LOCH BROOM. + +The enquirer will find a specially abundant crop of old stories if he +stays long on Loch Broom side. The bard of Ullapool, Mr. Roderick +Mackenzie, has made an excellent collection of romantic incidents +associated with the neighbourhood, and has told them in a very quaint +and effective fashion. From his collection I now cite a specimen or two. +I by no means recommend them as reading for the small hours of the +morning. + + +THE DANCE OF DEATH. + +Three young fellows belonging to Strathmore, in the parish of Loch +Broom, were returning from the Low Country, where they had been living +for some time. It was long before the days of Watt and Macadam; roads +were not good, progress was slow, and rain was frequent. When they, in +the final lap of their journey, arrived at the green hillside of +Lochdrom, the weather was extremely inclement. Seeing a commodious +shieling on the braeface, the young men entered, and one of them, with +the object of driving dull care away, struck up a lightsome tune on his +pipes. His two comrades at once began to fling their legs about and +caper merrily. Soon, having succeeded in dancing themselves dry, they +all agreed that female partners would be a great acquisition. The wish +was at once gratified. Three women mysteriously glided into the +shieling, and the dancing began in earnest. One of the women stood close +by the piper, while the other two skipped about, with their partners, +all round the building. Outside it thundered and lightened in terrific +fashion. Tired and sweating, the two couples were at length fain to +stop, and they sat down to rest on seats of turf and heather. The piper +stopped too: he felt some malign influence coming over him; he was +certain some devilish deed was a-doing. Stealing a glance at his two +friends, he perceived that they were both stark dead, and that the two +infernal huzzies were smiling a hideous smile of triumph. Action, he +felt, was immediately necessary: he flung the still groaning bagpipes +full in the face of the witch near him, stunned her thus for an instant, +and with one wild leap cleared the threshold. And now began a hot race +and hot pursuit. Like another Tam o' Shanter, but without the mare, the +piper sped over the moor and through the rain, plying a foot as good as +wings. Not till they came in sight of the clachan of Fasagrianach, did +the witches relinquish the chase. The exhausted piper had a sad tale to +tell to the mothers of his two hapless friends. Next day a company of +mourners went to the scene of the infernal dance, and, amid much +mourning, they sang a weird wail with the sad refrain, _Airidh mo +Dhubhaich_, which, being interpreted, means "Shieling of my Sorrow." + +Let me give another tale, but of less sombre issue, culled from the +folk-lore of the same locality. + + +THE KILDONAN MIDWIFE. + +A woman living at Kildonan, on the north shore of Little Loch Broom, and +exercising the useful profession of howdie, or midwife, had been +summoned to attend a case at Keppoch. She did not arrive at her +destination, although she left home after telling her neighbours where +she was going. It was on Christmas eve that Fair Sarah, as she was +called, left Kildonan, and for the space of an entire year, not a word, +good or bad, was heard of her. Search parties were organized, but all to +no purpose. Exactly twelve months after her disappearance--the next +Christmas eve, namely--back came the errant midwife to her home, not a +hair the worse for her long absence. She was immensely astonished to +find she had been so long away, her own impression being that only an +hour or two had elapsed. It was evident to all the natives of Kildonan +that Fair Sarah had been among the fairies, in whose company, as every +one knows, months and years slip past as quickly as hours and days. +Sarah was asked to speak out and tell her experiences. "It seems to me," +said the flustered howdie, "that it was but last night that I left for +Keppoch. Just as I passed the White Knoll, between Strathmore and +Strathbeg, I came upon a company of little folk, who would have me with +them, right reason or none. I accepted their hospitality, and what +drinking, skipping, revelry, and glee my eyes beheld! At last I grew +sick of their cantrips and capers. Remembering I was a Christian and a +communicant, _I blessed myself in the name of the Glorious Trinity_, +with the result that I was unceremoniously bundled out of the place." + +The White Knoll had long had the repute of harbouring fairies; Sarah's +experiences put the matter beyond all doubt. That worthy female +continued to ply her vocation for many years after, with unvarying +dexterity and signal success. She was certainly a more prosperous woman +after her year's excursion into Fairy-land. + + +THE MAGIC HERRING. + +There is an interesting legend told of the device by which shoals of +herring were first induced to come into Loch Broom. + +It seems that long ago (the precise date is unessential) the lochs round +the island of Lewis were invariably, at the herring season, visited by +magnificent shoals of fish, while not a tail was ever seen to twinkle in +the spacious waters of Loch Broom. Abundance on one side of the Minch, +destitution (for no earthly or apparent reason) on the other! After +mature consideration, the dwellers by Loch Broom came to the conclusion +that the anomaly could only be explained by the malignant operation of +the Lews witches. Query: How best neutralise the spells of these partial +harridans? A remedy, both unique and effective, was at length devised. A +silver herring was made and given into the hands of a sturdy crew, who +set sail with it over the water to Lewis. On arriving there, the men +partook of an adequate amount of refreshment, let down the silver fish +(attached to a cord) among the jostling shoals in one of the lochs, and +then, with the metallic animal trailing in the sea behind them, they +turned the prow of the boat in the direction of home. The ruse was +successful beyond all belief: glimmering clouds of phosphorence followed +through the seas below in the wake of the boat and its silver lure. +Under the stars of night, in all the rapture of excitement and success, +the Loch Broom fishers led the droves of herring right up to the +farthest reach of their loch. The metallic herring was then allowed to +sink to the bottom: there it remains, and so long as it is there, an +abundant harvest of the deep will be the portion of the resourceful +toilers of these shores. Perhaps I ought to mention that the famous boat +which did the feat was painted black on one side and red on the other. I +am not sufficiently versed in the niceties of _grammarye_ to be able to +render a reason for this piebald device. + +Of late years, as I have been told, the prosperity of Ullapool is not as +high as it was. Can it be that the Lews witches are at their old tricks +again? Or has the silver herring been borne, by the wash of retreating +surges, out into the Hebridean deep. Every visitor who walks through the +sea-facing, white-washed little town, must be struck by the silence of +the streets and the utter lack of business animation. + + +TAISCH. + +The most interesting place in the island of Skye is, beyond question, +the neighbourhood of Dunvegan. It was of surly, superstitious, +loyal-hearted Samuel Johnson that I chiefly thought when I leapt out of +the trap that landed me at the Hotel of Dunvegan, for I had just been +reading his famous _Journey_, with its diverting remarks on +second-sight. It would not, I confess, have surprised me over much, in +my tired and wind-beaten condition, to see the Doctor and the Auchinleck +laird, walking arm in arm along the road. I should have put it down to a +kind of inverted _taisch_, certainly to nothing stronger. + +It may surprise many southerners to know that the belief in _taisch_ is +not by any means extinct. I have met educated Skyemen who firmly +believed in the mysterious visual gifts of the seventh son of a seventh +son. In old days, the Highlanders were wont to attribute the gift to +none but those of an austere and devout cast, who, living a solitary +life in the eye of nature, were thought to be specially prepared for +receiving supernatural impressions. I am afraid the vast majority of +_taisch_ tales are dreadful nonsense. Mr. MacCulloch, in his recent work +on Skye, has usefully summarized the various types of second-sight as +expounded by the very credulous Macleod of Hamera: (1) The seer is aware +of a phantom winding-sheet enwrapping the doomed person; (2) he may see +the corpse of some one still in life; (3) he may behold a drowning or +accidental death; (4) he may hear noises as of a coffin being hammered; +(5) he may see a living person dwindle to the size of a child, and anon +expand to normal bulk. As Johnson remarks, many of the seers declared +themselves poignantly afflicted by what they saw. Aubrey tells of a +clairvoyant who asked the presbytery to pray that the gift (or curse) +might be taken away. Instant prayer removed the obsession. + +The extraordinary futility and droll language of the sentences uttered +by some of the seers are very mirth-provoking. Here are one or two +prophecies of the Brahan Seer:-- + + "The heir of the Mackenzies will take + A white rook out of the wood, + And will take a wife from a music-house + With his people against him. + And the heir will be great + In deeds, and as an orator, + When the Pope in Rome + Will be cast off his throne, + Over opposite Creagh-a'-chon + Will dwell a little lean tailor," etc. + +The following is excellent: "_When the big-thumbed sheriff-officer and +the blind man of the twenty-four fingers shall be together in Barra, +Macneill may be making ready for the flitting._" It is said that the +same seer prophesied thus of the Strathpeffer wells: "The day will come +when this disagreeable spring, with thick-crusted surface and unpleasant +smell, shall be put under lock and key, so great will be the crowd of +people pressing to drink the waters." + +Belief in clairvoyance and prophecy was quite common among the Lowland +Covenanters; and I believe _Peden's Prophecies_ may still be found among +the lumber of the book-shops. An old lady, in Irvine, once repeated to +me the following couplet, as having been uttered by Peden:-- + + "Between Segton and the sea + A bloody battle there shall be." + +Now, as Segton is the old name for Kilwinning, it would seem that the +locale of the battle (probably, as the lady, indeed, thought, the battle +of Armageddon) will be _in the immediate neighbourhood of the site at +present occupied by Nobell's Dynamite Factory_. + + +ANTIQUITIES OF DUNVEGAN. + +_Taisch_ has taken me a long way from Dunvegan, of which I meant to say +something. No souvenir is to me more delicious than that of some days +spent there, on one of which I visited the fine old castle of the +Macleods, stablished on its rocks, and filled with romance from base to +topmost turret. On the landward side are lawns, flowers, and abundance +of eye-gladdening leafage, while, seaward, there is the unspeakable +glory of isle-dotted loch and distant sea. By the kindness of Macleod of +Macleod (you must not call that grand and most genial gentleman by any +more garish title: he is _the_ Macleod; he typifies the clan--that is +his highest glory), I visited the delightful old castle and saw every +room, relic, and dirk of importance. What gave me the most pleasure was +the illuminating commentary of Macleod himself and of his charming +daughters. One cannot hear the history of some of the rooms without a +feeling of terror. In the drawing-room of the castle (the room now used +for prayers, and well it may be,) a horrible outrage was planned to take +place by Black Ian, a usurping chief. The atrocious deed happened in the +middle of the sixteenth century, and was due to Ian's fear that the +Campbells, who had landed with a large force in Skye, would expel him +from Dunvegan castle. Ian, pretending that he wished to discuss terms, +invited eleven of the leading Campbells to a banquet. At table, Macleods +and Campbells were seated side by side; and, at a given signal, which +consisted in placing a cup of blood in front of each guest, all the +Campbells were simultaneously stabbed to death, each Macleod +exterminating his man. I was glad to get out of that drawing-room. + +The main relics in the castle are: (1) The Fairy Flag; (2) Rory Mor's +Drinking-horn; and (3) the Dunvegan Cup. + +It is not as well known as it should be that one of the mediæval chiefs +of the Macleods married a fairy. This dainty little woman presented her +lord with a yellow silk flag, dotted here and there with red spots. The +virtue of the flag, she told him, resided in its efficacy to save the +chief of the Macleods on three different occasions. After the third +employment of the flag, it would flutter away to fairy-land. The flag +has twice saved a chief out of a particularly awkward predicament, and +it is still in Dunvegan, though sadly grimed and rent. The present +chief, who has served his country nobly, is quite fit, in soldierly +fashion, to grapple single-handed with any difficulty he may encounter; +but he is in hopes that the flag may yield its residual virtue to the +contentment of some one or other of his successors. + +Rory Mor's drinking-horn, which could contain, I should think, between +two and three bottles of wine, is an interesting indication of +pre-Reformation thirst. Of old, each chief as he came of age, was +expected to drink off its contents at one draught as a proof that he had +arrived at years of discretion. + +The cup is made of dark wood, and is finely adorned with silver work. It +is dated 1493, and contains a Latin inscription. + +The Fairy Tower in Dunvegan Castle contains the room in which Dr. +Johnson and Sir Walter Scott slept during their respective visits to the +castle. The burly lexicographer would have little wind left for +argument after he had toiled up the steep and narrow spiral stairway +leading to the room. Formerly, so the smiling chief told me, the young +lady chosen by the Macleod to be his wife, had to pass a night alone in +this haunted chamber, in order that the fairies might have an +opportunity of seeing her, and formally approving the choice. + + +MISCELLANEOUS TERRORS. + +He who investigates Celtic demonology will hear a good deal about a +gruesome and insidious animal called the _Water Horse_. This fell beast, +though able at need to transform itself into the shape of a human being, +is normally like a horse, though much bulkier and fiercer. Its usual +abode is in the deep lochs, but it may occasionally be seen, with wreck +or sea-weed clinging to its hoof or mane, feeding on the hill-side among +earthly horses. The detestable feature about the brute is its fondness +for human beings. There is no hope for any man, woman, or child, who +gets upon its back: at a furious gallop, the animal bounds off by the +nearest road to the loch, and leaps under the waves to devour its prey. +Foals of a specially vicious turn are believed to have this brute for +their sire: in some such way the furious nature of the horse called +"Kelpy" in George Macdonald's story might be explained. + +Certain lochs in Skye are believed to harbour a variant terror, the +water-bull. Loch Morar, on the mainland, contains a huge mystic bogie, +undefined in shape, but of terrible malignity. I have heard too, in +Uist, of a phantom dog, with eyes of glede and unearthly bark, that +frequents the entrance to the old wayside burying-ground. No driver, +unless fortified by several glasses, will drive you that way after dark. + +"Duncan," said a commercial traveller to a driver, "I'll have to go to +Gruiginish farm to-night. Have everything ready at 8.30." + +"I can't do that, Mr. Smith; it'll be dark." + +"But you have lamps, Duncan." + +"Yes, yes, but I can't go. You have to pass the old cemetery." + +"I know that, but I must attend to my business. What ails you at the +cemetery?" + +"There's the dog at the gate, the dog with the eyes of burning coal. +What is he doing there? And the wee man inside, _What is he doing +there?_" + +"I don't know what he's doing, but to Gruiginish this night I must go. +Do you think a glass of _forked lightning_ would do you any good?" + +"Well, it might help." + +In spite of more than one glass of forked lightning, poor Duncan was in +a terrible state of excitement when the cemetery was approached. He kept +his head averted, and clutched the reins so nervously that the vehicle +was in imminent danger of being upset. + +It is a beautiful saying of Goldsmith that innocently to amuse the +imagination in this dream of life is wisdom. Judged by this standard, +the imaginative operations taking place in Duncan's brain, considering +their effect on his happiness, cannot be pronounced either innocent or +wise. To add ideal terrors to the prosaic hardships of a place like Uist +is the very height of folly. And yet it is precisely in such bare and +rough regions where man has to fight with nature as with a constant +foe, that the unseen powers are believed to be most terrible. The +_lutin_ of the smiling land of France is a mere capering trickster, and +the "lubber fiend" of Milton's poem is pictured as an unpaid adjunct of +the dairy. Duncan's "wee man up on the hill-side" is a permanent and +unspeakable horror of the night. "_What is he doing there?_"[29] + + [29] Collins's long _Ode on Popular Superstitions in the + Highlands of Scotland_, addressed to Home, author of _Douglas_, + contains some excellent rhetorical passages. Speaking of the + second-sighted seer, Collins represents him as one who + + "In the _depth of Uist's dark forest_ dwells." + + We may say of Uist what Lord Rosebery said of Caithness, that it + is _entirely delivered from the contaminating influence of + foliage_. The air one breathes there does not suffer + deterioration by coming through any such _dark forest_ as Collins + mentions: it blows from the Atlantic in an absolutely pure and + strong condition. + + +ST. KILDA. + +St. Kilda, the lonely and precipitous island, forty miles west of Lewis, +which Boswell at one time thought of buying, has now, like so many other +islands of the West, a well-furnished library from Paisley. I hope the +minister of the place encourages the reading of the books, and does +everything in his power to broaden the religious views of the people by +healthy secular literature. A luckless inspector of schools crossed over +once to examine the school of this island. His boat arrived late on +Saturday, and was to leave again early on Monday. To suit his own +convenience, the greatly-daring official proposed to examine the +scholars on Sunday. Never was their such indignation among the +islanders. What! examine the school on the first day of the week! Did +the unhappy man wish the wrath of Heaven to fall in fire and brimstone +on the island? The inspector was angrily hooted and denounced. Still, as +he must needs return by his steamer, the islanders agreed to send their +children immediately after Sunday was over, _i.e._, _the bairns were +assembled at midnight_, and parts of speech were bandied about then in +the visible darkness of the tiny school. + +St. Kilda belongs to the Macleod, and every spring the factor goes over +to collect the rents. All winter the island is isolated, and has no +outer news save, perhaps, from some stray Aberdeen trawler. For twenty +years the factor went over in a sailing-boat belonging to the chief, but +by some mishap, in which no lives were lost, this boat was +ill-manœuvred and, with sails full-set, was engulfed in a whirlpool. +He now goes over in the steamer. + +The first question propounded to the factor is this: "_Has there been +war anywhere, my dear?_" If the answer is "Yes," a great joy is visible +on every face. "_That's good, that's good: tell us all about it._" +Having heard all about the war, the natives show an eagerness for +sweets, of which they are inordinately fond. + +The natives are expert cragsmen, and much of their time is occupied in +collecting birds' feathers. The oil of the solan goose is also a source +of wealth. Rough tweeds are now woven in many of the houses. The factor +informed me that, for some unknown reason, everything that comes from +the island is impregnated with a heavy odour that is most disagreeable. +Means have been tried to neutralise this smell, but success is only for +a time: by and by the odour returns, as bad as ever, to fabric and +feather. Merchants, both at home and abroad, are loath to purchase such +unfragrant wares. + +In Dunvegan Castle are to be seen several of the little letter-boats +employed by the St. Kildeans to convey news to Scotland in the winter +months. The tide is watched, and the letter-boat cast into the sea. +Usually the message is washed ashore on some part of the Long Island. +Natural superstition supplements, in a small degree, the lack of mails: +when the islanders, for example, hear _the notes of the cuckoo_, they +are convinced that the Macleod is dead. Happily the cuckoo is rarely +heard breaking the silence of the seas so far west. + + +LADY GRANGE. + +To this day there are in the possession of the Macleod family certain +old accounts of the years 1744 and 1745, that recall one of the most +diabolical and continuous pieces of cruelty recorded in history. I refer +to the accounts paid in these years to the Laird of Macleod for the +board and burial of Lady Grange. No one who knows the history of that +ill-fated lady can look at these time-stained documents without a +knocking of the seated heart at the ribs. + +Everyone who has enjoyed the light and graceful poetry of Ovid, has +sighed over the relegation of that city man to the barbarous horrors of +the Black Sea. As Gibbon exquisitely phrases it: "The tender Ovid, +after a youth spent in the enjoyment of wealth and luxury, was condemned +to a hopeless exile on the frozen banks of the Danube, where he was +exposed without remorse to those fierce denizens of the desert with +whose stern spirits he feared that his gentle shade might hereafter be +confounded." The banishment of Lady Grange to St. Kilda, in 1734, by her +rascally husband, is to me fully as pathetic as Ovid's expatriation to +Tomi. She, a refined and beautiful woman, the light of Edinburgh +drawing-rooms, was hustled off to a lonely rock and left remorselessly +to pine there amid the squalls. Let me briefly summarise this affecting +history. + +Lord Grange, a Scottish judge of strong Jacobite leanings, was known by +his Lady to be concerned in a plot, along with Lovat, Mar, and others, +to bring back the Pretender. This was in the year 1730. Stung in her +wifely pride by her husband's ill-treatment and licentiousness, she +openly threatened to expose his treason. To prevent such exposure, +Grange caused his wife to be kidnapped and clandestinely conveyed first +to a small island off North Uist, and subsequently to St. Kilda. In the +latter island, no one could speak any English except the catechist, and +here for seven years this polished society dame lived amid the blasts +and the screaming ocean-fowl, lacking even the privilege, which Ovid +enjoyed, of sending letters to child or friend. In 1741, when the +catechist left the island, she made him bearer of letters to her +law-agent, Hope of Rankeillor. Hope fitted out a sloop, with twenty-five +armed men on board, and set out for St. Kilda to rescue the lady. +Macleod, who was, of course, privy to her detention, at once removed her +to Skye, and Hope's expedition came to nothing. The poor woman, worn out +with sorrow and suffering, died in 1745, a helpless imbecile! + +The story, which throws a lurid light on the savagery of the eighteenth +century, and which, to my thinking, surpasses in pathos anything +occurring in fiction, was long disbelieved. But it was only too true. It +is said that ill-luck pursued the lady even after death, and that her +funeral was a miserable parody. A coffin filled with stones and turf was +interred, before a large crowd, in the churchyard of Duirinish, the real +remains being, with maimed rites or none at all, secretly buried +elsewhere. + +It is noteworthy that Lady Grange died in 1745, the year when Prince +Charlie's hopes were shattered on Culloden Moor. Like her, he too had +the ill-luck to be a hopeless wanderer in the Misty Isle. + + +PIERLESS TIREE. + +I regret to say that I did not stay long enough in the island of Tiree +to add to my store of legends, and yet, I went there with a capacious +note-book and excellent intentions. What is more, I read from beginning +to end, Dr. Erskine Beveridge's detailed book on the island, and could +have passed an examination on semi-brochs, rock-forts, marsh duns, +islet-forts, sandhill dwellings, and prehistoric burial-sites. I steeped +myself so thoroughly in the _minutiae_ of pre-Reformation churches, that +I almost forgot to go to the modern ones. Tiree took hold of me +completely, and so did the Norse invaders of the Hebrides--men like +Ketil Flatnose, Magnus Barelegs, Hako, and Somerled. I got a pocket map +arranged for my own use (copied from Dr. Beveridge's large one) with a +red cross at all the sites of ancient forts. It was my fond hope, for +pride attends us still, that I might find some inaccuracy in Dr. +Beveridge's book, and, from measurements on the spot, be able to +contradict some of his statements. But what are the hopes of man! I did +not know that predestination, in the form of dirty weather, was working +against me, and was about to quench all my interest in _duns_. On +September 5th, 1907, I determined to take Dr. Beveridge's measurements +for granted. + +On that day, in fact, I was for some time under the impression that my +last lecture had been delivered. It was on the way between Coll and +Tiree. The gale was a furious one and, combined with the greasy odours +of the _Fingal_, was enough to sicken a practised seafarer. I did notice +that some of the crew were prostrated, so that there was some excuse for +a landsman not being proof against Neptune's dandling. So low, exposed, +and precarious is the shore at Scarinish, that, often for weeks, the +ferrymen dare not venture out to the steamer for passengers. I asked one +of the _Fingal_ men if there was any chance of being landed. He was a +cruel cynic, and said: "No, not to-day. The sea is too wild for the +ferry to come out. We'll go right across to Bunessan in Mull, so prepare +for three more hours' shaking. You won't forget the _Dutchman's Cap_ +for the rest of your life." Then with a remark addressed to the +Creator, he added: "_There's the ferryboat after all; she's racing over +the water like a stag._" + +He was right: the lugsail was careering out to us and came alongside at +length, and, after fearful trouble, got fastened to the _Fingal_. +Sometimes the ferryboat was even with our deck, sometimes far above it, +sometimes fifteen feet below. It looked like certain death to leap into +that lugsail. + +I hesitated, and shouted to the captain: "Is it safe to jump?" + +He replied, "I wish to Tophet I had the chance." + +I watched for the next opportunity of the ferryboat and the _Fingal_ +being approximately on the same plane, and leaped into the arms of a +boatman. + +Other passengers followed,--men, women, even babies. Then came the +mails; and finally, live stock. I remember being struck on the mouth by +a sheep heaved into the boat by the above-mentioned cynic. "Come, come, +that's enough, keep the rest; let us be off," shouted a boatman. +Everybody was wet to the skin: the wind was howling; the women weeping; +and the babies were mixed up with the sheep. + +Once clear of the _Fingal_, the adroit ferrymen did their duty well, and +in less than ten minutes we were all landed. A crowd of islanders were +waiting to lift us out. All agreed that it had been a _close shave_. + +Such was my introduction to _Pierless Tiree_. + +I did not stay long enough in the island to measure brochs, but quite +long enough to experience the good-will and kindliness of the natives. +The houses are solid and substantial, the inhabitants strong and +muscular. Great gales from the Atlantic blow almost continually, sweep +up the sand in clouds, and prevent any trees from taking root. I did not +see much poverty with my own eyes, but the ministers all assured me +there was a great deal. Maize, more than oatmeal, is the cereal used for +porridge. For supplementary information, Dr. Beveridge's admirable and +accurate work may be consulted. + + +LOCHBUIE IN MULL. + +The great straggling island of Mull, so full of scenery, romance, and +song, still awaits its historian. Few, who have ever visited the noble +isle, will refuse to say with Macphail, the bard of Torosay: + + "O the island of Mull is an isle of delight + With the wave on the shore and the sun on the height, + And the breeze on the hills and the blast on the Bens, + And the old green woods and the old grassy glens." + +The gem of the island is undoubtedly the haven of Lochbuie, one of the +choicest nooks in insular Scotland. The modern mansion, which is but a +step or two from the well-preserved castle of olden times, is quite near +the shore, and looks straight south over the Atlantic to the island of +Colonsay. The entire surroundings are a delight to the eye: great +towering mountains behind, the sea in front, and in the space between, +green lawns, rocks, gorse, and many-tinted garden-plots. + +The MacLaines of Lochbuie trace their descent from the great Gillean of +the Battle-axe, a redoubtable warrior who flourished his weapon to some +purpose in the reign of Alexander III. But the most notorious of all +the MacLaines is _Ewen of the Little Head_, who died in battle, and +thereafter assumed the rôle of family ghost. Before the death of any of +his race, this phantom-warrior gallops along the sea-beach near the +castle, announcing the event by cries and loud lamentations. The doctor, +who attended the present chief's mother, declares that, while sitting +beside her bed during the silent watches of the night, he heard the +noise of the spectral horse just before the old lady's decease. The +natives of Mull can describe the ghost and horse with accurate detail. +The horse is a small, hardy, sure-footed animal of brown colour, and +Ewen is known by the smallness of his head, and by a long floating +mantle of green. He performed a weird and long-continued gallop round +the bay in 1815, before the news of the valiant Sir Archibald MacLaine's +death became known by official despatch from the seat of war. + +Lochbuie, like so many other places in Scotland, has its Piper's Cave. +There is a remarkable similarity in all such tales--diversified, +however, by quaint local additions. MacLaine's piper, a foolhardy man, +determined once to test the allegation that a certain cave on Lochbuie +was connected with another cave at Pennygown on the Sound of Mull. +Attired in his official costume and having his dog at his heels, he +entered the cave, blowing his pipes triumphantly. Those above, on the +hills, were able to make out his line of passage by the sound of the +music. At a certain point the pipes ceased, and nevermore did the piper +come up to the shores of light. The dog got to the cave of Pennygown--a +limp and hairless parody of its former self. + +Browning, in his "Pied Piper of Hamelin," has but poetised one version +of a world-wide tale. Often, in the Highland tales, it is money the +piper is after. There is a deep cave near Melvaig, in Wester Ross, into +which a piper is said to have led a band of men in search of gold, and +never returned. In this case the pipe-music is said to have continued +for years--some natives even asserting that it may be heard still by +those who have ears to hear. + +In spite of all the legendary lore connected with the family of the +MacLaines, the chief interest of Lochbuie for a lover of literature, +centres round the visit of Boswell and Johnson. In one of the rooms of +the castle there is a fine portrait of Johnson. On looking at it, my +mind reverted to the amusing question addressed to the sage by the +"bluff, comely, noisy old gentleman" who was the laird of Lochbuie in +1773: "Are you of the Johnstons of Glencro or of Ardnamurchan?" "Dr. +Johnson," says Boswell, "gave him a significant look, but made no +answer; and I told Lochbuie that he was not Johnston, but Johnson, and +that he was an Englishman." + +I regret to say that the great war saddle, which was in Lochbuie's +possession in 1773, and which Boswell did not see because the young +laird had taken it to Falkirk with a drove of black cattle, is no longer +in the island: somebody took it to America, and forgot to bring it +back. + +The present laird is greatly beloved by his tenantry. At the lecture I +gave at Lochbuie, he was unable, owing to illness, to take the chair. +His absence was a terrible grief to the people, and the piper of the +family, in a brief speech, alluded in a most touching way to the sorrow +felt by all present.[30] + + +INVERARAY CASTLE. + +Three days after Johnson and his friend left Lochbuie, they were +entertained by the Duke of Argyll in Inveraray Castle. Boswell's +description of the incidents of this visit is one of his finest efforts. +He tells us that Johnson admired the "utter defiance of expense" shown +by the Duke in the building and appointments of the place. Records exist +which show that the masons were paid at the rate of 4½d. a day, +_plus_ a weekly bonus of meal! + +It is interesting to note that the Rev. John Macaulay (grandfather of +Lord Macaulay) was one of the ministers of Inveraray in 1773. Boswell +gives him a very high character, but this had no emollient effect on the +great historian, when he came to review _Croker's Edition of Boswell's +Johnson_. + +Inveraray Castle is a superb object-lesson in Scotch history. All the +Campbells of note for centuries past are hanging on the walls, from the +old Duke who passed away last, to the squinting Marquis (_Gleed Argyll_ +mentioned in the "Bonnie House o' Airlie"), who was beheaded on the +Castle Hill of Edinburgh in 1661. The Duke, who commanded at Sheriffmuir +("when we ran and they ran, and they ran and we ran," etc.) is standing +in his accoutrements of pride, painted by the son of Allan Ramsay: + + "Argyll the State's whole thunder, born to wield + And shake alike the Senate and the Field." + +Mediæval armour, firelocks from Culloden, flags from a score of +battlefields, mutely suggest the glory and gore of the olden times. It +is impossible to walk through the rooms of such a place without feeling +intimately in touch with the events of the past. + +The present hotel is the one in which Johnson and his biographer lodged. +Burns came sixteen years later, and wrote on the pane of his bedroom +window the scandalous epigram on Inveraray so often quoted. The present +Duke (who has perpetrated a fair amount of poetry himself) would give +much of his odd cash to recover that pane, which was cut out some years +ago by a pilfering visitor.[31] + + [30] I am inclined to think that the relationship formerly + existing between the Highland chief and the member of his clan + was perfect in its way--a _model_ of class relationship. There + was nothing menial about the clansman's attitude, though he gave + unbounded homage to his lord. At the battle of Inverkeithing, a + clansman and his seven sons gave up their lives to shield from + death their chieftain, Sir Hector Maclean. As the old man saw his + boys fall one after the other, he shouted with glee and pride, + "_Another for Sir Hector!_" until he himself lay, like a true + thane, beside his progeny. Nothing could be finer or more + touching than such a scene. + + [31] Burns tells us that when in Inveraray Hotel, he was entirely + neglected by the servants, who gave all their attention to some + gentlemen from the Castle. In our day, the Campbells have shown + contrition by their willingness to admit that Burns was one of + their own clan. Burns's ancestors were, it is said, Campbells of + Taynuilt. Taynuilt means in English, Burnhouse. When the poet's + ancestors emigrated to Forfarshire, they were known as _Campbells + from Burnhouse_. In course of time the appellation was shortened + into Burnhouse simply, and latterly into Burness or + Burns.--Q.E.D. + + +THE SACRED ISLE. + +Wordsworth came to Iona (which also belongs to the Argyll family) in +1833, and wrote four poor sonnets on the sacred isle. This is what he +saw: + + "To each voyager + Some ragged child holds up for sale a store + Of wave-worn pebbles, pleading on the shore + Where once came monk and nun with gentle stir." + +Owing to its ecclesiastical renown as the cradle of Christianity in +Britain, no island is so much visited as Iona. The audience I addressed +was the most miscellaneous I have ever seen: there were boatmen and +barristers, anglers and artists, curates and crofters, French and +Germans. + +The present-day natives seem desirous of keeping up the old reputation +for theology. The boatman who ferries visitors ashore, remarked to me +with pride that his favourite book was one entitled _The Great +Controversy between God and the Devil_, a book with which I was, and am +still, unacquainted. + +Dr. Johnson's remarks on Iona remain the most eloquent tribute to the +island. He never wrote anything finer. All the children in the Iona +school should be made to learn the piece by heart.[32] + +It is most gratifying to think that Christianity has been the great +purifying force in Europe. The introduction of Christianity into the +world must be reckoned as the most revolutionary event of history. +Nothing was ever more needed. To one who knows the morality of the most +brilliant society of the Greeks and Romans, there is no need to extol +the pure and lofty moral tone of Jesus of Nazareth. But those who have +not read the masterpieces of ancient art, with their mingled beauty and +foulness, may be assured that literature owes more to Christianity than +has ever yet been told. With Christianity a great healthy breeze swept +over the world. Men became ashamed of wallowing in the mire. An ideal +was raised up before them for their worship and imitation. The old Adam +and his deeds needed stern repression after the wild iniquities of the +effete society of imperial Rome. The spirit needed to curb the flesh, +literature needed to be cleansed. We, living to-day and nursed on the +accumulated tradition of so many anterior Christian centuries, are +sometimes disposed to minimise the debt we owe, in pure and simple +morality, to the teachings of the New Testament. I find it impossible to +imagine what the world would be without these teachings. They renewed +the world, they made it do penance for its sins, they made advance +practicable. An entirely retrograde movement is impossible when once man +is indoctrinated with a grand ideal. + + [32] Boswell's religious instincts come well out in his account + of the visit to Iona. Two of his descendants, Messrs. Albert and + James Boswell, devoted themselves entirely to religion, and were + well known in Ayrshire, thirty years ago, as zealous evangelists. + These two gentlemen went on a preaching campaign through the + northern islands, and did much highly appreciated philanthropic + and religious work there. They were members of the sect called + Plymouth Brethren. + + +APPIN. + +In this chapter (as, indeed, in all the others) I am rummaging among my +souvenirs for materials that are in some way noteworthy. It is utterly +impossible to exhaust the romance and glamour of the Highlands. Those +who go regularly North are certain to bring back, on each occasion, a +host of interesting memories. "Swift as a weaver's shuttle fly our +years": the chief difficulty is to jot down all that one sees and hears. + +On the occasion of my second visit to Appin, I stayed in the fine new +hotel built on the eminence called Druim-an-t-Sealbhain. The landlord is +a man of great wit and reading, and with him I had some enjoyable hours +of miscellaneous conversation. Mr. Macdonald (for that is his name) has +an excellent knowledge of the Celtic dialects, has translated into +Gaelic verse some of the best-known poems of Burns, Tannahill, and +Byron, and is extremely clever at retailing the legendary tales that +still go rumouring along the Strath of Appin. He has also a good +knowledge of English literature, and told me certain details regarding +Scott and Wordsworth which I was pleased to know. + +It seems that Sir Walter was at one time tutor in Appin House, and was +in the habit of visiting the cot of an old shepherd, a notorious +_seanachie_, full of romantic lore, for the purpose of hearing, and +writing down, the old man's tales. An oak tree is still pointed out, +under which, it is said, Scott composed part of _The Lord of the Isles_. +Appin is not very far from the castles of Dunollie and Dunstaffnage, +which Sir Walter wrought skilfully into the texture of his tales. + +The most interesting item mentioned by Mr. Macdonald had reference to +the visit of William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy, in the year +1803. Everyone who has read the life of the great poet of Nature knows +the charming description of the district contained in one of his +sister's letters. "We arrived," she says, "at Port-na-croish. It is a +small village--a few huts and an indifferent inn, by the side of the +loch; ordered a fowl for dinner, had a fire lighted, and went a few +steps from the door up the road, and turning aside into a field, stood +at the top of a low eminence, from which, looking down the loch to the +sea through a long vista of hills and mountains, _we beheld one of the +most delightful prospects that, even when we dream of fairer worlds than +this, it is possible to conceive in our hearts_." Here follows a +description so exquisite of the sea-scenery and the Morven Hills, that +it deserves to be classed with the finest examples of word-painting in +the English language. + +The new hotel at Appin is built on the low eminence referred to in the +above-cited letter. The name Druim-an-t-Sealbhain is giving way to the +complimentary title of "Dorothy Wordsworth's View." From the front +windows of the hotel, the same calm inland seas, grassy hills, Morven +mists, grim old forts, and intricate communion of land and water, can be +seen precisely as they were seen by the Wordsworths more than a century +ago. The Port-na-croish inn has become a village store: it is well +worthy of note, not merely for the reference in the letter, but for a +fine legend, which I shall now narrate. + + +MACDONALD'S GRATITUDE. + +The first tenant of the inn was a Macdonald of Glencoe, a man between +sixty and seventy at the time of the story, the year 1755 namely. He had +around him a family of stalwart sons, all imbued with intense hatred of +the clan Campbell. The peculiar and fiendish malignity of the terrible +massacre of Glencoe precluded all possibility of forgiveness on the part +of the clan. Highland hospitality has always been a lavish and +magnificent thing, and Colonel Campbell and his assassins had been +treated with exceptional kindness in Glencoe. The bloody outrage, in a +midnight of winter snows, was too terrible a meed of hospitality to be +readily forgotten or forgiven by the Macdonalds. This old innkeeper of +Port-na-croish, then, hated the Campbells with the unquenchable hate +that deep wrongs, done not alone to an individual but to a tribe, +engender in the Celtic soul. + +One day a white-bearded wayfarer begged food and shelter in the little +hostel, and in the course of conversation over the meal that was soon +spread on the board for his wants, he let slip an avowal that, in his +youth, as one of Campbell's men, he had taken part in the gruesome +massacre of the "valley of weeping." Without more ado, the landlord +slipped out and posted his sons at the door, with whispered orders to +them that the stranger should be dirked to death on crossing the +threshold of the inn. Returning indoors, old Macdonald, dissimulating +his fell intentions, proceeded to ply the visitor with question upon +question, so as to gain a detailed knowledge of all the incidents of the +weird carnage. Finally he said, "Tell me, Campbell, what part of that +devilish business made the strongest impression on your mind?" "I will +tell you," said the old soldier, "what to me was the outstanding +incident of that night. Towards the close of the massacre, a child's +voice was heard piercingly on the night air--a scream it was, and seemed +to come from no great distance. The captain sent me in the direction of +the sound, bidding me, if the child should be a male Macdonald, to kill +it forthwith; if a girl, to spare. I soon came up to the place whence +the sound proceeded, and saw through the whirling snow, under the +protection of a jutting cliff, a nurse with a boy of four years old, +both of them wailing and shivering with cold. The child was gnawing a +bone and, near by, a dog was crouching. Pity wrung my heart. I drove my +bayonet through the trembling cur, and, going back to the captain, +showed him the bloody steel as a proof that I had obeyed his commands." + +The innkeeper, who had been all ears, said: "You, then, were that +soldier?" "I was, indeed," replied the old wanderer. "_And I was that +child!_" said the landlord, "and _your_ life is saved. My sons stand at +the threshold of the inn, ready to fall upon you when you leave. I +countermand the order for your destruction. Here you shall stay, an +honoured guest, till the end of your days, as a recompense for saving my +life on that awful night." + +The story goes on to state that the foot-weary Campbell lived for some +years a pensioner in Port-na-croish inn, and was buried at the expense +of the grateful innkeeper. I do not know any story that comes nearer +perfection. + + +NOTES ON THE TROSSACHS. + +The Rev. Mr. Wilson, the cultured and genial minister of the Trossachs, +has recently published a most readable little book on the district he +knows so well. Perhaps no district indeed on the world's surface is so +well known (even to those who have never seen it), as the Trossachs. +Little did Sir Walter suspect, when he penned the stirring iambics of +_The Lady of the Lake_, that he was furnishing materials to the +pedagogue which would be parsed, analysed, and dissected by myriads of +pupils in all the schools of the British Empire. We shall all carry with +us to the grave the leading passages of that romantic lay: the +stag-hunt, the duel at Coilantogle Ford, the whistle that garrisoned the +glen, and the episode of the Fiery Cross. Such lines, we may say, have +gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. +Happening to pass Strathyre station in July, 1907, I was requested by a +bright-eyed little Japanese gentleman in the compartment to tell him +where we were. On being informed, he (after casting an eye of pity on +the deplorable stork that is supposed to decorate the drinking-fountain +of the station), began to declaim, in capital English, the passage that +begins-- + + "Benledi saw the Cross of Fire, + It glanced like lightning up Strathyre, + O'er dale and hill the summons flew, + Nor rest nor pause young Angus knew; + The tear that gathered in his eye + He left the mountain breeze to dry." + +Mr. Wilson's book to which I have alluded is a collection of the +impressions written down by eminent visitors to the locality, from +Dorothy Wordsworth to Queen Victoria. Carlyle, who was in Perthshire in +1818, wrote the following note, which, though short, is finely +characteristic of him: "The Trossachs I found really grand and +impressive, Loch Katrine exquisitely so, my first taste of the beautiful +in scenery. Not so, any of us, the dirty, smoky farm-hut at the +entrance, with no provision in it but bad oatcakes and unacceptable +whisky, or the Mrs. Stewart who somewhat royally presided over it, and +dispensed these dainties, expecting to be flattered like an +independency, as well as paid like an innkeeper." The foregoing note, by +itself, is good value for the cost of Mr. Wilson's book (two shillings, +namely), and raises regrets that the author of _Sartor_ did not travel +oftener through the Land of Cakes. (The only other place in the +Highlands where I have heard Carlyle spoken of, is Kyleakin in Skye, +where he was the guest of Lady Ashburton, and where (as the natives +say), the cocks and hens had to be removed out of ear-shot for his +convenience.) + +One of Mr. Wilson's stories (contributed by a lady) is apposite at the +present time, when so much is being heard of women's rights. Glengyle, a +district of the Trossachs, was once _entirely ruled_ by a number of +women, who constituted a sort of High Court with women as Judge and +Jury. "The most notorious case which they dealt with, and which probably +led to their downfall through drawing the ridicule of the country upon +them, was a case of horse-stealing. The accused man had been seen riding +furiously away on someone else's horse, and all evidence pointed to his +guilt. To the astonishment of the outsiders, the jury returned a verdict +of 'not guilty,' and the Judge on summing up declared the horse was the +culprit, as it had run away with the man. _She condemned the unfortunate +animal to be hanged, and hanged it was, while the man got off scot +free._" + + +LOCHFYNE-SIDE. + +None of the mainland counties of Scotland can boast of such wonderful +ramifications of sea and loch as the county of Argyll. The present +amiable and cultured head of the Clan Campbell declaimed, with great +applause, at a social gathering not long ago, a fine poem, in which the +beauties of his ancestral shire were floridly--but not +unjustly--elaborated. It would be difficult to over-praise the county of +Argyll, with its splendid sea-board, its rugged and impressive peaks, +and its unrivalled fiords and lakes. Thanks to its proximity to large +centres of population, few counties are so much visited. Its fame, in +our day, is likely to be more widespread than ever, owing to the +graceful and entertaining writings of Mr. Neil Munro, who probably +knows the details of its local history better than any man living, and +who possesses the inimitable art of interesting others in his +delineations of the past. I confess that I feel, personally, as much +interest in the Wars of Lorn as I do in the Siege of Sphacteria, and +that "Glee'd Argyll" seems fully as attractive as Cleon or Brasidas. + +Of course, long before Mr. Munro, Loch Fyne had a European reputation, +which it owed to its herring. The Popes of Rome used to eat these +herring in mediæval times, and sent for them _viâ_ Amsterdam or Antwerp. +Orthodox Catholics have always had good judgment in the matter of fish, +and especially the French, who belong to a country which proudly boasts +of being _the eldest daughter of the Church_. For many a generation the +French came annually to Lochgilphead, and bartered their kegs of claret +for barrels of salt herring. The French Revolution, among its many other +effects, put a stop to this trade. War lasted for so many years between +Britain and France, that, at the end of it all, the continental sailors +had forgotten the way to Loch Fyne. + +Argyllshire is rich in legends, for many of which no date can be given +except the elastic one _long ago_ or _in byegone times_. Let me cite one +or two of these:-- + + +MACIVORS, MACVICARS, AND MACALLISTERS. + +On the road to Kilmartin is a place called the Robber's Den, the +locality of which may be firmly fixed in the tourist's memory by noting +that it is just behind a large distillery. Here, long ago, lived one +Macvicar, whose wife was a Macivor. These names are important, and so +also is that of the Macallisters of Tarbert, who one day stole cattle +belonging to the Macivors. Mrs. Macvicar noticed these Tarbert +scoundrels driving her father's cattle through the glen, and mentioned +the fact to her boy. Young Macvicar followed the robbers, and found them +in a forest feeding joyously on a slain bullock belonging to his +grandfather. As each Macallister finished picking a bone, he would throw +it violently against a big stone, remarking at the same time, with a +chuckle: "_If a Macivor were here, that's how I would treat him_." The +boy, from his hiding-place in the foliage, threw a stone and struck one +of the feasters. The injured man blamed one of his own clansmen, and, +after much recrimination, a free fight of Macallisters was the result. +During the mêlée, the boy slunk off and told his mother's family what +was happening. The Macivors, in a furious and determined band, soon fell +upon their disordered foes, and completely routed them and regained +their cattle, _minus_ the consumed bullock. The chief of the +Macallisters was slain by a woman, who took off her stocking, placed a +_large stone therein_, and heaved it at his head. That same night, Mrs. +Macallister, wife of the chieftain thus ignominiously laid low, gave +birth, perhaps prematurely, to a son, whom the care of a discriminate +midwife secreted from the vengeance of the Macivors, who were howling +all round the house. This child grew up to manhood with the picture of +the stone-laden stocking ever before his mind's eye. He prepared a most +effective retaliation: he sent to Ireland and got over a large band of +Antrim men, who were quite pleased to help him in his bloody projects. +The Macivors were completely overpowered, and even the Macvicars had a +taste of Irish steel. Macvicar, father of the boy who distinguished +himself in the wood, was attacked in his own house. He was an athlete of +great powers, and was _able to jump thirty feet either in a backward or +a forward direction_. The Irishmen set fire to his house, and +Macvicar--hoping, no doubt, to make a final leap for life--tried to +escape by the chimney. His foes struck him on the knee with a spear: he +fell into their hands, and was at once despatched. + + +RED HECTOR. + +We hear a good deal of the Irish in the traditions of Argyllshire. The +ruthless Colkitto, notorious for his own deeds and also for Milton's +mention of him, brought over a contingent of men from Ireland to help +Montrose in the Royalist wars. These auxiliaries swooped down on +Kintyre, murdered hundreds of Campbells, and devastated with fire and +sword the whole of Argyll's country. To this period belongs the story of +Red Hector and the Irish colossus, Phadrig Mor. + +Hector was a little, red-haired kern of the Campbell clan, who was +caught by Colkitto's men skulking in the wood, and dragged with pinioned +arms before the son of that bandit. Hector was about to be hanged +without more ado, but as preparations were being made he cried out: +"_Give me a sword and I'll fight any one of you. If I am beaten, kill me +then._" The Irishmen, to whom an "illigant foight" has always been +welcome, agreed to the proposal of Red Hector. They chose Phadrig Mor, a +fierce giant of a man, to fight with the little fellow. The latter, to +neutralise the advantages of Phadrig's stature, leapt nimbly on the sawn +stump of a tree, and, in an attitude of defence, awaited the oncoming of +his foe. The wee man parried most dexteriously every blow that Phadrig +wished to deal, and there was much mirth and excitement among the +spectators. At length, seeing a terrific blow coming his way, Hector +speedily leapt off the trunk of the tree, and the Irishman's sword came +fiercely down and was embedded in the timber. Now was Hector's chance: +he laid about the defenceless giant to such purpose that Phadrig was +soon a corpse. + + +MACPHAIL OF COLONSAY. + +Leyden, the polyglott poet, has written a poem on an Argyllshire +tradition attaching to the whirlpool of Corryvreckan. Near that dreaded +tumult of waters, Macphail, a Colonsay man, was pulled out of his boat +by a mermaid, and taken down to her shell-strewn chamber at the bottom +of the sea. They stayed for years together, and five little, unbaptized +Macphails claimed him at length as their sire. By and by he grew tired +of the eternal swirling of the currents, the saltwater garden growths, +and the irritating deflection of the sunlight. His mind continued to +revert to Colonsay and the girl he had left behind him there. One day he +got the mermaid to take him near the strand of his native island, +whereupon he suddenly leapt ashore and escaped. In future years he +avoided the sea as much as possible, preferring to devote his time and +talents to cultivating the soil of Colonsay. + + +TALES FROM SPEYSIDE. + +Part of my purpose in this chapter is to show to any of my readers who +may have poetical talents, that abundance of material for verse, and +that of the most pathetic, thrilling, and gruesome kind, is still to be +found in the North country. No one since Scott has thought fit to draw +much on traditions of the Highlands: and though Scott poetised a great +many of these, plenty of them still remain unsung. Many fine tales are +associated with the delightful district of Speyside. + + +TOM EUNAN! + +Near the little village of Kincraig is a queer old church built on a +hill called Tom Eunan, just beside the Spey. This church is declared to +be the only one in Scotland in which services have been continuously +held since the seventh century. The outside is antique in the extreme; +inside, there have been renovations: there is a deal of varnished +wainscoating that would have scared the Culdees, and instead of the +uneven cobble stones of old, there is a modern floor of wood. On one of +the windows of the church, there is a fine old bronze bell that exists +as a relic of Culdee times. Some profane person once laid hands on this +bell and carried it off to Perth; but it _would not_ ring away from +Speyside. To speak figuratively, the bell was broken-hearted: from its +metallic tongue, night and day, came the mournful wail, "Tom Eunan, Tom +Eunan." I am happy to say that it was brought back to its beloved +hillock. + +Rural churches with earthen floors were not uncommon in Scotland even in +the nineteenth century: in such there would be no great trouble in +interring the dead. Two Speyside stories, dealing with kirks and +kirkyards, are told of the Grants of Rothiemurchus. + + +SHAWS AND GRANTS. + +For several generations the possession of Rothiemurchus was a constant +subject of dispute between the Shaws and the Grants. The Shaws were the +original owners, but having waxed fat and kicked against the Government +on more than one occasion, word was sent from Edinburgh to one of the +Grants, who was Laird of Muckerach, that he should dispossess the Shaws +of the lands of Rothiemurchus, _gin he could_. Grant was by no means +"blate" in availing himself of the hint, but the Shaws were tough +fighters. In a final and decisive contest between the two clans, the +Grants were victorious and the chief of the Shaws slain. The victorious +Muckerach, now unequivocal Laird of Rothiemurchus, caused his dead rival +to be buried deep down within the kirk beneath his own seat. Every +Sunday _when he went to pray_ he stamped his feet triumphantly upon the +place under which lay the corpse of his enemy. + +Patrick Grant, surnamed Macalpine, cuts a rather picturesque figure in +clan history. With a body of gaily-dressed retainers he paraded round +the countryside, dispensing justice and letting the minimum of time +elapse between the sentence and the execution. He was twice married, +and his second wife survived him. That forlorn lady had much to endure +from the first family, and notably from the wife of Macalpine's eldest +son and heir. The widow took a very dramatic way of publicly showing her +grievances. Once after the service in the kirk was over, she stepped up, +with her fan in her hand, to the corner of the kirkyard, and, taking off +her high-heeled slipper, she tapped with it on the stone laid over her +husband's grave, crying out through her tears, "_Macalpine! Macalpine! +rise up for ae half-hour and see me richted!_" + +A diverting legend explains the _low-lying situation of Ballindalloch +Castle_, a beautiful specimen of baronial architecture, standing near +the junction of the Spey and the Avon. In planning the place, somewhere +about 1545, the laird fully intended to secure a wide prospect, and to +that end, chose a commanding site. But his views did not commend +themselves to the Powers of the Air, and the masons could make no +progress. Every night, when the workers had retired from building the +walls, a prodigious gale came roaring from the summit of Ben Rinnes and +swept stones and mortar into the bed of the Avon. The laird, sorely +puzzled at this strange phenomenon, lay in watch one night, with the +result that he was blown off his feet, and landed right up among the +branches of a holly-tree. Having taken the conceit out of the laird in +this abrupt way, the Mysterious Power, chuckling in fiendish fashion, +called out "_Build on the cow-haugh_." Frightened out of his wits, the +laird was only too glad to comply. + + +THE WISHING WELL. + +Round the old Castle of Rothes clings a legend of a more pathetic kind. +"Fierce wars and faithful loves shall moralise my song," says Spenser, +and it is with these well-worn but ever-fresh subjects that the story +deals. The heiress of one of the old lairds of Rothes, being allowed to +roam at will with her foster-mother, cast an eye of love on the son of +the laird of Arndilly. As in ballad lore, the love seems to have been +immediate, reciprocal, and unquenchable. The girl's father, hearing of +the attachment, summarily forbade it, and commanded his daughter to turn +her back on young Arndilly, and take a different road in future. But as +journeys end in lovers meeting, the two young people, by whatever way +they set out, invariably met at the _Wishing Well_. A sad severance +came, however, for young Arndilly, like so many mediæval knights of song +who had faithful mistresses, must needs go crusading to the Holy Land. +During his absence, the lady hied daily to the Wishing Well, and many a +tear she let fall therein as she thought of the lad that was so far +away. But after many a month, back from Palestine came young Arndilly, +and went, of course, straight to the old trysting-place, where he found +his lady-love praying for his safe return. The meeting was rapturous but +tragically short. A dark shape glided upon the scene, and drove a fatal +dirk in the young soldier's back. The lady shrieked aloud and swooned +away. For the rest of her life she was an imbecile: she never left the +castle, and spent her time crooning a plaintive song and rocking a +cradle. Her ghost still haunts the place, and those who have ears to +hear can, at nightfall, make out, above the sough of the wind, the +mournful notes of a weird lullaby, and mysterious cradle-rockings within +the ruined walls. Close by the Well, at the spot of the murder, a bush +sprang up, whereof the leaves resembled crosses; in autumn they turned +to a bright scarlet colour, as if typical of the blood that had flowed +there from its victim's wounds. Others will have it that the lady's +ghost may be seen flitting about, distractedly, in the woods, on a +particular night of the year--the anniversary, it is supposed, of +Arndilly's murder. + + +OSSIAN AND MACPHERSON. + +The beautiful little town of Kingussie is famous for its association +with "Ossian" Macpherson, who was born near by. No man, born on Scottish +earth, except perhaps, Sir Walter Scott, had ever such an influence on +European literature as this Highland dominie. "His Ossian," as Professor +Macmillan Brown says, "was translated into almost every European +language; and its influence is apparent in Goethe's Werther, in +Schiller's Robbers, and in all the Storm-and-Stress literature of +Germany, in the productions and speeches of the French Revolutionists, +in the romantic literary movement that preceded and followed the +Revolution, and in much of the Italian, Spanish, and Danish poetry of +the time. It generally affected the prose style of eighteenth century +romance, and was a direct antidote to Johnsonianism in the imaginative +literature. In our own century it bent the genius of Scott to the +Highlands, and moulded the dramas of Byron, and the often vague imagery +of Shelley; it appears in the style of Kingsley's Hereward, and directly +or indirectly it is responsible for the pioneering efforts of Walt +Whitman in prose poetry and for the rapid growth of poetic prose through +De Quincey, Bulwer Lytton, and Ruskin. During last century it stirred +Blake to misty prophecies, led writers of romance back into the less +known periods of the past, and gave the new audience a delight in +mysterious and almost formless legend and tale and idea." + +The extraordinary vogue of Macpherson's Ossianic poems was due to +literary merit of a high order, and also to the parched and dry state +into which the poetry of Europe had sunk in the middle of the eighteenth +century. Boileau and his rules had crushed all sap and life out of +European verse, and the poet had become either a teacher of rimed ethics +or a framer of dexterous satire. How refreshing Ossian must have been to +the men of such a time: + + "The hills were round them, and the breeze + Went o'er the sun-lit fields again; + Their foreheads felt the wind and rain." + +Let the modern reader go through the _Rape of the Lock_, and then take +up the song of the hunter Shilric from Macpherson's "Carric-thura." + +Shilric, not knowing that his love Vinvela is dead, thus communes with +himself: + + "I sit by the mossy mountain; on the top of the hill of winds. + One tree is rustling above me. Dark waves roll over the heath. + The lake is troubled below. The deer descend from the hill. No + hunter at a distance is seen. It is mid-day; but all is silent. + Sad are my thoughts alone. Didst thou but appear, O my love! a + wanderer on the heath! thy hair floating on the wind behind + thee; thy bosom heaving on the sight; thine eyes full of tears + for thy friends, whom the mist of the hill had concealed! Thee I + would comfort, my love, and bring thee to thy father's house!" + +To him mourning thus, the spirit of his dead love appears: + + "But is it she that there appears, like a beam of light on the + heath? bright as the moon in autumn, as the sun in a + summer-storm, comest thou, O maid, over rocks, over mountains to + me? She speaks: but how weak her voice! like the breeze in the + reeds of the lake. + + "'Alone I am, O Shilric! alone in the winter-house. With grief + for thee I fell. Shilric, I am pale in the tomb.' + + "She fleets, she sails away; as mist before the wind! and wilt + thou not stay, Vinvela? Stay and behold my tears! fair thou + appearest, Vinvela! fair thou wast, when alive! + + "By the mossy mountain I will sit; on the top of the hill of + winds. When mid-day is silent around, O talk with me, Vinvela! + come on the light-winged gale! on the breeze of the desert, + come! Let me hear thy voice, as thou passest, when mid-day is + silent around.'" + +The readers of the eighteenth century did not stay to consider whether +the foregoing was, or was not, a genuine antique: it suited their taste +admirably. Rousseau had brought sentimentalism into favour; the "return +to nature" was a kind of creed with the French philosophers: these +facts aided greatly in causing the epidemic of Ossianism that overran +Europe. + +I should not like to be condemned to read nothing but Ossian for a year. +The short staccato sentences, the difficulty of getting hold of anything +definite amid so many moonbeams, gliding ghosts, whistling reeds, and +feasts of shells, has a very debilitating effect on the mind. There is +too much weeping: one is constantly saying with Tennyson, "Tears, idle +tears, I know not what they mean." Yet, no one can dip into Macpherson +without being rewarded by some phrase of an impressive or refreshing +kind, _e.g._:-- + + "Thou art with the years that are gone; thou fadest on my soul." + + "Why dost thou build the hall, son of the winged days?" + + "Her steps were like the music of songs; she saw the youth and + loved him. He was the stolen sigh of her soul." + + "Why does Ossian sing? Soon shall he lie in the narrow house, + and no bard shall raise his fame." + + "When shall it be morn in the grave to bid the slumberer wake?" + + "Mixed with the murmur of waters rose the voice of aged men, who + called the forms of night to aid them in the war." + + "Autumn is dark on the mountains; grey mist rests on the hills." + + +AT THE FOOT O' BENNACHIE. + +I have on several occasions, during the last year or two, visited that +part of Aberdeenshire which is immediately under the glorious ridge of +Bennachie. Like all lovers of ballad lore, I know by heart the poem of +the little wee man who had such prowess, and who invited the poet to go +with him to his green bower. After seeing magnificent examples of +dancing, the poet found himself lying in the mist at the foot of +Bennachie:-- + + "Out went the lichts, on cam' the mist, + Leddies nor mannie mair could I see; + I turned aboot, and gave a look, + I was just at the foot o' Bennachie." + +The exquisite little ballad from which I quote is calculated to raise +expectations of beauty which the picturesque surroundings of Bennachie +are well able to satisfy. Great tracts of Aberdeenshire are flat, +treeless, and painful in their monotony; in winter, great gusts sweep +the cold plains, and make driving or walking a trying ordeal; the +country is thinly peopled, and the impression of the visitor is that, in +some districts, railway stations are more numerous than villages. Round +Bennachie, however, the scenery is most pleasant and picturesque. The +villages of Oyne and Insch, in which hospitality to strangers is a +religion, are beautifully placed and well-foliaged all around. The +region is, indeed, one of romance, and the little brook of Gadie ripples +on in the radiance and glamour of pathetic song. + + +HARLAW. + +Those who consider, like Ruskin, that the stories of the past add no +inconsiderable item to the beauty of a landscape, as it appears to the +eye and intelligence of modern observers, will not fail to remember the +momentous issues decided at no great distance from the foot of +Bennachie, in 1411. Teutonic and Celtic Scotland came to grips at +Harlaw, near by:-- + + "The Hielandmen, wi' their lang swords, + They laid on us fu' sair; + And they drave back our merry men + Three acres' breadth and mair. + + . . . . . . . . . . + + Gin anybody speer at ye + For them we took awa', + Ye may tell them plain and very plain, + They're sleeping at Harlaw." + +Burton, in his _History of Scotland_, declares that the check given to +Donald of the Isles at Harlaw, was a greater relief to Scotland than +even Bannockburn was. If the Stuart kings, hard pressed as they were by +England on the south, had been threatened by a formidable Celtic +sovereignty on the north, Holyrood might have been in ruins a good many +centuries earlier. I am not going to shock my Highland friends by saying +it was a good thing for the country that Donald, with the remnant of his +plaids and claymores, had to retreat to the misty straths and islands of +the west. The coalition of Celt and Teuton has taken place in an +unostentatious way, to the advantage of both races: Macfadyen does not +now, as in the days of Dunbar, bide "_far norrart in a neuk_;" he has +come to the Lowlands long ago, and rarely goes North, except on holiday. +And the language, which to the finical ears of James Fourth's +poet-laureate, seemed too terrible even for the devil to tolerate, has +come south, too, and has a chair all to itself in the University of +Edinburgh. _Time_, says Sophocles, _is a god who performs difficult +things with ease_. + +Mention of Harlaw suggests a comic tale told to the credit of the +Provost of Inverness. That gentleman, on being threatened with a +predatory visit from Donald in 1400, took the remarkable plan of sending +an ample supply of Inverness whisky into the Celtic camp. The men of +Lewis and Skye tackled the liquid bounty with great glee, and soon were +in a state of maudlin intoxication. The wily Provost meanwhile collected +a force and attacked Donald's men, who (as they magnified the attacking +host to _double its real numbers_) were easily scared and routed. At +Harlaw, eleven years later, the Provost of Aberdeen, evidently a man who +lacked the resource of the chief magistrate of Inverness, was killed, +and 500 men with him. + + +LOCHABER REIVERS. + +The predatory habits of the Highlanders gave great trouble to the +Aberdeenshire farmers _for fully three hundred years after Harlaw_. In +1689 a dozen wild Lochaber men came right down into the heart of +Aberdeenshire and lifted six score of black cattle. The fate of the +marauders is thus described by the author of _Johnny Gibb_:-- + +"They were pursued by a body of nearly 50 horsemen, well mounted and +armed, and each carrying bags of meal and other provisions, both for +their own support, and to offer in ransom for the cattle, if peaceful +negotiations could be carried through. On through the hills, over +marshes, rocks, and heather, the spirited horsemen followed, under +their leader; and guided by a herd-boy whom they encountered, they +traced the robbers by Loch Ericht side into the heart of their own +country. At nightfall, they came upon them at Dalunchart, encamped and +busily engaged roasting a portion of the flesh of one of the cattle they +had stolen. They offered, after some parley, to give each of the +freebooters a bag of meal and a pair of shoes in ransom for the cattle. +The Highlanders treated such an offer for cattle driven so far and with +so much trouble with contempt; the herd was gathered in, and the fight +began in deep earnest, the result being that the Lochaber men were all +shot down, killed or wounded, except three, who escaped unhurt to tell +the tale; and the cattle were, of course, recovered." + + +REAY AND TWICKENHAM. + +Perhaps the least attractive of the Scotch counties, in respect of +scenery, is Caithness. The North-going train enters it a little after +Helmsdale, and from thence to Thurso the journey is of a most dreary and +depressing character. He who wishes to see the romantic part of the +county should quit the train at Helmsdale, and go right to John o' +Groats by the shore road: thereafter he should proceed along the line of +the Pentland Firth to the dainty town of Thurso and to the village of +Reay, the citadel of the Mackays. The district round Reay is a +delightful one, and has great historical interest. + +Some good examples of the power assumed of old by the country ministers +are furnished by a perusal of the life of an eighteenth century +minister, the Rev. Alexander Pope, who was stationed for many years in +Reay. He was a huge giant of a man, and invariably carried about with +him a nail-studded cudgel that was a terror to sinners. A lout of a +fellow in his parish refused to come to church and get rebuked for an +infringement of the usual commandment. Mr. Pope sent three elders with +ropes to pinion the adulterer, hale him to church, and fasten him to a +conspicuous pew right under the pulpit. The minister cannonaded the +culprit to his heart's content, beginning thus: "_Shame, shame, son of a +beggar, where art thou now?_" + +Another parishioner who neglected family worship on the ground that he +could not make up a prayer, was severely taken to task by Mr. Pope, who +gave the man a year within which to manufacture one. At the end of the +twelvemonth, Mr. Pope called and requested to hear the prayer. The man +glibly rattled off a long succession of phrases that did not please the +minister at all. "That won't do," he said, "you must prepare over +again." "And is all my long labour to go for nothing," said the man, +"all my year's toil? No, no: rather than lose my labour, I'll _break the +prayer up and make two graces of it_." For the rest of his life, as the +story runs, he did actually employ the two parts of his mutilated prayer +as Grace before and Grace after meat respectively. Could there be a +finer example of natural thrift in the spiritual world? + +An Inverness journalist, Mr. Carruthers, wrote a life of the great poet, +Alexander Pope, in which occurs the following curious note respecting +the minister of Reay, just mentioned: "The northern Alexander Pope +entertained a profound admiration for his illustrious namesake of +England; and it is a curious and well-ascertained fact that the simple +enthusiastic clergyman, in the summer of 1732, rode on his pony all the +way from Caithness to Twickenham, in order to pay the poet a visit. The +latter felt his dignity a little touched by the want of the necessary +pomp and circumstance with which the minister presumed to approach his +domicile; but after the ice of ceremony had in some degree been broken, +and their intellects had come in contact, the poet became interested, +and a friendly feeling was established between them. Several interviews +took place, and the poet presented his good friend and namesake, the +minister of Reay, with a copy of the subscription edition of the +'Odyssey' in five volumes quarto." + +A grandson of the Reay minister, a Mr. James Campbell of Edinburgh, gave +a description to Mr. Carruthers of a snuff-box which the poet had +presented to the Rev. Mr. Pope. A series of letters to the _Northern +Ensign_, in April, 1883, brought out the information that a Wick +gentleman, Mr. Duncan, had in his possession two volumes of de Vertot's +_History of the Roman Republic_, bearing an inscription to the effect +that they had been presented by the poet of Twickenham to his northern +namesake. + +It has been suggested that the poet and the minister were distant +blood-relations. Mr. Campbell, alluded to above, said that "the two +Popes claimed kin." In any case, the friendship of the two men, one +living on the shores of the wild Pentland Firth, in sight of the +Orkneys, and the other not far "from streaming London's central roar," +is pleasant to think of. In 1737, Pope wrote the lines-- + + "Loud as the wolves on Orca's stormy steep + Howl to the roarings of the northern deep," + +adding, in a note, that he refers to "the farthest northern promontory +of Scotland, opposite to the Orcades." Perhaps his mind reverted to the +burly incumbent of Reay as he penned the note. + + +ROB DONN. + +The little township of Reay is less famous for the Rev. Mr. Pope's +incumbency than for the fact of Rob Donn, the satirical Gaelic bard, +being a native of the district. The author of the _Dunciad_ is the +greatest satirist in British Literature; Rob Donn is supreme among +Gaelic bards for the sharpness of his tongue and his clever way of +showing up his contemporaries to ridicule. He was in the habit of giving +praise to people in order to make his satire more biting. Praise on his +tongue was compared to oil on the edge of a razor: the cut was all the +deeper. Rob, although a master of language, was unable to read or write, +so that though he "lisped in numbers"--he began to compose at the age of +three--he could not say, like Pope: + + "Why did I _write_? What sin to me unknown + _Dipt me in ink_, my parents' or my own?" + +Blackie speaks thus of him: "Rob Donn, according to all accounts, though +outwardly of such fair respectability that he attained an honour, +unknown to Robert Burns, of acting as an elder of the kirk, was not +always so chaste in his words as he might seem to be in his deeds; he +took his plash as a poet, and not always in the clearest waters; +besides, he had a terrible lash at his command, which he could wield +with an effect at times that paid little respect to the bounds set in +such matters by Christian charity, or even by social politeness. The +consequence has been that much of the wit and humour of his pieces, +however telling for its immediate purpose, has lost half of its interest +by the disappearance of the persons to whom it referred. These personal +allusions also import an additional difficulty into the language which +he uses, and cause his productions, however belauded, to be less known +amongst Highlanders generally than those of Duncan Ban and Dugald +Buchanan. Severe moralists also very properly object to the undue +license and occasional coarseness of his verses."[33] + + [33] Rob was at one time in the army, for every Mackay has the + fighting instinct in him. (Reay is one of the few townships in + the North that possess a drill-hall and a military instructor. It + is impossible adequately to describe the consternation in the + Mackay country at the time of our South African reverses. + Everyone was in a fury and it was felt there was urgent need for + the Mackays to straighten out matters at the seat of war. It was + at this time that the drill-hall was built in Reay. Many of the + young men went to the front as volunteers, and if the war had + lasted much longer, there would have been few Mackays left in + Sutherlandshire.) + + +REV. MR. MILL OF DUNROSSNESS. + +Before concluding the present chapter, I should like to refer briefly to +a valuable and amusing book (brought under my notice in Shetland) that +furnishes details of the life of Mr. Mill, minister of Dunrossness from +1742 till 1805. Mr. Mill's special talent was his unrivalled power of +exorcism: he was a strenuous foe to the devil in every shape and form, +and his life was one long battle with the Prince of Darkness. The latter +was constantly bringing into play all manner of gins, traps, and wiles +to confound the uncompromising clergyman; but, on a calm review of the +evidence, one cannot but admit that the devil was far inferior in +intelligence to his opponent. + +On one occasion, Satan had the effrontery to come into Dunrossness +Church and take his seat at the Communion Table. Mr. Mill at once +recognised his life-long adversary, and began to speak in all the deep +languages, and, last of all, in Gaelic, and that beat him altogether. +Satan went off like a flock of "doos" over the heads of the people, many +of whom swooned. "As a permanent reminder of the hostility cherished +against him by the Arch-Enemy, it was said that Mr. Mill always had the +wind in his face. One day he came up to officiate at Sandwick, in the +teeth, as usual, of a pretty stiff breeze. An ordinary person would +naturally have expected the wind to be on his back on the return +journey. But during the service the wind veered round. Mr. Mill's only +comment, as he started for home, was, 'It's all he can do.' In one +respect, Mr. Mill benefited by the penalty of always having the wind in +his face, for on his very numerous sea-journeys he could always secure +a favourable breeze _by sitting with his back to the head of the boat_." + +The following additional tale from Mr. Mill's biography only brings into +more striking relief the resource of the minister in all emergencies. +"One day a very respectable gentleman entered the house of a tailor in +Channerwick, and ordered a suit of clothes to be made out of cloth which +he brought with him. The tailor's delight at having such a fine +gentleman for a customer was, however, turned into perplexity and fear +as he opened up the cloth and found that the colour kept constantly +changing. He at once sent for the minister and laid the matter before +him. He was advised to spread a sheet on the floor and cut the cloth +upon it, so that none of the clippings should be scattered about the +room, and the minister said that he would be present to meet the +stranger when the latter called to get the clothes. The day came, and +when the stranger entered the house, Mr. Mill stepped forward to meet +him. A terrible controversy ensued, and the respectable-looking +gentleman was swept out of the house in a cloud of blue, sulphurous +flame. It is not recorded if he took the new suit with him. A clue to +his identification was furnished by his accidentally striking his foot +against the door-step as he departed. The result of the collision was +that a mark as of a cloven hoof was imprinted on the stone." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +METRICAL AND SUPPLEMENTARY. + + I. Arrival of the Mail-train at a Highland Station. + II. Defoe, the Father of Journalism. + III. A Village Toper. + IV. A Reverend Hellenist. + V. Antigone. + VI. Shadows of the Manse. + VII. "My Heart's in the Highlands." + VIII. Saddell, Kintyre. + IX. Springtime in Perthshire. + X. Dr. George Macdonald's Creed. + XI. Abbotsford. + XII. Carlyle. + XIII. Shelley. + XIV. Picture in an Inn. + XV. Rain-storm at Loch Awe. + XVI. Kinlochewe. + XVII. General Wade. + XVIII. Sound of Raasay in December. + XIX. Les Neiges d' Antan. + XX. The Islands of the Ness. + XXI. American Tourist Loquitur. + XXII. The Miners. + XXIII. In a Country Graveyard. + XXIV. No Place like Home. + + +I. + +ARRIVAL OF THE MAIL-TRAIN AT A HIGHLAND STATION. + + "_Hark! 'tis the twanging horn._" So Cowper sang + Of the slow post-boy by the flooded Ouse; + In different fashion now the great world's news + Goes to each nook of Britain. The harangue + Of politician; great events that hang + In Fortune's hand, with magic speed diffuse + From London's centre to the furthest Lews, + Their tingling rumour and resounding clang. + Daily along yon track of curving steels + Comes to this Highland clachan, Watt's machine, + Rolling in triumph on its iron wheels, + And bringing letter, journal, magazine, + To kilted Celts with collies at their heels + And frivolous tourists from the putting-green. + + +II. + +DEFOE[34] + +(FATHER OF JOURNALISM). + + Father of journalists! illustrious liar! + Untiring wielder of the nimblest quill + That ever shed the stanchless inky rill + Upon the virgin whiteness of the quire. + What full and varied stores of gold and mire, + Magnificence and squalor, good and ill, + Prayers, curses, loyalty and treason fill + Thy books! But that which children most admire + Of all thy hundred volumes, is the one + Fated for ever more to charm mankind + From the far Orient to the Setting Sun. + Prompt-witted Daniel! thou has left behind + Upon the Sands of Time, distinctly traced, + One footmark that can never be effaced. + + [34] Let me here pay a tribute to the marked excellence and + literary skill of the newspapers of provincial Scotland. These + are very numerous--even Ailsa Craig has a sheet of its own, _The + Ailsa Craig Banner_. + + +III. + +A VILLAGE TOPER. + + John loved strong waters and ne'er stirred his feet + Abroad in leafy spring or summer's heat, + Autumnal breeze or winter's rimy chill, + Unsolaced by the nectar of the still. + Spirits came always kindly to his lips, + And time he measured not by hours but "nips." + Teetotalers to him were curse and gall, + Grim Banquos at the world's wide festival, + Men, whom a weird and fate-ordainéd bale, + Had smitten with the hate of cakes and ale, + A soda-water, syphon-squirting crew, + Guilty of treason to the revenue: + Their lurid language and their unctuous warnings, + Their moral-pointings and their tale-adornings, + And, worst of all, their shameful _waste of ink_ + In signing pledges to abstain from drink, + Proved them a witless and a churlish band, + Unfit to dwell in any Christian land. + + +IV. + +A REVEREND HELLENIST. + + In that old ivied manse exists + A scholar, wrinkled, bent, and gray, + His student lamp gleams through the mists + And twinkles on till break of day. + + This sage is wedded to his books, + And Sultan-like his harem's full, + He dotes upon them in their nooks + With love and joy that never cool. + + No wonder that his back is bent, + Or that his eye has mystic glows, + He pores on pages redolent + Of love and love's undying rose. + + No earthly maiden, fresh and sweet, + Could please his fancy half so well + As a Greek nymph with twinkling feet + Skipping in some Arcadian dell. + + +V. + +ANTIGONE + +(READ IN A HIGHLAND MANSE). + + A form of beauty blent with hardihood, + Majestic as Olympus wreathed in snows, + What modern pages of romance disclose + A radiant maiden of such dauntless mood! + Yet, when the tyrant strives with outrage rude + The unyielding maid in darkness to enclose, + Then, only then, her burning heart outflows + In anguished cries of love, but unsubdued + By baser throbbings. Ah! that nuptial hymn + Unsung! that bond in death! All men agree + To crown thee in that chamber dark and dim + With love's immortal wreath, Antigoné. + Since love and duty in thy death combine, + An immortality of praise is thine. + + +VI. + +SHADOWS OF THE MANSE. + +I. + + Lo! we have him of shaven face + And curls of long and lustrous hair, + Who breathes an atmosphere of grace + And has a wondrous gift in prayer. + You'd ne'er suspect to see him there, + Shaking his head in solemn guise, + _The college life of deil-may-care + Diversion that behind him lies_. + + +II. + + And then the little starveling pope + Who strives to make his sermons new + By stringing florid scraps of hope + And faith and love to dazzle you: + From Stopford Brooke a phrase or two, + A gleaming line from Arnold's page, + Whole screeds of Browning and a few + Stolen thunders from the Chelsea sage. + + +III. + + Perhaps the most diverting wight + Is he who sees in Holy Writ + Old Jewish fables gross and trite + To semblance of a system knit-- + Fables for modern taste unfit, + Until _he_ cleans the dross away + And shows the tiny little bit + Of gold that gleams amid the clay. + + +IV. + + But worst of all is he who jests, + Or tries to jest, in pulpit gown, + Lord, save us from such holy pests + Who so unseemly act the clown + And pull the tabernacle down + To something worse than pantomime: + On all such zanies let us frown + And scourge them both in prose and rhyme. + + +VII. + +"MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS." + + Puzzling over musty tomes, + What a life to lead, + While each gay companion roams + Where his fancies lead! + + One beside a shady pool + Sweeps the wave for hours, + Comes home with his basket full, + When the evening lowers. + + Some more energetic wights + Leave the level land, + Mountaineer on dizzy heights, + Alpenstock in hand. + + Others boat in sunny bays + Where bright sands are seen + Glimmering amid a maze + Of tangled flowers marine. + + Luck to all is what I wish + With a meed of fun, + I'll row, mountaineer, and fish, + When _your_ sports are done. + + +VIII. + +SADDELL + +(KINTYRE). + + Fresh gusts of wind ripple the ocean's face, + And the green slopes, after the night's soft rain, + Glitter beneath the blue. + + Most glorious are the sea-descending glens, + Vivid with countless ferns, and with the blaze + Of sun-enamoured broom. + + The dark, tip-tilted rocks of cruel mood, + Show a stern beauty through the creamy foam + That flecks their rugged flanks. + + See, from this hill-top, how the blazing Sound + Is marked by moving shadows of the clouds + That skim aloft in air. + + Through the clear radiance of the freshened morn, + The eye can see the far farm-windows gleam + Up on the Arran hills. + + +IX. + +SPRINGTIME IN PERTHSHIRE. + + Returning Springtime fills the woods with song-- + The ring-dove, sick for love, is cooing sweet; + The lark, scorning the daisies, soars to greet + The sun, while the brown swarms of bees among + The flowery meadows skim in haste along. + Once more the young year glories in the feat + Of driving winter off with vernal heat + And tepid sap luxuriantly strong. + Winter has drawn aloof his snowy powers + To the high peaks that domineer the plain, + And, like a vanquished leader, grimly lowers, + From a safe distance, on the victor's reign. + E'er many months have passed, his arrowy showers + And gusty cohorts will descend again. + + +X. + +DR. GEORGE MACDONALD'S CREED[35] + +(WRITTEN AT CULLEN). + + God will not suffer that a single one + Of His own creatures, in His image made, + Should die, and in irrevocable shade + Lie evermore--neglected and undone. + It is not thus a father treats his son, + And those whose folly credits it, degrade + God's love and fatherhood, that never fade, + By lies as base as devils ever spun. + Man's love is but a pale reflex of God's, + And God _is_ love, and never will condemn + Beyond remission--though He school with rods-- + His children, but will one day comfort them. + Dives will have his drink at last, and stand + Among the faithful ones at God's right hand. + + [35] Reprinted (by kind permission) from the _Scotsman_. + + +XI. + +ABBOTSFORD. + + "Dryden and Scott, men of a giant seed!" + So said I to myself, gazing upon + The pictured countenance of Glorious John, + In Abbotsford, hard by the storied Tweed. + These twain were brothers, kin in mind and deed: + Old England never had a brawnier son + Than Dryden; and in fervid Scotland none + Better than Scott exemplified the breed. + After five centuries of blood and hate, + Britain is one leal land from north to south, + From gusty Thurso to St. Michael's Mount, + I therefore, Scot and Briton, am elate + To think that from Sir Walter's golden mouth + Dryden's career received the fit account. + + +XII. + +CARLYLE + +(AT ECCLEFECHAN). + + The ploughman in the loamy furrow sings, + The sailor whistles as he reefs the sail, + Blithe is the smith as the blows fall like hail + From his huge hammer, and the stithy rings. + Work is the sole and sovereign balm that brings + Peace to the torpid soul when doubts assail, + And sickening pleasures are of no avail + To lull the torture of affliction's stings. + Give me the work I love, the work I feel + God in His Heaven has willed that I should do, + And you may offer the whole commonweal, + Lands, mansions, jewels, gold, and temples too, + Vainly to me. By strenuous work alone + Man mounts on Jacob's ladder to God's throne. + + +XIII. + +SHELLEY.[36] + + 'Twas but a passing visit that he paid + To the gross air of earth, this mystic seer, + The tyrannies of sense were too severe + For one of clay more fine than Adam's made. + The inhumanity of man, the trade + Of coining gold from the serf's groan and tear, + The galling fetters of religious fear, + And vain ecclesiastic masquerade + Tortured his gentle soul, and made his life + One bitter struggle with the powers that be: + Yet not in vain he lived; his manful strife + With all the deadening despotisms we see + Will ring along the centuries, until + Good has her final triumph over ill. + + [36] Suggested by a copy of his poems in a West Highland + bookcase. + + +XIV. + +PICTURE IN AN INN. + + A wood of pines through which the setting sun + Pours from the western sky a parting flame, + Beside the shore, a church called by the name + Of some old saint whose pious race was run + Long ere schismatic Luther had begun + To work the Pope and his disciples shame. + In earnest-seeming talk, a knight and dame + Sit in a painted galley, rowed by one + Whose back is to the setting orb of day. + The soldier and his mate, their faces lit + With all love's animation and the ray + Of the down-lapsing globe of crimson, sit + Together in the gilded vessel's prow, + And there will sit for evermore, as now. + + +XV. + +RAIN-STORM AT LOCH AWE. + + The topmost mountain-snows are melting fast, + See, how the swollen waters hurry down + In perpendicular runnels from the crown + Of every wreathéd hill. The train has past + Beside a dark stream into which are cast + A hundred huddling rills whose foam is brown + With pilfered soil. No dweller in a town + Ever beheld such manifold and vast + Torrents of roaring water. Each small isle + Spaced on the loch, glooms through the hanging haze + Like a dream-picture, and for many a mile + Beneath those clouds that lean upon the braes + Encompassing Loch Awe, the watery plain + Is pricked with million lances of the rain. + + +XVI. + +KINLOCHEWE. + + The mist, retreating, gems the leaves with dew, + Soft blows the breeze along the fragrant meads, + A little brawling burn runs through the reeds + And ripples away under the cloudless blue. + I never saw the world so fair to view, + For Spring has riven old Winter's funeral weeds + And given new sap and vigour to the seeds + That lay inanimate the cold months through. + Old man! with jaded limbs and wrinkled brow, + That walkest feebly in this lenient sun + Like a day-dream, thy life is winter now. + But life and death in ceaseless cycles run, + And tireless Time and Heaven have in store + For thee a myriad resurrections more. + + +XVII. + +GENERAL WADE. + + Houses are fewer here than milestones are: + We stand a thousand feet aloft in air + Upon a bouldered hillside stern and bare, + Down which the roadway serpentines afar. + There are no clouds in the wide blue to mar + The passage of the sun's imperial glare + Over a dreary-stretching landscape, where + Rough winds hold riot all the calendar. + Who that has footed o'er these firm-knit paths + But lauds the men whose strenuous axe and spade + Drove roads through the wild glens and hilly straths + Under the generalship of tireless Wade! + On the safe tracks behind them, commerce came + The unruly spirit of the Celt to tame. + + +XVIII. + +THE SOUND OF RAASAY IN DECEMBER. + + A snowy gust is whirling down the strait, + Raasay is gleaming ghostly to the sight, + And, robed in lawn, from sea to topmost height + Skye and her lordly mountains stand in state. + Ever from heaven falls the silent weight + Of wavering flakes that dim the stars of night. + Our gallant little boat with all the might + Of the wild-hissing surges holds debate, + Plunging and struggling, till at last we see + A spacious haven, sudden and serene + And, high aloft, the twinkle of Portree. + At once the winds are hushed, the moon is seen + To free her face from cloudy drift, and fill + With silver light the clefts of Essie Hill. + + +XIX. + +LES NEIGES D'ANTAN. + +I. + + Where is Macfee, that valiant preacher, + Gifted with voice, so harsh and loud, + Aye, louder and harsher than any screecher + Of birds that sail on the black storm-cloud? + And his beadle John, with back so bowed, + Where is _he_ that had never a peer? + Is he too rolled in his mortal shroud? + But where are the snows of yester-year? + +II. + + Donald the Gay, that steered his steamer + Many a year through the Sound of Mull, + He that was never a Celtic dreamer, + But a captain of captains masterful: + O Death, thou madest the world more dull + When you nailed _him_ down in his narrow bier, + And sent his ghost into Charon's hull; + But where are the snows of yester-year? + +III. + + Duncan, the bard of rocky Staffin, + Away in the north of rainy Skye: + Has _he_ given over his rimes and daffin', + In the mould of the bleak kirkyard to lie? + His cot was built where the sea-gulls fly, + And his misty isle to his soul was dear; + Ere his song is finished, the bard must die; + But where are the snows of yester-year? + +IV. + + And Dougal, who carried King Edward's mails + Every day o'er the moor and heather, + Scorning the chill of the winter gales, + And the ten-mile walk in the sultry weather: + Has _he_ too come to the end of his tether + And gone to the ghosts with all his gear, + His whistle, his satchel and strap of leather? + But where are the snows of yester-year? + +V. + + Prince, they have gone from the regions that knew them, + Gone at the summons that none can resist, + Praise and every honour be to them, + They did their best and they will be missed. + We, too, shall soon be erased from the list + Of workers below in this mortal sphere, + And be no more to those that exist + Than the vanished snows of yester-year. + + +XX. + +THE ISLANDS OF THE NESS. + + A fairyland of trees and leafy bowers + Where one may sit and dream the hours away, + Or 'mid the devious walks and alleys stray, + While perfume rises from a world of flowers, + The girdling river, swollen with upland showers, + Sends rippling round to every creek and bay + The vagrant branches of his water-way; + Then gathering up his current's parted powers, + Swiftly-majestic in a broadening bed, + He glistens on by many a chiming spire, + And past the castle's pennoned turrets red, + Till he attain the goal of his desire, + And into the salt sea exulting throws + His subsidy of rains and melted snows. + + +XXI. + +AMERICAN TOURIST LOQUITUR + +(AT BERRIEDALE, CAITHNESS). + + If I had wealth like Vanderbilt + Or some such millionaire, + I'd live in Scotland, don a kilt, + And _pay to prove_ my forbears spilt + Their blood in forays there. + + I'd buy a picturesque estate + Beside the ocean's flow, + With knolls of heather at my gate, + And pine-clad hills to dominate, + The ferny dells below. + + I'd be a father to the folk + That laboured on the soil, + With old and young I'd crack my joke, + Drink with them in their thirst, and smoke + The pipe that lightens toil. + + For hens I'd have a special run, + For ducks a special pool, + My calves should frolic in the sun, + My sheep should be surpassed by none + Whose backs are clothed with wool. + + Although I'm not a Walton quite, + Betweenwhiles I should try + To lure the finny tribe to bite + (At the right time, in the right light,) + My simulated fly. + + When winter heaped his rattling hail + High on the window sill, + With pipe and wassail, rime and tale, + I'd never miss the nightingale + Or cuckoo on the hill. + + Nay, musing by the ingle-lowe + With summer in my brain, + I'd cloth with leaves the frozen bough + And all the ice-bound brooks endow + With tinkling life again.[37] + + [37] Berriedale, which moved the American to commemorative song, + is on the Caithness shore, and there the Duke of Portland has + one of his numerous residences. The Duke's seat is high up on + the hills and behind it is a mountain of grim aspect which + serves for a deer-forest. At Berriedale, the road traversed by + the coach is simply appalling: boards marked _Dangerous_ + forewarn all wheel-men that risks cannot be taken with impunity. + An honest descent can be easily coped with, but here the road to + the glen is not merely steep, it is as lacking in + straightforwardness as the links of Forth. Once down at the + level of the village, the breeze no longer blows fresh and + chilly, but subsides into a quiet air, grateful with the odour + of flowers. Passengers are requested to walk up the + corresponding hill to a level equal to the height of the road + before the interruption of the terrible Berriedale chasm. When + the ascent is reached, one has a view of unsurpassed splendour. + The wooded Wye, which Wordsworth sang so rapturously and which + he saw with his mind's eye in the dinsome town, has no landscape + to compare in grandeur and beauty with the country round + Berriedale, viewed from this eminence. Hills of richest green, + diversified with purple heather; a back-ground of wild bog and + mountain; blue sea; and great banks of cloud shepherded over the + heights by the mighty winds. + + +XXII. + +THE MINERS. + + The afternoon is cool and calm, + Near by flashes the mighty sea, + Inland rise green, dewy hills, + Crowned with eye-bewitching trees. + + Suddenly the eye is amazed and terrified, + A hideous procession sordid and grimy + Of men and boys, slaves of the coal-pit, + Is seen on the road, shaming the daylight. + + All the day long they work in the darkness, + Far from the songs of the birds and the sunshine, + Now they return to their sordid villages, + Ill-smelling rows of comfortless cottages. + + The rich and dainty ladies of fashion + Stand aloof from these swart coal-hewers, + Are ready to swoon as the air is poisoned + With odours of subterranean foulness. + + Coarse of look, and of speech far coarser! + Laughter loud with no merriment in it! + No more soul than the beasts that perish! + These are the men despised for their toiling. + + +XXIII. + +IN A COUNTRY GRAVEYARD.[38] + + Man dreads the tomb, but dreads oblivion more; + He fears, when death has loosed the load of years, + His name shall cease to sound in mortal ears, + And, in the dusty darkness, all be o'er. + Some o'er the scrolls of ample science pore, + Tome after tome the nimble authors write, + And gain a meed of glory: soon the night + Comes: the author with his laurel disappears, + The painting fades, the marble busts decay, + The kingly structures fall in ruin down, + Devouring Time consumes the artist's prize, + The centuries like lightning pass away, + Or hurrying billows: emperor and clown + Sink with the myriads in impartial clay. + + [38] Suggested by a French poem of Monsieur Desessarts, entitled + _Se Survivre_. + + +XXIV. + +NO PLACE LIKE HOME. + + Where'er these wandering footsteps lead me to, + Peak-dominated glen, hill where the sheep + Graze in the sun, mountains that ever keep + A solemn guard o'er lakes profound and blue, + Or undulating tracts of treeless view; + No matter if the rain and whirlwind sweep + The landscape, or the gladdening sunshine peep + Through muffled vapours that the winds undo; + Let it be night speckled with myriad fires, + Clear dawn, hot noon, or cool of dying day; + Be it in cities with their chiming spires, + Or country fields with fragrant ricks of hay; + Ever the voices of my hearth I hear, + And muse on those to me for ever dear. + + + + +INDEX + +(Chiefly of Proper Names). + + +Aberdeen, 217 + +Acharacle, 21, 66 + +Achnasheen, 11 + +Ainsworth, Mr., 69 + +Ajax, 89 + +Aliens, 53 + +Alness, 75 + +Altnacealgach, 38 + +Anacreon, 181 + +Anglers, 36 + +Anecdotes of Commercials, 255-277 + +Appin, 311 + +Ardeonaig, 78 + +Ardersier, 42 + +Argyll, Duke of, 25 + +Arnisdale, 190 + +Arnold, 130 + +Arpafeelie, 158 + +Asquith, Mr., 15 + +Auldearn, 75 + +Avebury, Lord, 198 + + +Bagpipes, 66 + +Bain, Professor, 55 + +Ballads, 99 + +Banff theorist, 107 + +Barrie, Mr., 66 + +Battle of Brunanburh, 131 + +Beauly, 75 + +Ben Eay, 22 + +Ben-na-Ceallich, 28 + +Bennachie, 329 + +Ben Screel, 191 + +Ben Slioch, 22 + +Beowulf, 131, 246 + +Beveridge, Dr., 301 + +Biggar, 98 + +Biblia abiblia, 109 + +Blackie, Professor, 19, 56 + +Books, second-hand, 112 + +Borders, 96, 99 + +Boswell, 306, 313 + +Brahan Seer, 291 + +Bressay, 221, 229, 230, 233 + +Broadford, 28, 55 + +Browning, 306 + +Buchanan, 61 + +Bullers of Buchan, 220 + +Burgess, Mr., 227 + +Burke, 68 + +Burns, 82, 144, 308 + +Burton, 209 + + +Caithness father, a, 254 + +Captains, 24 + +Catholics, 153-155 + +Chairmen, 85 + +Chartists, 54 + +Coll, 26, 69 + +Columbus, 88 + +Commercials (Chap. VI.), 255-277 + +Competing School-subjects, 215 + +Congested Districts Board, 34 + +Connaught, H.R.H. Duke of, 42 + +Connington, 119 + +Corelli, Miss Marie, 44 + +Cowper, 118 + +Craignish, 168-9 + +Crofters' cottages, 29-30 + +Cromarty, 12 + +Cullen, 47 + +Cunningsburgh, 239 + + +Dancing, 21 + +Dandie Dinmont, 99 + +Defoe, 112 + +Depopulation, 71, 189 + +Dingwall, 44 + +Dixon, Mr., 76, 278 + +Doctors, 35 + +Dodger, an artful, 173 + +Dominies, insular, 180-1 + +Dowden, Professor, 124 + +Drimnin, 167 + +Dryden, 118 + +Dunbar, 218 + +Dungeon lecture, a, 92 + +Dunvegan, 28, 61, 292 + +Durness, 11 + + +Educational (Chap. IV.), 180-216 + +Education Department, 16, 141, 185 + +Eigg, 26 + +Emigration, 73-4 + +Episcopalians, 156-8 + +Essayists, 106 + +Established Church, 145 + +Ethical teaching, 141-3 + + +Fairies, 248, 285 + +Fair Isle, 220, 250 + +Faith Mission, 25 + +Feeding the Hungry, 186, 194 + +_Fernaig MS._, 197 + +Fishing season, 253 + +Fishwives, 249 + +Fladibister, 239 + +Fort George, 42 + +Foulah, 250 + +French Literature, 126 + +Frere, Miss, 39, 40 + + +Gairloch, 278 + +Gaelic, 17, 86 + +Geologist, an ordained, 170 + +Germany, made in, 218 + +Gibbon, 300 + +Gigha, 175 + +Gipsies, 191 + +Glasgow Fair, 96 + +_Glasgow Herald_, quoted, 20, note + +Glenelg, 191 + +Golspie, 192 + +Grange, 299 + +Grantown, 13 + +Greatness, real, 81 + +Greek, 124 + + +Haaf-words, 246 + +Halsbury, Lord, 235 + +Harlaw, 330 + +Harris, 39 + +Hector, Red, 320 + +Hermits, 223 + +Hobbes, 106 + +Holyoake, Mr., 60 + +Homer, 62 + +Horace, 12, 115 + +Hotels, 36 + +Howlers, 209-214 + + +Inspectors, 252 + +Inveraray, 307 + +Inverness, 48, 58 + +Iona, 309 + +Islay, 79 + +Isle Ornsay, 191 + + +Jakobsen, Dr., 245 + +Jamieson, Dr., 103 + +Johnson, 29, 43, 294, 306 + +Josephus, 111 + +Jura, 195 + + +Killin, 78 + +Kilmartin, 76 + +Kiltarlity, 75 + +Kingussie, 326 + +Kinlochewe, 22 + + +Lanark, 97 + +Lang, Mr. Andrew, 17, 37 + +Latin, 204 + +Lerwick, 221-2 + +Letter-boats, 299 + +Lewis, 32, 33 + +Libraries in schools, 16 + +Liddesdale, 99 + +Literature, 83 + +Lochaber, 332 + +Lochaline, 168 + +Lochbuie, 304 + +Loch Broom, 286 + +Loch Eck, 79 + +Loch Fyne, 317 + +Loch Hourn, 190 + +Lochmaddy, 36, 40 + +Loch Maree, 283 + +Loch Ranza, 196 + +Loubet, M., 118 + + +Mallaig, 32 + +Mary, the maid of the inn, 258 + +Martin, Sir Theodore, 119 + +_Men of Skye_, 150 + +Military, 42 + +Mill, Rev. Mr., 338-9 + +Miller, an ordained, 172 + +Milton, 154 + +Miners, 49, 51, 52 + +Mod, the, 18 + +Model minister, a, 170 + +Moderates, the, 144-5 + +Moon, the, 77 + +M.P.'s, 69 + +Moray Firth, 46 + +Morar, 154 + +Morley, Lord, 118 + +Muck, 267 + +Munro, Dr. Neil, 44, 318 + +Murray, Sir James, 103 + +Music, 65-67, 141 + +Macallisters, etc., 318 + +Macbain, Dr., 58 + +M'Cheyne, 90 + +Macdonald, Dr. George, 48 + +Macdonald's gratitude, 313 + +Macdonald, Rev. Mr., 146 + +M'Gregors, the, 91 + +Macivors, 318 + +Mackays, the, 337 + +Macleod, 61 + + +Nicholson, Sheriff, 185 + +_Night Thoughts_, 64 + +Norse blood, 183, 225 + +"North, Christopher," 107, 167 + + +Olaf and his bride, 279 + +Old Parochials, 200 + +Ossian, 326-339 + +Ovid, 300 + + +Paisley, 89 + +Parish Councils, 187 + +Paul, St., 132 + +Peat-reek, 29 + +Peden, the prophet, 292 + +Peterhead, 220 + +Phillimore, Professor, 206, note + +Pigmentation, 133 + +Plymouth Brethren, 162-5 + +Poetry (Chap. VIII.), 340-367 + +Policemen, 23 + +Poolewe, 67, 76 + +Pope, 115, 119, 123, 127-9 + +Pope, Rev. Alexander, 334-6 + +Portknockie, 47 + +Portree, 27, 76 + +Portsoy, 46, 47 + +Postmen, 28 + +Prince Charlie, 44 + + +Quarff, 234 + + +Raasay, 26 + +Ramsay, Sir William, 207 + +_Rasmie's Büdie_, 227 + +Rats, 37 + +Reay, 333-6 + +"Red-riding Hood," 142 + +Religious books, 18 + +Rob Don, 337 + +Robertson, Mr. J. M., 41 + +"Rob Roy," 183 + +Romance and Augustanism, 127 + +Rosebery, Lord, 297 + +Rosehearty, 49 + +Rothes, 325 + +Royal Engineers, 69 + +Ruskin, 177 + +Russian merchant, a, 254 + + +Sabbath, the, 148 + +Saddell, 92 + +St. Kilda, 297 + +Salen, 90 + +Sandwick, 246 + +Saxon and Celt, 41, 131 + +Scalloway, 62 + +School Boards, 184 + +Science and Literature, 198 + +Scotch Dialect, 103 + +Scott, 84, 107, 183, 199, 312, 315 + +Sea-sickness, 31 + +Sermons in metre, 159-161 + +Session Records, 44 + +Shakespeare's Sonnets, 119 + +Shaws and Grants, 323 + +Shetlands (Chap. V.), 217-254 + +Sidlaws, 193 + +Skye, 28, 61 + +Sound of Sleat, 26 + +Spencer, 229 + +Spenser, 128 + +Staffin, 66 + +Stewart, Dugald, 208 + +Stornoway, 32-4 + +Strachur, 79 + +Suetonius, 113 + +Surprises, 195 + +Sutherland, Duchess of, 33 + + +Taisch, 290 + +Tarbolton, 102 + +Tannahill, 54, 90 + +Tea-drinking, 39 + +Tee-names, 47 + +Teeth, 40 + +Tennyson, 130 + +Tiree, 301 + +"Tom Eunan," 322 + +Trossachs, 315 + +Truants, 196 + + +Ullapool, 290 + + +Village halls, 75 + +Virgil, 24, 219 + + +Ward, Mrs. H., 182 + +War Office, 45 + +Wason, Mr. C., 250 + +Watson, Mr. William, 118, 218 + +Weaving, 53 + +Weir, Mr. Galloway, 15, 70 + +Whalsay, 193 + +Whiting Bay, 197 + +Wordsworth, 21, 128, 309 + + +Xenophon, 122 + + + * * * * * + + + Publisher & Bookseller + by + Special Appointment + To Her late Majesty + Queen Victoria. + + +A LIST OF BOOKS +PUBLISHED BY +ALEX. GARDNER, PAISLEY. + + _Aitken._--Love in Its Tenderness. By J. R. Aitken. 3s. 6d. + + _Anderson._--Morison-Grant.--Life, Letters, and Last Poems of + Lewis Morison-Grant. By Jessie Annie Anderson. 4s. 6d. + + _Anderson._--Verses at Random. By Thistle Anderson (Mrs. Herbert + Fisher). 2s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Dives' Wife, and other Fragments. By Thistle Anderson (Mrs. + Herbert Fisher). 2s. 6d. nett. + + _Anton._--The Flywheel: and What Keeps Us Steady. By Rev. Peter + Anton. 3s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Staying Power: Reconsiderations and Recreations. By Rev. + Peter Anton. 3s. 6d. nett. + + _A. O. M._--Two Brothers. By A. O. M. 2s. 6d. + + _Auld._--Lyrics of Labour and other Poems. By Thomas C. Auld. + + _Ayles._--Gillicolane. By Grueber Ayles. 4s. 6d. + + _Aytoun._--The Braes o' Balquhidder. By Douglas Aytoun. 6s. + + Ballads of the Scottish Border. With Introduction and Notes. 1s. + nett. + + _Ballingal._--A. Prince of Edom. By J. Ballingal, B.D. 2s. 6d. + + _Beatty._--The Secretar. By W. Beatty. 6s. + + ---- The Shadow of the Purple. By W. Beatty. 2s. 6d. + + "_Belinda's Husband._"--Plain Papers on Subjects Light and + Grave. By "Belinda's Husband." 2s. 6d. nett. + + _Beveridge._--Sma' Folk and Bairn Days. Translated from the + Norse by the Rev. John Beveridge, M.A., B.D. Second Edition. 3s. + 6d. + + _Blair._--The Paisley Thread Industry and the Men who Created + and Developed It. By Matthew Blair. 6s. nett. + + ---- The Paisley Shawl and the Men who Produced It. By Matthew + Blair. 7s. 6d. nett. + + _Brownlie._--Hymns of the Holy Eastern Church. Translated by + Rev. John Brownlie. 3s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Hymns from the Greek Office Books: Together with Centos and + Suggestions. Translated by Rev. John Brownlie. 3s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Hymns from the East. Translated by Rev. John Brownlie. 3s. + 6d. nett. + + _Buchan._--The Ballad Minstrelsy of Scotland. By Patrick Buchan. + 5s. + + The Songs of Scotland. Chronologically Arranged. 5s. Uniform + with above. + + _Burns._--The Selected Works of Robert Burns. Edited by Rhona + Sutherland. Crown 4to. 430 pp. With Illustrations. Price 5s. + nett. Or in various Bindings--Prices on application. + + _Bute._--Coronations--Chiefly Scottish. By the Marquess of Bute, + K.T. 7s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Essays on Foreign Subjects. By the Marquess of Bute, K.T. + 10s. 6d. + + ---- Seven Essays on Christian Greece. Translated by the + Marquess of Bute, K.T. 7s. 6d. + + _Caird._--Sermons. By the late Rev. J. Renny Caird, M.A. With + Memoir, by Rev. Robert Munro, B.D. 3s. 6d. nett. + + _Calder._--Poems of Life and Work. By Robert H. Calder. 2s. 6d. + nett. + + _Campbell._--Notes on the Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Eastwood + Parish. By the late Rev. George Campbell. 12s. 6d. and 25s. + nett. + + _Campbell._--Popular Tales of the West Highlands. By the late J. + F. Campbell, Islay. Four vols. 7s. 6d. each. + + _Campbell._--The Elder's Prayer-Book. By Rev. Wm. Campbell, B.D. + 1s. + + _Carslaw._--Heroes of the Scottish Covenant. By Rev. W. H. + Carslaw, D.D. + + Vol. I.--James Guthrie, of Fenwick. + II.--Donald Cargill, of the Barony, Glasgow. + III.--James Renwick, the last of the Martyrs. + + 1s. 6d. nett each. The three vols. in one, 3s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Six Martyrs of the First and Second Reformations. By Rev. + W. H. Carslaw, D.D. 2s. nett. + + ---- Exiles of the Covenant. By Rev. W. H. Carslaw, D.D. 2s. + nett. + + _Chalmers._--Chalmers' Caledonia. 25s. and 40s. per vol. Vol. + VIII.--the Index--sold separately, 15s. and 25s. nett. + + _Cheviot._--Proverbs, Proverbial Expressions, and Popular Rhymes + of Scotland. By Andrew Cheviot. 6s. nett. + + _"Claverhouse."_--Gretna Green and Its Traditions. By + "Claverhouse." 1s. nett. + + _Craigie._--Scandinavian Folk Lore. By W. A. Craigie, M.A., + F.S.A. 7s. 6d. + + _Drummond._--Life of Robert Nicoll. By the late P. R. Drummond, + Perth. 5s. + + _Edgar._--Old Church Life in Scotland. By Andrew Edgar, D.D. 7s. + 6d. + + ---- The Bibles of England. By Andrew Edgar, D.D. 7s. 6d. + + _Eyre-Todd._--The Glasgow Poets. Edited by George Eyre-Todd. 7s. + 6d. nett. + + _Fergusson._--Alexander Hume. By R. Menzies Fergusson, M.A. 5s. + nett. + + ---- A Student of Nature. By R. Menzies Fergusson, M.A. 4s. + nett. + + ---- A Village Poet. By R. Menzies Fergusson, M.A. 3s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Rambles in the Far North. By R. Menzies Fergusson, M.A. 3s. + and 2s. + + ---- Logie: A Parish History. By R. Menzies Fergusson, M.A. 2 + vols. 15s. nett. each vol. + + ---- The Viking's Bride, and other Poems. By R. Menzies + Fergusson, M.A. 3s. + + _Ferguson._--The King's Friend. By Dugald Ferguson. 3s. 6d. + + _Fergusson._--The Poems of Robert Fergusson. Edited by Robt. + Ford. 5s. nett. + + _Fife._--And I Knew It Not. By David Fife. 3s. 6d. nett. + + _Findlay._--Medici Carmina. By William Findlay, M.D. 3s. 6d. + nett. + + ---- Ayrshire Idylls of Other Days. By "George Umber." 5s. + + ---- In My City Garden. By "George Umber." 6s. + + ---- Robert Burns and the Medical Profession. By William + Findlay, M.D. ("George Umber.") 6s. nett. + + _Fittis._--Curious Episodes in Scottish History. By R. Scott + Fittis. 6s. + + ---- Heroines of Scotland. By R. Scott Fittis. 6s. + + ---- Romantic Narratives from Scottish History and Tradition. By + R. Scott Fittis. 6s. + + _Fleming._--Ancient Castles and Mansions of Stirling Nobility. + By J. S. Fleming, F.S.A. 21s. nett. + + _Ford._--American Humourists. Selected and edited by Robert + Ford. 3s. 6d. + + ---- Auld Scots Ballants. 6s. + + ---- Ballads of Bairnhood. Selected and edited by Robert Ford. + 5s. + + ---- Ballads of Babyland. Selected and edited by Robert Ford. + 5s. + + ---- Children's Rhymes, Games, Songs, and Stories. By R. Ford. + 3s. 6d. nett. + + ----Ford's Own Humorous Scotch Stories. 1st and 2nd Series, 1s. + each nett. Both Series in 1 vol., 2s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Poems and Songs of Alexander Rodger. Edited by Robert Ford. + 3s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Tayside Songs and other Verses. By Robert Ford. 3s. 6d. + nett. + + ---- The Harp of Perthshire. Edited by Robert Ford. 15s. and 7s. + 6d. + + ---- Thistledown. By Robert Ford. 3s. 6d. and 1s. nett. + + ---- Vagabond Songs and Ballads of Scotland. Edited by R. Ford. + 5s. nett. + + ---- Miller's "Willie Winkie," and other Songs and Poems. Edited + by Robert Ford. 3s. 6d. nett. + + ---- The Heroines of Burns. By Robert Ford. 3s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Popular American Readings. Popular English Readings. + Popular Irish Readings. Popular Scotch Readings. Edited by + Robert Ford. 1s. each. Also in one vol., 4s. + + _Forsyth._--Elocution: Simple Rules and Exercises for Correct + and Expressive Reading and Reciting. By John Forsyth. 1s. 6d. + nett. Gardner's Verse for Schools. Parts I. and II. 6d. nett + each part. + + _Grosart._--The Verse and Miscellaneous Prose of Alexander + Wilson, the Ornithologist of America. Edited by Rev. A. B. + Grosart, LL.D. 12s. 6d. + + _Hogg._--A Tour in the Highlands in 1803. By James Hogg. 2s. 6d. + + _Holmes._--The Teaching of Modern Languages in Schools and + Colleges. By D. T. Holmes, B.A. 2s. nett. + + ---- Literary Touring in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. By + D. T. Holmes, B.A. 4s. 6d. nett. + + _Johnson._--A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland in + 1773. By Samuel Johnson, LL.D. New Edition. 2s. 6d. nett. + + _Kennedy._--David Kennedy, the Scottish Singer: Reminiscences of + his Life and Work. By Marjory Kennedy. And Singing Round the + World: a Narrative of his Colonial Tours. By David Kennedy, Jun. + 7s. 6d. + + _Kennedy._--Reminiscences of Walt Whitman. By William Sloane + Kennedy, Camden, N.J. 6s. + + _Ker._--Mother Lodge, Kilwinning, "The Ancient Lodge of + Scotland." By Rev. W. Lee Ker, Kilwinning. 4s. 6d. + + _Kilgour._--Twenty Years on Ben Nevis. By Wm. T. Kilgour. 2/6 & + 1/6 nett. + + ---- Lochaber in War and Peace. Illustrated. By Wm. T. Kilgour. + 7s. 6d. nett. + + _King._--Shipwreck Wood: A Story of "Some that lift and some + that lean." By Carrol King. 2s. + + _Mackean._--The King's Quhair. Done into English by Wm. Mackean. + 3s. 6d. + + _M'Gown._--Ten Bunyan Talks. By G. W. T. M'Gown. 2s. nett. + + ---- A Primer of Burns. By G. W. T. M'Gown. 1s. nett. + + _MacKenzie._--History of the Outer Hebrides. By William C. + MacKenzie. 12s. 6d. nett. Large Paper, 21s. + + _MacKenzie._--The Lady of Hirta. By Wm. C. MacKenzie, F.S.A. + Scot. 6s. + + ---- A Short History of the Scottish Highlands and Isles. By Wm. + C. MacKenzie. New Edition. 5s. nett. + + _Menzies._--Provincial Sketches and other Verses. By G. K. + Menzies. 2s. 6d. nett. + + _Menzies._--Illustrated Guide to the Vale of Yarrow. By James M. + Menzies. 1s. 6d. nett. + + _Metcalfe._--SS. Ninian and Machor--the Legends of, in the + Scottish Dialect of the Fourteenth Century. By W. M. Metcalfe, + D.D. 10s. 6d. nett. On Whatman Paper, 15s. nett. + + ---- A History of the Shire of Renfrew from the Earliest Times + down to the Close of the Nineteenth Century. By W. M. Metcalfe. + D.D., F.S.A. 25s. nett. On Whatman Paper, 40s. + + ---- History of Paisley. By W. M. Metcalfe, D.D. Illustrated. + + ---- Charters and Documents relating to the Burgh of Paisley. By + W. M. Metcalfe, D.D. 21s. nett. + + ---- Ancient Lives of the Scottish Saints. Translated by W. M. + Metcalfe, D.D. 15s. On Whatman Paper, 25s. + + ---- Pinkerton's Lives of the Scottish Saints. Revised and + enlarged by W. M. Metcalfe, D.D. 2 vols. 15s. per vol. + + ---- The Natural Truth of Christianity. Edited by W. M. + Metcalfe, D.D. 5s. + + ---- The Reasonableness of Christianity. By W. M. Metcalfe, D.D. + 5s. + + _Metcalfe._--The Great Palace of Constantinople. Translated from + the Greek of Dr. A. G. Paspates, by William Metcalfe, B.D. 10s. + 6d. + + _Miller._--Selections from the Works of Hugh Miller. Edited by + W. M. Mackenzie, M.A., F.S.A. (Scot.). 3s. 6d. + + _Mitchell._--A Popular History of the Highlands and Gaelic + Scotland. By Dugald Mitchell, M.D., J.P. 12s. 6d. nett. + + _Mitchell._--Jephtha: a Drama. Translated by A. G. Mitchell. 3s. + 6d. nett. + + ---- John the Baptist: a Drama. Translated by A. G. Mitchell. + 3s. 6d. nett. + + _Robertson._--Practical First Aid. By Wm. Robertson, M.D., + D.P.H. 1s. 6d. nett. + + ---- The Stone of Dunalter. By Wm. Robertson, M.D., D.P.H. 3s. + 6d. + + Scotland Eighty Years Ago. Thirty-two Fine Copperplate Etchings + of the Chief Towns and their Surroundings. £5 5s. to subscribers + only. + + _Smith._--The New Testament in Braid Scots. Rendered by Rev. Wm. + Wye Smith. New Edition. 6s. nett. + + _Symington._--Hints to Our Boys. By A. J. Symington. 1s. 6d. + + _Tannahill._--Poems and Songs of Robert Tannahill. Edited by the + late David Semple, F.S.A. New Edition. 3s. 6d. nett. + + _Taylor._--The Autobiography of Peter Taylor. 3s. 6d. + + _Taylor._--Twelve Favourite Hymns: their Messages and their + Writers. By Rev. Wm. Taylor, M.A. 2s. nett. + + _Wright._--Laird Nicoll's Kitchen, and other Sketches of + Scottish Life and Manners. By Joseph Wright. 2s. 6d. nett. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Literary Tours in The Highlands and +Islands of Scotland, by Daniel Turner Holmes + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY TOURS *** + +***** This file should be named 29178-0.txt or 29178-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/1/7/29178/ + +Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/29178-0.zip b/29178-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..04bd409 --- /dev/null +++ b/29178-0.zip diff --git a/29178-8.txt b/29178-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2f860fc --- /dev/null +++ b/29178-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11329 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands +of Scotland, by Daniel Turner Holmes + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland + +Author: Daniel Turner Holmes + +Release Date: June 20, 2009 [EBook #29178] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY TOURS *** + + + + +Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +_LITERARY TOURS_ + + + + + Literary Tours in + The Highlands and + Islands of Scotland + + By D. T. Holmes, B.A. + + + "Gaudia, discursus, nostri est farrago libelli" + --_Juvenal_, i. 74 + + + _PAISLEY: ALEXANDER GARDNER_ + Publisher by Appointment to the late Queen Victoria + 1909 + + + * * * * * + + + _To_ + _James Coats, Junr., Esq.,_ + _Ferguslie House, Paisley._ + + + _You, but for whom I'd never been + Much further north than Aberdeen; + Whose mandate sent my willing feet + To realms of heather, broom, and peat: + Accept this record of my tours + As something less my own than yours._ + + _D. T. HOLMES._ + + + + +_PREFACE._ + + + _White stands the long Kilpatrick row + Of hills with deep and dazzling snow, + And eastward, in a glimmering haze, + Stretch to the Forth the Campsie Braes._ + + _But see! beyond the Clyde, a stain + Of smoke that runs across the plain, + And flecks for miles the vivid gleam: + It is the tireless steed of steam._ + + _An old acquaintance! Ben and Strath + Daily behold his thunderous path, + That ceases not, until he feels + The breeze of Mallaig cool his wheels._ + + _And Memory, fondly gazing back + On many a journey by that track + Of splendour, would, at home, retrace + The charms and lore of every place;_ + + _Yea, pass, in thought, to storied Skye, + Where all the glens in glamour lie; + And, lightly scorning gust and spray, + Leap o'er the Minch to Stornoway._ + + _And many a northern beach besides, + Splashed by the foam of racing tides, + Rises in thought: from here to there, + Let Fancy's coinage pay the fare,--_ + + _Fancy, that wafts us o'er the main + To utmost Thule and home again, + Through mingled din of sea and sky, + Even in the twinkling of an eye._ + + _D. T. H._ + + _Ingleholm, Bridge of Weir, + 16th January, 1909._ + + + + + +CONTENTS. + + PAGE + +CHAPTER I.--INTRODUCTORY, 9 + + Village libraries--Difficulties of travel--Literary Societies in + the Highlands--Gaelic books--Happiness and geniality of + natives--Oban to Gairloch--Winter sailing--A crofting + village--Horrors of the Minch--Notes on Lewis--Highland + doctors--Hotels and anglers--Recent books--Military--Moray + Firth--Among the miners--Handloom weaving--Professor Blackie and + the Highlands. + +CHAPTER II.--MUSIC, SPEECHES, AND LITERATURE, 60 + + Scotch a reading nation--Hardships of students in old + days--Homer in Scalloway--When education ends--Objects of + chapter--Music--M.P.'s--Rural depopulation--Its + causes--Emigration--Village halls--The moon--A lecture in + Islay--Mental and material wealth--Real greatness--A Highland + laird on literature--Varieties of chairmen--"Coming to the + point"--Moral obligation--Compliment to Paisley--Oratory at + Salen--Lecture in a dungeon--Surprises--A visit to the + Borders--Tarbolton--Scotch language--Choice books--The + essayists--A Banff theory--Goldsmith in Gaelic--_Biblia + abiblia_--Favourites for the road--Horace--Shakespeare's + Sonnets--Xenophon--French literature and journalism--Romance and + Augustanism--Victorian writers--Celt and Saxon. + +CHAPTER III.--ECCLESIASTICAL, 134 + + Sectarian feeling--Typical anecdotes--Music and + religion--Ethical teaching in schools--The Moderates--A savoury + book--The Sabbath--"The Men of Skye"--The auldest kirk--The + Episcopal Church--An interlude of metre--The Christian + Brethren--Drimnin in Morven--Craignish--A model + minister--Ministerial trials in olden times--An artful + dodger--Some anecdotes from Gigha--Growing popularity of Ruskin. + +CHAPTER IV.--EDUCATIONAL, 180 + + Some Insular Dominies--Education Act of 1872--Education in the + Highlands--Feeding the hungry--Parish Council + boarders--Dwindling attendances--Arnisdale--Golspie Technical + School--On the Sidlaws--Some surprises--Arran schools--Science + and literature--Study of Scott--The old classical dominie--Vogue + of Latin in former times--Teachers and + examinations--Howlers--Competing subjects. + +CHAPTER V.--A TRIP TO SHETLAND, 217 + + Aberdeen--En route--Lerwick--Past and present saints--Some notes + on the islands--A Shetland poet--A visit to Bressay--From + Lerwick to Sandwick--Quarff--"That holy man, + Noah"--Fladibister--Cunningsburgh--"Keeping off"--The indignant + elder--Torquil Halcrow--Philology--A Sandwick gentleman--Local + tales--Foulah and Fair Isle--The fishing season. + +CHAPTER VI.--COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS AND THEIR ANECDOTES, 255 + + Trials of commercials--The two-est-faced knave--Mary, the maid + of the inn--Anecdotes of the smoking-room: Sonnet to + Raleigh--Peelin's below the tree--"She's away!"--A mean + house--One of the director's wives--Temperance hotels--A + memorial window--The blasted heath--The day for it--The + converted drummer--A circular ticket--A compound + possessive--Sixteen medals--"She's auld, and she's thin, and + she'll keep"--The will o' the dead--Sorry for London--"Raither + unceevil"--An unwelcome recitation--A word in season--A Nairn + critic--A grand day for it--A pro-Boer--"Falls of Bruar, only, + please!"--A bad case of nerves. + +CHAPTER VII.--LEGENDS AND LITERARY NOTABILIA, 278 + + Gairloch folk-lore: Prince Olaf and his bride--A laird who had + seen a fairy--Tales from Loch Broom: The dance of death--The + Kildonan midwife--The magic herring--Taisch--Antiquities of + Dunvegan--Miscellaneous terrors--St. Kilda--Lady + Grange--Pierless Tiree--Lochbuie in Mull--Inveraray Castle--The + sacred isle--Appin--Macdonald's gratitude--Notes on the + Trossachs--Lochfyneside: Macivors, Macvicars, and + Macallisters--Red Hector--Macphail of Colonsay--Tales from + Speyside: Tom Eunan!--Shaws and Grants--The wishing well--Ossian + and Macpherson--At the foot o' Bennachie--Harlaw--Lochaber + reivers--Reay and Twickenham--Rob Donn--Rev. Mr. Mill of + Dunrossness. + +CHAPTER VIII.--METRICAL AND SUPPLEMENTARY, 340 + + Arrival of the Mail-train at a Highland Station--Defoe, the + Father of Journalism--A Village Toper--A Reverend + Hellenist--Antigone--Shadows of the Manse--"My Heart's in the + Highlands"--Saddell, Kintyre--Springtime in Perthshire--Dr. + George Macdonald's Creed--Abbotsford--Carlyle--Shelley--Picture + in an Inn--Rain-storm at Loch Awe--Kinlochewe--General + Wade--Sound of Raasay in December--Les Neiges d' Antan--The + Islands of the Ness--American Tourist Loquitur--The Miners--In a + Country Graveyard--No Place like Home. + +INDEX, 369 + + + + +LITERARY TOURING. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +INTRODUCTORY. + + Village libraries--Difficulties of travel--Literary Societies in + the Highlands--Gaelic books--Happiness and geniality of + natives--Oban to Gairloch--Winter sailing--A crofting + village--Horrors of the Minch--Notes on Lewis--Highland + doctors--Hotels and anglers--Recent books--Military--Moray + Firth--Among the miners--Handloom weaving--Professor Blackie and + the Highlands. + + +VILLAGE LIBRARIES. + +At pretty frequent intervals, during the last four years, I have sallied +forth from my home in Renfrewshire, north, south, east, and west, to +some of the most remote and isolated nooks of insular and provincial +Scotland, on a mission so uncommon as to justify the writing of a book +of impressions and experiences. The Highlands and Islands of Scotland +are, of course, visited every summer by a great host of excursionists, +who go thither to fish, play golf, lounge, climb hills, and otherwise +picturesquely disport themselves. A few earnest devotees of science +spend their holidays botanising in the glens, scanning the geological +strata, looking for fossils, measuring the outlines of brochs and +prehistoric forts, or collecting relics of Culdee churches. My journeys +were undertaken for none of the objects named: they were entirely +connected with _libraries_ and _lecturing_, and, being undertaken mainly +in the months of winter and spring, they have given me the opportunity +of noting a great many interesting particulars that the summer +traveller, bent on recreation or science, cannot be expected to notice. + +_I do not think any finer gift could be given to a village community +than a collection of useful and entertaining books._ The libraries with +which my work was connected were sent, free of charge, to strath and +glen, and nothing was asked in return, except that the volumes should be +well housed and delivered to the people to read by some local librarian. +You will find these libraries in all the townships of the Hebrides, from +Ness in Lewis, down the long chain of islands, to Islay and Jura. About +thirty of them are established in the Shetlands, and as many in the +Orkneys. Scores of little villages in Aberdeen, Ross, Sutherland, +Argyle, Bute, and Perth, have been gratuitously supplied with them. The +same is true of many a weather-beaten, quaint, red-tiled little +fishing-village along the shores of the Moray Firth. In the barracks of +Fort-George, Inverness, and Dingwall, the soldiers can solace their +leisure hours by delightful, patriotic, and instructive reading, +furnished to them without money and without price. Even in quiet, +pastoral Roxburghshire, at a spot near the birthplace of Dandie +Dinmont, you will find one of these serviceable collections of books. + +It is a pleasure to me to be able to say that I have visited a great +number of the districts mentioned, for the purpose of speaking to the +people in a familiar and non-academic way on some of the books which +have been presented to them. In this way I have spoken to about 40,000 +people, the majority of whom had never previously been present at a +discourse on a literary topic. Most of them had, of course, been in the +habit of attending religious services and election meetings: but neither +of these is the very best preparation for a literary evening. Some of my +experiences have been intensely amusing, and I do not think any lecturer +has ever, as regards rough roads, inclement weather, and amazing votes +of thanks, had quite the same joys and sorrows as I have come through. I +have often laughed (good-naturedly, I hope) at what came under my +notice, but I am not so conceited as to suppose that the hilarity was +always on one side. + + +DIFFICULTIES OF TRAVEL. + +It can very easily be seen that he who proposed to visit all the above +districts would have some hard and continuous work in prospect. Even on +the mainland of Scotland there are many villages of difficult access. +The nearest railway station to Durness on Loch Eriboll is Lairg, sixty +miles away. Gairloch in Ross-shire is thirty miles distant from the +railway station of Achnasheen. In the great county of Aberdeen there are +a good many villages that can only be reached by long and tiresome +driving in a mail coach. At different parts of the Moray Firth little +townships lie huddled at the foot of precipitous cliffs, and, at first +sight, seem inaccessible except by sea. To one accustomed to the +sumptuous equipment of the Clyde steamers, even the journey to the +shrine of Hugh Miller at Cromarty is pleasant only in good weather: a +wee, puffing, hard-wrought steam-launch takes a slant course of five +miles from Invergordon to Cromarty pier, accomplishing the journey in +forty-five minutes. The fare between the two piers is one shilling, and +there is no extra charge for the use of the cabin, which is reached by a +perpendicular and very slippery ladder, and would be better suited for +philosophical reflection in a gale if the crew did not use it as a +store-room for engine-grease and old oilskins. In the Outer Islands, +Watt's machine is, of course, unknown, and many of the roads which +imaginative cartographers have inserted in their maps, will perhaps be +finished when the last trump is about to sound. + +Railway travelling, too, is attended with some inconveniences in winter. +The Glasgow-Inverness train, for example, may, on the coldest night of +the year, break down at Dalnaspidal; and in such a case the passengers +will have to sit, entertained by howling blasts, till a fresh engine +comes up from Blair Atholl. Such an experience was once mine, and I +always think of it when I read the ninth ode of Horace's first book. +Outside were the great snow-sheeted mountains, and the moon was gazing +in blear-eyed compassion through a screen of haze. From end to end of +the train resounded the rhythmic beat of cold-footed passengers striving +to bring some warmth of blood to the toes. + +In Grantown-on-Spey, I got an uncommon surprise one February. There had +been some snow in the Lowlands, but at Grantown the fall had been +excessive, and the roads were encumbered. On arriving at the station, +the travellers saw a sleigh waiting to convey them to the hotel. The +conveyance suited the weather admirably, and the horses seemed to be +enjoying the fun. No wheeled vehicles were to be seen: even the milkmen +sleighed their commodity from door to door. "_If we had a brace of +grand-dukes and a bomb or two, we could fancy ourselves in Russia_," +said the facetious hotel-porter. He asserted that it was well for the +country when abundant snow came down early in the year. It seems that +Grantown is apt to suffer from drought in a hot summer following on a +rainless spring. A copious fall of snow early in the year is retained in +the mountains, and ensures plenty of moisture during the months of heat. +Moisture is needed in summer, for the population is trebled then, and +most tourists require a little water, sometimes, to qualify their +potations. + +It is evident from what I have said, that the pedantic and vexatious +system adopted by Euclid in his Elements of Geometry could not be +employed in arranging the chapters of this book. The stern +consecutiveness of that immortal but unpopular author would be out of +place in describing journeys which might have been taken in the reverse +order without much difference in the results. + + +LITERARY SOCIETIES IN THE HIGHLANDS. + +Winter with its long nights gives leisure to the remote glensmen and +crofters. The distractions of the town are not there to take their minds +away from study and meditation. Books may not be abundant, but what +literature is available is eagerly fastened on and thoroughly digested. +In the Lowlands we skip over our books and know nothing thoroughly. The +Highlander, with his limited means and choice, is forced to peruse and +re-peruse, even though he has nothing more lively than Boston's +_Fourfold State_, or Hervey's _Meditations among the Tombs_. But he +knows well what he has so often read, and is quite competent to discuss +and criticise his little row of volumes. A few of the Highland townships +have literary societies in which every variety of subject is debated: +the meetings are usually opened with prayer, but not always closed in +that way. There is a tiny clachan, some twenty miles distant from +Ullapool, on the side of a hill, in view of the grotesque peaks of +Suilven, which has a most flourishing literary society--with president, +vice-president, rules, minutes, and committees. Not once, but twice a +week does this society meet, and when the full moon is propitious for a +clear journey home through the morasses, the debates are often unduly +prolonged and the chairman's summing-up luxuriantly prolix. How many +politicians of note in London have been raked fore and aft in that +little schoolroom! What measures and enactments, plausible to the +unthinking metropolitans, have been cut and slashed there, while the +conscious moon, gleaming in at the window, strove vainly to disperse +the loquacious throng! Listen to the chairman's modest remarks: "_I do +not wish_," he says, "_to embarrass the Government, but_...." Unthinking +Asquith, here is a man who does not wish to embarrass you; he could do +it, but he is merciful! You may breathe freely, you and your Cabinet, +for spite of your slips and blunders, the Ross-shire crofters will not +turn round and rend you. They do not wish to embarrass the Government; +but have a care: their eyes are on you, and forbearance has its limits. +Think not because they live remote from train and telegraph, that you +are immune from their censure. Far from it! Round the hill-side at a +stated hour every day, in shine or shower, gust or calm, comes the +mail-coach of King Edward VII., bringing its pile of letters and +newspapers. I see the little throng of village politicians, eager-eyed, +peruse the latest parliamentary news. There they get all the needed +pabulum for the next political debate. If the answers to Mr. Galloway +Weir have been shifty and evasive, it will go hard with the Government +to-night in the little schoolroom, and the plaster will fall in showers +of dust from the ceiling as the iniquities of our rulers are ruthlessly +shown up. I should not like to feel the rough side of that chairman's +tongue. + +A library of representative English works, presented to a remote +provincial society like the one I speak of, is a centre of unspeakable +entertainment and instruction. The _entertainment_, during the long +nights of winter, when the natives gather round the ingle and someone +reads aloud, is a very palpable addition to the joys of life. The +_instruction_ is perhaps slower in coming, but is none the less sure. +Only by comparison of books can their relative value as literature be +determined. Bigotry and narrow-mindedness in literature and religion are +almost always the result of ignorance. In the Highlands it is oftenest +the local teacher who is the librarian, and the books are accommodated +in the school. The teacher is thus able to make his instruction in +literature vivid and interesting to his senior pupils; he can authorise +a pupil to take a particular volume home and require an essay to be +written on it within a given time; and he can, in school, read aloud +typical passages of good prose to supplement the limited extracts of the +class text-books. The books have been selected (i.) to form useful +reading for adults; (ii.) to supply suitable pabulum for literary +societies; (iii.) to aid the schemes of the Education Department in +connection with what is called the "Supplementary Course of Instruction +in English Literature." The selection of the books for the use of senior +scholars has been, as a rule, easy enough. Dictionaries of the French +and German languages, good atlases, and works of reference have, in most +cases been included.[1] + + [1] Let the southern reader remember that a boy born in a city + like Glasgow has, as respects opportunities of getting on, + infinitely better chances than a lad of equal ability born in a + Highland village. The crofter's son has no reading-room with + costly works of reference, scientific manuals, English + translations of Latin authors, etc., to go to when he is in need + of help. He begins the battle of life at a very serious + disadvantage, and often gives up the fight altogether. Anything + that tends to equalise the chances of town and country, from the + point of view of mental equipment, would do more general good to + Scotland, by bettering the available brain power, than any + half-dozen Acts of Parliament taken at random. + + +GAELIC BOOKS. + +In selecting the books specially intended for the perusal of the older +people, an attempt is made to meet the needs of the various localities. +In the bi-lingual districts there is always a shelf of Gaelic books, +such as the original texts of Norman Macleod's exquisite sermons, +M'Rury's religious compilations, Macleod's clever poetry _The Lyre of +the Grove_, Campbell's _Popular Tales of the West Highlands_, and Magnus +Maclean's manuals of Celtic Literature. There being a distinct dearth of +comely Celtic reading that the ordinary native can understand, +arrangements have been made for the translation into Gaelic in several +volumes by competent scholars, of extracts from Mr. Lang's _True Story +Book_, and from other sources. + +The regrettable thing about Gaelic is its hopelessly bewildering +spelling. The sounds are pleasing and melodious in a high degree, but +they hide themselves behind most peculiar disguisements of print. Most +people will admit, I think, that a language which spells Avon, +_Amhuinn_, and Rory, _Ruaridh_, would benefit greatly by a visit from +Pitman. The utility of sane phonetics was brought home to me very +forcibly by a story I heard from a gentleman in the west of Skye. This +gentleman is an excellent English scholar, can speak Gaelic but is +unable to read it. He got a letter once from St. Kilda composed by an +islander who spelt Gaelic by ear and not according to the awe-inspiring +orthography of the dictionary. The gentleman, who could not have made +out the letter had it been spelt correctly, was able to read it as it +stood, without the slightest hesitation. If a more rational spelling +were generally adopted, an immense number of Lowlanders who are +interested in philology, would study the grand old tongue, were it only +to understand the numberless place names of Celtic origin that occur in +British geography. + +What I have said about Gaelic spelling explains the inability of a large +percentage of the population to read a book printed in the native idiom. +What is the use then, it may be asked, of translating the _True Story +Book_? The answer is obvious to one who knows the Highlands. In the +Outer Isles there are many old people who know no English and whose only +literary solace comes from listening to others reading. At the evening +_ceilidh_ a competent reader of Gaelic can usually be found. Then, +again, we are likely to see, in the near future, a notable revival of +interest in the old language, consequent on the efforts of the _Mod_, +and on the recognition of Gaelic by the Department as a fit subject of +study in the Highland schools. Such a revival, to be lasting in its +effects, must be enforced and sustained by a constant supply of pure and +interesting Gaelic books, both native and translated. Religious books +there are in abundance, thanks to the zeal of the Protestant clergy. +Needless to say, the compilations of the Dean of Lismore are as +unintelligible to the modern Gael as Cynewulf is to a London cab-driver. +I should like to see a round dozen of good English novels put into +Gaelic by translators who knew the idiom thoroughly. + +The fervour displayed at Highland gatherings, admirable as it is from a +sentimental point of view, is apt to grow cold at the prospect of +laborious work to be done. It is not creditable that the great majority +of Gaelic speakers are unable to read a page of Gaelic print. Nor is it +creditable that those who can both read and speak, do so little for the +interpretation of the literature. Blackie's books and translations are +still among the best, and Blackie was a Lowlander, was born, indeed, in +the Saltmarket of Glasgow. My frequent visits to the north and west have +convinced me that another difficulty in the way of a possible resurgence +of Gaelic is the lack of a recognised standard of colloquial speech. The +language is split up into many dialects, each possessing its own special +idioms and vocabulary. A Glasgow firm of printers not long ago conceived +the idea of printing post-cards with Gaelic greetings: they found that +every city Highlander they consulted had either in grammar or turn of +phrase some special way of framing the sentences. "Grand Gaelic to-day!" +is an exclamation sometimes heard at the door of a Highland church in +town, and indicates that the minister who has officiated comes from the +same strath as the person speaking. + +A moderate amount of encouragement to Gaelic is all that can reasonably +be expected from the Government, seeing that the prime duty of the +schoolmaster everywhere is to impart a sound knowledge of English.[2] + + [2] In an editorial of June 6, 1908, the _Glasgow Herald_ + excellently says:--"The first requisite for a Highlander is such + a knowledge of English as will open up to him the lucrative + employment from which ignorance of English must shut him out, + and it is no kindness to him to interfere with his acquisition + of this indispensable accomplishment.... So good a Gael as + Professor Magnus Maclean has observed that 'even more remarkable + than the dearth of philosophical and dramatic poems, and, we + might add, of narrative and pastoral poetry proper, is the + scarcity of Gaelic prose.' By all means, however, let a literary + knowledge of the Gaelic language be encouraged among + Gaelic-speaking children. It is a very different matter to + enforce such steps as would lead to the teaching of Gaelic to + children that live indeed in Gaelic-speaking districts but yet + speak only English." + + +HAPPINESS AND GENIALITY OF NATIVES. + +What has struck me most in my travels by land and sea, is the +extraordinary amount of happiness, geniality, and good humour that still +exists in the world. There is a substantial amount of felicity in the +majority of men. Every one knows the sentence of Emerson: "Give me +health and a day, and I will make the pomp of empires ridiculous." I +like to give concrete examples of philosophic maxims, and I should +particularise Emerson's dictum thus: "Bard Macdonald of Trotternish, +Skye, whose only cow came near being impounded by the Congested +Districts Board in order to pay for the price of seed-potatoes furnished +to him by the said Board, having good health, makes the pomp of empires +ridiculous three hundred and sixty-five days every year." Bard Macdonald +is a very poor man, yet he has contrived to hitch his waggon on to a +fixed star. He lives in one of those low thatch-roofed bothies that, +with the accompanying croft, are rented at from 2 to 4 a year. He has +a wife and a large family. Yet, tormented as he is by present poverty +and past arrears, he eyes the future with serenity. I heard him sing a +Gaelic poem of his own composition, containing twenty-five verses of +intricate versification, and at the conclusion he was far less exhausted +than any of the company. Then, again, Torquil M'Gillivray, schoolmaster +of a rainy township on the sea-edge of one of the Skye _nishes_, has +tranquillity of mind as great as any of the Seven Sages ever enjoyed. He +is perfectly contented with his lot of rural dominie, and when I, in my +presumption, ventured to speak critically of certain social conditions +in his beloved island, he rebuked me by crooning tenderly the following +lines: + + "Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome, + I would see them before I die, + But I'd rather not see any one of the three, + Than be exiled for ever from Skye!" + +We all know what a unique poetical gem Wordsworth composed after he +heard a Highland girl singing at Inversnaid. I witnessed many fine +examples of concentrated joy which might have resulted in metre if I had +not had the presence of mind to pull myself up and refrain. One was at +Acharacle, where in front of a croft a young fellow was dancing the +Highland fling with such whole-souled and consuming zeal that I stood +transfixed with wonder and awe. He was alone, and I came suddenly upon +him at a sharp bend of the road. He threw his legs about him with such +regardless glee, that for a moment I was afraid one of them would get +unfixed and come spinning through the air to hit me. I watched him like +one fascinated for fully ten minutes. When at length he saw me, the +glory flowed suddenly off his legs; he subsided into a country bumpkin, +and beat a hasty retreat indoors. "If Greek dances were as artistic as +this one," said I, "and if the lines of each chorus had a reference to +the diversity of the steps, it is little wonder that God in His +providence should have sent us so many commentators to explain the +mysteries of ancient scansion." + +Another instance of natural and spontaneous bliss came under my notice +about two miles along from Kinlochewe, on the banks of Loch Maree. It +was a glorious, sun-illumined spring morning, and every crevice in the +rough flanks of Ben Slioch was mirrored in the unwrinkled surface of the +noble loch. Ben Eay had a bright covering of Nature's whitest, softest +lawn. No sounds were heard except the low droning of a vagrant bee, the +whizzing of a sea-mew's pinions, or a bark from this croft answered by a +bark from that other a mile away. Suddenly the repose of the morning, in +which a pedestrian could hear the echo of his own feet, was startled by +the voice of a girl singing. For a moment I thought of the _Lorelei_; +but it was soon evident where the notes were coming from. A maiden of +ten or twelve was sitting in front of a cottage that faced the lake, +combing her long, black hair that glistened in the morning rays, and +pouring forth such exquisite trills as might have made Orpheus envious. +The whole beauty of ben, loch, and sky seemed to be gathered up in that +child's song. I had been wandering along in the sparkling air and +feeling that something ought to be done to intimate to Heaven that it +was a heavenly morning. The girl felt so happy in the gracious gift of +another blue day that her nature responded at once in a spontaneous +burst of melody. I was very grateful for her vicarious hymn of praise-- + + "Now thanks to Heaven! that of its grace + Hath led me to this lonely place. + Joy have I had; and going hence + I bear away my recompense." + + +OBAN TO GAIRLOCH. + +It is impossible for anyone who has a fair supply of the uncurdled milk +of human kindness to sail from Oban to Gairloch and not be struck with +the heartiness and good humour of the native population. Such a trip is +rarely accomplished without some memorable incident or some outstanding +impression. The landscape is doubtless magnificent, but the people one +sees on the way are infinitely more interesting. No one, I am sure, can +fail to observe the well-groomed, fresh, and imperial aspect of the pier +policemen. The general polish of their boots and belts, the +self-satisfied, Parnassian smile that never comes off, the spotless +gloves, the muscular frame, combine to make up a splendid type of +impressive Law grounded on Strength. I am ashamed to employ the term +"policemen" to a body of officials who command such instantaneous +respect. These men are King Edward's Highland satraps, and they both +know it and feel it: law in the North is never undignified or unkempt. +Then, again, the captain of the steamer is a man whom it is impossible +to regard without veneration. All Macbrayne's men are fine fellows; they +look well as they stand in stately fashion on the bridge: yet many a +scowling sky of torrential rain they have to face, many a time have +their beards been shaken by the hurricanes of the Minch. If you speak to +a ship-captain, you are certain to get the utmost civility and +politeness. It is true that most of them have several sets of +vocabularies: to passengers they are urbane and choice of speech; but +they have, within easy reach, another set of phrases, which they find of +service in addressing delinquent mariners. + +A student of Virgil in making the trip I have alluded to above, would +run the risk of recalling the passage in which the poet suggests that +the big island of Sicily was at one time connected with the mainland, +but that some huge convulsion of nature disjoined the twain and allowed +the Mediterranean to come roaring in a channel between. The scenery of +Western Scotland stirs the imagination to suppose that some similar +catastrophe permitted the sea to mangle the fair uniformity of a +prehistoric coast, submerge the low-lying lands, and leave a great +number of islands lying in lonely fashion out in the watery waste. +Heavy weather, truly, it must have been ere Coll, Tiree, Rum, and Eigg +were sundered from the mainland by the Atlantic flow. + +All the islands I mention (save Tiree) can be seen from the deck of the +_Gael_ during the earlier part of the daily passage of that boat from +Oban in the summer season. Tiree is off the main tourist track, but a +few antiquarians are now finding it worth their while to go and dig +there for relics of byegone civilisation. A friend of mine, a zealous +and erudite F.S.A., has spent many a pleasant holiday in Tiree, and has +come back with loaded trunks of valuable prehistoric remains. Certain +artists go out to the island regularly in order to transfer to canvas +some of Nature's most impressive aspects of cloud, wave, and crag. Nor +let me forget the doughty members of the _Faith Mission_, who evangelise +this and others of the outer isles, and sing such sweet melodies to the +natives as would melt any "Wee Free" heart, let alone an ordinary heart +of stone. Tiree has long been famous for its schools and for its +intelligent inhabitants; as a consequence, the libraries have been +enthusiastically welcomed in its townships, and are regarded by the +teachers there as a new and valuable adjunct of education. I have often +heard it said that Tiree produces more ministers than any other +district, of like population, in the Celtic part of Scotland. The Duke +of Argyll does not allow any licensed house on the island, but he has +not as yet suppressed the _Fingal_ and the parcels post. Should His +Grace ever unbend so far as to permit the temperance hotels to obtain +the licence, learned men might flock in greater numbers to Tiree, and +dazzle themselves and the world with further antiquarian finds.[3] + +Rum has not been dowered with a Paisley library, and I regret to say +that the natives have the reputation of not keeping the Sunday with +ostentatious strictness. Eigg, the little island contiguous, is a little +heaven below. The missionary there well deserves a word of commendation: +the island of Muck is under his spiritual supervision, and with a +sandwich and a sermon in his pocket, he often sets sail, scorning gust +and current, to preach to his parishioners in that tiny islet. + + [3] Coll is also a very interesting island for the antiquarian. + It contains distinct traces of twenty-nine Hill-forts or Duns, + so that there must have been lively times out there long ago. + Some fine shells, beads, pins and pottery have been found in the + prehistoric _kitchen-middens_. Before the Reformation the island + was thickly peopled, and sites of old churches and deserted + crofts are numerous. Coll has gone back in population; in 1901 + it had 432 inhabitants; in 1755 the number of natives was 1,193. + + +WINTER SAILING. + +The summer tourist knows Skye very imperfectly, for he goes there in a +commodious steamer and traverses the island at a season when the days +are long and the weather benign. No one should vaunt of knowing Skye +unless he has seen it in winter also. It is the small _Lochiel_ that, in +the dark days of December, bears the passengers along the chilly Sound +of Sleat, and through the narrows of Raasay, into the haven of Portree. +At such a time there is something fearsome and weird in the aspect of +the coast, as seen from the cabin window of the brave little boat as +she battles and plunges along in the teeth of the north-eastern gale. +Her progress is slow, for when passengers are few Macbrayne wisely +economises his coal. The long-stretching hills of Raasay (on the highest +of which Boswell danced a jig) are white from head to foot, and gleam +through the darkness of the afternoon, vivid and ghostly. As Raasay +House, with its lamp-lit windows shining in a snowy recess, is +approached, the engines slow down, and through the howl of the wind can +be heard the plashing of oars. The broad waves swirl and seethe cruelly +around the ferry-boat and toss it about at all angles, up and down, on +crest and in trough, till you fear it will end its struggles keel +upwards, and send the mail-bags down among the mackerel. But the boatmen +know their trade, and so do the dripping, top-booted seamen of the +_Lochiel_. Amid much running and shuffling and casting of ropes and +animated bandying of (I fear) strong expressions in Gaelic sung out upon +the night, the ship's ladder is cast down and the boat tied thereto. In +a few minutes the transfer of mails is over, the ladder up, and the +small boat leaping back to land. (I speak of December 22, 1904). A new +passenger has come on board and is seen to descend the cabin stairs to +unfreeze his fingers over the tiny stove. Half-an-hour's heaving still +remains before Portree. A lady who has been on the border-line of +squeamishness for the last hour, hurriedly leaves the cabin, probably to +see if her luggage is all right. Good news at last for all! Portree is +visible, and its lights are twinkling on the height. The moon comes +graciously out, silvering the snowy shoulders of Essie Hill. What a +contrast is this moonlit haven, with its background of terraced lights, +to the rough surges outside. Glad indeed is everyone to set foot on the +pier and trudge through disregarded slush to the warmth of home or +hotel. We are told by our island friends that all Skye is under snow and +that the roads are impassable. No mail-coach has ventured to Dunvegan +for two days and in other directions, the postmen, turned cavaliers, +have gone off on horseback with their letters. (Let me say in passing, +that a red-bearded Highland postman, clad in post-office livery and +seated on a sheltie, is a sight which any artist would go a hundred +miles to see.) + +Winter sailing may at times be as pleasant as a cruise in June. At 8 +A.M. in the snug cabin, the breakfast-table, with its tea, ham, eggs, +and sausages, is a welcome piece of scenery, and the genial talk of the +captain and his colleagues is far better than pepsine as a digestive. +After breakfast, a pipe on deck is a necessity. Who that has once seen +Ben-na-ceallich all white to the feet and softly veiled with airy mists, +but wishes he were a Turner to paint, or a Shelley to sing? The sail +from Broadford to Kyle on a calm, cold, snow-dazzling morning is (if one +is wrapped and coated well) absolutely majestic. The sun pours, if not +warmth, at least light and heat on the hundred bens of the mainland and +the breeze aiding, wakens a multitudinous smile on the glittering face +of the cold waters. + +I never take this trip without thinking of such books as _The Brave Sons +of Skye_, which gives a record of the brave men born in the misty island +who have come south and distinguished themselves in many a different +walk in life. It is a most inspiring thing to reflect on the dauntless +way in which genius treads the stony road that leads from poverty to +glory. There is not a district in Skye but has its great man, who forms +the subject of conversation round the peat fire when the winter winds +are blowing down the strath. "From Log Cabin to White House" is the +American way of putting it: in Scotland we might say "From Crofter's Cot +to Professor's Chair." + + +A CROFTING VILLAGE. + +The sight of a crofting village is at first rather surprising to one +accustomed to large towns. The low roofs are not far from the ground. +Often, while driving, if you turn a corner swiftly, you run the risk of +being thrown out of the trap on to one of the chimneys. It does not take +much imagination, especially in the dim dusk, to transform a +low-thatched cot into some weird animal that might begin to walk along +the hill-side at any moment. So irregularly grouped are the townships, +dropped here and there, as it were, that you might fancy the houses had +begun at one time to run a race with each other, and in the middle of it +had suddenly stopped. Dr. Johnson complained that the windows were fixed +into the walls and could not, in consequence, be opened to let in the +air. That fault exists to some extent still: I have been told, however, +that peat reek is very purifying, and that its thick fumes make short +work of any noxious germs that might lodge about the nooks of the +interior. Great changes are gradually coming over many of the clachans, +changes not loved by an artist or a devotee of the picturesque. Instead +of thatch, held down by ropes weighted with heavy stones, there is often +to be seen a roofing of tarred cloth or corrugated iron. Romance might +attach itself to a roof of thatch, but corrugated iron, with its +distressing parallelism, could never awaken a genuine lyric note. +Further, it does not make a very comfortable seat, whereas thatch is +soft. Now, children in the Highlands are rather fond of sitting and even +playing on the roof: thatch is less cruel on bare feet than iron is. + + +HORRORS OF THE MINCH. + +I have alluded to the distresses of winter voyaging to Skye. But there +are other routes worse, notably that from Tarbert in Harris to +Lochmaddy, which is a perfect Tartar of a trip. When the wind is high +and contrary, the traveller (if he can stay on deck and maintain an +interest in the scenery), beholds a sight of extreme grandeur. The waves +are to be seen all along the Harris coast leaping up to a terrific +extent with an unbroken line of foam extending for miles. So much does +the boat romp and dance, however, that most passengers forsake the deck +and retire inelegantly below. When a man lies in a stuffy cabin wishing +himself wedged into it to prevent the perpetual rolling to this side and +to that, and hearing the desperate thud of the Minch flinging itself +against the port-hole, a series of vivid panoramic pictures pass before +his mental eye. Home appears so lovely and reposeful: faces of friends +on shore arise, transfigured by the glow of love: the squeamishness and +retching he endures seem to the sufferer a special and direct judgment +on him for impiously endeavouring to find pleasure otherwise than by the +practice of the domestic virtues. Disquieting memories of bursting +boilers surge up to the surface of the mind, and old catches like the +weird ballad of Sir Patrick Spens lilt themselves to the clank of the +staggering ship's machinery-- + + "The anchor's brak and the tapmast lap, + It was sic a deadly storm, + And the waves dashed into the gude ship's side + Till a' her planks were torn." + +The romance of the sea is apt to vanish as you look out upon a +wilderness of foaming water, tossing the boat like an insignificant toy, +drenching the bulwarks and vehemently smiting everything in its riotous +anger. Neptune seems a mere blind force without reverence or mercy for +the works of man. It is good for a boy of romantic disposition to cross +to the Long Island in a gale: it will effectually cure him of all desire +to take up the profession of pirate. What a sad moment for such a youth +when he sees his breakfast where it shouldn't be, and reflects that he +has not the staying power of Sir Ralph the Rover! + +I regret to say that I have no specific to give as a preventive for +sea-sickness. Even the Phoenicians who had time, during the intervals +of their hardy voyaging, to invent the alphabet, were unable to devise a +remedy for the _mal de mer_. Custom does not create immunity, for even +the mighty Nelson, who had a life-long acquaintance with the ocean, was +afflicted with sea-sickness to the end of his days. In France there +exists a _Ligue contre le mal de mer_, commenting upon which a French +journalist says: _Avec une ligue on est toujours assur d'une chose: +dfaut de progrs, qu'elle nous fera peut-tre attendre, elle fera des +congrs: et c'est du moins une consolation que de pouvoir discourir de +son mal._ + +He that will to Cupar maun through Fife, and he that has business in the +Lews must brave the billows of the Minch. + + +NOTES ON LEWIS. + +The great island of Lewis, formerly so distant from Edinburgh and +Glasgow, can now be reached in fourteen hours by one who leaves the +latter city at 5.40 A.M. The old route was very tiresome and circuitous: +the traveller had to proceed to Inverness, take the Dingwall and Skye +line to Strome Ferry, and then sail over the Minch to Stornoway. The +opening up of the West Highlands by the railway to Mallaig has changed +all that. At Mallaig pier, when you leave the train, you find the +connecting steamer ready to set off, at noon, for its journey to +Stornoway, where it arrives about eight in the evening. + +I don't think anyone would want to stay more than a week at a time in +Stornoway. The town itself is just like the fishy part of +Boulogne-sur-Mer, only more so. There is a pervading odour of mussels, +bait, and herring, and the gulls go flapping overhead in crowds +everywhere. If the tourist remained a week in the place, he would go +every day to the Castle grounds. Here, if anywhere, is the paradise of +the Lews. There is a profusion of dells, burns, glades, ivy-grown +bridges, and far-extending vistas over sea, moorland, and town. As with +a knife (so precise is the division) the well-wooded policies are +separated from the barren and disheartening moor. When one gets to the +highest point of the grounds and gazes over the long, tiresome slopes of +the island, one's belief in _design in nature_ gets a sudden stab. A man +will think long and sore before he arrives at any _raison d'tre_ for +including such a wilderness of bogs in the scheme of creation. + +The men of the island are, in the main, shrewd, resourceful, and +intelligent--qualities fostered by their constant fighting with the sea. +"The young fellows here," said one of the hotel-keepers to me, "will +either make a spoon or spoil a horn. They come to a decision speedily +and put it into practice at once. It is hit or miss with them, usually +hit. At sea, in a gale, there is no time for parliamenting; and Lewismen +act on land with the swift decision that is needed in a tempest." All +round the coast are fishing-villages, thickly populated by these +intrepid children of the tempest. + +Fishing is a precarious industry, and often fails. The harvest of the +land may fail at the same time as that of the sea: in such a case the +plight of the islanders is sad indeed. During the last five years, the +trade of weaving has been wisely fostered by the Government, so that in +future, when sea and soil are churlish, the loom will to some extent +supply the lack. The Duchess of Sutherland and the Congested Districts +Board have done excellent service in encouraging the tweed-weaving +industry all over the Long Island. Her Grace, some years ago, made a +progress through Lewis and addressed the people by means of an +interpreter, on the advantages of such industry in their homes. She also +instituted exhibition sales of work in the big cities of the south, with +the result that large quantities of cloth were sold and a precious +publicity given to the scheme. Depots for receiving the cloth from the +workers are now established in Stornoway and Harris. The Congested +Districts Board advance money without interest for the purchase of +looms, provide an experienced instructor to supply the people with new +patterns, and give an adequate supply of dye-pots free of charge. This +instructor goes over the whole of Lewis and Harris, spending month about +in each, erecting new looms and modernising old ones. There is a large +carding mill in Stornoway, where the natives can have the wool +expeditiously carded in the most approved modern style. An industry thus +fostered and supervised is bound to succeed. + +Educationally, the Long Island is making great progress. Higher +education is almost entirely centred in the Nicolson Institute, +Stornoway, a school admirably conducted and finely equipped. The pupils +of marked ability in the elementary schools of Lewis come here to +continue their higher studies, and, in many cases, to prepare themselves +for the University. I have seen specimens of a magazine, annually put +forth by the senior pupils of this school, and containing many +interesting essays and poems, grave and gay. The English of the essays +was remarkably good, and contained here and there some piquant +suggestions of Gaelic idiom. The pupils read French well, probably +because their native Gaelic contains such a rich reservoir of nasal +sounds to draw upon. + + +HIGHLAND DOCTORS. + +I have a great respect for the medical gentlemen who have taken up their +position in remote districts of Scotland, and devote themselves to the +healing art under most disadvantageous circumstances. The distances are +incredibly long and dangerous in winter: I have in my mind an insular +doctor who has a deal of midnight boating to do in glacial weather, and +whose bills are often paid not in coin but _in fleece newly off the +sheep's back_. As the population gets smaller, the doctor's work becomes +more laborious and less remunerative. The institution of district nurses +has been a great success, and I wish there were more of them. A +sympathetic and competent _nurse_ is a valuable asset in a crofting or +seafaring community. In one district of Mull, recently visited, I found +that the nurse was also the village librarian. She was quite at home +both with lotions and literature, and could recommend a poet or prepare +a poultice with equal skill. The ante-room to the village hall was her +dispensary: it seemed to me remarkably complete, and to have as +scientific an odour as any city pharmacy. I was glad to see that the +Clan Maclean was so well supplied with the resources of modern +civilisation. + +In every one of the village libraries there is a copy of Black's +_Medical Dictionary_, a most useful compilation, written in clear and +simple language, and detailing all the commonest remedies. Many rural +teachers and clergymen have considerable skill in coping with illness. +Every country minister should have at least a smattering of medical +knowledge.[4] + + [4] At Spean Bridge there is a worthy old farmer, Mr. Chalmers, + who has a widespread fame for dexterous bone-setting, a talent + which is said to have descended to him from a long line of + forbears. A young gentleman from Glasgow was in the hotel there + during my stay, and from personal experience spoke of Mr. + Chalmers's remarkable powers. He told me that patients come from + far and near (after eminent surgeons have failed to give + benefit), in order to be treated at Spean Bridge. + + +HOTELS AND ANGLERS. + +Wherever the angler goes, you find a good hotel. Uist is low-lying and +barren, with nothing to attract the eye--no tourist would go near the +place for anything it has to show in the way of scenery. But as it has +hundreds of small lochs, full of fish, ardent anglers go thither from +all parts of the British Isles; and so at Lochmaddy and Lochboisdale the +hotels are not merely good, they are excellent. The recording angel is +kept busy, during the season, in taking a note of all the myths told +there by the fishers in the evening over the whisky and soda. + +There may be heard, at night, in most hotels in the Western Isles, the +riotous scampering of rats overhead and along the walls. In Lochmaddy +hotel there used to be an old frisker (perhaps he is living still) that +gave great entertainment, though no one ever saw him. He lifted a stone, +evidently with his mouth, ran a yard or two with it, and then dropped it +with a great clatter. The game was a pleasure to him, for he would +practice it for half an hour at a time. The anglers who frequented the +hotel called him _the mason_. + +I have got into conversation with innumerable knights of the rod, and +can sympathise to a slight extent with their enthusiasm. Nothing seems +to take hold of a man so irrevocably as Walton's mania. Travelling by +night in the north lately, I looked out into the dusk from the carriage +window and beheld a bright flash of lightning, and by the gleam thereof +saw a midnight maniac with his rod silhouetted against the vast inane. +How few fishers nowadays, except perhaps Mr. Andrew Lang, can write +their experiences in good marrowy English-- + + The quaint loquacious wits of long ago, + Whose ease was never broken by the shrill + Whistle of engine panting round the hill, + Could by the brook where fishful waters flow, + Spend the long hours in angling to and fro, + And hooking lusty trout and salmon, till + The low-descending sun and evening chill + Would send them to the merry ingle-glow; + Then, after fit refection, pen and ink + Would consecrate on paper all their feats + In rippling phrases flashing with the blink + Of forest glades and living water-sheets; + The race is poorer now than it was then: + We have no anglers that can wield the pen. + +I believe the best region in all Scotland for trout is the wild and +picturesque county of Sutherland. In the district of Assynt alone there +are 150 lochs, fine sheets of water most of them, lying about among the +hills. Half-way between the two seas and just on the borders of +Sutherland and Ross, is the cosy wee hotel of Altnacealgach, with a +well-stocked loch at the door, from which hundredweights of trout are +taken every year. The air that blows about the house is to that of +London as champagne is to dish-water. + +There is a close connection, as I said, between the frequentation of a +district by anglers and the excellence of its hotels. Where there is no +great influx of tourists, the hotel accommodation is decidedly poor. I +remember one inn, at a cold windy clachan on the west coast, which only +stress of weather and dire necessity would make a man enter. Dirty stone +steps, worn and crumbled in the centre, led to an upper room which had +apparently not been swept out for a year or two. Not even the city of +Cologne in Coleridge's time could have produced from among its imposing +catalogue of stenches anything to match the complex ensemble of that +malodorous inn. There was stale fish intil't, and bad beer intil't, and +peat reek intil't, and mice intil't, and candle grease intil't, and the +devil and all intil't. Though I was the only visitor, I feared I should +not have the bed to myself: so I e'en wrapped myself in my Highland +plaidie (after the minimum of disinvestiture), and stretched my limbs on +an arthritic settee, with intent to sleep. No sleep came till the +quaffing roysterers of the clachan had ceased fighting under the moon +outside, about 2 A.M. namely. Rather than stay two nights in such a +place, I boated out early next day into the mid-channel of the Sound of +Mull, and clambered up the sides of Macbrayne's _Lapwing_, which took me +to Oban. + + +RECENT BOOKS. + +The most charming of recent works on the Outer Islands is that one of +which the preface was written in Jerusalem. I refer to the volume of +Miss Goodrich Frere, a lady whose vivacity, fervour, and picturesque +style are deserving of unqualified praise. All the libraries in the +bilingual districts contain the book, and few are so often asked for. In +conversation and publicly I have often given myself the pleasure of +recommending it, alike to Highlander and Lowlander. My admiration for +Miss Frere's talents makes me wish that one or two of her prejudices had +been less glaringly displayed. She speaks, for example, with something +like scornful reproach of Lochmaddy, because the habit of taking +afternoon tea is common in that township. It would have been more to the +purpose if Miss Frere had issued a general warning to the people of the +Hebrides not to drink tea as black as porter, and, above all, not to +boil it. The pale anmic faces one so often sees in the north and west, +the mental prostration and actual insanity so alarmingly on the increase +in the Long Island, are unquestionably due, in great measure, to the +abominably strong tea that is swilled in such quantities there. A +Tarbert doctor told me that the medical profession now talk quite +familiarly of the Harris stomach just as drapers talk of Harris tweed: +the former is, he averred, as weak and devoid of tone as the latter is +strong and of good texture. This doctor was called up at two one morning +to attend a patient in one of the moorland townships. At that hour, away +over there on the gusty rim of the Atlantic, the natives were all afoot. +People were talking to each other at the doorsteps; lamps were lighted +inside, and tea that had been boiling for hours among the red peats, was +being imbibed with infinite gusto. This, the doctor assured me, was the +normal style of living.[5] + +Talking of North Uist, Miss Frere shows indignation at the invasion of +southern ideas, and thinks that everything is being vitiated by the +taint of Lochmaddy. Lochmaddy, characterised in so droll a way, is a +tiny township with a Sheriff Court, a church, a few well-built modern +houses, a school, and an excellent hotel. Cleanliness is a welcome +feature of the place, and I am sorry to say that the same can not be +said of certain crofting villages not far distant. I expect that the +visits of the Government Sanitary Officer, whom I met at Lochmaddy, and +who knows his business well, will ultimately work an enormous amount of +good. That gentleman gave me such unsavoury details regarding the +conditions of life in certain of the townships as made me hope that the +"taint of Lochmaddy," that is to say, the cleanliness and civilised +life of that village, may more and more become evident throughout both +the Uists. Improved sanitation would allow heaven's breath to circulate +through the low-lying cots and prevent them from being hot-beds of +malignant disease. + +One feature of Miss Frere's book which does honour to her fine sympathy, +but which is not ethnologically justifiable, is the persistent attempt +to draw a sharp racial distinction between Highlander and Lowlander. The +truth is, that no part of the Highlands is purely Celtic: the population +is a welter of Picts, Gaels, Norsemen, Danes, and Saxons. The Lowland +blood is, in like manner, a bewildering blend, there being no +uncontaminated Anglo-Saxon district in any single county of Scotland. +Mr. J. M. Robertson's clever book, _The Saxon and the Celt_, seems to me +to dispose finally of certain fallacies that Hill Burton and others have +light-heartedly written on the subject of racial characteristics. The +conditions of life, the ungeniality of sea and soil, the wild and grand +aspect of nature, influence thought, feeling, and character at least as +much as blood and heredity.[6] + +Another delightful book on the Outer Hebrides is that written by Mr. W. +C. Mackenzie. Proceeding in the order of chronology, the author gives a +vivid series of historic summaries (enlivened by many a piquant episode +and humorous touch) of the Long Island from the earliest times. The +wanderings of Prince Charlie, and the condition of the country after +Culloden, have never been better told than in Mr. Mackenzie's narrative. + + [5] The student of eugenics will note that among the tea-bibbing + islanders of the west the teeth of the natives are poor. My + experience tends to show that the best teeth in Scotland are to + be found in Aberdeenshire. When a Buchan audience laughs, there + is a gleam of polished ivory that is very impressive; but rural + Aberdeen has deviated less into slops than any other part of + Britain. + + [6] "There are probably now more persons of Highland descent in + the Lowlands than in the Highlands themselves."--_Scotland of + To-Day_, by Henderson and Watt, p. 300. See also note at end of + chapter on Inverness surnames, etc. + + +MILITARY. + +I hinted at the beginning of this chapter that the barracks of the +Highland regiments had been supplied with extensive libraries for the +use of the soldiers during their leisure hours. Fort-George, the +erection of which was directly due to the Highland rebellions, has been +presented with two fine libraries, and I am happy to say that the men +greatly appreciate the gift. I happened to be in the vicinity of +Fort-George when the Duke of Connaught was conducting an official +inspection. The little town of Ardersier, which is some two miles from +the Fort, was gay with bunting for the ducal visit. The books at the +Fort are under the charge of Sergeant-Major Markham, an able +elocutionist and one who, in his own sphere, does an immense amount of +good. He gets the young recruits to band themselves together in social +clubs, organises games and entertainments for them, and encourages them +to read and study. The philanthropic Sergeant-Major was engaged in +typing a catalogue of the books when the genial Duke came upon the +scene. His Royal Highness was astonished to see such a magnificent +selection of reading matter at the disposal of the soldiers, and eagerly +asked for information as to the origin of the boon. His curiosity was +satisfied, and when he heard that the same donor had given appropriate +libraries to the garrisons at Inverness, Dingwall, and Kinbrace, he +exclaimed, "Such a gentleman is indeed the Soldier's Friend." + +Since the Duke's visit, a small library of books has been sent to the +children's school at the Fort. The population of this military +community, containing as it does a great many married men with their +wives and families, is fully equal to that of Ardersier, and +necessitates a separate school. I was struck with the pronunciation of +the children in this part of the country. Many of the Fort children, +having mothers from the other side of the Border, speak with an +unmistakable English accent and are rather unscrupulous with respect to +the aspirate. The town of Inverness, which is at no great distance from +Fort-George, has long been famous for its clear and unprovincial English +speech, a fact which Johnson (oddly enough) thought due to some of +Cromwell's soldiers having settled there. + +Dr. Johnson devotes two pleasant little paragraphs to describe his visit +to Fort-George and his entertainment there by Sir Eyre Coote. I have +always admired the Doctor's sly way of avoiding a description of the +Fort: "I cannot," he says, "delineate it scientifically, and a loose and +popular description is of use only when the imagination is to be +amused." + +In spite of the menace of Fort-George, the Highlanders fondly cherished +the memory of Charlie for many a year. To no subject even now do their +descendants listen with such rapt attention as to his tragic story. I +have heard indeed of a Highland minister who was so displeased at the +homage paid to the Prince's memory by some of his flock, that he threw +at them the unanswerable question, "What will Prince Charlie do for you +at the day of judgment?" + +I have had the curiosity to ask some of the Session Clerks of country +parishes that were in the line of the insurgents' advance or retreat, if +any references to the rebellion appear in the minutes of the year 1745. +No references appear, as a rule, for that year; but, under 1746, there +are brief accounts of church discipline being exercised in the case of a +few illegitimate births,--the paternity being ascribed usually to _ane +sodger_.[7] + +At Inverness and Dingwall there exist similar libraries of great range +and excellence. The men show an interest in Miss Marie Corelli's works +that is rather astonishing. Their hard and strenuous drill does not +deprive them of a curiosity to know something about _Barabbas_ and _The +Sorrows of Satan_. Sir Conan Doyle and Dr. Neil Munro are also great +favourites, and deserve to be. + +A large number of the Inverness recruits come from the Long Island. They +almost invariably require to be taken to the hospital a week or two +after their arrival. Change of diet and new modes of life seem to upset +them at first. For those who have a mind to improve themselves, there +are abundant opportunities. The reading and recreation rooms are well +appointed and comfortable. Altogether, the regular life, physical drill, +and healthy tone of the barracks must have a most beneficial effect on +the men. + +I am bound to say that I do not greatly admire the English style of the +gentleman who composes the War Office placards that one sees at railway +stations in the north. These are meant to allure country labourers to +join the army, but the following piece of fatuous rhetoric must surely +act rather as a deterrent than otherwise:--"Are you, the descendants of +those who conquered India and carried the colours of the Gordon +Highlanders through the Peninsula and at Waterloo, _content to sit at +home, or be satisfied with dull labours in the fields or at the mills_, +whilst the ranks of your own regiment are filled by strangers from the +South?" I heard two freckled rustics, with difficulty and labour hard, +spelling out the phrases of the foregoing sentence at the little station +of Fyvie. They did not seem at all impressed by the fervent +interrogation nor by this picture of prospective delights: "_Many of +your countrymen have seen the wonders of the Indian Empire and enjoyed +the soft calm of Malta, and of Ceylon, the Paradise of the Ancients._" +It does not evince much knowledge of a ploughman's mind to seek to +awaken his martial ardour by old myths about the Garden of Eden; nor is +it specially alluring to him to mention, as the acme of glory, that he +may distinguish himself so much as to gain "_thanks from both Houses of +Parliament_." Such weak and watery declamation won't do for a country +that has had thirty-eight years of compulsory education. If our War +Office wishes to rouse patriotic feeling, it should cease to contrast +"the dull labour of the fields" with "the soft calm of Malta": the +veriest clown would not be caught by such chaff. It would be more to the +point to send gratuitous copies of _The Barrack Room Ballads_ to all the +village libraries. + + [7] I have heard it maintained by some zealots, whom I greatly + esteem, that Gaelic is a highly _moral_ language, that the use of + it conduces to purity of life and thought, and that everyone + would be improved in tone by contact with its roots. Those + ministers who have charge of Session Records, chronicling events + that happened before English was known in the West, cannot + unreservedly corroborate these views. + + +MORAY FIRTH. + +My various visits to the shores of the Moray Firth have convinced me +that a man may enjoy the majesty and terror of the sea without embarking +on a boat at all. All he need do is to take a ticket to Portsoy in the +month of March, when the wind is snell and the clouds low. I have never +seen a more grim or cruel-looking coast than that which stretches for +miles east and west of Portsoy. One shudders even at the thought of +those detestable, razor-edged rocks, tilted up at all angles, with the +tide for ever boiling and hissing about them. Neither by land nor sea, +at many parts of the coast, can you get to what might be reasonably +called a beach. The so-called shore-road is high up on the hills, and +gives a good view far out over the billows, but does not take the +traveller's feet near the water at all. Ill-advised would he be who +should strive to guide his skiff from the outer firth to any chance cove +on the shore, for the uncouth crags, huge and sombre, would have no +mercy on any timber jointed by the hand of man. Perhaps the summer sun +would give a gentler appearance to the rocky and wave-beaten shore, but +I am certain Mr. Swinburne would prefer to see it in March. + +The town of Portsoy in itself cannot be said to have much comeliness; +the streets are irregular, the houses dismal, and the shops few. God +has, as is meet, the best of the architecture, most of the churches +being graceful and well-spired. + +About twenty minutes by rail from Portsoy is the trim and typical +fishing village of Portknockie, high-raised on a hill, and with little +protection from any wind that Aeolus may send out of his cavern. The +population comes near 1,600 souls, and it is rare to find a native who +is not called by one of the following surnames: _Mair_, _Wood_, _Munro_, +_Pirrie_. I believe such a dearth of appellatives is the invariable rule +in the fishing villages of the North Sea. To counteract the confusion +that would inevitably arise, an agnomen or "tee-name" is usually +appended. The Portknockie tee-names are _Mash_, _Deer_, _Doodoo_, +_Bobbin_, and _Shavie_. Examples of postal addresses are-- + + John Wood (Bobbin), Portknockie. + Duncan Munro (Doodoo), " + Samuel Pirrie (Shavie), " + Daniel Mair (Mash), " + +I don't envy the young minister who, fresh from Lucian, has to read with +solemnity a roll of such communicants. + +Between Portknockie and the sea-town of Cullen is a charming stretch of +links and sea-sands. Over the broad Firth, as one looks north-west, may +be faintly seen the hills of Sutherland and Caithness. + +It is pleasant to read books amid the scenery in which they were +conceived, and among the people they portray. Those who spend their +holidays at Cullen would act wisely in reading George Macdonald's novels +there. No one has drawn the character of the Moray Firth fisherman so +lovingly, beautifully, and sympathetically as he. After reading such a +tale as the _Marquis of Lossie_ one looks upon places like Portknockie +and the sea-town of Cullen with different eyes. The toilers of the deep +that go forth on the waters from these seaboard shires are serious and +moral men. Contact with the sea and the presence of danger at all hours, +have made them alert, keen, and dexterous. Most of the crews carry a box +of choice books with them for their odd hours of leisure when they go to +the Yarmouth fishing. Let a stranger get into conversation with one or +two of these hardy heroes, and he will be surprised at their +intelligence and wide interests. He will certainly conclude that the +young fisherman, Malcolm Macphail, whom Macdonald introduces in the +novel mentioned, is no exaggeration, but true to the life. + +The sea-town of Cullen consists of some hundreds of houses closely +huddled together just at the edge of the sea. The rank odour of wreck, +tar, fishing-gear, and bait, pervades the air, and is effectually kept +from corruption by the searching sea-breezes that are ever blowing. When +not engaged on the water, the men are busy mending their nets, stitching +their sails, making fast the seams of their craft and tarring the big +inflated floaters that support the lines. They are quite ready to chat +with a stranger and discuss their methods of working, their gains, +mishaps, and partnerships. + +When the fishing season is over and the crews are known to be on the way +home, the excitement among the women is intense. No Bourse ever tingled +more feverishly with rumours and sinister fears than Sandhaven or +Rosehearty or Seatown at such a crucial time. Costly nets may be riven, +boats may be stove in by untoward accidents, or worse than all, fathers, +husbands and brothers may be drowned on the road home to their loved +ones. Rarely does a season pass without bringing sorrow to the heart of +some waiting wife or sister. + +The joys, hopes, and fears of these maritime townships have been +worthily made vocal by Dr. George Macdonald. He has done this with a +grace and an artistic conception that raise his stories to a very high +rank in pure literature. I am afraid Macdonald is not much read by the +present generation: his stories are too long, too philosophical, perhaps +too poetical, for the taste of to-day. Every book of his is saturated +from beginning to end with the religion of the Gospels--a religion of +love, beauty, tolerance, and sympathy. + +I am happy to say that I saw Dr. Macdonald once and heard him speak. His +venerable aspect and chaste elocution made a powerful impression on all +who heard him. His discourse could not be reported in cold print, for +the flash of the mystic's eye, the human kindness that emanated from his +whole being, and the felt emotion of his every tone could not be +reproduced by any artifice known to the printer. + +The Forfarshire fishwives have quite a Dutch mania for cleanliness. On +Saturdays they give their homes a complete overhaul, and the men are +driven out of doors during the ceremony. What man could stay at home +when his wife, supplied with a mop and a big pail of soapy water, is +sousing the floor and the walls? Furniture is scrubbed and dusted, glass +ornaments, porcelain hens, and shell-boxes have to be carefully wiped, +grates and fire-irons must be rubbed to a glittering polish. These +industrious women, panting with the enthusiasm of work, enjoy Saturday +more than any other day of the week. The enjoyment springs from various +causes. There is first the delight that comes from a vigorous exercise +of the muscles. This pleasure is heightened by the knowledge that the +work is for a good end, and that on Sunday the house will be +resplendent, immaculate, and peaceful. It is not to be denied that the +feeling of satisfaction at having evicted the husband is also an +important item. When he comes home from discussing politics with his +co-mates and brothers in exile, she will not fail to jibe him on the +general worthlessness of his existence, and accuse him of intemperance. + + +AMONG THE MINERS. + +A fishing village has a picturesqueness and a kinship with Nature and +the hills, utterly lacking in a mining locality. The squalid rows of the +latter, arranged in wretched, heart-breaking symmetry, are an offence to +the landscape. Mud and filth cumber the door-steps, runnels of +malodorous water ooze along the rows, ragged and ill-kempt bairns tumble +about like little savages. A pitiful sight it is to see the black squads +of colliers returning to their homes after a day in the damp bowels of +the earth: greasy caps with little oil-lamps attached, wet, miry +clothing and grimy faces, all make up a most saddening spectacle. The +wages given to these poor fellows are miserably meagre, considering that +after the age of forty-five, their limbs are stiffened with rheumatism +and their lungs the seat of chronic asthma. It is not surprising that +miners should be intemperate, and that their recreations should rise no +higher than dog-racing and cock-fighting. + +It is very unpleasant to think that so much good bone and muscle is +being ground and destroyed by work so brutalising and unnatural. Coal +must be brought to the surface for the wants of civilisation, and in the +process the collier is destroyed, body and soul. Society needs +constantly to be reminded of its duties towards those who, in Helot +fashion, clean the drains and work the mines. Those duties involve more +than the distribution of tracts. + +I had the opportunity of speaking to a crowded meeting of miners in the +county of Stirling quite recently, and was immensely pleased with the +behaviour and close attention of the audience. Before the speaking +began, the proceedings resembled a University Graduation Ceremony, that +is, there was a great deal of whistling, cat-calling, and rowdy +merriment. The audience kept on their caps, and many of them, disdaining +the use of chairs and benches, squatted against the walls in the +position so dear to subterranean workers. Once the lecture began, the +resemblance to a University gathering ceased, for the colliers behaved +like gentlemen. What subject, it may be asked, could possibly interest +an assembly of illiterate miners? It so happens that, in Scotland, we +have a great number of working-men poets, who have, in a homely but very +graphic way, voiced the feelings of the labouring classes, and given fit +expression to every joy and sorrow that men experience in this mortal +round. These hodden-gray bards furnish abundance of material for giving +even the humblest and most untrained mind a few glimpses of what is +meant by literature. Burns has a broad and brawny humanity that appeals +to all men, and, besides Burns, there are scores of major and minor +warblers that are interesting, quotable, and full of grace. + +The wild and unruly manners of some mining districts, even at the +present day, may partly be explained by remembering that up to the end +of the eighteenth century, colliers were serfs and, as such, were not +allowed to leave the mines and seek work elsewhere. When a pit was sold, +the workers passed as a matter of course into the hands of the new +proprietor. The son of a miner was compelled to follow the father's +occupation.[8] Slavery fixed a brutalising mark on generation after +generation that is not yet entirely erased. In the first half of the +nineteenth century the knights of the shuttle--intellectual, +disputatious, and lyrical--looked down with infinite contempt on the +ignorant and boorish slaves of the pick. Poetry has, in consequence, +little to say about the digger for coal. The song of "The Collier +Laddie," attributed to Burns, is one of the very few pleasant pieces of +verse associated with the miner. + +The Scotch mining villages of to-day contain a queer juxtaposition of +nationalities, and the proportion of native colliers is becoming less +and less. Thousands of Irish families from Ulster and Connaught are now +settled permanently in the counties of Lanark, Stirling, and Ayr. The +alien Pole, too, is to be found in the same regions uttering melodious +oaths learned on the banks of the Vistula. To complete the welter, +huckstering Orientals may be seen gliding about among the rows of +houses, fulfilling prophecy and selling highly-coloured pictures of the +Virgin Mary. + + [8] In his book, _Edinburgh and its Neighbourhood_, Hugh Miller + tells the following story, on the authority of Robert + Chambers:--"Though legally only transferable with the works and + the minerals to which they were attached, cases occasionally + occurred in which miners were actually transferred _by sale_ from + one part of the country to another. During the early part of the + XIXth century, the son of an extensive coal-proprietor was + examining with a friend the pits of another proprietor, and + finding a collier whose speech resembled that of the colliers of + his own district, he inquired where he came from. 'Oh!' exclaimed + the man with surprise, 'd'ye no' ken me? _Do ye no' ken that your + faither sell't me for a powny?_'" + + +HAND-LOOM WEAVING. + +The miner is still with us, but the weaver is almost obsolete in the +Lowlands. You must search diligently for him. In Laurencekirk (a quaint +village of one long street, in the shire of Forfar), and in similar +out-of-the-way nooks, can still be faintly heard the music of the +hand-loom. I went recently into a weaver's shop in Laurencekirk, and +found three old men and one aged woman plying their shuttles. The oldest +of the men was born four years after the battle of Waterloo, and there +he sat, like a vision of the vanished years, striving to weave a few +more yards of drugget before going to rejoin his contemporaries of the +reign of George III. He told me there were once seven hundred hand-loom +weavers in the place, and "_that young fellow_" said he, pointing to a +wrinkled carle of eighty on the loom behind, "remembers it as well as I +do." + +The industry of hand-loom weaving, which, a century ago, made every town +in Scotland resonant with the din of shuttles, is thus almost a thing of +the past, and the men who engaged in it have gone the way of their +shoe-buckles, knee-breeches, and seventeen-hundred linen. Yet weavers +were typical of all that was intellectual in Scottish life: every shop +was in its way a miniature university, and every weaver a man who +believed himself capable of giving Pitt a lesson or two on the +management of the war, and Dundas a few hints on political economy. They +had, indeed, far clearer views on politics than most of their +legislators; from their ranks at a subsequent period the Chartist +agitators--regrettably extreme as they were--were largely recruited; and +it is not too much to say that the minds of many of our leading +accredited reformers took the ply from these politicians of the loom. +These men who, in a way so characteristic of Scotland, managed to make +high-thinking subsist on homely fare, can never quite fade from memory +while their tuneful poetical exponent, Tannahill, is read and enjoyed. +In his works we have a page out of the past; and as we read his life and +poems, we behold the Scotch village as it was a century ago; we see the +old houses with their outside stairs, the antique boulder-paved cross, +and the assemblies of aproned craftsmen discussing news much older than +their ale. + +In Broadford, Skye, there is an old crofter who, in his early years, +worked at the loom with Alexander Bain, late Professor in the University +of Aberdeen. Half a century ago, John Stuart Mill said that Bain's +erudition was encyclopdic. From long residence in France, I know that +few British philosophers are better known than Bain (whose name the +French amusingly pronounce to rhyme with _vin_). This old crofter tells +how he used to chaff the future professor for invariably having a book +in front of him as the shuttle was plied. Bain, by slow and careful +work, overcame prejudice, and secured a high position among the leaders +of thought. Long ago, those who had to sit for the London degrees used +to regard him as the greatest thinker in Europe. When he retired from +the examinership at London, students lost some of their old veneration +for him, and when he married a second time, a Miss Barbara Something, +they even ventured to make a logical joke on him, and say that he had +been fascinated by _Barbara's perfect figure_. I know that many pupils +of our public schools, in love with football more than syntax, often +regretted that Bain ever composed his _English Grammar_. No book (unless +perhaps Morell's _Analysis_) has ever been more cordially execrated, and +no book ever more richly deserved it, for though, like Aberdeen granite, +it is stately and impressive, it is also ruthless, cold, and implacable. +The draught may be wholesome and medicinal, but there is no honey on the +rim of the cup. + + +PROFESSOR BLACKIE IN THE HIGHLANDS. + +One hears a great deal of Professor Blackie in the North and West, and +no wonder. He was a laughing, jocular, impressionable man, who hobnobbed +with landlords and amiably slapped drivers and policemen on the back, +throwing a Gaelic greeting at them as he did so. His faculty for writing +poetry is seen in many a guidebook; Oban, Inverness, Pitlochry, and +numberless other places, have had their beauties celebrated by this +animated writer. He was a good friend to the Highlands--studied Gaelic +most arduously, translated some of the finest of the Celtic bards, +worked assiduously for the establishment of a Celtic Chair in Edinburgh, +spoke many a good word for the crofters--in fact, did everything well +except what he was paid to do, viz., teach Greek to his students. Grave +D.D.'s could not understand or condone his cantrips. I have been assured +that on one occasion, when Professor in the College of Aberdeen, he +actually _stood on his head_ before a class of students. Mr. Barrie has +given a very amusing and quite unexaggerated account of the Professor's +normal demeanour in Edinburgh. Blackie's text books of _Greek Dialogues_ +are full of the most waggish remarks. + +The landlady of Kinlochewe Hotel gave some lessons in Gaelic to this +convulsive old scholar. He would come in with a Celtic Bible below his +arm, and, opening the sacred volume, read a chapter or two at a terrific +rate of speed, and whistle triumphantly when he had finished. Highland +folk did not care to converse with Blackie for three reasons: (1) he +spoke too quickly for the leisurely and composed conversation of the +Gael; (2) his pronunciation was bad, and people did not like to tell him +so or correct him--(no one ever pronounced Gaelic to perfection who did +not get the language with his mother's milk); (3) he was fond of using +literary words, taken from the older bards, in his ordinary +conversation; now, such words are obsolete in every-day talk and quite +unfamiliar to crofters and cottars. In the Highlands, Blackie's English +was better understood than his Gaelic. + +Blackie was undoubtedly a very able scholar--not, indeed, of that minute +burrowing kind famous in Germany, but rather of the class that delights +in the literature and vivid force of a language. He _spoke_ Latin and +Greek, and held views on the teaching of these tongues that seemed more +eccentric in his time than they do now. He declared that the linguistic +achievement of which he was proudest was his mastery, such as it was, of +the language of the Gael. + +It affords me pleasure in the retrospect to think of old Blackie at a +distribution of prizes to school-children in a town of the West some +years before his death. During the chairman's opening remarks the merry +old man continued to whistle like a mavis. When the chairman sat down, +Blackie embraced him and called him fellow-sinner. Some recitations +followed from the children, one of which was Burns's "Address to a +Haggis." When the young elocutionist came to the lines-- + + "Till a' their weel-swall'd kites belyve + Are bent like drums." + +Blackie rolled in his chair, held his sides and uproariously expressed +his approbation. Then came the distribution of prizes, during which the +Grand Old Boy made some pun or quaint remark on each of the children's +names, as he presented the books: _"Miss Minnie Morrow_: never put off +till to-morrow what you can do to-day; _James Glen_: be a real genuine +_Glen_ all through life, not a _valet_ or flunkey; _William Lindsay_: +Willie, my lad, imitate your ancestors at Otterburn: 'The Lindsays flew +like fire about till a' the fray was done'; _Mary Black_: black but +comely like the daughters of Jerusalem," and so on, in a bird-witted, +half-daft way that the audience contemplated with benevolent wonder. + + +NOTE ON INVERNESS SURNAMES, ETC. + +Let me mention here a very useful and interesting piece of philology +that was done by Dr. Macbain in 1895. That eminent scholar, working on +the _Inverness Directory_, analysed the names occurring there, explained +them on sound principles of etymology, and gave percentages of Celtic +and Saxon surnames in the Highland capital. + +Roughly speaking, the _Directory_ of 1894-1895 had 5,000 single entries, +and _750 distinct surnames_. Of these surnames, only 110 are pure +Gaelic. About 70 per cent. of the natives are, however, supposed to be +of Highland descent. + +Dr. Macbain points out that certain Highland clans have names that are +not Celtic: _Grant_ is from the French "grand"; _Fraser_ from the French +"fraise," a strawberry (the Frasers have a strawberry in their +coat-of-arms); _Chisholm_ is English and means "gravel-holm,"--the +Anglo-Saxon _ceosol_ (pebble) is preserved in _Chesil Beach_ and +_Chiselhurst_; _MacLeod_ signifies "son of Ljot"; and _ljotr_ is the +Norse word for "ugly." _Campbell_ is probably Norman-French, though Dr. +Macbain suggests _cam-beul_, Gaelic for "crooked mouth." In olden times +an external conqueror would sometimes subdue a district, and call the +natives after his noble self. + +The commonest names in the town are Fraser, Macdonald, Mackenzie, +Macintosh, Ross, Cameron, and Munro. About 1,200 of the population have +one or other of the first three names. The Frasers are an easy first, +and form more than 9 per cent. of the population. + +_John_, _Alexander_, and _William_, are the commonest Christian names in +Inverness. "It is remarkable and indeed regrettable," says Dr. Macbain, +"that the Gaelic Christian names (Donald, Duncan, Kenneth, Murdoch, and +Angus), are not higher in the list." + +The name of the first recorded inhabitant of Inverness (A.D. 1200) is +Geoffrey Blount, a feudal warrior no doubt (French _blond_). In the +thirteenth century we have the names _Noreys_, _Grant_, and _Hay_. In +the fourteenth century the leading name is Pilch, derived from +_peluche_, the French for "plush." In the fifteenth century, _Reid_, +_Vaus_, and _Cuthbert_ are prominent citizens. _Vaus_ is said to mean +"of the vales," _i.e._, _de Vallibus_; _Reid_ is Scotch for "red"; and +_Cuthbert_ is pure Lowland. Evidently the leading men were aliens and +interlopers. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +MUSIC, SPEECHES, AND LITERATURE. + + Scotch a reading nation--Hardships of students in old + days--Homer in Scalloway--When education ends--Objects of + chapter--Music--M.P.'s--Rural depopulation--Its + causes--Emigration--Village halls--The moon--A lecture in + Islay--Mental and material wealth--Real greatness--A Highland + laird on literature--Varieties of chairmen--"Coming to the + point"--Moral obligation--Compliment to Paisley--Oratory at + Salen--Lecture in a dungeon--Surprises--A visit to the + Borders--Tarbolton--Scotch language--Choice books--The + essayists--A Banff theory--Goldsmith in Gaelic--_Biblia + abiblia_--Favourites for the road--Horace--Shakespeare's + Sonnets--Xenophon--French literature and journalism--Romance and + Augustanism--Victorian writers--Celt and Saxon. + + +SCOTCH A READING NATION. + +I think it was Mr. Holyoake, the veteran lecturer, who, in a volume of +reminiscences, declared he found the audiences in Scotland more +intelligent than elsewhere. I cannot draw such comparisons, for I have +not spoken often south of the Tweed; this I can say with assurance, +however, that no one need hesitate to address an audience of Scotch +peasants on a topic of literary interest. Predestination and such +religious trifles may stir them to disrespectful heat, but pure +literature invariably draws forth their cool and critical attention. +Probably no nation has ever devoted so much attention to books, and, as +the result of this characteristic, Scotland, considering its size and +population, has produced far more than its proportion of eminent men. At +the Reformation epoch, when the comforts of a Lowland cottage would be +little in advance of those in a present-day Uist croft, writers like +George Buchanan and his fellows of the _Delici Poetarum Scotorum_ made +the excellence of Scotch scholarship known in every university of +Europe. Buchanan was really a typical Caledonian man of +genius--open-eyed, sagacious, patriotic, and cosmopolitan--and I can +strongly recommend the occasional perusal of his Latin Psalms to all +modern readers who wish to keep their feelings of reverence fresh and +prevent their Latin quantities from getting amorphous. + + +HARDSHIPS OF STUDENTS IN OLD DAYS. + +Those who think highly of the Scotch intellect, point with pride to the +fact that for many a year the Prime Minister, the leader of the +Opposition, and the Archbishop of Canterbury all hailed from the North. +For my own part, I am chiefly interested in cases where eminence has +resulted from the cultivation of literature on a little oatmeal. A few +months ago, I had the pleasure of chatting, over a cup of tea, with the +suave old gentleman who combines the postmastership of Dunvegan with the +office of factor to the Macleod of Macleod. He held me spell-bound for +an afternoon as he narrated in graphic language the hardships of the +Skye students in former times. Many a Skye youth, I was told, bent on +studying the humanities at Aberdeen, would mount his sheltie, traverse +thereon the rough roads of his misty island as far as Kyleakin, cross +the ferry there, ride on east through the ben-shadowed track of Glen +Moriston, and finally bear down on the streets of the Granite City. +There the o'erlaboured sheltie would be sold to pay the matriculation +fees. + + +HOMER IN SCALLOWAY. + +Many little out-of-the-way townships in insular Scotland contain +scholars who would find themselves quite at home among a set of college +dons. In the course of my travels in Shetland I came to the tiny village +of Scalloway, and while standing on the pier gazing alternately at the +confusion of sea and island, and at the grim old ruined castle where +Earl Patrick, the wicked viceroy, once resided, I heard a conversation +on geology being carried on between a tall and brawny shopman and some +sailors. The latter, who were on board a ship, shouted their replies +over a few yards of water to the shopman, who was on the pier near me. I +was interested in the men's talk, which had to do with the subsidence of +the land at this part of the coast. One of the sailors alleged that his +grandmother's cabbage-patch was now covered by the water on which his +boat was floating. The big shopman, turning to me, quoted the well-known +passage of Tennyson (everyone can repeat it) of the sea flowing where +the tree used to grow. "O Earth, what changes thou hast seen." This +quotation led to a literary talk in which he remarked that of all poets +he preferred Homer. "What translator do you like best?" I enquired. +"Blackie's," he replied, "as being the most faithful to the original. +But I rarely read a translation, '_I prefer Homer in his own Greek._'" +This remark made by one whose fingers were glistening with +herring-scales, came to me as a pleasant surprise. Later on in the day, +I visited his house and saw his fine library and his splendid selection +of classical books. Not many teachers of my acquaintance have a better +array of the editions of Homer. He was not one of your ignorant +collectors who know only the outside of what they buy. He had read over +the whole forty-eight books of the text again and again, and could +discuss knotty passages in most interesting and original fashion. His +memory was evidently an excellent one. He informed me that most of his +reading was done in the early morning, and that he found five hours' +sleep quite adequate. I have a most agreeable recollection of my +interview with this self-taught scholar. I believe there are many like +him in not a few outlandish nooks of Scotland,--men who read books not +for any material advantages that result from their studies, but simply +and solely for the intense pleasure that comes from communion with the +masterminds of bygone generations. + +Travel in remote districts of Britain reveals the fact that our +provincials, whenever they have the chance, are a studious and +thoughtful race. The isolation and monotony of life in many parts are +bound to drive men to study and reflection if the means for these are at +hand. Sisyphus himself had hardly less variety of occupation than some +of our shepherds whose work on the hills involves long absences from +social intercourse. To such men (whose life is suggestive of a repeating +decimal) the access to an ell or two of good books often means mental +salvation. Nothing is so melancholy as to find a countryman of brains +who has never had the opportunity of cultivating his mind in such a way +as to eliminate prejudice and widen the range of interest. + + +WHEN EDUCATION ENDS. + +I am sometimes inclined to think that many of our rural clergymen, +intent on shielding their congregations from pestilent doctrine and +latitudinarism, are actuated by much the same spirit as the Sultan Omar +when he set fire to the great Library at Alexandria. The Bible is no +doubt the best of books, and it may be that the Confession of Faith +comes next: but when these have got their share, there still remains the +religious duty of educating the intellect by a wide perusal of the +inspired apostles of secular literature. A Highland teacher, who +presided at one of the lectures in the north, expressed himself very +appositely thus on the subject of education: "The supposition that +education is over when a boy leaves school, is far too prevalent," he +said. "Education properly considered comes to an end when the last +breath of life is drawn. Edward Young in his _Night Thoughts_ says: +'Were man to live coeval with the sun, the patriarch-pupil would be +learning still.' Young was undoubtedly right: some of the most forceful +and penetrating lessons of life are given to us long after we have cast +our text-books into some dusty corner, never to be opened more. In our +early days, we cannot choose our own teachers, and there is often a good +deal of force and constraint. The delightful thing about our education +in mature life is that we have the selection of our own masters. There +is no compulsion whatever. I am convinced that for everyone of us there +is some one author whose works will act as medicine for the mind and be +an unfailing tonic in all conditions of the soul." + + +OBJECT OF CHAPTER. + +I intend to devote this chapter to a description of a few of the +speeches delivered by some of the speakers at such literary evenings in +various parts of the country. After I had said my say, I sometimes +invited an expression of opinion. Almost invariably someone responded to +the invitation, with the object of asking a question, expressing +dissent, or intimating concurrence. I do not recollect a single meeting +out of hundreds that could be called monotonous. It did not in the +slightest detract from the interest of a meeting that many of the +remarks erred on the score of irrelevancy. The attention never flagged +from first to last, and it was no uncommon thing for the proceedings to +last for over three hours. In giving typical speeches delivered by +crofters, lairds, tradesmen, and clergymen, I mean to indicate to the +reader _the subjects that are of interest to our provincial population, +their attitude to questions of literature and social life, and +incidentally the great amount of humour that still exists in the world_. + + +MUSIC. + +The free and unconventional character of these meetings was perhaps seen +best of all in the musical part of the proceedings, which was always +arranged locally. Usually the songs were well-known Highland or Lowland +airs, in many cases so exquisitely rendered that it was quite evident +there had been much previous preparation. When my opinion was asked +beforehand, I invariably recommended national melodies. It was always a +treat to get a Gaelic song or two well rendered. At Acharacle (a little +place at the far end of Lochshiel) Mr. Rudd's piper gave some fine +Highland tunes, which evoked great enthusiasm. Personally I prefer the +pipes to every other instrument, for this reason, that even if I don't +understand all the music, I can appreciate the scenic effects. The +Acharacle piper was a fine specimen of the Celt, and his get-up was +glorious: + + "He screwed his pipes and gart them skirl + Till roof and rafters a' did dirl." + +Sometimes the phonograph formed part of the musical programme. I do not +approve of this demoralising instrument except to a very limited extent. +The cylinders usually gyrate with records of fatuous music-hall songs, +unedifying coster-airs and farcical speeches. The _vox humana_ +interpreting national melodies is infinitely better. What vigour and +illustrative expression the islanders can throw into their songs! I have +but to shut my eyes to see the policeman of Staffin interpreting "The +Bonnie House o' Airlie." When his big, manly voice threw out the +terrible threat, "_I'll no' leave a staunin' stane in Airlie_," his eyes +shot fire, his teeth gleamed, and his ponderous fist came thundering +down on the table in front of him. + +I still remember with infinite pleasure the strains of Mr. Cameron's +Poolewe Choir, heard in Gairloch school-house. That energetic and +complaisant conductor brought his clear-throated minstrels over to the +meeting in a brake. It was a luxury to see them with their white robes +and tartan sashes, while in front of them stood their genial leader clad +in kilts. The Gaelic _Mod_, which is now a regular institution in the +land, is bound to do splendid service towards keeping alive the fine old +music of the North. The Poolewe Choir, I am happy to say, won much +distinction at the _Mods_ of both Inverness and Greenock. _There is +great need for choirs, and great need, also, for innocent songs of a +secular character._ Before I spoke to the people of Eigg, I requested +the teacher to arrange, if possible, for a musical programme. The reply +staggered me: "No man, woman, or child in this island would for a moment +even dream of singing a worldly song. We are all converted here, except +a few benighted Catholics. The vain, fleeting joys of this world are as +dross to us. The missionary has a modulator, and he trains the young men +and women in the sol-fa so that they may sing Sankey's hymns in all the +parts." I was dreadfully floored by this answer, and could only mutter +mechanically, "_Dross_," "_Missionary_,'" "_Modulator_," in a vain +effort to seize the situation. Conversion I understood and approved of, +but where, in the wee island of Eigg, were the vain, fleeting joys? +There is no public-house in the place, and little temptation of any +kind. The most disquieting item of all was the modulator: I have not +seen one for a long time, and am not sorry, for there is nothing which +so spoils the appearance of a wall nor anything so dismal as practising +scales. A compromise was come to, and it was arranged that some Gaelic +readings, containing a dash of religion, should take the place of songs, +and give some variety to the evening's proceedings. + +At some of the meetings there was perhaps an _excess of realism_. +Bottom, in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," wishing to avoid excitement and +fear among the ladies when he is acting the part of Pyramus, says: +"Write me a prologue; and let the prologue seem to say, we will do no +harm with our swords, and that Pyramus is not killed indeed; and for the +more better assurance tell them that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but +Bottom the weaver: this will put them out of fear." I thought of +Bottom's extreme delicacy when I was present at a meeting in Tomatin not +long ago. An outstanding feature of the evening's proceedings was the +vividly dramatic rendering of the song, "Macpherson swore a feud," by +the local postman. The latter, a big, burly man, was extremely +formidable in his Highland attire. When he came to the verse dealing +with the untimely decease of Macpherson, he whipped the dagger out of +its sheath, flourished it as in act to kill, and terrified some of the +lady visitors by his vivid suiting of the action to the word. They were +as much astonished at the flash of the _skian dhu_ as the Commons were +when Burke threw a dagger on the floor of the House. + +A musical treat is sometimes got in the most unexpected places. I was +particularly struck with a children's glee-party in Jura (a rough island +known chiefly for its sterile Paps). The bairns admirably rendered Ben +Jonson's delightful ditty, "Drink to me only with thine eyes," and the +Shakespearian song, "Where the bee sucks, there suck I." In such islands +a musical teacher is a valuable asset. Let me add that all the libraries +have been gratuitously supplied with fine collections of Scottish music. + +At Acha, in the island of Coll, four sturdy farm-maidens, ruddy with +health and robed in white, gave various English and Gaelic airs in +admirable style. A divinity student sang a _coster song_ (think of this +in an island of craggy shores, gulls, wild-swans, and curlews!), and on +being encored, he gave a "Cradle Lullaby," and by gently swaying a chair +backwards and forwards on the platform, he strove to illustrate the +movements of childhood's earliest receptacle. + +A military gentleman--an ex-major--in proposing a vote of thanks, one +evening, to the singers, said he had sung a song but once in his life, +the occasion being his admission to the Royal Engineers, thirty years +before. It was a standing law in that body that every novice should sing +a song or drink a mixture consisting of whisky, ink, and cayenne pepper. +He chose the former alternative, and at the end of the first verse the +Royal Engineers had all left the room in a demoralised condition! + + +M.P.'s. + +At one of the meetings in Argyleshire, I had the joy of speaking under +the chairmanship of the glib and able Mr. Ainsworth, M.P. for that +county. Among the votes of thanks was one for the chairman: it made a +profound impression upon me, as much by its form as by its substance: "I +hope, Mr. Ainsworth, that you will take better care of your health in +future (hear, hear). No, no, you are not taking care of your health at +all (laughter). We all expect you to be Prime Minister, and that is the +reason we would like you not to roam about so much and undermine your +constitution (cheers). You are always travelling. You are like the +Wandering Jew. No! you are like a little bird on a bough. To-day, we see +you on a tree near the door; to-morrow, we see you on a tree a hundred +miles away" (great cheering). Mr. Ainsworth kindly promised that, in +view of his destiny, he would cease to range around the country so +indiscriminately. + +Unfortunately, I have never met Mr. Galloway Weir, but I have heard much +of the zeal of himself and his agents. The following story hinges on the +fact that _Weir_ and _wire_ have the same pronunciation in Lewis. An old +illiterate crofter came to record his vote by word of mouth, and told +the polling sheriff: "I will vote for the right man, yes, yes, it's the +right man I will be voting for this time." "That may be," said the +sheriff, "but unless you will tell me his name, you can't vote." "Well, +if you must know," said the old man, handing the sheriff a +stocking-wire, "_I will be voting for the man that has the same name as +that_." + + +RURAL DEPOPULATION. + +The mention of that eminent politician brings to my mind the frequent +references made at these meetings to the painful subject of rural +depopulation. Everyone regrets the exodus of young men from the country +to the town, a practice which depletes the rural villages and deprives +the land of the strong arms that should find employment in working it. +The ministers are not without hope that the rush city-wards may be +checked by improving the conditions of country life, rendering it more +attractive to the young, and enlisting the aid of Government in the +scheme of small-holdings. Motives of health, morality, and patriotism, +are all concerned in the fostering of a hardy peasantry. Everything that +makes country life attractive to young men must operate to make them +regret to quit it. I wish I could reproduce textually all the strong and +astounding speeches I have heard in the Highlands on this subject of +depopulation. + +"We often hear," said a farmer, "that it's healthy men and women that +make up the true wealth of a country, and if that is true, Scotland, for +all its increase of riches, is every year growing poorer. How can the +people left in the glens continue to propagate a hardy race, if all the +young healthy bloods leave for the cities and settle there? I am afraid +that both brain and brawn will continue to get feebler among us, unless +the Government give some kind of inducement for the peopling of the land +with bien, self-respecting men _that have a bit land of their own_. It's +impossible to get farm-hands round Tayside nowadays, and it's not to be +wondered at. Suppose a young man stays here, what prospect has he, what +incentive has he to work? At the age of seventeen he has earned the +highest wage he will ever earn. Thereafter his life is a slow, +monotonous serfdom; he has no hope whatever of rising, he is doomed to +live from hand to mouth all the years of his existence. But put before +that young man the hope that he can _become the owner_ of a morsel of +land, however small, and you put life and pride into him. He will work +in that case with intelligent purpose, knowing that every penny he saves +is to be employed in making him a landed proprietor, and every detail of +experience he gains will tell in the future for his direct benefit. Our +young fellows don't really want to leave the land and go to die +prematurely (as a great many of them do) in the slums of Glasgow and +Edinburgh. They go to the cities because there is at least _a chance_ of +bettering their lot there, a chance which is entirely lacking at home. +Some of them go away to the colonies and thrive as farmers there. I +rejoice to hear of such success; but I rejoice with trembling when I +think how much of Britain's best manhood has to leave her shores to till +Transatlantic fields, while so much land at home remains unoccupied. By +and by, if you want to see a good specimen of the Highlander, you will +have to go to Canada. Sooner or later, and the sooner the better, the +vigorous action of Government will be demanded to remedy the present +iniquities of land-tenure, and to put a stop to the compulsory +degradation of those who till the soil." + + +ITS CAUSES. + +The present seems to be an opportune time for directing public attention +to some remarkable changes that are taking place in the population of +the rural districts of Scotland. A great deal of speaking and writing +has been expended of late years in lamenting the depopulation of the +country. Young fellows do not like the monotony of village and farm +life: they prefer the stir and excitement of the cities. Such things are +not to be wondered at. Town life has always had an attraction for those +whose energy requires a wide scene of action. Energy and ambition go +together, and it is the possessor of such qualities that makes the +successful city man. The country does not give scope enough for their +adequate display. + +The railway train and the inventions of modern times are both answerable +for a certain amount of depopulation. I believe the condition of +farm-hands has been markedly improved of late years. They have now a +shorter day, higher wages, better food, and superior house +accommodation. Mechanical appliances have made farm-work lighter and +more agreeable. The drudgery of the threshing flail is now unknown; the +hook and the scythe have given way to the reaping-machine: in every way +hand labour has been lightened. But it is precisely this machinery that +lessens the need for large numbers of agricultural labourers. It is also +notorious that shoemakers, tailors, and blacksmiths, are not so much +required in the country as they used to be. Ready-made shoes and clothes +are brought by rail from the city, and local tradesmen are reduced in +numbers. + + +EMIGRATION. + +There seems to be in our day a competition among the Governments of the +New World, which of them can lure away the greatest number of our +peasantry. The latest candidate for our rural youth is the State of +Virginia, the legislature of which has voted a large sum of money to +pay the expenses of two delegates, who are at work in the East of +Scotland, hunting for likely emigrants. These Virginian delegates--Mr. +Koiner and Col. Talliafer--paid the passage-money of over a hundred +stalwart lads from Lochtayside in the autumn of 1906. + +No one who has the opportunity of travelling through Scotland can fail +to be struck by the absolute frenzy for emigration that exists +everywhere. There is a constant stream of emigrants from all our +agricultural counties to the wide plains of Canada. That great colony is +being "boomed" in a most energetic way. In Sutherlandshire, I saw a +large van, with placards and specimens of Canadian produce, being driven +through Strath Halladale, to tempt the crofters over the deep. I have +also, at the railway stations in the North, beheld heart-rending scenes +of parting as the young fellows said good-bye to their parents and +friends: + + "Who could guess + If ever more should meet these mutual eyes."[9] + + [9] Such emigration has, of course, nothing to do with the + systematic work instituted by Mr. William Quarrier of Bridge of + Weir. That devout philanthropist occupied himself with the waifs + and strays of Glasgow, taught them trades, and sent large numbers + of them to the colonies to learn farming. One Saturday, in 1907, + I saw a hundred and twenty of these lads, who were on Bridge of + Weir platform waiting for the train. The scene was pathetic in + the extreme--enough to melt a heart of nether millstone. Many of + the lads were in tears as they answered the roll-call for the + last time. In the afternoon they (and over two thousand + emigrants) left the Clyde, amid sobs, cheers, and the waving of + multitudinous handkerchiefs. These boys go, in the first + instance, to Brockville, in the province of Ontario, whence they + are distributed out among the Canadian farmers. + + +VILLAGE HALLS. + +In most of the places I have visited, the school-house is the only +available hall for public meetings. Now, a school-room, with its small, +cramped seats, its lack of platform, and its defective ventilation, is +not well adapted for large gatherings. No man likes to speak _up to the +waist in audience_, under a low roof, and in stifling air. If less money +were spent on needless church-building, every district in the Highlands +might have its hall for purposes of recreation, reading, and lecturing. +As it is, the churches should everywhere be used far more than they are +for secular gatherings of an elevating kind. Religion suffers greatly +from the closing of churches to concerts and lectures. + +The kindness of local lairds is nowhere more pleasantly shown than in +the giving of funds towards the creation of village halls and recreation +rooms. The little village of Alness has a splendid Working Men's Club, +furnished with everything requisite for pleasure and +profit--smoking-room, billiard-room, and reading-room. This Club owes +its existence to the generosity of Mr. Perrins--known everywhere for the +excellence of his famous condiment--who has an estate in the vicinity. +Kiltarlity and Beauly have, for similar instances of discreet bounty, +permanent reason for blessing the name of Mr. Phipps. Other instances +that occur to me are the spacious Dunbar Hall in Auldearn, due to the +kindness of the family of which the genial Sir Frederick Dunbar, Bart., +is the present representative, and the Astley Hall in Arisaig, named +after the family so long associated with that charming West Highland +village. + +It must not be supposed that the natives do not thankfully welcome such +work on their behalf. Many of the townships, it is true, have had +libraries and halls for many a year, and have established these entirely +on their own initiative; but outside help and enterprise stimulate local +effort in a way often impossible otherwise, as the natives themselves +admit. At Nethy Bridge, a fine hall, with club-room, has been recently +erected, largely owing to the enthusiasm of a London lady resident in +the vicinity. She was distressed to see the young fellows of the place +loafing aimlessly about at night, and proceeded to organise some +rational amusement for them. Her philanthropy has been greatly +appreciated. At Kilmartin, the jubilee of Queen Victoria was signalized +by the erection of the Poltalloch Victoria Hall--an enterprise in which +laird and crofter alike willingly co-operated. It is in this hall that +the Library is established. Mr. Dixon, the erudite historian of +Gairloch, set aside the profits of his book to help in furnishing the +reading-room at Poolewe, in Wester Ross. + +When a rural community has a library and a place to meet in, a literary +society is, as a rule, soon formed. Such a society, founded for an +elevating and educational purpose, forms a common meeting-ground for all +sects, schisms, and parties. I am aware that in most towns of any size +there are such societies in connection with the special churches. In the +Highlands it is better to eliminate the denominational element, for the +very good reason that, the population being small, no one of the too +numerous churches would furnish a representative enough roll of +members. I was charmed to find that the little town of Portree, of which +the population is not much more than eight hundred, has a fine literary +society, established on the broad and rational lines I have indicated. +As might be expected from the intellectual advancement and strong +literary bent of the inhabitants, the lectures given and the subjects +discussed at the meetings of the Portree society are of a more erudite +nature than anywhere else in the West Highlands. Most of the Portree +clergymen and professional men are on the list of members. + + +THE MOON. + +Very few city people pay much attention to the moon: in the country that +luminary has to be constantly deferred to when arrangements are being +made for social meetings, dances, or lectures. When many of the audience +have to come six, or even ten miles by land or water, light is needed, +and light from above is best. It increases a lecturer's pride to be told +that the plashing of oars over there on the argent face of the waters is +an indication that some of his audience are coming from the other side +of the loch. At the conclusion of many of the lectures, I have seen half +a dozen traps, boats, and bicycles speeding away merrily in different +directions. But for the bright moon, the audience would have been +limited to the immediate neighbourhood of the place of meeting. + +It has often happened that my hotel was as much as seven miles from the +lecture hall. As closed carriages are rare in certain districts, and as +it frequently rains--when it is not snowing--in the West and North of +Scotland, I had many good opportunities for gauging my powers of +endurance. The road from Killin to Ardeonaig is a fair example of a +Highland highway:-- + + "Rough, hilly roads, that stain the spokes with mire; + Thick folds of ebon night on loch and law; + The moan of breezes wailing through the shaw + Like the weird plaints of an olian lyre: + And intermittently through the clouds, the fire + Of lightning streaks the night with glitter and awe, + And lapses swiftly in the dismal maw + Of darkness, 'mid the din of thunder dire. + But to relieve the sad night's sullenness, + And clear the heavens for the timid moon, + The straight-descending rain riots like hail + For a fierce hour, in prodigal excess; + Anon the clouds unmuffle, and the pale, + Thin crescent of Diana gilds night's noon." + +The place of meeting at Ardeonaig was on the shores of Loch Tay, and the +main road from Killin is high up and does not go near the water at this +point. After alighting from the machine, I had to descend to the +loch-side by a steep, miry, and circuitous road through a wood. As the +"thin crescent of Diana," alluded to above, was not adequate to light my +footsteps here, I struck some futile vestas, which the dripping leaves +at once extinguished. Two elders, swinging lanterns and calling me by +name, by and by divided the night in my vicinity. Their appearance was +welcome, for the torrential rain had made the track one continuous +slippery quagmire. The hospitality of the Ardeonaig minister speedily +banished all recollection of the "sad night's sullenness."[10] + +A more trying, because a longer, drive is that from Kilmun to Strachur, +by way of Loch Eck. In the leafy month of June, nothing could be finer; +but in a winter blizzard, one's appreciation of the glory of nature is +somewhat less than rapturous. I mention the Strachur meeting because it +was graced by the presence of a large contingent of local volunteers in +civilian attire. The War Office ought to know that the inclement weather +prevented these warriors appearing in their uniform. + + [10] It is not often possible, in the _islands_, to get anything + but a trap or open coach. In Lochranza, on a day of dreary, + disheartening rain, I found on enquiry that there was no covered + vehicle to be had except the _hearse_. + + +A LECTURE IN ISLAY. + +The westerly leg of Islay contains one or two places that have public +libraries sent from Paisley: Portnahaven and Port Charlotte on the sea, +and Gruinart inland and more to the north. It is a weird experience to +drive along the shore road from Bridgend on a night of pitiless rain, +and see the heavy mists broken every now and then by the far-reaching +flash of the Portnahaven lighthouse. Equally weird is it to lecture in a +school with no lamps (as happened at Port Charlotte). At eight o'clock I +could see the faces of the audience well enough, but by and by the room +became quite dark, and I seemed to be addressing an audience of silent +and attentive ghosts. After I had finished, a Phantom arose in the far +corner of the room and proposed a vote of thanks; and thereafter a Voice +somewhere pronounced the benediction. Then there was a movement of feet, +and the shadowy spectres trooped out into the night. The foolish virgins +had no oil in their lamps; in Port Charlotte, there was neither oil +_nor_ lamps.[11] + + [11] Islay is yearly becoming better known. It is an undulating + island, covered with rich meadow-land, the home of horses, sheep, + and cattle. There should not be a hungry man within its + circumference. Under the old lairds--the Campbells--there were + 14,000 inhabitants, now there are 6000. + + +SOME SPEECHES. + + +MENTAL AND MATERIAL WEALTH. + +I never heard the difference between mental and material wealth more +forcibly expressed than by an old Perthshire shoemaker. "Supposing," +said he, "that I had fifty pounds in my pocket at the present moment. +What a wild supposition, but good enough for an illustration! What +inference would you draw from me having that sum of money? This, namely, +that no other person in the universe has the same fifty pounds. The same +pair of boots cannot be worn by two persons at the same time. The same +guinea cannot be twice spent by the same man. It is different with +spiritual things, and with works of art. Scores of people can +simultaneously enjoy a great painting or a fine piece of music: _my_ +enjoyment does not interfere with _yours_, indeed, it is more than +likely that my enjoyment will be greatly increased from knowing that +other people are enjoying it as I am. Then again, you can't eat the same +loaf of bread twice: but you can return a hundred times to the same +song, poem, or picture, and like them better the hundredth time than the +first. A pathetic old tune does not lose anything in being sung by +generation after generation. It is always as good as new. Like the +widow's cruise of oil, it can be used without being consumed. These +facts show that works of art--good books, good poems, good music--are, +in a certain sense, immortal and divine. A hundred years ago, our +ancestors sang 'Bonnie Doon'; we, to-day, sing it with undiminished +fervour; a hundred years after this, the song will be fresh. Aye, and a +humorous American writer thinks some of us will hanker for it in heaven: + + 'Perhaps in that refulgent sphere + That knows not sun or moon, + An earth-born saint would long to hear + One verse of Bonnie Doon.'" + + +REAL GREATNESS. + +The Rev. Chairman of this meeting emphasised the shoemaker's remarks in +the following admirable words: "I often wonder what is really the +greatest thing ever done by a citizen of this country of ours, by a man +of English speech. If we agree with our worthy shoemaker and his way of +thinking, we shall not look at the big accumulation of guineas as an +indication of greatness. Certain commercial men (who ought to know +better) seem to think God has sent us into this lovely world for the +sole purpose of piling up as much money as possible, and then, by death, +leaving it to others to spend. _That_ can hardly be considered our +reasonable service. Life is not so low-pitched as that. The best work of +man does not admit of being put into an equation with cash. The greatest +feat, to my mind, an Englishman ever performed was the writing of +_Paradise Lost_. How much did John Milton get in money for his +incomparable epic during his lifetime? _Five Pounds_: and if he had got +five million pounds, the recompense would have been absolutely +inadequate. History, however, has indemnified Milton for the neglect and +poverty he endured. He has shot up into stature while those of his +contemporaries who bulked largest in the eyes of the world have dwindled +and shrunk into insignificance in comparison with him. The witty, +dissolute king, Charles II., is now seen to be a wretched pigmy: Milton, +who died in blindness and political disgrace, is the real king of that +era, overtopping all the rulers, cabals, and intriguers. So, too, in +Scotland, Burns is the giant of _his_ period. During Burns's life, the +Earl of Dundas was to all intents and purposes king of the country. He +could say to whomsoever he pleased, '_Friend, come up higher; be you a +Sheriff, or Lord-Lieutenant, or Justice of the Peace_.' Dundas is pretty +well forgotten by this time: probably he will by and by be remembered +solely by Burns's description of him: _That slee, auld-farrant chiel +Dundas._ Kings and men of temporary renown do well to keep on good terms +with the men of letters." + +It is always a great treat to hear a working-man who has the power of +utterance deliver a speech in a straightforward and unrhetorical way. +There is _always_ a pith and vigour about such deliverances quite +unattainable in a formal harangue. The magnates of the little Fife +villages are specially notorious for their gift of the gab: when Bailie +M'Scales or Provost Cleaver gets up to speak, no one has any inclination +to fall asleep. + + +A HIGHLAND LAIRD ON LITERATURE. + +Max O'Rell has told us that his chairmen sometimes took advantage of +their position to push their claims for the Town Council. I have not had +the time at my disposal curtailed by any such municipal oratory, though, +occasionally, my remarks on literature have seemed to the chairmen to +stand in need of supplementing. One gentleman, in proposing a vote of +thanks, pulled a copy of Bacon out of his pocket and read the whole of +the famous essay on _Studies_. Another managed to bring in a lengthy +dissertation on radium! The following speech, delivered by a Highland +laird of a poetical turn, is noteworthy: "I am very fond of poetry," he +said, "and yet I turn with a very languid interest to the writings of +modern poets like Watson and Davidson. The verses of these gifted +singers are for others, not for me. The truth is, I don't want any more +lyrics and such like sugar pellets. My brain is already stocked with a +plenteous supply on which I browse in weal and woe, which I almost think +I personally composed, and to which I have attached a great many +emotions and extraneous incidents known to nobody but myself. My old +poetic favourites have been lying in various corners of my brain for +forty or fifty years; I know every turn, rhyme and rhythm of them; and +as they have served my need and alleviated my sorrow so long, I do not +intend to give them many fellow-lodgers more. I do not know at what +particular time literary nausea sets in, but Solomon had it when he said +that of the making of books there was no end. No doubt his father David +had primed him well in boyhood in the Psalms, and Solomon, feeling (like +many others since) that the paternal psaltery met all his need of +literary stimulus, would turn wearily from the heaps of presentation +copies of new verse sent by the rising poets of Juda for their +sovereign's inspection. When a new book came out, Charles Lamb re-read +an old one,--an excellent practice and one which has the additional +recommendation of economy. It is not an unpleasant thing to find +yourself falling back on old favourites and losing interest in the +current hour. I knew a happy old gentleman whose reading was confined to +Walter Scott. Every evening the lamp was lighted in the trim snuggery, +and the appropriate _Waverley_ taken down from the shelf. For such a man +to begin a new novel would have been as irksome as travelling in a +foreign land." + +I am bound to say that I have great sympathy with the sentiments I have +quoted from the speech of this kilted critic. If it were possible to +retain the elasticity and adjustableness of the mind till the end of +life, new authors would perhaps fix our attention as much as the old. +But only a limited number of articulate-speaking men, such as the +omnivorous Professor Saintsbury of Edinburgh, preserve their appetite +tireless and intact. The Professor, like a literary Livingstone, can +grapple with the most arid and dusty libraries, and is the envy of all +scholars; but, alas! the majority of us have to take something less than +the whole of knowledge for our province. + +It must not be supposed that all the remarks made at these meetings were +like those I have quoted. An airy irrelevancy was quite as common as the +serious note. + + +VARIETIES OF CHAIRMEN. + +I have had experience of hundreds of chairmen, and admired most of them. +It is rather a painful thing to have one who is utterly unversed in +speaking. I remember being introduced in the ante-room to the chairman +of the evening, and, big bucolic giant as he was, he seemed fearfully +perturbed. His hand trembled, his lips were ashy-gray, and his laugh was +a nervous grin. "I am not much used to this sort of thing," said he, +with a poor attempt at mirth and a furtive movement of his hand to his +waistcoat pocket, where he had his introductory speech. "All you have to +do is to introduce me," I hinted; "you needn't say much." On the +platform he shook so much that the whole structure quivered. He rose, +and was received with loud applause. Happily he did not read his speech, +but simply pointed to me and said, "G-g-go on." He sank in his chair, +while runnels of sweat coursed down his cheeks. I admired that chairman +more than one in Caithness, who, after angling for the honour of taking +the chair, grew so terrified towards the hour of meeting, that he went +to bed and sent word he couldn't be present owing to flying pains in his +leg! In country districts, reluctance to take the chair arises from a +man's fear of making himself ridiculous; once he cuts a poor figure in +public, discredit is for ever attached to his name. + +Highlanders as a rule make excellent chairmen. The superior gifts of the +Celtic mind, in imagination and wealth of florid expression, nowhere +show themselves to better purpose than when compliments have to be paid. +Then again, the kilt is very impressive on a brawny chairman's legs: it +commands attention and respect at once. I have little knowledge of +colloquial Gaelic, though I have studied the grammar, and have some +skill in reading. A little Gaelic goes a long way in stirring the soul +of a Highland audience. Often I have heard a kilted chairman quitting +his English for a little and giving the audience a mellifluous Ossianic +sentence or two. The effect was electric: eyes gleamed, breath came +quick and fast, the souls of the hearers seemed to have tasted a tonic. +Spoken Gaelic is akin to the elements: it has a mystic affinity with the +winds that sough around the flanks of the mountains and along the +surface of the lonely lochs. There is perhaps not much business +precision about it, but for preaching, praying, and poetry, it is a +splendid medium. + +In Arran, a jovial chairman thus introduced me: "Before I left home, I +thought of a great many nice things to say as a preface to the remarks +of our friend from Paisley. (Here he coughed violently.) Unfortunately, +I am unable to bestow these tit-bits on the audience owing to a +_kittlin'_ in my throat. Instead of saying what I meant to say, I think +I had better tell you a story. A minister one Sunday had occasion to be +highly displeased with the precentor, who broke down twice in quite a +simple psalm-tune. 'Excuse me, minister,' said the precentor, 'but I've +got a kittlin' in my throat this morning.' '_Kittlin'!_' hissed the holy +man in scornful wrath: '_it's mair like a big tom-cat_.' Ladies and +gentlemen, after these few and decidedly imperfect remarks, I resume my +seat, merely expressing the hope that our friend will feel himself as +much at home here as the deil did in the Court of Session." + +Another chairman in an adjoining island, while engaged in tremulously +reading his introductory speech, came to a sudden stop. An irreverent +youth shouted, "_Is that a blot?_" After the laughter provoked by this +query had subsided, the chairman said: "I feel to-night like a square +pin in a round hole, or rather, like the Irishman who, when asked if he +was dead, replied, '_No, I'm not dead, I'm only spacheless._'" Having +said these words with a weird attempt at mirth, the chairman sat down +too hurriedly, and struck his head so violently against the back of his +chair, that the noise of the impact was heard in every part of the hall. + +I may hint to anyone who lectures or preaches in the Highlands, not to +adopt a patronising attitude or make it appear that he is talking down +to the audience. Such a feature would be at once detected and deeply +resented. A well-known Professor lectured to a Bute audience on +Electricity, and out of ignorance, spoke in a very elementary way to the +audience, defining the simplest terms, and interspersing a great many +"_you know's_" and "_you see's_." The chairman, in proposing a vote of +thanks, slyly remarked: "We have listened to-night to a very good +discourse, and I'm only sorry there are so few young people here. Next +time the Professor comes to speak to us, I hope to see all the +school-children in the hall, for the lecture to-night was admirably +adapted to their capacity." + + +COMING TO THE POINT. + +A very loquacious lawyer proposed a vote of thanks to the chairman in +the following fashion: "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "it is often a +very difficult thing to come to the point. When I was at College, I +consented once to write an essay on 'The Progress of America,' the +subject being one of my own choosing. I wrote twenty-five pages of +preliminary matter, and at the end of my writing, I found that Columbus +was not landed. As my essay was to bring my hearers up-to-date on +American progress, I became nettled at my failure to _get Columbus +ashore_ and went round canvassing among my friends to secure a +substitute. No one would relieve me, so I was forced to slaughter an +aunt. I was wired for, by arrangement, on the day before the meeting, +and responded with great alacrity, knowing that there would be no +funeral. Without wasting more words let me on _this_ occasion come to +the point, and ask you to accord to our worthy chairman a very hearty +vote of thanks for the brilliant way in which he has kept us all in +order this evening." + + +MORAL OBLIGATION. + +A minister of a western parish thought it his duty, in the course of his +introductory speech, to make some jovial remarks on the subject of +conscience and moral obligation. "A student of my acquaintance," said +he, "went to Arrochar on Loch Long by excursion steamer. At mid-day, +being thirsty, he _drifted thoughtlessly_ into the hotel and asked for a +cup of tea. With this beverage he washed over some dry biscuits he had +brought with him from home. Imagine his surprise on being told that the +cup of tea would cost him two shillings. Bang went not one sixpence but +four! He looked at the maid and his breath came quick and fast; but he +counted out the money nevertheless. Having occasion to visit the +bathroom to cool his throbbing brow, he perceived a razor on a little +shelf near the mirror there. At once he pocketed this razor and made +off, whistling _Scots Wha Hae_. He had recouped himself for the +overcharge on the cup of tea. Strange to say, every time he shaved with +the stolen razor he feared some impending calamity. He knew enough Greek +to be aware that Ajax committed suicide with the very sword that hero +got from the enemy. Whenever the student disfigured his chin and +reddened the lather with a new-made gash, he felt in his inmost soul +that a Nemesis was being wrought out. _By this simple tale, my friends, +one may see the sovereign power of conscience, which, though dormant for +a time, invariably asserts itself and flogs the culprit._" + + +COMPLIMENT TO PAISLEY. + +The following remarks made by a speaker at one of the meetings are worth +citing: "I do not wish our Paisley friend," he said, "to go back to the +banks of the Cart under the impression that we are not a very literary +people up here in Ross-shire. On the contrary, we are clean gone on +literature. Just look at our syllabus! One night we have a discussion on +Shakespeare. Eh? What do you think of that? Shakespeare no less! Next +night we deal with _an equally great poet--Tannahill_." (No doubt the +speaker meant to compliment Paisley in thus comparing the author of +_Lear_ and _Hamlet_ with the poet-laureate of the loom.) I have heard +Milton's _Paradise Lost_ and Pollok's _Course of Time_ clashed together +in the same ludicrous way. I was dreadfully nonplussed on one occasion +by hearing a speaker strongly recommend the audience to give their days +and nights to the study of Bunyan and M'Cheyne. "Bunyan by all means," +said I to myself, "but who is M'Cheyne that one should be mindful of him +and put him for importance alongside of the immortal tinker?" + + +ORATORY AT SALEN. + +I shall never forget a vote of thanks proposed in my hearing by the +excellent doctor of Salen, a pleasant little place situated on a +V-shaped creek of Loch Sunart. I never expect to meet a more genial or +more humorous man than the doctor, on this side of eternity. He knows +the roads of gusty Ardnamurchan better than any other living man, and, +night and day, by sun and by moon, in weather of clear blue, and under +the eddying blinding flakes, he is ever on the move. He found time to +come to the meeting and propose a vote of thanks to the donor of the +library. Everyone listened intently to him as he stood there in his +professional frock-coat,--a thin, wiry, twinkling-eyed gentleman. "If +the donor by any chance," said he, looking at me, "should ever sail up +Loch Sunart in his yacht, and land among the people of Salen, to whom +his books have given such pleasure, I should advise him not to stand too +near the edge of the pier, for fear some of the grateful natives might +push him over into the loch, _in order to have the pleasure of saving +his life!_" This unexpected sally convulsed the audience, and gave a gay +and rollicking touch to the speeches that came after. Mr. M'Gregor, a +farmer from Resipol, broad and brawny, rose to make a few remarks. The +schoolhouse was very hot and close, but he disdained to throw off the +thick and ample Highland cloak which he had on, and which he had worn +all day at the Oban Cattle Show, and on the deck of the boat that had +brought him thence. Mr. M'Gregor had been much struck by my remarks on +the knights of King Arthur, and their custom of sitting at the Round +Table, to avoid questions of precedence. He spoke to this effect: "I do +not wish the lecturer to go back to Paisley under the impression that +Salen is not a very bye-ordinary and consequential place. We have a +fleet of yachts out there, the like of which is not to be seen _between +this and Manch-oo-ria_. We have a blacksmith that can preach and quote +Scripture as well as any D.D. in the land; my friend the grocer over +there, will give you such bargains as you could never get in +Sauchie-_hall_ Street; and we have a choir here that might give the +angels singing-lessons. I am a very modest man, but I would like to say +just a word about this Round Table business. The lecturer says the Table +was round so that every knight might be at the head of it. That's the +theory, but what's the fact? I'll tell you. _One of King Arthur's +knights was an ancestor of mine, and his name was M'Greegor._[12] Now, +wherever M'Greegor sat, that was always considered the head of the +table." This contribution to Arthurian criticism was delivered with such +force, faith, and genial glee, that no one, considering the powerful +muscles of the speaker, was disposed to question it. (Mr. M'Gregor's +eulogy of Salen did not comprise a reference to the local hotel, which +is conducted on the Gothenburg system. It is comfortable and snug, but +not whole-heartedly patronised by some of the natives, as they consider +the system is an un-Celtic innovation, and believe further that every +drink they take is written down in a big book with an alphabet on the +edge of the leaves to facilitate reference). + + [12] Judging from the number of clans that make a similar claim, + we might fancy that all King Arthur's knights + + "Gartened low their leg, + And rowed their hurdies in a philabeg." + + + + +LECTURE IN A DUNGEON, ETC. + +I have an agreeable recollection of my stay in Saddell, on the coast of +Kintyre, as the guest of Colonel Macleod, son of the never-to-be-forgotten +Dr. Norman Macleod. The Colonel was born in 1820, was present at the +Eglinton Tournament, and is, to-day, in spite of his eighty-eight +years, hale in body, sound of wind, and perfectly clear in the +intellect. He is a walking encyclopdia of all the social and political +changes that have come about since the accession of Victoria. He is also +an authority on live stock, and it is intensely amusing to see his +horses scampering from the far-end of the field when they see him, in +the hope of getting some of the bits of sugar he always carries in his +pocket for their benefit. + +The school-house being badly situated for the convenience of the people, +the meeting was held in the _dungeon of the old castle_, a spacious and +airy place quite near the beach. Altogether, I reckon this meeting as +the drollest in all my experience. There were no windows in the +overhanging vaulted roof, and the long stone stair leading to the ground +above, was filled with the audience that could not get accommodation +below. The aged Colonel presided over about one hundred prisoners, and +humorously remarked that the table at which he was standing, was really +a _patent incubating apparatus_, under which four dozen of Mrs. +Macleod's chickens were coming to maturity. He hoped these embryo fowls +would not interrupt the lecture by any unseemly remarks. At the risk of +wearying the chickens, I spoke for an hour and a half, dealing in the +course of my remarks (to be as apposite as possible) with the dungeon +scene in "The Legend of Montrose," where Dugald Dalgetty squeezes the +windpipe of the Duke of Argyll. + +In one little village hall in Kintyre, I was much perturbed by some of +the placards that had been placed on the walls. The hall had been used +for evangelical purposes, and there, facing me, in yard-long type, was +the dreadful command, _Get right with God_. To speak on Hood and his +puns with those colossal letters burning their message into your soul, +would need nerves of steel. I have not nerves of steel, and I felt +dreadfully incommoded by the bill. For the space of five minutes I might +occasionally forget it, and then, in the midst of some light and +skittish quotation, my eye would light upon it, and the verses would +come feebly and falteringly off the tongue. _Vox faucibus haesit._ + + +SURPRISES. + +My narrative would be lacking in completeness if I did not frankly +confess that I have sometimes met with humiliations of a kind to wring +the heart and call forth a sigh. In one nook of the north I stayed in +the manse of an excellent clergyman, an eloquent preacher, but austere +and extremely devout. He took the chair at the lecture, which was very +well attended. Before the meeting began I was told that a local +gentleman wished to ask me _an important question_. This was good news +for me, as I thought the inquirer might have some literary difficulty +which it would be profitable to handle in the course of my remarks. The +anxious enquirer proved to be the local hotel-keeper, who, in a deadly +earnest whisper made the following request: "You have a big meeting," he +said, "and it's not likely there will be such a number of people so near +my hotel for many a long day. _Would it be asking too much of you to +finish up about half-past nine and give the audience time to sample +some of my commodities before departing homewards?_ It's chiefly the +minister I have to fear; for if he suspects I wish to do business, he'll +prolong the vote of thanks till after the stroke of ten." + +One of my compensations in wandering Scotland thorough has been the +heartfelt but rather nave way in which some of the provincials have +expressed their gratitude. "_I've paid half-a-crown for worse_," said an +old man of Ross to me, shaking me warmly by the hand and believing he +was uttering a most delicate and hyperbolical compliment. (Now, during +my remarks, I had noticed this man taking copious pinches of snuff to +enable him, as I suspected, to sit out the meeting.) Another rustic, +this time an Aberdonian, was impressed by the number of authors +mentioned and the copious citations from their works. "Heavens!" he +cried, "what a memory that man has! That's the kind of partner I should +like to have at whist: he would never forget the cards that were out." + +I know not whether to laugh or weep when I think of the occasion on +which the following charmingly irrelevant remarks were made to me: "We +are all proud of our village library and _even prouder of the feeling +that prompted such a gift_. I am reminded," the speaker went on to say, +"of a cousin of mine who got a present of exquisite fruit (preserved in +wine) from a friend in a distant part of the country. He wrote to the +donor saying, 'Your fruit is delicious: I like it very much; but I like +even more _the spirit in which it has been sent_.'" + + +A VISIT TO THE BORDERS. + +In order that these pages may fitly represent all the districts of +Caledonia that I have traversed as an uncommercial traveller, I should +like to give a short sketch of how I reached Tweedside by way of Lanark, +at a season when the Glasgow people were beginning their Fair holidays. +Winter, as I remarked, is the time I prefer for travelling, but untoward +circumstances have now and again compelled me to be on the move when +"mid-summer, like an army with banners, was marching through the +mid-heavens." + +I may say at once that it is a great trial to leave Glasgow at that +particular date. The city pours forth its myriads at such a time. The +stations are surging and heaving with throngs of men, women, and +children, all in a hurry and all impatient. Families by tens and dozens +are swarming about. How pathetic it is to see the father with one child +in his arms and two clinging to his coat-tails, while the mother (poor +bedraggled soul) is vainly striving to quieten a squalling fourth! Some +children have lost their parents, and grope about underneath, nipping +the legs of tourists to attract attention and get hold of the right +father; others fall among bales of strawberries that were pulled +yesterday in the fresh country air, but are now being trampled into gory +pulp. Even in the fetid and dust-laden air, rendered almost unbearable +by the hot sunlight that blazes through the overarching glass of the +station roof, Cupid twangs his arrows, and soft eyes speak love to eyes +that speak again. Suddenly the train arrives, and on the already +crowded platform lands the human freight of twenty carriages--a fresh +addition to the welter and confusion worse confounded. What a wealth of +language one hears! Cyclists tinkle with bell and horn to secure the +needed lane of passage. Porters, in desperate madness, throw wooden +boxes down and rope-tied trunks of tin with little sympathy for injured +knees and fiery corns. The train just in will shortly leave with a new +load of passengers. A rush is made for the vacated seats: in tumbles the +surging crowd without regard for the class of ticket they have +purchased. A score of occupants per carriage is about the average; many +swarm into the guard's van, where they are regaled with pandemoniac +odours of ancient fish and decaying vegetables. The heavy train at +length steams out into the open, and in an hour's time Lanark is +reached. "_God made the country and man made the town_" is the +involuntary reflection of the city man as he steps out of the train and +breathes the fresh air of the hills. + +From Lanark to Peebles, by road, is thirty miles. The track is +excellent, and if the wind is not adversely strong the joy of cycling +the distance is difficult to parallel. + +On this route, no lumbering vehicles, laden with heavy merchandise, tear +up the soil into ruts. No cab-drivers cast sarcastic remarks at you from +their high perch. The only annoyance comes from the cast-off nail of a +horse-shoe or the sharp splinter of a macadamised stone. The air is as +fresh as on Creation's morn. Up hill and down again one can hurry on +without ever touching the brake. For the first ten miles, the stately +bulk of Tinto dominates the landscape. What a splendid range of scenery +the eye could grasp from the high vantage-ground of its summit in clear +weather! As one approaches the base of the big hill, the road turns +sharply to the east, and you feel about your ears innumerable breezes +that blow along from the little glens leading down from Tinto's breast. +By and by, the clean, trim, little town of Biggar appears. (The +inhabitants are proud of the fact that John Brown, author of the +beautiful story, _Rab and his Frien's_, was a native of the town.) One +notices the name of Gladstone prominent above the shops, and it is a +fact that the ancestors of the Grand Old Man were, in the days of yore, +denizens of those quiet hamlets. After a short rest here, we (for you +are with me, _ami lecteur_) shoot on and pass the sleepy street of +Broughton, lying clear and radiant in the slanting rays of the sun. Here +is the ideal spot for a country clergyman in love with Hebrew roots and +gardening and quiet contemplation. Soon we strike the tiny waters of the +infant Tweed, prattling and gushing up and bubbling clear over its +snow-white pebbles. Now the breeze of gloaming blows more snell. Away +low in the west the sun begins to gather golden clouds in pomp around +his setting. A gorgeous glimmer, gold and red, is thrown over the whole +sky. Keeping close beside the ever-widening stream, we dash through +little clachans on the bank, beneath long, over-arching avenues of +trees, and past the gates of ivy-mantled homes of blessed outlook. Here +a croquet party stops playing, for the grass is getting wet with +evening dew, and there, in the river, and up to the knees in it, are +half a dozen anglers sweeping the wave with their spurious fly. Peebles +is not far off, and the quiet nooks of the high road are filled with +pedestrians. The entrance to Peebles is exquisite. The long rows of +trees, the situation of the road high above the river in the dell, +combine to make an eerie blend of sound from sighing leaves and gurgling +waters. An old Border peel, Needpath Castle, stands near the straggling +outskirts of the town, and proves, by its choice situation on the knoll, +that our cattle-reiving ancestors were quite alive to the advantages of +a good view. It was a stirring quarter here in the days of the old +Scotch kings. The deadly thrust of lance has reddened every burn in the +wide Borderland. Every brae has had its gory bicker. + +On this _tourne_ I had the pleasure of giving a lecture on "Scotch +Ballads," at a little village not more than half a mile from the +birthplace of Dandie Dinmont. The place was full of sturdy, firm-knit +Borderers, descendants of the dare-devil troopers who wrought such +devastation along the Marches when the Stuarts reigned in Holyrood. +Fresh, ruddy faces, coloured by breeze and sun; hard, keen, inquisitive +looks; intelligence such as comes from knowledge of nature, hereditary +quickness and good circulation of blood: all these could be instantly +seen by glancing round the audience. (How insignificant a mere bookworm +or scholar feels among a company of brawny Liddesdale farmers!) During +the lecture, it was easy to note by the grim smile on their faces, their +flashing eyes and the way they gripped their big sticks, that the old +stirring rhymes of fight struck a sympathetic chord in their hearts. Now +and again, during the address, one could see the lips of the listeners +moving in soft repetition of the lines, as some typical quotations were +being made. + +It is not likely that there has been much change or influx of population +in these districts for centuries. The alertness and intelligence of the +natives must be to some extent an inheritance from the generations of +strenuous clansmen whose blood flows in their veins. Life in a +historical district is bound to have an ennobling effect on a man, +especially if he feels knit to the past by lineal descent from the +historical actors. A glamour of romance clings to hill and glen. The +dalesman you meet on the highway can tell you all the lore of his +parish, giving dates and citing illustrative lays. It is pleasant to +find that the stories of the Borderland are still known where they first +took birth, and that the local names, which to students instantly +suggest delightful bits of rhyme, have also to those who dwell near +them, a romance that is borrowed from the olden time.[13] + +Anyone who has travelled in the shires that run along the Cheviots and +the Tweed, will conclude that poetry and romance may ever find a home +there. The hills, with their green pastoral slopes and abundant leafage, +are a delight to the eye in fresh spring and tinted fall. The sound of +the streams, as Ruskin has pointed out, is sweet and rhythmic to an +extraordinary degree, combining with the sough of the winds to form an +undersong of Nature's own melody. As the traveller drives or cycles +along the roads, he now and again gets such impressive vistas of +long-stretching waterways, wooded to the brink with graceful trees, as +grave themselves on the memory for evermore. For rock, crag, and dashing +linn, the northern Highlands are supreme; but in the green Borderland, +there is a more sedate and proportioned beauty. Nature is none the less +attractive for losing somewhat of her wildness and austerity. + + [13] A favourite and appropriate book in this part of Scotland is + Wilson's _Tales of the Borders_. There are not many farm-houses + in the Lowlands of Scotland in which one does not find old + copies, bound and unbound, of Wilson's _Tales_. Usually they show + unmistakable evidence of having been frequently perused. One is + bound to admit that the modern reader, if he spends an evening + turning over these old pages, will find little reason to pride + himself on the superiority of the popular reading of to-day. The + short story, now in vogue, may be finely illustrated, and highly + sensational, but its matter is certainly inferior, as a rule, to + the general run of Wilson's stories. Wilson, in his humble way, + was a gleaner in the field so richly harvested by Sir Walter + Scott. _The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_ had called + attention to the great stores of poetry and romance lingering + among the peasantry of the Debateable Land. Wilson's _Tales_ + showed how much of the old spirit remained more than two + centuries after the Union, and, in spite of all Christianity and + an orderly Government had done for the softening of manners. + Hogg, in speaking of his own countryside, said: "The poor people + of these glens know no other entertainment in the long winter + nights than repeating and listening to the feats of their + ancestors recorded in songs which I believe to have been handed + down from father to son for many generations." Wilson and his + successors gathered up as much of the romantic material as they + found available, and printed it for the delight of their + generation. + + +TARBOLTON. + +In the agricultural lowlands of Scotland it is not rare to come upon +little villages that seem entirely left behind by modern progress. Not +long ago my work took me to Tarbolton, a quiet, uneven village in the +heart of the queenly shire of Ayr. The railway company has treated the +place very badly: a full fifteen minutes' drive is needed to reach the +town from the station. It is as if the company said: "Make what you can +of our line, ye insignificant Tarboltonians; our trains are in a hurry +to get from Ayr to Muirkirk; be thankful if we set you down only three +miles from your home." If it is not wet, the drive is a grand one. Five +miles to the right, Mauchline shows its red complexion on the green +hillside, and awakens lyric memories of Burns's imperishable mouse and +share-torn gowan. Over the pasture lands on the right come freshening +winds that hint of the heaving Firth not far away. The road pursued by +the coach meanders among all that is best of rural and pastoral scenery, +for coaly Annbank, defaced by the exhumed entrails of the earth, is +happily on the rear. At a turn of the road, a majestic spire, that of +Tarbolton Parish Church, suddenly stands before the view of the +traveller, and suggests Eternity even when tolling the hours of Time. +Soon the village is reached, and one is in a position to form an idea of +eighteenth century Scotland. The main street is built with that +irregularity so charmingly illustrative of the evolution of the +builder's art. Old cots roofed with thatch take the mind back to the +time when George I. was defending the faith and maltreating his wife. +Side by side with such are trim two-storey houses with all modern +elegancies. + +I have a pleasant recollection of this interesting village, not merely +from its associations with Burns (which Mr. T.F. Henderson in a dainty +little book has recently recounted anew), but also from the fact that +the natives keep alive the literary traditions of the place in quite a +worthy way. The local baker has written a fluent volume of Essays +dealing with village incidents and worthies, which proves, as Mr. Barrie +says, that life in every stage, if truthfully portrayed, is intensely +interesting, and that every window-blind is the curtain for some tragedy +or comedy. + + +THE SCOTCH LANGUAGE. + +Very fine Scotch is still spoken in the rural districts of Ayrshire, and +most of Burns's dialect words are in daily use, at least by the older +generation. The Education Department has most wisely given encouragement +to the study of Lowland Scotch, and I do not see why a special grant +should not be given for special excellence in that department. Some +national movement for a complete Dictionary of Modern Scotch with +explanations in up-to-date philology ought to be organised. + +During the lifetime of Sir Walter Scott, Dr. Jamieson published the +famous _Scottish Dictionary_, which still holds the field as the most +elaborate compendium of the Lowland dialects. Looked at in the light of +modern science, the derivations are often absurd and fanciful. +Jamieson's love for Gothic parallels led him constantly astray. +Nevertheless, his dictionary, as amended by various revisers, remains a +stately monument of industry and a necessary adjunct in the study of the +Scotch language. + +In our own day, Dr. Murray of Oxford has compiled an illuminating +grammar of the language, indicating the various dialects of the Lowlands +and their geographical areas. Local antiquarians have also written out +lists of words special to particular counties. Dialect books, such as +the entertaining _Johnnie Gibb of Gushetneuk_, as well as Mr. Barrie's +delightful sketches, have put excellent specimens of provincial speech +within the hands of a wide circle of readers. A good dictionary of +modern Scotch, dealing with what has been written during the last two +centuries, would be a very useful and a very interesting compendium. It +would show that a great many expressive words employed by thirteenth +century English writers are still in use on the Scotch side of the +Border. + +There is no denying the fact that book-English will soon push out the +relics of the old Scotch tongue. Burns will soon be read by lexicon, +even in the shire of Ayr. Men now write poetry in Scotch as boys at Eton +and Harrow write Latin verses, the result in both cases being, as a +rule, hideous and artificial doggrel. The little book, _Wee Macgregor_, +written in what may be called the Scotch Cockney dialect, was a brave +and amusing attempt to phonograph the talk of a Glasgow boy of the lower +middle class. The unlovely speech employed by the author is, happily, +quite unlike the careful and deliberate speech of the educated citizen +of Glasgow or Paisley. The main differences between the educated Scot +and the educated Englishman are that the vowel sounds of the former are +pure and that _r_ and _h_ have a real value in most words where these +letters occur. + +It seems to me a _very undesirable_ thing that a uniform system of +pronunciation should be aimed at in every country of the British Isles. +So long as clear and expressive enunciation of English is attained, +intelligible differences of vocalisation, pitch, and even of vocabulary, +are allowable, and at times positively charming. Monotony is the bane of +life. + + +CHOICE BOOKS. + + "Whether the books are borrowed books or no + That show their varied stature row on row + Along your walls, there will I truly find + The image of your character and mind. + Light, flimsy novels suit the flying train + Or _Western Isle_ excursions of Macbrayne, + Where, dazed by gleaming firths of visible heat, + The torpid soul disdains substantial meat; + But oft-read volumes, to which men recur + The whole year round, bespeak the character." + +The above lines, written by some unknown poetaster, indicate that it is +the book we read over and over again that has the greatest potency in +our education. I quite agree with the author, and I love to behold the +well-thumbed pocket-edition that speaks to the eye of much handling and +frequent perusal. There are very few books _worth_ reading once that are +not worth reading oftener. Hobbes used to say that if he had read as +much literature as the majority of men, he would have been as ignorant +as they. In that remark what depths of meaning lie! The sage of +Malmesbury attributed his success in philosophy to his habit of +judicious selection--to the fact that he concentrated his attention on +those authors who were likely to help the development of his powers. +Selection is more required now than in Hobbes's time. Few men would care +to read more than a hundred books through in a year, and yet there are +twenty thousand volumes added annually to the shelves of the British +Museum. + + +THE ESSAYISTS. + +It has been my privilege, during the last three or four years, to +examine with more or less care something like four hundred bookcases, +containing works on all departments of literature. _I am inclined to +turn away in disgust if the Essayists are not patronised._ + +Those delightful Essayists! Happy is the man who has his shelves full of +them--writers who talk sense with wanton heed and giddy cunning, who +spread their souls out on paper, who disarm hostility by taking you +completely into their confidence. Addison, with the roguish gleam in his +eye as he is calculating the number of sponges in the cost of a lady's +finery; Goldsmith, in his London garret, talking of the ludicrous +escapades of the Man in Black; Lamb luxuriating in reminiscences of Old +Benchers. All these splendid, unsystematic delights, mingled with the +breezes of byegone summers and the sunsets of long ago! Old ghosts +whisper you their secrets; you hear the brush of sweeping garments that +have been moth-eaten these hundred years. Crowded streets of people +appear before the eye of fancy--London in the days of Anne and the +Georges. In the company of such wits, there are no slow-moving hours: +you have in them friends who never need tire you, for should the +slightest tedium intervene, you may, without offence, stop their flow of +conversation. Our living intimates are prone to drynesses and huffs; but +these old prattling wits ever welcome us with a smile of affability. + + +A BANFF THEORY. + +While speaking of Essayists, I ought to mention a peculiar Banffshire +theorist who addressed me in the following words: "Give me an old set of +_Blackwood_ in the Kit North days, and I can easily forego your +pinchbeck stories and propagandist novels of to-day. I put the most +interesting period for reading at _sixty years ago_, and I think Scott +must have known the charm of that number when he gave the alternative +title to _Waverley_. It is pleasant to know how the world wagged when +your grandfather was a ruddy egg-purloining rogue of five. When I read +farther back than a century, I feel imagination flagging--the Merry +Monarch is not much more to me than John the Baptist. But the men of the +forties stand out clear and distinct. If I have never seen an +out-and-out fiery Chartist, I have at least seen some smouldering +specimens--men with much of the eloquence and a little of the enterprise +of the original five-pointers. It may be that as I grow older, my most +interesting historical period will move with me, keeping always at a +distance of sixty years from the present, until, when I get within hail +of the Psalmist's stint, I shall be most interested in childish things." +These words rather staggered me, and set me thinking of geometrical +_loci_. A man holding such views would find it difficult to obtain a +bird's-eye view of history. + + +GOLDSMITH IN GAELIC. + +If I had an adequate knowledge of Gaelic, combined with plenty of money +and leisure, I should set myself the task of translating the whole of +Goldsmith's Essays and Tales into that language, for the benefit of +those who had no English. It would be a great feat if one could impress +on the modern Celtic mind the conviction that piety and diversion are by +no means incompatible. Goldsmith's _Auburn_ introduces us to the most +delightful prospect on earth: a simple village community, unacquainted +with luxury and uncorrupted by vice. The inhabitants are full of health +and joy--they till the soil and gain ample satisfaction for their +unambitious wants. Life passes along bringing a pleasant succession of +happy hours. After the labours of the day, the young people dance +merrily on the green, and the old folk look on and regret that their own +legs are too stiff to keep time to the fiddles. Certain Highland +landlords might also read with advantage the exquisitely pathetic lines +in which the poet pictures the desolation and ruin of the rural +paradise, and perhaps conclude therefrom that, when glen and strath are +depleted of their inhabitants, and these latter driven over the seas to +seek a foothold in strange lands, it is the very heart's blood of +Britain that is being drained away. + +On the whole, probably no English writer has given such genuine delight +as Goldsmith, and such genuine instruction too. Ineradicably frivolous, +culpably negligent of the morrow, whimsically vain and living all his +days from hand to mouth, he had the faculty of drawing upon himself the +pity, and even the contempt, of his associates. But in the eyes of +posterity, his happy-go-lucky life is amply redeemed by the work he has +left behind him, for _it_ is pure and good. His river of speech flows +ever on shining like molten gold. No man of his time possessed the +adroit knack of bright writing in a more eminent degree. The pawky +humour of his side-hits, the blending of light and shade in the process +of the narrative, the beauty and melody that can be noted even in the +sound of the sentences, combine to delight the judgment, the ear, and +the fancy. Though the _Vicar of Wakefield_ is a prose production, it +produces all the effect of a poem on the affections of the heart. Of +wit, properly speaking, it is as full as any volume of _The Spectator_; +with humour it is flooded from beginning to end; and in those pathetic +delineations of life which no one can read without being profoundly +touched, there are few poems so rich. + + +BIBLIA ABIBLIA. + +In many (indeed most) houses I have visited, I see in the bookcase large +publications in six or seven well-bound parts and as good as new, +dealing with subjects of little interest to anyone who breathes the +vital air of heaven. Such titles as _Science for All_, _The Thames from +its Source to the Sea_, _The Queens of England_ are among the commonest +on the boards of the books I allude to. The presence of these editions +indicates that the possessor at a certain period of his life was shy and +could not say _no_ to that limb of the Evil One--the book-canvasser. The +latter individual is the forerunner of the colporteur, who will bring +you, if you wish poetry, an edition of the works of Shakespeare which is +peculiarly ill-adapted for holding in the hand and reading. The print is +large, the page is in size like a miniature wall-map, and the +illustrations are got up with an easy defiance of archeology. The +annotations, though stolen, are distinguished for extreme futility. +After you have begun the purchase of such a book, shame and chagrin +drive you to attempt the study of it; but it is of no use, and on each +occasion of the very regular advent of the colporteur, you are inclined +to swear horribly, after which a period of extreme dejection supervenes +when you recollect the many fine things you could purchase for the +half-guinea periodically expended. The knowledge of human nature +displayed by the man who books the order surpasses anything in the works +of the analytical philosophers. Every artifice of attack is his, and he +knows how to play on all the emotions so ably and exhaustively +catalogued in the manuals of Professor Bain. I believe a gay and +chaffing rejoinder is what he can least overcome. Suggest to him that +you are far gone in poverty and offer to _sell_ him a few of your own +books. Frequent exercise will confirm your principles, until finally, +when you see one of the book-canvassing tribe, you will foresee half an +hour's innocent amusement. + +Certain of the points he so feelingly brings before you may no doubt +awaken a responsive echo in your own bosom. You are well aware, for +example, that your knowledge of the Queens of England is culpably +imperfect. You know you are never likely to go in steadily for the study +of constitutional developments, and so are led to admit the +reasonableness of tackling history from a lighter and more entertaining +point of view. Again, as to the River Thames, one must really grant that +a considerable amount of self-complacency and internal sunniness would +result from the ability to contradict your friends as to the length in +miles of some of its minor tributaries. In science, too, you are no +Kepler or Linnaeus, and there is something satisfactory when pedants +talk of orbits, planes, bulbs, or beetles, in being able to say that +_you have a big book at home that tells all about those things_. + +Many people buy books, not because they have a present need for them, +but on the chance that at some time in the future such volumes as they +see for sale will solve a doubt or answer a need. The precise doubt or +the pressing need rarely arises. I met a Celt who had bought a copy of +Josephus in most irritating type, in the hope that it would help him to +confute a Roman Catholic on the Power of the Keys. Then again, people of +a wavering and bird-witted type of mind are constantly changing the +subject of their interest: this month they are attacked by the _furor +poeticus_, next month it will be a _furor botanicus_ or _politicus_. +Each separate frenzy means expenditure. When Browning is the temporary +subject of the mania, a host of expository books on that poet have to be +purchased, all of which are duly consigned to the topmost shelves when +the soreness of the fit is past. There is also a tendency to purchase, +because on the chance opening of a book you light on something that +pleases the whim of the moment. It is a thousand to one that when you +have bought the book you will not find another item worth perusing in +the entire contents. This tendency to buy a book in a panic may be +neutralised by remembering the story (whether true or not) of Defoe, who +is said to have boomed the languid sale of the dreary _Drelincourt on +Death_ by means of a spicy little ghost story as introduction! Buy in +haste, repent at leisure. + + +SECOND-HAND BOOKS. + +It is a much pleasanter sight to my eyes to see a bookcase with +second-hand books in it, for these are almost always bought to be read. +In a teacher's house near Elgin, I recently saw a most remarkable +collection--a veritable ragged regiment of books: single volumes of +Plutarch, unexpurgated plays by Farquhar and Mrs. Behn, Civil War +pamphlets, and rows of oddities. Mr. Forbes (the owner) was at one +period of his life assistant in Falkirk, and every Saturday morning, +rain or shine, he proceeded to the city of Glasgow, for no purpose but +to roam through the dusty byeways and side streets in quest of +bookstalls. He knew all the dealers by name, and they welcomed him, for +he never left them without a purchase, however slight. It was a saying +of his that while it took half-a-crown to purchase you two hours' +amusement at a theatre, for a couple of shillings, or even less, you +might divide out a whole Saturday most enjoyably in the old book-shops. +He simply rioted in haggling over a threepenny piece. Even old Henderson +feared him. This Henderson was a thirsty old bookseller who kept a shop +at the corner of Cowcaddens and Ingram Street, and whose leading +speciality was second-hand family Bibles, with the former genealogical +leaf riven out and replaced by a clean sheet pasted in for the family of +the next purchaser. To him, sitting enthroned on a pile of Bibles, +Forbes, entering, spake: "Have you a copy of the _Lives of the Twelve +Csars_?" "Aye, aye," said old Henderson, with a gracious smile; +"_thirteen_ if you like." The copy of Suetonius was produced, and "How +much do you want for Suet.?" queried Forbes. "Half-a-crown," said old +Henderson. "I'll give you ninepence," said Forbes. "Make it +one-and-six," said the bookseller, rising from his Biblical throne, "and +the book's yours." "I'll give you a shilling and a half of whisky," +retorted Forbes. "Say a whole glass and the shilling, and we'll do +business," quoth the vendor of volumes. This was agreed upon, and the +two retired into the nearest dram-shop to conclude the bargain. Every +Saturday evening, Forbes came home by the last train, carrying his +bundle of volumes. He was careful to fumigate them for the purpose of +destroying any microbes, and finally would sprinkle them with _eau de +Cologne_ to make them tolerable to the nose. On Sunday, he enjoyed the +luxury of desultory reading. + +Like Mr. Forbes, I enjoy a ramble among these old shops, and can say, as +he said to me at parting:-- + + "I love the trundling stall + Where ragged authors wait the buyer's call, + Where, for the tariff of a modest supper, + You'll buy a twelvemonth's moral feast in Tupper; + Where Virgil's tome is labelled at a groat, + And twopence buys what tittering Flaccus wrote; + Where lie the quips of Addison and Steele, + And the thrice-blessed songs of Rob Mossgiel; + And some that resurrection seek in vain + From the swart dust that chokes the lumbering wain." + + +FAVOURITES. + +I have often been asked: "You who are so much on the move, who have had +so much train-travelling to do, what books would you recommend for a +long railway journey?" I do not know that one man's likes and dislikes +in reading are of value save as showing his own limitations, yet there +are certain books of which I never tire. I never leave home without the +following books handy for perusal: (i.) The _Odes of Horace_, (ii.) The +_Sonnets of Shakespeare_, (iii.) A French novel and a few copies of the +Paris _Matin_, (iv.) A Greek book of some kind, (v.) Pope or Addison, +(vi.) Some Victorian classic. The list is varied enough, and has +furnished me with much of the material for my speaking. + + +HORACE. + +The pleasant thing about Horace is that his odes are so short: you can +read one in a few minutes--shut your eyes and enjoy the mental taste of +it--try to repeat it, and, if you fail, consult the original--then, +finally (as Pope and many others have done), endeavour to find modern +parallels. Suppose, _e.g._, you are reading, as is likely, the first Ode +of the first Book, you might find present-day resemblances like the +following:-- + +_Curriculo pulverem._ + + What mad attractions sway the world! + Some are unhappy save when whirled + In motor cars that madly race, + To leave a stench in every place, + And maim those foolish folk that stray + Abroad upon the king's highway. + +_Tergeminis honoribus._ + + Yon babbling wight, of sense forlorn, + Who thinks himself a Gladstone born, + Although a bailie, still must strain + To gain himself a Provost's chain. + And, after that, the worthy prater + Aspires to be a legislator; + Dreams of St. Stephen's, where he sees + Himself hobnobbing with M.P.'s. + +_Patrios agros._ + + But Farmer Bob is somewhat saner-- + He minds his stock and is the gainer; + Content to pass his life amid + The scenes that his old father did. + With hose in hand he cleans the byre, + And saves himself a menial's hire; + But gives his girls an education + That may unfit them for their station. + But don't ask Bob to tempt the tide, + Even on a turbine down the Clyde; + Neptune and Ceres don't agree, + And farmers hate the name of sea. + +_Mox reficit rates._ + + When Skipper Smith (whose usual goal + Is Campbeltown with Ayrshire coal) + Is labouring thro' Kilbrannan Sound, + He sighs for Troon and solid ground, + And swears, if he were safe on shore, + He'd never be a sailor more. + But once on shore--he thinks it dull, + And soon begins to tar the hull + And caulk the timbers of his ship: + "I'll try," he says, "another trip." + +_Lene Caput._ + + Some love to mangle turf: I see + Them drive their balls from sandy tee, + And think their day's delight begins + When they are up among the whins. + Some elders, full of godly zeal, + Turn crazy about rod and reel; + And ministers, reputed wise, + Take service with the Lord of Flies + (Beelzebub), and like the work + Better than prosing in a kirk. + +_Conjugis immemor._ + + Sir Samuel Croesus (noble wight! + Who paid so dear to be a knight) + Forsakes his lady for the hills, + And aims at birds he never kills. + Too late in life he shouldered gun, + Breathless he toils beneath the sun, + Sips whisky every other minute, + Until his flask has nothing in it; + Then, at the end of strength and tether, + Falls tipsy in the blooming heather. + +_Praemia frontium._ + + But as for me, my wants are few: + 3,000 a year would do; + A villa built upon a height, + With ample view to left and right; + A garden with a sunny seat, + A grassy lawn with borders neat. + Inside, a study furnished well + (Like a true scholar's citadel) + With books and pipes and easy chairs; + Here, in despite of worldly cares, + If I should write a verse or two-- + A lyric that a _judge_ like you + Could read, without once yawning, through-- + I'd be as proud as any man + That scribbled since the world began. + +Horace is thus fit for all times and conjunctures, and is the most +modern of all the Latin writers-- + + "Horace still charms with pleasing negligence, + And without method talks us into sense." + +The translation of Horace's Odes into modern speech is generally +admitted to be one of the most difficult tasks to which a versifier can +apply himself. And yet there is no task so often essayed. It is a common +saying in France that, when a lawyer quits the bar and retires, he is +certain to publish a new translation of Horace after a year or two's +studious ease. M. Loubet, we know, is a zealous devotee of the Sabine +bard. Not the least droll of Mr. Gladstone's many feats was the +publication, shortly before his death, of a translation of Horace's +Odes, a translation wholly worthless indeed, in spite of the writer's +immense scholarship, but valuable as showing the fascination exercised +by Horace over the most austere and ecclesiastical of minds. It seemed +strange indeed to see the great statesman turn aside from his study of +Butler and the Fathers of the Church, in order to put into English verse +the gay, and often scandalous odes, of an old Pagan epicure. Mr. Morley, +who revised the translation, must have smiled as he read the old man's +rendering of-- + + "_Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa._" + +It is a fact, I suppose, that poetic translations of Horace are rarely +read, save by scholars, and the verdict is almost always unkind. Yet an +excellent anthology could be compiled by selecting the happiest +renderings of the most talented translators. Dryden's paraphrase of +III., 29, has been uniformly praised, and was a great favourite of +Thackeray's. Cowper's nimble wit and classic taste are seen in his +translation of II., 10, an ode beautifully rendered also by Mr. William +Watson. Sir Theodore Martin and Connington are always readable, Francis +is uniformly insipid, and Professor Newman, with his metrical capers, +absolutely absurd. Pope's "Imitations of Horace" are so brilliant, that +no student of English literature can afford to neglect them. Pope's +method of replacing ancient allusions by modern ones, was employed by +Johnson in some magnificent renderings of Juvenal, and no doubt +suggested to our Scotch vernacular poets a mode (still popular) of +translating Horace into Doric speech. Our Scotch bards preferred, as a +rule, to work on the Odes, and they succeeded best when they departed +most widely from the Latin text. + + +SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. + +The same blessed quality of brevity that attracts one in Horace is to me +one of the recommendations of Shakespeare's Sonnets. I am glad the +mystery of them is never likely to be discovered. From frequent perusal +of them in the train, I know the majority by heart, but despair of +finding any cryptogram in them. + +The cord on which these exquisite beads of poetry are strung is of the +most flimsy and frayed character. In other words, the characters are all +bad, and the verses that laud them are of the utmost brilliancy and +fascination. The poet himself supplies material that would justify us in +stigmatising his friend as a heartless and dissipated rogue. He also +lets us know that the pale-faced lady was an unwholesome and treacherous +minx. Yet he addresses the one in language that would be too laudatory +for Sir Galahad, and the other he idolises and insults by turns. + +How strange it is that the poet, while lingering fondly over the doings +of these two un-moral persons, should give utterance to some of the most +impressive lines in English literature! Certain of the sonnets pierce +the heart as with an arrow: such are those that deal, in broad and +pathetic fashion, with the ceaseless flux of all things human, the grim +realities of the grave, the ruthless sequence of earthly events, and the +measureless melancholy of the reflecting mind. The effect produced is +often like what we experience in reading Ecclesiastes or Omar Khayyam. +"Golden lads and lasses must, like chimney-sweepers, turn to dust." + +Though Shakespeare is dolefully impressed by the decay and destruction +of all material things and by the evanescent nature of beauty, he has no +doubt whatever of the immortality of the verses he is writing. He vaunts +as boldly as ever Horace did--indeed, in words that suggest the _Exegi +monumentum_ ode--that his verses will outlast the proudest works of man. +It is a sorry anti-climax to such a boast that the poet harps on the +immortality of the dissolute youth as a consequence of the sonnets +having an eternity of renown. Was there ever such a puzzling and +unworthy association of ideas? The puzzle is rendered more perplexing +still by the fact that Shakespeare took no pains to enlighten posterity +as to the identity of the youth he praises, or even to supervise the +publication of the sonnets. Thorpe's piratical edition was full of +misprints, but Shakespeare, so far as we know, took no notice of it, and +made no attempt, by giving the world a correct and authentic version, to +secure what his verses declare him to be anxious to bring about, viz., +the renown of his friend among generations to come. For us the youth +still exists, no doubt, but not as an historical character. _He takes +his place among the creatures of the poets imagination, and is far more +of a shadow or phantom than any one of them._[14] + +_If we suppose_ the sonnets to be connected with real life, it is not +easy to understand why the radiant youth, "the world's fresh ornament," +"only herald to the gaudy spring," etc., should need such an amount of +persuasion to marry. Seventeen sonnets of great poetical beauty and +felicitous language are devoted to this object. It is an exquisite treat +to read them as works of art, but taken literally they are unspeakably +absurd. No sane man would draw out such lengths of linked sweetness for +the purpose named; nor would any youth, however credulous, _take the +sonnets at their face value_. Shakespeare is merely practising his art, +and we may be perfectly sure that these "sugared" sonnets (as Meres +calls them), if they did circulate among the poet's private friends, +were regarded as rhetorical exercises. They are intensely interesting, +as showing the overpoweringly dramatic nature of Shakespeare's genius. +Being impressed with the desirability of perpetuating beauty, he is +driven to express the idea in the conventional form of a +sonnet-sequence. The result is an exhaustiveness of treatment, a wealth +of imaginative ornament, and a dramatic vividness of presentation that +makes the reader marvel how so much could be made out of so little. + + [14] Mr. Lee has collected an amount of evidence which seems to + prove that T. T., _i.e._, Thomas Thorpe, who wrote the + dedication, was not only a piratical publisher, but also a + humourist. The dedication, read in the light of these + observations, acquires a character of jocularity, and _begetter_ + means _procurer_ or _getter_. Thorpe thus becomes what we know + Curll to have been a century later, a printer of stolen copy, + with a turn for cynical waggery. Mr. W. H., the begetter, + accordingly, is not a glittering aristocrat, but an unscrupulous + go-between, who has made free with somebody's escritoire, and + handed the sonnets over to the gay T. T.! + + +XENOPHON. + +There is one Greek book, of which I have gone through three or four +copies by carrying it about in the pocket for my _moments perdus_. I +refer to the _Economist_ of Xenophon, a gem of a book, and one on which +I have often lectured. The title is not an attractive one, but the body +of the work is charming in the highest degree, and gives a better notion +of ancient Greek life than any other book in existence. Ruskin, who had +an unerring instinct for good literature, got two of his disciples to +put the book into English, himself furnishing a preface of +characteristic insight and brilliancy. He might well do such homage to +the old Greek soldier, for the _Economist_ contains teaching remarkably +like what is to be found in certain of the chapters of _Unto This Last_. +A reader cannot fail to be struck by the wonderful modernness of +Xenophon's writing, his love for the country, his simple and genuine +piety, his soldierly directness, and his practical common sense. Here is +a delightful sidelight on Greek family life, written twenty-three +centuries ago, but which might have been spoken yesterday: "_My wife_," +says one of the characters, "_often puts me on trial and takes me to +task--When I am candid and tell her everything, I get on well enough, +but if I hide or disguise anything, it goes hard with me, for I cannot +make black seem white to her._" + +The _Economist_ is an ideal volume for the country calm: it will not +deliver up its best to you in the city; but if it is leisurely perused +while hayrick fragrances are in the air, while butterflies are +fluttering round the lawns, and while the flow of a clear-gushing brook +chimes with your fancy and the quiet tone of the old Greek's musings, +then (be sure) the mellow sweetness of the "Attic Bee" will be +adequately enjoyed. + +It is a great pity that life is so short, that there are only +twenty-four hours in the day, and that, owing to the general scarcity of +money among the intellectual portion of the community, the possession of +free-will is a pathetic fallacy. Nobody, in these bonds of time and +space, can do precisely what he would like to do. Mr. T. P. O'Connor +once said that, if he were master of his fate, and his feet in every way +clear, he would at once proceed to Athens and learn Greek. I can +conceive no keener or greater joy than that: it is the wish of a genuine +lover of letters. At the age of ten, I came upon an old copy of Pope's +_Homer_, and have been in love with Greek literature ever since. The +cares of this world, including rates and taxes, prevent me likewise from +proceeding to the City of the Violet Crown, but there are plenty of +cheap copies of Homer to be had in Scotland, and it is no disadvantage +that some of them have the translation printed on the opposite page. + +So many things have to be learned at school now, that Greek is being +pushed out. In future, it will be a University subject solely. That is a +great pity, for although there are fine translations of the Greek +authors in English, these are not so much read as they ought to be. +Greek itself would be much easier to learn if editors would write fewer +and shorter notes.[15] + + [15] Penalties of a really deterrent kind might at least be laid + upon those gentlemen who write _more than three_ pages of notes + to one of the author's text: + + O that the Kaiser showing sense for once + Would loose his fury on each learned dunce, + And visit with his summary proceedings + The rogues who tease us with their _variant readings_. + + +FRENCH LITERATURE AND JOURNALISM. + +I am always delighted to see French books on the shelves of a rural +library. I notice Dowden's _French Literature_ in many a Highland +bookcase; and I am sure it will please that erudite and most excellent +professor to know he has hundreds of students who never saw his face. +Everybody should learn the French language: I don't know a better +intellectual investment. French is rich in precisely those qualities +that English lacks. It is not necessary, for proof of that statement, to +read Gautier, Bourget, or Hugo. A daily paper from Paris supplies all +the proof required. + +I freely admit that the French newspaper seems, on first acquaintance, +to be a wonderful and puzzling affair. It is never dull or tiresome, or +glum. You may have your dearest susceptibilities wounded by it, but you +won't fall asleep as you read its columns. Humour trickles from +paragraph to paragraph; wit coruscates in the accounts of the most +ordinary police cases; and abundant of dexterous literary workmanship is +to be found in the leading articles. In spite of such admirable +qualities, there is an element of frivolity, a lack of seriousness (I +speak of the typical Boulevard sheet) that is at first rather shocking +to a British reader. He finds grave subjects treated with a fineness of +touch and a lucidity of reasoning at once charming and full of +edification: but, lo! a pun trails accidentally off the journalist's +pen, or an odd collocation of ideas jostle each other in his brain: the +writer at once stops his instructive reasoning; he goes off the main +line and careers bounding down some devious side-path of entertaining +nonsense. Our home papers are almost uniformly staid; they are written +conscientiously, laboriously, commendably. But, after all, the French +are right in trying to inject as much entertainment as possible into the +daily record of mundane things. + +I regret to say that the majority of French newspapers do not give their +readers a quite fair or accurate account of events happening outside of +France. French topics, as is right, have the bulk of the space, and +foreign events are usually treated in a very prejudiced and perfunctory +way. The Frenchman's enthusiasm for home politics does not leave him +much emotion to spare for the rest of the world. Political life with him +is always more or less in a state of turmoil. There is usually some +scandalous _affaire_ afoot or impending, to which political import can +easily be given. Many of the most talented editors, being members of the +Chamber, import into their articles much of the heat and unreasoning +vehemence engendered by the violence of direct debate. There has always +been a feeling since the _great_ Revolution that _others_ might follow, +and that one or other of the royal gentlemen of this or that +disestablished race might, by some cyclone of popular or military +sympathy, be blown back to power in Paris. Unluckily, there are far too +many parties in France, far too many nicknames, badges, and shibboleths. +The language of political discussion is bitter, and heated beyond +anything the cooler Anglo-Saxon would tolerate. And yet, amid all such +electric discharges of wordy rancour, the French nation goes on its way +rejoicing, not a penny the worse, making wines, silks, and fashions, for +an ungrateful world. + +There is now, and always has been, a strange sympathy between France and +Scotland. A Scot learns French, as a rule, easily. One of the striking +differences between dialect Scotch and book English is precisely the +peculiar French ingredients in the former. For three hundred years the +two countries were allies, and the advantages to England may be gathered +from the remark of King Henry V. in Shakespeare's play-- + + "For you shall read that my great-grandfather + Never went with his forces into France, + But that the Scot on his unfurnished kingdom, + Came rolling like the tide into the breach." + + +GIL BLAS. + +One French book that has solaced my leisure (in train, steamer, and +trap), is that altogether delectable volume _Gil Blas_. It would be +worth learning French to be able to read the book in the original. The +characters are non-moral reprobates who lie, rob, and drink with the +most unaffected sincerity. Vice loses all its grossness, and becomes +intensely entertaining. The tone of the confessions is at once subtle +and nave, tragic and trivial, comic and pathetic. The humour is +absolutely colossal: many English books, alleged to be humorous, do not +contain, in their entire bulk, as much humour as a single chapter of +this great work. For brilliancy of style it stands very high, and few +authors, either in France or elsewhere, have attained such admirable +clearness, precision, and pith. Read _Gil Bias_, say I, if you wish to +appreciate the possibilities of the French tongue, and taste all the +delicate flavour of its racy idiom. + + +ROMANCE AND AUGUSTANISM. + +There is a well-known text of Scripture, "In my father's house are many +mansions" which, with a slight turn, might be applied to the House of +Literature. There is room there for every pure and beautiful expression +of human thought and emotion. Romance and Augustanism have both the +right of entry. + +I am glad to see that Alexander Pope, the cleverest of our English +bards, is still a popular favourite wherever I go. It would be a pity if +this were not so, for he is head of the guild of Queen Anne wits, and +no one of them can rival his instinctive delicacy, careful workmanship, +and crystalline lucidity. His skill in the coining of impressive +aphoristic couplets is unrivalled: it is almost as good as a novel +addition to truth to find an old maxim supplied with the winged words of +such a consummate verbal artist. Pope is a writer who appeals directly +to all readers, for he never hides poverty of thought in a cloud of +vague words. + +In Pope and his fellows we miss the lavish magnificence and unchartered +freedom of the spacious times of great Elizabeth. Instead of Spenser's +amazing luxuriance of matter and metre, we have a neat uniformity and +trim array of couplets, which suggest the constant supervision of the +pruning craftsman. Compared with the Elizabethans, Pope's time has less +wealth but more careful mintage, less power but more husbanding of +strength, fewer flights of imagination but finer flutterings of fancy, +little humour but abundance of clear and sparkling wit. _It is not a +difficult task, by means of suitable selections, to bring home to an +audience of crofters the salient differences between the poetry of Pope +and of Spenser._ + +It is also easy to show to any audience that the quality which pleases +to such a high degree in poems like the _Highland Lass_ and _Yarrow +Revisited_, there is a romantic charm and thrilling magic which Pope +never could produce. A line or two from one of the poems cited has a far +more potent effect over the affections of the heart than the gorgeous +declamatory rhetoric of _Eloisa and Abelard_. But it would be foolish +to suppose that because Pope has not the passion for nature nor the glow +of self-oblivious benevolence, he has not highly educative and estimable +features. He should not be censured for what he never meant to supply: +we should rather strive to cultivate catholicity of taste by extracting +from his poems the information and enjoyment they are so well able to +furnish. + +The Prologue of Pope's _Satires_ is, of course, the best introduction to +a systematic study of the works of this writer. That poem is the +masterpiece of Pope's volume, and exemplifies better than any other +piece the striking and brilliant qualities for which he is so famous. In +perusing it, the reader soon discovers that he is in presence of a work +which is the result of incessant and prolonged labour, and which, +consequently, deserves patient study. The works of a great technical +artist require such elaborate treatment if the force of their genius is +to be adequately felt. + + +VICTORIAN WRITERS. + +If any man proposes to stay a month among scenery of hill, mountain, and +lake, I should advise him to slip a copy of Wordsworth into his pocket, +and read therefrom an hour daily; not hurrying over the pages, but +turning aside, now and again, to take in the glory of pinewood, heather, +and linn. In no volume, ancient or modern, can a tired man find such +soft and genial balm for his weariness as in the calm pages of the Rydal +singer. The poet is at his best in the broad region of natural religion. +He looks round on the beauties of the world with that solemn awe a man +feels in the hallowed precincts of a medival temple. The grandeur and +mystery of the world throw him into a kind of enchantment: his own soul +and that of the universe touch and commune with each other. In his rapt +verses we feel some of that mystic thrill felt by a devotee in the open +sanctuary of the Almighty. No man ever interpreted Nature in such +inspired strains as William Wordsworth. What supremely delights the +lover of scenery is that this poet's muse can overwrap the exact and +detailed knowledge of Nature with a superb mantle of idealistic glory. +He saw and understood the harmony of Nature's forms and colours through +all the seasons: at the quiet ingleside he meditated on what he had seen +and heard, enshrined these in verse, and added to them the warmth of his +own devout and sensitive soul. There is no exaggeration in Arnold's +tribute:-- + + "He laid us, as we lay at birth, + On the cool, flowery lap of earth, + Smiles broke from us, and we had ease; + The hills were round us, and the breeze + Went o'er the sunlit fields again. + Our foreheads felt the wind and rain, + Our youth returned; for there was shed + On spirits that had long been dead-- + Spirits dried up and closely furled-- + The freshness of the early world." + +Of Wordsworth and his successor, Tennyson, it is impossible to speak +save in terms of affectionate gratitude. God looked kindly on Britain +when he sent two such men to minister to us. Tennyson did more than all +the bishops of the Church of England to stifle crude infidelity and +equally crude religious bigotry. There is not a single line he ever +wrote of which in his last days he had need, from the point of view of +truth and morality, to be ashamed. He increased the world's stock of +happiness by poems which have been the solace of men and women in the +hours of darkness and doubt, which have led men to rise to nobler things +on the stepping-stones of their dead selves, and which, I am certain, +his grateful fellow-countrymen will not willingly let die. + +It is not the least of Tennyson's claims to our gratitude that his +genius was sensitive alike to the beauties of Celtic and of Anglo-Saxon +verse. It would be difficult to overpraise his masterly rendering of the +"Battle of Brunanburh," a vigorous old poem he found in the _Saxon +Chronicle_. Equally fine is his "Voyage of Maeldune," founded on a +Celtic legend of the seventh century. Those who wish to know what is +meant by Celtic glamour should read the last-named poem without delay. + + +CELT AND SAXON. + +Between the literatures of the Celt and the Saxon there are, indeed, +well-marked differences. The Anglo-Saxons were a set of enterprising +pirates, who drove their keels over the misty ocean, came to Britain and +took forcible possession of it, dispersing or enslaving the original +possessors. They left a literature which is, in many respects, highly +interesting, but is in the main devoid of sunshine, humour, and +sprightliness. The old poem of "Beowulf," with its rough and sturdy +verses, all splashed with brine, contains very few figures of speech: it +is a poem, but not markedly poetical; it is solid and impressive, but +not beautiful. Now, no one can read Celtic poetry, even in translation, +without being powerfully struck by its refined beauty and mystic +romance. The metaphors and similes are somewhat too abundant. The +typical Anglo-Saxon has a firm grip of the world, but is not poetical +enough; the Celt, on the other hand, is probably too much of a dreamer +and a poet--he sits on the hill-side (forgetting sometimes to till it) +and muses on fairies, second-sight, and enchantments. St. Paul used the +right word in speaking to the old world Gaels, _i.e._, Galatians: "O +foolish Galatians, who hath _bewitched_ you?" ([Greek: tis humas +ebaskane?]) + +Combine these two races in the right proportion, and you get an +admirable blend. It is not for me to say where the just man made perfect +is to be found, the man in whom the elements--practical and +poetical--are mixed in such exquisite proportion, that Nature might +stand up and say, "_There is a man_." What is certain, is that there is +a very pronounced strain of Celtic blood coursing through the veins of +the average Scotch Lowlander. Few Scots have to rummage far among their +ancestry before they find a piece of tartan: such mixture of genealogy +probably accounts for much that is best in their composition. + +The supposition that the Scotch race-combination is Celt and Saxon, and +only that, is of course erroneous. There is a very marked Scandinavian +element both in the east and the west of the country. In the year 1600 +A.D., the Norse tongue was spoken all over the Long Island from the Butt +of Lewis to Barra. Certainly, in Lewis and Skye, an enormous number of +the place-names are Scandinavian, and date from a time when the +sea-kings had dominion over the islands of the West. Many fascinating +problems of ethnology continue to occupy the attention of investigators, +and are not likely to be settled for a long time to come. One thing is +abundantly clear, viz., that purity of race and speech does not exist in +any county of Scotland: everywhere there is a mixture of blood and +language.[16] + + [16] Mr. Tocher, a Peterhead gentleman, has adopted a special + line of investigation. He has sent out schedules to every school + in Scotland asking for detailed information as to the colour of + the eyes and hair of the boys and girls. His desire is to + connect _pigmentation_ and race-origin. He believes it is still + possible to get definite information, by such means, of the + settlement and blending of Picts, Celts, Norsemen, and + Anglo-Saxons. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +ECCLESIASTICAL. + + Sectarian feeling--Typical anecdotes--Music and + religion--Ethical teaching in schools--The Moderates--A savoury + book--The Sabbath--"The Men of Skye"--The auldest kirk--The + Episcopal Church--An interlude of metre--The Christian + Brethren--Drimnin in Morven--Craignish--A model + minister--Ministerial trials in olden times--An artful + dodger--Some anecdotes from Gigha--Growing popularity of Ruskin. + + +SECTARIAN FEELING. + +In a small country township, all the influences that operate to divide +men into sects and parties are keenly and continuously felt. To a +dweller there, it is well-nigh impossible to keep out of the arena of +strife. Now that there is so much confusion and division in religious +matters, strong feeling is more easily stirred on any secular subject +that may happen to arise for discussion. If the Wee Frees, for example, +desire a new road in a certain direction, the United Frees will probably +deride the scheme and unanimously petition against it. Their antipathy +to each other becomes envenomed by their persistent proximity: if you +are a villager, you cannot get away from your adversary--in the morning, +when looking out of the window, you see him tilling his croft, mending +his nets, or washing his face in a tub at his front door. The fact that +he is there is an obstacle to your peace of mind. If you did not see +him so often, you would more readily come to believe that he possessed a +conscience and some shred of principle and decent doctrine. + +In a distant seaside town a library had been procured, and (though +doctrine was not at stake at all) a most virulent debate at once arose +as to where it should be housed. The United Frees voted for the school; +the Wee Frees called aloud for the post-office. It would require the pen +of Dean Swift (who did such justice to the strife between the +Big-Endians and Little-Endians) to recount in appropriate style the +intrigues and stratagems of the rival religionists. The local teacher +did not wish the books in school _because_ the proposal came from the +enemy. He was powerfully supported by all the young fellows of the +place, whose reverence for him, born of recent severe whackings, was +limitless. This teacher had an eloquent and vitriolic tongue, and +delivered himself thus: "What have I not done for the island? What have +these reprobates ever done? Who was it that got the frequent Macbrayne +connection with the mainland? _I did._ Who got up the concert to buy +seats for visitors coming north from Glasgow? And yet for every blessing +I give them, I get ten curses. _But I'll choke them yet._" It was +needless for the United Frees to demand a plebiscite--or, as they called +it, a _ple-biscuit_--the dominie was too forceful, persistent, and +phraseful for them, and at the public meeting he laughed down a teetotal +opponent by singing out: "Sit down on your seat, man; _it's the drink +that's speaking, no' you!_" + +No matter what the subject may be, there is usually a smack of +ecclesiasticism in the ordinary give-and-take of conversation. I cannot +illustrate this better than by giving the Lewis man's reply to an +enquiry as to _how his wooden leg was behaving_. The enquirer was a +newly-elected United Free elder, while he of the timber toes was a +staunch Disruptionist. "Well," said the latter, "my wooden leg is not +unlike a U. F. elder; it's not exactly perfection, but, considering +everything, we must just be putting up with what we can get." This was +said at a time when the Wee Frees were in a big majority in certain +parts of the Highlands, and when, as a consequence, United Free elders +had to be selected out of diminished congregations. + + +TYPICAL ANECDOTES. + +The venerable Lord Halsbury, so well known for his judgment in the great +Church case, resided, shortly after the decision, in the neighbourhood +of Forres. Men plucked each other by the sleeve as he passed along the +street, and pointed with awe to the keen-witted lawyer who had caused +such a kick-up in the realm. His most innocent doings were watched. One +day he went into a book-shop and made a purchase. When he came out, in +rushed a brace of theologians to enquire what he had bought. It turned +out that he had purchased a copy of _Comic Cuts_. The news was all round +Forres in an hour's time, and caused much consternation. "What great men +do, the less will prattle of," and it is so difficult for the former to +act up to their heroic rle. + +How thoroughly our dear native land has enjoyed its theological battles! +Will there ever be a truce to the long wars of faith? One cannot see +much ground for a too sanguine hope. After a library had been given to a +little village in the West, I paid the usual visit to the place, and +requested a free expression of views as to the suitability of the books +that had been given. One venerable old native, with eyes of fire, called +out: "_This Paisley Library has one fatal lack: it contains no works on +controversial divinity._" I ventured to hint that perhaps the omission +was intentional, but that he absolutely refused to believe. + +Coming through the Sound of Mull one blustery November day, I heard a +most animated discussion on the question "Has the Deity unlimited Free +Will?" The disputants had all the appearance of sensible crofters--they +certainly talked more intelligibly than most commentators on Kant. Some +of the ship's crew joined in the talk in such a way as to show that they +understood perfectly well the question at issue. Every member of the +ring was wet (the rain was coming down in torrents during the whole +argument), but neither "Ayes" nor "Noes" would admit defeat. When the +boat touched the terminus of Tobermory, much still remained to be said, +and the amateur theologians retired to sum up in a local bar-room. The +incident is characteristic, and could have happened in no other country +but Scotland. Presbyterianism has made the Scot somewhat too +disputatious, but it is surely better to see a man interested in +religion than in nothing at all. + +Talking of the union of the Free and U.P. Churches, I am reminded of a +laughable tale told of a Hebridean minister. "Themselves and their +Union, I say, themselves and their Union," he remarked; "I will have +nothing to do with it. I was born Free, ordained Free; I have lived +Free, and I will die Free." "But what about the stipend, Angus?" said +his wife, douce and cautious woman. "Ah, the stipend! Well, if I lose my +stipend, you will have to put on a short petticoat, strap a creel on +your back, and sell _fush_." "And what will you do, Angus, when I'm away +selling _fush_?" "Oh, I will stay at home and pray for a blessing on +your efforts." + +The use of Scriptural expressions undoubtedly gives great force to the +language of every-day life. As is well known, certain classes in cookery +have recently been established in a few northern villages. A Highland +minister, in publicly commending these classes, remarked, with a rueful +grimace: "I _do_ wish such classes as these had been in existence when +my wife was young; for, as it is, every dinner she serves up to me is +either a _burnt offering or a bloody sacrifice_!" + +The following story comes from a minister in the neighbourhood of Loch +Awe. "A clergyman of my acquaintance was stationed in a poor parish near +my own, and he called on the local laird for financial aid to help on +some of the church schemes. This laird was a well-known philanthropist, +but the call was made at the wrong psychological moment, for he chanced +on this particular day to be in a very bad humour. He listened to the +minister with great impatience, and at last, bounding to his feet and +pointing to the door, he shouted: 'Silver and gold have I none, but such +as I have, give I unto thee: in the name of Beelzebub, rise and +_walk_!'" + +It was my unfortunate experience to witness a great amount of sectarian +strife in the north and west during my various visits. Sometimes my +prospective chairman was unable to preside, owing to his having taken +part in a doctrinal scuffle, and having his coat torn, and his church +captured. These fantastic doings are in no way edifying, and are +extremely shocking to our national pride. + +Theologically, many districts of the Highlands have not advanced beyond +the stage occupied by Lowland Scotland in the time of Burns. In certain +parishes, the communion is dispensed in the open air, in the way +familiar to readers of the "Holy Fair." Sky overhead, grassy turf +beneath, solemnity, sobs, and sighs all around, certainly make up a most +impressive whole. The sermon is unmercifully long--two hours, at least: +probably, if translated into English, and shorn of repetitions, it could +be given in one-fourth of the time. If you or I, dear Lowlander, should +stand on the outside of the crowd, and appear more curious than devout, +we should certainly be alluded to in the sermon as _those wicked +people_. The discourses are no gilt-edged harangues dealing with the +"larger hope," and larded with quotations from Tennyson and Browning. +They are, on the contrary, full of Tartarean sulphur and strange fire, +and rich in grotesque illustrations, of which this is a sample: "My +friends, crowds of loathsome fiends are sent by the Prince of the Power +of the Air to tempt us to our destruction. They hang over us waiting for +their opportunity, just like a regiment of black crows hovering over a +potato-field." + +I am afraid that crude Calvinism, as preached in certain parts of the +north, is nothing less than monstrous. The good God, beneficent Father +of us all, is unrecognizable when eternal reprobation is represented as +the inevitable fate of the vast majority of His children. In time, no +doubt (and the sooner the better), the results of modern theological +thought will penetrate into the uttermost nooks of the land. + + +MUSIC AND RELIGION. + +It is not easy to see why religion should be associated with gloom and +disheartening ugliness. The long-drawn music of an Old Testament psalm +is not without a certain doleful impressiveness, but the human soul +needs occasional stimulus, even on Sundays, of something less +lugubrious. Certain congregations hate hymns: they consider them carnal +and uninspired. As for organ-music in a church, that would be _praising +God by machinery_, a preposterous and intolerable approximation to +Popery. Not long ago, a poor crofter in a Hebridean township, came to +his minister, requesting that good man's offices for the christening of +a child. The crofter in question was the possessor of an asthmatic old +concertina, and the clergyman, before the rite of admission to the +visible church could be performed, insisted on the annihilation of the +ungodly instrument of music. The minister, in person, visited the croft, +and disabled the concertina with a hammer. The child was then +christened, and the clerical zany strode off victorious, feeling he had +done a good day's work for Heaven. "Who ever heard of the Apostle Paul +playing on an organ?" was the question once propounded by Dr. Begg. The +argument was a splendid _reductio ad absurdum_, and resembles the old +reason for the reluctance of the peasantry to eat potatoes, because no +mention was made of them in Holy Writ. But songs and music are filtering +into the glens, in an official way, by the agency of the Scotch +Education Department. Musical drill is a feature of the school-room, and +it is a joy to think that such is the case. Some of the old folk, +however, look on astounded and shocked; they shake their heads, and +would, if they could, abolish such frivolity. "Why all this singing and +tramping?" said a Skyeman to me once. "What good will all the songs of +the world do to a man when he comes to his death-bed? I would rather, +this very moment, sit down in a public-house, and drink till I was +intoxicated, than screech and howl these worldly airs." Life was not so +absurd in the days of the Catholic ascendency. But human nature is +slowly asserting itself, and the days of the glum tyrannical zealot are +assuredly numbered. + + +ETHICAL TEACHING IN SCHOOLS. + +In some districts of the North, the inspectors have considerable trouble +with certain teachers of the devout type who, from conscientious +scruples, refuse to read to the children anything in the nature of a +fairy tale. While examining a class in a remote Sutherland school, an +inspector requested the schoolmaster to narrate to the children, in +Gaelic, the story of Little Red Riding Hood, and get them thereafter to +put it into English. But the teacher most emphatically refused: "No, no, +I cannot do that: it is all a lie; wolves do not speak; _no animal +speaks_." The inspector, to refute him, unwisely alluded to the +Scripture account of Balaam's ass in the twenty-second chapter of +Numbers; whereupon, the dominie nearly swooned at the impiety of +comparing that inspired animal with a secular beast like Grimm's wolf. +For some time after, the inspector was bombarded with anonymous letters, +accusing him of habitually _sitting in the scorner's chair_. He was +terrified lest some Member of Parliament, eager for a grievance, should +be got to move the adjournment of the House of Commons, with the +righteous object of directing the attention of Government to Little Red +Riding Hood and the naughty inspector of schools.[17] + +The question of religious teaching in schools is capable of an easy +solution, and we in the south have come pretty near solving it. The best +solution is to have no dogma at all in the school-room. The Catechism +and Prayer-book are excellent in their way, but the school is no place +for them. We have a very complete and extensive organisation of churches +in the land, and an army of officials ordained to teach doctrines and +tenets: let them take up the inculcation of creeds and rites, but don't +let us perplex the school children with catechisms and metaphysical +definitions. It is easy to make a distinction between morality and +doctrine--a distinction which is alike clear and reasonable. Morality is +an earthly and secular affair, and has to do with matters of elementary +honesty such as every responsible citizen of a free country ought to +practice. Religion is a higher affair, dealing with our relationship to +the unseen: it is outside the province of the teacher, and should not be +thrust into the school programme along with history and geography and +grammar. Morality is of this world: religion of the next. Let everything +be kept in its proper place. As to that division of duty which deals +with right conduct, there is no controversy whatever. _Thou shalt not +steal_; _thou shalt not bear false witness_--these, and the like +elementary rules of conduct, are universally admitted to be right, for +they are the groundwork of society. Take these away, and the world +lapses into chaos. The following virtues are capable of being taught in +schools:--(1) a strict adherence to the truth; (2) the application of +the golden rule; (3) cheerful obedience at the call of duty; (4) +reverence and respect for everything noble and great in the history of +the world. These can all be taught, and are actually taught, by every +conscientious teacher in the country. They constitute not the whole of +duty, indeed, but the most difficult part of it--certainly all that need +come into the realm of pedagogy. + + [17] How differently the items in the Sacred Canon are regarded + in scholastic circles in the South! A Glasgow teacher, discussing + the Origin of Evil with a Government official, expressed great + resentment at the loss of paradise through Adam's sin, and added: + "It comes specially hard on me, seeing that I don't care a + _docken_ for apples." + + +THE MODERATES. + +_Ami lecteur_, have you ever heard of the _Moderates_? If, by chance, +you have dipped into the interminable controversies that gyrated round +the Disruption year, it is probable you may have heard more than enough +of them. One gets the impression that they were an unimpassioned, +easy-going, anti-brimstone, but highly estimable body of men. They were +blamed for preaching morality and not the penetrating mysteries of the +faith. In "The Holy Fair," Burns gives us an inimitable picture of the +moral philosopher in the pulpit:-- + + "But hark! the tent has changed its voice, + There's peace an' rest nae langer, + For a' the real judges rise-- + They canna sit for anger. + Smith opens out his cauld harangues + On practice and on morals, + An' aff the godly pour in thrangs + To gie the jars an' barrels + A lift that day. + + "What signifies his barren shine + Of moral powers an' reason? + His English style and gesture fine + Are a' clean out o' season. + Like Socrates or Antonine, + Or some auld pagan heathen, + The moral man he does define, + But ne'er a word o' faith in + That's richt that day." + +I confess to a certain liking for Smith. He knew what was good for the +Holy Willies and the other "chosen samples" and "swatches o' grace" in +his auditory. Like a sensible man, and like the Apostle James, he laid +more stress on "practice and on morals" than on lip-worship and faith. +"Faith without works is dead" is a dictum that needs to be incessantly +emphasised, and nowhere more than in certain ultra-orthodox localities +of Scotland at the present day. + +The Established Church is, with few exceptions, a negligible +denomination in the Hebrides. For some reason it is regarded as the +modern representative of the Moderate or Broad type of Calvinistic +Christianity, and, as such, an abomination to the zealots. To show what +a poor hold the Establishment has in Lewis, it is enough to remark that +there are in that island only 183 Auld Kirk communicants out of a +population of 32,947. Figures almost equally striking could be given for +the Presbyteries of Uist, Skye, and Glenelg. The chief occupation of +some parish ministers in insular Scotland must be that of killing time. +I once met one of these reverend gentlemen in one of the hotels in +Stornoway. He seemed to take a pleasure in running contrary to all the +darling prejudices of the islanders. Dancing he approved of; he did not +believe in prefacing his prayer or homily with a sanctimonious whine; +and he actually was willing to admit that a few Catholics might get to +heaven. An equally glaring fault--in the eyes of bigotry, I mean--was +that he _dropped into poetry_ at stated times, and sent his Gaelic +verses to one of the Highland newspapers. The Parish Church buildings, +in many localities of the West Highlands, are in a woeful state of +disrepair. They have a prevailing odour of must and damp; the seats are +hard deal, unkind to the human anatomy; doors and windows rattle and +shake during the service; creeping things move along the walls; +sometimes the floors are nothing but the uneven and unconcealed Scottish +earth. In such churches, there is some credit in being devout. + + +A SAVOURY BOOK. + +An outstanding member of the clan Macdonald, for some time minister at +Applecross, deserves a cordial vote of thanks for a savoury book he has +written on the social and religious condition of the Highlands. He is +not a bit scared by the Darwinian theory of evolution. "We have a good +deal in common," he says, "with the brute creation, and have no cause to +feel ourselves degraded on that account. The lower animals, not +excluding the much-despised monkey, are specimens of divine workmanship +which _reflect the highest honour on the skill and power of the Maker_." +Could any admission be more handsome or candid than that? + +I have learned a great deal from Mr. Macdonald's cheery and broad-minded +volume. He is strong in history, and has had, it would seem, access to +information that is closed to the general eye. There is a glorious +simplicity in his views on Caledonian ethnology. A roguish prince, +Gathelus, son of the king of Greece, migrated to Egypt, and married +Scota, daughter of that Pharaoh who persecuted the Israelites. The +various plagues "that o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung," terrified +Gathelus, and he flitted in hot haste to Spain, and called his followers +Scots, to please his wife. Later in life, he sent his son Hiber to +Ireland, where the lad settled, and named the island after his noble +self, Hibernia. Scots continued to pour into Ireland, _vi_ the Bay of +Biscay, and finally, under Simon Brek, subdued the entire extent of the +Green Island. In 360 A.D., they came over to Argyllshire, and aided the +indigenous Picts (who were also Celts) against the legions of Rome. This +is so compact and clear an account, that I wish it were true. The way in +which sacred and profane history are blended strikes me as singularly +able. + +Mr. Macdonald has an intimate knowledge of Celtic superstitions, and +always castigates the right thing. Certain diseases of the brain were, +till quite recently, believed to be curable if the afflicted man could +procure a suicide's skull and take a drink out of it. Mr. Macdonald +rightly dwells upon the absurdity of such a specific, but confesses that +one might as well try to "bale out the Atlantic" as eradicate the +foolish pagan notions that still linger in the glens. + +Ministers have a great deal of captious criticism to stand, if we may +judge by Mr. Macdonald's anecdotes. They are blamed for terminating +their discourses _with a silver tail_ (_i.e._, intimating a special +collection). The sermon itself is not immune from cruel jests, as the +following report of a parishioner's criticism will show: "A minister is +like a joiner. The joiner takes a piece of wood and shapes it roughly +with the axe. Then he applies his rough plane, and smooths it down a +bit. After that, he takes his fine plane; and, lastly, he rubs it with +sandpaper, and finishes it with polish till he makes it appear like +glass. And so with the minister: he works his sermon, from sheet to +sheet, with pen and ink, till he makes it at last so smooth _that a +flea could not stand on it_."[18] + + [18] Ministers, being public men, are, of course, as Mr. + Macdonald means to point out, exposed to the criticism, + frequently so absurd, that eminence entails. I recently examined + the bye-laws of a literary association in Ross-shire, of which + the president is a sheep-farmer, and the secretary, a postman. It + is a rule of this association that no minister is ever to be + president, the reason assigned being that ministers would try to + elevate the natives _too hurriedly_. The people do not object to + be elevated, but they wish the process to be performed without + unnecessary haste. + + +THE SABBATH. + +I was not a little surprised during my attendance at Highland churches +to hear the ministers devoting much strong rhetoric to the sin of +Sabbath-breaking. Taking the air on the first day of the week for quiet +meditation and the good of one's health, has always seemed to me a +laudable practice, but in many Highland parishes, a Sunday stroll +implies ungodliness, even although the stroller may have attended one or +more diets of worship earlier in the day. Such a state of matters is +preposterously absurd, and, to my thinking, quite irreligious--it at +least tends to make hypocrites. Some years ago, I spent a week in a +typical insular village, lodging in the local inn. It was noticeable +that on Sundays, the front blinds of the house were never drawn up. When +the church-bells tolled the hour for public worship, the solemn devotees +could be seen (through holes in the blind) pacing along, looking fixedly +at the toes of their boots. The landlord of the house thought it no sin +to observe the passers-by, so long as he could do so in a clandestine +way. He had no desire to mend the blind. + +The restfulness and peace of a British Sunday is a blessed thing, as +every Briton who has been long resident abroad, will readily admit. +There is, however, a reasonable medium to be found between the unnatural +Calvinistic Sabbath (with its limited view of the world through a torn +blind) and the Continental Sunday, gay with skipping and junketing. +Within recent years, to some extent owing to the bicycle and motor-car, +the Sabbath has become rather too animated and bustling. The change is +perhaps not entirely regrettable. The terrible Sunday dulness of some of +our large towns has been, of late years, rendered less oppressive by the +opening of museums and art galleries. I heard a man of fifty confess +that in his boyhood he prayed fervently once, and only once, a week: the +prayer in question was said on Sunday evening, and consisted of a +heartfelt ejaculation of thanks to Heaven that the holy day was over for +another week. + +Church-going is a splendid and salutary practice, and every man who does +not base his life on some religious sanction, is leading a mutilated +life. There is such a thing, however, as ecclesiastical dyspepsia, a +disease engendered by forced attendance at too many religious services +when one is young. The disease is unfortunately apt to develop in mature +years, into complete indifference to doctrine of all kinds. + +After all, doctrine is largely useful as a mental exercise, and may +easily become divorced from practical honesty. Not once but fifty times +have I been told that the village experts in theology were precisely the +men who needed most watching in mundane matters. "So-and-so is a +specialist on the millennium: _beware of him_." "Old Duncan is the +strictest Sabbatarian in the island, but on Monday he's worth keeping an +eye on." "Many a man that keeps the fourth commandment is not so +particular about the others." Such are the phrases one is perpetually +hearing, and they go far to prove how inoperative are ritual, +profession, and form, in the life of some Christians. + +To keep the ten commandments, or rather, I should say, the eleven, is no +easy matter for either Celt or Saxon. It is far easier to be +ostentatiously religious than scrupulously moral, to say prayers than to +pay debts, to split hairs of doctrine than to love your enemies. I never +read a more markedly scriptural book than _The Men of Skye_, nor one +that displays such intolerance to the school of Laodiceans. I am not +insensible to the intense enthusiasm of the author for the memory of the +illiterate catechists who went round the island preaching to the people +in a homely and graphic way. The unlovely feature of the book is the +antagonism displayed towards those who wish to bring about a union of +the Presbyterian bodies. "Not all the cement outside of heaven," one man +says, "could bring about a union of the Free and U.P. Churches." The +Declaratory Act, secular teaching in schools, instrumental music, and +such like, all come in for severe treatment or ironical reference. + + +_THE MEN OF SKYE._ + +The book to which I have referred (_The Men of Skye_) gives a wonderful +insight into the religious psychology of the Celtic zealot. It was in +Portree that I first got a look at the little work, which consists of a +series of biographies of outstanding lay preachers. I enjoyed the +perusal of it immensely, and I am afraid the pious author will regard me +as little better than one of the wicked when I say that I had many a +hearty laugh at its contents. I am very unwilling to seek gaiety in +pious books, very averse to laugh at honest, heart-felt beliefs, but the +author of _The Men of Skye_ was too many for me. His quaint metaphors, +droll tenses and unlicensed syntax, were a perpetual feast of nectared +sweets. + +The language in which the book is written is not Gaelic, though it has +not quite reached the stage of English. The following extract is a +typical one: "John Mackenzie lived at Galtrigil, was a God-fearing man, +and professed religion, and his conduct was worthy of his profession, +consistent in all its parts. He was employed as fishcurer to Dr. Martin. +When he would be busy in the store, on the shore, his wife would go down +with his food. He had a large heap of salt beside him, but he was so +scrupulously conscientious that when she took down an egg, she would +need also to bring from his own house the grain of salt he would put in +it. He would not take so much as a grain of salt that was not his own. +He was careful about what belonged to the cause of Christ, and would +like to know that those who took up a profession of religion had +undergone what he termed a _clean conversion_." + +Some of the stories told of Angus Macleod, are altogether unique: "He +was one day entrusted with the herding of the minister's cattle, but +while he prayed, the cattle made their way into the corn. The minister +came out and began to advise and rebuke him, but Angus said, 'Let the +righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness; and let him reprove me, it +shall be an excellent oil which shall not break my head.'" (Psalm cxli. +5.) I consider that story and the two which follow quite equal, in their +diverting pointlessness, to any of those told by Cicero in _De Oratore_, +Book ii. At one time it was thought advisable to teach Angus how to +read, but he never could be got to master the alphabet. He would utter +aloud the following reflections: "_A_ _b_, _ab_: Ah! that is but dry. +There is no food there for my soul. There is no word about Christ or God +there, no word about forgiveness of sin. I would rather be at the back +of a dyke where I would get a moment of the presence of the Lord." As +Angus usually replied to his associates by a text of Scripture, he must +have had a good ear for Holy Writ. "His father was one day repairing a +dyke. Angus tried to assist him and broke the spade. His father's temper +was roused, and he ran after his son to punish him. Angus ran away +calling out, 'Oh, Lord, avenge me of mine adversary.'" On one occasion, +when asked why he had refused to pray in public, he replied that it was +out of his power to do so at the time. "Why," said his interlocutor, +"Jonah was able to pray even in the whale's belly." "Yes, yes," said +Angus, "but I was in a worse state than Jonah: for the whale was in my +belly." + +It may not be unnecessary to state that the word Men in the title of the +book is to be understood as meaning "men of exceptional piety." The word +is a technical one in that sense. All the _men_ I have read about were +fervid Frees, many of them being elders and catechists in that body. +After the Disruption, there was a wonderful crop of these men produced +in the Highlands, and through their means, _religion became a very real +and forcible affair_. Their attitude to life and general outlook on the +world are quite unlike anything to be found among the luke-warm +believers of the Laodicean South. We read of one zealot devoting a whole +winter to the task of combating shinty and tobacco. It is impossible to +withhold some measure of admiration from Christians so staunch, logical, +and uncompromising. _Logical?_ Well, here at least is a gem of +ratiocination. What, for example, was the cause that forced so many +Skyemen to emigrate to the Canadian plains and the Australian bush? The +fathers of Skye believed that the crofters, having insufficiently +appreciated the unique opportunities of divine worship at home, were +driven by a wrathful deity over the water to a land where there were +_few or no Presbyterian Churches_. + + +THE AULDEST KIRK. + +There are some parts of Scotland that the Reformation seems never to +have reached. I have been told that up till this day no Protestant +minister ever preached in Morar (the delightful spot, with lake of same +name, near Mallaig), and that in consequence Catholics call it "Blessed +Morar" (_Morar Bheanaichte_). There is a Catholic strip of country, +extending right through the heart of Scotland, along the Caledonian +Canal; aristocrats, chiefs, and crofters there boast that their +ecclesiastical history goes back, uncontaminated by schisms and private +judgment, right to the time of Ninian and Columba. + +It appears evident that the iconoclastic Parliament of 1560, which made +it unlawful to obey the Pope or say mass, pretty effectually paralysed +the Catholic Church in the land. Only in secluded districts, such as +Uist, Barra, Morar, Arisaig, and Glengarry, were the faithful safe from +prosecution. The organisation of the Church was maimed and broken, and +hundreds of priests took to flight. To use the cruel words of Milton-- + + "Then might ye see + Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, tossed + And fluttered into rags; then relics, beads, + Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls-- + The sport of winds." + +Having visited a fair number of Catholic districts in the West of +Scotland, I have given myself the pleasure of reading, as far as is +available, the historical records of the Pope's faithful adherents +there. _These are most interesting as showing the pertinacity of +religious faith among the most hostile surroundings._ The Scots College +at Rome, founded by Clement VIII., supplied a large number of priests, +who spread themselves abroad in the glens, and kept the old faith from +completely perishing. The Roman Catholic College at Scanlan, on the +Braes of Glenlivet, was a turf-built erection, dating from 1712. It was +often compulsorily closed and the students dispersed. The most important +school for priests in the West was at Buorblach, near Morar. Here the +aspirants for priesthood studied for a year or two, after which they +proceeded to some one of the Scots colleges abroad--such as Paris, +Ratisbon, Valladolid, or Rome. Those students who received the whole of +their instruction at home, and got ordained without going abroad, were +styled _heather priests_. + +The best-known Catholic township of the West Highlands at the present +time is undoubtedly Arisaig, a charming spot, where the mild air allows +the wild flowers to spring in profusion and where the fuchsia thrives +better than anywhere else in Scotland. There is a strikingly elegant +Catholic Church here, built on a commanding site that dominates the bay. +In September, 1904, I addressed a meeting in the Astley Hall of Arisaig, +under the genial chairmanship of the Clerk of the House of Commons. The +audience was overwhelmingly Catholic, and it was quite evident that all +were keenly appreciative of the library that had recently been sent to +the district. It gave me no ordinary pleasure to note that the literary +society of the place was made up of both Catholics and Protestants, and +that all the inhabitants, forgetting their religious differences, could +assemble together as friends on the common meeting-ground of literature. +Such an amalgamation is bound to mitigate the sectarian rancour that +too often works like a pestilence in small villages and rural +communities. It is an excellent feature, too, in such places as Arisaig, +that the local priest gives every encouragement to his people to read +and study secular books of an elevating character. It would be strange +indeed if the representative of a Church which in medival times gave +such splendid encouragement to art and letters, should deem it a duty to +prohibit his people from availing themselves of the means of culture. + +It undoubtedly comes as a surprise to a Lowlander, who is prone to think +that every born Scot is necessarily a born Protestant, to find in remote +nooks of his native country, home-grown specimens of the faith that was +once prevalent everywhere. He has to sit down and muse on the hillside +over the matter, and, if he is imaginative, he will see by fancy's eye +the skiff of St. Columba breasting the breakers on its way from Ireland +to Iona. + + +THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH. + +Of all the Churches or sects in Scotland, probably the most remarkable +is the Episcopalian. Many Englishmen settle in the Lowlands for purposes +of trade, and, in most cases, bring their religion with them. Such +immigration explains the numerous Episcopal chapels in the towns of +southern Scotland. But no such cause can explain the presence of scores +of small Episcopal congregations in the rural districts of Aberdeen and +Banff. These have not been imported from over the Border, but in reality +have a long history behind them. Many of them date from the sixteenth +and seventeenth centuries. The Stuart kings never liked Presbyterianism, +and James I. tried to make the Scotch Church as like the English one as +possible: in 1610, indeed, he managed to bring about the consecration of +a certain number of Scotch bishops. The Episcopalians in the North +showed a warm affection for the Stuarts during the distresses of that +royal house, and such Jacobitism did the scattered congregations a deal +of harm. The number of Episcopal chapels throughout the land is fairly +high, but the total of the communicants is relatively small. The clergy +are a most estimable and cultured body of men, and perform their duties, +which are often very laborious, in an eminently exemplary fashion. Their +stipends are ridiculously poor, and the scene of their labours is +frequently the reverse of lively. Very often, in the bleak moors and +glens of north-east Scotland, I have spent pleasant and memorable +evenings in the village rectory. The modes of speech and general +atmosphere of a Scotch rectory differ piquantly from those of the manse. +It is certain that a clergyman who is in constant touch with the +Anglican ritual, develops a special turn of talk and a characteristic +set of mannerisms. + +I am convinced that, in learning and culture, the Episcopal clergy +compare very favourably with those of the other Churches. Some of them +have written, both in the departments of theology and general +literature, works of outstanding and permanent value. In spite of all +that, however, it does not seem probable that they will make many +converts to their creed. Presbyterianism has a firm grip on the +country: symbol and ritual do not thrive well in the cold air of the +North. Once upon a time, in the Black Isle, as the records of the +Arpafeelie Episcopal Church show, there was a strong feeling of +antagonism to Presbyterianism; but that was in 1711, and was probably +more political than religious. + +It is a well-known fact that a large proportion of the aristocracy and +landed-gentry of Scotland are Episcopalians. This is due, not so much to +the leisure they have for studying theological problems, as to the fact +that most of them have been educated in English public schools. + +How pleasant it is to contemplate the broad-mindedness of the greatest +of our Scotch Episcopalians, Sir Walter Scott, as seen in the +thirty-seventh chapter of _Guy Mannering_! Speaking of religious +differences, he makes Pleydell say: "_A plain man may go to heaven +without thinking about them at all_." Even at the present day, there is +a most regrettable lack of such urbanity in the disputes of educated +theologians. I picked up a book not long since, which amused as well as +shocked me greatly. It purported to be a history of _the_ Church in +Scotland. The author was a facetious Episcopalian, for his history made +no mention of either the Free, the Established, or the United +Presbyterian denominations. The Episcopal sect alone had the honour of +being dubbed a Church. Now, if a writer ever took it on him to write a +history of the Church in England, he ought to devote space to _all_ the +bodies, and be careful not to omit mention even of the Plymouth +Brethren. I rather think that the Plymouth Brethren should have the +lengthiest treatment of all, seeing that no shred of the Church +resembles so closely the original type of Christianity. + + +AN INTERLUDE OF METRE. + +I have often endeavoured to fix discourses from the Highland pulpits by +embodying in metre (I do not say poetry) the leading thought or most +striking illustration that I carried away. For the sake of variety and +to prevent this chapter from appearing too frivolous, I, at this point, +give one or two "moderate" sermons in little. + + +I. + + When heavy-laden Christian, panting sore, + Had gained the home of the Interpreter, + He saw a sorry fellow with great stir + Ply a vile muck-rake on a filthy floor; + And the more mire the churl raked, the more + He smiled, although a winged messenger + Floating aloft was eager to confer + On him the crown that in her hands she bore. + So is it with those fools that waste their days + In raking stores of dross and minted gear, + Oblivious of the crown of deathless rays + That God is offering freely to them here. + Miser! your stay on earth is short indeed, + Renounce the dross and choose the heavenly meed. + + +II. + + He that is wise will not in haste decide, + But look and think before believing aught; + Then, having long reflected, will confide + To no breast but his own his finished thought, + Until experience warrants every jot. + Man! Suffer not thy soul to yield to pride + Of intellect. Small is thy mortal lot + Of wisdom. Others seek the truth beside + Thyself. Behold aloft in air there fly + Fowls diverse all in nature, strength of wing + And keenness: even so the men who hie + On the soul's quests. In genius differing, + They all some twinkling sparks of truth may see, + But the whole flaming round is hid from them and thee. + + +III. + + Thou who in folly thinkest Heaven's King + Has sent thee into this fair world to gain + As many guineas as, with toil and pain, + In threescore years thine avarice can wring + From poorer men, be warned! With tiger-spring + Fell death will leap upon your life amain + And rive you from your opulence, though fain + To tarry. Then the jovial heir will fling + To the four winds of heaven thy gathered hoard + In flaunting joys and unrestricted glee, + While costly dishes glitter on the board + And the wine flows in ruddy runnels free. + Thou, meanwhile, in the shady realms below + A bloodless ghost, wilt wander to and fro. + + +IV. + +I. + + Though lilies on their graceful stalk + Droop, fade, and die, + Earth's still renewing forces mock + Death's cruelty. + +II. + + For roots and seeds within the mould + Will thrust again + Their sheathed beauties manifold + Up to the plain. + +III. + + Though flowery hopes of dazzling gleam + Wither and die, + New hopes in the soul's garden teem + Unceasingly. + +V. + + O Lord of light, disperse my baffling fears, + Give me a look but for a moment's space + Upon the tranquil glory of Thy face, + To serve as force to fight the chilling years. + Clouds hide Thee from me, and the bitter tears + Run down my cheek in floods. Out of Thy grace + Let my heart's chamber be a dwelling-place + For Thee. Come for a little space. Mine ears + Strain for the hearing of a word divine + Straight from Thy holy lips. No single task + Can I at all accomplish or design + Without the full assurance that I ask + This, namely, that my soul is one with Thee, + And Thou dost work Thy purposes by me. + + +THE CHRISTIAN BRETHREN. + +It would be well-spent labour if some sympathetic historian could find +time to write a short account of the Plymouth Brethren, giving details +of the origin, tenets, divisions, and influence of the sect. I am +surprised that Mr. Barrie in his notable excursions into Scotch life and +religion, has never portrayed such a fine specimen of the working-man +turned theologian. + +It must not be supposed that only the rich and the leisurely have what +is called religious experiences and shadowed souls. The finest +developments, doubtless, of the religious sense require time and money. +That leisurely groping after tendencies, that introspective analysis of +the sins of omission and commission, that delightful perception of the +falling away from righteousness of your brethren and sisters--all these +choice sweets are, if they are to be adequately enjoyed, compatible only +with a minimum of 300 a year. The religious sense and the musical are +in many points alike. If you wish to develop an initially melodious +soul, it means expense: you must go to professors, study counterpoint, +practice many hours daily, and attend concerts of the most exclusive and +expensive kind. Similarly with religion in its finest flower. You need +slaves to cook and wash for you if you mean to ecstaticise and see +beatific visions: you must get the most fashionable and picturesque +specialists to come and feel your religious pulse, and you must on no +account neglect the subscription lists. But only those rich enough to be +hypochondriac can afford such luxuries. Now, in the toiling classes +there are often good ears for music, and exquisite responsiveness to +religious sensations. What satisfies such natures and such wants must be +cheap. The Plymouth Brethren (I ought rather to say _Christian_ +Brethren), have no General Assembly, little or no pedantry of a costly +kind, and yet, I believe, they supply all the exhilaration of schisms, +splits, counter-splits, and heresy-hunts. Every man his own General +Assembly! There may be a lack of the finer touches in such a system, but +what is lacking in elegance is fully made up in clearness of view and +rombustious vigour. + +In many of the fishing villages on the east coast of Scotland, there are +large congregations of these worthy men raising their Ebenezers, and +making a joyful noise on the first day of the week. I have a good deal +of sympathy with their democratic and direct style of worship. In +Scotland, when a man gets converted, he feels constrained to _do +something_, but very often there is little outlet for his energy in the +calm routine of the fashionable churches--hence the necessity for +bethels and mission-houses. At their revivals, let me add, one is in +presence of that mysterious awakening to which every religion owes its +birth. + +In the autumn of 1906, I had an interesting talk with the minister of a +seaside village on the shore of the Moray Firth, and was distressed to +find that he was sorely harassed by the lively sect I have mentioned. +Every now and again a wandering evangelist comes along the coast, +pitches a tent, and begins a series of gospel services. Those who are +converted, neglect the church and all its ordinances, and begin +preaching on their own account; nay, they even buttonhole the minister +and preach to _him_, accusing him of being an unjust steward, a +hireling, and no shepherd, and so on. Such conduct creates a very +painful situation. With a good deal of detail, the long-suffering +clergyman gave me an account of a visit he had paid to an old woman +recently converted. The narrative of her conversion as told by herself +was quaint and touching: "They were a' gettin' it," she said, "and I +wasna gettin' it. So I jist went to the door and steekit my e'en, and +raised them to the lift, and _I got it_. Isn't that the way o't, auld +man?" "Aye, aye, that's the way o't, auld wife," chimed in the husband. +The latter then took up the wondrous tale: "When she came in and tell't +me she had got it, I went doon on my knees to thank the Lord jist at the +fireside, and lo and behold, when I opened my e'en, I was at the street +door. The Spirit had taken me there, unbeknown to me. So I lifted up my +voice and called on God's people. And in five minutes the room and +kitchen were filled wi' saved folk, a' singing hymns, because my auld +wife had got it at last." + +I also remember meeting an old thatcher of eminent talents who seemed to +me to be on the straight road for Zion, for he fulfilled the Scriptural +injunction to be fervent in spirit as well as not slothful in business. +James had at one time been precentor in one of the regular churches, but +owing to some cantankerous criticism of his melody, he seceded to the +Brethren, who fearlessly accepted his services gratis. James was +specially lyrical on the roof, and it was a treat to hear him sing +"_There is rest for the weary_," as he pushed the thatch into its long +home:-- + + "There is rest for the weary, + There is rest for the weary, + There is rest for _you_" (with a forceful thrust). + +I must not omit to mention (and with reverence be it spoken) that James +had a reputation far and wide in the country-side, for the vigour and +extreme unction of his grace before meat. Though giving a humble tenor +to the initial phrases and using the tar-brush on himself, and the +hungry company as putrid sinners unworthy even of the least of the +mercies, he always contrived to reassure everyone by sunnily rounding +off the matter with some rich and racy allusions to the gracious and +ample promises of Holy Writ. One could have felt quite comfortable even +in a slight excess of gluttony after such introductory words of +blessing. You felt that the occasion had been met, that something like +perfection had been attained. James was willing to admit shortcomings in +thatching, or in any department of human activity, so long as his +superiority in pre-prandial supplication was admitted. But it so +happened that Fate, whose delight it is to imperil even the stablest +reputations, sent his way a South-country Brother with a gift in prayer +truly appalling. At a gathering at which James was present, this +stranger was honoured by being asked to say grace. In the process, he +soared to such heights of oratory and supplicatory fervour, that the +uniform opinion of the guests, as evinced by looks, demeanour, and even +congratulation, was that James had at last been beaten on his own +ground. Supreme dejection settled on the thatcher, and neither bite nor +sup could dislodge the settled melancholy of his soul. After long +pondering with chin on chest in a corner of that pious throng, he had an +idea. Sidling up to the matron of the house, he, with a terrible whisper +of earnestness, addressed her in these words: "Mistress, before we gang +hame, doon wi' a whang o' cheese and a farl o' cake--it'll no' cost ye +much--and _I'll ha'e a tussle wi' him for't yet_." She gladly complied +with his request. His excitement gave him inspiration, and over that +cheese and oatcake, he delivered himself of such a grace as had never +before proceeded from his lips. A murmur of involuntary admiration +greeted the conclusion. James was comforted, and once more held his head +erect. + +To talk of the Evolution of Religion to men like James would be a +complete waste of time. Such men regard themselves as the acme of the +process: whatever modifications may supervene after their day will be +deteriorations. It is quite impossible to persuade an enthusiast that he +is a mere phenomenon of development, and not, actually and now, the roof +and crown of things. Even if persuasion were possible, it would be a +cruelty to disillusionise these happy wights,--men who, with such +sublime confidence, can read their title clear to mansions in the sky. +They have a complete key to the universe, and are as happy as if they +had seen the whole vast circle of truth. + + +DRIMNIN IN MORVEN. + +How many of my readers know where Drimnin is? If I should say, "In the +parish of Morven," it is possible the majority of them would not be +greatly edified, unless they had acquaintance with the saintly Macleod's +_Reminiscences of a Highland Parish_. Well, Drimnin is on the mainland, +nearly opposite the entrance to the haven of Tobermory. The _Chevalier_ +nears into the coast when anyone wishes to land, and two boatmen, +obeying a signal, pull out from shore into the open, and the passenger +leaps, as gracefully as circumstances permit, into their arms--amid the +cheers of those left on the steamer. + +The clergyman of Morven ministers to a parish that has over a hundred +miles of seaboard, and, strange to say, there have been only three +incumbents in it during the last hundred and thirty years, himself being +the third, with twenty-six years' ministry to his credit so far. These +facts procured him an extraordinary reception in America, where he spent +a holiday recently. The Americans, with whom change is the permanent +element, looked with amazement on a minister who came from a parish with +such a record. They thronged round his hotel to get shaking hands with +him, while he blushed to think that homage was being paid to the +longevity of his predecessors. It is no treat to be a lion in Maine. + +The visitor to Drimnin should return to Oban by driving to Lochaline, +where there is a pier. A mere glance up that inlet of Lochaline is +sufficient to prove the unerring accuracy of Sir Walter's description: +"Fair Lochaline's woodland shore." Scott had a marvellous eye for +scenery, and having once seen a locality, could describe it better than +a native could do who had lived in the neighbourhood from youth +upwards.[19] + + [19] I may here refer to a pleasant three hours spent in rowing + on Lochaline in the company of Mr. Hugh Macintyre, an old + gentleman full of Scott and well versed in the lore of the + locality. He was a policeman in Glasgow for thirty-five years + (latterly as guardian of the Kelvingrove Picture Gallery), and + now, in the enjoyment of good health and a pension, spends his + time reading and doing good in his native district. Mr. + Macintyre's earliest recollection is of his father being evicted + from a small holding, at the head of the loch, in the "forties." + + Tennyson and Palgrave were visitors at Ardtornish, as Mr. Lang + tells us, but made no special impression on the natives, who + styled them respectively _Tinman_ and _Pancake_. + + +CRAIGNISH. + +At Craignish (two miles _or so_ from Ardfern, next pier to Luing on the +way from Crinan to Oban) I was astonished to find what I think is unique +in Scotland, an old clergyman, born in 1824, still, without any aid +whatever, performing all the duties of a parish minister in one of the +wildest parts of Argyllshire. I refer to the Rev. Mr. M'Michael, who was +chairman at the lecture. The old gentleman, who is remarkably hale in +body and never melancholy at meal-time (as he slyly puts it), is prone +to speak by preference of the events of "auld lang syne." He gave me a +most vivid account of Professor John Wilson (whom, as I do not now live +in Paisley, I may safely venture to call Paisley's _greatest_ son), who +was one of his teachers, and who, as "Christopher North," wrote so many +witty and solid articles that undeservedly perished in _Blackwood's +Magazine_ at the beginning of last reign. I have rarely had such a treat +as my talk with this hale-hearted octogenarian. His charming daughters +keep house for him, and employ their leisure time weaving at a loom of +their own. The sheep that graze on the glebe supply the wool, and the +intermediate stages between the back of the sheep and the woollen +overcoat on the back of the needy are all supervised by these dexterous +daughters of the manse. + +The coach to Craignish passes through a bit of Scotland that, in the +leafy month of June, must be glorious to behold. I passed along in a +fierce and chilling blizzard of sleet and snow. If a poet could keep +warm, thought I, this would be the spot for him to get impressive scenes +for his word-pictures. At one part, the road ziz-zags up a hill for +three miles, alongside a furious burn, to a height of six hundred feet; +from which eminence one sees, on the right, great bare crags and steep +heights, and, on the left, an inlet of the Atlantic foaming wildly +below. Ye gentlemen of the cloth, whose lot is cast in towns and who sit +at home in ease, think of the trials of your rural brethren in their +attempts to drive in winter through drifting snow to a presbytery +meeting fourteen miles away![20] + + [20] I could mention another rural parish, considerably further + north, where, two winters ago, the roads were so badly blocked + with snow that for five consecutive weeks no church services + could be held! Both minister and congregation were overcome with + grief. + + +A MODEL MINISTER. + +Not far from the city of Aberdeen is a little village of seafaring folk, +and the worthy minister, the Rev. Mr. Pollock, is guide, philosopher, +and friend to the entire community. Up to his manse, which is a mile +from the uneven and fishy streets, there is a constant _va-et-vient_ of +parishioners. One old widow wishes him to write to her son at the +Yarmouth fishing, herself being ignorant of English spelling; this old +man, painfully hobbling uphill on his stick, and muttering to himself as +he goes, desires the faithful pastor to come and cheer a bed-ridden wife +who is failing fast; that young fisher-lass will blush as she tells that +her young man is on the way home to claim her as his own, with the +Church's aid. Mr. Pollock is the confidential repository of all their +secrets: nothing in their lives is hidden from him; he knows all of +comic and tragic in their lowly careers. Along with his wife, he visits +every house in the place, and from intimate knowledge can tell you, +nodding his head to this or that house as he walks along, the worth or +worthlessness of every native of the village. His time is so fully taken +up with pure religion and undefiled, that he has no time to waste on the +Higher Criticism. + +A tout for some wandering minstrels recently came over from Aberdeen, +meaning to leave one of his red-and-yellow bills (announcing a +performance) in each of the local shops. The minister saw him as he +distributed the bills, and closely followed up on his trail. Mr. Pollock +entered each shop and said to the shopkeeper: "Please let me see the +bill you have there in the window." On getting it, he would scan it, and +request to get keeping it. In no shop was he refused, so that by the +time he got to the end of the village, he was carrying two dozen large +concert placards, while the tout, merrily whistling, and all unconscious +of the nullity of his labours, was on his way back to Aberdeen. "Lead us +not into temptation," said the minister, as he thrust the garish +announcements into his study stove. None of Mr. Pollock's flock were at +the concert that night. Perhaps, if any had gone, little harm would have +been done. The minister, however, thought they were better at home, or +at the local prayer-meeting. + +Mr. Pollock's predecessor was a thin, unemotional man--a geologist--who +spent an important percentage of his time chipping rocks and looking for +fossils. Owing to this mania, his flock were forgotten, and came to +forget _him_. No wonder if the church attendance dwindled! _Ab uno disce +omnes_, as Virgil says. One day this ordained geologist had agreed to +baptize a child in a hamlet some miles away, and set forth to walk to +the place in good time. Unhappily, by the roadside, there was a quarry, +into which, by instinct, the minister glided, keen and eager-eyed. He +stayed therein for four hours, and forgot all about the infant +(squalling, no doubt, in special robe, and impatient for the +christening), the waiting relatives, the inevitable decanter, and the +thick cuts of indigestible bun. The minister, I say, trudged home with +his treasure-trove of petrified ferns and foot-marked shale--a greater +fossil than any under his own cases of glass. His memory was stirred by +his wife's catechising, but it was too late to undo the mischief. + + +MINISTERIAL TRIALS IN OLDEN TIMES. + +In modern times, ministers are badly paid, considering the expenses of +their training and long education, but they are better paid than they +used to be. In 1756, the minister of Ferintosh, a big, active man, with +the object of adding something to his stipend, leased the meal-mill of +Alcaig from the laird of Culloden. The combination of miller and +minister did not please his parishioners. It never occurred to these +clowns that the occupation of miller is singularly adapted for +reflection: spiritual and bodily nourishment (thought of together) might +well form a field of thought fertile in instructive metaphors; "the dark +round of the dripping wheel," the work of separating husks and flour, +the topics of dearth and abundance, might all come to have a homiletic +value to a serious-minded teacher of religion. But a cry of scandal, +directed not against themselves for underpaying their minister, but +against that worthy man for being an _ordained miller_, arose in the +parish. A member of the congregation was deputed to give a gentle hint +to the minister that the two occupations were incompatible. The +interview took place on the high road. "What news this morning, Thomas?" +said the minister. "Have you not heard of the fearful news?" said +Thomas. "No, what is it?" "Well, everybody's saying," said Thomas, with +a whisper of affected horror, "that _the minister's wife has taken up +with the big miller of Alcaig_." The delicacy of this hint was such that +the minister resigned his lease. + +The trials of ministers long ago were truly great. Witches had to be +reckoned with, as the aforementioned Ferintosh minister, who was their +foe, knew to his cost. By their incantations they caused him to be +afflicted with somnolency. As this sleepy fit usually came on in church +between the first psalm and the prayer, it can be easily seen how awful +were the reprisals of these Satanic hags. + + +AN ARTFUL DODGER. + +The Rev. Mr. Rogers, minister of a parish in Fife, was, like many +another worthy man, in sore financial straits at one period of his life. +He was a widower, and probably this fact accounts for his displenished +exchequer. With supreme audacity he touched the bell of a rich old +maiden lady, and on entering her boudoir he bluntly admitted his lack of +funds, and said, "Give me 200 and I'll marry you." She gave him the +money, and for months after never saw his face. Finally she wrote asking +an interview. He came, and she tartly said, "Did you not say, Mr. +Rogers, that if I gave you 200, you would marry me?" "Certainly I did," +said the cunning minister, "and _I'm ready to marry you whenever you +produce your man: where is he_?" This anecdote shows the difficulty of +being unambiguous when speaking English, and furnishes an argument for +the adoption of French as the language of courtship as well as of +diplomacy. + +The same foxy ecclesiastic wished two things, both of which his heritors +flatly refused: (a) a new manse, and (b) a site with a wide +prospect. Finding them intractable, he professed humility, and craved +merely a species of scaffolding to buttress up one of the walls of the +old manse. The heritors marvelled a little at the strange request, but, +glad of being saved from the cost of a new building, authorised the +buying of some sturdy joists to prop up a wall that the minister averred +was off the plumb. No sooner was the buttressing timber in position than +Mr. Rogers appeared with a violent complaint in the Sheriff Court, +declaring that the manse was like to fall about his ears, and that the +heritors had palpably admitted the danger by erecting a scaffold. The +Sheriff expressed strong disapproval of the heritors' stinginess, and +ordered them to get a new manse built for the minister. Now as to the +site! To spite Mr. Rogers, the heritors determined to deprive him of a +good view, and directed the St. Andrews builder to erect the new manse +down in the valley on a broad bank by a burnside. The master-builder +placed pegs and marks in the ground at the prescribed place and returned +to St. Andrews, telling his workmen to proceed next day to begin the +work, and mentioning that they would know the site by marks he had +placed there. At cockcrow the minister was afoot, busy transferring the +pegs to the summit of a lovely knoll. The tradesmen came out to the +country, and looking for the site found it on the hill-top and began +their work. After they had been a week or more on the walls, out from +St. Andrews came the master to see how his men were progressing. He came +near a complete collapse when he saw his men on the hill instead of in +the valley. He spoke winged words to them, but it was too late. In such +fashion did Mr. Rogers outwit his heritors. I regret that no literary +relics of this acute divine are to be had. He seems to have been in his +way a kind of Higher Critic judging from a remark he made on the Ark: +"How did you manage," he said, as if addressing Noah in person, "how did +you manage to keep the first plank of your boat from getting rotten +before the last was nailed on, if you actually took 120 years to put the +whole thing together?" + + +SOME ANECDOTES FROM GIGHA. + +The late minister of Gigha, a small island community of 360 souls off +the coast of Kintyre was a cleric of great humour and full of stories. +His church was the only one in the island, a fact of which he was proud. +At a communion service, a minister from the mainland, struck off a +monumental phrase in one of his prayers. He said "Thou hast shown, O +Lord, Thy confidence in Thy servant, the devout minister of Gigha, for +lo! out of the plentitude of Thy great mercy Thou has seen fit _to give +him an island all to himself_." I have heard and do in part believe it, +that the effect of such a supplication in Gaelic is overpoweringly +strong. + +This same minister "of the island," whose digestion I may say, was so +perfect that he could triumphantly absorb strong tea and poached eggs as +a regular midnight meal, told me one night over this collation, the +story of a fisherman in one of the Western Islands, whose prayer before +going to sea was of a singular character. He invariably addressed the +Deity as _Sibshe_ (You) instead of the ordinary _Thusa_ (Thou). On one +occasion, when the weather was squally and danger was anticipated, he +prayed thus: "O Lord God, my Beloved, if You would be so good as to take +the care of Mary and Jessie, my daughters; but that She-Devil, my wife, +the daughter of Peter Macpherson, I am indifferent about her: she will +have another husband before I am eaten by the crabs!" + +Here follows another well-known story from the same authority. A +Lowlander, taking a week's sail on one of Macbrayne's cargo-boats +stepped ashore, on Sunday morning, at a remote insular port, to attend +church, as was fit and proper. The text was the well-known verse "Can +the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?" The minister, +strange to say, preached a long and painfully vivid sermon on _leprosy_. +The tourist waited, after sermon, in order to talk with the minister and +quietly remonstrate with him. He said: "You gave us an excellent +discourse to-day, but do you think it followed quite appropriately from +the text: surely you are aware that a _leopard_ and a _leper_ are two +different things." The minister, eying the tourist with a look of +indignant scorn for a second, lifted up his voice and denounced him +thus: "Out of my sight with you: I know what you are; you are one of +these pestilent fellows called Higher Critics. Begone!" + +In the Long Island, it is an article of fixed belief among the stricter +Presbyterians that Catholics are outside any scheme of salvation. +Episcopalians, too, are regarded as being in an extremely dubious +position. Any stick, however, is good enough to beat the partisans of +the Pope. "Brethren," said a minister near Stornoway, "I have forgotten +my sermon to-day: but _I'll just say a word or two against the +Catholics_." Such a philippic, he seemed to think, could never be out of +season. + +Denunciation has always been a favourite method of the religious bigot. +If the various sects of the Christian Church, could go on their way, +ameliorating the world, and leaving each other in peace, the millennium +would be within reasonable distance. I heard a U.F. say to a Wee Free: +"Donald, you'll no' gang to Heaven, _because I'm bad_." The sentence is +good enough for an epigram. Unfortunately, too many of our sectaries +think it the prime virtue of their faith to run down their neighbours. + + +GROWING POPULARITY OF RUSKIN. + +One of the most cheerful features in the present-day thought of +Scotland, and one from which we may anticipate excellent results in +every department of social and religious life, is the growing popularity +of the great apostle of the nineteenth century, John Ruskin. Though +dead, he continues to speak; and from close inspection of the registers +that show in detail the nature of the books asked for, at the various +village libraries, I have noted, with no small pleasure, that Ruskin's +works are eagerly read all over the Highlands and islands of Scotland. +This is something quite new, and will, I am certain, work immense good. + +For Ruskin's work in the department of religion, no words can be too +commendatory. His genius was in thorough accord with the spirit of the +Biblical writers, and his modes of speech and illustration perpetually +reminiscent of Scripture. He loses no opportunity of dwelling on the +culturing influence of the Bible. There is also a fine tolerance in his +religious teaching, which is alike helpful and suggestive. His is that +variety of teaching which we find most effectively outside of the ranks +of professional commentators, and which comes through the keen flashes +of genius that accompany the insight of the literary artist. He has +pointed out to us with great eloquence that, while specific doctrines +take at various epochs very different degrees of importance, and aspects +of rite, ceremony, and all that, appeal with changing force to different +generations, the essence of religious feeling, without which dogma +becomes harsh and rite insipid, hardly varies at all; seeing that in the +musings of the great minds of all ages, we have oftenest the pure gold +of devotion, mingled, though it may sometimes be, with the adhesive +dross of superstition. He also warns us of the danger of mistaking +pugnacity for piety, and earnestly urges that, at every moment of our +lives, we should be trying to find out, not in what we differ from other +men, but in what we agree. Ruskin considers this to be the correct +spirit in which to approach ancient as well as modern religion, +believing that if a reader cannot understand a spiritual agency, or +thinks that the best of ancient men were not dominated by any such, the +understanding of the very alphabet of history will be endangered. It +would tend greatly to salvation from arid formalism, if ministers would +teach that Plato, Sophocles, Browning, Carlyle, are all apostles of +religion. A living word from an intuitionist like the last-named not +unfrequently vivifies with new force the dark sayings of a Hebrew seer, +in much more direct fashion than half-a-score of mutilated Pentateuchs +made in the delirium of the Higher Criticism. + +In spite of his unsystematic procedure, Ruskin deserves to be numbered +among the men who have earned the gratitude of their fellows, by +translating some of the ever-vital aspects of religion into the +vocabulary of the hour. The language of religious discourse is liable to +a subtle kind of pedantry, requiring a vigorous intellect adequately to +dissolve. New illustrations, novel forms of definition, are often +helpful in expelling the dreariness of outworn and meaningless phrases. +Ruskin's task is facilitated by the nice balance of his intellectual and +imaginative endowments, by the fact that his words are not mere symbols +of definite connotation, but marvellous centres of emotional force. +Happily he did not seek to elaborate any system of religion: but now +here, now there, in his books, one comes upon the pure gold of religion, +enshrined in exquisite jewelries of diction, which glimmer on (if I may +say so) to the utmost verge of emotion, and more successfully than any +formal harangue, work out their intended function. Such works as _Unto +this Last_ and _Munera Pulveris_, however keen the mental antagonism +they may initially provoke, mark a period in the spiritual life of the +reader: no matter what the prepossessions of a man may be, these books +will modify them. He is reverent, but, like Plato, he is dynamic. You +can't sit at ease as you read his pages, for they are charged as much +with defiance as with guidance. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +EDUCATIONAL. + + Some Insular Dominies--Education Act of 1872--Education in the + Highlands--Feeding the hungry--Parish Council + boarders--Dwindling attendances--Arnisdale--Golspie Technical + School--On the Sidlaws--Some surprises--Arran schools--Science + and literature--Study of Scott--The old classical dominie--Vogue + of Latin in former times--Teachers and + examinations--Howlers--Competing subjects. + + +SOME INSULAR DOMINIES. + +It is by no means an easy matter for a teacher to get south again once +he is installed in a remote Highland school. He accepts a distant rural +or insular post, marries the girl of his heart, gets settled in the +schoolhouse of the glen or township, and rarely moves thence all the +succeeding years of his life. He becomes identified with local affairs; +plays whist maybe with the doctor, the factor, and the banker; and is +apt to magnify the cackle of his bourg into the great Voice that echoes +round the world. The monotony of his life is varied by such happenings +as a birth or a death in his own household, a visit from the emissary of +My Lords, an epidemic of measles, a general election, and the like. I +don't say these men are unhappy, but unless they develop a hobby, +torpidity is bound to settle like a mist upon their brains. Such studies +as geology, botany, and gardening, are sovereign for driving off the +vapours of ennui. Nor are golf, angling, and the composition of verse, +specifics that the rural dominie can afford to despise. + +I have in my mind at this moment the portraits of many notable gentlemen +(for true gentlemen they are, though their purses are thin) who have +given up their lives to educating the progeny of the inclement North. +Lamont, for example, whom I remember as a first-class mathematician, is +living in the marshy navel of an Outer Isle, amid wild-fowl and spirals +of peat-reek. If you want to visit him you have (1) to cross the billowy +western deep; (2) drive fifteen miles in a trap; (3) traverse a +four-mile arm of the sea in a ferry that needs baling; (4) proceed seven +miles to another ferry two miles in breadth; (5) hop, step, and jump +three miles along a narrow and tortuous track, enough to give vertigo to +a goat. Lamont is not unhappy: he keeps his mind active by solving stiff +quadratic equations and fiddling with Cartesian co-ordinates. I hope he +will get credit for all these studies, when the last trump sounds, for +he gets little enough at present. + +Ramsay, too, is a dweller among these treeless bogs, and is engaged, +during his leisure, on a translation of Anacreon which will never be +finished, or, if finished, will never be published. I called on him and +immolated myself on the altar of his Anacreon in order to give him a +little pleasure. He, later on, enlarged on his school, scholars, and +daily life. The horizon of the boys and girls is extremely limited: most +of them have never seen either a pig or a policeman. Cabbages have only +been recently introduced into the district, but are already thriving +wonderfully well considering the thin soil. There are of course no +trees: for what trees could stand against the buffeting of the fierce +wintry gales of the Atlantic? Ramsay's only chum is a missionary, who is +of an antiquarian turn, and goes fumbling about for arrow-heads and +prehistoric bracelets, especially after a storm, when the hill-sides are +laid bare. + +Neither Lamont nor Ramsay know a word of Gaelic, and there they are in +districts where English is a foreign language. Needless to say, the lack +of Gaelic is a terrible drawback to these two men. They should never +have been where they are, for they are aliens. The scholars, unbreeched +little rogues, have an advantage over their teacher, and in the +playground talk the tongue of the Celt invariably, and may be maligning +him for all he knows. I am afraid, too, that teacher and minister do not +always consider themselves as auxiliaries in these outer isles. The +younger generation of teachers have, as might be expected, a more +extensive knowledge of books than the old school of Presbyterian +ministers. The latter, feeling their literary inferiority, are inclined +to regard the teacher as an intruder whose work in the school-room will +cause the rising generation to look slightingly on the "essentials." I +have in my possession numerous letters from Highland teachers dealing +with this fear on the part of the clergy, that novels and secular +literature generally will pervert the minds of the people. The addition +of Mrs. Humphrey Ward's books to a library was recently likened to the +arrival of the Serpent in Eden. + + +EDUCATION ACT OF 1872. + +In one of the best-known chapters of _Rob Roy_, Bailie Nicol Jarvie, the +utilitarian Glasgow merchant, says to his cattle-reiving kinsman: "Your +boys, Rob, dinna ken the very multiplication table, which is the root o' +a useful knowledge, and it's my belief they can neither read, write, nor +cipher, if sic a thing could be believed o' ane's ain connections in a +Christian land." Rob replies in a sentence that is worthy of being put +alongside the remark of old Earl Douglas in the poem of _Marmion_: +"Hamish can bring down a blackcock on the wing with a single bullet, and +Rob can drive a dirk through a twa-inch board." These quotations +adequately explain the almost complete absence of prose remains in the +literature of the Gael. Bards there were in plenty, but they could +neither read nor write. + +In the year 1872, education was made the concern of the nation. It was +rightly considered to be a standing menace to the security of the realm +that ignorance, which is the parent of disorder and lawlessness, should +be the doom of a large proportion of the nation. Rather than hazard the +dangers of an illiterate population, education was undertaken by the +State, and paid for out of the national purse. The analogy between +disease and ignorance is, in truth, sufficiently close to justify both +sanitation and education coming into the wide domain of imperial duties. + +Looking back on the changes that resulted in the Lowlands from the +Education Act of 1872, we see grounds for criticism. The measure, like +all earthly things, was imperfect. There was something hard and +inelastic about the system fostered by the old Code. The psychology of +Child Nature was almost totally ignored. A system of examination was +established that assumed an equal and mechanical progress on the part of +every child every year. Yet, in spite of grave defects, the Act of 1872 +brought inestimable blessings with it. For one thing, the health +conditions of education were vastly improved. Many of the old schools +were absolute hovels. After 1872, large, airy, and spacious buildings, +were erected in every district of the land. It was no longer a case of +one old dominie facing singly a whole regiment of unruly youngsters: +every school was organised and disciplined into regular and seemly +order. We had the advantage in Scotland of a complete system of School +Boards, and that awakened an intense and universal interest in +educational affairs. The old parochial schools of Scotland had many +admirable features, but in 1872 they were quite unfit to cope with the +nation's needs. On the whole, the School Board system was a decided boon +to the land. + + +EDUCATION IN THE HIGHLANDS. + +It is only since the Act of 1872 that any education of a serious or +systematic kind has been attempted in the Celtic parts of Scotland. +Nevertheless, a word of praise is due to the Society for Promoting +Christian Knowledge and other civilising agencies of the Churches +(Established and Free), for their work during the educational night that +preceded the Act. These agencies were, of course, utterly inadequate to +meet the needs of the Highlands, as may be easily seen from the fact +that in 1862, over 47 per cent. of the men who married, could not sign +their own names. But, indeed, what resources, save those of the Imperial +Treasury, could ever be adequate to meet the expense of educating the +children spread over such wide and sparsely-peopled tracts? Sheriff +Nicolson, one of the most fervid Gaels that ever lived, made a report to +Government in 1865, characterising the education given in the Highland +schools as lamentably insufficient. + +The effects of the Act of 1872 were slow but sure, and in the course of +fifteen years a change, analogous to that effected by General Wade in +the state of the roads, was brought about in the realm of education. Yet +the expenses involved in the working of the measure were of an unduly +burdensome kind, in spite of the generous bounty of the Education +Department. In some of the large parishes of the Long Island, the heavy +school rate was such a cause of complaint that My Lords were forced to +take very drastic measures to relieve the financial strain. In summing +up the results of the Education Act, Professor Magnus Maclean says: +"Among the good things that education has brought the Highlanders, are a +knowledge of English, wider social and political interests, a brighter +intelligence and brighter outlook, freedom from mental vacuity and +traditional superstitions." + + +FEEDING THE HUNGRY. + +Probably, as I have hinted, one of the chief benefits of the Education +Act, was that teaching had to be carried on in conditions of space and +air. Given such conditions and an enthusiastic master, some good +progress will certainly be made. + +Connected with the physical side of education we have had, of late, +signs of a new departure. There is a talk of _feeding the hungry_. + +Every parent worthy of the name is proud to provide food and clothing +for his children. That's what he's there for. But it does not require +much keenness of vision to see that there are many parents unworthy of +the name, and that, by the dark and inscrutable degrees of Heaven, such +worthless individuals are often allowed to be parents of a numerous +progeny. We must (i) inject into these wastrels the feeling of +responsibility and (ii) prevent the children from dying of starvation. +The first problem requires lengthy treatment and is perhaps hopeless of +accomplishment; the second can be done at once by philanthropy, either +individual or national. + +However much it may wound the pride of our gilded youth, it can hardly +be asserted that birth and rank are matters that involve the slightest +personal merit. It seems to be an affair of the purest accident into +what class of society a child is born. We have overcome the difficulties +and dangers of youth--most of us--but it might well have been otherwise. +Soften your hearts, ye political economists, and cease to regard the +poor, the weak, and the wretched as criminals. If there is no wealth +but life, our country must soon be poor indeed should the rising +generation be sickly and underfed. Bairns must not be allowed to study +on an empty stomach. + + +PARISH COUNCIL BOARDERS. + +Let me here mention a point alluded to by more than one friend of the +Highlands. It has reference to one aspect of the new science called +Eugenics, which deals with the means for producing the maximum of vigour +in our nation. It is not well enough known that for years the +authorities have been pouring into a few of the islands and straths of +the North and West a great number of maimed, consumptive, and mentally +defective children. Some houses in the Hebrides have three or four of +these children, who, but for the action of the authorities, would be +living under the most deplorable conditions of life in the towns. The +results, as regarding improvement in health and physique, are of the +most encouraging kind.[21] + +After a certain age the official subsidy ceases, and the children as a +rule go to work on the farms and crofts. It is evident that such +extensive planting out of city boys and girls is bound by and by to work +a great change in the composition of our rural districts. It is believed +that some of the islands would soon be without children but for these +incomers: it is a well-known fact that the indigenous youthful +population of certain of them is very meagre indeed. We are thus in +modern times witnessing some most instructive operations of Nature: for +generations the country has been depleted to swell the bloated +population of the towns; and now the wastage of the cities is being sent +back to the country to get a renewal of vigour at the primeval fountain +of health. + +There is one further point of great moment. As a proportion, relatively +large, of these children come of morally dubious parentage, it is of +supreme interest to know their subsequent career and conduct. I have +seen reports and statistics which seem to prove that questionable +heredity can be overborne by healthy surroundings and good training; in +other words, that the offspring of criminals may, if rescued early from +a vicious environment, become respectable citizens. Such facts ought to +rejoice the hearts of all moral reformers. + + [21] In that part of South Arran which lies between Dippen and + Shannochie, there is high up on the hillside, a row of cottages + and crofts collectively nicknamed "Mount Misery." The reason for + this sinister name is that in most of the houses there is some + maimed, consumptive, or imbecile child boarded out by the Parish + Council. The children are better there than selling matches at + St. Enoch's Station: they are well looked after and almost + invariably improve in health. + + +DWINDLING ATTENDANCES. + +It is in the country school that the need for new blood is most apparent +to the eye. In schools capable of holding 120 children, you will often +find a shrunken roll of less than a dozen. A gentleman of mature years +usually does all the teaching and keeps himself from getting insane by +breeding hens and cultivating roses in his spare time. He has also, in +all likelihood, the little pickings of officialdom in the district, and +is registrar, session-clerk, and precentor. One facetious teacher, who +dwelt on a wide moor, headed his letter to me _Parish Council Chambers_, +thereby suggesting marble staircases and sumptuous furniture. It was +this same teacher who, on being asked to bring forward Standard V. for +inspection, had to admit that Standard V. was laid up with a broken leg. +For such small schools there is an increasing difficulty in finding male +teachers.[22] Widows, who in their ante-nuptial days, had been engaged +in teaching are often preferred to men, for reasons of salary. The lot +of such women, who have usually families to support out of their meagre +earnings, is hard indeed: if they keep their health, they manage +tolerably well, but when illness comes into the house, there must be a +deal of suffering and distress. The young pupils who attend the remote +schools of the uplands, also deserve much sympathy. During the heavy +snows and extreme cold of winter, these children--often ill-shod and +scantily fed--have to trudge along miles of country cross-roads or +hill-paths to their little school. Our country is a glory to the eye +when mid-summer and autumn are there, but think of the harsh winter +months with their torrents of driving rain, their whirlwinds of hail +and sleet and the icy nip of the blasts that blow down the snow-sheeted +glens. + + [22] A country teacher in Kintyre, with a roll of eight, said to + me: "We have had only one marriage in the district during the + last year, and the bridegroom was aged _three score and fifteen_. + I wonder what education is coming to: there is little or no + patriotism about Kintyre or my roll would be higher. I wish I + could get the people to think more imperially than they do at + present." + + +ARNISDALE, ETC. + +It will be perhaps interesting to the general reader if I strive, by +drawing on my reminiscences, to give him an idea of how education is +carried on in certain remote corners of Scotland at the present time. He +will, perhaps, be led to admire as much as I do the noble work that is +being done by teachers and inspectors for the rising generation of the +country. + +Arnisdale, on the mainland facing Skye, is a very destitute district, +and has suffered much from the failure of the once-flourishing +herring-fishery of Loch Hourn. One can see by the attire of the children +that the poverty must be exceptional, even for the Highlands. The +teacher says that in winter she has to think as much how to feed the +children as to teach them. By the charity of some benevolent visitors, +she was, last winter, able to give the pupils a mid-day meal of cocoa +and biscuits. It is a sad contrast to the extraordinary beauty of this +picturesque spot that such dire misery should overtake a proportion of +the natives during the winter season. + +Arnisdale is not very accessible, even in the height of the summer +traffic, and when one gets there, it is a problem how to get away. I +asked the captain of the _Glencoe_ to set me down near what is called +the _dry island_, in Loch Hourn, and thence I was rowed ashore by two +very wild-looking, unkempt boatmen. The school-house, where I lodged, is +right on the beach, and just at the base of the gigantic Ben Screel. +Twelve miles along the coast, by a road of the most awe-inspiring kind, +one comes to the interesting nook of Glenelg, with its Pictish towers +and ruined barracks. + +It was a mild and hazy morning when I traversed the road between +Arnisdale and Glenelg. On coming to the summit, a great breeze arose and +drove away the heavy white mists from the Sound of Sleat, and showed the +white, sentinel-like lighthouse of Isle Ornsay and great fertile +stretches of the near portion of Skye. Reluctantly the clouds finally +curled and rolled away before the wind and the glitter of the sun, until +the Cuchullins were visible beyond the water and the green peninsula of +Sleat. + +In a cosy recess near the highest part of the road, beside a bubbling +spring, a _gipsy family_ had pitched its tent. I admired the taste shown +in the selection of a place commanding such a view. The family was still +under canvas, but hanging on the branch of a tree was a worn and +mud-stained skirt. Do not ladies in hotels, in similar fashion, hang out +their dusty and travel-soiled attire at the doors of their chambers? And +perhaps the dark-skinned owner had hung up her dank and dripping weeds +in the hope that some silvan faun or Robin Goodfellow would, without a +tip, perform the dusting process, in this case so palpably necessary. We +do wrong in supposing that imagination is not the portion of these +woodland rovers. + +One of the most difficult problems of the Education Department is to see +that gipsy children get a suitable amount of schooling. "Here awa', +there awa', wandering Willie," is applicable to all their tribe. How +can progressive instruction be carried on where there is no fixity of +habitation? One day the camp is pitched on an eminence overlooking Loch +Hourn; but before twelve hours have passed, the nomads may have crossed +the ferry at Kyleakin and be warming their hands round a blaze of stolen +peats in the wild moorland between Portree and Dunvegan. Only in winter, +when frost and snow drive the gipsies into the city slums, do the +children get some smattering of the three R's. + + +GOLSPIE TECHNICAL SCHOOL. + +There are now in the Highlands a number of excellent higher class public +schools, in which the elements of secondary education are taught. The +pupils in these schools are drawn from wide areas, and, by means of +bursaries, can board away from their own homes. The Golspie Technical +School is an altogether unique higher-grade institution. At a library +lecture delivered in Golspie, the boys belonging to the school +(forty-eight in number, divided into four clans, each with a chief) were +present, accompanied by the Principal and his staff. My attention was at +once drawn to them by their fine physique, their gentlemanly bearing, +and their earnest attention. Next day, I had the pleasure of visiting +the school and seeing the working of the scheme initiated by the Duchess +of Sutherland. + +The institution is really a boarding-school for poor lads of talent +belonging to the northern counties. They are under the eye of some +teacher at every hour of the day, and are kept incessantly busy, not at +books alone. They are taught to do their own washing, dusting, +scrubbing, cooking, and darning. The training is excellent: one is +impressed by its practical character and educational thoroughness. Latin +and Greek are not attempted at all, the literary instruction being +entirely based on English and the modern tongues. The science part of +the curriculum is remarkably complete, and art is by no means neglected. + +Before a pupil has the good fortune to be admitted, the Principal visits +the parents. It is almost incredible (so he told me) the squalor of some +of the cots he had seen. Too often, in the Highlands, the one bedroom of +the family (frequently identical with the kitchen) has free +communication with a malodorous byre or stye. What a contrast with the +dormitory of the Technical School, where there is no lullaby of lowing +kine, but a tranquil, high-roofed hall that would do for the siesta of +the Duke of Sutherland himself! + + +ON THE SIDLAWS. + +High up on a spur of the Sidlaw Hills in the county of Forfar, there is +a wee school that supplies education for a wide and sparsely-peopled +countryside. The teacher is Mr. Brown, who was once a dominie in the +island of Whalsay. He is a jovial and courteous man, and leads you on +very astutely to ask him how long he taught there. Such a question gives +him the opportunity of replying with a laugh: "_I was there exactly the +length of time Napoleon was in St. Helena, five years and seven +months_." When in Whalsay, Mr. Brown took the service on Sunday, if the +minister happened to be ill. In this capacity he achieved great +popularity by the meritorious device of shortening the sermon to fifteen +minutes. He was so much in love with the first sermon he wrote, that he +never wrote another, contenting himself with giving it again and again, +and merely varying the text. If he could only hit upon a suitable title, +and a suitable publisher for this sermon, Mr. Brown would get it +printed, and scattered broadcast over the Shetland Islands. I believe it +would furnish unique food for thought even to sinners on the mainland. + +Mr. Brown received me with extreme kindness, and invited me inside to +see his school. I heard his senior class read, and thought the +pronunciation extremely good. About 12.55 the attention of the pupils +became visibly impaired; glances were furtively cast towards the door; +there was a feeling of expectancy all along the benches. Suddenly the +door sprang open, as if by some violent external impact, and a +middle-aged dame entered, carrying in each hand a large pail of steaming +potato-soup. Accompanying her was a young woman with dozens of small +pewter basins, and large spoons. I never saw such expeditious ladling, +such quick distribution, such speed of consumption, and such manifest +enjoyment all round. The steam of the soup obscured the wall-maps, and +the parsing exercise on the blackboard. The children could get as many +helpings as nature would permit, _for one farthing_. When the mist +cleared away, teacher and taught once more proceeded to tackle simple +proportion and analysis of sentences. I personally examined the soup, +and found it to be "nae skinking ware that jaups in luggies." + + +SOME SURPRISES. + +Some surprises are in store for one who calls in casually at some of the +remoter schools. I have more than once found the teacher _giving +instruction in his shirt sleeves_. In one school, I saw the master with +_a large melodeon_ (the Board being too stingy to supply a piano), +giving an inharmonious accompaniment to the musical drill. I got a +dreadful surprise on meeting the schoolmaster of a district in Jura: the +unfortunate gentleman was _stone-deaf_, his auditory nerves being +completely destroyed. Yet he managed, unaided, a school of forty-seven +pupils, and got excellent reports. The case is unparalleled in my +experience, and I should not have believed it possible had I not +personally seen the man at his work. He heard with his eyes, and could +most nimbly interpret what his pupils said by watching their lips. The +scholars liked him, and did not attempt to take advantage of his defect. +In another insular school, I was introduced to a lady-teacher who had +_lost both her arms in youth_, and who, in consequence, has been forced +to bring up her pupils entirely on the principles of moral suasion. By +holding the pen with her teeth, she can write a fine running _hand_ (if +I may say so without violence to language). She is an extremely clever +lady: it was a treat to see how well she could control the children with +a word or a glance. + +Some teachers in the Lowlands complain of children playing truant. That +vice is not common in the Highlands, but it exists to a slight extent. + +In my presence the teacher of a school in Skye made the absentees of +the previous day, write out their reasons for non-attendance. I give +some of the typical answers: + + (i.) Dear Sir,--I had to work all day at the peats. + + (ii.) I was kept at home for harrowing with the horses. + + (iii.) I was herding the lambs and keeping them from the sheep. + + (iv.) _I was on the shore all day, but I will not do it again._ + + +ARRAN SCHOOLS. + +The Arran schools that I had the pleasure of visiting struck me as being +very well managed. It is wonderful how much excellent work some of these +country children get through. The schools are almost all supplied with +Paisley libraries, and thus the pupils, under the guidance of their +masters, can overtake an extensive course of reading in British authors. +At Loch Ranza the higher pupils study Shakespeare, Shelley, and +Wordsworth.[23] + +There is no desire whatever on the part of the young people to be taught +the language of their forefathers. As a consequence, Gaelic is rapidly +dying out in the island. Twenty years ago it was the language of the +playground at Whiting Bay: now the pupils speak English only. At my +request the teacher there addressed a few Gaelic phrases to the +assembled children, but only two knew what he was saying. In the +neighbourhood of Lagg, there is a more general knowledge of the +venerable tongue. + +In spite of the decay of Gaelic, Arran has produced some Celtic scholars +of great brilliancy, the most eminent being the late Dr. Cameron of +Brodick. Mr. Kennedy of Caticol has made a great reputation for himself +in philology: he is in touch with Celtic scholarship on the Continent +and is also an adept in Irish Gaelic. In his manse, I saw a famous +Celtic manuscript, the _Fernaig MS._, a brown-leaved passbook, full of +old poems written carefully in a very small neat hand. It is said to be +worth 2,000, but not having that amount of loose cash about me, I could +not gratify myself by offering to purchase it. + + [23] A striking object-lesson on the instability of mortal life + is permanently given to the Loch Ranza pupils by the proximity of + the churchyard, which is just over the wall from the school. The + thoughtful visitor should not fail to read the tombstones. If a + lover of books, he will be interested in learning that the + founder of the famous publishing firm of Messrs. Macmillan + belonged to the North Cock farm near Loch Ranza. The pensive + moralist will perhaps be most affected by an old stone, A.D. + 1813, declaring that Elspa Macmillan left this _inhospitable + world_, aged 86. _That_ was no rash inference. + + +SCIENCE AND LITERATURE. + +Those rural teachers cannot be too strongly commended who combine +literary studies with work in the open air. I know some masters who +encourage their pupils to collect, say, all the flowers mentioned in +Wordsworth and Burns. That is idealising the study of botany in a most +delicious way. Wordsworth's descriptions of flowers are nothing less +than divine: to take a single example out of hundreds, his lines on the +daffodils beginning-- + + "I wandered lonely as a cloud." + +Even the gayest of our lyrists, Herrick, has something to say about that +flower that is as powerful as a sermon. Birds, trees, and flowers +should, as far as possible, be known by all the young people, and some +poetic word associated with each. It is astonishing how accurately our +best poets describe the objects of nature, and how their imaginative +touches show insight and give a pleasure above mere science. Spenser's +catalogue of the trees is worth knowing by heart. All the vicissitudes +of the changing months have their apt poetical descriptions if we only +look for them. Cowper, Thomson, and Wordsworth might be especially +recommended to pupils for their brilliant word-painting of landscape. I +cannot think of a finer adjunct to the teaching of open-air science than +the auxiliary descriptions of such great masters of verse. + +As Mendelssohn composed _songs_ without words, so may the schoolmaster +give _lessons_ of the most powerful import without a word being spoken. +A beautiful interior in a schoolroom is a silent lesson in order and +good taste. Beauty and order have a most valuable influence on the +emotions and the character. It is a pleasure to see the attention that +is now given to the cultivation of taste. Clean, bright class-rooms; +pictures of artistic merit on the walls; busts; collections of fossils, +sea-shells, and the like--these are to be found even in remote country +schools. Such spontaneous education of the eye is something that cannot +be overestimated for importance and fruitfulness. + +Lord Avebury puts the case for artistic environment very well indeed. +"Our great danger in education," he says, "is the worship of +book-learning--the confusion of instruction and education. We strain the +memory instead of cultivating the mind. The children are wearied by the +mechanical act of writing and the interminable intricacies of spelling; +they are oppressed by columns of dates, by lists of kings and places, +which convey no definite idea to their minds, and have no near relation +to their daily wants and occupations. We ought to follow exactly the +opposite course, and endeavour to cultivate their taste rather than fill +their minds with dry facts." + +There is one precious faculty that runs the risk of being stifled by too +much memory work. I mean the faculty of imagination. Youth is the time +when fancy is busy; it is the period when the brain can furnish +unlimited scaffolding for castles in the air. Wordsworth was so +impressed, indeed, by the opulence of the youthful fancy, that he could +only account for it by supposing recent contact with heaven. + + +STUDY OF SCOTT. + +I sometimes think that in the training of the youthful intellect and +imagination we have not made sufficient use of the novels and romances +of Scott. Of late years a great improvement is noticeable in this +respect, and Scott is coming to be regarded as (for school purposes) our +greatest historian. In some schools, as Lord Avebury has hinted, it was +formerly thought that pupils knew history adequately when they could +rattle off a list of dates and tell something of the deeds and misdeeds +of a set of unhappy persons who masqueraded as statesmen and courtiers. +Such unedifying farce has nothing to do with history, which is a +serious, instructive, and all-embracing study. The social life of the +great mass of a nation is far more important and interesting than the +eccentric deeds of a few high-placed rogues or saints. The old +school-history was, unfortunately, too often a glum compendium of +insignificant detail, told without breadth of view or fire of +restorative imagination. + +In the history of Scotland, most of what is worth knowing may be most +enjoyably learned from the pages of Sir Walter. Hardly any epoch of +Caledonian annals, hardly any county in the land has escaped the +treatment of his masterly hand. From the Borders to the rain-lashed +Shetlands (the _Pirate_ deals with gusty Thule), from Perth to Morven, +the great wizard has made his country known to all lands. In his stories +the past faithfully reproduces itself, and we are impressed, instructed, +and amused. + + +THE OLD CLASSICAL DOMINIE. + +It is a pleasure to think that a few of the old school of Scotch +dominies, who date from before the 1872 Act, are still to the fore, and +still engaged in teaching. They have all fixity of tenure, and so enjoy +the privilege of criticising, as adversely as they like, the degeneracy +of modern educational developments. These "_old parochials_," as they +are called, are men of good scholarship, well versed in Horace and +Virgil, and generally fond of snuff and Latin quotations. + +The Act of 1872 did a great deal for elementary education, but very +little indeed to encourage that type of higher instruction, which was +the glory of the old parish school. Ian Maclaren and other writers have +given pleasant sketches of country schoolmasters who were strong in the +ancient tongues, and who sent their pupils straight to the benches of +the University. I believe such men as "Domsey" were quite common in this +country. Porteous, whom I knew, was one of these. Porteous was a +philologist second to none in these realms, and was on intimate terms of +acquaintanceship with the famous Veitch, who gave such a _redding up_ to +the Greek verbs. It was very amusing to hear the complete way in which +Porteous could silence some imperial young examining professor on the +weighty subject of classical derivation. The latter would appeal to some +such authority as Curtius, whereupon Porteous would unlock the desk in +which lay the tawse, and taking therefrom a copy of the invoked Curtius, +open it at the root in question, and display the page all marked with +pencil corrections and emendations. In support of his views, would come +such a torrent of erudition from half a score of Classical, Sanscrit, +Gothic, and Anglo-Saxon rills, that the young professor would feel "like +one of sense forlorn," and be fain to put palm to forehead in dazed +amazement. A pupil learning the rudiments under such a teacher, was +dazzled rather than instructed by the ruthless surgery of words that +constantly went on. No word was too small for Porteous to operate upon: +he settled _hoti's_ business, and could so inflate Greek vocables by +supplying digammas and dropped consonants, that Plato would have +disowned them. Give him chalk, a blackboard, and a class of six, and he +would in ten minutes fill the board with hieroglyphics, curves, +arrow-headed diagonals, etc., all meant to illustrate the relationships, +divergencies, and contrarieties of the Aryan roots. His life was spent +in the company of these radicals, and he could call them forth out of +their trickiest hiding-places. In the midst of his chalky toil, he would +turn round with radiant glee as if to say, "This is a merry and exciting +trade: it is my fun and is as good as poaching or golf." But woe betide +the youth who showed levity. Soon would there be weeping and wailing and +tingling of palms. His reputation for strap-wielding made roots +respected. + +Another teacher of the school of Porteous was Thomas Taylor, whose death +I saw announced a few weeks ago. Where has all _his_ Greek lore gone to, +so assiduously cultivated, so continuously added to? If Taylor's soul is +ever re-incarnated in a mortal body, it is absurd to suppose that he +must begin to learn the Greek alphabet just like a novice. His clay is +indeed mixed with the clay of common men, but I love to think of him +dwelling on the other side of the River in the meads of asphodel, +discussing with kindred shades, the topics he delighted to handle when +he was here. With tearful eye I pen these doleful decasyllabics to his +memory:-- + + What chums Tom Taylor and Charles Lamb had been + O'er bottled porter and the _Fairy Queen_! + In youth, one day, seeking forbidden fruit + Tom tumbled from the branches with his loot, + And broken bones compelled the lad to go + On straddling crutches, warily and slow, + Counting the pebbles on his path below. + The noisy pleasures of the open air, + The football kicked exuberant here and there. + Cricket, beloved of sinewy juvenals, + And golf with all its hazards, clubs and balls, + Were not in Taylor's province: so he turned + To calmer pastimes where the ingle burned, + And when the whole world turned to _goals_ and _tees_ + He took to _Iliads_ and to _Odysseys_. + He'd croon like one possessed the magic strain + Of heroes tossed along the unvintaged main, + And, crutch aloft in air, would fondly beat + Time to the rushing of the poet's feet. + Poetry was all his solace: those bright dames + That old Dan Chaucer in his rapture names, + And those in Villon's pages that appear + As dazzling-white as snows of yester-year, + Trooped past his eye in long procession fair. + O, Sovereign Virgin, what a crowd was there! + Helen, alas! with Paris by her side, + On the high deck crossing the sunny tide, + Circ, bright-moving in her godlike bloom + Before the throbbing music of the loom. + The love-lorn heroines of Shakespeare's plays, + The red-cheeked country girls of Burns's lays, + Would to his raptured eye the tear-drop bring, + And set his crazy quill a-sonnetting. + + +VOGUE OF LATIN IN FORMER TIMES. + +The old-world schoolmaster believed Latin was a universal specific. He +loved the language and knew all the flock of frisky little exceptions of +gender and conjugation, even as a shepherd knows his sheep. He gave his +pupils gentle doses of the _Delectus_, and watched with eager, almost +menacing, eye, for the working of the charm. It is quite possible that +no pupil ever went over that _Delectus_, with its world-weary fragments +of trite morality, without a feeling of pleasure at the _Decline and +Fall of the Roman Empire_. Yet it was educative, and moreover a boy was +equipped for life with quotations suiting every juncture. Fate was +powerless against one who had mastered the _Delectus_. The faculty of +Latin quotation was to some extent also a badge of respectability. +Fancy, too, the glory of being the exclusive possessor in a mixed +company of the knowledge that Castor and Pollux came out of the one egg! +It was a sore drawback to a boy once upon a time if he were shaky on the +compounds of _fero_. + +"_The pest of the present day is the prevalence of examinations_:" +these, it is alleged, have destroyed the grand old freedom of learning +which gave full scope for the individuality alike of teacher and pupil. +Oh! those were days of the gods, when five hours were spent daily +burrowing in Virgil and Horace! Arcadia was realised--a sunny clime of +Nymphs, Fauns, and Graces. The supreme luxury of abundant time--the +leisurely chewing of sweet-phrased morsels--is gone: it is gone, that +chastity of phrase and perfection of idiom, which felt a bad quantity +like a wound. The examination craze has destroyed the classical dominie, +and the intrusion of science, falsely so-called, has well-nigh +asphyxiated the Nap of the dells. It was formerly possible for the +teacher to develop to the full his literary taste and declaim the +sonorous tit-bits of Virgil till the tears started from his eyes. Now +the instructors of youth seem to regard the works of the tuneful Mantuan +as composed for the purpose of illustrating the use of the Latin +subjunctive. Youths cannot get at the Aeneid, the spirit and majesty of +it, I mean, owing to the pestilential numbers of grammatical +reminiscences recalled by almost every line. When once you begin to set +examination papers on a subject, the romance seems to evaporate. There +is something withering about test-questions. This modern disease of +grammatical annotation, engendered largely by prosaic examiners, who +have published grammars, is spreading to the English Classics, and we +may soon expect Burns to furnish a text for exceptional scansion, +bob-wheel metrics and general philological catechising. Items which +glide effortless into the brain in desultory reading are not so easily +remembered if the examination is in store. Certain gentlemen have +recently been reading Milton with a pair of compasses in order to +discover the exact point of the csural pause in every line: they give +figures, strike percentages, and set questions which even the leading +character in "Paradise Lost" couldn't answer. Literary microscopy is +likely to ruin Shakespeare's reputation in school and would have done so +long ago but for Lamb's _Tales_--a darling compilation and by far the +best introduction to the poet. "_Shakespeare is a horrid man_" is the +deliberate verdict of the schoolgirl who has been teased to death by the +notes within the tawny covers of the Clarendon Press Edition. And fancy +what Chaucer's Prologue must seem like, taught by a man bent only on +philological hunts, variant readings, and a complete explanation of all +the final e's. + + +TEACHERS AND EXAMINATIONS. + +It has always seemed to me a matter for surprise that those who had for +years studied the elements of Latin and Greek at school (and that with +no small difficulty), should entirely neglect these tongues afterwards +and read nothing composed in them. Most elaborate preparations are made +to reach the Promised Land, but the weary passenger never gets there. +Can it be that the preparations are too elaborate?[24] They are +certainly not very interesting, and are, indeed, well fitted to disgust +pupils with the classical tongues. Sir William Ramsay of Aberdeen, in a +letter to the _Herald_ some time ago, spoke strongly on this subject. + +Sir William says, with justice, that a teacher should teach his subject +without any thought of examination. Every teacher would like to do that +if he could. As a matter of fact, the secondary schoolmaster is forced +to become a crammer. He codifies the catch questions of previous +university preliminaries, excogitates similar weird lists of anomalies +and exceptions, and doses the pupils on such stuff instead of really +teaching the important parts of his subject. Experience seems to prove +that the most effective way of rendering a subject dry, uneducational, +and generally useless is to set examination papers on it. What can be +more outrageous and grotesque than the practice of setting +out-of-the-way questions because of the ease thus afforded to the +examiners in correcting the answers of the helpless and puzzled +candidates! Even though the questions set were plain and +straightforward, it would be absurd to suppose that an hour or two in an +examination hall could furnish sufficient data to pass or fail a +candidate. + +It used to be the glory of our universities that an average college +class contained representatives of every grade of society in the land. +Professor Ramsay says it is not so now: the professors have become +pedagogic coaches, and the students grind rather than study. Sir William +assures us that many who would make good students are frightened away by +the preliminary examination. It would be interesting to know where these +latter go when they leave school. Do they rush off to business at once, +or do they proceed with their education in some extra-mural way? If they +can afford the time, the university is certainly the place for them. Let +the university gates be opened as wide as possible to all serious-minded +youths, and let it be remembered that it is not necessarily those who +sweat most over their books or take the highest honours that get most +good from attendance at the lectures. + +It does not appear that, at present, our universities are adequately in +touch with the nation. The great commercial community of Glasgow does +not benefit nearly enough from having a famous seat of learning in its +midst. We might learn a lesson from the Sorbonne how best to nationalise +our universities. In Paris, the lecture halls are open to all, and it is +possible for either native or foreigner to listen for hours daily, if he +be so minded, to some of the finest and most erudite orators and +scholars of Europe. There are, it is true, special students' courses, +from which the general public is excluded, but the most important +lectures are open to all. Hence the Sorbonne is a national institution +in every sense of the word. I do not say that Glasgow does not benefit a +little from the corps of professors at Gilmorehill. But the benefit is +spasmodic, discontinuous, and extremely limited. Some of the professors +do at times come down into the open and speak words of wisdom. But more +is wanted than that if the universities are to be saved from +denationalisation. We hear of Dugald Stewart's class-room being, in the +old days, crowded with the keenest intellects of the Capital. But a +university was not then a kind of higher-grade secondary school. + + [24] It is a notorious fact that very few graduates, when they + leave college, are able to read Latin from an author they have + not specially studied, with ease or pleasure. For this melancholy + fact there are several reasons. The range of reading is miserably + meagre. Only a few authors are read, and almost every sentence of + these is cumbered with such an amount of annotation as to render + progress and literary appreciation alike painful. Composition in + Latin absorbs far too much time: the first duty of the teacher + ought to be to turn out pupils who can read Latin with fluency. + No amount of grammatical detail or laborious composition, as at + present practised, will ever make up for the lack of wide + reading. Professor Phillimore's recent suggestion that the + less-known authors should be read more than they are, is wise and + opportune. The authors he mentions would furnish a welcome relief + from the unspeakable dreariness of over-annotated texts. + + +HOWLERS. + +Almost every schoolmaster I have met, either in the Highlands or +Lowlands, has his budget of anecdotes, usually dealing with children's +answers or the droll eccentricities of the local School Board. The +answers of children are invariably entertaining; and I wish the +Educational Institute of Scotland would appoint a committee to codify +the howlers that come under the notice of its members. A collection of +genuine howlers would be no unimportant service to the science of +juvenile psychology. Let it be remembered that the eminent Professor +Sully considered it in no way derogatory to his philosophical status to +write on the subject of _dolls_. In bi-lingual districts children's +answers would have a special value. Children are everywhere, of course, +more or less bird-witted and inattentive. Here is a story which +illustrates what Latin scholars call _contaminatio_. A teacher had given +a lesson on the geography of Kent, laying special stress on Canterbury, +as giving a title to the Anglican primate, and on Greenwich as the place +through which, on the map, the first meridian is made to pass. At the +close of the lesson, he wished to test the scholars, and asked one of +them what Canterbury was famous for. At once came the glib reply: +"Canterbury is the seat of an _archbishop through whom the first +meridian passes_." The difficulty young pupils have in concentrating +their ideas, is largely accountable for many of the diverting essays we +have all heard and seen. On a recent visit to the romantic shores of +Skye, I was shown the following essay on Water: "Water is a liquid, but +in winter you can slide on it. In all kinds of water, little beasts +occur to a greater or to a less extent. Even a great amount of heat +cannot kill these curious little animals. _Hence some people prefer +spirits._" From the same quarter I procured this nugget on patriotism. +"Patriotism is love of country such as we see in Burns or Sir Walter +Scott. Burns and Sir Walter wrote beautiful lines about their native +land, and thousands of tourists came and circulated their money there. +_It would be telling us_ if writers would imitate these great patriots +in our day." Many of the young scribes on the mainland can also indulge +in a deal of brilliant irrelevancy. One of them being asked to write an +essay on "Rivers," began thus: "_In ancient times, the chief use of +rivers was for the baptizing of converts_." Another, in the course of a +short life of King Alfred, made a strong point of that monarch's +humility, adding, "In order to discover the plans of the Danes, he +demeaned himself so far as to go to their camp _disguised as a poet_." +The annual blue book of the Scotch Education Department used to include +a recreative series of howlers that had been sent up in the various +reports of the Government Inspectors. These tit-bits were well +calculated to keep up the gaiety of nations. Of late years these howlers +have been excised, but if Scotland had Home Rule they might re-appear. + +The finer attenuations of speech are unknown to the soaring human boy. +I was shown an essay on Ireland the other day in which the young writer +compendiously remarked, "_The Irish are a bloodthirsty, lazy, and +resentful race_." On Wordsworth, another juvenile critic thus expressed +himself: "_Wordsworth's compositions are utter bosh_." The following +extract is from an "Essay on the '15": "_The Rising of '15 was a failure +because the Old Pretender was an unmitigated ass. Fancy an ass trying to +take charge of a Rebellion!_" + +A genial gentleman, Mr. Sneyd-Kynnersley, who retired from the +Inspectorate some years ago, published in 1908 a book of choice +reminiscences, containing some good specimens of schoolboy answers. Some +of his howlers have long been known in the North: but a howler (like +history) is wont to repeat itself. I saw in a Paisley boy's essay on +Lambert Simnel the following sentence: "Lambert Simnel was a claimant +for the English crown, and went about the country boasting that he was +one of the princes who had been murdered in the Tower." Mr. Kynnersley's +examinee wrote thus: "Prince Charles Edward claimed to be one of the +little princes murdered in the Tower. He was found to be a deceiver, and +was put into the king's kitchen to work." + +A boy once told Mr. Kynnersley that _a quorum is a question asked at a +meeting which the chairman is unable to answer_. I saw a definition of +paradox, equally absurd: "_A paradox is something which is apparently +not what it seems to be_." + +It is a favourite geographical test to require a pupil to describe a +coast journey between two seaports, and mention capes, rivers, and towns +seen on the way. "Describe a trip from Greenock to the Isle of Man," +said a teacher to his class; "I give you an hour to write it out." Very +few were past Lochryan at the hour's end. One daring youth took his +boat, which he christened "_The Comet_," right round the Mull of +Kintyre, with intent to reach Douglas by way of Cape Wrath, the North +Sea, Dover, Land's End, and St. George's Channel. When time was up, the +_Comet_, all torn and tattered by the strumpet wind, was beating round +the north end of Skye. That boy will, in all probability, turn out a +deep-sea captain. + +"How many days are there in a year?" asked an inspector of a class of +Highland youngsters. No answer was given. "Tut, tut," said the inspector +testily, "this is ridiculous. Is there _no one_ who knows how many days +there are in the year?" "Oh, yes, sir," said a boy reproachfully, "_God +knows_." + +"What kind of king was William III.?" inquired another examiner. "He had +an aquiline nose, sir," said a boy. "What does that mean?" said the +examiner. "_It means_," answered the boy, "_that William III.'s nose was +turned up at the point like the beak of an eagle!_" "What right had +William to the English throne?" continued the examiner, changing his +ground. "_No right under heaven_," was the forceful Jacobite rejoinder. + +Here is a tale, from the eastern seaboard of Scotland. + +_Inspector_, M.A., Ph.D., LL.D., etc. (examining a class of ten-year +olds): "Now, boys, what is the shape of the earth?" + +_Boy:_ "Roon, like an orange." + +_Inspector:_ "But how do I _know_, how can I be _sure_ that the earth is +round like an orange?" + +_Boy:_ "_Because I tell't ye._" + +Pupils show great affection for the phrases of their text-books. Not +long ago, at a written examination, a lad wrote in reply to a historical +question which was puzzling him: "_The answer to this question is known +only to the Great Searcher of Hearts_." What could the boy mean? Was it +"cheek," ignorance, or piety? It was none of these. _It was Collier!_ +About thirty years ago, Dr. Collier, a modern Euphuist, composed a +_History of England_, which deserves to be reckoned among the glories of +the reign. Carlyle may be great, but Collier is greater: Collier is a +theologian, philosopher, and _a' that_. The style of his history is a +wondrous blend of _Ossian_ and Hervey's _Meditations among the Tombs_; +and its special peculiarity is that the words, owing to some feature, +never really analysed, linger in the mind long after the sentences of +the Shorter Catechism have become blurred. Collier is strong in +tropes--a highly-dangerous feature. It is no doubt true, as he says, +that William the Conqueror ruled with a rod of iron, but when a boy, +after reading this metaphor, asserts that that sovereign ruled his +subjects _with a long iron pole_, you begin to question the utility of +historical study. "Joy-bells pealed and bonfires blazed," is a phrase of +the Doctor's which sets all the caverns of the mind ringing, even though +its historical setting is long forgotten. But unction is the chief +feature of the history: there is a rotund finality about the author's +spacious utterances, and a dodging of investigation by means of pious +generalisations. The book has all the effect of a benediction. When it +is really too tiresome to inquire into all the authorities on some +affair of magnitude, it is so respectable to sum up in the phrase +imitated by the youth alluded to above. + +It is in the Secondary Schools of the country that the confusion of +thought is apt to be most painfully seen. Far too much is attempted, and +the pupils are overworked. A teacher in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, a +_laudator temporis acti_, has a manuscript collection of howlers, drawn +from elementary, secondary, and university sources, with the following +fearful lines as a preface:-- + + "Ye statesmen all, of high or humble station, + Collective conscience of the British nation, + Whether the frothing vat has made your name + Or tropes in carpet-bags begot your fame, + Behold the _product_ of the education + Wherewith is dosed the rising generation. + And see the modern devotee of cram + At midnight hour hard-grinding for the exam., + A moistened towel garlanding his brow, + And coffee simmering on the hob below. + High on a three-legged stool uncushioned, he + Sits glowering through his goggles painfully, + Nagging his brain with all a grinder's might + Till _one_ sounds on the drowsy ear of night. + Like Sibyl's leaves the papers strew his floor + Wrought-out examples, 'wrinkles' by the score, + Conundrums algebraic, 'tips' on Conics + And thorny 'props' remembered by mnemonics. + Betweenwhiles as the slow time lagging goes, + He takes the spectacles from off his nose, + Removes the damper from his aching head, + Pours out the coffee, cuts a slice of bread, + Sips wistfully the liquid from his cup: + The zeal to pass the exam. has eaten _him_ up. + Thrice happy ye! born 'neath the ancient reign + When _Tityre tu_ alone possessed the brain + (Ere Tyndall's tubes made sweating students numb) + And the whole aim of life was _di, do, dum_." + + +COMPETING SUBJECTS. + +So numerous indeed are the subjects of the school curriculum in our day +that howlers and confusion are bound to result. Formerly there was but +one scheme (containing classics, mathematics, and a little English), and +everybody took it. Now there is a kind of competition among the +departments of a school as to which is the most culturing. When a fond +mother asks the opinion of the masters as to what course of study her +boy (whom she is entitled to think a genius of the first order) ought to +pursue, she is often puzzled by the variety of answers. Mr. Test-tube, +the Science Master, invariably prescribes an extensive course of +chemistry. If a boy is to be a lawyer, he ought to know the principles +of atomic combination and the doctrine of gases; if he thinks of the +ministry, why then, having a thorough acquaintance with science, he will +be competent to close the mouths of heretics, infidels, and such vermin. +Dr. Aorist, on the other hand, believes that a sound knowledge of "_qui_ +with the subjunctive" is a splendid sheet-anchor for every squall in +life's rude sea. "I wish my boy to be a civil engineer; what advice +would you give me as to his studies?" "I have no hesitation in +affirming," the Doctor replies, "that the boy will build bridges all +the better if he has his mind expanded and (so to speak) broadened by +the study of subjects outside his special trade, such, _e.g._, as the +interesting fact that in ancient times 'All Gaul was divided into three +parts.'" + +The average boy has an impartial mind. As a rule, he has no prejudice in +favour of either science or letters, his maxim being never to do to-day +what he can put off till to-morrow. + + His favourite books for home + Are buccaneering combats on the foam, + Or grim detective tales of Scotland Yard, + Where gleams the bull's-eye lamp and drips the poniard. + +Parents may be reminded that the wide spaces of the colonies remain to +be peopled and that many a _stickit minister_ might have made a +first-class empire-builder. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +A TRIP TO SHETLAND. + + Aberdeen--En route--Lerwick--Past and present saints--Some notes + on the islands--A Shetland poet--A visit to Bressay--From + Lerwick to Sandwick--Quarff--"That holy man, + Noah"--Fladibister--Cunningsburgh--"Keeping off"--The indignant + elder--Torquil Halcrow--Philology--A Sandwick gentleman--Local + tales--Foulah and Fair Isle--The fishing season. + + +ABERDEEN. + +The most expeditious and comfortable way of getting to Shetland is by +way of Aberdeen. + +I have passed through the city of _Bon Accord_ about six times during +the last twelvemonth, and like it better the more I see of it. It is one +of the stateliest towns in Britain, and its main street, spacious, airy, +and symmetrical, is hard to match. The architectural taste of the new +University Buildings is perfect, and will be more striking still to the +casual visitor, when the unsightly buildings all round have been torn +down. It would be worth while going to Aberdeen if for nothing but to +see the superb stretch of sandy beach between the mouths of the Don and +the Dee: one could sit and dream away a whole forenoon there and be +entirely oblivious to the proximity of a large town. + +The finest tribute paid to Aberdeen was written nearly four hundred +years ago by the great Scotch poet, William Dunbar. Three years before +Flodden, Queen Margaret passed through the town, and Dunbar, who +accompanied her, was so delighted with the hospitality, loyalty, and +lavish expenditure of the magistrates, that he wrote a eulogistic poem +to commemorate the occasion. Dunbar carried away the impression that +Aberdeen was a _blythe_ place: + + "_Blythe_ Aberdeen thou beryl of all tounis, + Thou lamp of beauty, bounty and _blitheness_." + +I do not find that the town has produced many poets, but it has been the +cause of poetry in others.[25] A few years ago Mr. William Watson, out +of gratitude for the LL.D. bestowed on him by the University, wrote a +pleasant sonnet in which Aberdeen is represented as + + "Beaming benignant o'er the northern main." + +As I sat on the seashore, repeating to myself the lines of Mr. Watson's +poem, and breathing the fresh air, which an official of the bath-house +told me was _made in Germany_ (meaning thereby that the wind was blowing +from the east), the thought struck me that it would be a pardonable +pastime to employ the spare time I had before the boat started for +Lerwick, in writing a _Sonnet to Mr. William Watson_. In such +exercitations it is necessary to employ the second person singular: + + Watson! I would thy pen were fluenter, + And yet, perchance, thou usest stores of ink, + Ampler than any of thy readers think, + In blotting that wherein the first quick stir + Of thought and genius made the language err. + If Heaven had lent thy polished Muse a blink + Of saving humour for her crambo-clink, + Then never-dying fame had fallen to her. + Yet Heaven be thanked for what it has bestowed + On thee of what is tunefullest and best: + The trim epistle, the heart-stirring ode, + The witching freshness of a _Prince's Quest_, + The soft romance that dreams of years gone by, + Bright noons and dewy glades of Arcady. + + [25] A recent publication shows that Greek verse is well written + at the University. Paisley folk should know that an Aberdonian + Hellenist has put some of Tannahill's verses into Greek. + + +EN ROUTE. + +The little steamer that plies between Aberdeen and Lerwick is timed to +leave the former port at 11.30 a.m., _or as soon afterwards as the tide +will permit_. Often the boat does not leave for some hours after 11.30 +a.m., the tide not being always to blame. What a capacity the boat has +for empty barrels! I counted six heaped lorry-loads of them that were +rolled on board, destined, later on, to be filled with herring up north +among the islands. + +It is extremely interesting (see Virgil III., 690) to stand in calm +weather on the deck of a moving vessel and talk about the notable places +on the coast with one who knows them well. Much information of a varied +and piquant kind may thus be acquired. The Aberdeenshire coast is rather +unpicturesque, but many historical legends linger airily on the stern +old ruins that are passed from time to time. I omit mention of these, +preferring to tell an anecdote of recent years that is associated with +the immense rocky sea-caverns, of world-wide fame, not far from Cruden +Bay. During the Boer War, some Scotch journalists, strong in the science +of genealogy, undertook to prove that all the generals at the front had +Scotch blood in their veins. It seems that these patriotic penmen +succeeded quite easily in making their contention good with respect to +all the generals _save one_. No Scotch lineage could be found for +General Buller. The difficulty was at last surmounted by the felicitous +conjecture that he was one of the famous _Bullers of Buchan_! + +About eight miles past Cruden Bay is Peterhead, the most easterly town +in Britain. Great efforts are being made at present to boom this place +as a health resort. I have heard it said that "printers who die at 30 of +consumption elsewhere, weigh 21 stone at over threescore in Peterhead," +also that "centenarians there have been known to get up at 5.30 a.m., to +chop wood, no chill or bacillus daring to make them afraid." The Home +Office has long thought highly of Peterhead as a place of permanent +retreat for those afflicted with ethical infirmities. + +After Peterhead is left behind, the steamer soon gets entirely away from +land. All night long she battles through the surges, passes about 2 a.m. +the lonely Fair Isle, encompassed by the rushing roost, and two hours +later Sumburgh Head is visible. The approach to Bressay, especially if +the rocks and precipices are half seen through driving haze, is +suggestive, to a student, of the landscape of "Beowulf," with its _windy +walls_, _shadow-helms_, _broad nesses_, and _glimmering sea-cliffs_. + +As seen from the sea, Lerwick looks trim and picturesque, but when the +visitor lands, he is apt to lose his bearings among its tortuous lanes. +I followed a porter who was tottering under the weight of trunks, and +asked him, as we treaded a flag-paved vennel: "Is it far to the main +street?" He grimly replied: "This _is_ the main street, sir." The +response unnerved me, shaky as I was with seventeen hours' tossing on +the North Sea. Once in the hotel, my spirits rose. A most welcome and +savoury breakfast--consumed near an open window commanding a view over a +sun-lit sound--is well able to hearten the most downcast. + + +LERWICK. + +The town of Lerwick is indeed one of the finest of our island capitals, +and is constantly becoming finer. No visitor can fail to be impressed by +its unique natural harbour, gloriously screened by the God-given shelter +of the island of Bressay. Commercial Street, which runs along the +water's edge, is at the foot of a hill, and is so narrow in parts that +two vehicles can hardly get past each other. If I stayed in Lerwick, I +should not like to have any resident enemies, for it would be difficult +to keep from brushing clothes with them in the main street. Up from this +main street to the newer town, on a plateau at the top, run numerous +quaint wynds, sinuous, and not always well-scavenged. This new and +well-built part contains the far-seen and notable Town Hall, the +architecture of which would have pleased Ruskin, especially as its fine +windows are all appositely illustrative of Shetlandic annals. By +climbing the dusty clock-tower, one has a splendid view of all +surrounding slopes and seas. + +Here is a hint to prospective tourists. Take to the left when you quit +the hall, get down the lane leading to the sea-crags, and walk for two +miles in the direction of the rifle-range. It is a glorious and solitary +walk--not altogether solitary, for the sea is invariably good company. +Don't be so foolish as to keep on your hat: off with it, and let the +air-borne sea-spume wet your brow. It is also a good thing to recite +Byron's vigorous "Address to the Ocean,"--the odd cows you may pass will +not stop their grazing for that. There is no finer air in King Edward's +dominions than that which blows in this region, for the hill air meets +the sea air that has come all the way from Norway, and the two coalesce +to give the rapt pedestrian a mouthful of exhilarating ether. One who is +really a poet and not merely a casual sonneteer, should try to get a +site for his tent on this particular shore, and retire to compose an +epoch-making epic. The medival saints knew what they were doing when +they retired to little nooks and isles along this coast to pray and +meditate undisturbed: it is much easier to feel devout in a fresh +atmosphere, than in the squalor of a town. + + +PAST AND PRESENT SAINTS. + +What indeed astonishes the visitor to these northern isles is the +immense number of ecclesiastical ruins. The Christian missionaries seem +speedily to have translated their enthusiasm into stone and lime. What +hymns were chanted and what sermons preached up there in bygone times, +passes the wit of man to reckon! It is a far cry from Palestine to the +Shetland creeks and voes, but the voice of the lowly Nazarene +effectually reached the Celts and Norsemen of these treeless +storm-lashed isles. + +Many of the smaller islands have the appellation _papa_, which +indicates, as I hinted above, that some monk or hermit, withdrawing from +the world to pray and meditate, has bequeathed a whiff of sanctity to +headland and skerry. + +"The hermit good lives in the wood," says Coleridge, but for the +Shetland _papa_ there was no _nemorum murmur_:-- + + No sun-illumined leafage met his eye + Raised from perusal of the Holy Word, + No murmur of the woodland zephyr-stirred + Blended with his devotions sped on high, + Only the chiding of the billows nigh. + The clangour of the wheeling ocean-bird, + Or soul-astounding shriek of storm-fiend heard + From the dun cloud-battalions hurrying by, + Greeted his ear: yet piously through all + His life the austere anchorite remained, + On his lone island, buffeted by squall + And sea, and faithful unto death obtained + The promised guerdon that the Lord bestows + Upon the pure in heart, and only those. + +It has been asserted by those who have means of knowing, that the days +of theological rigidity are past and gone in the Shetlands. Thing +unheard of in the Hebrides--the shops are open on Sunday mornings for +the sale of Saturday's _Scotsman_ and _Herald_. In some parts of +Scotland you could not hire a trap for a Sunday drive; in others, you +_might_ manage, by salving the driver's conscience with a double fare. +In Shetland the tariff is the same for the first and the last days of +the week. To explain the ecclesiastical differences between the islands +of the North and the West would require a philosopher with all Buckle's +shrewdness and ingenuity. Buckle accounted for the sombre nature of +Scotch theology by dwelling on the awe-inspiring reverberations of +thunder among the Highland peaks. The easy-going creed of the Shetlands +might perhaps be accounted for by a reference to the happy-go-lucky way +in which the sea wanders at will among the confusion of peninsulas, +islets, and skerries. Any theory is better than none at all, and +geopsychical explanations are fashionable at present. + +The pulpit stars twinkle with great lustre in these boreal regions. A +country minister, with no preparatory groans, but sharp and trippingly +thus began his homily some Sundays ago: "It is now thirty-five years +since the Lord sent me to labour in this part of his vineyard, if +vineyard I may call it, where no grape was ever seen. On a bright summer +morning thirty-five years ago, I turned the corner of the road and came +among you. Young women, your mothers were in the fields, busy with the +work of the crofts. Your mothers were exceedingly fair to look upon, and +I am happy to say, my dear young sisters, that, by the providence of +God, the beauty of your mothers has lost nothing by being transmitted to +your comely selves. And now for my text, which you will find in Ezekiel, +chapter _x_ and verse _y_." + + +SOME NOTES ON THE ISLANDS. + +A century ago Shetland was almost an unknown land to the Lowlanders of +Scotland. When a Shetland minister was deputed to attend the General +Assembly, it might take him a year to get there and back. His journey +was a very circuitous one: he had to go in a trading vessel to Hamburg, +take boat from Hamburg to London, and from London proceed to Leith. To +return from Edinburgh, the journey was performed the reverse way. Now +that there is a regular service between Aberdeen and Lerwick, and +between Leith and several of the Shetland ports, the journey can be +performed with comfort and expedition. Tourists flock North in the +summer season to admire the scenery, catch the trout, and inhale the +health-giving breezes. + +The natives, being mainly of Norse descent, look with a kindly eye over +the water in the direction of Bergen. They do not love Scotland, and +they have their reasons. When the Shetlands were handed over to the +Scotch kings, numbers of needy adventurers, armed with cheaply-got +charters, swooped down on the islands and dispossessed the native +proprietors. This has neither been forgotten nor forgiven. Mr. Russell, +who lived for three years among them, says:--"They believe that the +present lairds are interlopers, and that they themselves have been +defrauded and despoiled. They speak of these things only among +themselves, and not openly; but those who have been in the country, and +have gained their confidence, know that there is a strong undercurrent +of feeling against Scotland and Scotsmen.... They conceive that they +have a claim even as things are, to dwell on the land, and that a +proprietor has no right to remove them from his estate." I was +dreadfully shocked to notice that in a volume of tales published by a +Lerwick author only four years ago, the leading villain was from the +mainland. "Scotland is nothing to us," said a Shetlander to an inspector +of schools. "What has Scotland ever done for us except send us _greedy +ministers and dear meal_?" + +In the old days, when communication with the mainland was uncertain and +fitful, the luxuries of civilised life were quite unknown. In one +outlying district a box of oranges was washed ashore from a wreck: these +the natives boiled, under the impression that the orange was a novel +kind of potato. A cask of treacle, come by in a similar way, was used +like tar to daub the bottom of a smack. By and by a cow was seen to lick +the boat with evident relish, and this opened the eyes of the natives to +the real nature of the substance. Nowadays the natives are well in line +with modern civilisation, one of the most convincing proofs being that +they buy drugs and patent medicines of every kind. One has only to scan +the advertisement pages of the Shetland newspapers to note the +persistent way in which quacks of all shades bring their nostrums before +the notice of the islanders. Dyspepsia and rheumatism are the commonest +ailments; and to combat these, myriads of pills and numberless elixirs +are annually swallowed. Faith does a lot even when the drugs of a +legitimate practitioner are concerned: the fact that you have swallowed +something with a bitter taste is often a distinct aid to recovery. Mr. +Russell, whom I referred to above, says: "To my surprise, I learned that +some who were in extreme poverty, and had hardly enough food to eat, +were in the habit of sending South for pills and patent medicines." + + +A SHETLAND POET. + +Long before I ever thought of visiting Shetland, I was acquainted with +the dialect spoken there, through having studied a most interesting +little book of poems called _Rasmie's Bdie_, published in Paisley. The +author of this book is Mr. Haldane Burgess, a very prolific and able +writer, but unfortunately afflicted with blindness. During my short stay +in Lerwick, I gave myself the pleasure of calling upon him, and I was +intensely delighted with my reception. When the sense of sight is lost, +that of touch becomes inordinately keen: Mr. Burgess has accordingly +excellent control over his type-writer, and can compose as nimbly as in +the days when his eyesight was unimpaired. He spoke of his most recent +novel, _The Treasure of Don Andreas_, and expressed himself as highly +pleased at the criticism passed upon it by a reviewer in the _Athenum_. +Mr. Burgess begins composition every morning at seven, and regulates his +life with military precision. On all departments of Shetlandic history, +folk-lore, and dialect, he discourses with great knowledge, fluency, and +animation. But his interests in the general field of modern literature +are extremely wide. He speaks the Norse language almost as easily as +English, has studied Icelandic, and knows a good deal about the writers +of modern France. Some friend had been reading Arnold's _Literature and +Dogma_ to him shortly before my visit. He was loud in praise of that +book, the ironical insolence and pawky humour of which he had greatly +enjoyed. + +On parting from Mr. Burgess, I received from him a copy of his pleasant +Shetlandic story _Tang_, a careful and illuminating study of island life +and manners. The English style struck me as full, robust, and strongly +tinged with poetical figures, and the character sketches drawn with the +precision of intimate knowledge. All his prose works display great +wealth of material, and much psychological insight. His most +characteristic production, however, is his little book of poems +mentioned above, _Rasmie's Bdie_. Rasmie is a Shetland crofter who is +typical of the race: shrewd, kindly, thoughtful, and gifted with a touch +of quaint sarcasm. He has perfectly clear views of life, this old +peasant, and is quite free from cant, or superstition, or mystery. Some +of his metaphors are droll: after long pondering on the scheme of +creation, he comes to the conclusion that earth is the field, heaven the +house, and hell the "midden." Pope, speaking of _Paradise Lost_, +complains that-- + + "In quibbles angels and archangels join, + And God the Father turns a school-divine." + +What would the great Augustan have thought of verse in which God the +Father is likened to a cosmic Crofter? + + "Dis Universe is Gd's grit croft, + It's His by richt, wis never koft + Frae gritter laird + And ne'er sall be, laek laand o Toft + Wi' idder shared." + +For those who have the patience to pierce through the husk of Rasmie's +dialect, much amusement and delight is in store. + + +A VISIT TO BRESSAY. + +If Charles Lamb and Herbert Spencer had been sent to Lerwick and Bressay +to write a report on what they saw, I daresay the difference of their +accounts would have astonished every reader. Lamb would probably have +swilled porter in the _Ultima Thule_ Refreshment Bar and written a most +interesting account of Bressay without ever crossing the Sound. The ribs +of a big uncouth Dutch boat, square, cumbrous, shell-fretted, and tilted +up on the beach, would probably have bulked more in Lamb's narrative +than the modern steam-trawlers that abound in these waters. His +politico-economical reflections on the rise in price of peppermint +lozenges, consequent on the annual arrival of the Dutch fishing crews +would, I am sure, have furnished excellent reading. Spencer's report +would have dealt, I fancy, with the rotation of crops, the cause of the +different currents, the varieties of pigmentation (with percentages) +among the islanders, and the evolution of fishing gear from its +rudimentary forms--in sum with the definite combination of heterogeneous +changes both simultaneous and successive, in correspondence with +external coexistences and sequences. No two out of a hundred visitors +see the same things, a fact which may help to prove Bishop Berkeley's +theory that the universe is subjective entirely. + +I went over to Bressay with a genial and erudite clergyman to visit the +schoolhouse and inspect the ruins of an eighth century church. Three +Shetland women rowed us over the Sound and handled the oars splendidly. +The minister, a plump, jolly be-spectacled gentleman, who has not +"perpetrated matrimony," declared with a sigh that he was an unprotected +male, and on our arrival at the Bressay beach, he called aloud to the +oarswomen to lift him out of the boat. These muscular dames shrieked +with laughter and proceeded to unship their oars as if to buffet him: +he, thereupon, leaped lightly enough on the strand and, turning round, +would have improved the occasion by a word in season had not the +tittering Nereids begun to splash him as he stood on the shingle. + +Innumerable sheep pasture on the Bressay slopes, and on the sky-line of +some of the hills one can discern companies of rollicking Shetland +ponies. My friend, the minister, who is writing a book on Darwin, got +into conversation with Mr. Manson, the Bressay pony-breeder. The latter +spoke thus about his tiny steeds: "Pony-breeding is a more puzzling +business than anything else in God's universe. The parents, +grandparents, and great grandparents of a given pony have all been +perfect in every point. Good! You naturally expect that a pony with such +exceptionable ancestry will itself be without a flaw. But is it? No, +often it is not. Too frequently you get bitter water from sweet, and +thistles instead of grapes. Just look at that tricky, mischievous, +ill-tempered, wall-eyed little rascal. Where did he get his evil +cantrips and his wall-eye? I have known his ancestors for four +generations back and they were all without a blemish." The minister made +a note of this fact within the book and volume of his brain: it may be +useful in the pulpit, and I expect to see it in print when he publishes +his book on Darwin. + +The eighth century church was at last reached. It is about three miles +from the landing-place and quite near the water. Every point was most +lucidly explained by my ecclesiastical guide. To the outer eye the place +consisted of some low, ruined walls enclosing various species of rank, +wet grass. Such remains of olden piety are provocative of gloomy +reverie, which the rushing of the inconstant tide close by only serves +to deepen. Immediately after the Crucifixion and long before this church +was reared by saintly hands, the little Christian communities thought +the kingdom of God would shortly be established and all sin and +suffering be banished from the world. But the apostles died, and so +successively have + + "Priest, doctor, hermit, monk grown white + With prayer, the broken-hearted nun, + The martyr, the wan acolyte, + The incense-swinging child"-- + +the bishop, the church-builder, and the patriot in all those +generations, and the kingdom of God is not with us yet, seems, indeed, +to be as far off as ever. When the world has been at peace for a while +and the millennium seems imminent, all of a sudden a perverse, +stiff-necked, _wall-eyed_ generation supervenes, and evolution gives way +to deterioration! + +Lightly bounding down the ages, my companion turned my thoughts from +unrealised dreams of religion to those of politics. Along these waters +that cast their spray on the ancient ruin, James Hepburn, Earl of +Bothwell, third husband of Queen Mary, fled in hot haste, with a +pursuing squadron at his heels, in the year 1567. Kirkaldy of Grange +entered the Sound of Bressay as Bothwell was leaving by the northern +exit. + +Our walk lasted about four hours, and ended up in the school-house, +where the teacher's hospitable dame regaled us to a welcome and +excellent cup of tea. It did us good after the strain of so many +reminiscences. The teacher is a hearty and sociable gentleman, who loves +his books and his fireside. On the fine Saturdays, friends ferry across +from Lerwick for a round of golf with him over the Bressay links. The +fine library, recently sent from Paisley, furnishes a pleasant variety +of reading both for himself and his pupils. On my remarking that, as +chairman at the lecture next evening, he need not speak more than thirty +minutes, he replied, with visible emotion, that he would concentrate his +remarks into a space of thirty seconds. + +We got back to Lerwick in a lugsail that was full of passengers, +potatoes, and milk-cans. There was a good deal of loud, elementary chaff +during the twenty minutes' crossing. An old, wrinked, peat-smoked dame +gave us much good advice and (better still) a sprig of white heather +apiece. I found by subsequent experience that the trip is not always so +amusing. Next evening a boatman pulled us over, and it was stiff work +for him, as the Sound was lumpy and the wind contrary. Coming back, he +hoisted his sail, and we careered over in rollicking style. I was a +little scared at the swift-rushing currents and the switchback motion of +the boat. Overhead were moon, stars, and flying clouds; the hulls of big +steamers loomed like phantoms on the surface of the Sound; on the hill +opposite twinkled the ever-nearing light of Lerwick. + +Bressay, I may add, has a nice little hall, with all items of modern +convenience, including ventilation. The building is used for every +legitimate purpose, from worship to _weel-timed daffin'_. + + +FROM LERWICK TO SANDWICK. + +I have a vivid recollection of a day's drive from Lerwick to Sandwick, +down the long, narrow peninsula that terminates in Sumburgh head. I was +accompanied by the reverend gentleman already alluded to in connection +with Bressay. + +It is a common saying in the isles that Shakespeare had his eye on the +soil of Shetland when he pronounced the famous line: + + "'Tis true, 'tis _peaty_, 'tis _peaty_ 'tis, 'tis true." + +On all sides in the country you see acre after acre of bog, dripping +with moisture and exuding black runnels whenever the spade of the +peat-cutter begins to slice its fibrous bulk. Should a wayfarer leave +the road by mishap after nightfall, he would soon be plunging in the +treacherous morasses. It is well for him to have a lantern swinging at +his girdle when the sun has gone down. + +Such are the reflections suggested by a view of the country between +Lerwick and the little clachan of Quarff. + + +QUARFF. + +Quarff is the headquarters of a minister who is said to be the only +extempore preacher in Shetland, if the word can be appropriately applied +to one who, being blind, has to prepare his sermons in "the quick forge +and working-house of thought" without the succour of books. This +gentleman spent long years in the little islets called _Skerries_, and, +like a miniature Augustine or Columba, claims to have been the first to +preach the sublime truths of Christianity on these limestone formations. + +Though blind, he enjoys his pipe, and I had a smoke with him at the +fireside. Between the puffs, he indulged in a furious onslaught on the +Lord Chancellor and the Wee Frees. Lord Halsbury he considered a poor, +benighted creature, who didn't know the difference between a Trades +Union and a body of Christians. "_If he ever comes to Shetland_," said +the minister, "_he had better bring his woolsack with him, for I won't +let him down soft!_" After Lord Halsbury had been adequately trounced, +the talk turned on notable things that had happened in the district +within the last decade or two. One of the tales (which was very +divertingly told) had to do with the trite subject of intemperance, but +as it contains one or two novel touches, I here briefly rehearse it. + +An elder of the place, who, with his trap, had come to grief one market +night on the way back from Lerwick, told his session a strange tale to +account for the catastrophe. "When I got to Lerwick in the forenoon, I +said to the driver: 'Young man, if I mistake not, you have had no tip +from me for a long time.' 'That's very true, sir,' said he. 'Well,' said +I, 'there's half-a-crown; go and spend it judiciously.' During the day I +transacted business with various friends, omitting none of the usual +rites. About five o'clock my driver returned, and harnessed the horse +for the return journey. At first I thought he had brought his brother +with him, but, on rubbing my eyes, I found it was an optical delusion. +As I watched him narrowly, I saw the outlines of a bottle bulging out +from his buttoned coat, and distinctly heard, as he moved to and fro, +the gurgling sound of liquid in agitation. He was smiling in +self-approval, and when I reproved him for his slowness, he quoted +Habakkuk v. 5, 'Hurry no man's cattle,' adding that his authority was +the Revised Version. As we went rattling along the road, his tricks +were fantastic in the extreme. At a point about two miles from Lerwick, +I saw, a little in front of us, a tall individual enveloped in a long +waterproof, of which the collar was turned up to cover his ears. The +eyes of this person glowed like live coal as he peremptorily demanded a +lift. Not waiting for permission, he, with a sudden spring, vaulted on +the trap and squeezed himself between the driver and myself. The air +grew hot and close. The driver became ten times friskier than before. I +determined to unmask the unceremonious stranger, and, putting down my +hand, grasped him by the foot. He had no boots on, and what I seized was +a cloven hoof. I asked him there and then if he was Beelzebub. 'I am,' +said he, 'and clever and all as you are, it will take all your talents +to slip out of my clutches this night.' At this point there is a blank +in my souvenirs. I only remember sparks flying and the sensation of +falling down from my seat on to a steep embankment. On recovering +consciousness, I found myself lying on a crofter's bed, with aching +limbs. I told him the story of my escape, and he said, after hearing it: +'We live in troublous times, John, and the Arch-deceiver seems to be off +the chain. Watch and pray, or you may fall further next time.'" + + +"THAT HOLY MAN, NOAH." + +Particular stories are suggested by the place where one first heard +them. This profound remark is worked out in detail by Sir William +Hamilton and Professor Sully. As I look at the map of the road I +traversed that day, I am reminded of certain anecdotes retailed by my +genial and reverend guide. + +"After leaving college," said he, "I was appointed assistant to a worthy +D.D. who regarded the higher critics as a species of vermin. Hell with +him was not a mere unpleasant state passed in _this_ world, but an +actual raging bonfire specially prepared for everyone who could not +repeat the Shorter Catechism. The parishioners of this worthy man were, +in consequence, devoutly orthodox, and had, one and all, a keen nose for +bad doctrine. They did not like to be fobbed off with a sermon of the +spineless order; they liked bones, blood, and fire--not a mosaic of +cheery quotations from Tennyson about the larger hope and about worms +not being cloven in vain. They had also a great liking for the +patriarchs, especially Noah. By ill luck, I spoke one Sunday on the +patriarchs, and handled them pretty roughly. I felt that sacred +enthusiasm which every man feels in denouncing the sins of others. I +gave the Captain of the Ark a special lick of tar. This sermon caused a +mighty commotion in the district. I might as well have asserted that the +paraphrases were inspired, or that Sankey's hymns were canonical. I +could see that the elders began to look coldly upon me. In barn and byre +little groups discussed my preaching, and there was much wagging of the +head and shooting out of the lip. A deputation came out of a +potato-field to me one day as I was walking along the road, and the +leader, an old theological crofter, said bluntly: 'Your sermons are not +pleasing us, if you please, sir.' 'Is the doctrine bad?' I asked. 'Not +exactly that, but the folk say it's very unseemly.' 'What special sermon +do they object to?' 'They think you're not sound on that holy man, +Noah.' 'Do they go the length of saying Noah was perfect?' 'They don't +just go that length; but, while admitting Noah was human, they desire' +(here the old man raised his head, shut his eyes, and shouted) 'to hear +no more from a young inexperienced lad like you, a single word about the +patriarch's shortcomings. The man was a patriarch, and therefore a +saint. Talk about his virtues as much as you like, but don't fash about +his trespasses, there's a good boy, I speak as your friend.'" + + +FLADIBISTER. + +When my friend had delivered himself of this story, he pointed with his +pipe to a little confused collection of low, thatched cottages which we +were rapidly approaching on the left, and, oblivious of Noah, went thus +musing on: "You are now in the charmed domain of Fladibisteria, of which +the core or citadel, as it were, is this village of Fladibister. This is +no settlement of Norsemen: no, this is a Celtic nook where second sight +and such witchcraft flourished not so many years ago. Did not the +minister once rebuke them for their spells and mystic whims by aptly +applying to them the words of St. Paul to the Galatians: '_Oh, foolish +Fladibisterians, who hath bewitched you?_' There is an atmosphere of +tranquillity and Arcadian peace swimming over Fladibister such as is +nowhere else to be found in Shetland. The young men of the place roam +far over the sea, as mariners and fishers; but like the exiled +Jacobite-- + + 'Who sighed at Arno for his lovelier Tees,' + +they never feel happy till they are back home here under the roofs of +thatch. And what a work their women folks make with them when they +return! What feasting and merrymaking! What screwing of fiddle-pegs, +nimble motion of elbows and long-sustained dancing and skipping. I don't +deny that there is clink of glasses, too, at times, to aid the passage +of the hours far past the noon of night." + + +CUNNINGSBURGH. + +Cunningsburgh, the journey to which was shortened by these tales, is one +of those places you might pass through without being aware of it; that +is to say, there is no feature about it so startling or abrupt as to +impress itself at once on the attention. The district all round is well +tilled, and the houses bien and comfortable. + +The minister of the place arrests the attention instantly. His genial +face and hearty handshake have a more Christianising effect on the soul +than a ton of sermons. I have never heard a more kindly voice or seen a +face in which tenderness, merriment, and intellectual keenness, were all +so harmoniously blended. He does not smoke himself, but has that wise +and wide perception of things which leads him to press those who are +anxious to smoke, but say they are not, to take out their pipes in his +drawing-room. It was easy to see the man he was, by a hasty look at his +book-shelves. All the philosophers were represented there, from Plato +to the present-day mystical Germans. Lang's _Odyssey_ was side by side +with the Icelandic sagas and the Song of the Niebelungs. I did not see +many books of Systematic Theology; but the Greek tragedians, the Sacred +Books of the East, German and French novels, had all a place in the +bookcase of this cosmopolitan clergyman of a remote Shetlandic parish. + + +"KEEPING OFF." + +In secluded townships like Cunningsburgh where life's round has much of +the monotony of fashionable society, and involves a still recurring +succession of similar duties, the minister is indeed a power. If he is a +man of broad and enlightened mind, his influence for good is +incalculable. The Kirk-Session is a permanent Court of Justice, taking +cognisance of minor matters of morality, and enforcing its decisions by +religious sanctions. To be barred from participating in the communion +rites might not seem a very alarming punishment to the easy-going +Lowlander; but to a Shetland peasant, being _keepit off_, as it is +technically called, is a terrible and humiliating penalty. A crofter +came to the manse to complain about his wife's unruly and satirical +tongue. "But what can I do to her?" said the minister, "she's your wife, +and you must assert your authority." "I've tried everything," said the +man, "but she still continues to be a troubler in Israel." The minister +professed his inability to interfere. "I can do nothing at all," he +said. "Yes you can," said the crofter, with a wink and a fearful +whisper, "_You can keep her off!_" + + +THE INDIGNANT ELDER. + +Since the Reformation the people have lived and thriven under the +jurisdiction of the Session. In the records of the Session one finds a +chronicle of the sins, eccentricities, and merriments of the people for +the last two or three centuries. Several incidents based on these +minutes will make what I say abundantly clear. The Quarrel of the Elder +and the Minister's Housekeeper, for example, convulsed a still remoter +parish in much the same overmastering way as the Dreyfus Trial agitated +Paris. Herodotus is the only author I can think of who could have done +justice to this northern _affaire_. Let me briefly summarise it. Between +the minister's garden and that of one of his elders ran what was termed +a hedge. The shrubs which formed the base of this hedge were so +ill-grown that the minister's fowls could easily go, clucking and +scraping, from one garden into the other. Evidence was given to prove +that the cabbages and pot-herbs in the elder's plot were torn and +spoiled in parts. Every morning he stood at a gap in the hedge and sang +aloud like a skipper in a storm or Achilles at the trench of the Greeks: +"I am being ruined and brought to poverty by the minister's hens." This +cry grated upon the ears of the manse housekeeper, who by and by thought +it her duty to go out and reason with the elder. "It's no' the +minister's hens ava that's to blame, it's the craws o' the firmament." +"It's the hens." "No, the craws." "Hens I declare!" "You're a _deceitful +impostor_!" said the housekeeper. Now, no self-respecting elder could +stand that. Boiling with wrath as he was, he remembered his +ecclesiastical status, merely remarking that there was work for the +Session at last. By nightfall he had been in every croft within the +Session's jurisdiction, laying off his tale in each, and as he got +practice and more vehemence with constant repetition, he attained +extreme fluency and impressiveness before the day was done. An +unspeakable joy came over the community at the prospect of a delicious +scandal. To avoid the breach being healed by an apology, many of the +crofters sought to envenom the quarrel by refusing to believe that the +elder was altogether right. "Crows," they said, "had been known to play +havoc with cabbage. Elders were but human, and so, hasty in laying +charges on insufficient evidence. The case was certainly one for the +Church courts. The housekeeper must have a good defence to make, and +would no doubt make it at the proper time and in the proper place. We +must hear both sides." One may see by this that the spirit which +animates a great nation (the desire, namely, to divert itself with the +contentions of those who come before the public eye), animates also the +smallest communities in the realm. The great passion-stirring process, +_Hens versus Crows_, lasted for some seven months. Over and over again +the hedge was examined. Now the elder thought he had the best of it, +only to be damped by a revulsion of feeling in favour of the +housekeeper. The finding of the Session was adverse to the lady. The +fact that she had practically called the elder a son of Belial could not +be got over. The minister, holding the scales of justice, was forced, in +spite of himself, to declare against her. Considering her position, +some mildness was shown in pronouncing her condemnation and the penalty. +Having regard to the dignity of the offended man, nothing less than the +sentence of _keeping off_ could meet the ends of ecclesiastical law. But +one "keeping off" was deemed adequate. The elder was avenged. At the +ensuing communion, he was seen to smile and rub his hands diabolically, +as he glanced towards the back of the church, where sat, outside the +pale of the privileged elect, the unhappy and vanquished housekeeper, +who had called him an impostor. + + +TORQUIL HALCROW. + +Torquil Halcrow's case presents features of a different order. For some +reason a _fama_ spread abroad respecting him to the effect that his +language and demeanour left much to be desired, and that not even the +presence, or at least proximity, of women operated to mellow the +strength of his vocabulary. Nothing definite was openly formulated +against him, but Torquil became aware that in certain quarters his +reputation was being slowly undermined. It is precisely this vague kind +of aggression on a man's character that is the most difficult to combat. +He took the bull by the horns in a most heroic way. _He got up a public +testimonial to himself, and went round canvassing for signatures._ The +testimonial ran thus:--"We, the undersigned women of the parish, have +pleasure in bearing witness that we have known Torquil Halcrow for +twenty years, and never have we known him do an unseemly act or utter an +unworthy expression." Thereafter followed a list of forty names. +Furnished with this document, he strode up to the manse, fluttered it in +the minister's face with a gesture of triumph, laid it down on the study +table, then turned on his heel and walked away. The minister, when he +examined the paper minutely, found that Torquil, in the belief that the +heading of the testimonial was not sufficiently strong, had added this +further clause in his own handwriting: "_but many a precious word of +truth and gracious spiritual comfort have we heard proceeding from his +lips_." + +I have already referred to the beautiful and pathetic saying of Mr. +Barrie that every window-blind is the curtain of a tragedy. I thought of +that dictum as the minister of Cunningsburgh pointed to one cot after +another in the neighbourhood, and narrated the calamities that had +fallen upon them within recent years. Here, an old widow was mourning +the loss of a son who had gone to the deep-sea fishing and would never +return: his bright young life had been swallowed up in the insatiable +ocean, and she was left lamenting in her indigence. There, it was a +father who had been engulfed in the roost; or again, the illness of a +mother had cast a blight for years upon this other household. Sometimes +I have seen two old people, all their sons dead, living a kind of +stupefied half-life, automatically moving about, poor and wretchedly +clad, unable to understand anything except the welcome heat of the sun +and the animal comfort of a little food. There are many sad things in +this world: none is more sad than the sight of two old people outliving +their progeny and wandering about in decrepit second childhood with no +more substance than a dream. The sea is mainly answerable for the great +and deep tragedies of the Shetlands: it is like a pitiless monster, +howling in anger at their doors and claiming its yearly prey. No native +writer has as yet attempted to make vocal for us the immense dumb +sorrows of these fisher folks in the way Loti has done for the seafarers +of Brittany. + + +PHILOLOGY. + +Jakobsen, the Danish philologist, spent some years recently in +collecting the remains of the old Norwegian speech that still linger in +the conversation and the place-names of the islanders. Perhaps the most +interesting point brought out by Jakobsen is the prevalence in +comparatively recent times of lucky words, which the fishermen used when +at the deep-sea fishing, and only then. This practice is undoubtedly a +relic of pagan ages when the sea-depths were regarded as the dominion of +dread water spirits, who keenly watched those who intruded in their +realms. The strange feature about this deep-sea speech is that its +expressions were purely Norse, whereas the home idiom of the fishers was +overwhelmingly English. The pagan beliefs respecting the hostile powers +of the sea found expression in old words handed down from a +pre-Christian epoch. These old words may have been originally liturgical +or worship words, for the sea was an object of veneration and awe to the +Norsemen who, in the conquering days, made their home on its angry +waters. It was believed that the jealous powers of the ocean were +vehemently hostile to Christianity, and hence the Shetland fishers, up +till quite recently, carefully avoided any direct mention of _church_ +or _minister_ when on the water: the _haaf_ or lucky words being +respectively _benihoose_ (prayer-house) and _upstander_. Even the +domestic animals had special _haaf_ appellations. This conception of the +sea as filled with weird mysterious beings of unspeakable malignity, +ever ready to whelm the boat of an unwary intruder, carries the mind +back to the old alliterative lay of _Beowulf_, the contest of that hero +with the wallowing ocean-monsters, and the grim subterranean glow in the +sea-home of Grendel's mother. The Shetlanders have only too much reason +to brood over the cruelty of the sea. On July 20, 1881, during a +terrific squall, sixty-three breadwinners were engulfed in the thwarting +currents of the Sound of Yell. + + +A SANDWICK GENTLEMAN. + +During all the foregoing discussion in the Cunningsburgh manse and +garden, our driver had been wondering what subjects of talk could +possibly be keeping us from continuing our journey to Sandwick. The two +ministers--the original one and the Cunningsburgh man also--at length +mounted the trap with me, and we all went joyfully on the final lap. The +object of the journey was to visit Mr. Sinclair of Sandwick, a gentleman +well worth going fifty miles to see. Mr. Sinclair has many qualities +that make a man notorious. He went to Australia in an emigrant ship many +years ago, and wrote a book upon it, in which he playfully remarks that +he got the full value of his passage money, inasmuch as there was a +birth, a death, and a suicide, between Plymouth and Melbourne. Another +of his distinctions is great dexterity in playing the violin, his +favourite pieces being "The Scalloway Lasses" and "The Auld Wife ayont +the Fire." The title of the last-named piece rather staggered me, until +I was informed by one of the ministers, who is a scholar and an +antiquarian, that it relates to a time when the fire was in the middle +of the room and when the smoke escaped by a hole in the roof, or in +default of that, by the door. Mr. Sinclair rendered these pieces with +infinite gusto, and, like all true artists, got as much pleasure as he +gave. He had also the most diverting way of ejaculating the word _hooch_ +I have ever heard in my journey through life. It gives me pleasure to +add that he wrote a poem on fifty whales that were driven from the sea +by the local fishermen into Sandwick Bay. These whales were all +beautifully cooped in the narrow inlet and stranded on the beach, when +lo! the local landowners, citing some old statute, claimed from the +fishermen a share of the spoil. Mr. Sinclair, indignant and astute at +once, took upon himself the championship of the fishermen, and managed +matters so admirably that the lords of the soil were completely worsted +in the Edinburgh law-courts. Flushed with such signal success, he put +the whole story into metre. A printed and framed copy of the poem hangs +in a conspicuous place in his sitting-room. At our special request, he +favoured us by singing the impassioned stanzas. It was a unique treat to +hear him do so. There he was in the centre of the room holding the +framed verses in his hand, gazing fondly thereat even as a mother +regards her child. When the chorus came on, he laid down the poem, and +lifted up his voice with glorious enthusiastic force. Inspiration was in +his eye, his grey locks became dishevelled, his arms swung rhythmically +to the beat of the melody. The entire interview was intense: it was one +crowded hour, of which time is unable to cancel the memory. + + +LOCAL TALES. + +The evening was a glorious one, and we _walked_ back some miles of the +way. The Cunningsburgh minister was full of stories. He alluded +laughingly to one of his flock who, when under the influence of drink, +was powerful in prayer. "_When he gets a dram he goes to his knees at +once._" The anecdote seemed to me to run counter to the views of the +hymnologist who says "Satan trembles when he sees, the weakest saint +upon his knees." Another of his stories had reference to two old +crofters, both over eighty, who began one evening to talk of the follies +of the young fisher-lads when they took to dram-drinking. One of the two +remarked: "I wonder now what folly we two old men would commit if we +chanced to get intoxicated, say at a funeral." "Well," said the other +hoary-headed and infirm octogenarian, "I have no idea what you would do, +but I am certain of this, that if I ever got the least bit touched, I +would go and make love to the lasses at once." Thereupon the two feeble +old fellows skirled a wicked laugh, and nearly gasped out their slim +residue of life in unseemly merriment. + +Both ministers assured me that the belief in fairies still lingers on +among the Shetland peasantry. Up on the hill-side the trow is supposed +to wander about, and the little fellow can be seen skipping on the +moon-light sward, by all who have eyes and the necessary faith. It is +believed that he haunts the road-side even when the moon is not shining: +consequently, when the crofters have to go out of doors at night, they +protect themselves from his spells by carrying with them a blazing peat +gripped with tongs. This smokes and sparkles in the darkness and the +trow does not like it. It is easy for the electric-lighted citizens of +Glasgow and Edinburgh to laugh at the simple folk-lore of fisher and +crofter; but no one, however learned and sceptical, can quite escape +from the mystic influence of fairy-lore if he lives through a winter +among believing dalesmen. Let him look on the long silvery glimmer of a +sea-voe, and hear the natives tell of trows chasing the ebbing Neptune +down there on the dim sea-strand in a night of haze, before he says +(with Theseus, in the _Midsummer Night's Dream_): + + "I never may believe + These antick fables, nor those fairy toys." + +To the ear and eye of the philological Jakobsen, the Shetlanders both in +speech and looks are remarkably like the Norwegians of the Saettersdal. +In that part of Norway the trow is also a very popular terror. Children +of a disobedient and obstreperous turn are afraid to venture near a wood +at nightfall for fear of a little bogie with a red cap, who may suddenly +slide down a pine-tree and snatch them off. + + +FOULAH AND FAIR ISLE. + +I do not altogether envy the candidate for parliamentary honours who has +to _nurse_ a remote insular constituency like Orkney and Shetland. I met +Mr. Cathcart Wason in Lerwick, and learned that he had been going the +round of the islands and had even paid a visit to the isolated and +mountainous rock of Foulah. Now this was a very daring feat indeed, for +I have heard of a young man who went once to visit his friends there and +was kept a prisoner for five months owing to the squalls. The papers +complimented Mr. Wason on his intrepidity: he went over from Walls in a +smack, and did not make his address too lengthy, for fear the weather +might change and Westminster be deprived of his eloquence for a space. +Mr. Wason is a very tall gentleman, but in Foulah he met his peers in +point of stature. The islanders are a fine set of men, hardy and godly. +They are adroit fowlers and nimble cragsmen. It gives one a queer +sensation to hear that the face of their sheer precipices used to be +(like level land elsewhere) apportioned equitably among the various +families. If A did not wish to catch birds on his aerial lot, he could +let it to B and claim a certain percentage of the spoil. The population +of the island is about 250: owing probably to intermarriage, there are +many childless homes. + +I do not know if Mr. Wason has ever been to the Fair Isle, but I +understand an Ex-Moderator of the Church of Scotland visited the little +community there in 1903. There are two ways of getting to this islet: +(1) by means of a sailing boat which leaves Grutness for Fair Isle once +a fortnight with the mails; if the weather is bad, this mode of +communication is suspended, as in winter no sane man would venture +through the roost in such a boat; (2) by taking a passage on board the +S.S. _Pole Star_, which calls on the first of every month with stores +for the lighthouse. She is a strong, swift boat, and makes the journey +from Stromness, seventy miles away. I may remark that a lecturer wishing +to speak in the Fair Isle need not trouble himself about placards or +handbills: the whole population will be on the shore to welcome him when +he lands, and he could conveniently intimate his subject then, if he has +any breath left in his body. The Fair Isle possesses a church organ and +a non-surpliced choir. The islanders have a great appetite for sermons, +as the following story, told by Mr. Russell, amply proves. "The minister +of Dunrossness went one summer to dispense the communion in the Fair +Isle, and a storm came on which detained him there for about eight days. +The weather also prevented the boats from going to the fishing. As the +people had no pressing work to do at the time, and as it was only on +rare occasions that they enjoyed the presence of the parish minister, +they were anxious to avail themselves of his services while he was among +them. _Accordingly, at their desire, he preached every day during his +stay. In all, he preached thirteen times._ He had taken the precaution +of bringing a good stock of sermons with him. Before this was exhausted, +the weather providentially improved, so that he was able to get +home."[26] + +The cherished legends of one's youth get sorely demolished in the course +of travel and investigation. The school-books used to say that the +Shetlanders were taught to knit by Spanish women saved from the wreck of +the Armada. The islanders stoutly deny any indebtedness, and declare +that there never was the slightest friendship between their ancestors +and the crews of King Philip's galleons. + + [26] The prayers of as many righteous men as possible are + requested for the inspectors of schools who have to examine and + report on the state of education in the Orkneys and Shetlands. I + had the pleasure of conversing with one of these hard-worked + officials in November, 1906. He spoke very warmly of the improved + educational benefit of the libraries that have been sent from + Paisley to the isles and skerries. This gentleman inspects the + Fair Isle school once every two years. On the occasion of his + last visit, he was rowed from Lerwick in a "sixern," and had a + most tempestuous time going through the _roost_. Two of his + oarsmen sickened, and were helpless. On getting ashore at last, + he forgot all his sorrows and soaking, when he heard heartsome + strains of welcome being played on the _insular pianola_. + + +THE FISHING SEASON. + +To Lerwick, during the fishing season, thousands of women come from the +island of Lewis to gut the myriad herring that are daily brought into +the bay. There is an extemporised town for the strangers on the +outskirts, over which float many odours, weird, pungent, and unsavoury. +All the processes of gutting, curing, and kippering go on in grand +style. The women, clad in a kind of oilskin, handle their dangerous +implements in most dexterous fashion. It is a horrid business, but well +paid. Prolific Nature is never tired supplying these women with work, +for as many as 68,000 eggs have been found in the roe of one female +herring. My friend, Mr. M'Kenzie of Ullapool, who is in the service of +the Fishery Board, took me to see the official examination of several +hundred barrels of fish, preparatory to the branding thereon of the +official stamp. The owners pay for this examination, but the additional +value given to each barrel by the Government mark far surpasses the fee +exacted by the Board. The branding-officer selects at random a barrel +here and there, extracts some dozen fish from each, and satisfies +himself as to the size and quality. If the herring are puny or of +inferior sort, the officer refuses to brand, and the examination fee is +refunded. Mr. M'Kenzie remarked that this was the only case in which he +had ever seen men reluctant to receive money. I followed that gentleman +as he walked over the long lines of slippery herring barrels, lying in +horizontal juxtaposition, and I cannot recommend the exercise to those +who have had no training in gymnastics. + +The great success of the Shetland fisheries during the last year or two +has brought to Lerwick a palpable increase of business and droves of +business men. In the Grand Hotel there were, in August last, thirty +gentlemen resident who were in some way brought thither by the traffic +in herring--among the number a young Russian, who, with his wife, sat at +a little table apart, and kept jabbering their language with glib +expressiveness. His name was Walk-off, and his object was the +annexation of fish for Muscovite consumption. He had a flabby face and +long, dark hair, which he publicly combed. _She_ was small and +pretty--doll-like, indeed--with jewels in her ears, which glittered and +flashed in the gas-light. She was a very loquacious wee creature, and +her intonation reminded me of the caressing way the Swedes articulate +English. I heard him read the Russian newspapers to her with evident +emotion, but the only word I could make out was _Kouropatkin_. The +herring-agents at the hotel table were full of drollery. One of them, +hailing from Wick, addressed a neighbour abruptly to this effect: "I am +a rather expensive man to sit beside, and to one like you especially so, +for you seem to be a water-drinker. When I tell you who I am, however, +you will insist on standing me a bottle of champagne." He was frigidly +asked to state his grounds for such a preposterous expectation. "Prepare +to gasp," he replied; "you see before you one who is a model and a +beacon to all the men of Caithness. I am the sire of nine sturdy sons, +and _they have only three birth-days among them_, seeing that they came +into this vale of tears three at a time." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS AND THEIR ANECDOTES. + + Trials of commercials--The two-est-faced knave--Mary, the maid + of the inn--Anecdotes of the smoking-room: Sonnet to + Raleigh--Peelin's below the tree--"She's away!"--A mean + house--One of the director's wives--Temperance hotels--A + memorial window--The blasted heath--The day for it--The + converted drummer--A circular ticket--A compound + possessive--Sixteen medals--"She's auld, and she's thin, and + she'll keep"--The will o' the dead--Sorry for London--"Raither + unceevil"--An unwelcome recitation--A word in season--A Nairn + critic--A grand day for it--A pro-Boer--"Falls of Bruar, only, + please!"--A bad case of nerves. + + +TRIALS OF COMMERCIALS. + +The commercial traveller (that bustling and indispensable middleman) +leads a life of mingled joy and pain. He is constantly on the move, and +from meeting innumerable types of men, becomes very shrewd in judging +character. Resource, readiness, abundance of glib phrases must in time +become his. He must not, for fear of offence, show any marked bias in +politics or religion. His temper must be well under control; he must +have the patience of an angel; he must smile with those that are merry, +be lugubrious with those that are in the dumps, and listen, with +apparent interest, to the stock stories of hoary-headed prosers. It is +not enough that he should book orders. Some shaky customers are only too +ready to give these. It is his business to book orders only from those +that are likely to pay. A big order delivered to a scoundrel who means +to fail next week, is a horrible calamity, which, if it does not result +in pains and penalties, means a sharp reprimand and a loss of prestige +at headquarters, that may take years to redeem. + +He has to sleep in many a different bed. It is lucky for him if a damp +couch has not rheumatised his limbs. No one knows better than he that +what seems a bell-pull has often, owing to former violence and broken +wires, no connection with the bell. Here a chimney smokes, there the +flue is blocked with birds' nests. In certain country inns, the flimsy +gossamer of spiders makes an undesirable fretwork over the greenish +knobs of the ill-puttied panes. Mice, rats, and "such small deer" +scamper uncannily the live-long night along the worn waxcloths and +unspeakable carpets. As he undresses by the light of a three-inch +candle, he has his soul horrified by early Victorian prints, of Paul +tumbling from his horse on the way to Damascus, of the gory relief of +Lucknow, or of some towsy-headed clansman smiling out of perspective. He +is by no means a tourist on pleasure bent. He must face gust and surge, +for he cannot choose his time and weather. His duty is to cover as much +ground as he can in a given week, fill his order-book with +irreproachable orders, and get home to report, preparatory to another +sally in another direction. Competition stings him into feverish +activity. If he sells tea, he well knows that an army of rivals is +scouring the whole country with samples as good, or perhaps a great deal +better, than his own. + + +THE TWO-EST-FACED KNAVE. + +Nevertheless, the jovial facetiousness of these commercial gentlemen +knows no limits, and hotel-waiters are, at all times, fair game for +their stings and arrows. In one of the northern hotels, there used to be +a portly and rubicund waiter who might have passed for the High Priest +of the Goddess of Health. His face shone, if I may say so, with the +radiance of perfect digestion. A pert commercial, one day, approached +him with an affected look of deep concern and said, "_Well, I hope +you're keeping better_," accompanying the remark with a dig in the +waiter's stomach. The waiter, who had never known a minute's ill-health +in his life, swore vividly for fifteen minutes without repeating +himself, and among many references to the commercial's ancestry, called +him the _two-est-faced_ knave that had ever set foot on the Shetland +Islands. Such a superlative was felt by all to be a masterpiece of +language, and turned the laugh against the bagman.[27] + + [27] As to language, one hears, especially in the Hebrides, + phrases of amusing quaintness, due no doubt to the speaker + handling a foreign tongue. The school in one of the Mull villages + is very small, and I made a remark to that effect in the hearing + of the hotel-porter. "Oh, no," said he, "_it is a good deal + bigger than you would wonder_." The same waiter, who had a talent + for confusing his language, said in reply to an irate visitor who + had questioned his intelligence: "You need not talk like that; I + am as good as you; _I am as good as any other man put together_." + + +MARY, THE MAID OF THE INN. + +I have a great deal of sympathy with hotel-porters and waiters, and +think them unduly longsuffering at times. As to Mary, the exemplary maid +of the hotel alluded to, she can hold her own in repartee with any of +the visitors. She is a distinct character, and Molire could have made a +"type" of her. She has no sinecure of a situation, and, after eleven at +night, when the last supper is over, she has to polish the knives for +the morrow's breakfast. She is young, slim, and active, and wears a +string of red corals round her neck. The place is not frequented by +plutocratic tourists, and so her tips are meagre. In spite of her long +days and her slim perquisites, the girl is affable, smiling, and gay. +She trips out and in, sylph-like, can carve fowls most dexterously by +the light of nature, never spills the soup, and has a laughing and +appropriate word for all. Mary, I hope, will get some decent fellow for +husband, and be a stay and comfort to him all the days of his life. +Meanwhile, however (to use the historic present), a nice old gentleman +in the soft goods line, who hails from the flourishing village of +Dundee, is paying her marked attentions. She will have none of him, for +all his apostolic looks. He repeats to her, with a comically sentimental +air, the lines of Omar: + + "Here with a book of verse beneath the bough, + A loaf of bread, a cup of wine, and thou + Beside me singing in the wilderness, + The wilderness were Paradise enow." + +Mary looks in amazement at the old gentleman with the insinuating voice, +anon bursts into a merry peal, and trips off with the remark, "_There's +nae fules like auld anes_," which a listening Londoner takes to mean, +"There's nothing fills like onions!" + + +ANECDOTES OF THE SMOKING-ROOM. + + +SONNET TO RALEIGH. + +The conversation of an intelligent commercial traveller is, as I said, +of a facetious and entertaining turn. He speaks to so many people in the +course of a day and hears so many anecdotes as he rushes about, that his +sense of humour becomes very keen. Old Burton, author of the _Anatomy of +Melancholy_, used to dissipate his sombre thoughts by listening to the +coarse badinage of bargemen: a modern, afflicted with Burton's +complaint, might well find a cure in the smoking-room of a hotel among a +company of commercial travellers. One Saturday night, in a Shetland +hotel, I listened to a crowd of these merry gentlemen communicating to +each other their several collections of stories. Before doing so, they +all sang with great fervour the well-known hymn _The Sands of Time are +Sinking_, a whisky-traveller officiating at the harmonium. One of the +number ostentatiously beat time with his pipe. It was a very affecting +scene, and certain of the singers were moved to tears at their own +melody. + +The company then settled down, in a pleased frame of mind, to tell +stories. I noted some of these, and as they were new to me, I cherish +the hope that they may not be stale to others. The following +preliminary sonnet to Sir Walter Raleigh seems to be apposite and new; +it is needed to give atmosphere to the tales: + + Raleigh! the benefactor of thy kind, + May azure undulations ever roll + As incense to thee from the glowing bowl, + Thy rapt disciples fume with placid mind + In easy chair, by ingle-nook reclined! + Next to the mage, Prometheus, who stole + From Heaven's court with philanthropic soul, + The wonder-working fire, thou art enshrined + In mortal bosoms as a friend, for thou + Did'st bring from sunset isles the magic leaf + That weaves enchantment's halo round the brow, + Alleviates the pang of every grief + And stirs the bard, exempt from fretting cares, + To wail the weird of pipeless millionaires. + +And now for the stories. + + +"PEELIN'S BELOW THE TREE." + +A Sunday School teacher in the island of Luing was giving a lesson on +the disobedience of Adam and Eve, and the fruit of that forbidden tree +whose mortal taste brought death into this world, and other ills. At the +close of his harangue, which was rather above the heads of the children, +he said, "Can any of you tell me _how the Creator knew_ that Adam had +eaten the apple?" There was silence for a time. At last one boy, with a +glimmer of light in his eyes, shouted: "Please, sir, because He _saw the +peelin's below the tree_." + + +"SHE'S AWAY." + +An Englishman staying in Oban, wished to visit the island of Coll, and +discovered, on enquiry at Macbrayne's office, that the S.S. _Fingal_ +left for that outer isle at five in the morning. He accordingly gave +serious instructions to the "boots" of his hotel to rap him up at 4.30 +A.M., and to show him no mercy. At _six_ o'clock, the tourist was +awakened by a noise like that of a battering-ram at his door, and a +stentorian voice sternly enquiring: "Are you the gentleman that's going +with the early boat?" "Yes, yes, I am," said the tourist, leaping to his +feet. "_Well, she's away_," said the boots. (This is a story that grows +on one.) + + +A MEAN HOUSE. + +Another hotel story: Feeling somewhat thirsty in the middle of his +dinner and not judging that water was sufficiently slockening, a visitor +rang the bell and asked the waiter to bring him a bottle of lager. This +was done. "How much do you charge for this?" enquired the traveller. +"Ninepence," replied the waiter. Anger, consternation, and incredulity +were all depicted, by turns, on the visitor's cheek. "What!" he shouted, +"_ninepence_. Why, I could buy a dozen bottles for half-a-crown. It's +downright robbery to ask ninepence for one bottle. You've made a +mistake." "I've made no mistake," said the waiter; "I was told to ask +ninepence. _But_," (at this point he sidled up to the traveller and +whispered, with terrible accents, in his ear) "_it's a damp mean house +this you're in, and I'm leaving mysel' the morn!_" + + +ONE OF THE DIRECTOR'S WIVES. + +A gentleman who loved tobacco exceedingly well, went into a first-class +smoking compartment, filled his pipe, and settled down, with a newspaper +in front of him, to enjoy the luxury of a long and undisturbed worship +of the weed. He had a journey of fifty miles before him. Just as the +train was moving off, a lady, who was panting and flustered, was pushed +up into the compartment by a porter. It was soon evident that pipes and +tobacco were not congenial to this dame. She began to sniff in a very +haughty fashion, but the smoker, utterly indifferent to her presence, +continued to roll out with deliberate relish his dense tobacco fumes. +Soon she lost all patience, and said with extreme bitterness: "You +there, behind that paper, you have no manners. You have no right to +smoke before a lady. Do you know who I am? _I am one of the directors' +wives, sir._" Down went the journal, and "Oh, indeed," said he, "you are +one of the director's wives, are you? Well, let me tell you this, that +even if you were the director's _only_ wife, I do not intend to +encourage you, by any compliance of mine, in the bad habit of rushing +for trains and getting into the wrong compartment!" + + +TEMPERANCE HOTELS. + +An English clergyman--a pronounced teetotaler and temperance worker--was +being driven through the streets of a Scotch town in an open machine. +Looking round, with expansive benevolence, on the streets and people, he +was overjoyed to see such a large number of temperance hotels. "Driver," +he exclaimed, "I am delighted to see, by the hotels, that total +abstinence has got such a firm hold in this place." "Indeed, sir," said +the driver, "don't be too sure of that. We have two kinds of temperance +hotels here: the first kind would like the licence, but can't get it; +the second kind have had the licence, and lost it through bad behaviour +and disorderly conduct." + + +A MEMORIAL WINDOW. + +An inn-keeper in Ross-shire, with great enthusiasm, said to a visitor: +"There's nobody I work for with more satisfaction than an English +gentleman. Now, there's Sir Samuel Oatts, the wealthy Liverpool merchant +that has the shootings near here. He is a fine gentleman, and so +considerate. He is not very good at shooting, I must admit: he often +misses the birds, and he goes through a good number of dogs. One day he +shot the keeper in the right eye, and blinded it. But he gave the keeper +a handsome present and a fine new glass eye. We call that eye '_Oatts' +Memorial Window_,' and the keeper can sleep during the sermon now +without anybody knowing, provided he does not snore." + + +THE BLASTED HEATH. + +Two English tourists--big, hearty fellows--were travelling in the same +compartment with a communicative Scot, when the train stopped at Forres. +"Gentlemen," said the Scot, "this is Forres, and I'm sure you've read +about it; quite near Forres is the _blasted heath_ where Macbeth was +accosted by the witches." "How shocking," said one of the Englishmen; +"how really shocking! Well, you see, we haven't read about that yet: +we've been up North for some time, and _we have'nt seen the pypers for +ten dyes!_" + + +THE DAY FOR IT. + +The driver of the bus which goes through the delightful part of +Argyllshire known as Hell's Glen, is often chaffed by the summer +tourists rather unmercifully. One day, a nervous southern was +criticising him on his furious and careless driving: "You shouldn't be +on the box at all; I never saw such a wild driver." "Drive!" said Jehu, +in a voice of thunder. "Why, man, once every year, I drive the +mail-coach _down that steep hill-side_ among the bracken. _And this is +the day for it!_" So saying, the humorous fellow made as if to whip the +horses down the cliff, and the terrified tourist shrieked aloud. "Seeing +I've such a nervous passenger," said the driver, with a guffaw, "I had +better break my own rules, and keep to the main road." + + +THE CONVERTED DRUMMER. + +A dilapidated Scot, with a strong odour of the accursed, staggered into +a Salvation Army meeting one night, and was deeply impressed by the +service. He became a changed man, professed conversion, and got a +thorough moral overhaul. Like many others, he had great difficulty in +keeping his good resolutions, but persevered, nobly and successfully. +Latterly, he was admitted into the orchestra, and got command of the big +drum. He was so anxious to show his zeal, that he beat far too +vehemently, and drowned all the other instruments in his ecstatic +rataplan. The captain mildly remonstrated with him, and requested him to +beat a little more gently. "_Gently!_" shouted the reformed drummer, +"that's impossible. Since I've got salvation, I feel so happy, that I +could ding the whole slammed thing to bits!" (or rather "slim the whole +danged thing to bits"). + + +A CIRCULAR TICKET. + +Three commercials, travelling from Cork to Dublin, had a discussion on +the illiteracy of the Irish railway employs. "Look here," said one of +them, "the majority of the ticket collectors can't even _read_ the +tickets they are supposed to check." The other two refused to believe +him, but he stoutly maintained his assertion. Taking out of his pocket +the round ticket given him at the office of the Cork hotel, and +containing the number of his bedroom, he said, "I intend to offer this, +instead of my railway ticket, at the first station where tickets are +punched." Shortly thereafter, the train stopped, and a porter came round +the carriages to look at the tickets. There was silence deep as death +when the commercial handed his bedroom ticket to the official. The +latter looked long and carefully at the thing and muttered, "Bejabbers, +I never saw one like that before!" "Don't keep the train waiting," said +the commercial, in a pretended fury, "don't you see it's a _circular +ticket_." "Oh, and in faith it's you that's right: it _is_ a circular +ticket," said the porter. So saying, he punched the hotel check and +withdrew, leaving the three travellers to weep for joy all the way to +Dublin. + + +A COMPOUND POSSESSIVE. + +The following grammatical story will doubtless be new to most readers. A +Sunday School jaunt had been arranged in an Ayrshire town, and the +children were all ready to go in carts to a field, some miles away, for +games and open-air junketing. Everyone was impatient to set out, but the +piper was late, and the procession of carts could not start without +music. The minister became impatient, and sent a youth to tell the piper +to hurry up. The boy, on coming to the piper's house, saw a woman +standing at the door, and addressed her in these words: "_Are you the +man-that-plays-the-pipes's wife?_" + + +SIXTEEN MEDALS. + +Those who doubt the efficacy of self-lauding advertisement are refuted +by this story. A commercial traveller, representing a whisky firm, +craved an order from a small Highland innkeeper. "Come, Donald," he +said, "you must give me an order this time." "You will be getting no +order from me, for your whisky is no good whatever. Dewar of Perth has +got sixteen medals for his whisky; it is so good to drink, and makes +people drunk so nice and quiet. But _your firm never got a single medal +for filling folk fou_." The granting of medals for quiet and comely +intoxication is a brilliant, although droll, idea. + + +"SHE'S AULD, AND SHE'S THIN, AND SHE'LL KEEP." + +In a lone isle of the West, funerals are functions that cannot be +celebrated (at least in the way consecrated tradition prescribes) +without ample dispensing of whisky among the mourners. As there is no +pier on the island, the steamer very frequently may not be able to call +for days, during the terrific gales of winter. The legitimate stores of +insular whisky thus occasionally become exhausted, and should a death +occur during the period of dearth, a very regrettable situation arises. +In the epigrammatic style of King James I., who used to say "_No bishop, +no king_," we might express the difficulty by saying _No whisky, no +funeral_. While a gale of exceptional ferocity was raging some winters +ago, an old woman passed away, and there was not enough whisky on the +island to bury her with credit. Her son scanned the angry sky and sea +daily, in the hope that the weather would show signs of clearing up. +After a week's blighted hopes, he still refused to sanction interment, +remarking, "_She's auld, and she's thin, and she'll keep_." Next day the +sea was calm, the _Dunara_ called, and the old lady got her _munera +pulveris_. + + +THE WILL O' THE DEAD. + +The foregoing story suggested to one of the auditors the tale told in +connection with the death of Lord Forglen, one of the Judges of the +Court of Session, in 1727. After a long illness, in which he had endured +the expert advice of several eminent physicians, Forglen, one morning, +departed into the land of shadows. Not knowing of the fatal termination, +one of the medical men, Dr. Clark, called as usual and asked David Reid, +clerk to Forglen, how his master was. David's answer was: "I houp he's +well,"--a gentle euphuism, indicating that all was over, and also a +timid hope that Heaven had received a new inhabitant. The doctor was +shown into a room where he saw two dozen of wine under the table. Other +doctors arriving, David made them all take seats, while he detailed, +with much pathos, the affecting incidents of his master's dying hours. +As an antidote to their grief, the company took a glass or two, and +thereafter the doctors rose to depart, but David detained them. "No, no, +gentlemen; not so. It was the express will o' the dead that I should +fill ye a' fou, and I maun fulfil the will o' the dead." All the time +the tears were streaming down his cheeks. "And indeed," said Dr. Clark +afterwards, when telling the story, "he did fulfil the will o' the dead, +for before the end o't there was na ane of us able to bite his ain +thoom." + + +SORRY FOR LONDON. + +The following story is a good example of insular patriotism. Certain +shooting tourists in the island of Mull, who hailed from London, and who +were expecting important news from the capital, were greatly exasperated +to find, on calling at the local post-office, that telegraphic +communication with the mainland had broken down. Some very uncanonical +language was indulged in, which the local postmaster deeply resented. +One tourist after another, exclaimed with blank despair: "Alas, poor +Mull will get no news from London to-day." "What will Mull do without +the London news?" "No news from London, what a misfortune for Mull!" +This harping on the forlornness of the island caused the blood of the +postmaster to boil with indignation, and he shouted in ire: "It is not +Mull I will be sorry for, at all, at all. Mull can do without the +London news. But what will poor London do, when she finds she will not +be able to get any news from Tobermory, or from Salen, or from Dervaig, +or from Craignure, or from Lochdon, or from Lochbuie, or from Bunessan, +the whole of this blessed day!" + + +"RAITHER UNCEEVIL." + +A well-known boat, _The Stormy Petrel_, had been to Ardrossan for coal, +and was conveying the precious cargo to the romantic terminus of +Cairndow at the head of Loch Fyne. At St. Catherine's a great thirst +took possession of the crew, and they put in there for refreshments. The +conversation was most animated, and extended itself over a wide tract of +political and theological topics. On setting out for Cairndow early next +morning, all the crew had wistful, lustreless eyes, confused thoughts, +and bad consciences. He to whom the coal was being conveyed, was +awaiting them. He rowed out to _The Stormy Petrel_ in a small boat, and +on coming near assailed them, in English and Gaelic, with all the most +vituperative expressions he could remember. But the crew, each and all +of them, knew they had been guilty of culpable delay, and uttered not a +word, good or bad, as their assailant rowed round their boat and +withered them with his invective. They had no fight left in them, and +sat, with bowed heads, till the storm would subside. After enduring the +agony for half an hour, one of the crew looked up and said, "Do you no' +think, Mr. Sanderson, that you're _raither unceevil so early in the +morning_?" This remark, uttered in a quiet, sad, reproachful way, +staggered Mr. Sanderson far more than the most thunderous abuse would +have done, and brought home to him the undoubted fact that he had been +defective on the score of good taste. + + +AN UNWELCOME RECITATION. + +One of the travellers, on being asked to contribute his item to the fund +of anecdotes, said that instead of telling a tale, he would give a +recitation. Before doing so, he sneezed artificially six times, and then +recited a poem on + + _Influenza._ + + Influenza has come like the wolf on the fold, + And the duke and the ditcher are down with the cold. + The doctor is smiling, for business is here, + And the chink of the guinea resounds in his ear. + No household is spared: both the villa and cot + Their quota of swollen-nosed patients have got. + The clerk of the weather is gloating on high + At the lords of creation that bed-ridden lie. + Each chamber resounds with the echo of sneezing, + With deep-laboured coughing and bronchial wheezing. + While, loading the table, the victim can spy + Lotions, tonics, and ointments confusedly lie. + The druggist (douce man) is thanking his stars + For this nice epidemic of paying catarrhs, + He's making his hay, though no sunshine is seen, + And his till gleams with silver where copper has been. + + +A WORD IN SEASON. + +This dismal piece of verse effectually cleared the smoking-room, and +filled me with a great sorrow, since I had just recollected three or +four stories of my own. I now take the liberty of laying these before +the ingenuous reader. If he says they are dull, let me tell him (i.) +that he has no perception of humour, and (ii.) that occasional dulness +is the inalienable privilege of every free-born Briton. Many a spry +wight thinks it his duty to be _continuously funny and monotonously +merry_. Let a quiet and demure dulness be the foil of your +side-splitting sallies. Learn to keep the peace, yea for hours at a +time. If you are in a mixed company, cultivate the dictum of "give and +take." Be not for ever doling out your scraps of mirth to the dyspeptic +stomachs of your associates. A wise reciprocity and interplay of +merriment is the best rule--a fair share among the entire party. Burns +himself, sparkling talker as he was, is recorded to have been at times +sunk in gloom and shadow. But anon emerging from his moodiness, he would +utter such words as set the table in a roar. And now for these +masterpieces of humour. + + +A NAIRN CRITIC. + +Why is it that publishers, aye, and even booksellers, are so often out +of sympathy with the poets? I spoke once to a bookseller in Nairn about +a local poet's volume that was lying on the counter. "Do you personally +know this bard?" I asked. "Ay, that I do," was the reply; "he's an +eccentric wee chap. I've many a laugh at him as he goes along the +street, muttering to himself and picking his teeth with a fountain-pen. +Eccentric! bless my soul, how could a poet be anything but eccentric? +Besides, he's bound to be a liar: for if he can't get the end of a line +to come right with truth for a rhyme, he has got to make it _clink with +a whopper_. Why, man, it's a great worry for an honest man like me to +speak the truth in plain prose. If I were to send out my bills in metre +to my customers, there would be a rise of temperature soon in the town +of Nairn. No, no: the only thing that can be done with a poet's +manuscript is to take it to the head of the garden, sprinkle it with +paraffin, and apply a vesta." + + +"A GRAND DAY FOR IT." + +While one of the great six-day battles of the Eastern war was going on, +a country doctor, by some mistake in delivery, did not get his _Herald_ +to breakfast one morning. Anxious to get the news, he bolted his meal +and sallied forth to hear the latest from the seat of war. He saw a +wrinkled old churl trimming the roadside hedge with a bill-hook, and +humming a tune like the gravedigger in _Hamlet_, Act v. "Any news of the +war?" gasped the doctor. "Eh?" said the old man, without discontinuing +his work. "Are you not aware," said the doctor, "that there is a great +battle raging in Manchuria?" "No," said the man, "I know nothing about +it, and care less." "What!" shouted the doctor. "You care nothing about +it? Why, man, the Russians and Japanese are at this moment _fighting for +the hegemony of all Eastern Asia_." "Lord, do you say so?" replied the +old cock, lopping unconcernedly at his hedge; "well, all I can say is, +that _they're gettin' a grand day for it_." + + +A PRO-BOER. + +On one occasion, in the West Highlands, I availed myself of a lugsail +ferry to cross an arm of the sea and so avoid a long dtour by land. The +boat was old, the sail was thick with big-stitched patches, and the +ferryman was an elder. I had much edifying talk with him, and at last +gliding from the Declaratory Act, of which he did not approve, I asked +him if he had any family. "Yes," he replied, "I have two sons. One of +them is a polissman in Glasgow, a nice lad, a very nice lad: he sends me +ten shillings every month; oh! an excellent lad is he indeed. But my +other son is a disgrace to me; he is bad, very bad. He is a drunkard and +a card-player and a Sabbath-breaker, and what's a thousand times worse +than all that, he's a _Pro-Boer_." This instance of patriotism in a +remote Highland nook was very refreshing for me to hear, and I gave the +anti-Krugerite elder a substantial fare for his trouble in ferrying me +over the loch. He invoked the blessing of Heaven on me, and I hope his +prayer will be answered. + + +"FALLS OF BRUAR, ONLY, PLEASE!" + +Some years ago, I had occasion to spend a day at Blair Athol, where I +was dosed with nothing but kindness by a genial son of the famous Clan +Macdonald. He put his trap and driver at my disposal, in order that I +might, with comfort and expedition, go and view the Falls of Bruar, +immortalised in one of Burns's cleverest poems. No sooner had we set off +than the driver began to calumniate Burns in unmeasured language, and to +throw withering scorn on the Falls, which, he declared, were utterly +unworthy of being visited by any sane man. "If you want to see real +falls," said he, "I'll take you to the Falls of Tummel, which could +knock those of Bruar into a cocked hat!" (such was the curious metaphor +he employed). I told him he could take me to both if there was time, but +Bruar I must see. He landed me at the Tummel, and drove on recklessly +himself a mile further to see his sweetheart. The desire to pay a visit +to his Bonnie Jean was the sole cause of his gibes at the poet. Back he +came in an hour, chanting merrily, and we drove to Bruar. I found the +varlet had lied most expansively: the Falls are gloriously fine, and +worth walking a good many miles to see. On the homeward road, I could +see he was ill at ease: he was dreadfully afraid that his amorous flight +would be discovered by his master. He said to me once every minute, +"_Falls of Bruar, only, please: keep your thumb on Tummel!_" Latterly he +set these words to a kind of rough music, and sang them continuously in +my ear, winking the while and smiling roguishly. I obeyed him. + + +A BAD CASE OF NERVES. + +While I was sitting alone in the smoking-room of the hotel, a tall, +thin, restless-eyed, aristocratic young fellow came quietly in. He went +up to the sideboard, poured out half a tumbler of water, and carefully +measured out about ten drops of phospherine therein. He swallowed the +mixture, smacked his lips, and sighed. He then remarked that it was a +nice evening and that he was very ill with a nervous complaint. "I +suppose, now," he said, "you would actually tell me not to worry, to +take everything easy, and, above all, to firmly believe there is nothing +whatever the matter with me?" "Most certainly," I said, "you ought to +consider yourself in perfectly good health; by and by you would come to +be so in reality. The Christian Scientists say you might even learn to +hold fire in your hand by thinking of the frosty Caucasus." "I suppose, +too, you would recommend me to have a hobby, such as golf, or gardening, +or amateur photography." "Yes, I believe a harmless hobby such as you +mention would relieve the mental strain and take you out of yourself." +"Well, I essayed golf, but, alas! I massacred a ram; I tried gardening, +and tired of it before the flowers began to show; and as to photography, +it only increased the number of my enemies." "What about cycling or +horse-riding?" "These won't do--I can _think_ at both of them. Now, I +_don't want to think: in fact, I mustn't_." "Fishing? wouldn't that be a +reposeful diversion?" "No, no," he said, "I could not stand the sight of +an animal enduring pain." "Well, you surely might try a little light +reading." "The strange thing about my reading is this," said he, "I look +at a sentence and understand it, but I am aware of something, either at +the back of my head or behind me, which says, 'All this is futile stuff +and nonsense: give it up, it's not for you; you are condemned to +everlasting emptiness, and your life will never know any more fulness or +joy.' + + "Immense vacuity of intellect! + I lift a volume, but a sentence tires; + Even a flimsy magazine requires + From me more concentration and direct + Volition than my vagrant wits elect + To give the pages. All my soul desires + Is to gaze without purpose on the fire's + Crackle of glowing cinders, and detect + Weird shapes of beasts and palaces and men + In the red mass of photographic coal; + Perchance my lazy mind may, now and then, + Without exertion, read as on a scroll + (While the glede sinks to ashes in the grate) + The dust and nothingness of mortal state." + +"Well," I said, "your case is a queer one, and I am at a loss to suggest +anything further." At this, the young man burst into a loud peal of +laughter. He was supremely delighted at finding himself so unique, so +singular. He took me by the hand, shook it most heartily, saying, "I +haven't enjoyed myself so much for a long time. If I were oftener in the +company of men like you, I might regain hope." + +The improvement was, unfortunately, of very short duration. He continued +his observations thus: + +"And yet, and yet: _Sunt lacrimae rerum_. What is this world but a +succession of fleeting images chasing each other across a background of +joy or pain! Now we quaff the sour cup of misery, by and by we drink the +intoxicating vintage of hope. Heaven alone stands firm, gemmed with the +pitiless stars. The day breaks, rises to its glory in the shimmering +height of noon, and dies away in the west: so does the utmost pride of +man's career fade away to nothing, a harvest for Time's scythe. On all +this growth and decay the stars gaze with their unpitying and eternal +eyes. I think I'll have a little more phospherine." + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +LEGENDS AND LITERARY NOTABILIA. + + Gairloch folk-lore: Prince Olaf and his bride--A laird who had + seen a fairy--Tales from Loch Broom: The dance of death--The + Kildonan midwife--The magic herring--Taisch--Antiquities of + Dunvegan--Miscellaneous terrors--St. Kilda--Lady + Grange--Pierless Tiree--Lochbuie in Mull--Inveraray Castle--The + sacred isle--Appin--Macdonald's gratitude--Notes on the + Trossachs--Lochfyneside: Macivors, Macvicars, and + Macallisters--Red Hector--Macphail of Colonsay--Tales from + Speyside: Tom Eunan!--Shaws and Grants--The wishing well--Ossian + and Macpherson--At the foot o' Bennachie--Harlaw--Lochaber + reivers--Reay and Twickenham--Rob Donn--Rev. Mr. Mill of + Dunrossness. + + +GAIRLOCH FOLK-LORE. + +I do not think anyone interested in local history and antiquities could +find a greater treat than that furnished by Mr. Dixon's _Account of the +Parish of Gairloch_. That romantic and lovely district is fortunate in +having found a historian of unlimited enthusiasm and untiring industry. +There is not a single dry page in his long and detailed narrative. Many +of the legends he tells are known to me from other sources, but I am +certain that no Scotch compiler (Mr. Dixon, let me say, is English) has +written of them with such enjoyable sympathy and poetical ardour. I have +been assured by local authorities that the facts adduced by Mr. Dixon +are invariably reliable. That I can well believe; but what is still more +rare, Mr. Dixon's facts are everywhere made to gleam and glitter in the +radiance of romance. Let me narrate, in concentrated form, one of the +legends which this clever writer has alluded to in more than one of his +chapters. + + +PRINCE OLAF AND HIS BRIDE. + +In the ninth century of the Christian era, one of the islands that in +such picturesque fashion dot the surface of Loch Maree, was honoured by +being the abode of a pious hermit, despatched thither from the sacred +isle of Iona. His presence there, implying as it did austerity, +perpetual worship of Heaven, and the reading of devout treatises, +inspired veneration in the minds of the obstreperous tribes around. They +felt themselves better from having such a good man near them. Wherever +in these old times of war and gore, a saintly pioneer established +himself, the kingdom of chaos and night was pushed back for miles around +his cell. + +The Picts of the ninth century revered this man, and his fame was known +also to the predatory seamen who came buccaneering among the islands of +the West. A Viking of royal blood, Prince Olaf, in the intervals of his +sea-roving, hied sometimes to the hermit's retreat, for instruction and +spiritual blessing. The young man, as tradition alleges, was not beyond +the need of guidance, for his temper was of the most fiery violence, +and, at the slightest provocation, his hand was on the hilt of his +sword. No doubt the saint of Isle Maree managed to moderate the Prince's +vehemence, and draw him somewhat away from wrath which (as Homer puts +it), waxeth like smoke in the breasts of warriors, and is far sweeter to +them than trickling honey. + +By and by, this youth fell in love, and in characteristic fashion he +loved with a whole-souled and overwhelming passion. The hot-tempered +Viking became a new man, and he thus communed with himself: "How can I +ask this maid to share my life on the stormy sea? She is too tender and +gentle to go under the dark clouds in a war-galley with me and my rude +mates, when we sail to meet the enemy. Nor, were she my wife, could I +leave her behind and unprotected. Marry her I must, but I can neither +take her with me thereafter, nor defend her in my absence. Go to, I'll +e'en visit the monk of Isle Maree and get counsel from _him_." + +It is pleasant to note that the holy father found a way out of the +difficulty. "Marry her, my son," said he, "and build a tower of strength +as her abode on this isle of mine. When you are away, she will be near +me. Old man as I am, the natives respect me for my devotion and my hoary +hairs." The prince's scruples, so honourable to his love, were overcome. +The marriage was celebrated with great pomp and rejoicing. The green +pathways of the isle were thronged with feasters; tents were erected +beside the thickets of oak and holly, and the Loch had little rest from +the plashing of oars. The hermit blessed the couple and blessed the +castle too in which the twain were for a time to reside. + +Prince Olaf and his lady were perfectly happy, and the golden hours of +their wedlock sped merrily by. But the hours that were short to them, +were long and dreary to the Norse rovers, lying inactive in the ships +anchored hard by in the waters of Loch Ewe. Murmurs, growing at length +in volume, were muttered by the men as they reflected, day by day, on +the soft uxoriousness of their leader. They wished to be at sea on an +expedition that had been planned aforetime ere the marriage had taken +place. These murmurs reached the prince's ears, and, with many tears, he +tore himself away from the bridal tower to take his place at the head of +the squadron. It was a bitter severance, but tempered by the expectation +of a speedy reunion. The prince took with him two pennons, a black and a +white. "If I am successful in my expedition," he said, "I will display +the white pennon on my galley; if misfortune befalls me (which God +avert) the black will be flying on the prow. Do you come to meet my +returning fleet and let a similar indication be visible on your barge to +tell of your safety or your misfortune. A lover feels his excitement +growing, the nearer he comes to his home: let us abridge, by such a +device, the length of our anxiety." + +Love did not make Olaf a worse fighter: rather, indeed, it improved his +prowess. The thought of the fair young wife in the lonely tower, +protected mainly by the sanctity of an old hermit, nerved his arm, and +he speedily got through the expedition with great applause. He swept +everything before him, and turned homeward in the expectation of a +cordial and meet welcome. During his absence, the lady had been +fretting. Finally, as the days passed, she became downright angry. "He +is neglecting me," she cried; "he goes away from my arms to the society +of rough seamen. I am a mere bauble, a plaything for his leisure. He is +tired of me, and perhaps on some distant coast he is dallying with a +newer sweetheart. But I will try his heart. When I hear of his +homecoming, I will go forth on my barge and have the black flag of +desolation flying from the prow. In this way I may obtain some hint of +his real feelings." + +Olaf came homeward in great glee, and on entering Loch Ewe from the +outer sea, the white pennon of success flapped gaily in the wind. The +princess, on the other hand, let prepare her boat, and, clothed in the +weeds of death, lay down on the deck, while simulated sobs of woe and +lamentation were raised by all her attendants. Slowly the boat, with its +ill-omened signal, moved to meet the conquering hero. Olaf, the +impetuous, was chilled to the heart, when he saw what he thought the +sure indication of his lady's misfortune. What a sight met his eyes when +he leapt on board! The princess stretched out in apparent death, and +robed in the garments of the grave! He could not endure the torment and +disillusion. He drove a dirk into his bosom with such passionate might +that he fell down, bereft of life, mighty and mightily fallen, on the +deck beside her. + +She had not expected such a tragic conclusion to her blamable artifice. +Remorse, of course, got hold of her, and drawing the gory weapon from +her dead lord's breast, she plunged it into her own. Too late was she +convinced of his true love for her: she had only one duty, and that was +to die with him. It is said in the legend that her life was not extinct +when the barge, with its weird freight, returned to the hermit's isle. +The old man, holding in his quaking hand the cross before her dying +eyes, strove to comfort her somewhat as her blood ebbed quickly away. + +"The bodies of the unhappy pair," says Mr. Dixon, "were buried within +the inclosure on the island, beneath the shade of the sacred hollies; +they were laid with their feet towards each other, and smooth stones +with outlines of medival crosses were placed over the graves, and there +they remain to this day. A few stones still indicate the site of the +hermit's cell, and a considerable mound marks where the tower stood." + +The last time I stood beside the little pier on Loch Maree, I noticed +many indications of the advent of southern tourists. Empty bottles were +floating on the waves, and the tiny steamer that plies on the loch was +getting ready for the summer traffic. Visitors from the Lowlands do not +suspect that such tales as I have narrated still live on the lips of the +Gairloch natives, and help to pass the hours at many an evening reunion. +How the centuries meet in such nooks of Ross! Steamers on Loch Maree, +and Olaf's cross still standing on the hermit's isle! The driver of the +mail-coach from Achnasheen to Gairloch will discuss creeds and schisms +with you, and tell you he does not believe in modern religious +developments at all; anon, as the coach passes the Gairloch Church, he +will point with extended whip to a grassy hollow on the left, and say: +"That is where the Free Church used to have its open-air Communion +Service: the place is called _Leabaidh na Ba Bhine_, because Fingal +scooped it out as a bed where his white cow might calve." "But did +Fingal lodge in this neighbourhood?" you ask. "Oh yes, he did whatever," +the driver will reply, "and the best proof of it is, that if you go to +the north end of Loch Maree, you will see the _sweetheart's +stepping-stones_, placed there by Fingal to keep his feet dry when he +went that way to court Malvina." + + +A LAIRD WHO HAD SEEN A FAIRY. + +Bailie Nicol Jarvie, whom we all know so well, confessed that when he +heard the wild stories of the North, he felt his blood tingle and his +pulses leap. This fact, which as a sober man of business he felt bound +to apologize for, was probably due to heredity, his mother having been a +Macgregor. The Bailie lived at a time when rumours of witchcraft and +fairydom were more common than now, and when there was less +dissemination of Scripture truth. It is a saying in some parts of the +North that the profuse spread of the Shorter Catechism has been the +means of driving witches and fairies out of their old haunts. For my own +part, I know of nothing more likely to make them decamp.[28] + +I was lucky enough to meet a gentleman who declared, not with an oath, +but with a _pretty strong_ asseveration, that he had once seen a fairy. +It was in a railway train that I knit conversation with him. He was a +kilted country squire, tall, thin, and soulful: on his head was a +glengarry with a pair of flying ribbons. He spoke in rapt sentences, as +if he were looking on a vision. This is the substance of his remarks:-- + + One autumn morning, when the world lay fair + Under the radiant blue, I musing lay + By a green knoll, beside a rippling bay, + When, suddenly, gliding through the silent air, + A green-clad apparition, wrinkled, spare, + Angry, and grieving, passed along the way + Before me for a moment's space. The fay + Was old and did not see me lying there. + I grieved to see her sob in fretful mood, + And often since I marvel in my mind + What grievous heart-pang drove her from the wood + To ease her heart away from her own kind. + Strange, that these tiny, soulless beings should, + Like us, be grieved and be with passion blind! + +These are the words of a man who speaks with conviction. I ought to +mention that, ecclesiastically (and I hope in other ways, too,) he was a +Moderate. Two things annoyed him greatly: (1) that the fairy did not +deign to look at him; (2) that nobody but his little grand-daughter of +eight would believe he had seen a fairy at all. "Why," he said, "I could +draw that fairy now, if I had pencil and paper. I see her as plain as I +see you. _Her little bosom was heaving, and she wore a necklace of +twisted corn-stalks. I am sorry I did not offer her some refreshment._" + + [28] A very similar account is given, of the dearth of the little + folk in England, by the poet Chaucer; only, that eminent writer + declares that the phenomenon is due to the zeal and prayers of + the monks and begging-friars, who paced about the country + muttering blessings and exorcistic paragraphs. + + +TALES FROM LOCH BROOM. + +The enquirer will find a specially abundant crop of old stories if he +stays long on Loch Broom side. The bard of Ullapool, Mr. Roderick +Mackenzie, has made an excellent collection of romantic incidents +associated with the neighbourhood, and has told them in a very quaint +and effective fashion. From his collection I now cite a specimen or two. +I by no means recommend them as reading for the small hours of the +morning. + + +THE DANCE OF DEATH. + +Three young fellows belonging to Strathmore, in the parish of Loch +Broom, were returning from the Low Country, where they had been living +for some time. It was long before the days of Watt and Macadam; roads +were not good, progress was slow, and rain was frequent. When they, in +the final lap of their journey, arrived at the green hillside of +Lochdrom, the weather was extremely inclement. Seeing a commodious +shieling on the braeface, the young men entered, and one of them, with +the object of driving dull care away, struck up a lightsome tune on his +pipes. His two comrades at once began to fling their legs about and +caper merrily. Soon, having succeeded in dancing themselves dry, they +all agreed that female partners would be a great acquisition. The wish +was at once gratified. Three women mysteriously glided into the +shieling, and the dancing began in earnest. One of the women stood close +by the piper, while the other two skipped about, with their partners, +all round the building. Outside it thundered and lightened in terrific +fashion. Tired and sweating, the two couples were at length fain to +stop, and they sat down to rest on seats of turf and heather. The piper +stopped too: he felt some malign influence coming over him; he was +certain some devilish deed was a-doing. Stealing a glance at his two +friends, he perceived that they were both stark dead, and that the two +infernal huzzies were smiling a hideous smile of triumph. Action, he +felt, was immediately necessary: he flung the still groaning bagpipes +full in the face of the witch near him, stunned her thus for an instant, +and with one wild leap cleared the threshold. And now began a hot race +and hot pursuit. Like another Tam o' Shanter, but without the mare, the +piper sped over the moor and through the rain, plying a foot as good as +wings. Not till they came in sight of the clachan of Fasagrianach, did +the witches relinquish the chase. The exhausted piper had a sad tale to +tell to the mothers of his two hapless friends. Next day a company of +mourners went to the scene of the infernal dance, and, amid much +mourning, they sang a weird wail with the sad refrain, _Airidh mo +Dhubhaich_, which, being interpreted, means "Shieling of my Sorrow." + +Let me give another tale, but of less sombre issue, culled from the +folk-lore of the same locality. + + +THE KILDONAN MIDWIFE. + +A woman living at Kildonan, on the north shore of Little Loch Broom, and +exercising the useful profession of howdie, or midwife, had been +summoned to attend a case at Keppoch. She did not arrive at her +destination, although she left home after telling her neighbours where +she was going. It was on Christmas eve that Fair Sarah, as she was +called, left Kildonan, and for the space of an entire year, not a word, +good or bad, was heard of her. Search parties were organized, but all to +no purpose. Exactly twelve months after her disappearance--the next +Christmas eve, namely--back came the errant midwife to her home, not a +hair the worse for her long absence. She was immensely astonished to +find she had been so long away, her own impression being that only an +hour or two had elapsed. It was evident to all the natives of Kildonan +that Fair Sarah had been among the fairies, in whose company, as every +one knows, months and years slip past as quickly as hours and days. +Sarah was asked to speak out and tell her experiences. "It seems to me," +said the flustered howdie, "that it was but last night that I left for +Keppoch. Just as I passed the White Knoll, between Strathmore and +Strathbeg, I came upon a company of little folk, who would have me with +them, right reason or none. I accepted their hospitality, and what +drinking, skipping, revelry, and glee my eyes beheld! At last I grew +sick of their cantrips and capers. Remembering I was a Christian and a +communicant, _I blessed myself in the name of the Glorious Trinity_, +with the result that I was unceremoniously bundled out of the place." + +The White Knoll had long had the repute of harbouring fairies; Sarah's +experiences put the matter beyond all doubt. That worthy female +continued to ply her vocation for many years after, with unvarying +dexterity and signal success. She was certainly a more prosperous woman +after her year's excursion into Fairy-land. + + +THE MAGIC HERRING. + +There is an interesting legend told of the device by which shoals of +herring were first induced to come into Loch Broom. + +It seems that long ago (the precise date is unessential) the lochs round +the island of Lewis were invariably, at the herring season, visited by +magnificent shoals of fish, while not a tail was ever seen to twinkle in +the spacious waters of Loch Broom. Abundance on one side of the Minch, +destitution (for no earthly or apparent reason) on the other! After +mature consideration, the dwellers by Loch Broom came to the conclusion +that the anomaly could only be explained by the malignant operation of +the Lews witches. Query: How best neutralise the spells of these partial +harridans? A remedy, both unique and effective, was at length devised. A +silver herring was made and given into the hands of a sturdy crew, who +set sail with it over the water to Lewis. On arriving there, the men +partook of an adequate amount of refreshment, let down the silver fish +(attached to a cord) among the jostling shoals in one of the lochs, and +then, with the metallic animal trailing in the sea behind them, they +turned the prow of the boat in the direction of home. The ruse was +successful beyond all belief: glimmering clouds of phosphorence followed +through the seas below in the wake of the boat and its silver lure. +Under the stars of night, in all the rapture of excitement and success, +the Loch Broom fishers led the droves of herring right up to the +farthest reach of their loch. The metallic herring was then allowed to +sink to the bottom: there it remains, and so long as it is there, an +abundant harvest of the deep will be the portion of the resourceful +toilers of these shores. Perhaps I ought to mention that the famous boat +which did the feat was painted black on one side and red on the other. I +am not sufficiently versed in the niceties of _grammarye_ to be able to +render a reason for this piebald device. + +Of late years, as I have been told, the prosperity of Ullapool is not as +high as it was. Can it be that the Lews witches are at their old tricks +again? Or has the silver herring been borne, by the wash of retreating +surges, out into the Hebridean deep. Every visitor who walks through the +sea-facing, white-washed little town, must be struck by the silence of +the streets and the utter lack of business animation. + + +TAISCH. + +The most interesting place in the island of Skye is, beyond question, +the neighbourhood of Dunvegan. It was of surly, superstitious, +loyal-hearted Samuel Johnson that I chiefly thought when I leapt out of +the trap that landed me at the Hotel of Dunvegan, for I had just been +reading his famous _Journey_, with its diverting remarks on +second-sight. It would not, I confess, have surprised me over much, in +my tired and wind-beaten condition, to see the Doctor and the Auchinleck +laird, walking arm in arm along the road. I should have put it down to a +kind of inverted _taisch_, certainly to nothing stronger. + +It may surprise many southerners to know that the belief in _taisch_ is +not by any means extinct. I have met educated Skyemen who firmly +believed in the mysterious visual gifts of the seventh son of a seventh +son. In old days, the Highlanders were wont to attribute the gift to +none but those of an austere and devout cast, who, living a solitary +life in the eye of nature, were thought to be specially prepared for +receiving supernatural impressions. I am afraid the vast majority of +_taisch_ tales are dreadful nonsense. Mr. MacCulloch, in his recent work +on Skye, has usefully summarized the various types of second-sight as +expounded by the very credulous Macleod of Hamera: (1) The seer is aware +of a phantom winding-sheet enwrapping the doomed person; (2) he may see +the corpse of some one still in life; (3) he may behold a drowning or +accidental death; (4) he may hear noises as of a coffin being hammered; +(5) he may see a living person dwindle to the size of a child, and anon +expand to normal bulk. As Johnson remarks, many of the seers declared +themselves poignantly afflicted by what they saw. Aubrey tells of a +clairvoyant who asked the presbytery to pray that the gift (or curse) +might be taken away. Instant prayer removed the obsession. + +The extraordinary futility and droll language of the sentences uttered +by some of the seers are very mirth-provoking. Here are one or two +prophecies of the Brahan Seer:-- + + "The heir of the Mackenzies will take + A white rook out of the wood, + And will take a wife from a music-house + With his people against him. + And the heir will be great + In deeds, and as an orator, + When the Pope in Rome + Will be cast off his throne, + Over opposite Creagh-a'-chon + Will dwell a little lean tailor," etc. + +The following is excellent: "_When the big-thumbed sheriff-officer and +the blind man of the twenty-four fingers shall be together in Barra, +Macneill may be making ready for the flitting._" It is said that the +same seer prophesied thus of the Strathpeffer wells: "The day will come +when this disagreeable spring, with thick-crusted surface and unpleasant +smell, shall be put under lock and key, so great will be the crowd of +people pressing to drink the waters." + +Belief in clairvoyance and prophecy was quite common among the Lowland +Covenanters; and I believe _Peden's Prophecies_ may still be found among +the lumber of the book-shops. An old lady, in Irvine, once repeated to +me the following couplet, as having been uttered by Peden:-- + + "Between Segton and the sea + A bloody battle there shall be." + +Now, as Segton is the old name for Kilwinning, it would seem that the +locale of the battle (probably, as the lady, indeed, thought, the battle +of Armageddon) will be _in the immediate neighbourhood of the site at +present occupied by Nobell's Dynamite Factory_. + + +ANTIQUITIES OF DUNVEGAN. + +_Taisch_ has taken me a long way from Dunvegan, of which I meant to say +something. No souvenir is to me more delicious than that of some days +spent there, on one of which I visited the fine old castle of the +Macleods, stablished on its rocks, and filled with romance from base to +topmost turret. On the landward side are lawns, flowers, and abundance +of eye-gladdening leafage, while, seaward, there is the unspeakable +glory of isle-dotted loch and distant sea. By the kindness of Macleod of +Macleod (you must not call that grand and most genial gentleman by any +more garish title: he is _the_ Macleod; he typifies the clan--that is +his highest glory), I visited the delightful old castle and saw every +room, relic, and dirk of importance. What gave me the most pleasure was +the illuminating commentary of Macleod himself and of his charming +daughters. One cannot hear the history of some of the rooms without a +feeling of terror. In the drawing-room of the castle (the room now used +for prayers, and well it may be,) a horrible outrage was planned to take +place by Black Ian, a usurping chief. The atrocious deed happened in the +middle of the sixteenth century, and was due to Ian's fear that the +Campbells, who had landed with a large force in Skye, would expel him +from Dunvegan castle. Ian, pretending that he wished to discuss terms, +invited eleven of the leading Campbells to a banquet. At table, Macleods +and Campbells were seated side by side; and, at a given signal, which +consisted in placing a cup of blood in front of each guest, all the +Campbells were simultaneously stabbed to death, each Macleod +exterminating his man. I was glad to get out of that drawing-room. + +The main relics in the castle are: (1) The Fairy Flag; (2) Rory Mor's +Drinking-horn; and (3) the Dunvegan Cup. + +It is not as well known as it should be that one of the medival chiefs +of the Macleods married a fairy. This dainty little woman presented her +lord with a yellow silk flag, dotted here and there with red spots. The +virtue of the flag, she told him, resided in its efficacy to save the +chief of the Macleods on three different occasions. After the third +employment of the flag, it would flutter away to fairy-land. The flag +has twice saved a chief out of a particularly awkward predicament, and +it is still in Dunvegan, though sadly grimed and rent. The present +chief, who has served his country nobly, is quite fit, in soldierly +fashion, to grapple single-handed with any difficulty he may encounter; +but he is in hopes that the flag may yield its residual virtue to the +contentment of some one or other of his successors. + +Rory Mor's drinking-horn, which could contain, I should think, between +two and three bottles of wine, is an interesting indication of +pre-Reformation thirst. Of old, each chief as he came of age, was +expected to drink off its contents at one draught as a proof that he had +arrived at years of discretion. + +The cup is made of dark wood, and is finely adorned with silver work. It +is dated 1493, and contains a Latin inscription. + +The Fairy Tower in Dunvegan Castle contains the room in which Dr. +Johnson and Sir Walter Scott slept during their respective visits to the +castle. The burly lexicographer would have little wind left for +argument after he had toiled up the steep and narrow spiral stairway +leading to the room. Formerly, so the smiling chief told me, the young +lady chosen by the Macleod to be his wife, had to pass a night alone in +this haunted chamber, in order that the fairies might have an +opportunity of seeing her, and formally approving the choice. + + +MISCELLANEOUS TERRORS. + +He who investigates Celtic demonology will hear a good deal about a +gruesome and insidious animal called the _Water Horse_. This fell beast, +though able at need to transform itself into the shape of a human being, +is normally like a horse, though much bulkier and fiercer. Its usual +abode is in the deep lochs, but it may occasionally be seen, with wreck +or sea-weed clinging to its hoof or mane, feeding on the hill-side among +earthly horses. The detestable feature about the brute is its fondness +for human beings. There is no hope for any man, woman, or child, who +gets upon its back: at a furious gallop, the animal bounds off by the +nearest road to the loch, and leaps under the waves to devour its prey. +Foals of a specially vicious turn are believed to have this brute for +their sire: in some such way the furious nature of the horse called +"Kelpy" in George Macdonald's story might be explained. + +Certain lochs in Skye are believed to harbour a variant terror, the +water-bull. Loch Morar, on the mainland, contains a huge mystic bogie, +undefined in shape, but of terrible malignity. I have heard too, in +Uist, of a phantom dog, with eyes of glede and unearthly bark, that +frequents the entrance to the old wayside burying-ground. No driver, +unless fortified by several glasses, will drive you that way after dark. + +"Duncan," said a commercial traveller to a driver, "I'll have to go to +Gruiginish farm to-night. Have everything ready at 8.30." + +"I can't do that, Mr. Smith; it'll be dark." + +"But you have lamps, Duncan." + +"Yes, yes, but I can't go. You have to pass the old cemetery." + +"I know that, but I must attend to my business. What ails you at the +cemetery?" + +"There's the dog at the gate, the dog with the eyes of burning coal. +What is he doing there? And the wee man inside, _What is he doing +there?_" + +"I don't know what he's doing, but to Gruiginish this night I must go. +Do you think a glass of _forked lightning_ would do you any good?" + +"Well, it might help." + +In spite of more than one glass of forked lightning, poor Duncan was in +a terrible state of excitement when the cemetery was approached. He kept +his head averted, and clutched the reins so nervously that the vehicle +was in imminent danger of being upset. + +It is a beautiful saying of Goldsmith that innocently to amuse the +imagination in this dream of life is wisdom. Judged by this standard, +the imaginative operations taking place in Duncan's brain, considering +their effect on his happiness, cannot be pronounced either innocent or +wise. To add ideal terrors to the prosaic hardships of a place like Uist +is the very height of folly. And yet it is precisely in such bare and +rough regions where man has to fight with nature as with a constant +foe, that the unseen powers are believed to be most terrible. The +_lutin_ of the smiling land of France is a mere capering trickster, and +the "lubber fiend" of Milton's poem is pictured as an unpaid adjunct of +the dairy. Duncan's "wee man up on the hill-side" is a permanent and +unspeakable horror of the night. "_What is he doing there?_"[29] + + [29] Collins's long _Ode on Popular Superstitions in the + Highlands of Scotland_, addressed to Home, author of _Douglas_, + contains some excellent rhetorical passages. Speaking of the + second-sighted seer, Collins represents him as one who + + "In the _depth of Uist's dark forest_ dwells." + + We may say of Uist what Lord Rosebery said of Caithness, that it + is _entirely delivered from the contaminating influence of + foliage_. The air one breathes there does not suffer + deterioration by coming through any such _dark forest_ as Collins + mentions: it blows from the Atlantic in an absolutely pure and + strong condition. + + +ST. KILDA. + +St. Kilda, the lonely and precipitous island, forty miles west of Lewis, +which Boswell at one time thought of buying, has now, like so many other +islands of the West, a well-furnished library from Paisley. I hope the +minister of the place encourages the reading of the books, and does +everything in his power to broaden the religious views of the people by +healthy secular literature. A luckless inspector of schools crossed over +once to examine the school of this island. His boat arrived late on +Saturday, and was to leave again early on Monday. To suit his own +convenience, the greatly-daring official proposed to examine the +scholars on Sunday. Never was their such indignation among the +islanders. What! examine the school on the first day of the week! Did +the unhappy man wish the wrath of Heaven to fall in fire and brimstone +on the island? The inspector was angrily hooted and denounced. Still, as +he must needs return by his steamer, the islanders agreed to send their +children immediately after Sunday was over, _i.e._, _the bairns were +assembled at midnight_, and parts of speech were bandied about then in +the visible darkness of the tiny school. + +St. Kilda belongs to the Macleod, and every spring the factor goes over +to collect the rents. All winter the island is isolated, and has no +outer news save, perhaps, from some stray Aberdeen trawler. For twenty +years the factor went over in a sailing-boat belonging to the chief, but +by some mishap, in which no lives were lost, this boat was +ill-manoeuvred and, with sails full-set, was engulfed in a whirlpool. +He now goes over in the steamer. + +The first question propounded to the factor is this: "_Has there been +war anywhere, my dear?_" If the answer is "Yes," a great joy is visible +on every face. "_That's good, that's good: tell us all about it._" +Having heard all about the war, the natives show an eagerness for +sweets, of which they are inordinately fond. + +The natives are expert cragsmen, and much of their time is occupied in +collecting birds' feathers. The oil of the solan goose is also a source +of wealth. Rough tweeds are now woven in many of the houses. The factor +informed me that, for some unknown reason, everything that comes from +the island is impregnated with a heavy odour that is most disagreeable. +Means have been tried to neutralise this smell, but success is only for +a time: by and by the odour returns, as bad as ever, to fabric and +feather. Merchants, both at home and abroad, are loath to purchase such +unfragrant wares. + +In Dunvegan Castle are to be seen several of the little letter-boats +employed by the St. Kildeans to convey news to Scotland in the winter +months. The tide is watched, and the letter-boat cast into the sea. +Usually the message is washed ashore on some part of the Long Island. +Natural superstition supplements, in a small degree, the lack of mails: +when the islanders, for example, hear _the notes of the cuckoo_, they +are convinced that the Macleod is dead. Happily the cuckoo is rarely +heard breaking the silence of the seas so far west. + + +LADY GRANGE. + +To this day there are in the possession of the Macleod family certain +old accounts of the years 1744 and 1745, that recall one of the most +diabolical and continuous pieces of cruelty recorded in history. I refer +to the accounts paid in these years to the Laird of Macleod for the +board and burial of Lady Grange. No one who knows the history of that +ill-fated lady can look at these time-stained documents without a +knocking of the seated heart at the ribs. + +Everyone who has enjoyed the light and graceful poetry of Ovid, has +sighed over the relegation of that city man to the barbarous horrors of +the Black Sea. As Gibbon exquisitely phrases it: "The tender Ovid, +after a youth spent in the enjoyment of wealth and luxury, was condemned +to a hopeless exile on the frozen banks of the Danube, where he was +exposed without remorse to those fierce denizens of the desert with +whose stern spirits he feared that his gentle shade might hereafter be +confounded." The banishment of Lady Grange to St. Kilda, in 1734, by her +rascally husband, is to me fully as pathetic as Ovid's expatriation to +Tomi. She, a refined and beautiful woman, the light of Edinburgh +drawing-rooms, was hustled off to a lonely rock and left remorselessly +to pine there amid the squalls. Let me briefly summarise this affecting +history. + +Lord Grange, a Scottish judge of strong Jacobite leanings, was known by +his Lady to be concerned in a plot, along with Lovat, Mar, and others, +to bring back the Pretender. This was in the year 1730. Stung in her +wifely pride by her husband's ill-treatment and licentiousness, she +openly threatened to expose his treason. To prevent such exposure, +Grange caused his wife to be kidnapped and clandestinely conveyed first +to a small island off North Uist, and subsequently to St. Kilda. In the +latter island, no one could speak any English except the catechist, and +here for seven years this polished society dame lived amid the blasts +and the screaming ocean-fowl, lacking even the privilege, which Ovid +enjoyed, of sending letters to child or friend. In 1741, when the +catechist left the island, she made him bearer of letters to her +law-agent, Hope of Rankeillor. Hope fitted out a sloop, with twenty-five +armed men on board, and set out for St. Kilda to rescue the lady. +Macleod, who was, of course, privy to her detention, at once removed her +to Skye, and Hope's expedition came to nothing. The poor woman, worn out +with sorrow and suffering, died in 1745, a helpless imbecile! + +The story, which throws a lurid light on the savagery of the eighteenth +century, and which, to my thinking, surpasses in pathos anything +occurring in fiction, was long disbelieved. But it was only too true. It +is said that ill-luck pursued the lady even after death, and that her +funeral was a miserable parody. A coffin filled with stones and turf was +interred, before a large crowd, in the churchyard of Duirinish, the real +remains being, with maimed rites or none at all, secretly buried +elsewhere. + +It is noteworthy that Lady Grange died in 1745, the year when Prince +Charlie's hopes were shattered on Culloden Moor. Like her, he too had +the ill-luck to be a hopeless wanderer in the Misty Isle. + + +PIERLESS TIREE. + +I regret to say that I did not stay long enough in the island of Tiree +to add to my store of legends, and yet, I went there with a capacious +note-book and excellent intentions. What is more, I read from beginning +to end, Dr. Erskine Beveridge's detailed book on the island, and could +have passed an examination on semi-brochs, rock-forts, marsh duns, +islet-forts, sandhill dwellings, and prehistoric burial-sites. I steeped +myself so thoroughly in the _minutiae_ of pre-Reformation churches, that +I almost forgot to go to the modern ones. Tiree took hold of me +completely, and so did the Norse invaders of the Hebrides--men like +Ketil Flatnose, Magnus Barelegs, Hako, and Somerled. I got a pocket map +arranged for my own use (copied from Dr. Beveridge's large one) with a +red cross at all the sites of ancient forts. It was my fond hope, for +pride attends us still, that I might find some inaccuracy in Dr. +Beveridge's book, and, from measurements on the spot, be able to +contradict some of his statements. But what are the hopes of man! I did +not know that predestination, in the form of dirty weather, was working +against me, and was about to quench all my interest in _duns_. On +September 5th, 1907, I determined to take Dr. Beveridge's measurements +for granted. + +On that day, in fact, I was for some time under the impression that my +last lecture had been delivered. It was on the way between Coll and +Tiree. The gale was a furious one and, combined with the greasy odours +of the _Fingal_, was enough to sicken a practised seafarer. I did notice +that some of the crew were prostrated, so that there was some excuse for +a landsman not being proof against Neptune's dandling. So low, exposed, +and precarious is the shore at Scarinish, that, often for weeks, the +ferrymen dare not venture out to the steamer for passengers. I asked one +of the _Fingal_ men if there was any chance of being landed. He was a +cruel cynic, and said: "No, not to-day. The sea is too wild for the +ferry to come out. We'll go right across to Bunessan in Mull, so prepare +for three more hours' shaking. You won't forget the _Dutchman's Cap_ +for the rest of your life." Then with a remark addressed to the +Creator, he added: "_There's the ferryboat after all; she's racing over +the water like a stag._" + +He was right: the lugsail was careering out to us and came alongside at +length, and, after fearful trouble, got fastened to the _Fingal_. +Sometimes the ferryboat was even with our deck, sometimes far above it, +sometimes fifteen feet below. It looked like certain death to leap into +that lugsail. + +I hesitated, and shouted to the captain: "Is it safe to jump?" + +He replied, "I wish to Tophet I had the chance." + +I watched for the next opportunity of the ferryboat and the _Fingal_ +being approximately on the same plane, and leaped into the arms of a +boatman. + +Other passengers followed,--men, women, even babies. Then came the +mails; and finally, live stock. I remember being struck on the mouth by +a sheep heaved into the boat by the above-mentioned cynic. "Come, come, +that's enough, keep the rest; let us be off," shouted a boatman. +Everybody was wet to the skin: the wind was howling; the women weeping; +and the babies were mixed up with the sheep. + +Once clear of the _Fingal_, the adroit ferrymen did their duty well, and +in less than ten minutes we were all landed. A crowd of islanders were +waiting to lift us out. All agreed that it had been a _close shave_. + +Such was my introduction to _Pierless Tiree_. + +I did not stay long enough in the island to measure brochs, but quite +long enough to experience the good-will and kindliness of the natives. +The houses are solid and substantial, the inhabitants strong and +muscular. Great gales from the Atlantic blow almost continually, sweep +up the sand in clouds, and prevent any trees from taking root. I did not +see much poverty with my own eyes, but the ministers all assured me +there was a great deal. Maize, more than oatmeal, is the cereal used for +porridge. For supplementary information, Dr. Beveridge's admirable and +accurate work may be consulted. + + +LOCHBUIE IN MULL. + +The great straggling island of Mull, so full of scenery, romance, and +song, still awaits its historian. Few, who have ever visited the noble +isle, will refuse to say with Macphail, the bard of Torosay: + + "O the island of Mull is an isle of delight + With the wave on the shore and the sun on the height, + And the breeze on the hills and the blast on the Bens, + And the old green woods and the old grassy glens." + +The gem of the island is undoubtedly the haven of Lochbuie, one of the +choicest nooks in insular Scotland. The modern mansion, which is but a +step or two from the well-preserved castle of olden times, is quite near +the shore, and looks straight south over the Atlantic to the island of +Colonsay. The entire surroundings are a delight to the eye: great +towering mountains behind, the sea in front, and in the space between, +green lawns, rocks, gorse, and many-tinted garden-plots. + +The MacLaines of Lochbuie trace their descent from the great Gillean of +the Battle-axe, a redoubtable warrior who flourished his weapon to some +purpose in the reign of Alexander III. But the most notorious of all +the MacLaines is _Ewen of the Little Head_, who died in battle, and +thereafter assumed the rle of family ghost. Before the death of any of +his race, this phantom-warrior gallops along the sea-beach near the +castle, announcing the event by cries and loud lamentations. The doctor, +who attended the present chief's mother, declares that, while sitting +beside her bed during the silent watches of the night, he heard the +noise of the spectral horse just before the old lady's decease. The +natives of Mull can describe the ghost and horse with accurate detail. +The horse is a small, hardy, sure-footed animal of brown colour, and +Ewen is known by the smallness of his head, and by a long floating +mantle of green. He performed a weird and long-continued gallop round +the bay in 1815, before the news of the valiant Sir Archibald MacLaine's +death became known by official despatch from the seat of war. + +Lochbuie, like so many other places in Scotland, has its Piper's Cave. +There is a remarkable similarity in all such tales--diversified, +however, by quaint local additions. MacLaine's piper, a foolhardy man, +determined once to test the allegation that a certain cave on Lochbuie +was connected with another cave at Pennygown on the Sound of Mull. +Attired in his official costume and having his dog at his heels, he +entered the cave, blowing his pipes triumphantly. Those above, on the +hills, were able to make out his line of passage by the sound of the +music. At a certain point the pipes ceased, and nevermore did the piper +come up to the shores of light. The dog got to the cave of Pennygown--a +limp and hairless parody of its former self. + +Browning, in his "Pied Piper of Hamelin," has but poetised one version +of a world-wide tale. Often, in the Highland tales, it is money the +piper is after. There is a deep cave near Melvaig, in Wester Ross, into +which a piper is said to have led a band of men in search of gold, and +never returned. In this case the pipe-music is said to have continued +for years--some natives even asserting that it may be heard still by +those who have ears to hear. + +In spite of all the legendary lore connected with the family of the +MacLaines, the chief interest of Lochbuie for a lover of literature, +centres round the visit of Boswell and Johnson. In one of the rooms of +the castle there is a fine portrait of Johnson. On looking at it, my +mind reverted to the amusing question addressed to the sage by the +"bluff, comely, noisy old gentleman" who was the laird of Lochbuie in +1773: "Are you of the Johnstons of Glencro or of Ardnamurchan?" "Dr. +Johnson," says Boswell, "gave him a significant look, but made no +answer; and I told Lochbuie that he was not Johnston, but Johnson, and +that he was an Englishman." + +I regret to say that the great war saddle, which was in Lochbuie's +possession in 1773, and which Boswell did not see because the young +laird had taken it to Falkirk with a drove of black cattle, is no longer +in the island: somebody took it to America, and forgot to bring it +back. + +The present laird is greatly beloved by his tenantry. At the lecture I +gave at Lochbuie, he was unable, owing to illness, to take the chair. +His absence was a terrible grief to the people, and the piper of the +family, in a brief speech, alluded in a most touching way to the sorrow +felt by all present.[30] + + +INVERARAY CASTLE. + +Three days after Johnson and his friend left Lochbuie, they were +entertained by the Duke of Argyll in Inveraray Castle. Boswell's +description of the incidents of this visit is one of his finest efforts. +He tells us that Johnson admired the "utter defiance of expense" shown +by the Duke in the building and appointments of the place. Records exist +which show that the masons were paid at the rate of 4d. a day, +_plus_ a weekly bonus of meal! + +It is interesting to note that the Rev. John Macaulay (grandfather of +Lord Macaulay) was one of the ministers of Inveraray in 1773. Boswell +gives him a very high character, but this had no emollient effect on the +great historian, when he came to review _Croker's Edition of Boswell's +Johnson_. + +Inveraray Castle is a superb object-lesson in Scotch history. All the +Campbells of note for centuries past are hanging on the walls, from the +old Duke who passed away last, to the squinting Marquis (_Gleed Argyll_ +mentioned in the "Bonnie House o' Airlie"), who was beheaded on the +Castle Hill of Edinburgh in 1661. The Duke, who commanded at Sheriffmuir +("when we ran and they ran, and they ran and we ran," etc.) is standing +in his accoutrements of pride, painted by the son of Allan Ramsay: + + "Argyll the State's whole thunder, born to wield + And shake alike the Senate and the Field." + +Medival armour, firelocks from Culloden, flags from a score of +battlefields, mutely suggest the glory and gore of the olden times. It +is impossible to walk through the rooms of such a place without feeling +intimately in touch with the events of the past. + +The present hotel is the one in which Johnson and his biographer lodged. +Burns came sixteen years later, and wrote on the pane of his bedroom +window the scandalous epigram on Inveraray so often quoted. The present +Duke (who has perpetrated a fair amount of poetry himself) would give +much of his odd cash to recover that pane, which was cut out some years +ago by a pilfering visitor.[31] + + [30] I am inclined to think that the relationship formerly + existing between the Highland chief and the member of his clan + was perfect in its way--a _model_ of class relationship. There + was nothing menial about the clansman's attitude, though he gave + unbounded homage to his lord. At the battle of Inverkeithing, a + clansman and his seven sons gave up their lives to shield from + death their chieftain, Sir Hector Maclean. As the old man saw his + boys fall one after the other, he shouted with glee and pride, + "_Another for Sir Hector!_" until he himself lay, like a true + thane, beside his progeny. Nothing could be finer or more + touching than such a scene. + + [31] Burns tells us that when in Inveraray Hotel, he was entirely + neglected by the servants, who gave all their attention to some + gentlemen from the Castle. In our day, the Campbells have shown + contrition by their willingness to admit that Burns was one of + their own clan. Burns's ancestors were, it is said, Campbells of + Taynuilt. Taynuilt means in English, Burnhouse. When the poet's + ancestors emigrated to Forfarshire, they were known as _Campbells + from Burnhouse_. In course of time the appellation was shortened + into Burnhouse simply, and latterly into Burness or + Burns.--Q.E.D. + + +THE SACRED ISLE. + +Wordsworth came to Iona (which also belongs to the Argyll family) in +1833, and wrote four poor sonnets on the sacred isle. This is what he +saw: + + "To each voyager + Some ragged child holds up for sale a store + Of wave-worn pebbles, pleading on the shore + Where once came monk and nun with gentle stir." + +Owing to its ecclesiastical renown as the cradle of Christianity in +Britain, no island is so much visited as Iona. The audience I addressed +was the most miscellaneous I have ever seen: there were boatmen and +barristers, anglers and artists, curates and crofters, French and +Germans. + +The present-day natives seem desirous of keeping up the old reputation +for theology. The boatman who ferries visitors ashore, remarked to me +with pride that his favourite book was one entitled _The Great +Controversy between God and the Devil_, a book with which I was, and am +still, unacquainted. + +Dr. Johnson's remarks on Iona remain the most eloquent tribute to the +island. He never wrote anything finer. All the children in the Iona +school should be made to learn the piece by heart.[32] + +It is most gratifying to think that Christianity has been the great +purifying force in Europe. The introduction of Christianity into the +world must be reckoned as the most revolutionary event of history. +Nothing was ever more needed. To one who knows the morality of the most +brilliant society of the Greeks and Romans, there is no need to extol +the pure and lofty moral tone of Jesus of Nazareth. But those who have +not read the masterpieces of ancient art, with their mingled beauty and +foulness, may be assured that literature owes more to Christianity than +has ever yet been told. With Christianity a great healthy breeze swept +over the world. Men became ashamed of wallowing in the mire. An ideal +was raised up before them for their worship and imitation. The old Adam +and his deeds needed stern repression after the wild iniquities of the +effete society of imperial Rome. The spirit needed to curb the flesh, +literature needed to be cleansed. We, living to-day and nursed on the +accumulated tradition of so many anterior Christian centuries, are +sometimes disposed to minimise the debt we owe, in pure and simple +morality, to the teachings of the New Testament. I find it impossible to +imagine what the world would be without these teachings. They renewed +the world, they made it do penance for its sins, they made advance +practicable. An entirely retrograde movement is impossible when once man +is indoctrinated with a grand ideal. + + [32] Boswell's religious instincts come well out in his account + of the visit to Iona. Two of his descendants, Messrs. Albert and + James Boswell, devoted themselves entirely to religion, and were + well known in Ayrshire, thirty years ago, as zealous evangelists. + These two gentlemen went on a preaching campaign through the + northern islands, and did much highly appreciated philanthropic + and religious work there. They were members of the sect called + Plymouth Brethren. + + +APPIN. + +In this chapter (as, indeed, in all the others) I am rummaging among my +souvenirs for materials that are in some way noteworthy. It is utterly +impossible to exhaust the romance and glamour of the Highlands. Those +who go regularly North are certain to bring back, on each occasion, a +host of interesting memories. "Swift as a weaver's shuttle fly our +years": the chief difficulty is to jot down all that one sees and hears. + +On the occasion of my second visit to Appin, I stayed in the fine new +hotel built on the eminence called Druim-an-t-Sealbhain. The landlord is +a man of great wit and reading, and with him I had some enjoyable hours +of miscellaneous conversation. Mr. Macdonald (for that is his name) has +an excellent knowledge of the Celtic dialects, has translated into +Gaelic verse some of the best-known poems of Burns, Tannahill, and +Byron, and is extremely clever at retailing the legendary tales that +still go rumouring along the Strath of Appin. He has also a good +knowledge of English literature, and told me certain details regarding +Scott and Wordsworth which I was pleased to know. + +It seems that Sir Walter was at one time tutor in Appin House, and was +in the habit of visiting the cot of an old shepherd, a notorious +_seanachie_, full of romantic lore, for the purpose of hearing, and +writing down, the old man's tales. An oak tree is still pointed out, +under which, it is said, Scott composed part of _The Lord of the Isles_. +Appin is not very far from the castles of Dunollie and Dunstaffnage, +which Sir Walter wrought skilfully into the texture of his tales. + +The most interesting item mentioned by Mr. Macdonald had reference to +the visit of William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy, in the year +1803. Everyone who has read the life of the great poet of Nature knows +the charming description of the district contained in one of his +sister's letters. "We arrived," she says, "at Port-na-croish. It is a +small village--a few huts and an indifferent inn, by the side of the +loch; ordered a fowl for dinner, had a fire lighted, and went a few +steps from the door up the road, and turning aside into a field, stood +at the top of a low eminence, from which, looking down the loch to the +sea through a long vista of hills and mountains, _we beheld one of the +most delightful prospects that, even when we dream of fairer worlds than +this, it is possible to conceive in our hearts_." Here follows a +description so exquisite of the sea-scenery and the Morven Hills, that +it deserves to be classed with the finest examples of word-painting in +the English language. + +The new hotel at Appin is built on the low eminence referred to in the +above-cited letter. The name Druim-an-t-Sealbhain is giving way to the +complimentary title of "Dorothy Wordsworth's View." From the front +windows of the hotel, the same calm inland seas, grassy hills, Morven +mists, grim old forts, and intricate communion of land and water, can be +seen precisely as they were seen by the Wordsworths more than a century +ago. The Port-na-croish inn has become a village store: it is well +worthy of note, not merely for the reference in the letter, but for a +fine legend, which I shall now narrate. + + +MACDONALD'S GRATITUDE. + +The first tenant of the inn was a Macdonald of Glencoe, a man between +sixty and seventy at the time of the story, the year 1755 namely. He had +around him a family of stalwart sons, all imbued with intense hatred of +the clan Campbell. The peculiar and fiendish malignity of the terrible +massacre of Glencoe precluded all possibility of forgiveness on the part +of the clan. Highland hospitality has always been a lavish and +magnificent thing, and Colonel Campbell and his assassins had been +treated with exceptional kindness in Glencoe. The bloody outrage, in a +midnight of winter snows, was too terrible a meed of hospitality to be +readily forgotten or forgiven by the Macdonalds. This old innkeeper of +Port-na-croish, then, hated the Campbells with the unquenchable hate +that deep wrongs, done not alone to an individual but to a tribe, +engender in the Celtic soul. + +One day a white-bearded wayfarer begged food and shelter in the little +hostel, and in the course of conversation over the meal that was soon +spread on the board for his wants, he let slip an avowal that, in his +youth, as one of Campbell's men, he had taken part in the gruesome +massacre of the "valley of weeping." Without more ado, the landlord +slipped out and posted his sons at the door, with whispered orders to +them that the stranger should be dirked to death on crossing the +threshold of the inn. Returning indoors, old Macdonald, dissimulating +his fell intentions, proceeded to ply the visitor with question upon +question, so as to gain a detailed knowledge of all the incidents of the +weird carnage. Finally he said, "Tell me, Campbell, what part of that +devilish business made the strongest impression on your mind?" "I will +tell you," said the old soldier, "what to me was the outstanding +incident of that night. Towards the close of the massacre, a child's +voice was heard piercingly on the night air--a scream it was, and seemed +to come from no great distance. The captain sent me in the direction of +the sound, bidding me, if the child should be a male Macdonald, to kill +it forthwith; if a girl, to spare. I soon came up to the place whence +the sound proceeded, and saw through the whirling snow, under the +protection of a jutting cliff, a nurse with a boy of four years old, +both of them wailing and shivering with cold. The child was gnawing a +bone and, near by, a dog was crouching. Pity wrung my heart. I drove my +bayonet through the trembling cur, and, going back to the captain, +showed him the bloody steel as a proof that I had obeyed his commands." + +The innkeeper, who had been all ears, said: "You, then, were that +soldier?" "I was, indeed," replied the old wanderer. "_And I was that +child!_" said the landlord, "and _your_ life is saved. My sons stand at +the threshold of the inn, ready to fall upon you when you leave. I +countermand the order for your destruction. Here you shall stay, an +honoured guest, till the end of your days, as a recompense for saving my +life on that awful night." + +The story goes on to state that the foot-weary Campbell lived for some +years a pensioner in Port-na-croish inn, and was buried at the expense +of the grateful innkeeper. I do not know any story that comes nearer +perfection. + + +NOTES ON THE TROSSACHS. + +The Rev. Mr. Wilson, the cultured and genial minister of the Trossachs, +has recently published a most readable little book on the district he +knows so well. Perhaps no district indeed on the world's surface is so +well known (even to those who have never seen it), as the Trossachs. +Little did Sir Walter suspect, when he penned the stirring iambics of +_The Lady of the Lake_, that he was furnishing materials to the +pedagogue which would be parsed, analysed, and dissected by myriads of +pupils in all the schools of the British Empire. We shall all carry with +us to the grave the leading passages of that romantic lay: the +stag-hunt, the duel at Coilantogle Ford, the whistle that garrisoned the +glen, and the episode of the Fiery Cross. Such lines, we may say, have +gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. +Happening to pass Strathyre station in July, 1907, I was requested by a +bright-eyed little Japanese gentleman in the compartment to tell him +where we were. On being informed, he (after casting an eye of pity on +the deplorable stork that is supposed to decorate the drinking-fountain +of the station), began to declaim, in capital English, the passage that +begins-- + + "Benledi saw the Cross of Fire, + It glanced like lightning up Strathyre, + O'er dale and hill the summons flew, + Nor rest nor pause young Angus knew; + The tear that gathered in his eye + He left the mountain breeze to dry." + +Mr. Wilson's book to which I have alluded is a collection of the +impressions written down by eminent visitors to the locality, from +Dorothy Wordsworth to Queen Victoria. Carlyle, who was in Perthshire in +1818, wrote the following note, which, though short, is finely +characteristic of him: "The Trossachs I found really grand and +impressive, Loch Katrine exquisitely so, my first taste of the beautiful +in scenery. Not so, any of us, the dirty, smoky farm-hut at the +entrance, with no provision in it but bad oatcakes and unacceptable +whisky, or the Mrs. Stewart who somewhat royally presided over it, and +dispensed these dainties, expecting to be flattered like an +independency, as well as paid like an innkeeper." The foregoing note, by +itself, is good value for the cost of Mr. Wilson's book (two shillings, +namely), and raises regrets that the author of _Sartor_ did not travel +oftener through the Land of Cakes. (The only other place in the +Highlands where I have heard Carlyle spoken of, is Kyleakin in Skye, +where he was the guest of Lady Ashburton, and where (as the natives +say), the cocks and hens had to be removed out of ear-shot for his +convenience.) + +One of Mr. Wilson's stories (contributed by a lady) is apposite at the +present time, when so much is being heard of women's rights. Glengyle, a +district of the Trossachs, was once _entirely ruled_ by a number of +women, who constituted a sort of High Court with women as Judge and +Jury. "The most notorious case which they dealt with, and which probably +led to their downfall through drawing the ridicule of the country upon +them, was a case of horse-stealing. The accused man had been seen riding +furiously away on someone else's horse, and all evidence pointed to his +guilt. To the astonishment of the outsiders, the jury returned a verdict +of 'not guilty,' and the Judge on summing up declared the horse was the +culprit, as it had run away with the man. _She condemned the unfortunate +animal to be hanged, and hanged it was, while the man got off scot +free._" + + +LOCHFYNE-SIDE. + +None of the mainland counties of Scotland can boast of such wonderful +ramifications of sea and loch as the county of Argyll. The present +amiable and cultured head of the Clan Campbell declaimed, with great +applause, at a social gathering not long ago, a fine poem, in which the +beauties of his ancestral shire were floridly--but not +unjustly--elaborated. It would be difficult to over-praise the county of +Argyll, with its splendid sea-board, its rugged and impressive peaks, +and its unrivalled fiords and lakes. Thanks to its proximity to large +centres of population, few counties are so much visited. Its fame, in +our day, is likely to be more widespread than ever, owing to the +graceful and entertaining writings of Mr. Neil Munro, who probably +knows the details of its local history better than any man living, and +who possesses the inimitable art of interesting others in his +delineations of the past. I confess that I feel, personally, as much +interest in the Wars of Lorn as I do in the Siege of Sphacteria, and +that "Glee'd Argyll" seems fully as attractive as Cleon or Brasidas. + +Of course, long before Mr. Munro, Loch Fyne had a European reputation, +which it owed to its herring. The Popes of Rome used to eat these +herring in medival times, and sent for them _vi_ Amsterdam or Antwerp. +Orthodox Catholics have always had good judgment in the matter of fish, +and especially the French, who belong to a country which proudly boasts +of being _the eldest daughter of the Church_. For many a generation the +French came annually to Lochgilphead, and bartered their kegs of claret +for barrels of salt herring. The French Revolution, among its many other +effects, put a stop to this trade. War lasted for so many years between +Britain and France, that, at the end of it all, the continental sailors +had forgotten the way to Loch Fyne. + +Argyllshire is rich in legends, for many of which no date can be given +except the elastic one _long ago_ or _in byegone times_. Let me cite one +or two of these:-- + + +MACIVORS, MACVICARS, AND MACALLISTERS. + +On the road to Kilmartin is a place called the Robber's Den, the +locality of which may be firmly fixed in the tourist's memory by noting +that it is just behind a large distillery. Here, long ago, lived one +Macvicar, whose wife was a Macivor. These names are important, and so +also is that of the Macallisters of Tarbert, who one day stole cattle +belonging to the Macivors. Mrs. Macvicar noticed these Tarbert +scoundrels driving her father's cattle through the glen, and mentioned +the fact to her boy. Young Macvicar followed the robbers, and found them +in a forest feeding joyously on a slain bullock belonging to his +grandfather. As each Macallister finished picking a bone, he would throw +it violently against a big stone, remarking at the same time, with a +chuckle: "_If a Macivor were here, that's how I would treat him_." The +boy, from his hiding-place in the foliage, threw a stone and struck one +of the feasters. The injured man blamed one of his own clansmen, and, +after much recrimination, a free fight of Macallisters was the result. +During the mle, the boy slunk off and told his mother's family what +was happening. The Macivors, in a furious and determined band, soon fell +upon their disordered foes, and completely routed them and regained +their cattle, _minus_ the consumed bullock. The chief of the +Macallisters was slain by a woman, who took off her stocking, placed a +_large stone therein_, and heaved it at his head. That same night, Mrs. +Macallister, wife of the chieftain thus ignominiously laid low, gave +birth, perhaps prematurely, to a son, whom the care of a discriminate +midwife secreted from the vengeance of the Macivors, who were howling +all round the house. This child grew up to manhood with the picture of +the stone-laden stocking ever before his mind's eye. He prepared a most +effective retaliation: he sent to Ireland and got over a large band of +Antrim men, who were quite pleased to help him in his bloody projects. +The Macivors were completely overpowered, and even the Macvicars had a +taste of Irish steel. Macvicar, father of the boy who distinguished +himself in the wood, was attacked in his own house. He was an athlete of +great powers, and was _able to jump thirty feet either in a backward or +a forward direction_. The Irishmen set fire to his house, and +Macvicar--hoping, no doubt, to make a final leap for life--tried to +escape by the chimney. His foes struck him on the knee with a spear: he +fell into their hands, and was at once despatched. + + +RED HECTOR. + +We hear a good deal of the Irish in the traditions of Argyllshire. The +ruthless Colkitto, notorious for his own deeds and also for Milton's +mention of him, brought over a contingent of men from Ireland to help +Montrose in the Royalist wars. These auxiliaries swooped down on +Kintyre, murdered hundreds of Campbells, and devastated with fire and +sword the whole of Argyll's country. To this period belongs the story of +Red Hector and the Irish colossus, Phadrig Mor. + +Hector was a little, red-haired kern of the Campbell clan, who was +caught by Colkitto's men skulking in the wood, and dragged with pinioned +arms before the son of that bandit. Hector was about to be hanged +without more ado, but as preparations were being made he cried out: +"_Give me a sword and I'll fight any one of you. If I am beaten, kill me +then._" The Irishmen, to whom an "illigant foight" has always been +welcome, agreed to the proposal of Red Hector. They chose Phadrig Mor, a +fierce giant of a man, to fight with the little fellow. The latter, to +neutralise the advantages of Phadrig's stature, leapt nimbly on the sawn +stump of a tree, and, in an attitude of defence, awaited the oncoming of +his foe. The wee man parried most dexteriously every blow that Phadrig +wished to deal, and there was much mirth and excitement among the +spectators. At length, seeing a terrific blow coming his way, Hector +speedily leapt off the trunk of the tree, and the Irishman's sword came +fiercely down and was embedded in the timber. Now was Hector's chance: +he laid about the defenceless giant to such purpose that Phadrig was +soon a corpse. + + +MACPHAIL OF COLONSAY. + +Leyden, the polyglott poet, has written a poem on an Argyllshire +tradition attaching to the whirlpool of Corryvreckan. Near that dreaded +tumult of waters, Macphail, a Colonsay man, was pulled out of his boat +by a mermaid, and taken down to her shell-strewn chamber at the bottom +of the sea. They stayed for years together, and five little, unbaptized +Macphails claimed him at length as their sire. By and by he grew tired +of the eternal swirling of the currents, the saltwater garden growths, +and the irritating deflection of the sunlight. His mind continued to +revert to Colonsay and the girl he had left behind him there. One day he +got the mermaid to take him near the strand of his native island, +whereupon he suddenly leapt ashore and escaped. In future years he +avoided the sea as much as possible, preferring to devote his time and +talents to cultivating the soil of Colonsay. + + +TALES FROM SPEYSIDE. + +Part of my purpose in this chapter is to show to any of my readers who +may have poetical talents, that abundance of material for verse, and +that of the most pathetic, thrilling, and gruesome kind, is still to be +found in the North country. No one since Scott has thought fit to draw +much on traditions of the Highlands: and though Scott poetised a great +many of these, plenty of them still remain unsung. Many fine tales are +associated with the delightful district of Speyside. + + +TOM EUNAN! + +Near the little village of Kincraig is a queer old church built on a +hill called Tom Eunan, just beside the Spey. This church is declared to +be the only one in Scotland in which services have been continuously +held since the seventh century. The outside is antique in the extreme; +inside, there have been renovations: there is a deal of varnished +wainscoating that would have scared the Culdees, and instead of the +uneven cobble stones of old, there is a modern floor of wood. On one of +the windows of the church, there is a fine old bronze bell that exists +as a relic of Culdee times. Some profane person once laid hands on this +bell and carried it off to Perth; but it _would not_ ring away from +Speyside. To speak figuratively, the bell was broken-hearted: from its +metallic tongue, night and day, came the mournful wail, "Tom Eunan, Tom +Eunan." I am happy to say that it was brought back to its beloved +hillock. + +Rural churches with earthen floors were not uncommon in Scotland even in +the nineteenth century: in such there would be no great trouble in +interring the dead. Two Speyside stories, dealing with kirks and +kirkyards, are told of the Grants of Rothiemurchus. + + +SHAWS AND GRANTS. + +For several generations the possession of Rothiemurchus was a constant +subject of dispute between the Shaws and the Grants. The Shaws were the +original owners, but having waxed fat and kicked against the Government +on more than one occasion, word was sent from Edinburgh to one of the +Grants, who was Laird of Muckerach, that he should dispossess the Shaws +of the lands of Rothiemurchus, _gin he could_. Grant was by no means +"blate" in availing himself of the hint, but the Shaws were tough +fighters. In a final and decisive contest between the two clans, the +Grants were victorious and the chief of the Shaws slain. The victorious +Muckerach, now unequivocal Laird of Rothiemurchus, caused his dead rival +to be buried deep down within the kirk beneath his own seat. Every +Sunday _when he went to pray_ he stamped his feet triumphantly upon the +place under which lay the corpse of his enemy. + +Patrick Grant, surnamed Macalpine, cuts a rather picturesque figure in +clan history. With a body of gaily-dressed retainers he paraded round +the countryside, dispensing justice and letting the minimum of time +elapse between the sentence and the execution. He was twice married, +and his second wife survived him. That forlorn lady had much to endure +from the first family, and notably from the wife of Macalpine's eldest +son and heir. The widow took a very dramatic way of publicly showing her +grievances. Once after the service in the kirk was over, she stepped up, +with her fan in her hand, to the corner of the kirkyard, and, taking off +her high-heeled slipper, she tapped with it on the stone laid over her +husband's grave, crying out through her tears, "_Macalpine! Macalpine! +rise up for ae half-hour and see me richted!_" + +A diverting legend explains the _low-lying situation of Ballindalloch +Castle_, a beautiful specimen of baronial architecture, standing near +the junction of the Spey and the Avon. In planning the place, somewhere +about 1545, the laird fully intended to secure a wide prospect, and to +that end, chose a commanding site. But his views did not commend +themselves to the Powers of the Air, and the masons could make no +progress. Every night, when the workers had retired from building the +walls, a prodigious gale came roaring from the summit of Ben Rinnes and +swept stones and mortar into the bed of the Avon. The laird, sorely +puzzled at this strange phenomenon, lay in watch one night, with the +result that he was blown off his feet, and landed right up among the +branches of a holly-tree. Having taken the conceit out of the laird in +this abrupt way, the Mysterious Power, chuckling in fiendish fashion, +called out "_Build on the cow-haugh_." Frightened out of his wits, the +laird was only too glad to comply. + + +THE WISHING WELL. + +Round the old Castle of Rothes clings a legend of a more pathetic kind. +"Fierce wars and faithful loves shall moralise my song," says Spenser, +and it is with these well-worn but ever-fresh subjects that the story +deals. The heiress of one of the old lairds of Rothes, being allowed to +roam at will with her foster-mother, cast an eye of love on the son of +the laird of Arndilly. As in ballad lore, the love seems to have been +immediate, reciprocal, and unquenchable. The girl's father, hearing of +the attachment, summarily forbade it, and commanded his daughter to turn +her back on young Arndilly, and take a different road in future. But as +journeys end in lovers meeting, the two young people, by whatever way +they set out, invariably met at the _Wishing Well_. A sad severance +came, however, for young Arndilly, like so many medival knights of song +who had faithful mistresses, must needs go crusading to the Holy Land. +During his absence, the lady hied daily to the Wishing Well, and many a +tear she let fall therein as she thought of the lad that was so far +away. But after many a month, back from Palestine came young Arndilly, +and went, of course, straight to the old trysting-place, where he found +his lady-love praying for his safe return. The meeting was rapturous but +tragically short. A dark shape glided upon the scene, and drove a fatal +dirk in the young soldier's back. The lady shrieked aloud and swooned +away. For the rest of her life she was an imbecile: she never left the +castle, and spent her time crooning a plaintive song and rocking a +cradle. Her ghost still haunts the place, and those who have ears to +hear can, at nightfall, make out, above the sough of the wind, the +mournful notes of a weird lullaby, and mysterious cradle-rockings within +the ruined walls. Close by the Well, at the spot of the murder, a bush +sprang up, whereof the leaves resembled crosses; in autumn they turned +to a bright scarlet colour, as if typical of the blood that had flowed +there from its victim's wounds. Others will have it that the lady's +ghost may be seen flitting about, distractedly, in the woods, on a +particular night of the year--the anniversary, it is supposed, of +Arndilly's murder. + + +OSSIAN AND MACPHERSON. + +The beautiful little town of Kingussie is famous for its association +with "Ossian" Macpherson, who was born near by. No man, born on Scottish +earth, except perhaps, Sir Walter Scott, had ever such an influence on +European literature as this Highland dominie. "His Ossian," as Professor +Macmillan Brown says, "was translated into almost every European +language; and its influence is apparent in Goethe's Werther, in +Schiller's Robbers, and in all the Storm-and-Stress literature of +Germany, in the productions and speeches of the French Revolutionists, +in the romantic literary movement that preceded and followed the +Revolution, and in much of the Italian, Spanish, and Danish poetry of +the time. It generally affected the prose style of eighteenth century +romance, and was a direct antidote to Johnsonianism in the imaginative +literature. In our own century it bent the genius of Scott to the +Highlands, and moulded the dramas of Byron, and the often vague imagery +of Shelley; it appears in the style of Kingsley's Hereward, and directly +or indirectly it is responsible for the pioneering efforts of Walt +Whitman in prose poetry and for the rapid growth of poetic prose through +De Quincey, Bulwer Lytton, and Ruskin. During last century it stirred +Blake to misty prophecies, led writers of romance back into the less +known periods of the past, and gave the new audience a delight in +mysterious and almost formless legend and tale and idea." + +The extraordinary vogue of Macpherson's Ossianic poems was due to +literary merit of a high order, and also to the parched and dry state +into which the poetry of Europe had sunk in the middle of the eighteenth +century. Boileau and his rules had crushed all sap and life out of +European verse, and the poet had become either a teacher of rimed ethics +or a framer of dexterous satire. How refreshing Ossian must have been to +the men of such a time: + + "The hills were round them, and the breeze + Went o'er the sun-lit fields again; + Their foreheads felt the wind and rain." + +Let the modern reader go through the _Rape of the Lock_, and then take +up the song of the hunter Shilric from Macpherson's "Carric-thura." + +Shilric, not knowing that his love Vinvela is dead, thus communes with +himself: + + "I sit by the mossy mountain; on the top of the hill of winds. + One tree is rustling above me. Dark waves roll over the heath. + The lake is troubled below. The deer descend from the hill. No + hunter at a distance is seen. It is mid-day; but all is silent. + Sad are my thoughts alone. Didst thou but appear, O my love! a + wanderer on the heath! thy hair floating on the wind behind + thee; thy bosom heaving on the sight; thine eyes full of tears + for thy friends, whom the mist of the hill had concealed! Thee I + would comfort, my love, and bring thee to thy father's house!" + +To him mourning thus, the spirit of his dead love appears: + + "But is it she that there appears, like a beam of light on the + heath? bright as the moon in autumn, as the sun in a + summer-storm, comest thou, O maid, over rocks, over mountains to + me? She speaks: but how weak her voice! like the breeze in the + reeds of the lake. + + "'Alone I am, O Shilric! alone in the winter-house. With grief + for thee I fell. Shilric, I am pale in the tomb.' + + "She fleets, she sails away; as mist before the wind! and wilt + thou not stay, Vinvela? Stay and behold my tears! fair thou + appearest, Vinvela! fair thou wast, when alive! + + "By the mossy mountain I will sit; on the top of the hill of + winds. When mid-day is silent around, O talk with me, Vinvela! + come on the light-winged gale! on the breeze of the desert, + come! Let me hear thy voice, as thou passest, when mid-day is + silent around.'" + +The readers of the eighteenth century did not stay to consider whether +the foregoing was, or was not, a genuine antique: it suited their taste +admirably. Rousseau had brought sentimentalism into favour; the "return +to nature" was a kind of creed with the French philosophers: these +facts aided greatly in causing the epidemic of Ossianism that overran +Europe. + +I should not like to be condemned to read nothing but Ossian for a year. +The short staccato sentences, the difficulty of getting hold of anything +definite amid so many moonbeams, gliding ghosts, whistling reeds, and +feasts of shells, has a very debilitating effect on the mind. There is +too much weeping: one is constantly saying with Tennyson, "Tears, idle +tears, I know not what they mean." Yet, no one can dip into Macpherson +without being rewarded by some phrase of an impressive or refreshing +kind, _e.g._:-- + + "Thou art with the years that are gone; thou fadest on my soul." + + "Why dost thou build the hall, son of the winged days?" + + "Her steps were like the music of songs; she saw the youth and + loved him. He was the stolen sigh of her soul." + + "Why does Ossian sing? Soon shall he lie in the narrow house, + and no bard shall raise his fame." + + "When shall it be morn in the grave to bid the slumberer wake?" + + "Mixed with the murmur of waters rose the voice of aged men, who + called the forms of night to aid them in the war." + + "Autumn is dark on the mountains; grey mist rests on the hills." + + +AT THE FOOT O' BENNACHIE. + +I have on several occasions, during the last year or two, visited that +part of Aberdeenshire which is immediately under the glorious ridge of +Bennachie. Like all lovers of ballad lore, I know by heart the poem of +the little wee man who had such prowess, and who invited the poet to go +with him to his green bower. After seeing magnificent examples of +dancing, the poet found himself lying in the mist at the foot of +Bennachie:-- + + "Out went the lichts, on cam' the mist, + Leddies nor mannie mair could I see; + I turned aboot, and gave a look, + I was just at the foot o' Bennachie." + +The exquisite little ballad from which I quote is calculated to raise +expectations of beauty which the picturesque surroundings of Bennachie +are well able to satisfy. Great tracts of Aberdeenshire are flat, +treeless, and painful in their monotony; in winter, great gusts sweep +the cold plains, and make driving or walking a trying ordeal; the +country is thinly peopled, and the impression of the visitor is that, in +some districts, railway stations are more numerous than villages. Round +Bennachie, however, the scenery is most pleasant and picturesque. The +villages of Oyne and Insch, in which hospitality to strangers is a +religion, are beautifully placed and well-foliaged all around. The +region is, indeed, one of romance, and the little brook of Gadie ripples +on in the radiance and glamour of pathetic song. + + +HARLAW. + +Those who consider, like Ruskin, that the stories of the past add no +inconsiderable item to the beauty of a landscape, as it appears to the +eye and intelligence of modern observers, will not fail to remember the +momentous issues decided at no great distance from the foot of +Bennachie, in 1411. Teutonic and Celtic Scotland came to grips at +Harlaw, near by:-- + + "The Hielandmen, wi' their lang swords, + They laid on us fu' sair; + And they drave back our merry men + Three acres' breadth and mair. + + . . . . . . . . . . + + Gin anybody speer at ye + For them we took awa', + Ye may tell them plain and very plain, + They're sleeping at Harlaw." + +Burton, in his _History of Scotland_, declares that the check given to +Donald of the Isles at Harlaw, was a greater relief to Scotland than +even Bannockburn was. If the Stuart kings, hard pressed as they were by +England on the south, had been threatened by a formidable Celtic +sovereignty on the north, Holyrood might have been in ruins a good many +centuries earlier. I am not going to shock my Highland friends by saying +it was a good thing for the country that Donald, with the remnant of his +plaids and claymores, had to retreat to the misty straths and islands of +the west. The coalition of Celt and Teuton has taken place in an +unostentatious way, to the advantage of both races: Macfadyen does not +now, as in the days of Dunbar, bide "_far norrart in a neuk_;" he has +come to the Lowlands long ago, and rarely goes North, except on holiday. +And the language, which to the finical ears of James Fourth's +poet-laureate, seemed too terrible even for the devil to tolerate, has +come south, too, and has a chair all to itself in the University of +Edinburgh. _Time_, says Sophocles, _is a god who performs difficult +things with ease_. + +Mention of Harlaw suggests a comic tale told to the credit of the +Provost of Inverness. That gentleman, on being threatened with a +predatory visit from Donald in 1400, took the remarkable plan of sending +an ample supply of Inverness whisky into the Celtic camp. The men of +Lewis and Skye tackled the liquid bounty with great glee, and soon were +in a state of maudlin intoxication. The wily Provost meanwhile collected +a force and attacked Donald's men, who (as they magnified the attacking +host to _double its real numbers_) were easily scared and routed. At +Harlaw, eleven years later, the Provost of Aberdeen, evidently a man who +lacked the resource of the chief magistrate of Inverness, was killed, +and 500 men with him. + + +LOCHABER REIVERS. + +The predatory habits of the Highlanders gave great trouble to the +Aberdeenshire farmers _for fully three hundred years after Harlaw_. In +1689 a dozen wild Lochaber men came right down into the heart of +Aberdeenshire and lifted six score of black cattle. The fate of the +marauders is thus described by the author of _Johnny Gibb_:-- + +"They were pursued by a body of nearly 50 horsemen, well mounted and +armed, and each carrying bags of meal and other provisions, both for +their own support, and to offer in ransom for the cattle, if peaceful +negotiations could be carried through. On through the hills, over +marshes, rocks, and heather, the spirited horsemen followed, under +their leader; and guided by a herd-boy whom they encountered, they +traced the robbers by Loch Ericht side into the heart of their own +country. At nightfall, they came upon them at Dalunchart, encamped and +busily engaged roasting a portion of the flesh of one of the cattle they +had stolen. They offered, after some parley, to give each of the +freebooters a bag of meal and a pair of shoes in ransom for the cattle. +The Highlanders treated such an offer for cattle driven so far and with +so much trouble with contempt; the herd was gathered in, and the fight +began in deep earnest, the result being that the Lochaber men were all +shot down, killed or wounded, except three, who escaped unhurt to tell +the tale; and the cattle were, of course, recovered." + + +REAY AND TWICKENHAM. + +Perhaps the least attractive of the Scotch counties, in respect of +scenery, is Caithness. The North-going train enters it a little after +Helmsdale, and from thence to Thurso the journey is of a most dreary and +depressing character. He who wishes to see the romantic part of the +county should quit the train at Helmsdale, and go right to John o' +Groats by the shore road: thereafter he should proceed along the line of +the Pentland Firth to the dainty town of Thurso and to the village of +Reay, the citadel of the Mackays. The district round Reay is a +delightful one, and has great historical interest. + +Some good examples of the power assumed of old by the country ministers +are furnished by a perusal of the life of an eighteenth century +minister, the Rev. Alexander Pope, who was stationed for many years in +Reay. He was a huge giant of a man, and invariably carried about with +him a nail-studded cudgel that was a terror to sinners. A lout of a +fellow in his parish refused to come to church and get rebuked for an +infringement of the usual commandment. Mr. Pope sent three elders with +ropes to pinion the adulterer, hale him to church, and fasten him to a +conspicuous pew right under the pulpit. The minister cannonaded the +culprit to his heart's content, beginning thus: "_Shame, shame, son of a +beggar, where art thou now?_" + +Another parishioner who neglected family worship on the ground that he +could not make up a prayer, was severely taken to task by Mr. Pope, who +gave the man a year within which to manufacture one. At the end of the +twelvemonth, Mr. Pope called and requested to hear the prayer. The man +glibly rattled off a long succession of phrases that did not please the +minister at all. "That won't do," he said, "you must prepare over +again." "And is all my long labour to go for nothing," said the man, +"all my year's toil? No, no: rather than lose my labour, I'll _break the +prayer up and make two graces of it_." For the rest of his life, as the +story runs, he did actually employ the two parts of his mutilated prayer +as Grace before and Grace after meat respectively. Could there be a +finer example of natural thrift in the spiritual world? + +An Inverness journalist, Mr. Carruthers, wrote a life of the great poet, +Alexander Pope, in which occurs the following curious note respecting +the minister of Reay, just mentioned: "The northern Alexander Pope +entertained a profound admiration for his illustrious namesake of +England; and it is a curious and well-ascertained fact that the simple +enthusiastic clergyman, in the summer of 1732, rode on his pony all the +way from Caithness to Twickenham, in order to pay the poet a visit. The +latter felt his dignity a little touched by the want of the necessary +pomp and circumstance with which the minister presumed to approach his +domicile; but after the ice of ceremony had in some degree been broken, +and their intellects had come in contact, the poet became interested, +and a friendly feeling was established between them. Several interviews +took place, and the poet presented his good friend and namesake, the +minister of Reay, with a copy of the subscription edition of the +'Odyssey' in five volumes quarto." + +A grandson of the Reay minister, a Mr. James Campbell of Edinburgh, gave +a description to Mr. Carruthers of a snuff-box which the poet had +presented to the Rev. Mr. Pope. A series of letters to the _Northern +Ensign_, in April, 1883, brought out the information that a Wick +gentleman, Mr. Duncan, had in his possession two volumes of de Vertot's +_History of the Roman Republic_, bearing an inscription to the effect +that they had been presented by the poet of Twickenham to his northern +namesake. + +It has been suggested that the poet and the minister were distant +blood-relations. Mr. Campbell, alluded to above, said that "the two +Popes claimed kin." In any case, the friendship of the two men, one +living on the shores of the wild Pentland Firth, in sight of the +Orkneys, and the other not far "from streaming London's central roar," +is pleasant to think of. In 1737, Pope wrote the lines-- + + "Loud as the wolves on Orca's stormy steep + Howl to the roarings of the northern deep," + +adding, in a note, that he refers to "the farthest northern promontory +of Scotland, opposite to the Orcades." Perhaps his mind reverted to the +burly incumbent of Reay as he penned the note. + + +ROB DONN. + +The little township of Reay is less famous for the Rev. Mr. Pope's +incumbency than for the fact of Rob Donn, the satirical Gaelic bard, +being a native of the district. The author of the _Dunciad_ is the +greatest satirist in British Literature; Rob Donn is supreme among +Gaelic bards for the sharpness of his tongue and his clever way of +showing up his contemporaries to ridicule. He was in the habit of giving +praise to people in order to make his satire more biting. Praise on his +tongue was compared to oil on the edge of a razor: the cut was all the +deeper. Rob, although a master of language, was unable to read or write, +so that though he "lisped in numbers"--he began to compose at the age of +three--he could not say, like Pope: + + "Why did I _write_? What sin to me unknown + _Dipt me in ink_, my parents' or my own?" + +Blackie speaks thus of him: "Rob Donn, according to all accounts, though +outwardly of such fair respectability that he attained an honour, +unknown to Robert Burns, of acting as an elder of the kirk, was not +always so chaste in his words as he might seem to be in his deeds; he +took his plash as a poet, and not always in the clearest waters; +besides, he had a terrible lash at his command, which he could wield +with an effect at times that paid little respect to the bounds set in +such matters by Christian charity, or even by social politeness. The +consequence has been that much of the wit and humour of his pieces, +however telling for its immediate purpose, has lost half of its interest +by the disappearance of the persons to whom it referred. These personal +allusions also import an additional difficulty into the language which +he uses, and cause his productions, however belauded, to be less known +amongst Highlanders generally than those of Duncan Ban and Dugald +Buchanan. Severe moralists also very properly object to the undue +license and occasional coarseness of his verses."[33] + + [33] Rob was at one time in the army, for every Mackay has the + fighting instinct in him. (Reay is one of the few townships in + the North that possess a drill-hall and a military instructor. It + is impossible adequately to describe the consternation in the + Mackay country at the time of our South African reverses. + Everyone was in a fury and it was felt there was urgent need for + the Mackays to straighten out matters at the seat of war. It was + at this time that the drill-hall was built in Reay. Many of the + young men went to the front as volunteers, and if the war had + lasted much longer, there would have been few Mackays left in + Sutherlandshire.) + + +REV. MR. MILL OF DUNROSSNESS. + +Before concluding the present chapter, I should like to refer briefly to +a valuable and amusing book (brought under my notice in Shetland) that +furnishes details of the life of Mr. Mill, minister of Dunrossness from +1742 till 1805. Mr. Mill's special talent was his unrivalled power of +exorcism: he was a strenuous foe to the devil in every shape and form, +and his life was one long battle with the Prince of Darkness. The latter +was constantly bringing into play all manner of gins, traps, and wiles +to confound the uncompromising clergyman; but, on a calm review of the +evidence, one cannot but admit that the devil was far inferior in +intelligence to his opponent. + +On one occasion, Satan had the effrontery to come into Dunrossness +Church and take his seat at the Communion Table. Mr. Mill at once +recognised his life-long adversary, and began to speak in all the deep +languages, and, last of all, in Gaelic, and that beat him altogether. +Satan went off like a flock of "doos" over the heads of the people, many +of whom swooned. "As a permanent reminder of the hostility cherished +against him by the Arch-Enemy, it was said that Mr. Mill always had the +wind in his face. One day he came up to officiate at Sandwick, in the +teeth, as usual, of a pretty stiff breeze. An ordinary person would +naturally have expected the wind to be on his back on the return +journey. But during the service the wind veered round. Mr. Mill's only +comment, as he started for home, was, 'It's all he can do.' In one +respect, Mr. Mill benefited by the penalty of always having the wind in +his face, for on his very numerous sea-journeys he could always secure +a favourable breeze _by sitting with his back to the head of the boat_." + +The following additional tale from Mr. Mill's biography only brings into +more striking relief the resource of the minister in all emergencies. +"One day a very respectable gentleman entered the house of a tailor in +Channerwick, and ordered a suit of clothes to be made out of cloth which +he brought with him. The tailor's delight at having such a fine +gentleman for a customer was, however, turned into perplexity and fear +as he opened up the cloth and found that the colour kept constantly +changing. He at once sent for the minister and laid the matter before +him. He was advised to spread a sheet on the floor and cut the cloth +upon it, so that none of the clippings should be scattered about the +room, and the minister said that he would be present to meet the +stranger when the latter called to get the clothes. The day came, and +when the stranger entered the house, Mr. Mill stepped forward to meet +him. A terrible controversy ensued, and the respectable-looking +gentleman was swept out of the house in a cloud of blue, sulphurous +flame. It is not recorded if he took the new suit with him. A clue to +his identification was furnished by his accidentally striking his foot +against the door-step as he departed. The result of the collision was +that a mark as of a cloven hoof was imprinted on the stone." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +METRICAL AND SUPPLEMENTARY. + + I. Arrival of the Mail-train at a Highland Station. + II. Defoe, the Father of Journalism. + III. A Village Toper. + IV. A Reverend Hellenist. + V. Antigone. + VI. Shadows of the Manse. + VII. "My Heart's in the Highlands." + VIII. Saddell, Kintyre. + IX. Springtime in Perthshire. + X. Dr. George Macdonald's Creed. + XI. Abbotsford. + XII. Carlyle. + XIII. Shelley. + XIV. Picture in an Inn. + XV. Rain-storm at Loch Awe. + XVI. Kinlochewe. + XVII. General Wade. + XVIII. Sound of Raasay in December. + XIX. Les Neiges d' Antan. + XX. The Islands of the Ness. + XXI. American Tourist Loquitur. + XXII. The Miners. + XXIII. In a Country Graveyard. + XXIV. No Place like Home. + + +I. + +ARRIVAL OF THE MAIL-TRAIN AT A HIGHLAND STATION. + + "_Hark! 'tis the twanging horn._" So Cowper sang + Of the slow post-boy by the flooded Ouse; + In different fashion now the great world's news + Goes to each nook of Britain. The harangue + Of politician; great events that hang + In Fortune's hand, with magic speed diffuse + From London's centre to the furthest Lews, + Their tingling rumour and resounding clang. + Daily along yon track of curving steels + Comes to this Highland clachan, Watt's machine, + Rolling in triumph on its iron wheels, + And bringing letter, journal, magazine, + To kilted Celts with collies at their heels + And frivolous tourists from the putting-green. + + +II. + +DEFOE[34] + +(FATHER OF JOURNALISM). + + Father of journalists! illustrious liar! + Untiring wielder of the nimblest quill + That ever shed the stanchless inky rill + Upon the virgin whiteness of the quire. + What full and varied stores of gold and mire, + Magnificence and squalor, good and ill, + Prayers, curses, loyalty and treason fill + Thy books! But that which children most admire + Of all thy hundred volumes, is the one + Fated for ever more to charm mankind + From the far Orient to the Setting Sun. + Prompt-witted Daniel! thou has left behind + Upon the Sands of Time, distinctly traced, + One footmark that can never be effaced. + + [34] Let me here pay a tribute to the marked excellence and + literary skill of the newspapers of provincial Scotland. These + are very numerous--even Ailsa Craig has a sheet of its own, _The + Ailsa Craig Banner_. + + +III. + +A VILLAGE TOPER. + + John loved strong waters and ne'er stirred his feet + Abroad in leafy spring or summer's heat, + Autumnal breeze or winter's rimy chill, + Unsolaced by the nectar of the still. + Spirits came always kindly to his lips, + And time he measured not by hours but "nips." + Teetotalers to him were curse and gall, + Grim Banquos at the world's wide festival, + Men, whom a weird and fate-ordaind bale, + Had smitten with the hate of cakes and ale, + A soda-water, syphon-squirting crew, + Guilty of treason to the revenue: + Their lurid language and their unctuous warnings, + Their moral-pointings and their tale-adornings, + And, worst of all, their shameful _waste of ink_ + In signing pledges to abstain from drink, + Proved them a witless and a churlish band, + Unfit to dwell in any Christian land. + + +IV. + +A REVEREND HELLENIST. + + In that old ivied manse exists + A scholar, wrinkled, bent, and gray, + His student lamp gleams through the mists + And twinkles on till break of day. + + This sage is wedded to his books, + And Sultan-like his harem's full, + He dotes upon them in their nooks + With love and joy that never cool. + + No wonder that his back is bent, + Or that his eye has mystic glows, + He pores on pages redolent + Of love and love's undying rose. + + No earthly maiden, fresh and sweet, + Could please his fancy half so well + As a Greek nymph with twinkling feet + Skipping in some Arcadian dell. + + +V. + +ANTIGONE + +(READ IN A HIGHLAND MANSE). + + A form of beauty blent with hardihood, + Majestic as Olympus wreathed in snows, + What modern pages of romance disclose + A radiant maiden of such dauntless mood! + Yet, when the tyrant strives with outrage rude + The unyielding maid in darkness to enclose, + Then, only then, her burning heart outflows + In anguished cries of love, but unsubdued + By baser throbbings. Ah! that nuptial hymn + Unsung! that bond in death! All men agree + To crown thee in that chamber dark and dim + With love's immortal wreath, Antigon. + Since love and duty in thy death combine, + An immortality of praise is thine. + + +VI. + +SHADOWS OF THE MANSE. + +I. + + Lo! we have him of shaven face + And curls of long and lustrous hair, + Who breathes an atmosphere of grace + And has a wondrous gift in prayer. + You'd ne'er suspect to see him there, + Shaking his head in solemn guise, + _The college life of deil-may-care + Diversion that behind him lies_. + + +II. + + And then the little starveling pope + Who strives to make his sermons new + By stringing florid scraps of hope + And faith and love to dazzle you: + From Stopford Brooke a phrase or two, + A gleaming line from Arnold's page, + Whole screeds of Browning and a few + Stolen thunders from the Chelsea sage. + + +III. + + Perhaps the most diverting wight + Is he who sees in Holy Writ + Old Jewish fables gross and trite + To semblance of a system knit-- + Fables for modern taste unfit, + Until _he_ cleans the dross away + And shows the tiny little bit + Of gold that gleams amid the clay. + + +IV. + + But worst of all is he who jests, + Or tries to jest, in pulpit gown, + Lord, save us from such holy pests + Who so unseemly act the clown + And pull the tabernacle down + To something worse than pantomime: + On all such zanies let us frown + And scourge them both in prose and rhyme. + + +VII. + +"MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS." + + Puzzling over musty tomes, + What a life to lead, + While each gay companion roams + Where his fancies lead! + + One beside a shady pool + Sweeps the wave for hours, + Comes home with his basket full, + When the evening lowers. + + Some more energetic wights + Leave the level land, + Mountaineer on dizzy heights, + Alpenstock in hand. + + Others boat in sunny bays + Where bright sands are seen + Glimmering amid a maze + Of tangled flowers marine. + + Luck to all is what I wish + With a meed of fun, + I'll row, mountaineer, and fish, + When _your_ sports are done. + + +VIII. + +SADDELL + +(KINTYRE). + + Fresh gusts of wind ripple the ocean's face, + And the green slopes, after the night's soft rain, + Glitter beneath the blue. + + Most glorious are the sea-descending glens, + Vivid with countless ferns, and with the blaze + Of sun-enamoured broom. + + The dark, tip-tilted rocks of cruel mood, + Show a stern beauty through the creamy foam + That flecks their rugged flanks. + + See, from this hill-top, how the blazing Sound + Is marked by moving shadows of the clouds + That skim aloft in air. + + Through the clear radiance of the freshened morn, + The eye can see the far farm-windows gleam + Up on the Arran hills. + + +IX. + +SPRINGTIME IN PERTHSHIRE. + + Returning Springtime fills the woods with song-- + The ring-dove, sick for love, is cooing sweet; + The lark, scorning the daisies, soars to greet + The sun, while the brown swarms of bees among + The flowery meadows skim in haste along. + Once more the young year glories in the feat + Of driving winter off with vernal heat + And tepid sap luxuriantly strong. + Winter has drawn aloof his snowy powers + To the high peaks that domineer the plain, + And, like a vanquished leader, grimly lowers, + From a safe distance, on the victor's reign. + E'er many months have passed, his arrowy showers + And gusty cohorts will descend again. + + +X. + +DR. GEORGE MACDONALD'S CREED[35] + +(WRITTEN AT CULLEN). + + God will not suffer that a single one + Of His own creatures, in His image made, + Should die, and in irrevocable shade + Lie evermore--neglected and undone. + It is not thus a father treats his son, + And those whose folly credits it, degrade + God's love and fatherhood, that never fade, + By lies as base as devils ever spun. + Man's love is but a pale reflex of God's, + And God _is_ love, and never will condemn + Beyond remission--though He school with rods-- + His children, but will one day comfort them. + Dives will have his drink at last, and stand + Among the faithful ones at God's right hand. + + [35] Reprinted (by kind permission) from the _Scotsman_. + + +XI. + +ABBOTSFORD. + + "Dryden and Scott, men of a giant seed!" + So said I to myself, gazing upon + The pictured countenance of Glorious John, + In Abbotsford, hard by the storied Tweed. + These twain were brothers, kin in mind and deed: + Old England never had a brawnier son + Than Dryden; and in fervid Scotland none + Better than Scott exemplified the breed. + After five centuries of blood and hate, + Britain is one leal land from north to south, + From gusty Thurso to St. Michael's Mount, + I therefore, Scot and Briton, am elate + To think that from Sir Walter's golden mouth + Dryden's career received the fit account. + + +XII. + +CARLYLE + +(AT ECCLEFECHAN). + + The ploughman in the loamy furrow sings, + The sailor whistles as he reefs the sail, + Blithe is the smith as the blows fall like hail + From his huge hammer, and the stithy rings. + Work is the sole and sovereign balm that brings + Peace to the torpid soul when doubts assail, + And sickening pleasures are of no avail + To lull the torture of affliction's stings. + Give me the work I love, the work I feel + God in His Heaven has willed that I should do, + And you may offer the whole commonweal, + Lands, mansions, jewels, gold, and temples too, + Vainly to me. By strenuous work alone + Man mounts on Jacob's ladder to God's throne. + + +XIII. + +SHELLEY.[36] + + 'Twas but a passing visit that he paid + To the gross air of earth, this mystic seer, + The tyrannies of sense were too severe + For one of clay more fine than Adam's made. + The inhumanity of man, the trade + Of coining gold from the serf's groan and tear, + The galling fetters of religious fear, + And vain ecclesiastic masquerade + Tortured his gentle soul, and made his life + One bitter struggle with the powers that be: + Yet not in vain he lived; his manful strife + With all the deadening despotisms we see + Will ring along the centuries, until + Good has her final triumph over ill. + + [36] Suggested by a copy of his poems in a West Highland + bookcase. + + +XIV. + +PICTURE IN AN INN. + + A wood of pines through which the setting sun + Pours from the western sky a parting flame, + Beside the shore, a church called by the name + Of some old saint whose pious race was run + Long ere schismatic Luther had begun + To work the Pope and his disciples shame. + In earnest-seeming talk, a knight and dame + Sit in a painted galley, rowed by one + Whose back is to the setting orb of day. + The soldier and his mate, their faces lit + With all love's animation and the ray + Of the down-lapsing globe of crimson, sit + Together in the gilded vessel's prow, + And there will sit for evermore, as now. + + +XV. + +RAIN-STORM AT LOCH AWE. + + The topmost mountain-snows are melting fast, + See, how the swollen waters hurry down + In perpendicular runnels from the crown + Of every wreathd hill. The train has past + Beside a dark stream into which are cast + A hundred huddling rills whose foam is brown + With pilfered soil. No dweller in a town + Ever beheld such manifold and vast + Torrents of roaring water. Each small isle + Spaced on the loch, glooms through the hanging haze + Like a dream-picture, and for many a mile + Beneath those clouds that lean upon the braes + Encompassing Loch Awe, the watery plain + Is pricked with million lances of the rain. + + +XVI. + +KINLOCHEWE. + + The mist, retreating, gems the leaves with dew, + Soft blows the breeze along the fragrant meads, + A little brawling burn runs through the reeds + And ripples away under the cloudless blue. + I never saw the world so fair to view, + For Spring has riven old Winter's funeral weeds + And given new sap and vigour to the seeds + That lay inanimate the cold months through. + Old man! with jaded limbs and wrinkled brow, + That walkest feebly in this lenient sun + Like a day-dream, thy life is winter now. + But life and death in ceaseless cycles run, + And tireless Time and Heaven have in store + For thee a myriad resurrections more. + + +XVII. + +GENERAL WADE. + + Houses are fewer here than milestones are: + We stand a thousand feet aloft in air + Upon a bouldered hillside stern and bare, + Down which the roadway serpentines afar. + There are no clouds in the wide blue to mar + The passage of the sun's imperial glare + Over a dreary-stretching landscape, where + Rough winds hold riot all the calendar. + Who that has footed o'er these firm-knit paths + But lauds the men whose strenuous axe and spade + Drove roads through the wild glens and hilly straths + Under the generalship of tireless Wade! + On the safe tracks behind them, commerce came + The unruly spirit of the Celt to tame. + + +XVIII. + +THE SOUND OF RAASAY IN DECEMBER. + + A snowy gust is whirling down the strait, + Raasay is gleaming ghostly to the sight, + And, robed in lawn, from sea to topmost height + Skye and her lordly mountains stand in state. + Ever from heaven falls the silent weight + Of wavering flakes that dim the stars of night. + Our gallant little boat with all the might + Of the wild-hissing surges holds debate, + Plunging and struggling, till at last we see + A spacious haven, sudden and serene + And, high aloft, the twinkle of Portree. + At once the winds are hushed, the moon is seen + To free her face from cloudy drift, and fill + With silver light the clefts of Essie Hill. + + +XIX. + +LES NEIGES D'ANTAN. + +I. + + Where is Macfee, that valiant preacher, + Gifted with voice, so harsh and loud, + Aye, louder and harsher than any screecher + Of birds that sail on the black storm-cloud? + And his beadle John, with back so bowed, + Where is _he_ that had never a peer? + Is he too rolled in his mortal shroud? + But where are the snows of yester-year? + +II. + + Donald the Gay, that steered his steamer + Many a year through the Sound of Mull, + He that was never a Celtic dreamer, + But a captain of captains masterful: + O Death, thou madest the world more dull + When you nailed _him_ down in his narrow bier, + And sent his ghost into Charon's hull; + But where are the snows of yester-year? + +III. + + Duncan, the bard of rocky Staffin, + Away in the north of rainy Skye: + Has _he_ given over his rimes and daffin', + In the mould of the bleak kirkyard to lie? + His cot was built where the sea-gulls fly, + And his misty isle to his soul was dear; + Ere his song is finished, the bard must die; + But where are the snows of yester-year? + +IV. + + And Dougal, who carried King Edward's mails + Every day o'er the moor and heather, + Scorning the chill of the winter gales, + And the ten-mile walk in the sultry weather: + Has _he_ too come to the end of his tether + And gone to the ghosts with all his gear, + His whistle, his satchel and strap of leather? + But where are the snows of yester-year? + +V. + + Prince, they have gone from the regions that knew them, + Gone at the summons that none can resist, + Praise and every honour be to them, + They did their best and they will be missed. + We, too, shall soon be erased from the list + Of workers below in this mortal sphere, + And be no more to those that exist + Than the vanished snows of yester-year. + + +XX. + +THE ISLANDS OF THE NESS. + + A fairyland of trees and leafy bowers + Where one may sit and dream the hours away, + Or 'mid the devious walks and alleys stray, + While perfume rises from a world of flowers, + The girdling river, swollen with upland showers, + Sends rippling round to every creek and bay + The vagrant branches of his water-way; + Then gathering up his current's parted powers, + Swiftly-majestic in a broadening bed, + He glistens on by many a chiming spire, + And past the castle's pennoned turrets red, + Till he attain the goal of his desire, + And into the salt sea exulting throws + His subsidy of rains and melted snows. + + +XXI. + +AMERICAN TOURIST LOQUITUR + +(AT BERRIEDALE, CAITHNESS). + + If I had wealth like Vanderbilt + Or some such millionaire, + I'd live in Scotland, don a kilt, + And _pay to prove_ my forbears spilt + Their blood in forays there. + + I'd buy a picturesque estate + Beside the ocean's flow, + With knolls of heather at my gate, + And pine-clad hills to dominate, + The ferny dells below. + + I'd be a father to the folk + That laboured on the soil, + With old and young I'd crack my joke, + Drink with them in their thirst, and smoke + The pipe that lightens toil. + + For hens I'd have a special run, + For ducks a special pool, + My calves should frolic in the sun, + My sheep should be surpassed by none + Whose backs are clothed with wool. + + Although I'm not a Walton quite, + Betweenwhiles I should try + To lure the finny tribe to bite + (At the right time, in the right light,) + My simulated fly. + + When winter heaped his rattling hail + High on the window sill, + With pipe and wassail, rime and tale, + I'd never miss the nightingale + Or cuckoo on the hill. + + Nay, musing by the ingle-lowe + With summer in my brain, + I'd cloth with leaves the frozen bough + And all the ice-bound brooks endow + With tinkling life again.[37] + + [37] Berriedale, which moved the American to commemorative song, + is on the Caithness shore, and there the Duke of Portland has + one of his numerous residences. The Duke's seat is high up on + the hills and behind it is a mountain of grim aspect which + serves for a deer-forest. At Berriedale, the road traversed by + the coach is simply appalling: boards marked _Dangerous_ + forewarn all wheel-men that risks cannot be taken with impunity. + An honest descent can be easily coped with, but here the road to + the glen is not merely steep, it is as lacking in + straightforwardness as the links of Forth. Once down at the + level of the village, the breeze no longer blows fresh and + chilly, but subsides into a quiet air, grateful with the odour + of flowers. Passengers are requested to walk up the + corresponding hill to a level equal to the height of the road + before the interruption of the terrible Berriedale chasm. When + the ascent is reached, one has a view of unsurpassed splendour. + The wooded Wye, which Wordsworth sang so rapturously and which + he saw with his mind's eye in the dinsome town, has no landscape + to compare in grandeur and beauty with the country round + Berriedale, viewed from this eminence. Hills of richest green, + diversified with purple heather; a back-ground of wild bog and + mountain; blue sea; and great banks of cloud shepherded over the + heights by the mighty winds. + + +XXII. + +THE MINERS. + + The afternoon is cool and calm, + Near by flashes the mighty sea, + Inland rise green, dewy hills, + Crowned with eye-bewitching trees. + + Suddenly the eye is amazed and terrified, + A hideous procession sordid and grimy + Of men and boys, slaves of the coal-pit, + Is seen on the road, shaming the daylight. + + All the day long they work in the darkness, + Far from the songs of the birds and the sunshine, + Now they return to their sordid villages, + Ill-smelling rows of comfortless cottages. + + The rich and dainty ladies of fashion + Stand aloof from these swart coal-hewers, + Are ready to swoon as the air is poisoned + With odours of subterranean foulness. + + Coarse of look, and of speech far coarser! + Laughter loud with no merriment in it! + No more soul than the beasts that perish! + These are the men despised for their toiling. + + +XXIII. + +IN A COUNTRY GRAVEYARD.[38] + + Man dreads the tomb, but dreads oblivion more; + He fears, when death has loosed the load of years, + His name shall cease to sound in mortal ears, + And, in the dusty darkness, all be o'er. + Some o'er the scrolls of ample science pore, + Tome after tome the nimble authors write, + And gain a meed of glory: soon the night + Comes: the author with his laurel disappears, + The painting fades, the marble busts decay, + The kingly structures fall in ruin down, + Devouring Time consumes the artist's prize, + The centuries like lightning pass away, + Or hurrying billows: emperor and clown + Sink with the myriads in impartial clay. + + [38] Suggested by a French poem of Monsieur Desessarts, entitled + _Se Survivre_. + + +XXIV. + +NO PLACE LIKE HOME. + + Where'er these wandering footsteps lead me to, + Peak-dominated glen, hill where the sheep + Graze in the sun, mountains that ever keep + A solemn guard o'er lakes profound and blue, + Or undulating tracts of treeless view; + No matter if the rain and whirlwind sweep + The landscape, or the gladdening sunshine peep + Through muffled vapours that the winds undo; + Let it be night speckled with myriad fires, + Clear dawn, hot noon, or cool of dying day; + Be it in cities with their chiming spires, + Or country fields with fragrant ricks of hay; + Ever the voices of my hearth I hear, + And muse on those to me for ever dear. + + + + +INDEX + +(Chiefly of Proper Names). + + +Aberdeen, 217 + +Acharacle, 21, 66 + +Achnasheen, 11 + +Ainsworth, Mr., 69 + +Ajax, 89 + +Aliens, 53 + +Alness, 75 + +Altnacealgach, 38 + +Anacreon, 181 + +Anglers, 36 + +Anecdotes of Commercials, 255-277 + +Appin, 311 + +Ardeonaig, 78 + +Ardersier, 42 + +Argyll, Duke of, 25 + +Arnisdale, 190 + +Arnold, 130 + +Arpafeelie, 158 + +Asquith, Mr., 15 + +Auldearn, 75 + +Avebury, Lord, 198 + + +Bagpipes, 66 + +Bain, Professor, 55 + +Ballads, 99 + +Banff theorist, 107 + +Barrie, Mr., 66 + +Battle of Brunanburh, 131 + +Beauly, 75 + +Ben Eay, 22 + +Ben-na-Ceallich, 28 + +Bennachie, 329 + +Ben Screel, 191 + +Ben Slioch, 22 + +Beowulf, 131, 246 + +Beveridge, Dr., 301 + +Biggar, 98 + +Biblia abiblia, 109 + +Blackie, Professor, 19, 56 + +Books, second-hand, 112 + +Borders, 96, 99 + +Boswell, 306, 313 + +Brahan Seer, 291 + +Bressay, 221, 229, 230, 233 + +Broadford, 28, 55 + +Browning, 306 + +Buchanan, 61 + +Bullers of Buchan, 220 + +Burgess, Mr., 227 + +Burke, 68 + +Burns, 82, 144, 308 + +Burton, 209 + + +Caithness father, a, 254 + +Captains, 24 + +Catholics, 153-155 + +Chairmen, 85 + +Chartists, 54 + +Coll, 26, 69 + +Columbus, 88 + +Commercials (Chap. VI.), 255-277 + +Competing School-subjects, 215 + +Congested Districts Board, 34 + +Connaught, H.R.H. Duke of, 42 + +Connington, 119 + +Corelli, Miss Marie, 44 + +Cowper, 118 + +Craignish, 168-9 + +Crofters' cottages, 29-30 + +Cromarty, 12 + +Cullen, 47 + +Cunningsburgh, 239 + + +Dancing, 21 + +Dandie Dinmont, 99 + +Defoe, 112 + +Depopulation, 71, 189 + +Dingwall, 44 + +Dixon, Mr., 76, 278 + +Doctors, 35 + +Dodger, an artful, 173 + +Dominies, insular, 180-1 + +Dowden, Professor, 124 + +Drimnin, 167 + +Dryden, 118 + +Dunbar, 218 + +Dungeon lecture, a, 92 + +Dunvegan, 28, 61, 292 + +Durness, 11 + + +Educational (Chap. IV.), 180-216 + +Education Department, 16, 141, 185 + +Eigg, 26 + +Emigration, 73-4 + +Episcopalians, 156-8 + +Essayists, 106 + +Established Church, 145 + +Ethical teaching, 141-3 + + +Fairies, 248, 285 + +Fair Isle, 220, 250 + +Faith Mission, 25 + +Feeding the Hungry, 186, 194 + +_Fernaig MS._, 197 + +Fishing season, 253 + +Fishwives, 249 + +Fladibister, 239 + +Fort George, 42 + +Foulah, 250 + +French Literature, 126 + +Frere, Miss, 39, 40 + + +Gairloch, 278 + +Gaelic, 17, 86 + +Geologist, an ordained, 170 + +Germany, made in, 218 + +Gibbon, 300 + +Gigha, 175 + +Gipsies, 191 + +Glasgow Fair, 96 + +_Glasgow Herald_, quoted, 20, note + +Glenelg, 191 + +Golspie, 192 + +Grange, 299 + +Grantown, 13 + +Greatness, real, 81 + +Greek, 124 + + +Haaf-words, 246 + +Halsbury, Lord, 235 + +Harlaw, 330 + +Harris, 39 + +Hector, Red, 320 + +Hermits, 223 + +Hobbes, 106 + +Holyoake, Mr., 60 + +Homer, 62 + +Horace, 12, 115 + +Hotels, 36 + +Howlers, 209-214 + + +Inspectors, 252 + +Inveraray, 307 + +Inverness, 48, 58 + +Iona, 309 + +Islay, 79 + +Isle Ornsay, 191 + + +Jakobsen, Dr., 245 + +Jamieson, Dr., 103 + +Johnson, 29, 43, 294, 306 + +Josephus, 111 + +Jura, 195 + + +Killin, 78 + +Kilmartin, 76 + +Kiltarlity, 75 + +Kingussie, 326 + +Kinlochewe, 22 + + +Lanark, 97 + +Lang, Mr. Andrew, 17, 37 + +Latin, 204 + +Lerwick, 221-2 + +Letter-boats, 299 + +Lewis, 32, 33 + +Libraries in schools, 16 + +Liddesdale, 99 + +Literature, 83 + +Lochaber, 332 + +Lochaline, 168 + +Lochbuie, 304 + +Loch Broom, 286 + +Loch Eck, 79 + +Loch Fyne, 317 + +Loch Hourn, 190 + +Lochmaddy, 36, 40 + +Loch Maree, 283 + +Loch Ranza, 196 + +Loubet, M., 118 + + +Mallaig, 32 + +Mary, the maid of the inn, 258 + +Martin, Sir Theodore, 119 + +_Men of Skye_, 150 + +Military, 42 + +Mill, Rev. Mr., 338-9 + +Miller, an ordained, 172 + +Milton, 154 + +Miners, 49, 51, 52 + +Mod, the, 18 + +Model minister, a, 170 + +Moderates, the, 144-5 + +Moon, the, 77 + +M.P.'s, 69 + +Moray Firth, 46 + +Morar, 154 + +Morley, Lord, 118 + +Muck, 267 + +Munro, Dr. Neil, 44, 318 + +Murray, Sir James, 103 + +Music, 65-67, 141 + +Macallisters, etc., 318 + +Macbain, Dr., 58 + +M'Cheyne, 90 + +Macdonald, Dr. George, 48 + +Macdonald's gratitude, 313 + +Macdonald, Rev. Mr., 146 + +M'Gregors, the, 91 + +Macivors, 318 + +Mackays, the, 337 + +Macleod, 61 + + +Nicholson, Sheriff, 185 + +_Night Thoughts_, 64 + +Norse blood, 183, 225 + +"North, Christopher," 107, 167 + + +Olaf and his bride, 279 + +Old Parochials, 200 + +Ossian, 326-339 + +Ovid, 300 + + +Paisley, 89 + +Parish Councils, 187 + +Paul, St., 132 + +Peat-reek, 29 + +Peden, the prophet, 292 + +Peterhead, 220 + +Phillimore, Professor, 206, note + +Pigmentation, 133 + +Plymouth Brethren, 162-5 + +Poetry (Chap. VIII.), 340-367 + +Policemen, 23 + +Poolewe, 67, 76 + +Pope, 115, 119, 123, 127-9 + +Pope, Rev. Alexander, 334-6 + +Portknockie, 47 + +Portree, 27, 76 + +Portsoy, 46, 47 + +Postmen, 28 + +Prince Charlie, 44 + + +Quarff, 234 + + +Raasay, 26 + +Ramsay, Sir William, 207 + +_Rasmie's Bdie_, 227 + +Rats, 37 + +Reay, 333-6 + +"Red-riding Hood," 142 + +Religious books, 18 + +Rob Don, 337 + +Robertson, Mr. J. M., 41 + +"Rob Roy," 183 + +Romance and Augustanism, 127 + +Rosebery, Lord, 297 + +Rosehearty, 49 + +Rothes, 325 + +Royal Engineers, 69 + +Ruskin, 177 + +Russian merchant, a, 254 + + +Sabbath, the, 148 + +Saddell, 92 + +St. Kilda, 297 + +Salen, 90 + +Sandwick, 246 + +Saxon and Celt, 41, 131 + +Scalloway, 62 + +School Boards, 184 + +Science and Literature, 198 + +Scotch Dialect, 103 + +Scott, 84, 107, 183, 199, 312, 315 + +Sea-sickness, 31 + +Sermons in metre, 159-161 + +Session Records, 44 + +Shakespeare's Sonnets, 119 + +Shaws and Grants, 323 + +Shetlands (Chap. V.), 217-254 + +Sidlaws, 193 + +Skye, 28, 61 + +Sound of Sleat, 26 + +Spencer, 229 + +Spenser, 128 + +Staffin, 66 + +Stewart, Dugald, 208 + +Stornoway, 32-4 + +Strachur, 79 + +Suetonius, 113 + +Surprises, 195 + +Sutherland, Duchess of, 33 + + +Taisch, 290 + +Tarbolton, 102 + +Tannahill, 54, 90 + +Tea-drinking, 39 + +Tee-names, 47 + +Teeth, 40 + +Tennyson, 130 + +Tiree, 301 + +"Tom Eunan," 322 + +Trossachs, 315 + +Truants, 196 + + +Ullapool, 290 + + +Village halls, 75 + +Virgil, 24, 219 + + +Ward, Mrs. H., 182 + +War Office, 45 + +Wason, Mr. C., 250 + +Watson, Mr. William, 118, 218 + +Weaving, 53 + +Weir, Mr. Galloway, 15, 70 + +Whalsay, 193 + +Whiting Bay, 197 + +Wordsworth, 21, 128, 309 + + +Xenophon, 122 + + + * * * * * + + + Publisher & Bookseller + by + Special Appointment + To Her late Majesty + Queen Victoria. + + +A LIST OF BOOKS +PUBLISHED BY +ALEX. GARDNER, PAISLEY. + + _Aitken._--Love in Its Tenderness. By J. R. Aitken. 3s. 6d. + + _Anderson._--Morison-Grant.--Life, Letters, and Last Poems of + Lewis Morison-Grant. By Jessie Annie Anderson. 4s. 6d. + + _Anderson._--Verses at Random. By Thistle Anderson (Mrs. Herbert + Fisher). 2s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Dives' Wife, and other Fragments. By Thistle Anderson (Mrs. + Herbert Fisher). 2s. 6d. nett. + + _Anton._--The Flywheel: and What Keeps Us Steady. By Rev. Peter + Anton. 3s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Staying Power: Reconsiderations and Recreations. By Rev. + Peter Anton. 3s. 6d. nett. + + _A. O. M._--Two Brothers. By A. O. M. 2s. 6d. + + _Auld._--Lyrics of Labour and other Poems. By Thomas C. Auld. + + _Ayles._--Gillicolane. By Grueber Ayles. 4s. 6d. + + _Aytoun._--The Braes o' Balquhidder. By Douglas Aytoun. 6s. + + Ballads of the Scottish Border. With Introduction and Notes. 1s. + nett. + + _Ballingal._--A. Prince of Edom. By J. Ballingal, B.D. 2s. 6d. + + _Beatty._--The Secretar. By W. Beatty. 6s. + + ---- The Shadow of the Purple. By W. Beatty. 2s. 6d. + + "_Belinda's Husband._"--Plain Papers on Subjects Light and + Grave. By "Belinda's Husband." 2s. 6d. nett. + + _Beveridge._--Sma' Folk and Bairn Days. Translated from the + Norse by the Rev. John Beveridge, M.A., B.D. Second Edition. 3s. + 6d. + + _Blair._--The Paisley Thread Industry and the Men who Created + and Developed It. By Matthew Blair. 6s. nett. + + ---- The Paisley Shawl and the Men who Produced It. By Matthew + Blair. 7s. 6d. nett. + + _Brownlie._--Hymns of the Holy Eastern Church. Translated by + Rev. John Brownlie. 3s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Hymns from the Greek Office Books: Together with Centos and + Suggestions. Translated by Rev. John Brownlie. 3s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Hymns from the East. Translated by Rev. John Brownlie. 3s. + 6d. nett. + + _Buchan._--The Ballad Minstrelsy of Scotland. By Patrick Buchan. + 5s. + + The Songs of Scotland. Chronologically Arranged. 5s. Uniform + with above. + + _Burns._--The Selected Works of Robert Burns. Edited by Rhona + Sutherland. Crown 4to. 430 pp. With Illustrations. Price 5s. + nett. Or in various Bindings--Prices on application. + + _Bute._--Coronations--Chiefly Scottish. By the Marquess of Bute, + K.T. 7s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Essays on Foreign Subjects. By the Marquess of Bute, K.T. + 10s. 6d. + + ---- Seven Essays on Christian Greece. Translated by the + Marquess of Bute, K.T. 7s. 6d. + + _Caird._--Sermons. By the late Rev. J. Renny Caird, M.A. With + Memoir, by Rev. Robert Munro, B.D. 3s. 6d. nett. + + _Calder._--Poems of Life and Work. By Robert H. Calder. 2s. 6d. + nett. + + _Campbell._--Notes on the Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Eastwood + Parish. By the late Rev. George Campbell. 12s. 6d. and 25s. + nett. + + _Campbell._--Popular Tales of the West Highlands. By the late J. + F. Campbell, Islay. Four vols. 7s. 6d. each. + + _Campbell._--The Elder's Prayer-Book. By Rev. Wm. Campbell, B.D. + 1s. + + _Carslaw._--Heroes of the Scottish Covenant. By Rev. W. H. + Carslaw, D.D. + + Vol. I.--James Guthrie, of Fenwick. + II.--Donald Cargill, of the Barony, Glasgow. + III.--James Renwick, the last of the Martyrs. + + 1s. 6d. nett each. The three vols. in one, 3s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Six Martyrs of the First and Second Reformations. By Rev. + W. H. Carslaw, D.D. 2s. nett. + + ---- Exiles of the Covenant. By Rev. W. H. Carslaw, D.D. 2s. + nett. + + _Chalmers._--Chalmers' Caledonia. 25s. and 40s. per vol. Vol. + VIII.--the Index--sold separately, 15s. and 25s. nett. + + _Cheviot._--Proverbs, Proverbial Expressions, and Popular Rhymes + of Scotland. By Andrew Cheviot. 6s. nett. + + _"Claverhouse."_--Gretna Green and Its Traditions. By + "Claverhouse." 1s. nett. + + _Craigie._--Scandinavian Folk Lore. By W. A. Craigie, M.A., + F.S.A. 7s. 6d. + + _Drummond._--Life of Robert Nicoll. By the late P. R. Drummond, + Perth. 5s. + + _Edgar._--Old Church Life in Scotland. By Andrew Edgar, D.D. 7s. + 6d. + + ---- The Bibles of England. By Andrew Edgar, D.D. 7s. 6d. + + _Eyre-Todd._--The Glasgow Poets. Edited by George Eyre-Todd. 7s. + 6d. nett. + + _Fergusson._--Alexander Hume. By R. Menzies Fergusson, M.A. 5s. + nett. + + ---- A Student of Nature. By R. Menzies Fergusson, M.A. 4s. + nett. + + ---- A Village Poet. By R. Menzies Fergusson, M.A. 3s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Rambles in the Far North. By R. Menzies Fergusson, M.A. 3s. + and 2s. + + ---- Logie: A Parish History. By R. Menzies Fergusson, M.A. 2 + vols. 15s. nett. each vol. + + ---- The Viking's Bride, and other Poems. By R. Menzies + Fergusson, M.A. 3s. + + _Ferguson._--The King's Friend. By Dugald Ferguson. 3s. 6d. + + _Fergusson._--The Poems of Robert Fergusson. Edited by Robt. + Ford. 5s. nett. + + _Fife._--And I Knew It Not. By David Fife. 3s. 6d. nett. + + _Findlay._--Medici Carmina. By William Findlay, M.D. 3s. 6d. + nett. + + ---- Ayrshire Idylls of Other Days. By "George Umber." 5s. + + ---- In My City Garden. By "George Umber." 6s. + + ---- Robert Burns and the Medical Profession. By William + Findlay, M.D. ("George Umber.") 6s. nett. + + _Fittis._--Curious Episodes in Scottish History. By R. Scott + Fittis. 6s. + + ---- Heroines of Scotland. By R. Scott Fittis. 6s. + + ---- Romantic Narratives from Scottish History and Tradition. By + R. Scott Fittis. 6s. + + _Fleming._--Ancient Castles and Mansions of Stirling Nobility. + By J. S. Fleming, F.S.A. 21s. nett. + + _Ford._--American Humourists. Selected and edited by Robert + Ford. 3s. 6d. + + ---- Auld Scots Ballants. 6s. + + ---- Ballads of Bairnhood. Selected and edited by Robert Ford. + 5s. + + ---- Ballads of Babyland. Selected and edited by Robert Ford. + 5s. + + ---- Children's Rhymes, Games, Songs, and Stories. By R. Ford. + 3s. 6d. nett. + + ----Ford's Own Humorous Scotch Stories. 1st and 2nd Series, 1s. + each nett. Both Series in 1 vol., 2s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Poems and Songs of Alexander Rodger. Edited by Robert Ford. + 3s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Tayside Songs and other Verses. By Robert Ford. 3s. 6d. + nett. + + ---- The Harp of Perthshire. Edited by Robert Ford. 15s. and 7s. + 6d. + + ---- Thistledown. By Robert Ford. 3s. 6d. and 1s. nett. + + ---- Vagabond Songs and Ballads of Scotland. Edited by R. Ford. + 5s. nett. + + ---- Miller's "Willie Winkie," and other Songs and Poems. Edited + by Robert Ford. 3s. 6d. nett. + + ---- The Heroines of Burns. By Robert Ford. 3s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Popular American Readings. Popular English Readings. + Popular Irish Readings. Popular Scotch Readings. Edited by + Robert Ford. 1s. each. Also in one vol., 4s. + + _Forsyth._--Elocution: Simple Rules and Exercises for Correct + and Expressive Reading and Reciting. By John Forsyth. 1s. 6d. + nett. Gardner's Verse for Schools. Parts I. and II. 6d. nett + each part. + + _Grosart._--The Verse and Miscellaneous Prose of Alexander + Wilson, the Ornithologist of America. Edited by Rev. A. B. + Grosart, LL.D. 12s. 6d. + + _Hogg._--A Tour in the Highlands in 1803. By James Hogg. 2s. 6d. + + _Holmes._--The Teaching of Modern Languages in Schools and + Colleges. By D. T. Holmes, B.A. 2s. nett. + + ---- Literary Touring in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. By + D. T. Holmes, B.A. 4s. 6d. nett. + + _Johnson._--A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland in + 1773. By Samuel Johnson, LL.D. New Edition. 2s. 6d. nett. + + _Kennedy._--David Kennedy, the Scottish Singer: Reminiscences of + his Life and Work. By Marjory Kennedy. And Singing Round the + World: a Narrative of his Colonial Tours. By David Kennedy, Jun. + 7s. 6d. + + _Kennedy._--Reminiscences of Walt Whitman. By William Sloane + Kennedy, Camden, N.J. 6s. + + _Ker._--Mother Lodge, Kilwinning, "The Ancient Lodge of + Scotland." By Rev. W. Lee Ker, Kilwinning. 4s. 6d. + + _Kilgour._--Twenty Years on Ben Nevis. By Wm. T. Kilgour. 2/6 & + 1/6 nett. + + ---- Lochaber in War and Peace. Illustrated. By Wm. T. Kilgour. + 7s. 6d. nett. + + _King._--Shipwreck Wood: A Story of "Some that lift and some + that lean." By Carrol King. 2s. + + _Mackean._--The King's Quhair. Done into English by Wm. Mackean. + 3s. 6d. + + _M'Gown._--Ten Bunyan Talks. By G. W. T. M'Gown. 2s. nett. + + ---- A Primer of Burns. By G. W. T. M'Gown. 1s. nett. + + _MacKenzie._--History of the Outer Hebrides. By William C. + MacKenzie. 12s. 6d. nett. Large Paper, 21s. + + _MacKenzie._--The Lady of Hirta. By Wm. C. MacKenzie, F.S.A. + Scot. 6s. + + ---- A Short History of the Scottish Highlands and Isles. By Wm. + C. MacKenzie. New Edition. 5s. nett. + + _Menzies._--Provincial Sketches and other Verses. By G. K. + Menzies. 2s. 6d. nett. + + _Menzies._--Illustrated Guide to the Vale of Yarrow. By James M. + Menzies. 1s. 6d. nett. + + _Metcalfe._--SS. Ninian and Machor--the Legends of, in the + Scottish Dialect of the Fourteenth Century. By W. M. Metcalfe, + D.D. 10s. 6d. nett. On Whatman Paper, 15s. nett. + + ---- A History of the Shire of Renfrew from the Earliest Times + down to the Close of the Nineteenth Century. By W. M. Metcalfe. + D.D., F.S.A. 25s. nett. On Whatman Paper, 40s. + + ---- History of Paisley. By W. M. Metcalfe, D.D. Illustrated. + + ---- Charters and Documents relating to the Burgh of Paisley. By + W. M. Metcalfe, D.D. 21s. nett. + + ---- Ancient Lives of the Scottish Saints. Translated by W. M. + Metcalfe, D.D. 15s. On Whatman Paper, 25s. + + ---- Pinkerton's Lives of the Scottish Saints. Revised and + enlarged by W. M. Metcalfe, D.D. 2 vols. 15s. per vol. + + ---- The Natural Truth of Christianity. Edited by W. M. + Metcalfe, D.D. 5s. + + ---- The Reasonableness of Christianity. By W. M. Metcalfe, D.D. + 5s. + + _Metcalfe._--The Great Palace of Constantinople. Translated from + the Greek of Dr. A. G. Paspates, by William Metcalfe, B.D. 10s. + 6d. + + _Miller._--Selections from the Works of Hugh Miller. Edited by + W. M. Mackenzie, M.A., F.S.A. (Scot.). 3s. 6d. + + _Mitchell._--A Popular History of the Highlands and Gaelic + Scotland. By Dugald Mitchell, M.D., J.P. 12s. 6d. nett. + + _Mitchell._--Jephtha: a Drama. Translated by A. G. Mitchell. 3s. + 6d. nett. + + ---- John the Baptist: a Drama. Translated by A. G. Mitchell. + 3s. 6d. nett. + + _Robertson._--Practical First Aid. By Wm. Robertson, M.D., + D.P.H. 1s. 6d. nett. + + ---- The Stone of Dunalter. By Wm. Robertson, M.D., D.P.H. 3s. + 6d. + + Scotland Eighty Years Ago. Thirty-two Fine Copperplate Etchings + of the Chief Towns and their Surroundings. 5 5s. to subscribers + only. + + _Smith._--The New Testament in Braid Scots. Rendered by Rev. Wm. + Wye Smith. New Edition. 6s. nett. + + _Symington._--Hints to Our Boys. By A. J. Symington. 1s. 6d. + + _Tannahill._--Poems and Songs of Robert Tannahill. Edited by the + late David Semple, F.S.A. New Edition. 3s. 6d. nett. + + _Taylor._--The Autobiography of Peter Taylor. 3s. 6d. + + _Taylor._--Twelve Favourite Hymns: their Messages and their + Writers. By Rev. Wm. Taylor, M.A. 2s. nett. + + _Wright._--Laird Nicoll's Kitchen, and other Sketches of + Scottish Life and Manners. By Joseph Wright. 2s. 6d. nett. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Literary Tours in The Highlands and +Islands of Scotland, by Daniel Turner Holmes + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY TOURS *** + +***** This file should be named 29178-8.txt or 29178-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/1/7/29178/ + +Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/29178-8.zip b/29178-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ff2e7af --- /dev/null +++ b/29178-8.zip diff --git a/29178-h.zip b/29178-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..481bce1 --- /dev/null +++ b/29178-h.zip diff --git a/29178-h/29178-h.htm b/29178-h/29178-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4d2b409 --- /dev/null +++ b/29178-h/29178-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,11811 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Literary Tours, by D. T. Holmes. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[*/ +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +ul {list-style-type: none;} + + ul.TOC { /* TOC as a whole, or any sub-list of sub-topics in it */ + list-style-type: none; /*list with no symbol */ + position: relative; /*makes a "container" for span.tocright */ + width: 85%; /*page-number margin pulls in */ + } + .TOC p { /* paragraph of chapter abstract inside TOC list item */ + font-size:90%; /* one point smaller than body */ + margin-left: 4em; + text-indent: -2em; + margin-right: 4%; /* pull in on right */ + } + +span.ralign { /* use absolute positioning to move page# right */ + position: absolute; + right: 0; /* right edge against container's right edge */ + top: auto; /* vertical align to original text baseline */ + } + + ul.IX { + list-style-type: none; + font-size:inherit; /* i.e. from the div class="index" container */ + } + .IX li { /* list items in an index: compressed vertically */ + margin-top: 0; + } + + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; +} /* page numbers */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.lowercase {text-transform: lowercase;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Footnotes */ + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + + .fnanchor {vertical-align:baseline; + position: relative; + bottom: 0.33em; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + + +.block {text-align: center; margin: 0.5em auto 0.5em auto; width: 30em;} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + .poem span.i10 {display: block; margin-left: 10em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i6 {display: block; margin-left: 6em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i8 {display: block; margin-left: 8em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + /*]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands +of Scotland, by Daniel Turner Holmes + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland + +Author: Daniel Turner Holmes + +Release Date: June 20, 2009 [EBook #29178] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY TOURS *** + + + + +Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1 style="margin: 8em;"><i>LITERARY TOURS</i></h1> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 367px;"> +<img src="images/title.jpg" width="367" height="600" alt="decorative titlepage" title="" /> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h1><i>Literary Tours in<br /> +The Highlands and<br /> +Islands of Scotland</i></h1> + +<h2><i>By D. T. Holmes, B.A.</i></h2> + +<p class='center'>"Gaudia, discursus, nostri est farrago libelli"<br /> +<span style="text-align: right;">—<i>Juvenal</i>, i. 74</span></p> + +<p class='center' style="margin-top: 4em;"> +<i>PAISLEY: ALEXANDER GARDNER</i><br /> +Publisher by Appointment to the late Queen Victoria<br /> +1909 +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class='block'> +<p class='center'><i>To</i><br /> +<span class="smcap"><i>James Coats, Junr., Esq.</i></span>,<br /> +<i>Ferguslie House, Paisley.</i></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza" style="font-style: italic"> +<span class="i0">You, but for whom I'd never been<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Much further north than Aberdeen;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose mandate sent my willing feet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To realms of heather, broom, and peat:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Accept this record of my tours<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As something less my own than yours.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p style="text-align: right;"> +<i>D. T. HOLMES.</i><br /> +</p> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a><i>PREFACE.</i></h2> + +<div class='block'> +<div class="poem" style="font-style: italic"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">White stands the long Kilpatrick row<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of hills with deep and dazzling snow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And eastward, in a glimmering haze,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stretch to the Forth the Campsie Braes.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But see! beyond the Clyde, a stain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of smoke that runs across the plain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And flecks for miles the vivid gleam:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It is the tireless steed of steam.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">An old acquaintance! Ben and Strath<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Daily behold his thunderous path,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That ceases not, until he feels<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The breeze of Mallaig cool his wheels.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And Memory, fondly gazing back<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On many a journey by that track<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of splendour, would, at home, retrace<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The charms and lore of every place;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yea, pass, in thought, to storied Skye,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where all the glens in glamour lie;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, lightly scorning gust and spray,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Leap o'er the Minch to Stornoway.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And many a northern beach besides,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Splashed by the foam of racing tides,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rises in thought: from here to there,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let Fancy's coinage pay the fare,—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Fancy, that wafts us o'er the main<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To utmost Thule and home again,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through mingled din of sea and sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even in the twinkling of an eye.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p style="text-align: right;"><i>D. T. H.</i></p> +<p><i> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ingleholm, Bridge of Weir,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">16th January, 1909.</span></i> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">{5}</a></span></p> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2> + +<ul class="TOC"><li><span class="ralign">PAGE</span><br /></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a>—<span class="smcap">Introductory,</span> <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_9">9</a></span> + +<p>Village libraries—Difficulties of travel—Literary Societies in the +Highlands—Gaelic books—Happiness and geniality of natives—Oban +to Gairloch—Winter sailing—A crofting village—Horrors +of the Minch—Notes on Lewis—Highland doctors—Hotels +and anglers—Recent books—Military—Moray Firth—Among +the miners—Handloom weaving—Professor Blackie +and the Highlands.</p></li> + +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</a>—<span class="smcap">Music, Speeches, and Literature,</span> <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_60">60</a></span> + +<p>Scotch a reading nation—Hardships of students in old days—Homer +in Scalloway—When education ends—Objects of +chapter—Music—M.P.'s—Rural depopulation—Its causes—Emigration—Village +halls—The moon—A lecture in Islay—Mental +and material wealth—Real greatness—A Highland +laird on literature—Varieties of chairmen—"Coming to the +point"—Moral obligation—Compliment to Paisley—Oratory +at Salen—Lecture in a dungeon—Surprises—A visit to the +Borders—Tarbolton—Scotch language—Choice books—The +essayists—A Banff theory—Goldsmith in Gaelic—<i>Biblia abiblia</i>—Favourites +for the road—Horace—Shakespeare's Sonnets—Xenophon—French +literature and journalism—Romance and +Augustanism—Victorian writers—Celt and Saxon.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a></span></li> + +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a>—<span class="smcap">Ecclesiastical,</span> <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_134">134</a></span> + +<p>Sectarian feeling—Typical anecdotes—Music and religion—Ethical +teaching in schools—The Moderates—A savoury book—The +Sabbath—"The Men of Skye"—The auldest kirk—The +Episcopal Church—An interlude of metre—The Christian +Brethren—Drimnin in Morven—Craignish—A model minister—Ministerial +trials in olden times—An artful dodger—Some +anecdotes from Gigha—Growing popularity of Ruskin.</p></li> + +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a>—<span class="smcap">Educational,</span> <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_180">180</a></span> + +<p>Some Insular Dominies—Education Act of 1872—Education in the +Highlands—Feeding the hungry—Parish Council boarders—Dwindling +attendances—Arnisdale—Golspie Technical School—On +the Sidlaws—Some surprises—Arran schools—Science +and literature—Study of Scott—The old classical dominie—Vogue +of Latin in former times—Teachers and examinations—Howlers—Competing +subjects.</p></li> + +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</a>—<span class="smcap">A Trip To Shetland,</span> <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_217">217</a></span> + +<p>Aberdeen—En route—Lerwick—Past and present saints—Some +notes on the islands—A Shetland poet—A visit to Bressay—From +Lerwick to Sandwick—Quarff—"That holy man, Noah"—Fladibister—Cunningsburgh—"Keeping +off"—The indignant +elder—Torquil Halcrow—Philology—A Sandwick gentleman—Local +tales—Foulah and Fair Isle—The fishing +season.</p></li> + +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a>—<span class="smcap">Commercial Travellers and +Their Anecdotes,</span> <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_255">255</a></span> + +<p>Trials of commercials—The two-est-faced knave—Mary, the maid +of the inn—Anecdotes of the smoking-room: Sonnet to +Raleigh—Peelin's below the tree—"She's away!"—A mean +house—One of the director's wives—Temperance hotels—A +memorial window—The blasted heath—The day for it—The +converted drummer—A circular ticket—A compound possessive—Sixteen +medals—"She's auld, and she's thin, and she'll keep"—The +will o' the dead—Sorry for London—"Raither unceevil"—An +unwelcome recitation—A word in season—A Nairn +critic—A grand day for it—A pro-Boer—"Falls of Bruar, +only, please!"—A bad case of nerves.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a></span></li> + +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a>—<span class="smcap">Legends and Literary Notabilia,</span> <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_278">278</a></span> + +<p>Gairloch folk-lore: Prince Olaf and his bride—A laird who had +seen a fairy—Tales from Loch Broom: The dance of death—The +Kildonan midwife—The magic herring—Taisch—Antiquities +of Dunvegan—Miscellaneous terrors—St. Kilda—Lady +Grange—Pierless Tiree—Lochbuie in Mull—Inveraray Castle—The +sacred isle—Appin—Macdonald's gratitude—Notes on +the Trossachs—Lochfyneside: Macivors, Macvicars, and +Macallisters—Red Hector—Macphail of Colonsay—Tales from +Speyside: Tom Eunan!—Shaws and Grants—The wishing +well—Ossian and Macpherson—At the foot o' Bennachie—Harlaw—Lochaber +reivers—Reay and Twickenham—Rob +Donn—Rev. Mr. Mill of Dunrossness.</p></li> + +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a>—<span class="smcap">Metrical and Supplementary,</span> <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_340">340</a></span> + +<p>Arrival of the Mail-train at a Highland Station—Defoe, the Father +of Journalism—A Village Toper—A Reverend Hellenist—Antigone—Shadows +of the Manse—"My Heart's in the +Highlands"—Saddell, Kintyre—Springtime in Perthshire—Dr. +George Macdonald's Creed—Abbotsford—Carlyle—Shelley—Picture +in an Inn—Rain-storm at Loch Awe—Kinlochewe—General +Wade—Sound of Raasay in December—Les +Neiges d' Antan—The Islands of the Ness—American +Tourist Loquitur—The Miners—In a Country Graveyard—No +Place like Home.</p></li> + +<li><a href="#INDEX">INDEX</a>, <span class="ralign"><a href="#Page_369">369</a></span></li></ul> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">{9}</a></span></p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1>LITERARY TOURING.</h1> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">INTRODUCTORY.</span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Village libraries—Difficulties of travel—Literary Societies in +the Highlands—Gaelic books—Happiness and geniality of +natives—Oban to Gairloch—Winter sailing—A crofting +village—Horrors of the Minch—Notes on Lewis—Highland +doctors—Hotels and anglers—Recent books—Military—Moray +Firth—Among the miners—Handloom weaving—Professor Blackie and +the Highlands.</p></div> + + +<h3>VILLAGE LIBRARIES.</h3> + +<p>At pretty frequent intervals, during the last four years, I have sallied +forth from my home in Renfrewshire, north, south, east, and west, to +some of the most remote and isolated nooks of insular and provincial +Scotland, on a mission so uncommon as to justify the writing of a book +of impressions and experiences. The Highlands and Islands of Scotland +are, of course, visited every summer by a great host of excursionists, +who go thither to fish, play golf, lounge, climb hills, and otherwise +picturesquely disport themselves. A few earnest devotees<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">{10}</a></span> of science +spend their holidays botanising in the glens, scanning the geological +strata, looking for fossils, measuring the outlines of brochs and +prehistoric forts, or collecting relics of Culdee churches. My journeys +were undertaken for none of the objects named: they were entirely +connected with <i>libraries</i> and <i>lecturing</i>, and, being undertaken mainly +in the months of winter and spring, they have given me the opportunity +of noting a great many interesting particulars that the summer +traveller, bent on recreation or science, cannot be expected to notice.</p> + +<p><i>I do not think any finer gift could be given to a village community +than a collection of useful and entertaining books.</i> The libraries with +which my work was connected were sent, free of charge, to strath and +glen, and nothing was asked in return, except that the volumes should be +well housed and delivered to the people to read by some local librarian. +You will find these libraries in all the townships of the Hebrides, from +Ness in Lewis, down the long chain of islands, to Islay and Jura. About +thirty of them are established in the Shetlands, and as many in the +Orkneys. Scores of little villages in Aberdeen, Ross, Sutherland, +Argyle, Bute, and Perth, have been gratuitously supplied with them. The +same is true of many a weather-beaten, quaint, red-tiled little +fishing-village along the shores of the Moray Firth. In the barracks of +Fort-George, Inverness, and Dingwall, the soldiers can solace their +leisure hours by delightful, patriotic, and instructive reading, +furnished to them without money and without price. Even in quiet, +pastoral Roxburghshire,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">{11}</a></span> at a spot near the birthplace of Dandie +Dinmont, you will find one of these serviceable collections of books.</p> + +<p>It is a pleasure to me to be able to say that I have visited a great +number of the districts mentioned, for the purpose of speaking to the +people in a familiar and non-academic way on some of the books which +have been presented to them. In this way I have spoken to about 40,000 +people, the majority of whom had never previously been present at a +discourse on a literary topic. Most of them had, of course, been in the +habit of attending religious services and election meetings: but neither +of these is the very best preparation for a literary evening. Some of my +experiences have been intensely amusing, and I do not think any lecturer +has ever, as regards rough roads, inclement weather, and amazing votes +of thanks, had quite the same joys and sorrows as I have come through. I +have often laughed (good-naturedly, I hope) at what came under my +notice, but I am not so conceited as to suppose that the hilarity was +always on one side.</p> + + +<h3>DIFFICULTIES OF TRAVEL.</h3> + +<p>It can very easily be seen that he who proposed to visit all the above +districts would have some hard and continuous work in prospect. Even on +the mainland of Scotland there are many villages of difficult access. +The nearest railway station to Durness on Loch Eriboll is Lairg, sixty +miles away. Gairloch in Ross-shire is thirty miles distant from the +railway station of Achnasheen. In the great county of Aberdeen there are +a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">{12}</a></span> good many villages that can only be reached by long and tiresome +driving in a mail coach. At different parts of the Moray Firth little +townships lie huddled at the foot of precipitous cliffs, and, at first +sight, seem inaccessible except by sea. To one accustomed to the +sumptuous equipment of the Clyde steamers, even the journey to the +shrine of Hugh Miller at Cromarty is pleasant only in good weather: a +wee, puffing, hard-wrought steam-launch takes a slant course of five +miles from Invergordon to Cromarty pier, accomplishing the journey in +forty-five minutes. The fare between the two piers is one shilling, and +there is no extra charge for the use of the cabin, which is reached by a +perpendicular and very slippery ladder, and would be better suited for +philosophical reflection in a gale if the crew did not use it as a +store-room for engine-grease and old oilskins. In the Outer Islands, +Watt's machine is, of course, unknown, and many of the roads which +imaginative cartographers have inserted in their maps, will perhaps be +finished when the last trump is about to sound.</p> + +<p>Railway travelling, too, is attended with some inconveniences in winter. +The Glasgow-Inverness train, for example, may, on the coldest night of +the year, break down at Dalnaspidal; and in such a case the passengers +will have to sit, entertained by howling blasts, till a fresh engine +comes up from Blair Atholl. Such an experience was once mine, and I +always think of it when I read the ninth ode of Horace's first book. +Outside were the great snow-sheeted mountains, and the moon was gazing +in blear-eyed compassion through a screen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">{13}</a></span> of haze. From end to end of +the train resounded the rhythmic beat of cold-footed passengers striving +to bring some warmth of blood to the toes.</p> + +<p>In Grantown-on-Spey, I got an uncommon surprise one February. There had +been some snow in the Lowlands, but at Grantown the fall had been +excessive, and the roads were encumbered. On arriving at the station, +the travellers saw a sleigh waiting to convey them to the hotel. The +conveyance suited the weather admirably, and the horses seemed to be +enjoying the fun. No wheeled vehicles were to be seen: even the milkmen +sleighed their commodity from door to door. "<i>If we had a brace of +grand-dukes and a bomb or two, we could fancy ourselves in Russia</i>," +said the facetious hotel-porter. He asserted that it was well for the +country when abundant snow came down early in the year. It seems that +Grantown is apt to suffer from drought in a hot summer following on a +rainless spring. A copious fall of snow early in the year is retained in +the mountains, and ensures plenty of moisture during the months of heat. +Moisture is needed in summer, for the population is trebled then, and +most tourists require a little water, sometimes, to qualify their +potations.</p> + +<p>It is evident from what I have said, that the pedantic and vexatious +system adopted by Euclid in his Elements of Geometry could not be +employed in arranging the chapters of this book. The stern +consecutiveness of that immortal but unpopular author would be out of +place in describing journeys which might have been taken in the reverse +order without much difference in the results.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">{14}</a></span></p> + + +<h3>LITERARY SOCIETIES IN THE HIGHLANDS.</h3> + +<p>Winter with its long nights gives leisure to the remote glensmen and +crofters. The distractions of the town are not there to take their minds +away from study and meditation. Books may not be abundant, but what +literature is available is eagerly fastened on and thoroughly digested. +In the Lowlands we skip over our books and know nothing thoroughly. The +Highlander, with his limited means and choice, is forced to peruse and +re-peruse, even though he has nothing more lively than Boston's +<i>Fourfold State</i>, or Hervey's <i>Meditations among the Tombs</i>. But he +knows well what he has so often read, and is quite competent to discuss +and criticise his little row of volumes. A few of the Highland townships +have literary societies in which every variety of subject is debated: +the meetings are usually opened with prayer, but not always closed in +that way. There is a tiny clachan, some twenty miles distant from +Ullapool, on the side of a hill, in view of the grotesque peaks of +Suilven, which has a most flourishing literary society—with president, +vice-president, rules, minutes, and committees. Not once, but twice a +week does this society meet, and when the full moon is propitious for a +clear journey home through the morasses, the debates are often unduly +prolonged and the chairman's summing-up luxuriantly prolix. How many +politicians of note in London have been raked fore and aft in that +little schoolroom! What measures and enactments, plausible to the +unthinking metropolitans, have been cut and slashed there, while the +conscious moon, gleaming in at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">{15}</a></span> the window, strove vainly to disperse +the loquacious throng! Listen to the chairman's modest remarks: "<i>I do +not wish</i>," he says, "<i>to embarrass the Government, but....</i>" Unthinking +Asquith, here is a man who does not wish to embarrass you; he could do +it, but he is merciful! You may breathe freely, you and your Cabinet, +for spite of your slips and blunders, the Ross-shire crofters will not +turn round and rend you. They do not wish to embarrass the Government; +but have a care: their eyes are on you, and forbearance has its limits. +Think not because they live remote from train and telegraph, that you +are immune from their censure. Far from it! Round the hill-side at a +stated hour every day, in shine or shower, gust or calm, comes the +mail-coach of King Edward VII., bringing its pile of letters and +newspapers. I see the little throng of village politicians, eager-eyed, +peruse the latest parliamentary news. There they get all the needed +pabulum for the next political debate. If the answers to Mr. Galloway +Weir have been shifty and evasive, it will go hard with the Government +to-night in the little schoolroom, and the plaster will fall in showers +of dust from the ceiling as the iniquities of our rulers are ruthlessly +shown up. I should not like to feel the rough side of that chairman's +tongue.</p> + +<p>A library of representative English works, presented to a remote +provincial society like the one I speak of, is a centre of unspeakable +entertainment and instruction. The <i>entertainment</i>, during the long +nights of winter, when the natives gather round the ingle and someone +reads aloud, is a very palpable addition to the joys of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">{16}</a></span> life. The +<i>instruction</i> is perhaps slower in coming, but is none the less sure. +Only by comparison of books can their relative value as literature be +determined. Bigotry and narrow-mindedness in literature and religion are +almost always the result of ignorance. In the Highlands it is oftenest +the local teacher who is the librarian, and the books are accommodated +in the school. The teacher is thus able to make his instruction in +literature vivid and interesting to his senior pupils; he can authorise +a pupil to take a particular volume home and require an essay to be +written on it within a given time; and he can, in school, read aloud +typical passages of good prose to supplement the limited extracts of the +class text-books. The books have been selected (i.) to form useful +reading for adults; (ii.) to supply suitable pabulum for literary +societies; (iii.) to aid the schemes of the Education Department in +connection with what is called the "Supplementary Course of Instruction +in English Literature." The selection of the books for the use of senior +scholars has been, as a rule, easy enough. Dictionaries of the French +and German languages, good atlases, and works of reference have, in most +cases been included.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">{17}</a></span></p> + + +<h3>GAELIC BOOKS.</h3> + +<p>In selecting the books specially intended for the perusal of the older +people, an attempt is made to meet the needs of the various localities. +In the bi-lingual districts there is always a shelf of Gaelic books, +such as the original texts of Norman Macleod's exquisite sermons, +M'Rury's religious compilations, Macleod's clever poetry <i>The Lyre of +the Grove</i>, Campbell's <i>Popular Tales of the West Highlands</i>, and Magnus +Maclean's manuals of Celtic Literature. There being a distinct dearth of +comely Celtic reading that the ordinary native can understand, +arrangements have been made for the translation into Gaelic in several +volumes by competent scholars, of extracts from Mr. Lang's <i>True Story +Book</i>, and from other sources.</p> + +<p>The regrettable thing about Gaelic is its hopelessly bewildering +spelling. The sounds are pleasing and melodious in a high degree, but +they hide themselves behind most peculiar disguisements of print. Most +people will admit, I think, that a language which spells Avon, +<i>Amhuinn</i>, and Rory, <i>Ruaridh</i>, would benefit greatly by a visit from +Pitman. The utility of sane phonetics was brought home to me very +forcibly by a story I heard from a gentleman in the west of Skye. This +gentleman is an excellent English scholar, can<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">{18}</a></span> speak Gaelic but is +unable to read it. He got a letter once from St. Kilda composed by an +islander who spelt Gaelic by ear and not according to the awe-inspiring +orthography of the dictionary. The gentleman, who could not have made +out the letter had it been spelt correctly, was able to read it as it +stood, without the slightest hesitation. If a more rational spelling +were generally adopted, an immense number of Lowlanders who are +interested in philology, would study the grand old tongue, were it only +to understand the numberless place names of Celtic origin that occur in +British geography.</p> + +<p>What I have said about Gaelic spelling explains the inability of a large +percentage of the population to read a book printed in the native idiom. +What is the use then, it may be asked, of translating the <i>True Story +Book</i>? The answer is obvious to one who knows the Highlands. In the +Outer Isles there are many old people who know no English and whose only +literary solace comes from listening to others reading. At the evening +<i>ceilidh</i> a competent reader of Gaelic can usually be found. Then, +again, we are likely to see, in the near future, a notable revival of +interest in the old language, consequent on the efforts of the <i>Mod</i>, +and on the recognition of Gaelic by the Department as a fit subject of +study in the Highland schools. Such a revival, to be lasting in its +effects, must be enforced and sustained by a constant supply of pure and +interesting Gaelic books, both native and translated. Religious books +there are in abundance, thanks to the zeal of the Protestant clergy. +Needless to say, the compilations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">{19}</a></span> of the Dean of Lismore are as +unintelligible to the modern Gael as Cynewulf is to a London cab-driver. +I should like to see a round dozen of good English novels put into +Gaelic by translators who knew the idiom thoroughly.</p> + +<p>The fervour displayed at Highland gatherings, admirable as it is from a +sentimental point of view, is apt to grow cold at the prospect of +laborious work to be done. It is not creditable that the great majority +of Gaelic speakers are unable to read a page of Gaelic print. Nor is it +creditable that those who can both read and speak, do so little for the +interpretation of the literature. Blackie's books and translations are +still among the best, and Blackie was a Lowlander, was born, indeed, in +the Saltmarket of Glasgow. My frequent visits to the north and west have +convinced me that another difficulty in the way of a possible resurgence +of Gaelic is the lack of a recognised standard of colloquial speech. The +language is split up into many dialects, each possessing its own special +idioms and vocabulary. A Glasgow firm of printers not long ago conceived +the idea of printing post-cards with Gaelic greetings: they found that +every city Highlander they consulted had either in grammar or turn of +phrase some special way of framing the sentences. "Grand Gaelic to-day!" +is an exclamation sometimes heard at the door of a Highland church in +town, and indicates that the minister who has officiated comes from the +same strath as the person speaking.</p> + +<p>A moderate amount of encouragement to Gaelic is all that can reasonably +be expected from the Govern<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">{20}</a></span>ment, seeing that the prime duty of the +schoolmaster everywhere is to impart a sound knowledge of English.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> + +<h3>HAPPINESS AND GENIALITY OF NATIVES.</h3> + +<p>What has struck me most in my travels by land and sea, is the +extraordinary amount of happiness, geniality, and good humour that still +exists in the world. There is a substantial amount of felicity in the +majority of men. Every one knows the sentence of Emerson: "Give me +health and a day, and I will make the pomp of empires ridiculous." I +like to give concrete examples of philosophic maxims, and I should +particularise Emerson's dictum thus: "Bard Macdonald of Trotternish, +Skye, whose only cow came near being impounded by the Congested +Districts Board in order to pay for the price of seed-potatoes furnished +to him by the said Board, having good health, makes the pomp of empires<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">{21}</a></span> +ridiculous three hundred and sixty-five days every year." Bard Macdonald +is a very poor man, yet he has contrived to hitch his waggon on to a +fixed star. He lives in one of those low thatch-roofed bothies that, +with the accompanying croft, are rented at from £2 to £4 a year. He has +a wife and a large family. Yet, tormented as he is by present poverty +and past arrears, he eyes the future with serenity. I heard him sing a +Gaelic poem of his own composition, containing twenty-five verses of +intricate versification, and at the conclusion he was far less exhausted +than any of the company. Then, again, Torquil M'Gillivray, schoolmaster +of a rainy township on the sea-edge of one of the Skye <i>nishes</i>, has +tranquillity of mind as great as any of the Seven Sages ever enjoyed. He +is perfectly contented with his lot of rural dominie, and when I, in my +presumption, ventured to speak critically of certain social conditions +in his beloved island, he rebuked me by crooning tenderly the following +lines:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I would see them before I die,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But I'd rather not see any one of the three,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Than be exiled for ever from Skye!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>We all know what a unique poetical gem Wordsworth composed after he +heard a Highland girl singing at Inversnaid. I witnessed many fine +examples of concentrated joy which might have resulted in metre if I had +not had the presence of mind to pull myself up and refrain. One was at +Acharacle, where in front of a croft a young fellow was dancing the +Highland fling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">{22}</a></span> with such whole-souled and consuming zeal that I stood +transfixed with wonder and awe. He was alone, and I came suddenly upon +him at a sharp bend of the road. He threw his legs about him with such +regardless glee, that for a moment I was afraid one of them would get +unfixed and come spinning through the air to hit me. I watched him like +one fascinated for fully ten minutes. When at length he saw me, the +glory flowed suddenly off his legs; he subsided into a country bumpkin, +and beat a hasty retreat indoors. "If Greek dances were as artistic as +this one," said I, "and if the lines of each chorus had a reference to +the diversity of the steps, it is little wonder that God in His +providence should have sent us so many commentators to explain the +mysteries of ancient scansion."</p> + +<p>Another instance of natural and spontaneous bliss came under my notice +about two miles along from Kinlochewe, on the banks of Loch Maree. It +was a glorious, sun-illumined spring morning, and every crevice in the +rough flanks of Ben Slioch was mirrored in the unwrinkled surface of the +noble loch. Ben Eay had a bright covering of Nature's whitest, softest +lawn. No sounds were heard except the low droning of a vagrant bee, the +whizzing of a sea-mew's pinions, or a bark from this croft answered by a +bark from that other a mile away. Suddenly the repose of the morning, in +which a pedestrian could hear the echo of his own feet, was startled by +the voice of a girl singing. For a moment I thought of the <i>Lorelei</i>; +but it was soon evident where the notes were coming from. A maiden of +ten or twelve was sitting in front of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">{23}</a></span> cottage that faced the lake, +combing her long, black hair that glistened in the morning rays, and +pouring forth such exquisite trills as might have made Orpheus envious. +The whole beauty of ben, loch, and sky seemed to be gathered up in that +child's song. I had been wandering along in the sparkling air and +feeling that something ought to be done to intimate to Heaven that it +was a heavenly morning. The girl felt so happy in the gracious gift of +another blue day that her nature responded at once in a spontaneous +burst of melody. I was very grateful for her vicarious hymn of praise—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Now thanks to Heaven! that of its grace<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hath led me to this lonely place.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Joy have I had; and going hence<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I bear away my recompense."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3>OBAN TO GAIRLOCH.</h3> + +<p>It is impossible for anyone who has a fair supply of the uncurdled milk +of human kindness to sail from Oban to Gairloch and not be struck with +the heartiness and good humour of the native population. Such a trip is +rarely accomplished without some memorable incident or some outstanding +impression. The landscape is doubtless magnificent, but the people one +sees on the way are infinitely more interesting. No one, I am sure, can +fail to observe the well-groomed, fresh, and imperial aspect of the pier +policemen. The general polish of their boots and belts, the +self-satisfied, Parnassian smile that never comes off, the spotless<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">{24}</a></span> +gloves, the muscular frame, combine to make up a splendid type of +impressive Law grounded on Strength. I am ashamed to employ the term +"policemen" to a body of officials who command such instantaneous +respect. These men are King Edward's Highland satraps, and they both +know it and feel it: law in the North is never undignified or unkempt. +Then, again, the captain of the steamer is a man whom it is impossible +to regard without veneration. All Macbrayne's men are fine fellows; they +look well as they stand in stately fashion on the bridge: yet many a +scowling sky of torrential rain they have to face, many a time have +their beards been shaken by the hurricanes of the Minch. If you speak to +a ship-captain, you are certain to get the utmost civility and +politeness. It is true that most of them have several sets of +vocabularies: to passengers they are urbane and choice of speech; but +they have, within easy reach, another set of phrases, which they find of +service in addressing delinquent mariners.</p> + +<p>A student of Virgil in making the trip I have alluded to above, would +run the risk of recalling the passage in which the poet suggests that +the big island of Sicily was at one time connected with the mainland, +but that some huge convulsion of nature disjoined the twain and allowed +the Mediterranean to come roaring in a channel between. The scenery of +Western Scotland stirs the imagination to suppose that some similar +catastrophe permitted the sea to mangle the fair uniformity of a +prehistoric coast, submerge the low-lying lands, and leave a great +number of islands lying in lonely fashion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">{25}</a></span> out in the watery waste. +Heavy weather, truly, it must have been ere Coll, Tiree, Rum, and Eigg +were sundered from the mainland by the Atlantic flow.</p> + +<p>All the islands I mention (save Tiree) can be seen from the deck of the +<i>Gael</i> during the earlier part of the daily passage of that boat from +Oban in the summer season. Tiree is off the main tourist track, but a +few antiquarians are now finding it worth their while to go and dig +there for relics of byegone civilisation. A friend of mine, a zealous +and erudite F.S.A., has spent many a pleasant holiday in Tiree, and has +come back with loaded trunks of valuable prehistoric remains. Certain +artists go out to the island regularly in order to transfer to canvas +some of Nature's most impressive aspects of cloud, wave, and crag. Nor +let me forget the doughty members of the <i>Faith Mission</i>, who evangelise +this and others of the outer isles, and sing such sweet melodies to the +natives as would melt any "Wee Free" heart, let alone an ordinary heart +of stone. Tiree has long been famous for its schools and for its +intelligent inhabitants; as a consequence, the libraries have been +enthusiastically welcomed in its townships, and are regarded by the +teachers there as a new and valuable adjunct of education. I have often +heard it said that Tiree produces more ministers than any other +district, of like population, in the Celtic part of Scotland. The Duke +of Argyll does not allow any licensed house on the island, but he has +not as yet suppressed the <i>Fingal</i> and the parcels post. Should His +Grace ever unbend so far as to permit the temperance hotels to obtain +the licence, learned men might flock in greater<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">{26}</a></span> numbers to Tiree, and +dazzle themselves and the world with further antiquarian finds.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> + +<p>Rum has not been dowered with a Paisley library, and I regret to say +that the natives have the reputation of not keeping the Sunday with +ostentatious strictness. Eigg, the little island contiguous, is a little +heaven below. The missionary there well deserves a word of commendation: +the island of Muck is under his spiritual supervision, and with a +sandwich and a sermon in his pocket, he often sets sail, scorning gust +and current, to preach to his parishioners in that tiny islet.</p> + + +<h3>WINTER SAILING.</h3> + +<p>The summer tourist knows Skye very imperfectly, for he goes there in a +commodious steamer and traverses the island at a season when the days +are long and the weather benign. No one should vaunt of knowing Skye +unless he has seen it in winter also. It is the small <i>Lochiel</i> that, in +the dark days of December, bears the passengers along the chilly Sound +of Sleat, and through the narrows of Raasay, into the haven of Portree. +At such a time there is something fearsome and weird in the aspect of +the coast, as seen from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">{27}</a></span> cabin window of the brave little boat as +she battles and plunges along in the teeth of the north-eastern gale. +Her progress is slow, for when passengers are few Macbrayne wisely +economises his coal. The long-stretching hills of Raasay (on the highest +of which Boswell danced a jig) are white from head to foot, and gleam +through the darkness of the afternoon, vivid and ghostly. As Raasay +House, with its lamp-lit windows shining in a snowy recess, is +approached, the engines slow down, and through the howl of the wind can +be heard the plashing of oars. The broad waves swirl and seethe cruelly +around the ferry-boat and toss it about at all angles, up and down, on +crest and in trough, till you fear it will end its struggles keel +upwards, and send the mail-bags down among the mackerel. But the boatmen +know their trade, and so do the dripping, top-booted seamen of the +<i>Lochiel</i>. Amid much running and shuffling and casting of ropes and +animated bandying of (I fear) strong expressions in Gaelic sung out upon +the night, the ship's ladder is cast down and the boat tied thereto. In +a few minutes the transfer of mails is over, the ladder up, and the +small boat leaping back to land. (I speak of December 22, 1904). A new +passenger has come on board and is seen to descend the cabin stairs to +unfreeze his fingers over the tiny stove. Half-an-hour's heaving still +remains before Portree. A lady who has been on the border-line of +squeamishness for the last hour, hurriedly leaves the cabin, probably to +see if her luggage is all right. Good news at last for all! Portree is +visible, and its lights are twinkling on the height. The moon comes +graciously out, silvering the snowy shoulders<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">{28}</a></span> of Essie Hill. What a +contrast is this moonlit haven, with its background of terraced lights, +to the rough surges outside. Glad indeed is everyone to set foot on the +pier and trudge through disregarded slush to the warmth of home or +hotel. We are told by our island friends that all Skye is under snow and +that the roads are impassable. No mail-coach has ventured to Dunvegan +for two days and in other directions, the postmen, turned cavaliers, +have gone off on horseback with their letters. (Let me say in passing, +that a red-bearded Highland postman, clad in post-office livery and +seated on a sheltie, is a sight which any artist would go a hundred +miles to see.)</p> + +<p>Winter sailing may at times be as pleasant as a cruise in June. At 8 +<span class="smcap lowercase">A.M.</span> in the snug cabin, the breakfast-table, with its tea, ham, eggs, +and sausages, is a welcome piece of scenery, and the genial talk of the +captain and his colleagues is far better than pepsine as a digestive. +After breakfast, a pipe on deck is a necessity. Who that has once seen +Ben-na-ceallich all white to the feet and softly veiled with airy mists, +but wishes he were a Turner to paint, or a Shelley to sing? The sail +from Broadford to Kyle on a calm, cold, snow-dazzling morning is (if one +is wrapped and coated well) absolutely majestic. The sun pours, if not +warmth, at least light and heat on the hundred bens of the mainland and +the breeze aiding, wakens a multitudinous smile on the glittering face +of the cold waters.</p> + +<p>I never take this trip without thinking of such books as <i>The Brave Sons +of Skye</i>, which gives a record of the brave men born in the misty island +who have come<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">{29}</a></span> south and distinguished themselves in many a different +walk in life. It is a most inspiring thing to reflect on the dauntless +way in which genius treads the stony road that leads from poverty to +glory. There is not a district in Skye but has its great man, who forms +the subject of conversation round the peat fire when the winter winds +are blowing down the strath. "From Log Cabin to White House" is the +American way of putting it: in Scotland we might say "From Crofter's Cot +to Professor's Chair."</p> + + +<h3>A CROFTING VILLAGE.</h3> + +<p>The sight of a crofting village is at first rather surprising to one +accustomed to large towns. The low roofs are not far from the ground. +Often, while driving, if you turn a corner swiftly, you run the risk of +being thrown out of the trap on to one of the chimneys. It does not take +much imagination, especially in the dim dusk, to transform a +low-thatched cot into some weird animal that might begin to walk along +the hill-side at any moment. So irregularly grouped are the townships, +dropped here and there, as it were, that you might fancy the houses had +begun at one time to run a race with each other, and in the middle of it +had suddenly stopped. Dr. Johnson complained that the windows were fixed +into the walls and could not, in consequence, be opened to let in the +air. That fault exists to some extent still: I have been told, however, +that peat reek is very purifying, and that its thick fumes make short +work of any noxious germs that might lodge about the nooks of the +interior. Great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">{30}</a></span> changes are gradually coming over many of the clachans, +changes not loved by an artist or a devotee of the picturesque. Instead +of thatch, held down by ropes weighted with heavy stones, there is often +to be seen a roofing of tarred cloth or corrugated iron. Romance might +attach itself to a roof of thatch, but corrugated iron, with its +distressing parallelism, could never awaken a genuine lyric note. +Further, it does not make a very comfortable seat, whereas thatch is +soft. Now, children in the Highlands are rather fond of sitting and even +playing on the roof: thatch is less cruel on bare feet than iron is.</p> + + +<h3>HORRORS OF THE MINCH.</h3> + +<p>I have alluded to the distresses of winter voyaging to Skye. But there +are other routes worse, notably that from Tarbert in Harris to +Lochmaddy, which is a perfect Tartar of a trip. When the wind is high +and contrary, the traveller (if he can stay on deck and maintain an +interest in the scenery), beholds a sight of extreme grandeur. The waves +are to be seen all along the Harris coast leaping up to a terrific +extent with an unbroken line of foam extending for miles. So much does +the boat romp and dance, however, that most passengers forsake the deck +and retire inelegantly below. When a man lies in a stuffy cabin wishing +himself wedged into it to prevent the perpetual rolling to this side and +to that, and hearing the desperate thud of the Minch flinging itself +against the port-hole, a series of vivid panoramic pictures pass before +his mental eye. Home appears so lovely and reposeful: faces of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">{31}</a></span> friends +on shore arise, transfigured by the glow of love: the squeamishness and +retching he endures seem to the sufferer a special and direct judgment +on him for impiously endeavouring to find pleasure otherwise than by the +practice of the domestic virtues. Disquieting memories of bursting +boilers surge up to the surface of the mind, and old catches like the +weird ballad of Sir Patrick Spens lilt themselves to the clank of the +staggering ship's machinery—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The anchor's brak and the tapmast lap,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">It was sic a deadly storm,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the waves dashed into the gude ship's side<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Till a' her planks were torn."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The romance of the sea is apt to vanish as you look out upon a +wilderness of foaming water, tossing the boat like an insignificant toy, +drenching the bulwarks and vehemently smiting everything in its riotous +anger. Neptune seems a mere blind force without reverence or mercy for +the works of man. It is good for a boy of romantic disposition to cross +to the Long Island in a gale: it will effectually cure him of all desire +to take up the profession of pirate. What a sad moment for such a youth +when he sees his breakfast where it shouldn't be, and reflects that he +has not the staying power of Sir Ralph the Rover!</p> + +<p>I regret to say that I have no specific to give as a preventive for +sea-sickness. Even the Phœnicians who had time, during the intervals +of their hardy voyaging, to invent the alphabet, were unable to devise a +remedy for the <i>mal de mer</i>. Custom does not create<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">{32}</a></span> immunity, for even +the mighty Nelson, who had a life-long acquaintance with the ocean, was +afflicted with sea-sickness to the end of his days. In France there +exists a <i>Ligue contre le mal de mer</i>, commenting upon which a French +journalist says: <i>Avec une ligue on est toujours assuré d'une chose: à +défaut de progrès, qu'elle nous fera peut-être attendre, elle fera des +congrès: et c'est du moins une consolation que de pouvoir discourir de +son mal.</i></p> + +<p>He that will to Cupar maun through Fife, and he that has business in the +Lews must brave the billows of the Minch.</p> + + +<h3>NOTES ON LEWIS.</h3> + +<p>The great island of Lewis, formerly so distant from Edinburgh and +Glasgow, can now be reached in fourteen hours by one who leaves the +latter city at 5.40 <span class="smcap lowercase">A.M.</span> The old route was very tiresome and circuitous: +the traveller had to proceed to Inverness, take the Dingwall and Skye +line to Strome Ferry, and then sail over the Minch to Stornoway. The +opening up of the West Highlands by the railway to Mallaig has changed +all that. At Mallaig pier, when you leave the train, you find the +connecting steamer ready to set off, at noon, for its journey to +Stornoway, where it arrives about eight in the evening.</p> + +<p>I don't think anyone would want to stay more than a week at a time in +Stornoway. The town itself is just like the fishy part of +Boulogne-sur-Mer, only more so. There is a pervading odour of mussels, +bait, and herring, and the gulls go flapping overhead in crowds +everywhere.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">{33}</a></span> If the tourist remained a week in the place, he would go +every day to the Castle grounds. Here, if anywhere, is the paradise of +the Lews. There is a profusion of dells, burns, glades, ivy-grown +bridges, and far-extending vistas over sea, moorland, and town. As with +a knife (so precise is the division) the well-wooded policies are +separated from the barren and disheartening moor. When one gets to the +highest point of the grounds and gazes over the long, tiresome slopes of +the island, one's belief in <i>design in nature</i> gets a sudden stab. A man +will think long and sore before he arrives at any <i>raison d'être</i> for +including such a wilderness of bogs in the scheme of creation.</p> + +<p>The men of the island are, in the main, shrewd, resourceful, and +intelligent—qualities fostered by their constant fighting with the sea. +"The young fellows here," said one of the hotel-keepers to me, "will +either make a spoon or spoil a horn. They come to a decision speedily +and put it into practice at once. It is hit or miss with them, usually +hit. At sea, in a gale, there is no time for parliamenting; and Lewismen +act on land with the swift decision that is needed in a tempest." All +round the coast are fishing-villages, thickly populated by these +intrepid children of the tempest.</p> + +<p>Fishing is a precarious industry, and often fails. The harvest of the +land may fail at the same time as that of the sea: in such a case the +plight of the islanders is sad indeed. During the last five years, the +trade of weaving has been wisely fostered by the Government, so that in +future, when sea and soil are churlish, the loom will to some extent +supply the lack. The Duchess of Suther<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">{34}</a></span>land and the Congested Districts +Board have done excellent service in encouraging the tweed-weaving +industry all over the Long Island. Her Grace, some years ago, made a +progress through Lewis and addressed the people by means of an +interpreter, on the advantages of such industry in their homes. She also +instituted exhibition sales of work in the big cities of the south, with +the result that large quantities of cloth were sold and a precious +publicity given to the scheme. Depots for receiving the cloth from the +workers are now established in Stornoway and Harris. The Congested +Districts Board advance money without interest for the purchase of +looms, provide an experienced instructor to supply the people with new +patterns, and give an adequate supply of dye-pots free of charge. This +instructor goes over the whole of Lewis and Harris, spending month about +in each, erecting new looms and modernising old ones. There is a large +carding mill in Stornoway, where the natives can have the wool +expeditiously carded in the most approved modern style. An industry thus +fostered and supervised is bound to succeed.</p> + +<p>Educationally, the Long Island is making great progress. Higher +education is almost entirely centred in the Nicolson Institute, +Stornoway, a school admirably conducted and finely equipped. The pupils +of marked ability in the elementary schools of Lewis come here to +continue their higher studies, and, in many cases, to prepare themselves +for the University. I have seen specimens of a magazine, annually put +forth by the senior pupils of this school, and containing many +inter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">{35}</a></span>esting essays and poems, grave and gay. The English of the essays +was remarkably good, and contained here and there some piquant +suggestions of Gaelic idiom. The pupils read French well, probably +because their native Gaelic contains such a rich reservoir of nasal +sounds to draw upon.</p> + + +<h3>HIGHLAND DOCTORS.</h3> + +<p>I have a great respect for the medical gentlemen who have taken up their +position in remote districts of Scotland, and devote themselves to the +healing art under most disadvantageous circumstances. The distances are +incredibly long and dangerous in winter: I have in my mind an insular +doctor who has a deal of midnight boating to do in glacial weather, and +whose bills are often paid not in coin but <i>in fleece newly off the +sheep's back</i>. As the population gets smaller, the doctor's work becomes +more laborious and less remunerative. The institution of district nurses +has been a great success, and I wish there were more of them. A +sympathetic and competent <i>nurse</i> is a valuable asset in a crofting or +seafaring community. In one district of Mull, recently visited, I found +that the nurse was also the village librarian. She was quite at home +both with lotions and literature, and could recommend a poet or prepare +a poultice with equal skill. The ante-room to the village hall was her +dispensary: it seemed to me remarkably complete, and to have as +scientific an odour as any city pharmacy. I was glad to see that the +Clan Maclean was so well supplied with the resources of modern +civilisation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">{36}</a></span></p> + +<p>In every one of the village libraries there is a copy of Black's +<i>Medical Dictionary</i>, a most useful compilation, written in clear and +simple language, and detailing all the commonest remedies. Many rural +teachers and clergymen have considerable skill in coping with illness. +Every country minister should have at least a smattering of medical +knowledge.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p> + + + +<h3>HOTELS AND ANGLERS.</h3> + +<p>Wherever the angler goes, you find a good hotel. Uist is low-lying and +barren, with nothing to attract the eye—no tourist would go near the +place for anything it has to show in the way of scenery. But as it has +hundreds of small lochs, full of fish, ardent anglers go thither from +all parts of the British Isles; and so at Lochmaddy and Lochboisdale the +hotels are not merely good, they are excellent. The recording angel is +kept busy, during the season, in taking a note of all the myths told +there by the fishers in the evening over the whisky and soda.</p> + +<p>There may be heard, at night, in most hotels in the Western Isles, the +riotous scampering of rats overhead and along the walls. In Lochmaddy +hotel there used<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">{37}</a></span> to be an old frisker (perhaps he is living still) that +gave great entertainment, though no one ever saw him. He lifted a stone, +evidently with his mouth, ran a yard or two with it, and then dropped it +with a great clatter. The game was a pleasure to him, for he would +practice it for half an hour at a time. The anglers who frequented the +hotel called him <i>the mason</i>.</p> + +<p>I have got into conversation with innumerable knights of the rod, and +can sympathise to a slight extent with their enthusiasm. Nothing seems +to take hold of a man so irrevocably as Walton's mania. Travelling by +night in the north lately, I looked out into the dusk from the carriage +window and beheld a bright flash of lightning, and by the gleam thereof +saw a midnight maniac with his rod silhouetted against the vast inane. +How few fishers nowadays, except perhaps Mr. Andrew Lang, can write +their experiences in good marrowy English—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The quaint loquacious wits of long ago,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose ease was never broken by the shrill<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whistle of engine panting round the hill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Could by the brook where fishful waters flow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Spend the long hours in angling to and fro,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And hooking lusty trout and salmon, till<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The low-descending sun and evening chill<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would send them to the merry ingle-glow;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then, after fit refection, pen and ink<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would consecrate on paper all their feats<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In rippling phrases flashing with the blink<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of forest glades and living water-sheets;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The race is poorer now than it was then:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We have no anglers that can wield the pen.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">{38}</a></span></div></div> + +<p>I believe the best region in all Scotland for trout is the wild and +picturesque county of Sutherland. In the district of Assynt alone there +are 150 lochs, fine sheets of water most of them, lying about among the +hills. Half-way between the two seas and just on the borders of +Sutherland and Ross, is the cosy wee hotel of Altnacealgach, with a +well-stocked loch at the door, from which hundredweights of trout are +taken every year. The air that blows about the house is to that of +London as champagne is to dish-water.</p> + +<p>There is a close connection, as I said, between the frequentation of a +district by anglers and the excellence of its hotels. Where there is no +great influx of tourists, the hotel accommodation is decidedly poor. I +remember one inn, at a cold windy clachan on the west coast, which only +stress of weather and dire necessity would make a man enter. Dirty stone +steps, worn and crumbled in the centre, led to an upper room which had +apparently not been swept out for a year or two. Not even the city of +Cologne in Coleridge's time could have produced from among its imposing +catalogue of stenches anything to match the complex ensemble of that +malodorous inn. There was stale fish intil't, and bad beer intil't, and +peat reek intil't, and mice intil't, and candle grease intil't, and the +devil and all intil't. Though I was the only visitor, I feared I should +not have the bed to myself: so I e'en wrapped myself in my Highland +plaidie (after the minimum of disinvestiture), and stretched my limbs on +an arthritic settee, with intent to sleep. No sleep came till the +quaffing roysterers of the clachan had ceased fighting under the moon +outside,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">{39}</a></span> about 2 <span class="smcap lowercase">A.M.</span> namely. Rather than stay two nights in such a +place, I boated out early next day into the mid-channel of the Sound of +Mull, and clambered up the sides of Macbrayne's <i>Lapwing</i>, which took me +to Oban.</p> + + +<h3>RECENT BOOKS.</h3> + +<p>The most charming of recent works on the Outer Islands is that one of +which the preface was written in Jerusalem. I refer to the volume of +Miss Goodrich Frere, a lady whose vivacity, fervour, and picturesque +style are deserving of unqualified praise. All the libraries in the +bilingual districts contain the book, and few are so often asked for. In +conversation and publicly I have often given myself the pleasure of +recommending it, alike to Highlander and Lowlander. My admiration for +Miss Frere's talents makes me wish that one or two of her prejudices had +been less glaringly displayed. She speaks, for example, with something +like scornful reproach of Lochmaddy, because the habit of taking +afternoon tea is common in that township. It would have been more to the +purpose if Miss Frere had issued a general warning to the people of the +Hebrides not to drink tea as black as porter, and, above all, not to +boil it. The pale anæmic faces one so often sees in the north and west, +the mental prostration and actual insanity so alarmingly on the increase +in the Long Island, are unquestionably due, in great measure, to the +abominably strong tea that is swilled in such quantities there. A +Tarbert doctor told me that the medical profession now talk quite +familiarly of the Harris stomach just as drapers talk of Harris tweed:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">{40}</a></span> +the former is, he averred, as weak and devoid of tone as the latter is +strong and of good texture. This doctor was called up at two one morning +to attend a patient in one of the moorland townships. At that hour, away +over there on the gusty rim of the Atlantic, the natives were all afoot. +People were talking to each other at the doorsteps; lamps were lighted +inside, and tea that had been boiling for hours among the red peats, was +being imbibed with infinite gusto. This, the doctor assured me, was the +normal style of living.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p> + +<p>Talking of North Uist, Miss Frere shows indignation at the invasion of +southern ideas, and thinks that everything is being vitiated by the +taint of Lochmaddy. Lochmaddy, characterised in so droll a way, is a +tiny township with a Sheriff Court, a church, a few well-built modern +houses, a school, and an excellent hotel. Cleanliness is a welcome +feature of the place, and I am sorry to say that the same can not be +said of certain crofting villages not far distant. I expect that the +visits of the Government Sanitary Officer, whom I met at Lochmaddy, and +who knows his business well, will ultimately work an enormous amount of +good. That gentleman gave me such unsavoury details regarding the +conditions of life in certain of the townships as made me hope that the +"taint of Lochmaddy," that is to say, the cleanliness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">{41}</a></span> and civilised +life of that village, may more and more become evident throughout both +the Uists. Improved sanitation would allow heaven's breath to circulate +through the low-lying cots and prevent them from being hot-beds of +malignant disease.</p> + + +<p>One feature of Miss Frere's book which does honour to her fine sympathy, +but which is not ethnologically justifiable, is the persistent attempt +to draw a sharp racial distinction between Highlander and Lowlander. The +truth is, that no part of the Highlands is purely Celtic: the population +is a welter of Picts, Gaels, Norsemen, Danes, and Saxons. The Lowland +blood is, in like manner, a bewildering blend, there being no +uncontaminated Anglo-Saxon district in any single county of Scotland. +Mr. J. M. Robertson's clever book, <i>The Saxon and the Celt</i>, seems to me +to dispose finally of certain fallacies that Hill Burton and others have +light-heartedly written on the subject of racial characteristics. The +conditions of life, the ungeniality of sea and soil, the wild and grand +aspect of nature, influence thought, feeling, and character at least as +much as blood and heredity.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> + + + +<p>Another delightful book on the Outer Hebrides is that written by Mr. W. +C. Mackenzie. Proceeding in the order of chronology, the author gives a +vivid series of historic summaries (enlivened by many a piquant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">{42}</a></span> episode +and humorous touch) of the Long Island from the earliest times. The +wanderings of Prince Charlie, and the condition of the country after +Culloden, have never been better told than in Mr. Mackenzie's narrative.</p> + + +<h3>MILITARY.</h3> + +<p>I hinted at the beginning of this chapter that the barracks of the +Highland regiments had been supplied with extensive libraries for the +use of the soldiers during their leisure hours. Fort-George, the +erection of which was directly due to the Highland rebellions, has been +presented with two fine libraries, and I am happy to say that the men +greatly appreciate the gift. I happened to be in the vicinity of +Fort-George when the Duke of Connaught was conducting an official +inspection. The little town of Ardersier, which is some two miles from +the Fort, was gay with bunting for the ducal visit. The books at the +Fort are under the charge of Sergeant-Major Markham, an able +elocutionist and one who, in his own sphere, does an immense amount of +good. He gets the young recruits to band themselves together in social +clubs, organises games and entertainments for them, and encourages them +to read and study. The philanthropic Sergeant-Major was engaged in +typing a catalogue of the books when the genial Duke came upon the +scene. His Royal Highness was astonished to see such a magnificent +selection of reading matter at the disposal of the soldiers, and eagerly +asked for information as to the origin of the boon. His curiosity was +satisfied, and when he heard that the same donor had given appropriate +libraries to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">{43}</a></span> the garrisons at Inverness, Dingwall, and Kinbrace, he +exclaimed, "Such a gentleman is indeed the Soldier's Friend."</p> + +<p>Since the Duke's visit, a small library of books has been sent to the +children's school at the Fort. The population of this military +community, containing as it does a great many married men with their +wives and families, is fully equal to that of Ardersier, and +necessitates a separate school. I was struck with the pronunciation of +the children in this part of the country. Many of the Fort children, +having mothers from the other side of the Border, speak with an +unmistakable English accent and are rather unscrupulous with respect to +the aspirate. The town of Inverness, which is at no great distance from +Fort-George, has long been famous for its clear and unprovincial English +speech, a fact which Johnson (oddly enough) thought due to some of +Cromwell's soldiers having settled there.</p> + +<p>Dr. Johnson devotes two pleasant little paragraphs to describe his visit +to Fort-George and his entertainment there by Sir Eyre Coote. I have +always admired the Doctor's sly way of avoiding a description of the +Fort: "I cannot," he says, "delineate it scientifically, and a loose and +popular description is of use only when the imagination is to be +amused."</p> + +<p>In spite of the menace of Fort-George, the Highlanders fondly cherished +the memory of Charlie for many a year. To no subject even now do their +descendants listen with such rapt attention as to his tragic story. I +have heard indeed of a Highland minister who was so displeased at the +homage paid to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">{44}</a></span> the Prince's memory by some of his flock, that he threw +at them the unanswerable question, "What will Prince Charlie do for you +at the day of judgment?"</p> + +<p>I have had the curiosity to ask some of the Session Clerks of country +parishes that were in the line of the insurgents' advance or retreat, if +any references to the rebellion appear in the minutes of the year 1745. +No references appear, as a rule, for that year; but, under 1746, there +are brief accounts of church discipline being exercised in the case of a +few illegitimate births,—the paternity being ascribed usually to <i>ane +sodger</i>.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p> + +<p>At Inverness and Dingwall there exist similar libraries of great range +and excellence. The men show an interest in Miss Marie Corelli's works +that is rather astonishing. Their hard and strenuous drill does not +deprive them of a curiosity to know something about <i>Barabbas</i> and <i>The +Sorrows of Satan</i>. Sir Conan Doyle and Dr. Neil Munro are also great +favourites, and deserve to be.</p> + + +<p>A large number of the Inverness recruits come from the Long Island. They +almost invariably require to be taken to the hospital a week or two +after their arrival. Change of diet and new modes of life seem to upset +them at first. For those who have a mind to improve themselves, there +are abundant opportunities.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">{45}</a></span> The reading and recreation rooms are well +appointed and comfortable. Altogether, the regular life, physical drill, +and healthy tone of the barracks must have a most beneficial effect on +the men.</p> + +<p>I am bound to say that I do not greatly admire the English style of the +gentleman who composes the War Office placards that one sees at railway +stations in the north. These are meant to allure country labourers to +join the army, but the following piece of fatuous rhetoric must surely +act rather as a deterrent than otherwise:—"Are you, the descendants of +those who conquered India and carried the colours of the Gordon +Highlanders through the Peninsula and at Waterloo, <i>content to sit at +home, or be satisfied with dull labours in the fields or at the mills</i>, +whilst the ranks of your own regiment are filled by strangers from the +South?" I heard two freckled rustics, with difficulty and labour hard, +spelling out the phrases of the foregoing sentence at the little station +of Fyvie. They did not seem at all impressed by the fervent +interrogation nor by this picture of prospective delights: "<i>Many of +your countrymen have seen the wonders of the Indian Empire and enjoyed +the soft calm of Malta, and of Ceylon, the Paradise of the Ancients.</i>" +It does not evince much knowledge of a ploughman's mind to seek to +awaken his martial ardour by old myths about the Garden of Eden; nor is +it specially alluring to him to mention, as the acme of glory, that he +may distinguish himself so much as to gain "<i>thanks from both Houses of +Parliament</i>." Such weak and watery declamation won't do for a country +that has had thirty-eight years of com<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">{46}</a></span>pulsory education. If our War +Office wishes to rouse patriotic feeling, it should cease to contrast +"the dull labour of the fields" with "the soft calm of Malta": the +veriest clown would not be caught by such chaff. It would be more to the +point to send gratuitous copies of <i>The Barrack Room Ballads</i> to all the +village libraries.</p> + + +<h3>MORAY FIRTH.</h3> + +<p>My various visits to the shores of the Moray Firth have convinced me +that a man may enjoy the majesty and terror of the sea without embarking +on a boat at all. All he need do is to take a ticket to Portsoy in the +month of March, when the wind is snell and the clouds low. I have never +seen a more grim or cruel-looking coast than that which stretches for +miles east and west of Portsoy. One shudders even at the thought of +those detestable, razor-edged rocks, tilted up at all angles, with the +tide for ever boiling and hissing about them. Neither by land nor sea, +at many parts of the coast, can you get to what might be reasonably +called a beach. The so-called shore-road is high up on the hills, and +gives a good view far out over the billows, but does not take the +traveller's feet near the water at all. Ill-advised would he be who +should strive to guide his skiff from the outer firth to any chance cove +on the shore, for the uncouth crags, huge and sombre, would have no +mercy on any timber jointed by the hand of man. Perhaps the summer sun +would give a gentler appearance to the rocky and wave-beaten shore, but +I am certain Mr. Swinburne would prefer to see it in March.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">{47}</a></span></p> + +<p>The town of Portsoy in itself cannot be said to have much comeliness; +the streets are irregular, the houses dismal, and the shops few. God +has, as is meet, the best of the architecture, most of the churches +being graceful and well-spired.</p> + +<p>About twenty minutes by rail from Portsoy is the trim and typical +fishing village of Portknockie, high-raised on a hill, and with little +protection from any wind that Aeolus may send out of his cavern. The +population comes near 1,600 souls, and it is rare to find a native who +is not called by one of the following surnames: <i>Mair</i>, <i>Wood</i>, <i>Munro</i>, +<i>Pirrie</i>. I believe such a dearth of appellatives is the invariable rule +in the fishing villages of the North Sea. To counteract the confusion +that would inevitably arise, an agnomen or "tee-name" is usually +appended. The Portknockie tee-names are <i>Mash</i>, <i>Deer</i>, <i>Doodoo</i>, +<i>Bobbin</i>, and <i>Shavie</i>. Examples of postal addresses are—</p> + + +<ul><li>John Wood (Bobbin), Portknockie.</li> +<li>Duncan Munro (Doodoo), "</li> +<li>Samuel Pirrie (Shavie), "</li> +<li>Daniel Mair (Mash), "</li> +</ul> + +<p>I don't envy the young minister who, fresh from Lucian, has to read with +solemnity a roll of such communicants.</p> + +<p>Between Portknockie and the sea-town of Cullen is a charming stretch of +links and sea-sands. Over the broad Firth, as one looks north-west, may +be faintly seen the hills of Sutherland and Caithness.</p> + +<p>It is pleasant to read books amid the scenery in which they were +conceived, and among the people they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">{48}</a></span> portray. Those who spend their +holidays at Cullen would act wisely in reading George Macdonald's novels +there. No one has drawn the character of the Moray Firth fisherman so +lovingly, beautifully, and sympathetically as he. After reading such a +tale as the <i>Marquis of Lossie</i> one looks upon places like Portknockie +and the sea-town of Cullen with different eyes. The toilers of the deep +that go forth on the waters from these seaboard shires are serious and +moral men. Contact with the sea and the presence of danger at all hours, +have made them alert, keen, and dexterous. Most of the crews carry a box +of choice books with them for their odd hours of leisure when they go to +the Yarmouth fishing. Let a stranger get into conversation with one or +two of these hardy heroes, and he will be surprised at their +intelligence and wide interests. He will certainly conclude that the +young fisherman, Malcolm Macphail, whom Macdonald introduces in the +novel mentioned, is no exaggeration, but true to the life.</p> + +<p>The sea-town of Cullen consists of some hundreds of houses closely +huddled together just at the edge of the sea. The rank odour of wreck, +tar, fishing-gear, and bait, pervades the air, and is effectually kept +from corruption by the searching sea-breezes that are ever blowing. When +not engaged on the water, the men are busy mending their nets, stitching +their sails, making fast the seams of their craft and tarring the big +inflated floaters that support the lines. They are quite ready to chat +with a stranger and discuss their methods of working, their gains, +mishaps, and partnerships.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">{49}</a></span></p> + +<p>When the fishing season is over and the crews are known to be on the way +home, the excitement among the women is intense. No Bourse ever tingled +more feverishly with rumours and sinister fears than Sandhaven or +Rosehearty or Seatown at such a crucial time. Costly nets may be riven, +boats may be stove in by untoward accidents, or worse than all, fathers, +husbands and brothers may be drowned on the road home to their loved +ones. Rarely does a season pass without bringing sorrow to the heart of +some waiting wife or sister.</p> + +<p>The joys, hopes, and fears of these maritime townships have been +worthily made vocal by Dr. George Macdonald. He has done this with a +grace and an artistic conception that raise his stories to a very high +rank in pure literature. I am afraid Macdonald is not much read by the +present generation: his stories are too long, too philosophical, perhaps +too poetical, for the taste of to-day. Every book of his is saturated +from beginning to end with the religion of the Gospels—a religion of +love, beauty, tolerance, and sympathy.</p> + +<p>I am happy to say that I saw Dr. Macdonald once and heard him speak. His +venerable aspect and chaste elocution made a powerful impression on all +who heard him. His discourse could not be reported in cold print, for +the flash of the mystic's eye, the human kindness that emanated from his +whole being, and the felt emotion of his every tone could not be +reproduced by any artifice known to the printer.</p> + +<p>The Forfarshire fishwives have quite a Dutch mania for cleanliness. On +Saturdays they give their homes a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">{50}</a></span> complete overhaul, and the men are +driven out of doors during the ceremony. What man could stay at home +when his wife, supplied with a mop and a big pail of soapy water, is +sousing the floor and the walls? Furniture is scrubbed and dusted, glass +ornaments, porcelain hens, and shell-boxes have to be carefully wiped, +grates and fire-irons must be rubbed to a glittering polish. These +industrious women, panting with the enthusiasm of work, enjoy Saturday +more than any other day of the week. The enjoyment springs from various +causes. There is first the delight that comes from a vigorous exercise +of the muscles. This pleasure is heightened by the knowledge that the +work is for a good end, and that on Sunday the house will be +resplendent, immaculate, and peaceful. It is not to be denied that the +feeling of satisfaction at having evicted the husband is also an +important item. When he comes home from discussing politics with his +co-mates and brothers in exile, she will not fail to jibe him on the +general worthlessness of his existence, and accuse him of intemperance.</p> + + +<h3>AMONG THE MINERS.</h3> + +<p>A fishing village has a picturesqueness and a kinship with Nature and +the hills, utterly lacking in a mining locality. The squalid rows of the +latter, arranged in wretched, heart-breaking symmetry, are an offence to +the landscape. Mud and filth cumber the door-steps, runnels of +malodorous water ooze along the rows, ragged and ill-kempt bairns tumble +about like little savages. A pitiful sight it is to see the black squads +of colliers returning to their homes after a day in the damp bowels<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">{51}</a></span> of +the earth: greasy caps with little oil-lamps attached, wet, miry +clothing and grimy faces, all make up a most saddening spectacle. The +wages given to these poor fellows are miserably meagre, considering that +after the age of forty-five, their limbs are stiffened with rheumatism +and their lungs the seat of chronic asthma. It is not surprising that +miners should be intemperate, and that their recreations should rise no +higher than dog-racing and cock-fighting.</p> + +<p>It is very unpleasant to think that so much good bone and muscle is +being ground and destroyed by work so brutalising and unnatural. Coal +must be brought to the surface for the wants of civilisation, and in the +process the collier is destroyed, body and soul. Society needs +constantly to be reminded of its duties towards those who, in Helot +fashion, clean the drains and work the mines. Those duties involve more +than the distribution of tracts.</p> + +<p>I had the opportunity of speaking to a crowded meeting of miners in the +county of Stirling quite recently, and was immensely pleased with the +behaviour and close attention of the audience. Before the speaking +began, the proceedings resembled a University Graduation Ceremony, that +is, there was a great deal of whistling, cat-calling, and rowdy +merriment. The audience kept on their caps, and many of them, disdaining +the use of chairs and benches, squatted against the walls in the +position so dear to subterranean workers. Once the lecture began, the +resemblance to a University gathering ceased, for the colliers behaved +like gentlemen. What subject, it may be asked, could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">{52}</a></span> possibly interest +an assembly of illiterate miners? It so happens that, in Scotland, we +have a great number of working-men poets, who have, in a homely but very +graphic way, voiced the feelings of the labouring classes, and given fit +expression to every joy and sorrow that men experience in this mortal +round. These hodden-gray bards furnish abundance of material for giving +even the humblest and most untrained mind a few glimpses of what is +meant by literature. Burns has a broad and brawny humanity that appeals +to all men, and, besides Burns, there are scores of major and minor +warblers that are interesting, quotable, and full of grace.</p> + +<p>The wild and unruly manners of some mining districts, even at the +present day, may partly be explained by remembering that up to the end +of the eighteenth century, colliers were serfs and, as such, were not +allowed to leave the mines and seek work elsewhere. When a pit was sold, +the workers passed as a matter of course into the hands of the new +proprietor. The son of a miner was compelled to follow the father's +occupation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">{53}</a></span><a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> Slavery fixed a brutalising mark on generation after +generation that is not yet entirely erased. In the first half of the +nineteenth century the knights of the shuttle—intellectual, +disputatious, and lyrical—looked down with infinite contempt on the +ignorant and boorish slaves of the pick. Poetry has, in consequence, +little to say about the digger for coal. The song of "The Collier +Laddie," attributed to Burns, is one of the very few pleasant pieces of +verse associated with the miner.</p> + +<p>The Scotch mining villages of to-day contain a queer juxtaposition of +nationalities, and the proportion of native colliers is becoming less +and less. Thousands of Irish families from Ulster and Connaught are now +settled permanently in the counties of Lanark, Stirling, and Ayr. The +alien Pole, too, is to be found in the same regions uttering melodious +oaths learned on the banks of the Vistula. To complete the welter, +huckstering Orientals may be seen gliding about among the rows of +houses, fulfilling prophecy and selling highly-coloured pictures of the +Virgin Mary.</p> + + +<h3>HAND-LOOM WEAVING.</h3> + +<p>The miner is still with us, but the weaver is almost obsolete in the +Lowlands. You must search diligently for him. In Laurencekirk (a quaint +village of one long street, in the shire of Forfar), and in similar +out-of-the-way nooks, can still be faintly heard the music of the +hand-loom. I went recently into a weaver's shop in Laurencekirk, and +found three old men and one aged woman plying their shuttles. The oldest +of the men was born four years after the battle of Waterloo, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">{54}</a></span> there +he sat, like a vision of the vanished years, striving to weave a few +more yards of drugget before going to rejoin his contemporaries of the +reign of George III. He told me there were once seven hundred hand-loom +weavers in the place, and "<i>that young fellow</i>" said he, pointing to a +wrinkled carle of eighty on the loom behind, "remembers it as well as I +do."</p> + +<p>The industry of hand-loom weaving, which, a century ago, made every town +in Scotland resonant with the din of shuttles, is thus almost a thing of +the past, and the men who engaged in it have gone the way of their +shoe-buckles, knee-breeches, and seventeen-hundred linen. Yet weavers +were typical of all that was intellectual in Scottish life: every shop +was in its way a miniature university, and every weaver a man who +believed himself capable of giving Pitt a lesson or two on the +management of the war, and Dundas a few hints on political economy. They +had, indeed, far clearer views on politics than most of their +legislators; from their ranks at a subsequent period the Chartist +agitators—regrettably extreme as they were—were largely recruited; and +it is not too much to say that the minds of many of our leading +accredited reformers took the ply from these politicians of the loom. +These men who, in a way so characteristic of Scotland, managed to make +high-thinking subsist on homely fare, can never quite fade from memory +while their tuneful poetical exponent, Tannahill, is read and enjoyed. +In his works we have a page out of the past; and as we read his life and +poems, we behold the Scotch village as it was a century ago; we see the +old houses with their outside stairs,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">{55}</a></span> the antique boulder-paved cross, +and the assemblies of aproned craftsmen discussing news much older than +their ale.</p> + +<p>In Broadford, Skye, there is an old crofter who, in his early years, +worked at the loom with Alexander Bain, late Professor in the University +of Aberdeen. Half a century ago, John Stuart Mill said that Bain's +erudition was encyclopædic. From long residence in France, I know that +few British philosophers are better known than Bain (whose name the +French amusingly pronounce to rhyme with <i>vin</i>). This old crofter tells +how he used to chaff the future professor for invariably having a book +in front of him as the shuttle was plied. Bain, by slow and careful +work, overcame prejudice, and secured a high position among the leaders +of thought. Long ago, those who had to sit for the London degrees used +to regard him as the greatest thinker in Europe. When he retired from +the examinership at London, students lost some of their old veneration +for him, and when he married a second time, a Miss Barbara Something, +they even ventured to make a logical joke on him, and say that he had +been fascinated by <i>Barbara's perfect figure</i>. I know that many pupils +of our public schools, in love with football more than syntax, often +regretted that Bain ever composed his <i>English Grammar</i>. No book (unless +perhaps Morell's <i>Analysis</i>) has ever been more cordially execrated, and +no book ever more richly deserved it, for though, like Aberdeen granite, +it is stately and impressive, it is also ruthless, cold, and implacable. +The draught may be wholesome and medicinal, but there is no honey on the +rim of the cup.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">{56}</a></span></p> + + +<h3>PROFESSOR BLACKIE IN THE HIGHLANDS.</h3> + +<p>One hears a great deal of Professor Blackie in the North and West, and +no wonder. He was a laughing, jocular, impressionable man, who hobnobbed +with landlords and amiably slapped drivers and policemen on the back, +throwing a Gaelic greeting at them as he did so. His faculty for writing +poetry is seen in many a guidebook; Oban, Inverness, Pitlochry, and +numberless other places, have had their beauties celebrated by this +animated writer. He was a good friend to the Highlands—studied Gaelic +most arduously, translated some of the finest of the Celtic bards, +worked assiduously for the establishment of a Celtic Chair in Edinburgh, +spoke many a good word for the crofters—in fact, did everything well +except what he was paid to do, viz., teach Greek to his students. Grave +D.D.'s could not understand or condone his cantrips. I have been assured +that on one occasion, when Professor in the College of Aberdeen, he +actually <i>stood on his head</i> before a class of students. Mr. Barrie has +given a very amusing and quite unexaggerated account of the Professor's +normal demeanour in Edinburgh. Blackie's text books of <i>Greek Dialogues</i> +are full of the most waggish remarks.</p> + +<p>The landlady of Kinlochewe Hotel gave some lessons in Gaelic to this +convulsive old scholar. He would come in with a Celtic Bible below his +arm, and, opening the sacred volume, read a chapter or two at a terrific +rate of speed, and whistle triumphantly when he had finished. Highland +folk did not care to converse with Blackie for three reasons: (1) he +spoke too quickly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">{57}</a></span> for the leisurely and composed conversation of the +Gael; (2) his pronunciation was bad, and people did not like to tell him +so or correct him—(no one ever pronounced Gaelic to perfection who did +not get the language with his mother's milk); (3) he was fond of using +literary words, taken from the older bards, in his ordinary +conversation; now, such words are obsolete in every-day talk and quite +unfamiliar to crofters and cottars. In the Highlands, Blackie's English +was better understood than his Gaelic.</p> + +<p>Blackie was undoubtedly a very able scholar—not, indeed, of that minute +burrowing kind famous in Germany, but rather of the class that delights +in the literature and vivid force of a language. He <i>spoke</i> Latin and +Greek, and held views on the teaching of these tongues that seemed more +eccentric in his time than they do now. He declared that the linguistic +achievement of which he was proudest was his mastery, such as it was, of +the language of the Gael.</p> + +<p>It affords me pleasure in the retrospect to think of old Blackie at a +distribution of prizes to school-children in a town of the West some +years before his death. During the chairman's opening remarks the merry +old man continued to whistle like a mavis. When the chairman sat down, +Blackie embraced him and called him fellow-sinner. Some recitations +followed from the children, one of which was Burns's "Address to a +Haggis." When the young elocutionist came to the lines—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Till a' their weel-swall'd kites belyve<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Are bent like drums."<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">{58}</a></span></div></div> + +<p>Blackie rolled in his chair, held his sides and uproariously expressed +his approbation. Then came the distribution of prizes, during which the +Grand Old Boy made some pun or quaint remark on each of the children's +names, as he presented the books: <i>"Miss Minnie Morrow</i>: never put off +till to-morrow what you can do to-day; <i>James Glen</i>: be a real genuine +<i>Glen</i> all through life, not a <i>valet</i> or flunkey; <i>William Lindsay</i>: +Willie, my lad, imitate your ancestors at Otterburn: 'The Lindsays flew +like fire about till a' the fray was done'; <i>Mary Black</i>: black but +comely like the daughters of Jerusalem," and so on, in a bird-witted, +half-daft way that the audience contemplated with benevolent wonder.</p> + + +<h3>NOTE ON INVERNESS SURNAMES, ETC.</h3> + +<p>Let me mention here a very useful and interesting piece of philology +that was done by Dr. Macbain in 1895. That eminent scholar, working on +the <i>Inverness Directory</i>, analysed the names occurring there, explained +them on sound principles of etymology, and gave percentages of Celtic +and Saxon surnames in the Highland capital.</p> + +<p>Roughly speaking, the <i>Directory</i> of 1894-1895 had 5,000 single entries, +and <i>750 distinct surnames</i>. Of these surnames, only 110 are pure +Gaelic. About 70 per cent. of the natives are, however, supposed to be +of Highland descent.</p> + +<p>Dr. Macbain points out that certain Highland clans have names that are +not Celtic: <i>Grant</i> is from the French "grand"; <i>Fraser</i> from the French +"fraise," a strawberry (the Frasers have a strawberry in their +coat-of-arms); <i>Chisholm</i> is English and means "gravel-holm,"—the +Anglo-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">{59}</a></span>Saxon <i>ceosol</i> (pebble) is preserved in <i>Chesil Beach</i> and +<i>Chiselhurst</i>; <i>MacLeod</i> signifies "son of Ljot"; and <i>ljotr</i> is the +Norse word for "ugly." <i>Campbell</i> is probably Norman-French, though Dr. +Macbain suggests <i>cam-beul</i>, Gaelic for "crooked mouth." In olden times +an external conqueror would sometimes subdue a district, and call the +natives after his noble self.</p> + +<p>The commonest names in the town are Fraser, Macdonald, Mackenzie, +Macintosh, Ross, Cameron, and Munro. About 1,200 of the population have +one or other of the first three names. The Frasers are an easy first, +and form more than 9 per cent. of the population.</p> + +<p><i>John</i>, <i>Alexander</i>, and <i>William</i>, are the commonest Christian names in +Inverness. "It is remarkable and indeed regrettable," says Dr. Macbain, +"that the Gaelic Christian names (Donald, Duncan, Kenneth, Murdoch, and +Angus), are not higher in the list."</p> + +<p>The name of the first recorded inhabitant of Inverness (<span class="smcap lowercase">A.D.</span> 1200) is +Geoffrey Blount, a feudal warrior no doubt (French <i>blond</i>). In the +thirteenth century we have the names <i>Noreys</i>, <i>Grant</i>, and <i>Hay</i>. In +the fourteenth century the leading name is Pilch, derived from +<i>peluche</i>, the French for "plush." In the fifteenth century, <i>Reid</i>, +<i>Vaus</i>, and <i>Cuthbert</i> are prominent citizens. <i>Vaus</i> is said to mean +"of the vales," <i>i.e.</i>, <i>de Vallibus</i>; <i>Reid</i> is Scotch for "red"; and +<i>Cuthbert</i> is pure Lowland. Evidently the leading men were aliens and +interlopers.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">{60}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">MUSIC, SPEECHES, AND LITERATURE.</span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Scotch a reading nation—Hardships of students in old +days—Homer in Scalloway—When education ends—Objects of +chapter—Music—M.P.'s—Rural depopulation—Its +causes—Emigration—Village halls—The moon—A lecture in +Islay—Mental and material wealth—Real greatness—A Highland +laird on literature—Varieties of chairmen—"Coming to the +point"—Moral obligation—Compliment to Paisley—Oratory at +Salen—Lecture in a dungeon—Surprises—A visit to the +Borders—Tarbolton—Scotch language—Choice books—The +essayists—A Banff theory—Goldsmith in Gaelic—<i>Biblia +abiblia</i>—Favourites for the road—Horace—Shakespeare's +Sonnets—Xenophon—French literature and journalism—Romance and +Augustanism—Victorian writers—Celt and Saxon.</p></div> + + +<h3>SCOTCH A READING NATION.</h3> + +<p>I think it was Mr. Holyoake, the veteran lecturer, who, in a volume of +reminiscences, declared he found the audiences in Scotland more +intelligent than elsewhere. I cannot draw such comparisons, for I have +not spoken often south of the Tweed; this I can say with assurance, +however, that no one need hesitate to address an audience of Scotch +peasants on a topic of literary interest. Predestination and such +religious trifles may stir them to disrespectful heat, but pure +literature invariably draws forth their cool and critical attention. +Probably no nation has ever devoted so much attention to books, and, as +the result of this characteristic, Scotland,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">{61}</a></span> considering its size and +population, has produced far more than its proportion of eminent men. At +the Reformation epoch, when the comforts of a Lowland cottage would be +little in advance of those in a present-day Uist croft, writers like +George Buchanan and his fellows of the <i>Deliciæ Poetarum Scotorum</i> made +the excellence of Scotch scholarship known in every university of +Europe. Buchanan was really a typical Caledonian man of +genius—open-eyed, sagacious, patriotic, and cosmopolitan—and I can +strongly recommend the occasional perusal of his Latin Psalms to all +modern readers who wish to keep their feelings of reverence fresh and +prevent their Latin quantities from getting amorphous.</p> + + +<h3>HARDSHIPS OF STUDENTS IN OLD DAYS.</h3> + +<p>Those who think highly of the Scotch intellect, point with pride to the +fact that for many a year the Prime Minister, the leader of the +Opposition, and the Archbishop of Canterbury all hailed from the North. +For my own part, I am chiefly interested in cases where eminence has +resulted from the cultivation of literature on a little oatmeal. A few +months ago, I had the pleasure of chatting, over a cup of tea, with the +suave old gentleman who combines the postmastership of Dunvegan with the +office of factor to the Macleod of Macleod. He held me spell-bound for +an afternoon as he narrated in graphic language the hardships of the +Skye students in former times. Many a Skye youth, I was told, bent on +studying the humanities at Aberdeen, would mount his sheltie, traverse +thereon the rough roads of his misty island as far as Kyleakin, cross +the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">{62}</a></span> ferry there, ride on east through the ben-shadowed track of Glen +Moriston, and finally bear down on the streets of the Granite City. +There the o'erlaboured sheltie would be sold to pay the matriculation +fees.</p> + + +<h3>HOMER IN SCALLOWAY.</h3> + +<p>Many little out-of-the-way townships in insular Scotland contain +scholars who would find themselves quite at home among a set of college +dons. In the course of my travels in Shetland I came to the tiny village +of Scalloway, and while standing on the pier gazing alternately at the +confusion of sea and island, and at the grim old ruined castle where +Earl Patrick, the wicked viceroy, once resided, I heard a conversation +on geology being carried on between a tall and brawny shopman and some +sailors. The latter, who were on board a ship, shouted their replies +over a few yards of water to the shopman, who was on the pier near me. I +was interested in the men's talk, which had to do with the subsidence of +the land at this part of the coast. One of the sailors alleged that his +grandmother's cabbage-patch was now covered by the water on which his +boat was floating. The big shopman, turning to me, quoted the well-known +passage of Tennyson (everyone can repeat it) of the sea flowing where +the tree used to grow. "O Earth, what changes thou hast seen." This +quotation led to a literary talk in which he remarked that of all poets +he preferred Homer. "What translator do you like best?" I enquired. +"Blackie's," he replied, "as being the most faithful to the original. +But I rarely read a translation, '<i>I prefer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">{63}</a></span> Homer in his own Greek.</i>'" +This remark made by one whose fingers were glistening with +herring-scales, came to me as a pleasant surprise. Later on in the day, +I visited his house and saw his fine library and his splendid selection +of classical books. Not many teachers of my acquaintance have a better +array of the editions of Homer. He was not one of your ignorant +collectors who know only the outside of what they buy. He had read over +the whole forty-eight books of the text again and again, and could +discuss knotty passages in most interesting and original fashion. His +memory was evidently an excellent one. He informed me that most of his +reading was done in the early morning, and that he found five hours' +sleep quite adequate. I have a most agreeable recollection of my +interview with this self-taught scholar. I believe there are many like +him in not a few outlandish nooks of Scotland,—men who read books not +for any material advantages that result from their studies, but simply +and solely for the intense pleasure that comes from communion with the +masterminds of bygone generations.</p> + +<p>Travel in remote districts of Britain reveals the fact that our +provincials, whenever they have the chance, are a studious and +thoughtful race. The isolation and monotony of life in many parts are +bound to drive men to study and reflection if the means for these are at +hand. Sisyphus himself had hardly less variety of occupation than some +of our shepherds whose work on the hills involves long absences from +social intercourse. To such men (whose life is suggestive of a repeating +decimal) the access to an ell or two of good books often<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">{64}</a></span> means mental +salvation. Nothing is so melancholy as to find a countryman of brains +who has never had the opportunity of cultivating his mind in such a way +as to eliminate prejudice and widen the range of interest.</p> + + +<h3>WHEN EDUCATION ENDS.</h3> + +<p>I am sometimes inclined to think that many of our rural clergymen, +intent on shielding their congregations from pestilent doctrine and +latitudinarism, are actuated by much the same spirit as the Sultan Omar +when he set fire to the great Library at Alexandria. The Bible is no +doubt the best of books, and it may be that the Confession of Faith +comes next: but when these have got their share, there still remains the +religious duty of educating the intellect by a wide perusal of the +inspired apostles of secular literature. A Highland teacher, who +presided at one of the lectures in the north, expressed himself very +appositely thus on the subject of education: "The supposition that +education is over when a boy leaves school, is far too prevalent," he +said. "Education properly considered comes to an end when the last +breath of life is drawn. Edward Young in his <i>Night Thoughts</i> says: +'Were man to live coeval with the sun, the patriarch-pupil would be +learning still.' Young was undoubtedly right: some of the most forceful +and penetrating lessons of life are given to us long after we have cast +our text-books into some dusty corner, never to be opened more. In our +early days, we cannot choose our own teachers, and there is often a good +deal of force and constraint. The delightful thing about our education +in mature life is that we have the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">{65}</a></span> selection of our own masters. There +is no compulsion whatever. I am convinced that for everyone of us there +is some one author whose works will act as medicine for the mind and be +an unfailing tonic in all conditions of the soul."</p> + + +<h3>OBJECT OF CHAPTER.</h3> + +<p>I intend to devote this chapter to a description of a few of the +speeches delivered by some of the speakers at such literary evenings in +various parts of the country. After I had said my say, I sometimes +invited an expression of opinion. Almost invariably someone responded to +the invitation, with the object of asking a question, expressing +dissent, or intimating concurrence. I do not recollect a single meeting +out of hundreds that could be called monotonous. It did not in the +slightest detract from the interest of a meeting that many of the +remarks erred on the score of irrelevancy. The attention never flagged +from first to last, and it was no uncommon thing for the proceedings to +last for over three hours. In giving typical speeches delivered by +crofters, lairds, tradesmen, and clergymen, I mean to indicate to the +reader <i>the subjects that are of interest to our provincial population, +their attitude to questions of literature and social life, and +incidentally the great amount of humour that still exists in the world</i>.</p> + + +<h3>MUSIC.</h3> + +<p>The free and unconventional character of these meetings was perhaps seen +best of all in the musical part of the proceedings, which was always +arranged locally.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">{66}</a></span> Usually the songs were well-known Highland or Lowland +airs, in many cases so exquisitely rendered that it was quite evident +there had been much previous preparation. When my opinion was asked +beforehand, I invariably recommended national melodies. It was always a +treat to get a Gaelic song or two well rendered. At Acharacle (a little +place at the far end of Lochshiel) Mr. Rudd's piper gave some fine +Highland tunes, which evoked great enthusiasm. Personally I prefer the +pipes to every other instrument, for this reason, that even if I don't +understand all the music, I can appreciate the scenic effects. The +Acharacle piper was a fine specimen of the Celt, and his get-up was +glorious:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"He screwed his pipes and gart them skirl<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till roof and rafters a' did dirl."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Sometimes the phonograph formed part of the musical programme. I do not +approve of this demoralising instrument except to a very limited extent. +The cylinders usually gyrate with records of fatuous music-hall songs, +unedifying coster-airs and farcical speeches. The <i>vox humana</i> +interpreting national melodies is infinitely better. What vigour and +illustrative expression the islanders can throw into their songs! I have +but to shut my eyes to see the policeman of Staffin interpreting "The +Bonnie House o' Airlie." When his big, manly voice threw out the +terrible threat, "<i>I'll no' leave a staunin' stane in Airlie</i>," his eyes +shot fire, his teeth gleamed, and his ponderous fist came thundering +down on the table in front of him.</p> + +<p>I still remember with infinite pleasure the strains of Mr. Cameron's +Poolewe Choir, heard in Gairloch<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">{67}</a></span> school-house. That energetic and +complaisant conductor brought his clear-throated minstrels over to the +meeting in a brake. It was a luxury to see them with their white robes +and tartan sashes, while in front of them stood their genial leader clad +in kilts. The Gaelic <i>Mod</i>, which is now a regular institution in the +land, is bound to do splendid service towards keeping alive the fine old +music of the North. The Poolewe Choir, I am happy to say, won much +distinction at the <i>Mods</i> of both Inverness and Greenock. <i>There is +great need for choirs, and great need, also, for innocent songs of a +secular character.</i> Before I spoke to the people of Eigg, I requested +the teacher to arrange, if possible, for a musical programme. The reply +staggered me: "No man, woman, or child in this island would for a moment +even dream of singing a worldly song. We are all converted here, except +a few benighted Catholics. The vain, fleeting joys of this world are as +dross to us. The missionary has a modulator, and he trains the young men +and women in the sol-fa so that they may sing Sankey's hymns in all the +parts." I was dreadfully floored by this answer, and could only mutter +mechanically, "<i>Dross</i>," "<i>Missionary</i>,'" "<i>Modulator</i>," in a vain +effort to seize the situation. Conversion I understood and approved of, +but where, in the wee island of Eigg, were the vain, fleeting joys? +There is no public-house in the place, and little temptation of any +kind. The most disquieting item of all was the modulator: I have not +seen one for a long time, and am not sorry, for there is nothing which +so spoils the appearance of a wall nor anything so dismal as practising +scales. A com<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">{68}</a></span>promise was come to, and it was arranged that some Gaelic +readings, containing a dash of religion, should take the place of songs, +and give some variety to the evening's proceedings.</p> + +<p>At some of the meetings there was perhaps an <i>excess of realism</i>. +Bottom, in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," wishing to avoid excitement and +fear among the ladies when he is acting the part of Pyramus, says: +"Write me a prologue; and let the prologue seem to say, we will do no +harm with our swords, and that Pyramus is not killed indeed; and for the +more better assurance tell them that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but +Bottom the weaver: this will put them out of fear." I thought of +Bottom's extreme delicacy when I was present at a meeting in Tomatin not +long ago. An outstanding feature of the evening's proceedings was the +vividly dramatic rendering of the song, "Macpherson swore a feud," by +the local postman. The latter, a big, burly man, was extremely +formidable in his Highland attire. When he came to the verse dealing +with the untimely decease of Macpherson, he whipped the dagger out of +its sheath, flourished it as in act to kill, and terrified some of the +lady visitors by his vivid suiting of the action to the word. They were +as much astonished at the flash of the <i>skian dhu</i> as the Commons were +when Burke threw a dagger on the floor of the House.</p> + +<p>A musical treat is sometimes got in the most unexpected places. I was +particularly struck with a children's glee-party in Jura (a rough island +known chiefly for its sterile Paps). The bairns admirably rendered Ben +Jonson's delightful ditty, "Drink to me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">{69}</a></span> only with thine eyes," and the +Shakespearian song, "Where the bee sucks, there suck I." In such islands +a musical teacher is a valuable asset. Let me add that all the libraries +have been gratuitously supplied with fine collections of Scottish music.</p> + +<p>At Acha, in the island of Coll, four sturdy farm-maidens, ruddy with +health and robed in white, gave various English and Gaelic airs in +admirable style. A divinity student sang a <i>coster song</i> (think of this +in an island of craggy shores, gulls, wild-swans, and curlews!), and on +being encored, he gave a "Cradle Lullaby," and by gently swaying a chair +backwards and forwards on the platform, he strove to illustrate the +movements of childhood's earliest receptacle.</p> + +<p>A military gentleman—an ex-major—in proposing a vote of thanks, one +evening, to the singers, said he had sung a song but once in his life, +the occasion being his admission to the Royal Engineers, thirty years +before. It was a standing law in that body that every novice should sing +a song or drink a mixture consisting of whisky, ink, and cayenne pepper. +He chose the former alternative, and at the end of the first verse the +Royal Engineers had all left the room in a demoralised condition!</p> + + +<h3>M.P.'s.</h3> + +<p>At one of the meetings in Argyleshire, I had the joy of speaking under +the chairmanship of the glib and able Mr. Ainsworth, M.P. for that +county. Among the votes of thanks was one for the chairman: it made a +profound impression upon me, as much by its form as by its substance: "I +hope, Mr. Ainsworth, that you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">{70}</a></span> will take better care of your health in +future (hear, hear). No, no, you are not taking care of your health at +all (laughter). We all expect you to be Prime Minister, and that is the +reason we would like you not to roam about so much and undermine your +constitution (cheers). You are always travelling. You are like the +Wandering Jew. No! you are like a little bird on a bough. To-day, we see +you on a tree near the door; to-morrow, we see you on a tree a hundred +miles away" (great cheering). Mr. Ainsworth kindly promised that, in +view of his destiny, he would cease to range around the country so +indiscriminately.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately, I have never met Mr. Galloway Weir, but I have heard much +of the zeal of himself and his agents. The following story hinges on the +fact that <i>Weir</i> and <i>wire</i> have the same pronunciation in Lewis. An old +illiterate crofter came to record his vote by word of mouth, and told +the polling sheriff: "I will vote for the right man, yes, yes, it's the +right man I will be voting for this time." "That may be," said the +sheriff, "but unless you will tell me his name, you can't vote." "Well, +if you must know," said the old man, handing the sheriff a +stocking-wire, "<i>I will be voting for the man that has the same name as +that</i>."</p> + + +<h3>RURAL DEPOPULATION.</h3> + +<p>The mention of that eminent politician brings to my mind the frequent +references made at these meetings to the painful subject of rural +depopulation. Everyone regrets the exodus of young men from the country +to the town, a practice which depletes the rural villages<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">{71}</a></span> and deprives +the land of the strong arms that should find employment in working it. +The ministers are not without hope that the rush city-wards may be +checked by improving the conditions of country life, rendering it more +attractive to the young, and enlisting the aid of Government in the +scheme of small-holdings. Motives of health, morality, and patriotism, +are all concerned in the fostering of a hardy peasantry. Everything that +makes country life attractive to young men must operate to make them +regret to quit it. I wish I could reproduce textually all the strong and +astounding speeches I have heard in the Highlands on this subject of +depopulation.</p> + +<p>"We often hear," said a farmer, "that it's healthy men and women that +make up the true wealth of a country, and if that is true, Scotland, for +all its increase of riches, is every year growing poorer. How can the +people left in the glens continue to propagate a hardy race, if all the +young healthy bloods leave for the cities and settle there? I am afraid +that both brain and brawn will continue to get feebler among us, unless +the Government give some kind of inducement for the peopling of the land +with bien, self-respecting men <i>that have a bit land of their own</i>. It's +impossible to get farm-hands round Tayside nowadays, and it's not to be +wondered at. Suppose a young man stays here, what prospect has he, what +incentive has he to work? At the age of seventeen he has earned the +highest wage he will ever earn. Thereafter his life is a slow, +monotonous serfdom; he has no hope whatever of rising, he is doomed to +live from hand to mouth all the years of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">{72}</a></span> existence. But put before +that young man the hope that he can <i>become the owner</i> of a morsel of +land, however small, and you put life and pride into him. He will work +in that case with intelligent purpose, knowing that every penny he saves +is to be employed in making him a landed proprietor, and every detail of +experience he gains will tell in the future for his direct benefit. Our +young fellows don't really want to leave the land and go to die +prematurely (as a great many of them do) in the slums of Glasgow and +Edinburgh. They go to the cities because there is at least <i>a chance</i> of +bettering their lot there, a chance which is entirely lacking at home. +Some of them go away to the colonies and thrive as farmers there. I +rejoice to hear of such success; but I rejoice with trembling when I +think how much of Britain's best manhood has to leave her shores to till +Transatlantic fields, while so much land at home remains unoccupied. By +and by, if you want to see a good specimen of the Highlander, you will +have to go to Canada. Sooner or later, and the sooner the better, the +vigorous action of Government will be demanded to remedy the present +iniquities of land-tenure, and to put a stop to the compulsory +degradation of those who till the soil."</p> + + +<h3>ITS CAUSES.</h3> + +<p>The present seems to be an opportune time for directing public attention +to some remarkable changes that are taking place in the population of +the rural districts of Scotland. A great deal of speaking and writing +has been expended of late years in lamenting the depopulation of the +country. Young fellows do<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">{73}</a></span> not like the monotony of village and farm +life: they prefer the stir and excitement of the cities. Such things are +not to be wondered at. Town life has always had an attraction for those +whose energy requires a wide scene of action. Energy and ambition go +together, and it is the possessor of such qualities that makes the +successful city man. The country does not give scope enough for their +adequate display.</p> + +<p>The railway train and the inventions of modern times are both answerable +for a certain amount of depopulation. I believe the condition of +farm-hands has been markedly improved of late years. They have now a +shorter day, higher wages, better food, and superior house +accommodation. Mechanical appliances have made farm-work lighter and +more agreeable. The drudgery of the threshing flail is now unknown; the +hook and the scythe have given way to the reaping-machine: in every way +hand labour has been lightened. But it is precisely this machinery that +lessens the need for large numbers of agricultural labourers. It is also +notorious that shoemakers, tailors, and blacksmiths, are not so much +required in the country as they used to be. Ready-made shoes and clothes +are brought by rail from the city, and local tradesmen are reduced in +numbers.</p> + + +<h3>EMIGRATION.</h3> + +<p>There seems to be in our day a competition among the Governments of the +New World, which of them can lure away the greatest number of our +peasantry. The latest candidate for our rural youth is the State of +Virginia, the legislature of which has voted a large sum<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">{74}</a></span> of money to +pay the expenses of two delegates, who are at work in the East of +Scotland, hunting for likely emigrants. These Virginian delegates—Mr. +Koiner and Col. Talliafer—paid the passage-money of over a hundred +stalwart lads from Lochtayside in the autumn of 1906.</p> + +<p>No one who has the opportunity of travelling through Scotland can fail +to be struck by the absolute frenzy for emigration that exists +everywhere. There is a constant stream of emigrants from all our +agricultural counties to the wide plains of Canada. That great colony is +being "boomed" in a most energetic way. In Sutherlandshire, I saw a +large van, with placards and specimens of Canadian produce, being driven +through Strath Halladale, to tempt the crofters over the deep. I have +also, at the railway stations in the North, beheld heart-rending scenes +of parting as the young fellows said good-bye to their parents and +friends:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">"Who could guess<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If ever more should meet these mutual eyes."<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a><br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">{75}</a></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3>VILLAGE HALLS.</h3> + +<p>In most of the places I have visited, the school-house is the only +available hall for public meetings. Now, a school-room, with its small, +cramped seats, its lack of platform, and its defective ventilation, is +not well adapted for large gatherings. No man likes to speak <i>up to the +waist in audience</i>, under a low roof, and in stifling air. If less money +were spent on needless church-building, every district in the Highlands +might have its hall for purposes of recreation, reading, and lecturing. +As it is, the churches should everywhere be used far more than they are +for secular gatherings of an elevating kind. Religion suffers greatly +from the closing of churches to concerts and lectures.</p> + +<p>The kindness of local lairds is nowhere more pleasantly shown than in +the giving of funds towards the creation of village halls and recreation +rooms. The little village of Alness has a splendid Working Men's Club, +furnished with everything requisite for pleasure and +profit—smoking-room, billiard-room, and reading-room. This Club owes +its existence to the generosity of Mr. Perrins—known everywhere for the +excellence of his famous condiment—who has an estate in the vicinity. +Kiltarlity and Beauly have, for similar instances of discreet bounty, +permanent reason for blessing the name of Mr. Phipps. Other instances +that occur to me are the spacious Dunbar Hall in Auldearn, due to the +kindness of the family of which the genial Sir Frederick Dunbar, Bart., +is the present representative, and the Astley Hall in Arisaig, named +after the family so long associated with that charming West Highland +village.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">{76}</a></span></p> + +<p>It must not be supposed that the natives do not thankfully welcome such +work on their behalf. Many of the townships, it is true, have had +libraries and halls for many a year, and have established these entirely +on their own initiative; but outside help and enterprise stimulate local +effort in a way often impossible otherwise, as the natives themselves +admit. At Nethy Bridge, a fine hall, with club-room, has been recently +erected, largely owing to the enthusiasm of a London lady resident in +the vicinity. She was distressed to see the young fellows of the place +loafing aimlessly about at night, and proceeded to organise some +rational amusement for them. Her philanthropy has been greatly +appreciated. At Kilmartin, the jubilee of Queen Victoria was signalized +by the erection of the Poltalloch Victoria Hall—an enterprise in which +laird and crofter alike willingly co-operated. It is in this hall that +the Library is established. Mr. Dixon, the erudite historian of +Gairloch, set aside the profits of his book to help in furnishing the +reading-room at Poolewe, in Wester Ross.</p> + +<p>When a rural community has a library and a place to meet in, a literary +society is, as a rule, soon formed. Such a society, founded for an +elevating and educational purpose, forms a common meeting-ground for all +sects, schisms, and parties. I am aware that in most towns of any size +there are such societies in connection with the special churches. In the +Highlands it is better to eliminate the denominational element, for the +very good reason that, the population being small, no one of the too +numerous churches would furnish a representative<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">{77}</a></span> enough roll of +members. I was charmed to find that the little town of Portree, of which +the population is not much more than eight hundred, has a fine literary +society, established on the broad and rational lines I have indicated. +As might be expected from the intellectual advancement and strong +literary bent of the inhabitants, the lectures given and the subjects +discussed at the meetings of the Portree society are of a more erudite +nature than anywhere else in the West Highlands. Most of the Portree +clergymen and professional men are on the list of members.</p> + + +<h3>THE MOON.</h3> + +<p>Very few city people pay much attention to the moon: in the country that +luminary has to be constantly deferred to when arrangements are being +made for social meetings, dances, or lectures. When many of the audience +have to come six, or even ten miles by land or water, light is needed, +and light from above is best. It increases a lecturer's pride to be told +that the plashing of oars over there on the argent face of the waters is +an indication that some of his audience are coming from the other side +of the loch. At the conclusion of many of the lectures, I have seen half +a dozen traps, boats, and bicycles speeding away merrily in different +directions. But for the bright moon, the audience would have been +limited to the immediate neighbourhood of the place of meeting.</p> + +<p>It has often happened that my hotel was as much as seven miles from the +lecture hall. As closed carriages are rare in certain districts, and as +it frequently<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">{78}</a></span> rains—when it is not snowing—in the West and North of +Scotland, I had many good opportunities for gauging my powers of +endurance. The road from Killin to Ardeonaig is a fair example of a +Highland highway:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Rough, hilly roads, that stain the spokes with mire;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thick folds of ebon night on loch and law;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The moan of breezes wailing through the shaw<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like the weird plaints of an Æolian lyre:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And intermittently through the clouds, the fire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of lightning streaks the night with glitter and awe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And lapses swiftly in the dismal maw<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of darkness, 'mid the din of thunder dire.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But to relieve the sad night's sullenness,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And clear the heavens for the timid moon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The straight-descending rain riots like hail<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For a fierce hour, in prodigal excess;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Anon the clouds unmuffle, and the pale,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thin crescent of Diana gilds night's noon."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The place of meeting at Ardeonaig was on the shores of Loch Tay, and the +main road from Killin is high up and does not go near the water at this +point. After alighting from the machine, I had to descend to the +loch-side by a steep, miry, and circuitous road through a wood. As the +"thin crescent of Diana," alluded to above, was not adequate to light my +footsteps here, I struck some futile vestas, which the dripping leaves +at once extinguished. Two elders, swinging lanterns and calling me by +name, by and by divided the night in my vicinity. Their appearance was +welcome, for the torrential rain had made the track one continuous +slippery quagmire. The hospitality of the Ardeonaig<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">{79}</a></span> minister speedily +banished all recollection of the "sad night's sullenness."<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> + +<p>A more trying, because a longer, drive is that from Kilmun to Strachur, +by way of Loch Eck. In the leafy month of June, nothing could be finer; +but in a winter blizzard, one's appreciation of the glory of nature is +somewhat less than rapturous. I mention the Strachur meeting because it +was graced by the presence of a large contingent of local volunteers in +civilian attire. The War Office ought to know that the inclement weather +prevented these warriors appearing in their uniform.</p> + + + +<h3>A LECTURE IN ISLAY.</h3> + +<p>The westerly leg of Islay contains one or two places that have public +libraries sent from Paisley: Portnahaven and Port Charlotte on the sea, +and Gruinart inland and more to the north. It is a weird experience to +drive along the shore road from Bridgend on a night of pitiless rain, +and see the heavy mists broken every now and then by the far-reaching +flash of the Portnahaven lighthouse. Equally weird is it to lecture in a +school with no lamps (as happened at Port Charlotte). At eight o'clock I +could see the faces of the audience well enough, but by and by the room +became quite dark, and I seemed to be addressing an audience of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">{80}</a></span> silent +and attentive ghosts. After I had finished, a Phantom arose in the far +corner of the room and proposed a vote of thanks; and thereafter a Voice +somewhere pronounced the benediction. Then there was a movement of feet, +and the shadowy spectres trooped out into the night. The foolish virgins +had no oil in their lamps; in Port Charlotte, there was neither oil +<i>nor</i> lamps.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p> + + + +<h3>SOME SPEECHES.</h3> + + +<h4>MENTAL AND MATERIAL WEALTH.</h4> + +<p>I never heard the difference between mental and material wealth more +forcibly expressed than by an old Perthshire shoemaker. "Supposing," +said he, "that I had fifty pounds in my pocket at the present moment. +What a wild supposition, but good enough for an illustration! What +inference would you draw from me having that sum of money? This, namely, +that no other person in the universe has the same fifty pounds. The same +pair of boots cannot be worn by two persons at the same time. The same +guinea cannot be twice spent by the same man. It is different with +spiritual things, and with works of art. Scores of people can +simultaneously enjoy a great painting or a fine piece of music: <i>my</i> +enjoyment does not interfere with <i>yours</i>, indeed, it is more than +likely that my enjoyment will be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">{81}</a></span> greatly increased from knowing that +other people are enjoying it as I am. Then again, you can't eat the same +loaf of bread twice: but you can return a hundred times to the same +song, poem, or picture, and like them better the hundredth time than the +first. A pathetic old tune does not lose anything in being sung by +generation after generation. It is always as good as new. Like the +widow's cruise of oil, it can be used without being consumed. These +facts show that works of art—good books, good poems, good music—are, +in a certain sense, immortal and divine. A hundred years ago, our +ancestors sang 'Bonnie Doon'; we, to-day, sing it with undiminished +fervour; a hundred years after this, the song will be fresh. Aye, and a +humorous American writer thinks some of us will hanker for it in heaven:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Perhaps in that refulgent sphere<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That knows not sun or moon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An earth-born saint would long to hear<br /></span> +<span class="i2">One verse of Bonnie Doon.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h4>REAL GREATNESS.</h4> + +<p>The Rev. Chairman of this meeting emphasised the shoemaker's remarks in +the following admirable words: "I often wonder what is really the +greatest thing ever done by a citizen of this country of ours, by a man +of English speech. If we agree with our worthy shoemaker and his way of +thinking, we shall not look at the big accumulation of guineas as an +indication of greatness. Certain commercial men (who ought to know +better) seem to think God has sent us into this lovely world for the +sole purpose of piling up as much money as possible, and then, by death, +leaving it to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">{82}</a></span> others to spend. <i>That</i> can hardly be considered our +reasonable service. Life is not so low-pitched as that. The best work of +man does not admit of being put into an equation with cash. The greatest +feat, to my mind, an Englishman ever performed was the writing of +<i>Paradise Lost</i>. How much did John Milton get in money for his +incomparable epic during his lifetime? <i>Five Pounds</i>: and if he had got +five million pounds, the recompense would have been absolutely +inadequate. History, however, has indemnified Milton for the neglect and +poverty he endured. He has shot up into stature while those of his +contemporaries who bulked largest in the eyes of the world have dwindled +and shrunk into insignificance in comparison with him. The witty, +dissolute king, Charles II., is now seen to be a wretched pigmy: Milton, +who died in blindness and political disgrace, is the real king of that +era, overtopping all the rulers, cabals, and intriguers. So, too, in +Scotland, Burns is the giant of <i>his</i> period. During Burns's life, the +Earl of Dundas was to all intents and purposes king of the country. He +could say to whomsoever he pleased, '<i>Friend, come up higher; be you a +Sheriff, or Lord-Lieutenant, or Justice of the Peace</i>.' Dundas is pretty +well forgotten by this time: probably he will by and by be remembered +solely by Burns's description of him: <i>That slee, auld-farrant chiel +Dundas.</i> Kings and men of temporary renown do well to keep on good terms +with the men of letters."</p> + +<p>It is always a great treat to hear a working-man who has the power of +utterance deliver a speech in a straightforward and unrhetorical way. +There is <i>always</i> a pith<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">{83}</a></span> and vigour about such deliverances quite +unattainable in a formal harangue. The magnates of the little Fife +villages are specially notorious for their gift of the gab: when Bailie +M'Scales or Provost Cleaver gets up to speak, no one has any inclination +to fall asleep.</p> + + +<h4>A HIGHLAND LAIRD ON LITERATURE.</h4> + +<p>Max O'Rell has told us that his chairmen sometimes took advantage of +their position to push their claims for the Town Council. I have not had +the time at my disposal curtailed by any such municipal oratory, though, +occasionally, my remarks on literature have seemed to the chairmen to +stand in need of supplementing. One gentleman, in proposing a vote of +thanks, pulled a copy of Bacon out of his pocket and read the whole of +the famous essay on <i>Studies</i>. Another managed to bring in a lengthy +dissertation on radium! The following speech, delivered by a Highland +laird of a poetical turn, is noteworthy: "I am very fond of poetry," he +said, "and yet I turn with a very languid interest to the writings of +modern poets like Watson and Davidson. The verses of these gifted +singers are for others, not for me. The truth is, I don't want any more +lyrics and such like sugar pellets. My brain is already stocked with a +plenteous supply on which I browse in weal and woe, which I almost think +I personally composed, and to which I have attached a great many +emotions and extraneous incidents known to nobody but myself. My old +poetic favourites have been lying in various corners of my brain for +forty or fifty years; I know every turn, rhyme and rhythm of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">{84}</a></span> them; and +as they have served my need and alleviated my sorrow so long, I do not +intend to give them many fellow-lodgers more. I do not know at what +particular time literary nausea sets in, but Solomon had it when he said +that of the making of books there was no end. No doubt his father David +had primed him well in boyhood in the Psalms, and Solomon, feeling (like +many others since) that the paternal psaltery met all his need of +literary stimulus, would turn wearily from the heaps of presentation +copies of new verse sent by the rising poets of Judæa for their +sovereign's inspection. When a new book came out, Charles Lamb re-read +an old one,—an excellent practice and one which has the additional +recommendation of economy. It is not an unpleasant thing to find +yourself falling back on old favourites and losing interest in the +current hour. I knew a happy old gentleman whose reading was confined to +Walter Scott. Every evening the lamp was lighted in the trim snuggery, +and the appropriate <i>Waverley</i> taken down from the shelf. For such a man +to begin a new novel would have been as irksome as travelling in a +foreign land."</p> + +<p>I am bound to say that I have great sympathy with the sentiments I have +quoted from the speech of this kilted critic. If it were possible to +retain the elasticity and adjustableness of the mind till the end of +life, new authors would perhaps fix our attention as much as the old. +But only a limited number of articulate-speaking men, such as the +omnivorous Professor Saintsbury of Edinburgh, preserve their appetite +tireless and intact. The Professor, like a literary Livingstone, can +grapple<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">{85}</a></span> with the most arid and dusty libraries, and is the envy of all +scholars; but, alas! the majority of us have to take something less than +the whole of knowledge for our province.</p> + +<p>It must not be supposed that all the remarks made at these meetings were +like those I have quoted. An airy irrelevancy was quite as common as the +serious note.</p> + + +<h3>VARIETIES OF CHAIRMEN.</h3> + +<p>I have had experience of hundreds of chairmen, and admired most of them. +It is rather a painful thing to have one who is utterly unversed in +speaking. I remember being introduced in the ante-room to the chairman +of the evening, and, big bucolic giant as he was, he seemed fearfully +perturbed. His hand trembled, his lips were ashy-gray, and his laugh was +a nervous grin. "I am not much used to this sort of thing," said he, +with a poor attempt at mirth and a furtive movement of his hand to his +waistcoat pocket, where he had his introductory speech. "All you have to +do is to introduce me," I hinted; "you needn't say much." On the +platform he shook so much that the whole structure quivered. He rose, +and was received with loud applause. Happily he did not read his speech, +but simply pointed to me and said, "G-g-go on." He sank in his chair, +while runnels of sweat coursed down his cheeks. I admired that chairman +more than one in Caithness, who, after angling for the honour of taking +the chair, grew so terrified towards the hour of meeting, that he went +to bed and sent word he couldn't be present owing to flying pains in his +leg! In country<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">{86}</a></span> districts, reluctance to take the chair arises from a +man's fear of making himself ridiculous; once he cuts a poor figure in +public, discredit is for ever attached to his name.</p> + +<p>Highlanders as a rule make excellent chairmen. The superior gifts of the +Celtic mind, in imagination and wealth of florid expression, nowhere +show themselves to better purpose than when compliments have to be paid. +Then again, the kilt is very impressive on a brawny chairman's legs: it +commands attention and respect at once. I have little knowledge of +colloquial Gaelic, though I have studied the grammar, and have some +skill in reading. A little Gaelic goes a long way in stirring the soul +of a Highland audience. Often I have heard a kilted chairman quitting +his English for a little and giving the audience a mellifluous Ossianic +sentence or two. The effect was electric: eyes gleamed, breath came +quick and fast, the souls of the hearers seemed to have tasted a tonic. +Spoken Gaelic is akin to the elements: it has a mystic affinity with the +winds that sough around the flanks of the mountains and along the +surface of the lonely lochs. There is perhaps not much business +precision about it, but for preaching, praying, and poetry, it is a +splendid medium.</p> + +<p>In Arran, a jovial chairman thus introduced me: "Before I left home, I +thought of a great many nice things to say as a preface to the remarks +of our friend from Paisley. (Here he coughed violently.) Unfortunately, +I am unable to bestow these tit-bits on the audience owing to a +<i>kittlin'</i> in my throat. Instead of saying what I meant to say, I think +I had better tell<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">{87}</a></span> you a story. A minister one Sunday had occasion to be +highly displeased with the precentor, who broke down twice in quite a +simple psalm-tune. 'Excuse me, minister,' said the precentor, 'but I've +got a kittlin' in my throat this morning.' '<i>Kittlin'!</i>' hissed the holy +man in scornful wrath: '<i>it's mair like a big tom-cat</i>.' Ladies and +gentlemen, after these few and decidedly imperfect remarks, I resume my +seat, merely expressing the hope that our friend will feel himself as +much at home here as the deil did in the Court of Session."</p> + +<p>Another chairman in an adjoining island, while engaged in tremulously +reading his introductory speech, came to a sudden stop. An irreverent +youth shouted, "<i>Is that a blot?</i>" After the laughter provoked by this +query had subsided, the chairman said: "I feel to-night like a square +pin in a round hole, or rather, like the Irishman who, when asked if he +was dead, replied, '<i>No, I'm not dead, I'm only spacheless.</i>'" Having +said these words with a weird attempt at mirth, the chairman sat down +too hurriedly, and struck his head so violently against the back of his +chair, that the noise of the impact was heard in every part of the hall.</p> + +<p>I may hint to anyone who lectures or preaches in the Highlands, not to +adopt a patronising attitude or make it appear that he is talking down +to the audience. Such a feature would be at once detected and deeply +resented. A well-known Professor lectured to a Bute audience on +Electricity, and out of ignorance, spoke in a very elementary way to the +audience, defining the simplest terms, and interspersing a great many +"<i>you know's</i>" and "<i>you see's</i>." The chairman, in proposing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">{88}</a></span> a vote of +thanks, slyly remarked: "We have listened to-night to a very good +discourse, and I'm only sorry there are so few young people here. Next +time the Professor comes to speak to us, I hope to see all the +school-children in the hall, for the lecture to-night was admirably +adapted to their capacity."</p> + + +<h4>COMING TO THE POINT.</h4> + +<p>A very loquacious lawyer proposed a vote of thanks to the chairman in +the following fashion: "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "it is often a +very difficult thing to come to the point. When I was at College, I +consented once to write an essay on 'The Progress of America,' the +subject being one of my own choosing. I wrote twenty-five pages of +preliminary matter, and at the end of my writing, I found that Columbus +was not landed. As my essay was to bring my hearers up-to-date on +American progress, I became nettled at my failure to <i>get Columbus +ashore</i> and went round canvassing among my friends to secure a +substitute. No one would relieve me, so I was forced to slaughter an +aunt. I was wired for, by arrangement, on the day before the meeting, +and responded with great alacrity, knowing that there would be no +funeral. Without wasting more words let me on <i>this</i> occasion come to +the point, and ask you to accord to our worthy chairman a very hearty +vote of thanks for the brilliant way in which he has kept us all in +order this evening."</p> + + +<h4>MORAL OBLIGATION.</h4> + +<p>A minister of a western parish thought it his duty, in the course of his +introductory speech, to make some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">{89}</a></span> jovial remarks on the subject of +conscience and moral obligation. "A student of my acquaintance," said +he, "went to Arrochar on Loch Long by excursion steamer. At mid-day, +being thirsty, he <i>drifted thoughtlessly</i> into the hotel and asked for a +cup of tea. With this beverage he washed over some dry biscuits he had +brought with him from home. Imagine his surprise on being told that the +cup of tea would cost him two shillings. Bang went not one sixpence but +four! He looked at the maid and his breath came quick and fast; but he +counted out the money nevertheless. Having occasion to visit the +bathroom to cool his throbbing brow, he perceived a razor on a little +shelf near the mirror there. At once he pocketed this razor and made +off, whistling <i>Scots Wha Hae</i>. He had recouped himself for the +overcharge on the cup of tea. Strange to say, every time he shaved with +the stolen razor he feared some impending calamity. He knew enough Greek +to be aware that Ajax committed suicide with the very sword that hero +got from the enemy. Whenever the student disfigured his chin and +reddened the lather with a new-made gash, he felt in his inmost soul +that a Nemesis was being wrought out. <i>By this simple tale, my friends, +one may see the sovereign power of conscience, which, though dormant for +a time, invariably asserts itself and flogs the culprit.</i>"</p> + + +<h4>COMPLIMENT TO PAISLEY.</h4> + +<p>The following remarks made by a speaker at one of the meetings are worth +citing: "I do not wish our Paisley friend," he said, "to go back to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">{90}</a></span> +banks of the Cart under the impression that we are not a very literary +people up here in Ross-shire. On the contrary, we are clean gone on +literature. Just look at our syllabus! One night we have a discussion on +Shakespeare. Eh? What do you think of that? Shakespeare no less! Next +night we deal with <i>an equally great poet—Tannahill</i>." (No doubt the +speaker meant to compliment Paisley in thus comparing the author of +<i>Lear</i> and <i>Hamlet</i> with the poet-laureate of the loom.) I have heard +Milton's <i>Paradise Lost</i> and Pollok's <i>Course of Time</i> clashed together +in the same ludicrous way. I was dreadfully nonplussed on one occasion +by hearing a speaker strongly recommend the audience to give their days +and nights to the study of Bunyan and M'Cheyne. "Bunyan by all means," +said I to myself, "but who is M'Cheyne that one should be mindful of him +and put him for importance alongside of the immortal tinker?"</p> + + +<h4>ORATORY AT SALEN.</h4> + +<p>I shall never forget a vote of thanks proposed in my hearing by the +excellent doctor of Salen, a pleasant little place situated on a +V-shaped creek of Loch Sunart. I never expect to meet a more genial or +more humorous man than the doctor, on this side of eternity. He knows +the roads of gusty Ardnamurchan better than any other living man, and, +night and day, by sun and by moon, in weather of clear blue, and under +the eddying blinding flakes, he is ever on the move. He found time to +come to the meeting and propose a vote of thanks to the donor of the +library. Everyone listened<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">{91}</a></span> intently to him as he stood there in his +professional frock-coat,—a thin, wiry, twinkling-eyed gentleman. "If +the donor by any chance," said he, looking at me, "should ever sail up +Loch Sunart in his yacht, and land among the people of Salen, to whom +his books have given such pleasure, I should advise him not to stand too +near the edge of the pier, for fear some of the grateful natives might +push him over into the loch, <i>in order to have the pleasure of saving +his life!</i>" This unexpected sally convulsed the audience, and gave a gay +and rollicking touch to the speeches that came after. Mr. M'Gregor, a +farmer from Resipol, broad and brawny, rose to make a few remarks. The +schoolhouse was very hot and close, but he disdained to throw off the +thick and ample Highland cloak which he had on, and which he had worn +all day at the Oban Cattle Show, and on the deck of the boat that had +brought him thence. Mr. M'Gregor had been much struck by my remarks on +the knights of King Arthur, and their custom of sitting at the Round +Table, to avoid questions of precedence. He spoke to this effect: "I do +not wish the lecturer to go back to Paisley under the impression that +Salen is not a very bye-ordinary and consequential place. We have a +fleet of yachts out there, the like of which is not to be seen <i>between +this and Manch-oo-ria</i>. We have a blacksmith that can preach and quote +Scripture as well as any D.D. in the land; my friend the grocer over +there, will give you such bargains as you could never get in +Sauchie-<i>hall</i> Street; and we have a choir here that might give the +angels singing-lessons. I am a very modest man, but I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">{92}</a></span> would like to say +just a word about this Round Table business. The lecturer says the Table +was round so that every knight might be at the head of it. That's the +theory, but what's the fact? I'll tell you. <i>One of King Arthur's +knights was an ancestor of mine, and his name was M'Greegor.</i><a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> Now, +wherever M'Greegor sat, that was always considered the head of the +table." This contribution to Arthurian criticism was delivered with such +force, faith, and genial glee, that no one, considering the powerful +muscles of the speaker, was disposed to question it. (Mr. M'Gregor's +eulogy of Salen did not comprise a reference to the local hotel, which +is conducted on the Gothenburg system. It is comfortable and snug, but +not whole-heartedly patronised by some of the natives, as they consider +the system is an un-Celtic innovation, and believe further that every +drink they take is written down in a big book with an alphabet on the +edge of the leaves to facilitate reference).</p> + + + +<h3>LECTURE IN A DUNGEON, <span class="smcap">Etc.</span></h3> + +<p>I have an agreeable recollection of my stay in Saddell, on the coast of +Kintyre, as the guest of Colonel Macleod, son of the +never-to-be-forgotten Dr. Norman Macleod. The Colonel was born in 1820, +was present at the Eglinton Tournament, and is, to-day, in spite of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">{93}</a></span> +eighty-eight years, hale in body, sound of wind, and perfectly clear in +the intellect. He is a walking encyclopædia of all the social and +political changes that have come about since the accession of Victoria. +He is also an authority on live stock, and it is intensely amusing to +see his horses scampering from the far-end of the field when they see +him, in the hope of getting some of the bits of sugar he always carries +in his pocket for their benefit.</p> + +<p>The school-house being badly situated for the convenience of the people, +the meeting was held in the <i>dungeon of the old castle</i>, a spacious and +airy place quite near the beach. Altogether, I reckon this meeting as +the drollest in all my experience. There were no windows in the +overhanging vaulted roof, and the long stone stair leading to the ground +above, was filled with the audience that could not get accommodation +below. The aged Colonel presided over about one hundred prisoners, and +humorously remarked that the table at which he was standing, was really +a <i>patent incubating apparatus</i>, under which four dozen of Mrs. +Macleod's chickens were coming to maturity. He hoped these embryo fowls +would not interrupt the lecture by any unseemly remarks. At the risk of +wearying the chickens, I spoke for an hour and a half, dealing in the +course of my remarks (to be as apposite as possible) with the dungeon +scene in "The Legend of Montrose," where Dugald Dalgetty squeezes the +windpipe of the Duke of Argyll.</p> + +<p>In one little village hall in Kintyre, I was much perturbed by some of +the placards that had been placed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">{94}</a></span> on the walls. The hall had been used +for evangelical purposes, and there, facing me, in yard-long type, was +the dreadful command, <i>Get right with God</i>. To speak on Hood and his +puns with those colossal letters burning their message into your soul, +would need nerves of steel. I have not nerves of steel, and I felt +dreadfully incommoded by the bill. For the space of five minutes I might +occasionally forget it, and then, in the midst of some light and +skittish quotation, my eye would light upon it, and the verses would +come feebly and falteringly off the tongue. <i>Vox faucibus haesit.</i></p> + + +<h3>SURPRISES.</h3> + +<p>My narrative would be lacking in completeness if I did not frankly +confess that I have sometimes met with humiliations of a kind to wring +the heart and call forth a sigh. In one nook of the north I stayed in +the manse of an excellent clergyman, an eloquent preacher, but austere +and extremely devout. He took the chair at the lecture, which was very +well attended. Before the meeting began I was told that a local +gentleman wished to ask me <i>an important question</i>. This was good news +for me, as I thought the inquirer might have some literary difficulty +which it would be profitable to handle in the course of my remarks. The +anxious enquirer proved to be the local hotel-keeper, who, in a deadly +earnest whisper made the following request: "You have a big meeting," he +said, "and it's not likely there will be such a number of people so near +my hotel for many a long day. <i>Would it be asking too much of you to +finish up about half-past nine and give the audience<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">{95}</a></span> time to sample +some of my commodities before departing homewards?</i> It's chiefly the +minister I have to fear; for if he suspects I wish to do business, he'll +prolong the vote of thanks till after the stroke of ten."</p> + +<p>One of my compensations in wandering Scotland thorough has been the +heartfelt but rather naïve way in which some of the provincials have +expressed their gratitude. "<i>I've paid half-a-crown for worse</i>," said an +old man of Ross to me, shaking me warmly by the hand and believing he +was uttering a most delicate and hyperbolical compliment. (Now, during +my remarks, I had noticed this man taking copious pinches of snuff to +enable him, as I suspected, to sit out the meeting.) Another rustic, +this time an Aberdonian, was impressed by the number of authors +mentioned and the copious citations from their works. "Heavens!" he +cried, "what a memory that man has! That's the kind of partner I should +like to have at whist: he would never forget the cards that were out."</p> + +<p>I know not whether to laugh or weep when I think of the occasion on +which the following charmingly irrelevant remarks were made to me: "We +are all proud of our village library and <i>even prouder of the feeling +that prompted such a gift</i>. I am reminded," the speaker went on to say, +"of a cousin of mine who got a present of exquisite fruit (preserved in +wine) from a friend in a distant part of the country. He wrote to the +donor saying, 'Your fruit is delicious: I like it very much; but I like +even more <i>the spirit in which it has been sent</i>.'"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">{96}</a></span></p> + + +<h3>A VISIT TO THE BORDERS.</h3> + +<p>In order that these pages may fitly represent all the districts of +Caledonia that I have traversed as an uncommercial traveller, I should +like to give a short sketch of how I reached Tweedside by way of Lanark, +at a season when the Glasgow people were beginning their Fair holidays. +Winter, as I remarked, is the time I prefer for travelling, but untoward +circumstances have now and again compelled me to be on the move when +"mid-summer, like an army with banners, was marching through the +mid-heavens."</p> + +<p>I may say at once that it is a great trial to leave Glasgow at that +particular date. The city pours forth its myriads at such a time. The +stations are surging and heaving with throngs of men, women, and +children, all in a hurry and all impatient. Families by tens and dozens +are swarming about. How pathetic it is to see the father with one child +in his arms and two clinging to his coat-tails, while the mother (poor +bedraggled soul) is vainly striving to quieten a squalling fourth! Some +children have lost their parents, and grope about underneath, nipping +the legs of tourists to attract attention and get hold of the right +father; others fall among bales of strawberries that were pulled +yesterday in the fresh country air, but are now being trampled into gory +pulp. Even in the fetid and dust-laden air, rendered almost unbearable +by the hot sunlight that blazes through the overarching glass of the +station roof, Cupid twangs his arrows, and soft eyes speak love to eyes +that speak again. Suddenly the train arrives, and on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">{97}</a></span> already +crowded platform lands the human freight of twenty carriages—a fresh +addition to the welter and confusion worse confounded. What a wealth of +language one hears! Cyclists tinkle with bell and horn to secure the +needed lane of passage. Porters, in desperate madness, throw wooden +boxes down and rope-tied trunks of tin with little sympathy for injured +knees and fiery corns. The train just in will shortly leave with a new +load of passengers. A rush is made for the vacated seats: in tumbles the +surging crowd without regard for the class of ticket they have +purchased. A score of occupants per carriage is about the average; many +swarm into the guard's van, where they are regaled with pandemoniac +odours of ancient fish and decaying vegetables. The heavy train at +length steams out into the open, and in an hour's time Lanark is +reached. "<i>God made the country and man made the town</i>" is the +involuntary reflection of the city man as he steps out of the train and +breathes the fresh air of the hills.</p> + +<p>From Lanark to Peebles, by road, is thirty miles. The track is +excellent, and if the wind is not adversely strong the joy of cycling +the distance is difficult to parallel.</p> + +<p>On this route, no lumbering vehicles, laden with heavy merchandise, tear +up the soil into ruts. No cab-drivers cast sarcastic remarks at you from +their high perch. The only annoyance comes from the cast-off nail of a +horse-shoe or the sharp splinter of a macadamised stone. The air is as +fresh as on Creation's morn. Up hill and down again one can<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">{98}</a></span> hurry on +without ever touching the brake. For the first ten miles, the stately +bulk of Tinto dominates the landscape. What a splendid range of scenery +the eye could grasp from the high vantage-ground of its summit in clear +weather! As one approaches the base of the big hill, the road turns +sharply to the east, and you feel about your ears innumerable breezes +that blow along from the little glens leading down from Tinto's breast. +By and by, the clean, trim, little town of Biggar appears. (The +inhabitants are proud of the fact that John Brown, author of the +beautiful story, <i>Rab and his Frien's</i>, was a native of the town.) One +notices the name of Gladstone prominent above the shops, and it is a +fact that the ancestors of the Grand Old Man were, in the days of yore, +denizens of those quiet hamlets. After a short rest here, we (for you +are with me, <i>ami lecteur</i>) shoot on and pass the sleepy street of +Broughton, lying clear and radiant in the slanting rays of the sun. Here +is the ideal spot for a country clergyman in love with Hebrew roots and +gardening and quiet contemplation. Soon we strike the tiny waters of the +infant Tweed, prattling and gushing up and bubbling clear over its +snow-white pebbles. Now the breeze of gloaming blows more snell. Away +low in the west the sun begins to gather golden clouds in pomp around +his setting. A gorgeous glimmer, gold and red, is thrown over the whole +sky. Keeping close beside the ever-widening stream, we dash through +little clachans on the bank, beneath long, over-arching avenues of +trees, and past the gates of ivy-mantled homes of blessed outlook. Here +a croquet party stops playing,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">{99}</a></span> for the grass is getting wet with +evening dew, and there, in the river, and up to the knees in it, are +half a dozen anglers sweeping the wave with their spurious fly. Peebles +is not far off, and the quiet nooks of the high road are filled with +pedestrians. The entrance to Peebles is exquisite. The long rows of +trees, the situation of the road high above the river in the dell, +combine to make an eerie blend of sound from sighing leaves and gurgling +waters. An old Border peel, Needpath Castle, stands near the straggling +outskirts of the town, and proves, by its choice situation on the knoll, +that our cattle-reiving ancestors were quite alive to the advantages of +a good view. It was a stirring quarter here in the days of the old +Scotch kings. The deadly thrust of lance has reddened every burn in the +wide Borderland. Every brae has had its gory bicker.</p> + +<p>On this <i>tournée</i> I had the pleasure of giving a lecture on "Scotch +Ballads," at a little village not more than half a mile from the +birthplace of Dandie Dinmont. The place was full of sturdy, firm-knit +Borderers, descendants of the dare-devil troopers who wrought such +devastation along the Marches when the Stuarts reigned in Holyrood. +Fresh, ruddy faces, coloured by breeze and sun; hard, keen, inquisitive +looks; intelligence such as comes from knowledge of nature, hereditary +quickness and good circulation of blood: all these could be instantly +seen by glancing round the audience. (How insignificant a mere bookworm +or scholar feels among a company of brawny Liddesdale farmers!) During +the lecture, it was easy to note by the grim smile on their faces, their +flashing eyes and the way<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">{100}</a></span> they gripped their big sticks, that the old +stirring rhymes of fight struck a sympathetic chord in their hearts. Now +and again, during the address, one could see the lips of the listeners +moving in soft repetition of the lines, as some typical quotations were +being made.</p> + +<p>It is not likely that there has been much change or influx of population +in these districts for centuries. The alertness and intelligence of the +natives must be to some extent an inheritance from the generations of +strenuous clansmen whose blood flows in their veins. Life in a +historical district is bound to have an ennobling effect on a man, +especially if he feels knit to the past by lineal descent from the +historical actors. A glamour of romance clings to hill and glen. The +dalesman you meet on the highway can tell you all the lore of his +parish, giving dates and citing illustrative lays. It is pleasant to +find that the stories of the Borderland are still known where they first +took birth, and that the local names, which to students instantly +suggest delightful bits of rhyme, have also to those who dwell near +them, a romance that is borrowed from the olden time.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">{101}</a></span></p> + +<p>Anyone who has travelled in the shires that run along the Cheviots and +the Tweed, will conclude that poetry and romance may ever find a home +there. The hills, with their green pastoral slopes and abundant leafage, +are a delight to the eye in fresh spring and tinted fall. The sound of +the streams, as Ruskin has pointed out, is sweet and rhythmic to an +extraordinary degree, combining with the sough of the winds to form an +undersong of Nature's own melody. As the traveller drives or cycles +along the roads, he now and again gets such impressive vistas of +long-stretching waterways, wooded to the brink with graceful trees, as +grave themselves on the memory for evermore. For rock, crag, and dashing +linn, the northern Highlands are supreme; but in the green Borderland, +there is a more sedate and proportioned beauty. Nature is none the less +attractive for losing somewhat of her wildness and austerity.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">{102}</a></span></p> + + +<h3>TARBOLTON.</h3> + +<p>In the agricultural lowlands of Scotland it is not rare to come upon +little villages that seem entirely left behind by modern progress. Not +long ago my work took me to Tarbolton, a quiet, uneven village in the +heart of the queenly shire of Ayr. The railway company has treated the +place very badly: a full fifteen minutes' drive is needed to reach the +town from the station. It is as if the company said: "Make what you can +of our line, ye insignificant Tarboltonians; our trains are in a hurry +to get from Ayr to Muirkirk; be thankful if we set you down only three +miles from your home." If it is not wet, the drive is a grand one. Five +miles to the right, Mauchline shows its red complexion on the green +hillside, and awakens lyric memories of Burns's imperishable mouse and +share-torn gowan. Over the pasture lands on the right come freshening +winds that hint of the heaving Firth not far away. The road pursued by +the coach meanders among all that is best of rural and pastoral scenery, +for coaly Annbank, defaced by the exhumed entrails of the earth, is +happily on the rear. At a turn of the road, a majestic spire, that of +Tarbolton Parish Church, suddenly stands before the view of the +traveller, and suggests Eternity even when tolling the hours of Time. +Soon the village is reached, and one is in a position to form an idea of +eighteenth century Scotland. The main street is built with that +irregularity so charmingly illustrative of the evolution of the +builder's art. Old cots roofed with thatch take the mind back to the +time when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">{103}</a></span> George I. was defending the faith and maltreating his wife. +Side by side with such are trim two-storey houses with all modern +elegancies.</p> + +<p>I have a pleasant recollection of this interesting village, not merely +from its associations with Burns (which Mr. T.F. Henderson in a dainty +little book has recently recounted anew), but also from the fact that +the natives keep alive the literary traditions of the place in quite a +worthy way. The local baker has written a fluent volume of Essays +dealing with village incidents and worthies, which proves, as Mr. Barrie +says, that life in every stage, if truthfully portrayed, is intensely +interesting, and that every window-blind is the curtain for some tragedy +or comedy.</p> + + +<h3>THE SCOTCH LANGUAGE.</h3> + +<p>Very fine Scotch is still spoken in the rural districts of Ayrshire, and +most of Burns's dialect words are in daily use, at least by the older +generation. The Education Department has most wisely given encouragement +to the study of Lowland Scotch, and I do not see why a special grant +should not be given for special excellence in that department. Some +national movement for a complete Dictionary of Modern Scotch with +explanations in up-to-date philology ought to be organised.</p> + +<p>During the lifetime of Sir Walter Scott, Dr. Jamieson published the +famous <i>Scottish Dictionary</i>, which still holds the field as the most +elaborate compendium of the Lowland dialects. Looked at in the light of +modern science, the derivations are often absurd and fanciful. +Jamieson's love for Gothic parallels led him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">{104}</a></span> constantly astray. +Nevertheless, his dictionary, as amended by various revisers, remains a +stately monument of industry and a necessary adjunct in the study of the +Scotch language.</p> + +<p>In our own day, Dr. Murray of Oxford has compiled an illuminating +grammar of the language, indicating the various dialects of the Lowlands +and their geographical areas. Local antiquarians have also written out +lists of words special to particular counties. Dialect books, such as +the entertaining <i>Johnnie Gibb of Gushetneuk</i>, as well as Mr. Barrie's +delightful sketches, have put excellent specimens of provincial speech +within the hands of a wide circle of readers. A good dictionary of +modern Scotch, dealing with what has been written during the last two +centuries, would be a very useful and a very interesting compendium. It +would show that a great many expressive words employed by thirteenth +century English writers are still in use on the Scotch side of the +Border.</p> + +<p>There is no denying the fact that book-English will soon push out the +relics of the old Scotch tongue. Burns will soon be read by lexicon, +even in the shire of Ayr. Men now write poetry in Scotch as boys at Eton +and Harrow write Latin verses, the result in both cases being, as a +rule, hideous and artificial doggrel. The little book, <i>Wee Macgregor</i>, +written in what may be called the Scotch Cockney dialect, was a brave +and amusing attempt to phonograph the talk of a Glasgow boy of the lower +middle class. The unlovely speech employed by the author is, happily, +quite unlike the careful and deliberate speech of the educated citizen +of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">{105}</a></span> Glasgow or Paisley. The main differences between the educated Scot +and the educated Englishman are that the vowel sounds of the former are +pure and that <i>r</i> and <i>h</i> have a real value in most words where these +letters occur.</p> + +<p>It seems to me a <i>very undesirable</i> thing that a uniform system of +pronunciation should be aimed at in every country of the British Isles. +So long as clear and expressive enunciation of English is attained, +intelligible differences of vocalisation, pitch, and even of vocabulary, +are allowable, and at times positively charming. Monotony is the bane of +life.</p> + + +<h3>CHOICE BOOKS.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Whether the books are borrowed books or no<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That show their varied stature row on row<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Along your walls, there will I truly find<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The image of your character and mind.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Light, flimsy novels suit the flying train<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or <i>Western Isle</i> excursions of Macbrayne,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where, dazed by gleaming firths of visible heat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The torpid soul disdains substantial meat;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But oft-read volumes, to which men recur<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The whole year round, bespeak the character."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The above lines, written by some unknown poetaster, indicate that it is +the book we read over and over again that has the greatest potency in +our education. I quite agree with the author, and I love to behold the +well-thumbed pocket-edition that speaks to the eye of much handling and +frequent perusal. There are very few books <i>worth</i> reading once that are +not worth reading oftener. Hobbes used to say that if he had read as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">{106}</a></span> +much literature as the majority of men, he would have been as ignorant +as they. In that remark what depths of meaning lie! The sage of +Malmesbury attributed his success in philosophy to his habit of +judicious selection—to the fact that he concentrated his attention on +those authors who were likely to help the development of his powers. +Selection is more required now than in Hobbes's time. Few men would care +to read more than a hundred books through in a year, and yet there are +twenty thousand volumes added annually to the shelves of the British +Museum.</p> + + +<h3>THE ESSAYISTS.</h3> + +<p>It has been my privilege, during the last three or four years, to +examine with more or less care something like four hundred bookcases, +containing works on all departments of literature. <i>I am inclined to +turn away in disgust if the Essayists are not patronised.</i></p> + +<p>Those delightful Essayists! Happy is the man who has his shelves full of +them—writers who talk sense with wanton heed and giddy cunning, who +spread their souls out on paper, who disarm hostility by taking you +completely into their confidence. Addison, with the roguish gleam in his +eye as he is calculating the number of sponges in the cost of a lady's +finery; Goldsmith, in his London garret, talking of the ludicrous +escapades of the Man in Black; Lamb luxuriating in reminiscences of Old +Benchers. All these splendid, unsystematic delights, mingled with the +breezes of byegone summers and the sunsets of long ago! Old ghosts +whisper you their secrets; you hear<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">{107}</a></span> the brush of sweeping garments that +have been moth-eaten these hundred years. Crowded streets of people +appear before the eye of fancy—London in the days of Anne and the +Georges. In the company of such wits, there are no slow-moving hours: +you have in them friends who never need tire you, for should the +slightest tedium intervene, you may, without offence, stop their flow of +conversation. Our living intimates are prone to drynesses and huffs; but +these old prattling wits ever welcome us with a smile of affability.</p> + + +<h3>A BANFF THEORY.</h3> + +<p>While speaking of Essayists, I ought to mention a peculiar Banffshire +theorist who addressed me in the following words: "Give me an old set of +<i>Blackwood</i> in the Kit North days, and I can easily forego your +pinchbeck stories and propagandist novels of to-day. I put the most +interesting period for reading at <i>sixty years ago</i>, and I think Scott +must have known the charm of that number when he gave the alternative +title to <i>Waverley</i>. It is pleasant to know how the world wagged when +your grandfather was a ruddy egg-purloining rogue of five. When I read +farther back than a century, I feel imagination flagging—the Merry +Monarch is not much more to me than John the Baptist. But the men of the +forties stand out clear and distinct. If I have never seen an +out-and-out fiery Chartist, I have at least seen some smouldering +specimens—men with much of the eloquence and a little of the enterprise +of the original five-pointers. It may be that as I grow older, my most +interesting historical period will move<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">{108}</a></span> with me, keeping always at a +distance of sixty years from the present, until, when I get within hail +of the Psalmist's stint, I shall be most interested in childish things." +These words rather staggered me, and set me thinking of geometrical +<i>loci</i>. A man holding such views would find it difficult to obtain a +bird's-eye view of history.</p> + + +<h3>GOLDSMITH IN GAELIC.</h3> + +<p>If I had an adequate knowledge of Gaelic, combined with plenty of money +and leisure, I should set myself the task of translating the whole of +Goldsmith's Essays and Tales into that language, for the benefit of +those who had no English. It would be a great feat if one could impress +on the modern Celtic mind the conviction that piety and diversion are by +no means incompatible. Goldsmith's <i>Auburn</i> introduces us to the most +delightful prospect on earth: a simple village community, unacquainted +with luxury and uncorrupted by vice. The inhabitants are full of health +and joy—they till the soil and gain ample satisfaction for their +unambitious wants. Life passes along bringing a pleasant succession of +happy hours. After the labours of the day, the young people dance +merrily on the green, and the old folk look on and regret that their own +legs are too stiff to keep time to the fiddles. Certain Highland +landlords might also read with advantage the exquisitely pathetic lines +in which the poet pictures the desolation and ruin of the rural +paradise, and perhaps conclude therefrom that, when glen and strath are +depleted of their inhabitants, and these latter driven over the seas<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">{109}</a></span> to +seek a foothold in strange lands, it is the very heart's blood of +Britain that is being drained away.</p> + +<p>On the whole, probably no English writer has given such genuine delight +as Goldsmith, and such genuine instruction too. Ineradicably frivolous, +culpably negligent of the morrow, whimsically vain and living all his +days from hand to mouth, he had the faculty of drawing upon himself the +pity, and even the contempt, of his associates. But in the eyes of +posterity, his happy-go-lucky life is amply redeemed by the work he has +left behind him, for <i>it</i> is pure and good. His river of speech flows +ever on shining like molten gold. No man of his time possessed the +adroit knack of bright writing in a more eminent degree. The pawky +humour of his side-hits, the blending of light and shade in the process +of the narrative, the beauty and melody that can be noted even in the +sound of the sentences, combine to delight the judgment, the ear, and +the fancy. Though the <i>Vicar of Wakefield</i> is a prose production, it +produces all the effect of a poem on the affections of the heart. Of +wit, properly speaking, it is as full as any volume of <i>The Spectator</i>; +with humour it is flooded from beginning to end; and in those pathetic +delineations of life which no one can read without being profoundly +touched, there are few poems so rich.</p> + + +<h3>BIBLIA ABIBLIA.</h3> + +<p>In many (indeed most) houses I have visited, I see in the bookcase large +publications in six or seven well-bound parts and as good as new, +dealing with subjects of little interest to anyone who breathes the +vital air of heaven.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">{110}</a></span> Such titles as <i>Science for All</i>, <i>The Thames from +its Source to the Sea</i>, <i>The Queens of England</i> are among the commonest +on the boards of the books I allude to. The presence of these editions +indicates that the possessor at a certain period of his life was shy and +could not say <i>no</i> to that limb of the Evil One—the book-canvasser. The +latter individual is the forerunner of the colporteur, who will bring +you, if you wish poetry, an edition of the works of Shakespeare which is +peculiarly ill-adapted for holding in the hand and reading. The print is +large, the page is in size like a miniature wall-map, and the +illustrations are got up with an easy defiance of archeology. The +annotations, though stolen, are distinguished for extreme futility. +After you have begun the purchase of such a book, shame and chagrin +drive you to attempt the study of it; but it is of no use, and on each +occasion of the very regular advent of the colporteur, you are inclined +to swear horribly, after which a period of extreme dejection supervenes +when you recollect the many fine things you could purchase for the +half-guinea periodically expended. The knowledge of human nature +displayed by the man who books the order surpasses anything in the works +of the analytical philosophers. Every artifice of attack is his, and he +knows how to play on all the emotions so ably and exhaustively +catalogued in the manuals of Professor Bain. I believe a gay and +chaffing rejoinder is what he can least overcome. Suggest to him that +you are far gone in poverty and offer to <i>sell</i> him a few of your own +books. Frequent exercise will confirm your principles, until finally, +when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">{111}</a></span> you see one of the book-canvassing tribe, you will foresee half an +hour's innocent amusement.</p> + +<p>Certain of the points he so feelingly brings before you may no doubt +awaken a responsive echo in your own bosom. You are well aware, for +example, that your knowledge of the Queens of England is culpably +imperfect. You know you are never likely to go in steadily for the study +of constitutional developments, and so are led to admit the +reasonableness of tackling history from a lighter and more entertaining +point of view. Again, as to the River Thames, one must really grant that +a considerable amount of self-complacency and internal sunniness would +result from the ability to contradict your friends as to the length in +miles of some of its minor tributaries. In science, too, you are no +Kepler or Linnaeus, and there is something satisfactory when pedants +talk of orbits, planes, bulbs, or beetles, in being able to say that +<i>you have a big book at home that tells all about those things</i>.</p> + +<p>Many people buy books, not because they have a present need for them, +but on the chance that at some time in the future such volumes as they +see for sale will solve a doubt or answer a need. The precise doubt or +the pressing need rarely arises. I met a Celt who had bought a copy of +Josephus in most irritating type, in the hope that it would help him to +confute a Roman Catholic on the Power of the Keys. Then again, people of +a wavering and bird-witted type of mind are constantly changing the +subject of their interest: this month they are attacked by the <i>furor +poeticus</i>, next month it will be a <i>furor botanicus</i> or <i>politicus</i>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">{112}</a></span> +Each separate frenzy means expenditure. When Browning is the temporary +subject of the mania, a host of expository books on that poet have to be +purchased, all of which are duly consigned to the topmost shelves when +the soreness of the fit is past. There is also a tendency to purchase, +because on the chance opening of a book you light on something that +pleases the whim of the moment. It is a thousand to one that when you +have bought the book you will not find another item worth perusing in +the entire contents. This tendency to buy a book in a panic may be +neutralised by remembering the story (whether true or not) of Defoe, who +is said to have boomed the languid sale of the dreary <i>Drelincourt on +Death</i> by means of a spicy little ghost story as introduction! Buy in +haste, repent at leisure.</p> + + +<h3>SECOND-HAND BOOKS.</h3> + +<p>It is a much pleasanter sight to my eyes to see a bookcase with +second-hand books in it, for these are almost always bought to be read. +In a teacher's house near Elgin, I recently saw a most remarkable +collection—a veritable ragged regiment of books: single volumes of +Plutarch, unexpurgated plays by Farquhar and Mrs. Behn, Civil War +pamphlets, and rows of oddities. Mr. Forbes (the owner) was at one +period of his life assistant in Falkirk, and every Saturday morning, +rain or shine, he proceeded to the city of Glasgow, for no purpose but +to roam through the dusty byeways and side streets in quest of +bookstalls. He knew all the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">{113}</a></span> dealers by name, and they welcomed him, for +he never left them without a purchase, however slight. It was a saying +of his that while it took half-a-crown to purchase you two hours' +amusement at a theatre, for a couple of shillings, or even less, you +might divide out a whole Saturday most enjoyably in the old book-shops. +He simply rioted in haggling over a threepenny piece. Even old Henderson +feared him. This Henderson was a thirsty old bookseller who kept a shop +at the corner of Cowcaddens and Ingram Street, and whose leading +speciality was second-hand family Bibles, with the former genealogical +leaf riven out and replaced by a clean sheet pasted in for the family of +the next purchaser. To him, sitting enthroned on a pile of Bibles, +Forbes, entering, spake: "Have you a copy of the <i>Lives of the Twelve +Cæsars</i>?" "Aye, aye," said old Henderson, with a gracious smile; +"<i>thirteen</i> if you like." The copy of Suetonius was produced, and "How +much do you want for Suet.?" queried Forbes. "Half-a-crown," said old +Henderson. "I'll give you ninepence," said Forbes. "Make it +one-and-six," said the bookseller, rising from his Biblical throne, "and +the book's yours." "I'll give you a shilling and a half of whisky," +retorted Forbes. "Say a whole glass and the shilling, and we'll do +business," quoth the vendor of volumes. This was agreed upon, and the +two retired into the nearest dram-shop to conclude the bargain. Every +Saturday evening, Forbes came home by the last train, carrying his +bundle of volumes. He was careful to fumigate them for the purpose of +destroying any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">{114}</a></span> microbes, and finally would sprinkle them with <i>eau de +Cologne</i> to make them tolerable to the nose. On Sunday, he enjoyed the +luxury of desultory reading.</p> + +<p>Like Mr. Forbes, I enjoy a ramble among these old shops, and can say, as +he said to me at parting:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">"I love the trundling stall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where ragged authors wait the buyer's call,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where, for the tariff of a modest supper,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You'll buy a twelvemonth's moral feast in Tupper;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where Virgil's tome is labelled at a groat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And twopence buys what tittering Flaccus wrote;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where lie the quips of Addison and Steele,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the thrice-blessed songs of Rob Mossgiel;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And some that resurrection seek in vain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the swart dust that chokes the lumbering wain."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3>FAVOURITES.</h3> + +<p>I have often been asked: "You who are so much on the move, who have had +so much train-travelling to do, what books would you recommend for a +long railway journey?" I do not know that one man's likes and dislikes +in reading are of value save as showing his own limitations, yet there +are certain books of which I never tire. I never leave home without the +following books handy for perusal: (i.) The <i>Odes of Horace</i>, (ii.) The +<i>Sonnets of Shakespeare</i>, (iii.) A French novel and a few copies of the +Paris <i>Matin</i>, (iv.) A Greek book of some kind, (v.) Pope or Addison, +(vi.) Some Victorian classic. The list is varied enough, and has +furnished me with much of the material for my speaking.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">{115}</a></span></p> + + +<h4>HORACE.</h4> + +<p>The pleasant thing about Horace is that his odes are so short: you can +read one in a few minutes—shut your eyes and enjoy the mental taste of +it—try to repeat it, and, if you fail, consult the original—then, +finally (as Pope and many others have done), endeavour to find modern +parallels. Suppose, <i>e.g.</i>, you are reading, as is likely, the first Ode +of the first Book, you might find present-day resemblances like the +following:—</p> + + +<h5><i>Curriculo pulverem.</i></h5> + +<div class='block'> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What mad attractions sway the world!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some are unhappy save when whirled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In motor cars that madly race,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To leave a stench in every place,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And maim those foolish folk that stray<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Abroad upon the king's highway.<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + + +<h5><i>Tergeminis honoribus.</i></h5> + +<div class='block'><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yon babbling wight, of sense forlorn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who thinks himself a Gladstone born,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Although a bailie, still must strain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To gain himself a Provost's chain.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, after that, the worthy prater<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Aspires to be a legislator;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dreams of St. Stephen's, where he sees<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Himself hobnobbing with M.P.'s.<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + + +<h5><i>Patrios agros.</i></h5> + +<div class='block'><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But Farmer Bob is somewhat saner—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He minds his stock and is the gainer;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Content to pass his life amid<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The scenes that his old father did.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">{116}</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">With hose in hand he cleans the byre,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And saves himself a menial's hire;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But gives his girls an education<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That may unfit them for their station.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But don't ask Bob to tempt the tide,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even on a turbine down the Clyde;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Neptune and Ceres don't agree,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And farmers hate the name of sea.<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + + +<h5><i>Mox reficit rates.</i></h5> + +<div class='block'><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When Skipper Smith (whose usual goal<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is Campbeltown with Ayrshire coal)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is labouring thro' Kilbrannan Sound,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He sighs for Troon and solid ground,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And swears, if he were safe on shore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He'd never be a sailor more.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But once on shore—he thinks it dull,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And soon begins to tar the hull<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And caulk the timbers of his ship:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"I'll try," he says, "another trip."<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + + +<h5><i>Lene Caput.</i></h5> + +<div class='block'><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Some love to mangle turf: I see<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Them drive their balls from sandy tee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And think their day's delight begins<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When they are up among the whins.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some elders, full of godly zeal,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Turn crazy about rod and reel;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And ministers, reputed wise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Take service with the Lord of Flies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Beelzebub), and like the work<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Better than prosing in a kirk.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">{117}</a></span></div></div></div> + + +<h5><i>Conjugis immemor.</i></h5> + +<div class='block'><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Sir Samuel Crœsus (noble wight!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who paid so dear to be a knight)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forsakes his lady for the hills,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And aims at birds he never kills.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Too late in life he shouldered gun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Breathless he toils beneath the sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sips whisky every other minute,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Until his flask has nothing in it;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then, at the end of strength and tether,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Falls tipsy in the blooming heather.<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + + +<h5><i>Praemia frontium.</i></h5> + +<div class='block'><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But as for me, my wants are few:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">£3,000 a year would do;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A villa built upon a height,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With ample view to left and right;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A garden with a sunny seat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A grassy lawn with borders neat.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Inside, a study furnished well<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Like a true scholar's citadel)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With books and pipes and easy chairs;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Here, in despite of worldly cares,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If I should write a verse or two—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A lyric that a <i>judge</i> like you<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Could read, without once yawning, through—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'd be as proud as any man<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That scribbled since the world began.<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + +<p>Horace is thus fit for all times and conjunctures, and is the most +modern of all the Latin writers—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Horace still charms with pleasing negligence,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And without method talks us into sense."<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">{118}</a></span></div></div> + +<p>The translation of Horace's Odes into modern speech is generally +admitted to be one of the most difficult tasks to which a versifier can +apply himself. And yet there is no task so often essayed. It is a common +saying in France that, when a lawyer quits the bar and retires, he is +certain to publish a new translation of Horace after a year or two's +studious ease. M. Loubet, we know, is a zealous devotee of the Sabine +bard. Not the least droll of Mr. Gladstone's many feats was the +publication, shortly before his death, of a translation of Horace's +Odes, a translation wholly worthless indeed, in spite of the writer's +immense scholarship, but valuable as showing the fascination exercised +by Horace over the most austere and ecclesiastical of minds. It seemed +strange indeed to see the great statesman turn aside from his study of +Butler and the Fathers of the Church, in order to put into English verse +the gay, and often scandalous odes, of an old Pagan epicure. Mr. Morley, +who revised the translation, must have smiled as he read the old man's +rendering of—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa.</i>"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It is a fact, I suppose, that poetic translations of Horace are rarely +read, save by scholars, and the verdict is almost always unkind. Yet an +excellent anthology could be compiled by selecting the happiest +renderings of the most talented translators. Dryden's paraphrase of +III., 29, has been uniformly praised, and was a great favourite of +Thackeray's. Cowper's nimble wit and classic taste are seen in his +translation of II., 10, an ode beautifully rendered also by Mr. William +Watson. Sir<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">{119}</a></span> Theodore Martin and Connington are always readable, Francis +is uniformly insipid, and Professor Newman, with his metrical capers, +absolutely absurd. Pope's "Imitations of Horace" are so brilliant, that +no student of English literature can afford to neglect them. Pope's +method of replacing ancient allusions by modern ones, was employed by +Johnson in some magnificent renderings of Juvenal, and no doubt +suggested to our Scotch vernacular poets a mode (still popular) of +translating Horace into Doric speech. Our Scotch bards preferred, as a +rule, to work on the Odes, and they succeeded best when they departed +most widely from the Latin text.</p> + + +<h4>SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS.</h4> + +<p>The same blessed quality of brevity that attracts one in Horace is to me +one of the recommendations of Shakespeare's Sonnets. I am glad the +mystery of them is never likely to be discovered. From frequent perusal +of them in the train, I know the majority by heart, but despair of +finding any cryptogram in them.</p> + +<p>The cord on which these exquisite beads of poetry are strung is of the +most flimsy and frayed character. In other words, the characters are all +bad, and the verses that laud them are of the utmost brilliancy and +fascination. The poet himself supplies material that would justify us in +stigmatising his friend as a heartless and dissipated rogue. He also +lets us know that the pale-faced lady was an unwholesome and treacherous +minx. Yet he addresses the one in language that would be too laudatory +for Sir Galahad, and the other he idolises and insults by turns.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">{120}</a></span></p> + +<p>How strange it is that the poet, while lingering fondly over the doings +of these two un-moral persons, should give utterance to some of the most +impressive lines in English literature! Certain of the sonnets pierce +the heart as with an arrow: such are those that deal, in broad and +pathetic fashion, with the ceaseless flux of all things human, the grim +realities of the grave, the ruthless sequence of earthly events, and the +measureless melancholy of the reflecting mind. The effect produced is +often like what we experience in reading Ecclesiastes or Omar Khayyam. +"Golden lads and lasses must, like chimney-sweepers, turn to dust."</p> + +<p>Though Shakespeare is dolefully impressed by the decay and destruction +of all material things and by the evanescent nature of beauty, he has no +doubt whatever of the immortality of the verses he is writing. He vaunts +as boldly as ever Horace did—indeed, in words that suggest the <i>Exegi +monumentum</i> ode—that his verses will outlast the proudest works of man. +It is a sorry anti-climax to such a boast that the poet harps on the +immortality of the dissolute youth as a consequence of the sonnets +having an eternity of renown. Was there ever such a puzzling and +unworthy association of ideas? The puzzle is rendered more perplexing +still by the fact that Shakespeare took no pains to enlighten posterity +as to the identity of the youth he praises, or even to supervise the +publication of the sonnets. Thorpe's piratical edition was full of +misprints, but Shakespeare, so far as we know, took no notice of it, and +made no attempt, by giving the world a correct and authentic version, to +secure what his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">{121}</a></span> verses declare him to be anxious to bring about, viz., +the renown of his friend among generations to come. For us the youth +still exists, no doubt, but not as an historical character. <i>He takes +his place among the creatures of the poets imagination, and is far more +of a shadow or phantom than any one of them.</i><a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p> + +<p><i>If we suppose</i> the sonnets to be connected with real life, it is not +easy to understand why the radiant youth, "the world's fresh ornament," +"only herald to the gaudy spring," etc., should need such an amount of +persuasion to marry. Seventeen sonnets of great poetical beauty and +felicitous language are devoted to this object. It is an exquisite treat +to read them as works of art, but taken literally they are unspeakably +absurd. No sane man would draw out such lengths of linked sweetness for +the purpose named; nor would any youth, however credulous, <i>take the +sonnets at their face value</i>. Shakespeare is merely practising his art, +and we may be perfectly sure that these "sugared" sonnets (as Meres +calls them), if they did circulate among the poet's private friends, +were regarded as rhetorical exercises. They are intensely interesting, +as showing the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">{122}</a></span> overpoweringly dramatic nature of Shakespeare's genius. +Being impressed with the desirability of perpetuating beauty, he is +driven to express the idea in the conventional form of a +sonnet-sequence. The result is an exhaustiveness of treatment, a wealth +of imaginative ornament, and a dramatic vividness of presentation that +makes the reader marvel how so much could be made out of so little.</p> + + + + +<h4>XENOPHON.</h4> + +<p>There is one Greek book, of which I have gone through three or four +copies by carrying it about in the pocket for my <i>moments perdus</i>. I +refer to the <i>Economist</i> of Xenophon, a gem of a book, and one on which +I have often lectured. The title is not an attractive one, but the body +of the work is charming in the highest degree, and gives a better notion +of ancient Greek life than any other book in existence. Ruskin, who had +an unerring instinct for good literature, got two of his disciples to +put the book into English, himself furnishing a preface of +characteristic insight and brilliancy. He might well do such homage to +the old Greek soldier, for the <i>Economist</i> contains teaching remarkably +like what is to be found in certain of the chapters of <i>Unto This Last</i>. +A reader cannot fail to be struck by the wonderful modernness of +Xenophon's writing, his love for the country, his simple and genuine +piety, his soldierly directness, and his practical common sense. Here is +a delightful sidelight on Greek family life, written twenty-three +centuries ago, but which might have been spoken yesterday: "<i>My wife</i>," +says one of the characters, "<i>often puts me on trial and takes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">{123}</a></span> me to +task—When I am candid and tell her everything, I get on well enough, +but if I hide or disguise anything, it goes hard with me, for I cannot +make black seem white to her.</i>"</p> + +<p>The <i>Economist</i> is an ideal volume for the country calm: it will not +deliver up its best to you in the city; but if it is leisurely perused +while hayrick fragrances are in the air, while butterflies are +fluttering round the lawns, and while the flow of a clear-gushing brook +chimes with your fancy and the quiet tone of the old Greek's musings, +then (be sure) the mellow sweetness of the "Attic Bee" will be +adequately enjoyed.</p> + +<p>It is a great pity that life is so short, that there are only +twenty-four hours in the day, and that, owing to the general scarcity of +money among the intellectual portion of the community, the possession of +free-will is a pathetic fallacy. Nobody, in these bonds of time and +space, can do precisely what he would like to do. Mr. T. P. O'Connor +once said that, if he were master of his fate, and his feet in every way +clear, he would at once proceed to Athens and learn Greek. I can +conceive no keener or greater joy than that: it is the wish of a genuine +lover of letters. At the age of ten, I came upon an old copy of Pope's +<i>Homer</i>, and have been in love with Greek literature ever since. The +cares of this world, including rates and taxes, prevent me likewise from +proceeding to the City of the Violet Crown, but there are plenty of +cheap copies of Homer to be had in Scotland, and it is no disadvantage +that some of them have the translation printed on the opposite page.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">{124}</a></span></p> + +<p>So many things have to be learned at school now, that Greek is being +pushed out. In future, it will be a University subject solely. That is a +great pity, for although there are fine translations of the Greek +authors in English, these are not so much read as they ought to be. +Greek itself would be much easier to learn if editors would write fewer +and shorter notes.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p> + + +<h4>FRENCH LITERATURE AND JOURNALISM.</h4> + +<p>I am always delighted to see French books on the shelves of a rural +library. I notice Dowden's <i>French Literature</i> in many a Highland +bookcase; and I am sure it will please that erudite and most excellent +professor to know he has hundreds of students who never saw his face. +Everybody should learn the French language: I don't know a better +intellectual investment. French is rich in precisely those qualities +that English lacks. It is not necessary, for proof of that statement, to +read Gautier, Bourget, or Hugo. A daily paper from Paris supplies all +the proof required.</p> + +<p>I freely admit that the French newspaper seems, on first acquaintance, +to be a wonderful and puzzling affair. It is never dull or tiresome, or +glum. You may have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">{125}</a></span> your dearest susceptibilities wounded by it, but you +won't fall asleep as you read its columns. Humour trickles from +paragraph to paragraph; wit coruscates in the accounts of the most +ordinary police cases; and abundant of dexterous literary workmanship is +to be found in the leading articles. In spite of such admirable +qualities, there is an element of frivolity, a lack of seriousness (I +speak of the typical Boulevard sheet) that is at first rather shocking +to a British reader. He finds grave subjects treated with a fineness of +touch and a lucidity of reasoning at once charming and full of +edification: but, lo! a pun trails accidentally off the journalist's +pen, or an odd collocation of ideas jostle each other in his brain: the +writer at once stops his instructive reasoning; he goes off the main +line and careers bounding down some devious side-path of entertaining +nonsense. Our home papers are almost uniformly staid; they are written +conscientiously, laboriously, commendably. But, after all, the French +are right in trying to inject as much entertainment as possible into the +daily record of mundane things.</p> + +<p>I regret to say that the majority of French newspapers do not give their +readers a quite fair or accurate account of events happening outside of +France. French topics, as is right, have the bulk of the space, and +foreign events are usually treated in a very prejudiced and perfunctory +way. The Frenchman's enthusiasm for home politics does not leave him +much emotion to spare for the rest of the world. Political life with him +is always more or less in a state of turmoil. There is usually some +scandalous <i>affaire</i> afoot or impending, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">{126}</a></span> which political import can +easily be given. Many of the most talented editors, being members of the +Chamber, import into their articles much of the heat and unreasoning +vehemence engendered by the violence of direct debate. There has always +been a feeling since the <i>great</i> Revolution that <i>others</i> might follow, +and that one or other of the royal gentlemen of this or that +disestablished race might, by some cyclone of popular or military +sympathy, be blown back to power in Paris. Unluckily, there are far too +many parties in France, far too many nicknames, badges, and shibboleths. +The language of political discussion is bitter, and heated beyond +anything the cooler Anglo-Saxon would tolerate. And yet, amid all such +electric discharges of wordy rancour, the French nation goes on its way +rejoicing, not a penny the worse, making wines, silks, and fashions, for +an ungrateful world.</p> + +<p>There is now, and always has been, a strange sympathy between France and +Scotland. A Scot learns French, as a rule, easily. One of the striking +differences between dialect Scotch and book English is precisely the +peculiar French ingredients in the former. For three hundred years the +two countries were allies, and the advantages to England may be gathered +from the remark of King Henry V. in Shakespeare's play—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"For you shall read that my great-grandfather<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Never went with his forces into France,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But that the Scot on his unfurnished kingdom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Came rolling like the tide into the breach."<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">{127}</a></span></div></div> + + +<h4>GIL BLAS.</h4> + +<p>One French book that has solaced my leisure (in train, steamer, and +trap), is that altogether delectable volume <i>Gil Blas</i>. It would be +worth learning French to be able to read the book in the original. The +characters are non-moral reprobates who lie, rob, and drink with the +most unaffected sincerity. Vice loses all its grossness, and becomes +intensely entertaining. The tone of the confessions is at once subtle +and naïve, tragic and trivial, comic and pathetic. The humour is +absolutely colossal: many English books, alleged to be humorous, do not +contain, in their entire bulk, as much humour as a single chapter of +this great work. For brilliancy of style it stands very high, and few +authors, either in France or elsewhere, have attained such admirable +clearness, precision, and pith. Read <i>Gil Bias</i>, say I, if you wish to +appreciate the possibilities of the French tongue, and taste all the +delicate flavour of its racy idiom.</p> + + +<h4>ROMANCE AND AUGUSTANISM.</h4> + +<p>There is a well-known text of Scripture, "In my father's house are many +mansions" which, with a slight turn, might be applied to the House of +Literature. There is room there for every pure and beautiful expression +of human thought and emotion. Romance and Augustanism have both the +right of entry.</p> + +<p>I am glad to see that Alexander Pope, the cleverest of our English +bards, is still a popular favourite wherever I go. It would be a pity if +this were not so, for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">{128}</a></span> he is head of the guild of Queen Anne wits, and +no one of them can rival his instinctive delicacy, careful workmanship, +and crystalline lucidity. His skill in the coining of impressive +aphoristic couplets is unrivalled: it is almost as good as a novel +addition to truth to find an old maxim supplied with the winged words of +such a consummate verbal artist. Pope is a writer who appeals directly +to all readers, for he never hides poverty of thought in a cloud of +vague words.</p> + +<p>In Pope and his fellows we miss the lavish magnificence and unchartered +freedom of the spacious times of great Elizabeth. Instead of Spenser's +amazing luxuriance of matter and metre, we have a neat uniformity and +trim array of couplets, which suggest the constant supervision of the +pruning craftsman. Compared with the Elizabethans, Pope's time has less +wealth but more careful mintage, less power but more husbanding of +strength, fewer flights of imagination but finer flutterings of fancy, +little humour but abundance of clear and sparkling wit. <i>It is not a +difficult task, by means of suitable selections, to bring home to an +audience of crofters the salient differences between the poetry of Pope +and of Spenser.</i></p> + +<p>It is also easy to show to any audience that the quality which pleases +to such a high degree in poems like the <i>Highland Lass</i> and <i>Yarrow +Revisited</i>, there is a romantic charm and thrilling magic which Pope +never could produce. A line or two from one of the poems cited has a far +more potent effect over the affections of the heart than the gorgeous +declamatory rhetoric of <i>Eloisa and Abelard</i>. But it would be foolish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">{129}</a></span> +to suppose that because Pope has not the passion for nature nor the glow +of self-oblivious benevolence, he has not highly educative and estimable +features. He should not be censured for what he never meant to supply: +we should rather strive to cultivate catholicity of taste by extracting +from his poems the information and enjoyment they are so well able to +furnish.</p> + +<p>The Prologue of Pope's <i>Satires</i> is, of course, the best introduction to +a systematic study of the works of this writer. That poem is the +masterpiece of Pope's volume, and exemplifies better than any other +piece the striking and brilliant qualities for which he is so famous. In +perusing it, the reader soon discovers that he is in presence of a work +which is the result of incessant and prolonged labour, and which, +consequently, deserves patient study. The works of a great technical +artist require such elaborate treatment if the force of their genius is +to be adequately felt.</p> + + +<h4>VICTORIAN WRITERS.</h4> + +<p>If any man proposes to stay a month among scenery of hill, mountain, and +lake, I should advise him to slip a copy of Wordsworth into his pocket, +and read therefrom an hour daily; not hurrying over the pages, but +turning aside, now and again, to take in the glory of pinewood, heather, +and linn. In no volume, ancient or modern, can a tired man find such +soft and genial balm for his weariness as in the calm pages of the Rydal +singer. The poet is at his best in the broad region of natural religion. +He looks round on the beauties of the world with that solemn awe a man +feels in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">{130}</a></span> hallowed precincts of a mediæval temple. The grandeur and +mystery of the world throw him into a kind of enchantment: his own soul +and that of the universe touch and commune with each other. In his rapt +verses we feel some of that mystic thrill felt by a devotee in the open +sanctuary of the Almighty. No man ever interpreted Nature in such +inspired strains as William Wordsworth. What supremely delights the +lover of scenery is that this poet's muse can overwrap the exact and +detailed knowledge of Nature with a superb mantle of idealistic glory. +He saw and understood the harmony of Nature's forms and colours through +all the seasons: at the quiet ingleside he meditated on what he had seen +and heard, enshrined these in verse, and added to them the warmth of his +own devout and sensitive soul. There is no exaggeration in Arnold's +tribute:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"He laid us, as we lay at birth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the cool, flowery lap of earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Smiles broke from us, and we had ease;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The hills were round us, and the breeze<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Went o'er the sunlit fields again.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our foreheads felt the wind and rain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our youth returned; for there was shed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On spirits that had long been dead—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Spirits dried up and closely furled—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The freshness of the early world."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Of Wordsworth and his successor, Tennyson, it is impossible to speak +save in terms of affectionate gratitude. God looked kindly on Britain +when he sent two such men to minister to us. Tennyson did more than all +the bishops of the Church of England to stifle crude<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">{131}</a></span> infidelity and +equally crude religious bigotry. There is not a single line he ever +wrote of which in his last days he had need, from the point of view of +truth and morality, to be ashamed. He increased the world's stock of +happiness by poems which have been the solace of men and women in the +hours of darkness and doubt, which have led men to rise to nobler things +on the stepping-stones of their dead selves, and which, I am certain, +his grateful fellow-countrymen will not willingly let die.</p> + +<p>It is not the least of Tennyson's claims to our gratitude that his +genius was sensitive alike to the beauties of Celtic and of Anglo-Saxon +verse. It would be difficult to overpraise his masterly rendering of the +"Battle of Brunanburh," a vigorous old poem he found in the <i>Saxon +Chronicle</i>. Equally fine is his "Voyage of Maeldune," founded on a +Celtic legend of the seventh century. Those who wish to know what is +meant by Celtic glamour should read the last-named poem without delay.</p> + + +<h3>CELT AND SAXON.</h3> + +<p>Between the literatures of the Celt and the Saxon there are, indeed, +well-marked differences. The Anglo-Saxons were a set of enterprising +pirates, who drove their keels over the misty ocean, came to Britain and +took forcible possession of it, dispersing or enslaving the original +possessors. They left a literature which is, in many respects, highly +interesting, but is in the main devoid of sunshine, humour, and +sprightliness. The old poem of "Beowulf," with its rough and sturdy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">{132}</a></span> +verses, all splashed with brine, contains very few figures of speech: it +is a poem, but not markedly poetical; it is solid and impressive, but +not beautiful. Now, no one can read Celtic poetry, even in translation, +without being powerfully struck by its refined beauty and mystic +romance. The metaphors and similes are somewhat too abundant. The +typical Anglo-Saxon has a firm grip of the world, but is not poetical +enough; the Celt, on the other hand, is probably too much of a dreamer +and a poet—he sits on the hill-side (forgetting sometimes to till it) +and muses on fairies, second-sight, and enchantments. St. Paul used the +right word in speaking to the old world Gaels, <i>i.e.</i>, Galatians: "O +foolish Galatians, who hath <i>bewitched</i> you?" (<span title="[Greek: tis humas +ebaskane?]">τίς ὑμᾱς ἐβάσκανε;</span>)</p> + +<p>Combine these two races in the right proportion, and you get an +admirable blend. It is not for me to say where the just man made perfect +is to be found, the man in whom the elements—practical and +poetical—are mixed in such exquisite proportion, that Nature might +stand up and say, "<i>There is a man</i>." What is certain, is that there is +a very pronounced strain of Celtic blood coursing through the veins of +the average Scotch Lowlander. Few Scots have to rummage far among their +ancestry before they find a piece of tartan: such mixture of genealogy +probably accounts for much that is best in their composition.</p> + +<p>The supposition that the Scotch race-combination is Celt and Saxon, and +only that, is of course erroneous. There is a very marked Scandinavian +element both in the east and the west of the country. In the year<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">{133}</a></span> 1600 +<span class="smcap lowercase">A.D.</span>, the Norse tongue was spoken all over the Long Island from the Butt +of Lewis to Barra. Certainly, in Lewis and Skye, an enormous number of +the place-names are Scandinavian, and date from a time when the +sea-kings had dominion over the islands of the West. Many fascinating +problems of ethnology continue to occupy the attention of investigators, +and are not likely to be settled for a long time to come. One thing is +abundantly clear, viz., that purity of race and speech does not exist in +any county of Scotland: everywhere there is a mixture of blood and +language.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">{134}</a></span></p> + + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">ECCLESIASTICAL.</span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Sectarian feeling—Typical anecdotes—Music and +religion—Ethical teaching in schools—The Moderates—A savoury +book—The Sabbath—"The Men of Skye"—The auldest kirk—The +Episcopal Church—An interlude of metre—The Christian +Brethren—Drimnin in Morven—Craignish—A model +minister—Ministerial trials in olden times—An artful +dodger—Some anecdotes from Gigha—Growing popularity of Ruskin.</p></div> + + +<h3>SECTARIAN FEELING.</h3> + +<p>In a small country township, all the influences that operate to divide +men into sects and parties are keenly and continuously felt. To a +dweller there, it is well-nigh impossible to keep out of the arena of +strife. Now that there is so much confusion and division in religious +matters, strong feeling is more easily stirred on any secular subject +that may happen to arise for discussion. If the Wee Frees, for example, +desire a new road in a certain direction, the United Frees will probably +deride the scheme and unanimously petition against it. Their antipathy +to each other becomes envenomed by their persistent proximity: if you +are a villager, you cannot get away from your adversary—in the morning, +when looking out of the window, you see him tilling his croft, mending +his nets, or washing his face in a tub at his front door. The fact that +he is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">{135}</a></span> there is an obstacle to your peace of mind. If you did not see +him so often, you would more readily come to believe that he possessed a +conscience and some shred of principle and decent doctrine.</p> + +<p>In a distant seaside town a library had been procured, and (though +doctrine was not at stake at all) a most virulent debate at once arose +as to where it should be housed. The United Frees voted for the school; +the Wee Frees called aloud for the post-office. It would require the pen +of Dean Swift (who did such justice to the strife between the +Big-Endians and Little-Endians) to recount in appropriate style the +intrigues and stratagems of the rival religionists. The local teacher +did not wish the books in school <i>because</i> the proposal came from the +enemy. He was powerfully supported by all the young fellows of the +place, whose reverence for him, born of recent severe whackings, was +limitless. This teacher had an eloquent and vitriolic tongue, and +delivered himself thus: "What have I not done for the island? What have +these reprobates ever done? Who was it that got the frequent Macbrayne +connection with the mainland? <i>I did.</i> Who got up the concert to buy +seats for visitors coming north from Glasgow? And yet for every blessing +I give them, I get ten curses. <i>But I'll choke them yet.</i>" It was +needless for the United Frees to demand a plebiscite—or, as they called +it, a <i>ple-biscuit</i>—the dominie was too forceful, persistent, and +phraseful for them, and at the public meeting he laughed down a teetotal +opponent by singing out: "Sit down on your seat, man; <i>it's the drink +that's speaking, no' you!</i>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">{136}</a></span></p> + +<p>No matter what the subject may be, there is usually a smack of +ecclesiasticism in the ordinary give-and-take of conversation. I cannot +illustrate this better than by giving the Lewis man's reply to an +enquiry as to <i>how his wooden leg was behaving</i>. The enquirer was a +newly-elected United Free elder, while he of the timber toes was a +staunch Disruptionist. "Well," said the latter, "my wooden leg is not +unlike a U. F. elder; it's not exactly perfection, but, considering +everything, we must just be putting up with what we can get." This was +said at a time when the Wee Frees were in a big majority in certain +parts of the Highlands, and when, as a consequence, United Free elders +had to be selected out of diminished congregations.</p> + + +<h3>TYPICAL ANECDOTES.</h3> + +<p>The venerable Lord Halsbury, so well known for his judgment in the great +Church case, resided, shortly after the decision, in the neighbourhood +of Forres. Men plucked each other by the sleeve as he passed along the +street, and pointed with awe to the keen-witted lawyer who had caused +such a kick-up in the realm. His most innocent doings were watched. One +day he went into a book-shop and made a purchase. When he came out, in +rushed a brace of theologians to enquire what he had bought. It turned +out that he had purchased a copy of <i>Comic Cuts</i>. The news was all round +Forres in an hour's time, and caused much consternation. "What great men +do, the less will prattle of," and it is so difficult for the former to +act up to their heroic rôle.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">{137}</a></span></p> + +<p>How thoroughly our dear native land has enjoyed its theological battles! +Will there ever be a truce to the long wars of faith? One cannot see +much ground for a too sanguine hope. After a library had been given to a +little village in the West, I paid the usual visit to the place, and +requested a free expression of views as to the suitability of the books +that had been given. One venerable old native, with eyes of fire, called +out: "<i>This Paisley Library has one fatal lack: it contains no works on +controversial divinity.</i>" I ventured to hint that perhaps the omission +was intentional, but that he absolutely refused to believe.</p> + +<p>Coming through the Sound of Mull one blustery November day, I heard a +most animated discussion on the question "Has the Deity unlimited Free +Will?" The disputants had all the appearance of sensible crofters—they +certainly talked more intelligibly than most commentators on Kant. Some +of the ship's crew joined in the talk in such a way as to show that they +understood perfectly well the question at issue. Every member of the +ring was wet (the rain was coming down in torrents during the whole +argument), but neither "Ayes" nor "Noes" would admit defeat. When the +boat touched the terminus of Tobermory, much still remained to be said, +and the amateur theologians retired to sum up in a local bar-room. The +incident is characteristic, and could have happened in no other country +but Scotland. Presbyterianism has made the Scot somewhat too +disputatious, but it is surely better to see a man interested in +religion than in nothing at all.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">{138}</a></span></p> + +<p>Talking of the union of the Free and U.P. Churches, I am reminded of a +laughable tale told of a Hebridean minister. "Themselves and their +Union, I say, themselves and their Union," he remarked; "I will have +nothing to do with it. I was born Free, ordained Free; I have lived +Free, and I will die Free." "But what about the stipend, Angus?" said +his wife, douce and cautious woman. "Ah, the stipend! Well, if I lose my +stipend, you will have to put on a short petticoat, strap a creel on +your back, and sell <i>fush</i>." "And what will you do, Angus, when I'm away +selling <i>fush</i>?" "Oh, I will stay at home and pray for a blessing on +your efforts."</p> + +<p>The use of Scriptural expressions undoubtedly gives great force to the +language of every-day life. As is well known, certain classes in cookery +have recently been established in a few northern villages. A Highland +minister, in publicly commending these classes, remarked, with a rueful +grimace: "I <i>do</i> wish such classes as these had been in existence when +my wife was young; for, as it is, every dinner she serves up to me is +either a <i>burnt offering or a bloody sacrifice</i>!"</p> + +<p>The following story comes from a minister in the neighbourhood of Loch +Awe. "A clergyman of my acquaintance was stationed in a poor parish near +my own, and he called on the local laird for financial aid to help on +some of the church schemes. This laird was a well-known philanthropist, +but the call was made at the wrong psychological moment, for he chanced +on this particular day to be in a very bad humour. He listened to the +minister with great impatience, and at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">{139}</a></span> last, bounding to his feet and +pointing to the door, he shouted: 'Silver and gold have I none, but such +as I have, give I unto thee: in the name of Beelzebub, rise and +<i>walk</i>!'"</p> + +<p>It was my unfortunate experience to witness a great amount of sectarian +strife in the north and west during my various visits. Sometimes my +prospective chairman was unable to preside, owing to his having taken +part in a doctrinal scuffle, and having his coat torn, and his church +captured. These fantastic doings are in no way edifying, and are +extremely shocking to our national pride.</p> + +<p>Theologically, many districts of the Highlands have not advanced beyond +the stage occupied by Lowland Scotland in the time of Burns. In certain +parishes, the communion is dispensed in the open air, in the way +familiar to readers of the "Holy Fair." Sky overhead, grassy turf +beneath, solemnity, sobs, and sighs all around, certainly make up a most +impressive whole. The sermon is unmercifully long—two hours, at least: +probably, if translated into English, and shorn of repetitions, it could +be given in one-fourth of the time. If you or I, dear Lowlander, should +stand on the outside of the crowd, and appear more curious than devout, +we should certainly be alluded to in the sermon as <i>those wicked +people</i>. The discourses are no gilt-edged harangues dealing with the +"larger hope," and larded with quotations from Tennyson and Browning. +They are, on the contrary, full of Tartarean sulphur and strange fire, +and rich in grotesque illustrations, of which this is a sample: "My +friends, crowds of loathsome fiends<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">{140}</a></span> are sent by the Prince of the Power +of the Air to tempt us to our destruction. They hang over us waiting for +their opportunity, just like a regiment of black crows hovering over a +potato-field."</p> + +<p>I am afraid that crude Calvinism, as preached in certain parts of the +north, is nothing less than monstrous. The good God, beneficent Father +of us all, is unrecognizable when eternal reprobation is represented as +the inevitable fate of the vast majority of His children. In time, no +doubt (and the sooner the better), the results of modern theological +thought will penetrate into the uttermost nooks of the land.</p> + + +<h3>MUSIC AND RELIGION.</h3> + +<p>It is not easy to see why religion should be associated with gloom and +disheartening ugliness. The long-drawn music of an Old Testament psalm +is not without a certain doleful impressiveness, but the human soul +needs occasional stimulus, even on Sundays, of something less +lugubrious. Certain congregations hate hymns: they consider them carnal +and uninspired. As for organ-music in a church, that would be <i>praising +God by machinery</i>, a preposterous and intolerable approximation to +Popery. Not long ago, a poor crofter in a Hebridean township, came to +his minister, requesting that good man's offices for the christening of +a child. The crofter in question was the possessor of an asthmatic old +concertina, and the clergyman, before the rite of admission to the +visible church could be performed, insisted on the annihilation of the +ungodly instrument of music. The minister, in person, visited the croft, +and disabled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">{141}</a></span> the concertina with a hammer. The child was then +christened, and the clerical zany strode off victorious, feeling he had +done a good day's work for Heaven. "Who ever heard of the Apostle Paul +playing on an organ?" was the question once propounded by Dr. Begg. The +argument was a splendid <i>reductio ad absurdum</i>, and resembles the old +reason for the reluctance of the peasantry to eat potatoes, because no +mention was made of them in Holy Writ. But songs and music are filtering +into the glens, in an official way, by the agency of the Scotch +Education Department. Musical drill is a feature of the school-room, and +it is a joy to think that such is the case. Some of the old folk, +however, look on astounded and shocked; they shake their heads, and +would, if they could, abolish such frivolity. "Why all this singing and +tramping?" said a Skyeman to me once. "What good will all the songs of +the world do to a man when he comes to his death-bed? I would rather, +this very moment, sit down in a public-house, and drink till I was +intoxicated, than screech and howl these worldly airs." Life was not so +absurd in the days of the Catholic ascendency. But human nature is +slowly asserting itself, and the days of the glum tyrannical zealot are +assuredly numbered.</p> + + +<h3>ETHICAL TEACHING IN SCHOOLS.</h3> + +<p>In some districts of the North, the inspectors have considerable trouble +with certain teachers of the devout type who, from conscientious +scruples, refuse to read to the children anything in the nature of a +fairy tale. While examining a class in a remote Sutherland school,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">{142}</a></span> an +inspector requested the schoolmaster to narrate to the children, in +Gaelic, the story of Little Red Riding Hood, and get them thereafter to +put it into English. But the teacher most emphatically refused: "No, no, +I cannot do that: it is all a lie; wolves do not speak; <i>no animal +speaks</i>." The inspector, to refute him, unwisely alluded to the +Scripture account of Balaam's ass in the twenty-second chapter of +Numbers; whereupon, the dominie nearly swooned at the impiety of +comparing that inspired animal with a secular beast like Grimm's wolf. +For some time after, the inspector was bombarded with anonymous letters, +accusing him of habitually <i>sitting in the scorner's chair</i>. He was +terrified lest some Member of Parliament, eager for a grievance, should +be got to move the adjournment of the House of Commons, with the +righteous object of directing the attention of Government to Little Red +Riding Hood and the naughty inspector of schools.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p> + + + +<p>The question of religious teaching in schools is capable of an easy +solution, and we in the south have come pretty near solving it. The best +solution is to have no dogma at all in the school-room. The Catechism +and Prayer-book are excellent in their way, but the school is no place +for them. We have a very complete and extensive organisation of churches +in the land, and an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">{143}</a></span> army of officials ordained to teach doctrines and +tenets: let them take up the inculcation of creeds and rites, but don't +let us perplex the school children with catechisms and metaphysical +definitions. It is easy to make a distinction between morality and +doctrine—a distinction which is alike clear and reasonable. Morality is +an earthly and secular affair, and has to do with matters of elementary +honesty such as every responsible citizen of a free country ought to +practice. Religion is a higher affair, dealing with our relationship to +the unseen: it is outside the province of the teacher, and should not be +thrust into the school programme along with history and geography and +grammar. Morality is of this world: religion of the next. Let everything +be kept in its proper place. As to that division of duty which deals +with right conduct, there is no controversy whatever. <i>Thou shalt not +steal</i>; <i>thou shalt not bear false witness</i>—these, and the like +elementary rules of conduct, are universally admitted to be right, for +they are the groundwork of society. Take these away, and the world +lapses into chaos. The following virtues are capable of being taught in +schools:—(1) a strict adherence to the truth; (2) the application of +the golden rule; (3) cheerful obedience at the call of duty; (4) +reverence and respect for everything noble and great in the history of +the world. These can all be taught, and are actually taught, by every +conscientious teacher in the country. They constitute not the whole of +duty, indeed, but the most difficult part of it—certainly all that need +come into the realm of pedagogy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">{144}</a></span></p> + + +<h3>THE MODERATES.</h3> + +<p><i>Ami lecteur</i>, have you ever heard of the <i>Moderates</i>? If, by chance, +you have dipped into the interminable controversies that gyrated round +the Disruption year, it is probable you may have heard more than enough +of them. One gets the impression that they were an unimpassioned, +easy-going, anti-brimstone, but highly estimable body of men. They were +blamed for preaching morality and not the penetrating mysteries of the +faith. In "The Holy Fair," Burns gives us an inimitable picture of the +moral philosopher in the pulpit:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"But hark! the tent has changed its voice,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">There's peace an' rest nae langer,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For a' the real judges rise—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">They canna sit for anger.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Smith opens out his cauld harangues<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On practice and on morals,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' aff the godly pour in thrangs<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To gie the jars an' barrels<br /></span> +<span class="i8">A lift that day.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"What signifies his barren shine<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of moral powers an' reason?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His English style and gesture fine<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Are a' clean out o' season.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like Socrates or Antonine,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or some auld pagan heathen,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The moral man he does define,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But ne'er a word o' faith in<br /></span> +<span class="i8">That's richt that day."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I confess to a certain liking for Smith. He knew what was good for the +Holy Willies and the other "chosen samples" and "swatches o' grace" in +his auditory.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">{145}</a></span> Like a sensible man, and like the Apostle James, he laid +more stress on "practice and on morals" than on lip-worship and faith. +"Faith without works is dead" is a dictum that needs to be incessantly +emphasised, and nowhere more than in certain ultra-orthodox localities +of Scotland at the present day.</p> + +<p>The Established Church is, with few exceptions, a negligible +denomination in the Hebrides. For some reason it is regarded as the +modern representative of the Moderate or Broad type of Calvinistic +Christianity, and, as such, an abomination to the zealots. To show what +a poor hold the Establishment has in Lewis, it is enough to remark that +there are in that island only 183 Auld Kirk communicants out of a +population of 32,947. Figures almost equally striking could be given for +the Presbyteries of Uist, Skye, and Glenelg. The chief occupation of +some parish ministers in insular Scotland must be that of killing time. +I once met one of these reverend gentlemen in one of the hotels in +Stornoway. He seemed to take a pleasure in running contrary to all the +darling prejudices of the islanders. Dancing he approved of; he did not +believe in prefacing his prayer or homily with a sanctimonious whine; +and he actually was willing to admit that a few Catholics might get to +heaven. An equally glaring fault—in the eyes of bigotry, I mean—was +that he <i>dropped into poetry</i> at stated times, and sent his Gaelic +verses to one of the Highland newspapers. The Parish Church buildings, +in many localities of the West Highlands, are in a woeful state of +disrepair. They have a prevailing odour of must and damp; the seats are +hard<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">{146}</a></span> deal, unkind to the human anatomy; doors and windows rattle and +shake during the service; creeping things move along the walls; +sometimes the floors are nothing but the uneven and unconcealed Scottish +earth. In such churches, there is some credit in being devout.</p> + + +<h3>A SAVOURY BOOK.</h3> + +<p>An outstanding member of the clan Macdonald, for some time minister at +Applecross, deserves a cordial vote of thanks for a savoury book he has +written on the social and religious condition of the Highlands. He is +not a bit scared by the Darwinian theory of evolution. "We have a good +deal in common," he says, "with the brute creation, and have no cause to +feel ourselves degraded on that account. The lower animals, not +excluding the much-despised monkey, are specimens of divine workmanship +which <i>reflect the highest honour on the skill and power of the Maker</i>." +Could any admission be more handsome or candid than that?</p> + +<p>I have learned a great deal from Mr. Macdonald's cheery and broad-minded +volume. He is strong in history, and has had, it would seem, access to +information that is closed to the general eye. There is a glorious +simplicity in his views on Caledonian ethnology. A roguish prince, +Gathelus, son of the king of Greece, migrated to Egypt, and married +Scota, daughter of that Pharaoh who persecuted the Israelites. The +various plagues "that o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung," terrified +Gathelus, and he flitted in hot haste to Spain, and called his followers +Scots, to please his wife. Later in life, he sent his son Hiber to +Ireland, where the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">{147}</a></span> lad settled, and named the island after his noble +self, Hibernia. Scots continued to pour into Ireland, <i>viâ</i> the Bay of +Biscay, and finally, under Simon Brek, subdued the entire extent of the +Green Island. In 360 <span class="smcap lowercase">A.D.</span>, they came over to Argyllshire, and aided the +indigenous Picts (who were also Celts) against the legions of Rome. This +is so compact and clear an account, that I wish it were true. The way in +which sacred and profane history are blended strikes me as singularly +able.</p> + +<p>Mr. Macdonald has an intimate knowledge of Celtic superstitions, and +always castigates the right thing. Certain diseases of the brain were, +till quite recently, believed to be curable if the afflicted man could +procure a suicide's skull and take a drink out of it. Mr. Macdonald +rightly dwells upon the absurdity of such a specific, but confesses that +one might as well try to "bale out the Atlantic" as eradicate the +foolish pagan notions that still linger in the glens.</p> + +<p>Ministers have a great deal of captious criticism to stand, if we may +judge by Mr. Macdonald's anecdotes. They are blamed for terminating +their discourses <i>with a silver tail</i> (<i>i.e.</i>, intimating a special +collection). The sermon itself is not immune from cruel jests, as the +following report of a parishioner's criticism will show: "A minister is +like a joiner. The joiner takes a piece of wood and shapes it roughly +with the axe. Then he applies his rough plane, and smooths it down a +bit. After that, he takes his fine plane; and, lastly, he rubs it with +sandpaper, and finishes it with polish till he makes it appear like +glass. And so with the minister: he works his sermon, from sheet to +sheet, with pen and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">{148}</a></span> ink, till he makes it at last so smooth <i>that a +flea could not stand on it</i>."<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p> + + + +<h3>THE SABBATH.</h3> + +<p>I was not a little surprised during my attendance at Highland churches +to hear the ministers devoting much strong rhetoric to the sin of +Sabbath-breaking. Taking the air on the first day of the week for quiet +meditation and the good of one's health, has always seemed to me a +laudable practice, but in many Highland parishes, a Sunday stroll +implies ungodliness, even although the stroller may have attended one or +more diets of worship earlier in the day. Such a state of matters is +preposterously absurd, and, to my thinking, quite irreligious—it at +least tends to make hypocrites. Some years ago, I spent a week in a +typical insular village, lodging in the local inn. It was noticeable +that on Sundays, the front blinds of the house were never drawn up. When +the church-bells tolled the hour for public worship, the solemn devotees +could be seen (through holes in the blind) pacing along, looking fixedly +at the toes of their boots. The landlord of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">{149}</a></span> house thought it no sin +to observe the passers-by, so long as he could do so in a clandestine +way. He had no desire to mend the blind.</p> + +<p>The restfulness and peace of a British Sunday is a blessed thing, as +every Briton who has been long resident abroad, will readily admit. +There is, however, a reasonable medium to be found between the unnatural +Calvinistic Sabbath (with its limited view of the world through a torn +blind) and the Continental Sunday, gay with skipping and junketing. +Within recent years, to some extent owing to the bicycle and motor-car, +the Sabbath has become rather too animated and bustling. The change is +perhaps not entirely regrettable. The terrible Sunday dulness of some of +our large towns has been, of late years, rendered less oppressive by the +opening of museums and art galleries. I heard a man of fifty confess +that in his boyhood he prayed fervently once, and only once, a week: the +prayer in question was said on Sunday evening, and consisted of a +heartfelt ejaculation of thanks to Heaven that the holy day was over for +another week.</p> + +<p>Church-going is a splendid and salutary practice, and every man who does +not base his life on some religious sanction, is leading a mutilated +life. There is such a thing, however, as ecclesiastical dyspepsia, a +disease engendered by forced attendance at too many religious services +when one is young. The disease is unfortunately apt to develop in mature +years, into complete indifference to doctrine of all kinds.</p> + +<p>After all, doctrine is largely useful as a mental exer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">{150}</a></span>cise, and may +easily become divorced from practical honesty. Not once but fifty times +have I been told that the village experts in theology were precisely the +men who needed most watching in mundane matters. "So-and-so is a +specialist on the millennium: <i>beware of him</i>." "Old Duncan is the +strictest Sabbatarian in the island, but on Monday he's worth keeping an +eye on." "Many a man that keeps the fourth commandment is not so +particular about the others." Such are the phrases one is perpetually +hearing, and they go far to prove how inoperative are ritual, +profession, and form, in the life of some Christians.</p> + +<p>To keep the ten commandments, or rather, I should say, the eleven, is no +easy matter for either Celt or Saxon. It is far easier to be +ostentatiously religious than scrupulously moral, to say prayers than to +pay debts, to split hairs of doctrine than to love your enemies. I never +read a more markedly scriptural book than <i>The Men of Skye</i>, nor one +that displays such intolerance to the school of Laodiceans. I am not +insensible to the intense enthusiasm of the author for the memory of the +illiterate catechists who went round the island preaching to the people +in a homely and graphic way. The unlovely feature of the book is the +antagonism displayed towards those who wish to bring about a union of +the Presbyterian bodies. "Not all the cement outside of heaven," one man +says, "could bring about a union of the Free and U.P. Churches." The +Declaratory Act, secular teaching in schools, instrumental music, and +such like, all come in for severe treatment or ironical reference.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">{151}</a></span></p> + + +<h3><i>THE MEN OF SKYE.</i></h3> + +<p>The book to which I have referred (<i>The Men of Skye</i>) gives a wonderful +insight into the religious psychology of the Celtic zealot. It was in +Portree that I first got a look at the little work, which consists of a +series of biographies of outstanding lay preachers. I enjoyed the +perusal of it immensely, and I am afraid the pious author will regard me +as little better than one of the wicked when I say that I had many a +hearty laugh at its contents. I am very unwilling to seek gaiety in +pious books, very averse to laugh at honest, heart-felt beliefs, but the +author of <i>The Men of Skye</i> was too many for me. His quaint metaphors, +droll tenses and unlicensed syntax, were a perpetual feast of nectared +sweets.</p> + +<p>The language in which the book is written is not Gaelic, though it has +not quite reached the stage of English. The following extract is a +typical one: "John Mackenzie lived at Galtrigil, was a God-fearing man, +and professed religion, and his conduct was worthy of his profession, +consistent in all its parts. He was employed as fishcurer to Dr. Martin. +When he would be busy in the store, on the shore, his wife would go down +with his food. He had a large heap of salt beside him, but he was so +scrupulously conscientious that when she took down an egg, she would +need also to bring from his own house the grain of salt he would put in +it. He would not take so much as a grain of salt that was not his own. +He was careful about what belonged to the cause of Christ, and would +like to know<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">{152}</a></span> that those who took up a profession of religion had +undergone what he termed a <i>clean conversion</i>."</p> + +<p>Some of the stories told of Angus Macleod, are altogether unique: "He +was one day entrusted with the herding of the minister's cattle, but +while he prayed, the cattle made their way into the corn. The minister +came out and began to advise and rebuke him, but Angus said, 'Let the +righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness; and let him reprove me, it +shall be an excellent oil which shall not break my head.'" (Psalm cxli. +5.) I consider that story and the two which follow quite equal, in their +diverting pointlessness, to any of those told by Cicero in <i>De Oratore</i>, +Book ii. At one time it was thought advisable to teach Angus how to +read, but he never could be got to master the alphabet. He would utter +aloud the following reflections: "<i>A</i> <i>b</i>, <i>ab</i>: Ah! that is but dry. +There is no food there for my soul. There is no word about Christ or God +there, no word about forgiveness of sin. I would rather be at the back +of a dyke where I would get a moment of the presence of the Lord." As +Angus usually replied to his associates by a text of Scripture, he must +have had a good ear for Holy Writ. "His father was one day repairing a +dyke. Angus tried to assist him and broke the spade. His father's temper +was roused, and he ran after his son to punish him. Angus ran away +calling out, 'Oh, Lord, avenge me of mine adversary.'" On one occasion, +when asked why he had refused to pray in public, he replied that it was +out of his power to do so at the time. "Why," said his interlocutor, +"Jonah was able to pray even in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">{153}</a></span> whale's belly." "Yes, yes," said +Angus, "but I was in a worse state than Jonah: for the whale was in my +belly."</p> + +<p>It may not be unnecessary to state that the word Men in the title of the +book is to be understood as meaning "men of exceptional piety." The word +is a technical one in that sense. All the <i>men</i> I have read about were +fervid Frees, many of them being elders and catechists in that body. +After the Disruption, there was a wonderful crop of these men produced +in the Highlands, and through their means, <i>religion became a very real +and forcible affair</i>. Their attitude to life and general outlook on the +world are quite unlike anything to be found among the luke-warm +believers of the Laodicean South. We read of one zealot devoting a whole +winter to the task of combating shinty and tobacco. It is impossible to +withhold some measure of admiration from Christians so staunch, logical, +and uncompromising. <i>Logical?</i> Well, here at least is a gem of +ratiocination. What, for example, was the cause that forced so many +Skyemen to emigrate to the Canadian plains and the Australian bush? The +fathers of Skye believed that the crofters, having insufficiently +appreciated the unique opportunities of divine worship at home, were +driven by a wrathful deity over the water to a land where there were +<i>few or no Presbyterian Churches</i>.</p> + + +<h3>THE AULDEST KIRK.</h3> + +<p>There are some parts of Scotland that the Reformation seems never to +have reached. I have been told that up till this day no Protestant +minister ever preached<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">{154}</a></span> in Morar (the delightful spot, with lake of same +name, near Mallaig), and that in consequence Catholics call it "Blessed +Morar" (<i>Morar Bheanaichte</i>). There is a Catholic strip of country, +extending right through the heart of Scotland, along the Caledonian +Canal; aristocrats, chiefs, and crofters there boast that their +ecclesiastical history goes back, uncontaminated by schisms and private +judgment, right to the time of Ninian and Columba.</p> + +<p>It appears evident that the iconoclastic Parliament of 1560, which made +it unlawful to obey the Pope or say mass, pretty effectually paralysed +the Catholic Church in the land. Only in secluded districts, such as +Uist, Barra, Morar, Arisaig, and Glengarry, were the faithful safe from +prosecution. The organisation of the Church was maimed and broken, and +hundreds of priests took to flight. To use the cruel words of Milton—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">"Then might ye see<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, tossed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And fluttered into rags; then relics, beads,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sport of winds."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Having visited a fair number of Catholic districts in the West of +Scotland, I have given myself the pleasure of reading, as far as is +available, the historical records of the Pope's faithful adherents +there. <i>These are most interesting as showing the pertinacity of +religious faith among the most hostile surroundings.</i> The Scots College +at Rome, founded by Clement VIII., supplied a large number of priests, +who spread themselves abroad in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">{155}</a></span> glens, and kept the old faith from +completely perishing. The Roman Catholic College at Scanlan, on the +Braes of Glenlivet, was a turf-built erection, dating from 1712. It was +often compulsorily closed and the students dispersed. The most important +school for priests in the West was at Buorblach, near Morar. Here the +aspirants for priesthood studied for a year or two, after which they +proceeded to some one of the Scots colleges abroad—such as Paris, +Ratisbon, Valladolid, or Rome. Those students who received the whole of +their instruction at home, and got ordained without going abroad, were +styled <i>heather priests</i>.</p> + +<p>The best-known Catholic township of the West Highlands at the present +time is undoubtedly Arisaig, a charming spot, where the mild air allows +the wild flowers to spring in profusion and where the fuchsia thrives +better than anywhere else in Scotland. There is a strikingly elegant +Catholic Church here, built on a commanding site that dominates the bay. +In September, 1904, I addressed a meeting in the Astley Hall of Arisaig, +under the genial chairmanship of the Clerk of the House of Commons. The +audience was overwhelmingly Catholic, and it was quite evident that all +were keenly appreciative of the library that had recently been sent to +the district. It gave me no ordinary pleasure to note that the literary +society of the place was made up of both Catholics and Protestants, and +that all the inhabitants, forgetting their religious differences, could +assemble together as friends on the common meeting-ground of literature. +Such an amalgamation is bound to mitigate the sectarian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">{156}</a></span> rancour that +too often works like a pestilence in small villages and rural +communities. It is an excellent feature, too, in such places as Arisaig, +that the local priest gives every encouragement to his people to read +and study secular books of an elevating character. It would be strange +indeed if the representative of a Church which in mediæval times gave +such splendid encouragement to art and letters, should deem it a duty to +prohibit his people from availing themselves of the means of culture.</p> + +<p>It undoubtedly comes as a surprise to a Lowlander, who is prone to think +that every born Scot is necessarily a born Protestant, to find in remote +nooks of his native country, home-grown specimens of the faith that was +once prevalent everywhere. He has to sit down and muse on the hillside +over the matter, and, if he is imaginative, he will see by fancy's eye +the skiff of St. Columba breasting the breakers on its way from Ireland +to Iona.</p> + + +<h3>THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH.</h3> + +<p>Of all the Churches or sects in Scotland, probably the most remarkable +is the Episcopalian. Many Englishmen settle in the Lowlands for purposes +of trade, and, in most cases, bring their religion with them. Such +immigration explains the numerous Episcopal chapels in the towns of +southern Scotland. But no such cause can explain the presence of scores +of small Episcopal congregations in the rural districts of Aberdeen and +Banff. These have not been imported from over the Border, but in reality +have a long history behind them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">{157}</a></span> Many of them date from the sixteenth +and seventeenth centuries. The Stuart kings never liked Presbyterianism, +and James I. tried to make the Scotch Church as like the English one as +possible: in 1610, indeed, he managed to bring about the consecration of +a certain number of Scotch bishops. The Episcopalians in the North +showed a warm affection for the Stuarts during the distresses of that +royal house, and such Jacobitism did the scattered congregations a deal +of harm. The number of Episcopal chapels throughout the land is fairly +high, but the total of the communicants is relatively small. The clergy +are a most estimable and cultured body of men, and perform their duties, +which are often very laborious, in an eminently exemplary fashion. Their +stipends are ridiculously poor, and the scene of their labours is +frequently the reverse of lively. Very often, in the bleak moors and +glens of north-east Scotland, I have spent pleasant and memorable +evenings in the village rectory. The modes of speech and general +atmosphere of a Scotch rectory differ piquantly from those of the manse. +It is certain that a clergyman who is in constant touch with the +Anglican ritual, develops a special turn of talk and a characteristic +set of mannerisms.</p> + +<p>I am convinced that, in learning and culture, the Episcopal clergy +compare very favourably with those of the other Churches. Some of them +have written, both in the departments of theology and general +literature, works of outstanding and permanent value. In spite of all +that, however, it does not seem probable that they will make many +converts to their creed. Presbyterianism<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">{158}</a></span> has a firm grip on the +country: symbol and ritual do not thrive well in the cold air of the +North. Once upon a time, in the Black Isle, as the records of the +Arpafeelie Episcopal Church show, there was a strong feeling of +antagonism to Presbyterianism; but that was in 1711, and was probably +more political than religious.</p> + +<p>It is a well-known fact that a large proportion of the aristocracy and +landed-gentry of Scotland are Episcopalians. This is due, not so much to +the leisure they have for studying theological problems, as to the fact +that most of them have been educated in English public schools.</p> + +<p>How pleasant it is to contemplate the broad-mindedness of the greatest +of our Scotch Episcopalians, Sir Walter Scott, as seen in the +thirty-seventh chapter of <i>Guy Mannering</i>! Speaking of religious +differences, he makes Pleydell say: "<i>A plain man may go to heaven +without thinking about them at all</i>." Even at the present day, there is +a most regrettable lack of such urbanity in the disputes of educated +theologians. I picked up a book not long since, which amused as well as +shocked me greatly. It purported to be a history of <i>the</i> Church in +Scotland. The author was a facetious Episcopalian, for his history made +no mention of either the Free, the Established, or the United +Presbyterian denominations. The Episcopal sect alone had the honour of +being dubbed a Church. Now, if a writer ever took it on him to write a +history of the Church in England, he ought to devote space to <i>all</i> the +bodies, and be careful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">{159}</a></span> not to omit mention even of the Plymouth +Brethren. I rather think that the Plymouth Brethren should have the +lengthiest treatment of all, seeing that no shred of the Church +resembles so closely the original type of Christianity.</p> + + +<h3>AN INTERLUDE OF METRE.</h3> + +<p>I have often endeavoured to fix discourses from the Highland pulpits by +embodying in metre (I do not say poetry) the leading thought or most +striking illustration that I carried away. For the sake of variety and +to prevent this chapter from appearing too frivolous, I, at this point, +give one or two "moderate" sermons in little.</p> + + +<h4>I.</h4> + +<div class='block'><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When heavy-laden Christian, panting sore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had gained the home of the Interpreter,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He saw a sorry fellow with great stir<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ply a vile muck-rake on a filthy floor;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the more mire the churl raked, the more<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He smiled, although a winged messenger<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Floating aloft was eager to confer<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On him the crown that in her hands she bore.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So is it with those fools that waste their days<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In raking stores of dross and minted gear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oblivious of the crown of deathless rays<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That God is offering freely to them here.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Miser! your stay on earth is short indeed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Renounce the dross and choose the heavenly meed.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">{160}</a></span></div></div></div> + + +<h4>II.</h4> + +<div class='block'><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He that is wise will not in haste decide,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But look and think before believing aught;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then, having long reflected, will confide<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To no breast but his own his finished thought,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Until experience warrants every jot.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Man! Suffer not thy soul to yield to pride<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of intellect. Small is thy mortal lot<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of wisdom. Others seek the truth beside<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thyself. Behold aloft in air there fly<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fowls diverse all in nature, strength of wing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And keenness: even so the men who hie<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the soul's quests. In genius differing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They all some twinkling sparks of truth may see,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the whole flaming round is hid from them and thee.<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + + +<h4>III.</h4> + +<div class='block'><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thou who in folly thinkest Heaven's King<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has sent thee into this fair world to gain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As many guineas as, with toil and pain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In threescore years thine avarice can wring<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From poorer men, be warned! With tiger-spring<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fell death will leap upon your life amain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And rive you from your opulence, though fain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To tarry. Then the jovial heir will fling<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the four winds of heaven thy gathered hoard<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In flaunting joys and unrestricted glee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While costly dishes glitter on the board<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the wine flows in ruddy runnels free.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou, meanwhile, in the shady realms below<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A bloodless ghost, wilt wander to and fro.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">{161}</a></span></div></div></div> + + +<h4>IV.</h4> + +<h5>I.</h5> + +<div class='block'><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Though lilies on their graceful stalk<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Droop, fade, and die,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Earth's still renewing forces mock<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Death's cruelty.<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + +<h5>II.</h5> + +<div class='block'><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For roots and seeds within the mould<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Will thrust again<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their sheathed beauties manifold<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Up to the plain.<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + +<h5>III.</h5> + +<div class='block'><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Though flowery hopes of dazzling gleam<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Wither and die,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">New hopes in the soul's garden teem<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Unceasingly.<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + +<h4>V.</h4> + +<div class='block'><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O Lord of light, disperse my baffling fears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Give me a look but for a moment's space<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upon the tranquil glory of Thy face,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To serve as force to fight the chilling years.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clouds hide Thee from me, and the bitter tears<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Run down my cheek in floods. Out of Thy grace<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let my heart's chamber be a dwelling-place<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For Thee. Come for a little space. Mine ears<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strain for the hearing of a word divine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Straight from Thy holy lips. No single task<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Can I at all accomplish or design<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Without the full assurance that I ask<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This, namely, that my soul is one with Thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Thou dost work Thy purposes by me.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">{162}</a></span></div></div></div> + + +<h3>THE CHRISTIAN BRETHREN.</h3> + +<p>It would be well-spent labour if some sympathetic historian could find +time to write a short account of the Plymouth Brethren, giving details +of the origin, tenets, divisions, and influence of the sect. I am +surprised that Mr. Barrie in his notable excursions into Scotch life and +religion, has never portrayed such a fine specimen of the working-man +turned theologian.</p> + +<p>It must not be supposed that only the rich and the leisurely have what +is called religious experiences and shadowed souls. The finest +developments, doubtless, of the religious sense require time and money. +That leisurely groping after tendencies, that introspective analysis of +the sins of omission and commission, that delightful perception of the +falling away from righteousness of your brethren and sisters—all these +choice sweets are, if they are to be adequately enjoyed, compatible only +with a minimum of £300 a year. The religious sense and the musical are +in many points alike. If you wish to develop an initially melodious +soul, it means expense: you must go to professors, study counterpoint, +practice many hours daily, and attend concerts of the most exclusive and +expensive kind. Similarly with religion in its finest flower. You need +slaves to cook and wash for you if you mean to ecstaticise and see +beatific visions: you must get the most fashionable and picturesque +specialists to come and feel your religious pulse, and you must on no +account neglect the subscription lists. But only those rich enough to be +hypochondriac can afford such luxuries.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">{163}</a></span> Now, in the toiling classes +there are often good ears for music, and exquisite responsiveness to +religious sensations. What satisfies such natures and such wants must be +cheap. The Plymouth Brethren (I ought rather to say <i>Christian</i> +Brethren), have no General Assembly, little or no pedantry of a costly +kind, and yet, I believe, they supply all the exhilaration of schisms, +splits, counter-splits, and heresy-hunts. Every man his own General +Assembly! There may be a lack of the finer touches in such a system, but +what is lacking in elegance is fully made up in clearness of view and +rombustious vigour.</p> + +<p>In many of the fishing villages on the east coast of Scotland, there are +large congregations of these worthy men raising their Ebenezers, and +making a joyful noise on the first day of the week. I have a good deal +of sympathy with their democratic and direct style of worship. In +Scotland, when a man gets converted, he feels constrained to <i>do +something</i>, but very often there is little outlet for his energy in the +calm routine of the fashionable churches—hence the necessity for +bethels and mission-houses. At their revivals, let me add, one is in +presence of that mysterious awakening to which every religion owes its +birth.</p> + +<p>In the autumn of 1906, I had an interesting talk with the minister of a +seaside village on the shore of the Moray Firth, and was distressed to +find that he was sorely harassed by the lively sect I have mentioned. +Every now and again a wandering evangelist comes along the coast, +pitches a tent, and begins a series of gospel services. Those who are +converted, neglect the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">{164}</a></span> church and all its ordinances, and begin +preaching on their own account; nay, they even buttonhole the minister +and preach to <i>him</i>, accusing him of being an unjust steward, a +hireling, and no shepherd, and so on. Such conduct creates a very +painful situation. With a good deal of detail, the long-suffering +clergyman gave me an account of a visit he had paid to an old woman +recently converted. The narrative of her conversion as told by herself +was quaint and touching: "They were a' gettin' it," she said, "and I +wasna gettin' it. So I jist went to the door and steekit my e'en, and +raised them to the lift, and <i>I got it</i>. Isn't that the way o't, auld +man?" "Aye, aye, that's the way o't, auld wife," chimed in the husband. +The latter then took up the wondrous tale: "When she came in and tell't +me she had got it, I went doon on my knees to thank the Lord jist at the +fireside, and lo and behold, when I opened my e'en, I was at the street +door. The Spirit had taken me there, unbeknown to me. So I lifted up my +voice and called on God's people. And in five minutes the room and +kitchen were filled wi' saved folk, a' singing hymns, because my auld +wife had got it at last."</p> + +<p>I also remember meeting an old thatcher of eminent talents who seemed to +me to be on the straight road for Zion, for he fulfilled the Scriptural +injunction to be fervent in spirit as well as not slothful in business. +James had at one time been precentor in one of the regular churches, but +owing to some cantankerous criticism of his melody, he seceded to the +Brethren, who fearlessly accepted his services gratis. James was +specially lyrical on the roof, and it was a treat to hear<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">{165}</a></span> him sing +"<i>There is rest for the weary</i>," as he pushed the thatch into its long +home:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"There is rest for the weary,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There is rest for the weary,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There is rest for <i>you</i>" (with a forceful thrust).<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I must not omit to mention (and with reverence be it spoken) that James +had a reputation far and wide in the country-side, for the vigour and +extreme unction of his grace before meat. Though giving a humble tenor +to the initial phrases and using the tar-brush on himself, and the +hungry company as putrid sinners unworthy even of the least of the +mercies, he always contrived to reassure everyone by sunnily rounding +off the matter with some rich and racy allusions to the gracious and +ample promises of Holy Writ. One could have felt quite comfortable even +in a slight excess of gluttony after such introductory words of +blessing. You felt that the occasion had been met, that something like +perfection had been attained. James was willing to admit shortcomings in +thatching, or in any department of human activity, so long as his +superiority in pre-prandial supplication was admitted. But it so +happened that Fate, whose delight it is to imperil even the stablest +reputations, sent his way a South-country Brother with a gift in prayer +truly appalling. At a gathering at which James was present, this +stranger was honoured by being asked to say grace. In the process, he +soared to such heights of oratory and supplicatory fervour, that the +uniform opinion of the guests, as evinced by looks, demeanour, and even +congratulation,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">{166}</a></span> was that James had at last been beaten on his own +ground. Supreme dejection settled on the thatcher, and neither bite nor +sup could dislodge the settled melancholy of his soul. After long +pondering with chin on chest in a corner of that pious throng, he had an +idea. Sidling up to the matron of the house, he, with a terrible whisper +of earnestness, addressed her in these words: "Mistress, before we gang +hame, doon wi' a whang o' cheese and a farl o' cake—it'll no' cost ye +much—and <i>I'll ha'e a tussle wi' him for't yet</i>." She gladly complied +with his request. His excitement gave him inspiration, and over that +cheese and oatcake, he delivered himself of such a grace as had never +before proceeded from his lips. A murmur of involuntary admiration +greeted the conclusion. James was comforted, and once more held his head +erect.</p> + +<p>To talk of the Evolution of Religion to men like James would be a +complete waste of time. Such men regard themselves as the acme of the +process: whatever modifications may supervene after their day will be +deteriorations. It is quite impossible to persuade an enthusiast that he +is a mere phenomenon of development, and not, actually and now, the roof +and crown of things. Even if persuasion were possible, it would be a +cruelty to disillusionise these happy wights,—men who, with such +sublime confidence, can read their title clear to mansions in the sky. +They have a complete key to the universe, and are as happy as if they +had seen the whole vast circle of truth.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">{167}</a></span></p> + + +<h3>DRIMNIN IN MORVEN.</h3> + +<p>How many of my readers know where Drimnin is? If I should say, "In the +parish of Morven," it is possible the majority of them would not be +greatly edified, unless they had acquaintance with the saintly Macleod's +<i>Reminiscences of a Highland Parish</i>. Well, Drimnin is on the mainland, +nearly opposite the entrance to the haven of Tobermory. The <i>Chevalier</i> +nears into the coast when anyone wishes to land, and two boatmen, +obeying a signal, pull out from shore into the open, and the passenger +leaps, as gracefully as circumstances permit, into their arms—amid the +cheers of those left on the steamer.</p> + +<p>The clergyman of Morven ministers to a parish that has over a hundred +miles of seaboard, and, strange to say, there have been only three +incumbents in it during the last hundred and thirty years, himself being +the third, with twenty-six years' ministry to his credit so far. These +facts procured him an extraordinary reception in America, where he spent +a holiday recently. The Americans, with whom change is the permanent +element, looked with amazement on a minister who came from a parish with +such a record. They thronged round his hotel to get shaking hands with +him, while he blushed to think that homage was being paid to the +longevity of his predecessors. It is no treat to be a lion in Maine.</p> + +<p>The visitor to Drimnin should return to Oban by driving to Lochaline, +where there is a pier. A mere glance up that inlet of Lochaline is +sufficient to prove<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">{168}</a></span> the unerring accuracy of Sir Walter's description: +"Fair Lochaline's woodland shore." Scott had a marvellous eye for +scenery, and having once seen a locality, could describe it better than +a native could do who had lived in the neighbourhood from youth +upwards.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p> + + + +<h3>CRAIGNISH.</h3> + +<p>At Craignish (two miles <i>or so</i> from Ardfern, next pier to Luing on the +way from Crinan to Oban) I was astonished to find what I think is unique +in Scotland, an old clergyman, born in 1824, still, without any aid +whatever, performing all the duties of a parish minister in one of the +wildest parts of Argyllshire. I refer to the Rev. Mr. M'Michael, who was +chairman at the lecture. The old gentleman, who is remarkably hale in +body and never melancholy at meal-time (as he slyly puts it), is prone +to speak by preference of the events of "auld lang syne." He gave me a +most vivid account of Professor John Wilson (whom, as I do not now live +in Paisley, I may safely venture to call Paisley's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">{169}</a></span> <i>greatest</i> son), who +was one of his teachers, and who, as "Christopher North," wrote so many +witty and solid articles that undeservedly perished in <i>Blackwood's +Magazine</i> at the beginning of last reign. I have rarely had such a treat +as my talk with this hale-hearted octogenarian. His charming daughters +keep house for him, and employ their leisure time weaving at a loom of +their own. The sheep that graze on the glebe supply the wool, and the +intermediate stages between the back of the sheep and the woollen +overcoat on the back of the needy are all supervised by these dexterous +daughters of the manse.</p> + +<p>The coach to Craignish passes through a bit of Scotland that, in the +leafy month of June, must be glorious to behold. I passed along in a +fierce and chilling blizzard of sleet and snow. If a poet could keep +warm, thought I, this would be the spot for him to get impressive scenes +for his word-pictures. At one part, the road ziz-zags up a hill for +three miles, alongside a furious burn, to a height of six hundred feet; +from which eminence one sees, on the right, great bare crags and steep +heights, and, on the left, an inlet of the Atlantic foaming wildly +below. Ye gentlemen of the cloth, whose lot is cast in towns and who sit +at home in ease, think of the trials of your rural brethren in their +attempts to drive in winter through drifting snow to a presbytery +meeting fourteen miles away!<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">{170}</a></span></p> + + + +<h3>A MODEL MINISTER.</h3> + +<p>Not far from the city of Aberdeen is a little village of seafaring folk, +and the worthy minister, the Rev. Mr. Pollock, is guide, philosopher, +and friend to the entire community. Up to his manse, which is a mile +from the uneven and fishy streets, there is a constant <i>va-et-vient</i> of +parishioners. One old widow wishes him to write to her son at the +Yarmouth fishing, herself being ignorant of English spelling; this old +man, painfully hobbling uphill on his stick, and muttering to himself as +he goes, desires the faithful pastor to come and cheer a bed-ridden wife +who is failing fast; that young fisher-lass will blush as she tells that +her young man is on the way home to claim her as his own, with the +Church's aid. Mr. Pollock is the confidential repository of all their +secrets: nothing in their lives is hidden from him; he knows all of +comic and tragic in their lowly careers. Along with his wife, he visits +every house in the place, and from intimate knowledge can tell you, +nodding his head to this or that house as he walks along, the worth or +worthlessness of every native of the village. His time is so fully taken +up with pure religion and undefiled, that he has no time to waste on the +Higher Criticism.</p> + +<p>A tout for some wandering minstrels recently came over from Aberdeen, +meaning to leave one of his red-and-yellow bills (announcing a +performance) in each of the local shops. The minister saw him as he +distributed the bills, and closely followed up on his trail. Mr. Pollock +entered each shop and said to the shopkeeper:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">{171}</a></span> "Please let me see the +bill you have there in the window." On getting it, he would scan it, and +request to get keeping it. In no shop was he refused, so that by the +time he got to the end of the village, he was carrying two dozen large +concert placards, while the tout, merrily whistling, and all unconscious +of the nullity of his labours, was on his way back to Aberdeen. "Lead us +not into temptation," said the minister, as he thrust the garish +announcements into his study stove. None of Mr. Pollock's flock were at +the concert that night. Perhaps, if any had gone, little harm would have +been done. The minister, however, thought they were better at home, or +at the local prayer-meeting.</p> + +<p>Mr. Pollock's predecessor was a thin, unemotional man—a geologist—who +spent an important percentage of his time chipping rocks and looking for +fossils. Owing to this mania, his flock were forgotten, and came to +forget <i>him</i>. No wonder if the church attendance dwindled! <i>Ab uno disce +omnes</i>, as Virgil says. One day this ordained geologist had agreed to +baptize a child in a hamlet some miles away, and set forth to walk to +the place in good time. Unhappily, by the roadside, there was a quarry, +into which, by instinct, the minister glided, keen and eager-eyed. He +stayed therein for four hours, and forgot all about the infant +(squalling, no doubt, in special robe, and impatient for the +christening), the waiting relatives, the inevitable decanter, and the +thick cuts of indigestible bun. The minister, I say, trudged home with +his treasure-trove of petrified ferns and foot-marked shale—a greater +fossil than any under his own cases of glass. His memory<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">{172}</a></span> was stirred by +his wife's catechising, but it was too late to undo the mischief.</p> + + +<h3>MINISTERIAL TRIALS IN OLDEN TIMES.</h3> + +<p>In modern times, ministers are badly paid, considering the expenses of +their training and long education, but they are better paid than they +used to be. In 1756, the minister of Ferintosh, a big, active man, with +the object of adding something to his stipend, leased the meal-mill of +Alcaig from the laird of Culloden. The combination of miller and +minister did not please his parishioners. It never occurred to these +clowns that the occupation of miller is singularly adapted for +reflection: spiritual and bodily nourishment (thought of together) might +well form a field of thought fertile in instructive metaphors; "the dark +round of the dripping wheel," the work of separating husks and flour, +the topics of dearth and abundance, might all come to have a homiletic +value to a serious-minded teacher of religion. But a cry of scandal, +directed not against themselves for underpaying their minister, but +against that worthy man for being an <i>ordained miller</i>, arose in the +parish. A member of the congregation was deputed to give a gentle hint +to the minister that the two occupations were incompatible. The +interview took place on the high road. "What news this morning, Thomas?" +said the minister. "Have you not heard of the fearful news?" said +Thomas. "No, what is it?" "Well, everybody's saying," said Thomas, with +a whisper of affected horror, "that <i>the minister's wife has taken up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">{173}</a></span> +with the big miller of Alcaig</i>." The delicacy of this hint was such that +the minister resigned his lease.</p> + +<p>The trials of ministers long ago were truly great. Witches had to be +reckoned with, as the aforementioned Ferintosh minister, who was their +foe, knew to his cost. By their incantations they caused him to be +afflicted with somnolency. As this sleepy fit usually came on in church +between the first psalm and the prayer, it can be easily seen how awful +were the reprisals of these Satanic hags.</p> + + +<h3>AN ARTFUL DODGER.</h3> + +<p>The Rev. Mr. Rogers, minister of a parish in Fife, was, like many +another worthy man, in sore financial straits at one period of his life. +He was a widower, and probably this fact accounts for his displenished +exchequer. With supreme audacity he touched the bell of a rich old +maiden lady, and on entering her boudoir he bluntly admitted his lack of +funds, and said, "Give me £200 and I'll marry you." She gave him the +money, and for months after never saw his face. Finally she wrote asking +an interview. He came, and she tartly said, "Did you not say, Mr. +Rogers, that if I gave you £200, you would marry me?" "Certainly I did," +said the cunning minister, "and <i>I'm ready to marry you whenever you +produce your man: where is he</i>?" This anecdote shows the difficulty of +being unambiguous when speaking English, and furnishes an argument for +the adoption of French as the language of courtship as well as of +diplomacy.</p> + +<p>The same foxy ecclesiastic wished two things, both of which his heritors +flatly refused: (<i>a</i>) a new manse, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">{174}</a></span> (<i>b</i>) a site with a wide +prospect. Finding them intractable, he professed humility, and craved +merely a species of scaffolding to buttress up one of the walls of the +old manse. The heritors marvelled a little at the strange request, but, +glad of being saved from the cost of a new building, authorised the +buying of some sturdy joists to prop up a wall that the minister averred +was off the plumb. No sooner was the buttressing timber in position than +Mr. Rogers appeared with a violent complaint in the Sheriff Court, +declaring that the manse was like to fall about his ears, and that the +heritors had palpably admitted the danger by erecting a scaffold. The +Sheriff expressed strong disapproval of the heritors' stinginess, and +ordered them to get a new manse built for the minister. Now as to the +site! To spite Mr. Rogers, the heritors determined to deprive him of a +good view, and directed the St. Andrews builder to erect the new manse +down in the valley on a broad bank by a burnside. The master-builder +placed pegs and marks in the ground at the prescribed place and returned +to St. Andrews, telling his workmen to proceed next day to begin the +work, and mentioning that they would know the site by marks he had +placed there. At cockcrow the minister was afoot, busy transferring the +pegs to the summit of a lovely knoll. The tradesmen came out to the +country, and looking for the site found it on the hill-top and began +their work. After they had been a week or more on the walls, out from +St. Andrews came the master to see how his men were progressing. He came +near a complete collapse when he saw his men on the hill instead of in +the valley. He spoke winged<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">{175}</a></span> words to them, but it was too late. In such +fashion did Mr. Rogers outwit his heritors. I regret that no literary +relics of this acute divine are to be had. He seems to have been in his +way a kind of Higher Critic judging from a remark he made on the Ark: +"How did you manage," he said, as if addressing Noah in person, "how did +you manage to keep the first plank of your boat from getting rotten +before the last was nailed on, if you actually took 120 years to put the +whole thing together?"</p> + + +<h3>SOME ANECDOTES FROM GIGHA.</h3> + +<p>The late minister of Gigha, a small island community of 360 souls off +the coast of Kintyre was a cleric of great humour and full of stories. +His church was the only one in the island, a fact of which he was proud. +At a communion service, a minister from the mainland, struck off a +monumental phrase in one of his prayers. He said "Thou hast shown, O +Lord, Thy confidence in Thy servant, the devout minister of Gigha, for +lo! out of the plentitude of Thy great mercy Thou has seen fit <i>to give +him an island all to himself</i>." I have heard and do in part believe it, +that the effect of such a supplication in Gaelic is overpoweringly +strong.</p> + +<p>This same minister "of the island," whose digestion I may say, was so +perfect that he could triumphantly absorb strong tea and poached eggs as +a regular midnight meal, told me one night over this collation, the +story of a fisherman in one of the Western Islands, whose prayer before +going to sea was of a singular character. He invariably addressed the +Deity as <i>Sibshe</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">{176}</a></span> (You) instead of the ordinary <i>Thusa</i> (Thou). On one +occasion, when the weather was squally and danger was anticipated, he +prayed thus: "O Lord God, my Beloved, if You would be so good as to take +the care of Mary and Jessie, my daughters; but that She-Devil, my wife, +the daughter of Peter Macpherson, I am indifferent about her: she will +have another husband before I am eaten by the crabs!"</p> + +<p>Here follows another well-known story from the same authority. A +Lowlander, taking a week's sail on one of Macbrayne's cargo-boats +stepped ashore, on Sunday morning, at a remote insular port, to attend +church, as was fit and proper. The text was the well-known verse "Can +the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?" The minister, +strange to say, preached a long and painfully vivid sermon on <i>leprosy</i>. +The tourist waited, after sermon, in order to talk with the minister and +quietly remonstrate with him. He said: "You gave us an excellent +discourse to-day, but do you think it followed quite appropriately from +the text: surely you are aware that a <i>leopard</i> and a <i>leper</i> are two +different things." The minister, eying the tourist with a look of +indignant scorn for a second, lifted up his voice and denounced him +thus: "Out of my sight with you: I know what you are; you are one of +these pestilent fellows called Higher Critics. Begone!"</p> + +<p>In the Long Island, it is an article of fixed belief among the stricter +Presbyterians that Catholics are outside any scheme of salvation. +Episcopalians, too, are regarded as being in an extremely dubious +position. Any stick, however, is good enough to beat the par<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">{177}</a></span>tisans of +the Pope. "Brethren," said a minister near Stornoway, "I have forgotten +my sermon to-day: but <i>I'll just say a word or two against the +Catholics</i>." Such a philippic, he seemed to think, could never be out of +season.</p> + +<p>Denunciation has always been a favourite method of the religious bigot. +If the various sects of the Christian Church, could go on their way, +ameliorating the world, and leaving each other in peace, the millennium +would be within reasonable distance. I heard a U.F. say to a Wee Free: +"Donald, you'll no' gang to Heaven, <i>because I'm bad</i>." The sentence is +good enough for an epigram. Unfortunately, too many of our sectaries +think it the prime virtue of their faith to run down their neighbours.</p> + + +<h3>GROWING POPULARITY OF RUSKIN.</h3> + +<p>One of the most cheerful features in the present-day thought of +Scotland, and one from which we may anticipate excellent results in +every department of social and religious life, is the growing popularity +of the great apostle of the nineteenth century, John Ruskin. Though +dead, he continues to speak; and from close inspection of the registers +that show in detail the nature of the books asked for, at the various +village libraries, I have noted, with no small pleasure, that Ruskin's +works are eagerly read all over the Highlands and islands of Scotland. +This is something quite new, and will, I am certain, work immense good.</p> + +<p>For Ruskin's work in the department of religion, no words can be too +commendatory. His genius was in thorough accord with the spirit of the +Biblical writers,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">{178}</a></span> and his modes of speech and illustration perpetually +reminiscent of Scripture. He loses no opportunity of dwelling on the +culturing influence of the Bible. There is also a fine tolerance in his +religious teaching, which is alike helpful and suggestive. His is that +variety of teaching which we find most effectively outside of the ranks +of professional commentators, and which comes through the keen flashes +of genius that accompany the insight of the literary artist. He has +pointed out to us with great eloquence that, while specific doctrines +take at various epochs very different degrees of importance, and aspects +of rite, ceremony, and all that, appeal with changing force to different +generations, the essence of religious feeling, without which dogma +becomes harsh and rite insipid, hardly varies at all; seeing that in the +musings of the great minds of all ages, we have oftenest the pure gold +of devotion, mingled, though it may sometimes be, with the adhesive +dross of superstition. He also warns us of the danger of mistaking +pugnacity for piety, and earnestly urges that, at every moment of our +lives, we should be trying to find out, not in what we differ from other +men, but in what we agree. Ruskin considers this to be the correct +spirit in which to approach ancient as well as modern religion, +believing that if a reader cannot understand a spiritual agency, or +thinks that the best of ancient men were not dominated by any such, the +understanding of the very alphabet of history will be endangered. It +would tend greatly to salvation from arid formalism, if ministers would +teach that Plato, Sophocles, Browning, Carlyle, are all apostles of +religion. A living word from an intuitionist<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">{179}</a></span> like the last-named not +unfrequently vivifies with new force the dark sayings of a Hebrew seer, +in much more direct fashion than half-a-score of mutilated Pentateuchs +made in the delirium of the Higher Criticism.</p> + +<p>In spite of his unsystematic procedure, Ruskin deserves to be numbered +among the men who have earned the gratitude of their fellows, by +translating some of the ever-vital aspects of religion into the +vocabulary of the hour. The language of religious discourse is liable to +a subtle kind of pedantry, requiring a vigorous intellect adequately to +dissolve. New illustrations, novel forms of definition, are often +helpful in expelling the dreariness of outworn and meaningless phrases. +Ruskin's task is facilitated by the nice balance of his intellectual and +imaginative endowments, by the fact that his words are not mere symbols +of definite connotation, but marvellous centres of emotional force. +Happily he did not seek to elaborate any system of religion: but now +here, now there, in his books, one comes upon the pure gold of religion, +enshrined in exquisite jewelries of diction, which glimmer on (if I may +say so) to the utmost verge of emotion, and more successfully than any +formal harangue, work out their intended function. Such works as <i>Unto +this Last</i> and <i>Munera Pulveris</i>, however keen the mental antagonism +they may initially provoke, mark a period in the spiritual life of the +reader: no matter what the prepossessions of a man may be, these books +will modify them. He is reverent, but, like Plato, he is dynamic. You +can't sit at ease as you read his pages, for they are charged as much +with defiance as with guidance.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">{180}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">EDUCATIONAL.</span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Some Insular Dominies—Education Act of 1872—Education in the +Highlands—Feeding the hungry—Parish Council +boarders—Dwindling attendances—Arnisdale—Golspie Technical +School—On the Sidlaws—Some surprises—Arran schools—Science +and literature—Study of Scott—The old classical dominie—Vogue +of Latin in former times—Teachers and +examinations—Howlers—Competing subjects.</p></div> + + +<h3>SOME INSULAR DOMINIES.</h3> + +<p>It is by no means an easy matter for a teacher to get south again once +he is installed in a remote Highland school. He accepts a distant rural +or insular post, marries the girl of his heart, gets settled in the +schoolhouse of the glen or township, and rarely moves thence all the +succeeding years of his life. He becomes identified with local affairs; +plays whist maybe with the doctor, the factor, and the banker; and is +apt to magnify the cackle of his bourg into the great Voice that echoes +round the world. The monotony of his life is varied by such happenings +as a birth or a death in his own household, a visit from the emissary of +My Lords, an epidemic of measles, a general election, and the like. I +don't say these men are unhappy, but unless they develop a hobby, +torpidity is bound to settle like a mist upon their brains. Such studies +as geology, botany, and gardening, are sovereign for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">{181}</a></span> driving off the +vapours of ennui. Nor are golf, angling, and the composition of verse, +specifics that the rural dominie can afford to despise.</p> + +<p>I have in my mind at this moment the portraits of many notable gentlemen +(for true gentlemen they are, though their purses are thin) who have +given up their lives to educating the progeny of the inclement North. +Lamont, for example, whom I remember as a first-class mathematician, is +living in the marshy navel of an Outer Isle, amid wild-fowl and spirals +of peat-reek. If you want to visit him you have (1) to cross the billowy +western deep; (2) drive fifteen miles in a trap; (3) traverse a +four-mile arm of the sea in a ferry that needs baling; (4) proceed seven +miles to another ferry two miles in breadth; (5) hop, step, and jump +three miles along a narrow and tortuous track, enough to give vertigo to +a goat. Lamont is not unhappy: he keeps his mind active by solving stiff +quadratic equations and fiddling with Cartesian co-ordinates. I hope he +will get credit for all these studies, when the last trump sounds, for +he gets little enough at present.</p> + +<p>Ramsay, too, is a dweller among these treeless bogs, and is engaged, +during his leisure, on a translation of Anacreon which will never be +finished, or, if finished, will never be published. I called on him and +immolated myself on the altar of his Anacreon in order to give him a +little pleasure. He, later on, enlarged on his school, scholars, and +daily life. The horizon of the boys and girls is extremely limited: most +of them have never seen either a pig or a policeman. Cabbages have only +been recently introduced into the district, but are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">{182}</a></span> already thriving +wonderfully well considering the thin soil. There are of course no +trees: for what trees could stand against the buffeting of the fierce +wintry gales of the Atlantic? Ramsay's only chum is a missionary, who is +of an antiquarian turn, and goes fumbling about for arrow-heads and +prehistoric bracelets, especially after a storm, when the hill-sides are +laid bare.</p> + +<p>Neither Lamont nor Ramsay know a word of Gaelic, and there they are in +districts where English is a foreign language. Needless to say, the lack +of Gaelic is a terrible drawback to these two men. They should never +have been where they are, for they are aliens. The scholars, unbreeched +little rogues, have an advantage over their teacher, and in the +playground talk the tongue of the Celt invariably, and may be maligning +him for all he knows. I am afraid, too, that teacher and minister do not +always consider themselves as auxiliaries in these outer isles. The +younger generation of teachers have, as might be expected, a more +extensive knowledge of books than the old school of Presbyterian +ministers. The latter, feeling their literary inferiority, are inclined +to regard the teacher as an intruder whose work in the school-room will +cause the rising generation to look slightingly on the "essentials." I +have in my possession numerous letters from Highland teachers dealing +with this fear on the part of the clergy, that novels and secular +literature generally will pervert the minds of the people. The addition +of Mrs. Humphrey Ward's books to a library was recently likened to the +arrival of the Serpent in Eden.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">{183}</a></span></p> + + +<h3>EDUCATION ACT OF 1872.</h3> + +<p>In one of the best-known chapters of <i>Rob Roy</i>, Bailie Nicol Jarvie, the +utilitarian Glasgow merchant, says to his cattle-reiving kinsman: "Your +boys, Rob, dinna ken the very multiplication table, which is the root o' +a useful knowledge, and it's my belief they can neither read, write, nor +cipher, if sic a thing could be believed o' ane's ain connections in a +Christian land." Rob replies in a sentence that is worthy of being put +alongside the remark of old Earl Douglas in the poem of <i>Marmion</i>: +"Hamish can bring down a blackcock on the wing with a single bullet, and +Rob can drive a dirk through a twa-inch board." These quotations +adequately explain the almost complete absence of prose remains in the +literature of the Gael. Bards there were in plenty, but they could +neither read nor write.</p> + +<p>In the year 1872, education was made the concern of the nation. It was +rightly considered to be a standing menace to the security of the realm +that ignorance, which is the parent of disorder and lawlessness, should +be the doom of a large proportion of the nation. Rather than hazard the +dangers of an illiterate population, education was undertaken by the +State, and paid for out of the national purse. The analogy between +disease and ignorance is, in truth, sufficiently close to justify both +sanitation and education coming into the wide domain of imperial duties.</p> + +<p>Looking back on the changes that resulted in the Lowlands from the +Education Act of 1872, we see<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">{184}</a></span> grounds for criticism. The measure, like +all earthly things, was imperfect. There was something hard and +inelastic about the system fostered by the old Code. The psychology of +Child Nature was almost totally ignored. A system of examination was +established that assumed an equal and mechanical progress on the part of +every child every year. Yet, in spite of grave defects, the Act of 1872 +brought inestimable blessings with it. For one thing, the health +conditions of education were vastly improved. Many of the old schools +were absolute hovels. After 1872, large, airy, and spacious buildings, +were erected in every district of the land. It was no longer a case of +one old dominie facing singly a whole regiment of unruly youngsters: +every school was organised and disciplined into regular and seemly +order. We had the advantage in Scotland of a complete system of School +Boards, and that awakened an intense and universal interest in +educational affairs. The old parochial schools of Scotland had many +admirable features, but in 1872 they were quite unfit to cope with the +nation's needs. On the whole, the School Board system was a decided boon +to the land.</p> + + +<h3>EDUCATION IN THE HIGHLANDS.</h3> + +<p>It is only since the Act of 1872 that any education of a serious or +systematic kind has been attempted in the Celtic parts of Scotland. +Nevertheless, a word of praise is due to the Society for Promoting +Christian Knowledge and other civilising agencies of the Churches<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">{185}</a></span> +(Established and Free), for their work during the educational night that +preceded the Act. These agencies were, of course, utterly inadequate to +meet the needs of the Highlands, as may be easily seen from the fact +that in 1862, over 47 per cent. of the men who married, could not sign +their own names. But, indeed, what resources, save those of the Imperial +Treasury, could ever be adequate to meet the expense of educating the +children spread over such wide and sparsely-peopled tracts? Sheriff +Nicolson, one of the most fervid Gaels that ever lived, made a report to +Government in 1865, characterising the education given in the Highland +schools as lamentably insufficient.</p> + +<p>The effects of the Act of 1872 were slow but sure, and in the course of +fifteen years a change, analogous to that effected by General Wade in +the state of the roads, was brought about in the realm of education. Yet +the expenses involved in the working of the measure were of an unduly +burdensome kind, in spite of the generous bounty of the Education +Department. In some of the large parishes of the Long Island, the heavy +school rate was such a cause of complaint that My Lords were forced to +take very drastic measures to relieve the financial strain. In summing +up the results of the Education Act, Professor Magnus Maclean says: +"Among the good things that education has brought the Highlanders, are a +knowledge of English, wider social and political interests, a brighter +intelligence and brighter outlook, freedom from mental vacuity and +traditional superstitions."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">{186}</a></span></p> + + +<h3>FEEDING THE HUNGRY.</h3> + +<p>Probably, as I have hinted, one of the chief benefits of the Education +Act, was that teaching had to be carried on in conditions of space and +air. Given such conditions and an enthusiastic master, some good +progress will certainly be made.</p> + +<p>Connected with the physical side of education we have had, of late, +signs of a new departure. There is a talk of <i>feeding the hungry</i>.</p> + +<p>Every parent worthy of the name is proud to provide food and clothing +for his children. That's what he's there for. But it does not require +much keenness of vision to see that there are many parents unworthy of +the name, and that, by the dark and inscrutable degrees of Heaven, such +worthless individuals are often allowed to be parents of a numerous +progeny. We must (i) inject into these wastrels the feeling of +responsibility and (ii) prevent the children from dying of starvation. +The first problem requires lengthy treatment and is perhaps hopeless of +accomplishment; the second can be done at once by philanthropy, either +individual or national.</p> + +<p>However much it may wound the pride of our gilded youth, it can hardly +be asserted that birth and rank are matters that involve the slightest +personal merit. It seems to be an affair of the purest accident into +what class of society a child is born. We have overcome the difficulties +and dangers of youth—most of us—but it might well have been otherwise. +Soften your hearts, ye political economists, and cease to regard the +poor,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">{187}</a></span> the weak, and the wretched as criminals. If there is no wealth +but life, our country must soon be poor indeed should the rising +generation be sickly and underfed. Bairns must not be allowed to study +on an empty stomach.</p> + + +<h3>PARISH COUNCIL BOARDERS.</h3> + +<p>Let me here mention a point alluded to by more than one friend of the +Highlands. It has reference to one aspect of the new science called +Eugenics, which deals with the means for producing the maximum of vigour +in our nation. It is not well enough known that for years the +authorities have been pouring into a few of the islands and straths of +the North and West a great number of maimed, consumptive, and mentally +defective children. Some houses in the Hebrides have three or four of +these children, who, but for the action of the authorities, would be +living under the most deplorable conditions of life in the towns. The +results, as regarding improvement in health and physique, are of the +most encouraging kind.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p> + +<p>After a certain age the official subsidy ceases, and the children as a +rule go to work on the farms and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">{188}</a></span> crofts. It is evident that such +extensive planting out of city boys and girls is bound by and by to work +a great change in the composition of our rural districts. It is believed +that some of the islands would soon be without children but for these +incomers: it is a well-known fact that the indigenous youthful +population of certain of them is very meagre indeed. We are thus in +modern times witnessing some most instructive operations of Nature: for +generations the country has been depleted to swell the bloated +population of the towns; and now the wastage of the cities is being sent +back to the country to get a renewal of vigour at the primeval fountain +of health.</p> + +<p>There is one further point of great moment. As a proportion, relatively +large, of these children come of morally dubious parentage, it is of +supreme interest to know their subsequent career and conduct. I have +seen reports and statistics which seem to prove that questionable +heredity can be overborne by healthy surroundings and good training; in +other words, that the offspring of criminals may, if rescued early from +a vicious environment, become respectable citizens. Such facts ought to +rejoice the hearts of all moral reformers.</p> + + +<h3>DWINDLING ATTENDANCES.</h3> + +<p>It is in the country school that the need for new blood is most apparent +to the eye. In schools capable of holding 120 children, you will often +find a shrunken roll of less than a dozen. A gentleman of mature years +usually does all the teaching and keeps himself from getting insane by +breeding hens and cultivating roses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">{189}</a></span> in his spare time. He has also, in +all likelihood, the little pickings of officialdom in the district, and +is registrar, session-clerk, and precentor. One facetious teacher, who +dwelt on a wide moor, headed his letter to me <i>Parish Council Chambers</i>, +thereby suggesting marble staircases and sumptuous furniture. It was +this same teacher who, on being asked to bring forward Standard V. for +inspection, had to admit that Standard V. was laid up with a broken leg. +For such small schools there is an increasing difficulty in finding male +teachers.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> Widows, who in their ante-nuptial days, had been engaged +in teaching are often preferred to men, for reasons of salary. The lot +of such women, who have usually families to support out of their meagre +earnings, is hard indeed: if they keep their health, they manage +tolerably well, but when illness comes into the house, there must be a +deal of suffering and distress. The young pupils who attend the remote +schools of the uplands, also deserve much sympathy. During the heavy +snows and extreme cold of winter, these children—often ill-shod and +scantily fed—have to trudge along miles of country cross-roads or +hill-paths to their little school. Our country is a glory to the eye +when mid-summer and autumn are there, but think of the harsh winter +months with their torrents of driving rain, their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">{190}</a></span> whirlwinds of hail +and sleet and the icy nip of the blasts that blow down the snow-sheeted +glens.</p> + + + +<h3>ARNISDALE, ETC.</h3> + +<p>It will be perhaps interesting to the general reader if I strive, by +drawing on my reminiscences, to give him an idea of how education is +carried on in certain remote corners of Scotland at the present time. He +will, perhaps, be led to admire as much as I do the noble work that is +being done by teachers and inspectors for the rising generation of the +country.</p> + +<p>Arnisdale, on the mainland facing Skye, is a very destitute district, +and has suffered much from the failure of the once-flourishing +herring-fishery of Loch Hourn. One can see by the attire of the children +that the poverty must be exceptional, even for the Highlands. The +teacher says that in winter she has to think as much how to feed the +children as to teach them. By the charity of some benevolent visitors, +she was, last winter, able to give the pupils a mid-day meal of cocoa +and biscuits. It is a sad contrast to the extraordinary beauty of this +picturesque spot that such dire misery should overtake a proportion of +the natives during the winter season.</p> + +<p>Arnisdale is not very accessible, even in the height of the summer +traffic, and when one gets there, it is a problem how to get away. I +asked the captain of the <i>Glencoe</i> to set me down near what is called +the <i>dry island</i>, in Loch Hourn, and thence I was rowed ashore by two +very wild-looking, unkempt boatmen. The school-house, where I lodged, is +right on the beach, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">{191}</a></span> just at the base of the gigantic Ben Screel. +Twelve miles along the coast, by a road of the most awe-inspiring kind, +one comes to the interesting nook of Glenelg, with its Pictish towers +and ruined barracks.</p> + +<p>It was a mild and hazy morning when I traversed the road between +Arnisdale and Glenelg. On coming to the summit, a great breeze arose and +drove away the heavy white mists from the Sound of Sleat, and showed the +white, sentinel-like lighthouse of Isle Ornsay and great fertile +stretches of the near portion of Skye. Reluctantly the clouds finally +curled and rolled away before the wind and the glitter of the sun, until +the Cuchullins were visible beyond the water and the green peninsula of +Sleat.</p> + +<p>In a cosy recess near the highest part of the road, beside a bubbling +spring, a <i>gipsy family</i> had pitched its tent. I admired the taste shown +in the selection of a place commanding such a view. The family was still +under canvas, but hanging on the branch of a tree was a worn and +mud-stained skirt. Do not ladies in hotels, in similar fashion, hang out +their dusty and travel-soiled attire at the doors of their chambers? And +perhaps the dark-skinned owner had hung up her dank and dripping weeds +in the hope that some silvan faun or Robin Goodfellow would, without a +tip, perform the dusting process, in this case so palpably necessary. We +do wrong in supposing that imagination is not the portion of these +woodland rovers.</p> + +<p>One of the most difficult problems of the Education Department is to see +that gipsy children get a suitable amount of schooling. "Here awa', +there awa', wan<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">{192}</a></span>dering Willie," is applicable to all their tribe. How +can progressive instruction be carried on where there is no fixity of +habitation? One day the camp is pitched on an eminence overlooking Loch +Hourn; but before twelve hours have passed, the nomads may have crossed +the ferry at Kyleakin and be warming their hands round a blaze of stolen +peats in the wild moorland between Portree and Dunvegan. Only in winter, +when frost and snow drive the gipsies into the city slums, do the +children get some smattering of the three R's.</p> + + +<h3>GOLSPIE TECHNICAL SCHOOL.</h3> + +<p>There are now in the Highlands a number of excellent higher class public +schools, in which the elements of secondary education are taught. The +pupils in these schools are drawn from wide areas, and, by means of +bursaries, can board away from their own homes. The Golspie Technical +School is an altogether unique higher-grade institution. At a library +lecture delivered in Golspie, the boys belonging to the school +(forty-eight in number, divided into four clans, each with a chief) were +present, accompanied by the Principal and his staff. My attention was at +once drawn to them by their fine physique, their gentlemanly bearing, +and their earnest attention. Next day, I had the pleasure of visiting +the school and seeing the working of the scheme initiated by the Duchess +of Sutherland.</p> + +<p>The institution is really a boarding-school for poor lads of talent +belonging to the northern counties. They are under the eye of some +teacher at every hour of the day, and are kept incessantly busy, not at +books alone.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">{193}</a></span> They are taught to do their own washing, dusting, +scrubbing, cooking, and darning. The training is excellent: one is +impressed by its practical character and educational thoroughness. Latin +and Greek are not attempted at all, the literary instruction being +entirely based on English and the modern tongues. The science part of +the curriculum is remarkably complete, and art is by no means neglected.</p> + +<p>Before a pupil has the good fortune to be admitted, the Principal visits +the parents. It is almost incredible (so he told me) the squalor of some +of the cots he had seen. Too often, in the Highlands, the one bedroom of +the family (frequently identical with the kitchen) has free +communication with a malodorous byre or stye. What a contrast with the +dormitory of the Technical School, where there is no lullaby of lowing +kine, but a tranquil, high-roofed hall that would do for the siesta of +the Duke of Sutherland himself!</p> + + +<h3>ON THE SIDLAWS.</h3> + +<p>High up on a spur of the Sidlaw Hills in the county of Forfar, there is +a wee school that supplies education for a wide and sparsely-peopled +countryside. The teacher is Mr. Brown, who was once a dominie in the +island of Whalsay. He is a jovial and courteous man, and leads you on +very astutely to ask him how long he taught there. Such a question gives +him the opportunity of replying with a laugh: "<i>I was there exactly the +length of time Napoleon was in St. Helena, five years and seven +months</i>." When in Whalsay, Mr. Brown took the service on Sunday, if the +minister happened to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">{194}</a></span> be ill. In this capacity he achieved great +popularity by the meritorious device of shortening the sermon to fifteen +minutes. He was so much in love with the first sermon he wrote, that he +never wrote another, contenting himself with giving it again and again, +and merely varying the text. If he could only hit upon a suitable title, +and a suitable publisher for this sermon, Mr. Brown would get it +printed, and scattered broadcast over the Shetland Islands. I believe it +would furnish unique food for thought even to sinners on the mainland.</p> + +<p>Mr. Brown received me with extreme kindness, and invited me inside to +see his school. I heard his senior class read, and thought the +pronunciation extremely good. About 12.55 the attention of the pupils +became visibly impaired; glances were furtively cast towards the door; +there was a feeling of expectancy all along the benches. Suddenly the +door sprang open, as if by some violent external impact, and a +middle-aged dame entered, carrying in each hand a large pail of steaming +potato-soup. Accompanying her was a young woman with dozens of small +pewter basins, and large spoons. I never saw such expeditious ladling, +such quick distribution, such speed of consumption, and such manifest +enjoyment all round. The steam of the soup obscured the wall-maps, and +the parsing exercise on the blackboard. The children could get as many +helpings as nature would permit, <i>for one farthing</i>. When the mist +cleared away, teacher and taught once more proceeded to tackle simple +proportion and analysis of sentences. I personally examined the soup, +and found it to be "nae skinking ware that jaups in luggies."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">{195}</a></span></p> + + +<h3>SOME SURPRISES.</h3> + +<p>Some surprises are in store for one who calls in casually at some of the +remoter schools. I have more than once found the teacher <i>giving +instruction in his shirt sleeves</i>. In one school, I saw the master with +<i>a large melodeon</i> (the Board being too stingy to supply a piano), +giving an inharmonious accompaniment to the musical drill. I got a +dreadful surprise on meeting the schoolmaster of a district in Jura: the +unfortunate gentleman was <i>stone-deaf</i>, his auditory nerves being +completely destroyed. Yet he managed, unaided, a school of forty-seven +pupils, and got excellent reports. The case is unparalleled in my +experience, and I should not have believed it possible had I not +personally seen the man at his work. He heard with his eyes, and could +most nimbly interpret what his pupils said by watching their lips. The +scholars liked him, and did not attempt to take advantage of his defect. +In another insular school, I was introduced to a lady-teacher who had +<i>lost both her arms in youth</i>, and who, in consequence, has been forced +to bring up her pupils entirely on the principles of moral suasion. By +holding the pen with her teeth, she can write a fine running <i>hand</i> (if +I may say so without violence to language). She is an extremely clever +lady: it was a treat to see how well she could control the children with +a word or a glance.</p> + +<p>Some teachers in the Lowlands complain of children playing truant. That +vice is not common in the Highlands, but it exists to a slight extent.</p> + +<p>In my presence the teacher of a school in Skye made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">{196}</a></span> the absentees of +the previous day, write out their reasons for non-attendance. I give +some of the typical answers:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(i.) Dear Sir,—I had to work all day at the peats.</p> + +<p>(ii.) I was kept at home for harrowing with the horses.</p> + +<p>(iii.) I was herding the lambs and keeping them from the sheep.</p> + +<p>(iv.) <i>I was on the shore all day, but I will not do it again.</i></p></div> + + +<h3>ARRAN SCHOOLS.</h3> + +<p>The Arran schools that I had the pleasure of visiting struck me as being +very well managed. It is wonderful how much excellent work some of these +country children get through. The schools are almost all supplied with +Paisley libraries, and thus the pupils, under the guidance of their +masters, can overtake an extensive course of reading in British authors. +At Loch Ranza the higher pupils study Shakespeare, Shelley, and +Wordsworth.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p> + + +<p>There is no desire whatever on the part of the young people to be taught +the language of their forefathers. As a consequence, Gaelic is rapidly +dying out in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">{197}</a></span> island. Twenty years ago it was the language of the +playground at Whiting Bay: now the pupils speak English only. At my +request the teacher there addressed a few Gaelic phrases to the +assembled children, but only two knew what he was saying. In the +neighbourhood of Lagg, there is a more general knowledge of the +venerable tongue.</p> + +<p>In spite of the decay of Gaelic, Arran has produced some Celtic scholars +of great brilliancy, the most eminent being the late Dr. Cameron of +Brodick. Mr. Kennedy of Caticol has made a great reputation for himself +in philology: he is in touch with Celtic scholarship on the Continent +and is also an adept in Irish Gaelic. In his manse, I saw a famous +Celtic manuscript, the <i>Fernaig MS.</i>, a brown-leaved passbook, full of +old poems written carefully in a very small neat hand. It is said to be +worth £2,000, but not having that amount of loose cash about me, I could +not gratify myself by offering to purchase it.</p> + + +<h3>SCIENCE AND LITERATURE.</h3> + +<p>Those rural teachers cannot be too strongly commended who combine +literary studies with work in the open air. I know some masters who +encourage their pupils to collect, say, all the flowers mentioned in +Wordsworth and Burns. That is idealising the study of botany in a most +delicious way. Wordsworth's descriptions of flowers are nothing less +than divine: to take a single example out of hundreds, his lines on the +daffodils beginning—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I wandered lonely as a cloud."<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">{198}</a></span></div></div> + +<p>Even the gayest of our lyrists, Herrick, has something to say about that +flower that is as powerful as a sermon. Birds, trees, and flowers +should, as far as possible, be known by all the young people, and some +poetic word associated with each. It is astonishing how accurately our +best poets describe the objects of nature, and how their imaginative +touches show insight and give a pleasure above mere science. Spenser's +catalogue of the trees is worth knowing by heart. All the vicissitudes +of the changing months have their apt poetical descriptions if we only +look for them. Cowper, Thomson, and Wordsworth might be especially +recommended to pupils for their brilliant word-painting of landscape. I +cannot think of a finer adjunct to the teaching of open-air science than +the auxiliary descriptions of such great masters of verse.</p> + +<p>As Mendelssohn composed <i>songs</i> without words, so may the schoolmaster +give <i>lessons</i> of the most powerful import without a word being spoken. +A beautiful interior in a schoolroom is a silent lesson in order and +good taste. Beauty and order have a most valuable influence on the +emotions and the character. It is a pleasure to see the attention that +is now given to the cultivation of taste. Clean, bright class-rooms; +pictures of artistic merit on the walls; busts; collections of fossils, +sea-shells, and the like—these are to be found even in remote country +schools. Such spontaneous education of the eye is something that cannot +be overestimated for importance and fruitfulness.</p> + +<p>Lord Avebury puts the case for artistic environment very well indeed. +"Our great danger in education,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">{199}</a></span> he says, "is the worship of +book-learning—the confusion of instruction and education. We strain the +memory instead of cultivating the mind. The children are wearied by the +mechanical act of writing and the interminable intricacies of spelling; +they are oppressed by columns of dates, by lists of kings and places, +which convey no definite idea to their minds, and have no near relation +to their daily wants and occupations. We ought to follow exactly the +opposite course, and endeavour to cultivate their taste rather than fill +their minds with dry facts."</p> + +<p>There is one precious faculty that runs the risk of being stifled by too +much memory work. I mean the faculty of imagination. Youth is the time +when fancy is busy; it is the period when the brain can furnish +unlimited scaffolding for castles in the air. Wordsworth was so +impressed, indeed, by the opulence of the youthful fancy, that he could +only account for it by supposing recent contact with heaven.</p> + + +<h3>STUDY OF SCOTT.</h3> + +<p>I sometimes think that in the training of the youthful intellect and +imagination we have not made sufficient use of the novels and romances +of Scott. Of late years a great improvement is noticeable in this +respect, and Scott is coming to be regarded as (for school purposes) our +greatest historian. In some schools, as Lord Avebury has hinted, it was +formerly thought that pupils knew history adequately when they could +rattle off a list of dates and tell something of the deeds and misdeeds +of a set of unhappy persons who masqueraded<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">{200}</a></span> as statesmen and courtiers. +Such unedifying farce has nothing to do with history, which is a +serious, instructive, and all-embracing study. The social life of the +great mass of a nation is far more important and interesting than the +eccentric deeds of a few high-placed rogues or saints. The old +school-history was, unfortunately, too often a glum compendium of +insignificant detail, told without breadth of view or fire of +restorative imagination.</p> + +<p>In the history of Scotland, most of what is worth knowing may be most +enjoyably learned from the pages of Sir Walter. Hardly any epoch of +Caledonian annals, hardly any county in the land has escaped the +treatment of his masterly hand. From the Borders to the rain-lashed +Shetlands (the <i>Pirate</i> deals with gusty Thule), from Perth to Morven, +the great wizard has made his country known to all lands. In his stories +the past faithfully reproduces itself, and we are impressed, instructed, +and amused.</p> + + +<h3>THE OLD CLASSICAL DOMINIE.</h3> + +<p>It is a pleasure to think that a few of the old school of Scotch +dominies, who date from before the 1872 Act, are still to the fore, and +still engaged in teaching. They have all fixity of tenure, and so enjoy +the privilege of criticising, as adversely as they like, the degeneracy +of modern educational developments. These "<i>old parochials</i>," as they +are called, are men of good scholarship, well versed in Horace and +Virgil, and generally fond of snuff and Latin quotations.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">{201}</a></span></p> + +<p>The Act of 1872 did a great deal for elementary education, but very +little indeed to encourage that type of higher instruction, which was +the glory of the old parish school. Ian Maclaren and other writers have +given pleasant sketches of country schoolmasters who were strong in the +ancient tongues, and who sent their pupils straight to the benches of +the University. I believe such men as "Domsey" were quite common in this +country. Porteous, whom I knew, was one of these. Porteous was a +philologist second to none in these realms, and was on intimate terms of +acquaintanceship with the famous Veitch, who gave such a <i>redding up</i> to +the Greek verbs. It was very amusing to hear the complete way in which +Porteous could silence some imperial young examining professor on the +weighty subject of classical derivation. The latter would appeal to some +such authority as Curtius, whereupon Porteous would unlock the desk in +which lay the tawse, and taking therefrom a copy of the invoked Curtius, +open it at the root in question, and display the page all marked with +pencil corrections and emendations. In support of his views, would come +such a torrent of erudition from half a score of Classical, Sanscrit, +Gothic, and Anglo-Saxon rills, that the young professor would feel "like +one of sense forlorn," and be fain to put palm to forehead in dazed +amazement. A pupil learning the rudiments under such a teacher, was +dazzled rather than instructed by the ruthless surgery of words that +constantly went on. No word was too small for Porteous to operate upon: +he settled <i>hoti's</i> business, and could so inflate Greek vocables by +supplying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">{202}</a></span> digammas and dropped consonants, that Plato would have +disowned them. Give him chalk, a blackboard, and a class of six, and he +would in ten minutes fill the board with hieroglyphics, curves, +arrow-headed diagonals, etc., all meant to illustrate the relationships, +divergencies, and contrarieties of the Aryan roots. His life was spent +in the company of these radicals, and he could call them forth out of +their trickiest hiding-places. In the midst of his chalky toil, he would +turn round with radiant glee as if to say, "This is a merry and exciting +trade: it is my fun and is as good as poaching or golf." But woe betide +the youth who showed levity. Soon would there be weeping and wailing and +tingling of palms. His reputation for strap-wielding made roots +respected.</p> + +<p>Another teacher of the school of Porteous was Thomas Taylor, whose death +I saw announced a few weeks ago. Where has all <i>his</i> Greek lore gone to, +so assiduously cultivated, so continuously added to? If Taylor's soul is +ever re-incarnated in a mortal body, it is absurd to suppose that he +must begin to learn the Greek alphabet just like a novice. His clay is +indeed mixed with the clay of common men, but I love to think of him +dwelling on the other side of the River in the meads of asphodel, +discussing with kindred shades, the topics he delighted to handle when +he was here. With tearful eye I pen these doleful decasyllabics to his +memory:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What chums Tom Taylor and Charles Lamb had been<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er bottled porter and the <i>Fairy Queen</i>!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">{203}</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">In youth, one day, seeking forbidden fruit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tom tumbled from the branches with his loot,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And broken bones compelled the lad to go<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On straddling crutches, warily and slow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Counting the pebbles on his path below.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The noisy pleasures of the open air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The football kicked exuberant here and there.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cricket, beloved of sinewy juvenals,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And golf with all its hazards, clubs and balls,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were not in Taylor's province: so he turned<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To calmer pastimes where the ingle burned,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And when the whole world turned to <i>goals</i> and <i>tees</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0">He took to <i>Iliads</i> and to <i>Odysseys</i>.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He'd croon like one possessed the magic strain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of heroes tossed along the unvintaged main,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, crutch aloft in air, would fondly beat<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Time to the rushing of the poet's feet.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Poetry was all his solace: those bright dames<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That old Dan Chaucer in his rapture names,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And those in Villon's pages that appear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As dazzling-white as snows of yester-year,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Trooped past his eye in long procession fair.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O, Sovereign Virgin, what a crowd was there!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Helen, alas! with Paris by her side,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the high deck crossing the sunny tide,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Circé, bright-moving in her godlike bloom<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before the throbbing music of the loom.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The love-lorn heroines of Shakespeare's plays,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The red-cheeked country girls of Burns's lays,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would to his raptured eye the tear-drop bring,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And set his crazy quill a-sonnetting.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">{204}</a></span></div></div> + + +<h3>VOGUE OF LATIN IN FORMER TIMES.</h3> + +<p>The old-world schoolmaster believed Latin was a universal specific. He +loved the language and knew all the flock of frisky little exceptions of +gender and conjugation, even as a shepherd knows his sheep. He gave his +pupils gentle doses of the <i>Delectus</i>, and watched with eager, almost +menacing, eye, for the working of the charm. It is quite possible that +no pupil ever went over that <i>Delectus</i>, with its world-weary fragments +of trite morality, without a feeling of pleasure at the <i>Decline and +Fall of the Roman Empire</i>. Yet it was educative, and moreover a boy was +equipped for life with quotations suiting every juncture. Fate was +powerless against one who had mastered the <i>Delectus</i>. The faculty of +Latin quotation was to some extent also a badge of respectability. +Fancy, too, the glory of being the exclusive possessor in a mixed +company of the knowledge that Castor and Pollux came out of the one egg! +It was a sore drawback to a boy once upon a time if he were shaky on the +compounds of <i>fero</i>.</p> + +<p>"<i>The pest of the present day is the prevalence of examinations</i>:" +these, it is alleged, have destroyed the grand old freedom of learning +which gave full scope for the individuality alike of teacher and pupil. +Oh! those were days of the gods, when five hours were spent daily +burrowing in Virgil and Horace! Arcadia was realised—a sunny clime of +Nymphs, Fauns, and Graces. The supreme luxury of abundant time—the +leisurely chewing of sweet-phrased morsels—is gone: it is gone, that +chastity of phrase and perfection of idiom, which felt a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">{205}</a></span> bad quantity +like a wound. The examination craze has destroyed the classical dominie, +and the intrusion of science, falsely so-called, has well-nigh +asphyxiated the Napææ of the dells. It was formerly possible for the +teacher to develop to the full his literary taste and declaim the +sonorous tit-bits of Virgil till the tears started from his eyes. Now +the instructors of youth seem to regard the works of the tuneful Mantuan +as composed for the purpose of illustrating the use of the Latin +subjunctive. Youths cannot get at the Aeneid, the spirit and majesty of +it, I mean, owing to the pestilential numbers of grammatical +reminiscences recalled by almost every line. When once you begin to set +examination papers on a subject, the romance seems to evaporate. There +is something withering about test-questions. This modern disease of +grammatical annotation, engendered largely by prosaic examiners, who +have published grammars, is spreading to the English Classics, and we +may soon expect Burns to furnish a text for exceptional scansion, +bob-wheel metrics and general philological catechising. Items which +glide effortless into the brain in desultory reading are not so easily +remembered if the examination is in store. Certain gentlemen have +recently been reading Milton with a pair of compasses in order to +discover the exact point of the cæsural pause in every line: they give +figures, strike percentages, and set questions which even the leading +character in "Paradise Lost" couldn't answer. Literary microscopy is +likely to ruin Shakespeare's reputation in school and would have done so +long ago but for Lamb's <i>Tales</i>—a darling compilation and by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">{206}</a></span> far the +best introduction to the poet. "<i>Shakespeare is a horrid man</i>" is the +deliberate verdict of the schoolgirl who has been teased to death by the +notes within the tawny covers of the Clarendon Press Edition. And fancy +what Chaucer's Prologue must seem like, taught by a man bent only on +philological hunts, variant readings, and a complete explanation of all +the final e's.</p> + + +<h3>TEACHERS AND EXAMINATIONS.</h3> + +<p>It has always seemed to me a matter for surprise that those who had for +years studied the elements of Latin and Greek at school (and that with +no small difficulty), should entirely neglect these tongues afterwards +and read nothing composed in them. Most elaborate preparations are made +to reach the Promised Land, but the weary passenger never gets there. +Can it be that the preparations are too elaborate?<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> They are +certainly not very interesting, and are, indeed, well fitted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">{207}</a></span> to disgust +pupils with the classical tongues. Sir William Ramsay of Aberdeen, in a +letter to the <i>Herald</i> some time ago, spoke strongly on this subject.</p> + +<p>Sir William says, with justice, that a teacher should teach his subject +without any thought of examination. Every teacher would like to do that +if he could. As a matter of fact, the secondary schoolmaster is forced +to become a crammer. He codifies the catch questions of previous +university preliminaries, excogitates similar weird lists of anomalies +and exceptions, and doses the pupils on such stuff instead of really +teaching the important parts of his subject. Experience seems to prove +that the most effective way of rendering a subject dry, uneducational, +and generally useless is to set examination papers on it. What can be +more outrageous and grotesque than the practice of setting +out-of-the-way questions because of the ease thus afforded to the +examiners in correcting the answers of the helpless and puzzled +candidates! Even though the questions set were plain and +straightforward, it would be absurd to suppose that an hour or two in an +examination hall could furnish sufficient data to pass or fail a +candidate.</p> + +<p>It used to be the glory of our universities that an average college +class contained representatives of every grade of society in the land. +Professor Ramsay says it is not so now: the professors have become +pedagogic coaches, and the students grind rather than study. Sir William +assures us that many who would make good students are frightened away by +the preliminary examination. It would be interesting to know where these +latter go when they leave school. Do they rush<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">{208}</a></span> off to business at once, +or do they proceed with their education in some extra-mural way? If they +can afford the time, the university is certainly the place for them. Let +the university gates be opened as wide as possible to all serious-minded +youths, and let it be remembered that it is not necessarily those who +sweat most over their books or take the highest honours that get most +good from attendance at the lectures.</p> + +<p>It does not appear that, at present, our universities are adequately in +touch with the nation. The great commercial community of Glasgow does +not benefit nearly enough from having a famous seat of learning in its +midst. We might learn a lesson from the Sorbonne how best to nationalise +our universities. In Paris, the lecture halls are open to all, and it is +possible for either native or foreigner to listen for hours daily, if he +be so minded, to some of the finest and most erudite orators and +scholars of Europe. There are, it is true, special students' courses, +from which the general public is excluded, but the most important +lectures are open to all. Hence the Sorbonne is a national institution +in every sense of the word. I do not say that Glasgow does not benefit a +little from the corps of professors at Gilmorehill. But the benefit is +spasmodic, discontinuous, and extremely limited. Some of the professors +do at times come down into the open and speak words of wisdom. But more +is wanted than that if the universities are to be saved from +denationalisation. We hear of Dugald Stewart's class-room being, in the +old days, crowded<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">{209}</a></span> with the keenest intellects of the Capital. But a +university was not then a kind of higher-grade secondary school.</p> + + +<h3>HOWLERS.</h3> + +<p>Almost every schoolmaster I have met, either in the Highlands or +Lowlands, has his budget of anecdotes, usually dealing with children's +answers or the droll eccentricities of the local School Board. The +answers of children are invariably entertaining; and I wish the +Educational Institute of Scotland would appoint a committee to codify +the howlers that come under the notice of its members. A collection of +genuine howlers would be no unimportant service to the science of +juvenile psychology. Let it be remembered that the eminent Professor +Sully considered it in no way derogatory to his philosophical status to +write on the subject of <i>dolls</i>. In bi-lingual districts children's +answers would have a special value. Children are everywhere, of course, +more or less bird-witted and inattentive. Here is a story which +illustrates what Latin scholars call <i>contaminatio</i>. A teacher had given +a lesson on the geography of Kent, laying special stress on Canterbury, +as giving a title to the Anglican primate, and on Greenwich as the place +through which, on the map, the first meridian is made to pass. At the +close of the lesson, he wished to test the scholars, and asked one of +them what Canterbury was famous for. At once came the glib reply: +"Canterbury is the seat of an <i>archbishop through whom the first +meridian passes</i>." The difficulty young pupils have in concentrating +their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">{210}</a></span> ideas, is largely accountable for many of the diverting essays we +have all heard and seen. On a recent visit to the romantic shores of +Skye, I was shown the following essay on Water: "Water is a liquid, but +in winter you can slide on it. In all kinds of water, little beasts +occur to a greater or to a less extent. Even a great amount of heat +cannot kill these curious little animals. <i>Hence some people prefer +spirits.</i>" From the same quarter I procured this nugget on patriotism. +"Patriotism is love of country such as we see in Burns or Sir Walter +Scott. Burns and Sir Walter wrote beautiful lines about their native +land, and thousands of tourists came and circulated their money there. +<i>It would be telling us</i> if writers would imitate these great patriots +in our day." Many of the young scribes on the mainland can also indulge +in a deal of brilliant irrelevancy. One of them being asked to write an +essay on "Rivers," began thus: "<i>In ancient times, the chief use of +rivers was for the baptizing of converts</i>." Another, in the course of a +short life of King Alfred, made a strong point of that monarch's +humility, adding, "In order to discover the plans of the Danes, he +demeaned himself so far as to go to their camp <i>disguised as a poet</i>." +The annual blue book of the Scotch Education Department used to include +a recreative series of howlers that had been sent up in the various +reports of the Government Inspectors. These tit-bits were well +calculated to keep up the gaiety of nations. Of late years these howlers +have been excised, but if Scotland had Home Rule they might re-appear.</p> + +<p>The finer attenuations of speech are unknown to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">{211}</a></span> soaring human boy. +I was shown an essay on Ireland the other day in which the young writer +compendiously remarked, "<i>The Irish are a bloodthirsty, lazy, and +resentful race</i>." On Wordsworth, another juvenile critic thus expressed +himself: "<i>Wordsworth's compositions are utter bosh</i>." The following +extract is from an "Essay on the '15": "<i>The Rising of '15 was a failure +because the Old Pretender was an unmitigated ass. Fancy an ass trying to +take charge of a Rebellion!</i>"</p> + +<p>A genial gentleman, Mr. Sneyd-Kynnersley, who retired from the +Inspectorate some years ago, published in 1908 a book of choice +reminiscences, containing some good specimens of schoolboy answers. Some +of his howlers have long been known in the North: but a howler (like +history) is wont to repeat itself. I saw in a Paisley boy's essay on +Lambert Simnel the following sentence: "Lambert Simnel was a claimant +for the English crown, and went about the country boasting that he was +one of the princes who had been murdered in the Tower." Mr. Kynnersley's +examinee wrote thus: "Prince Charles Edward claimed to be one of the +little princes murdered in the Tower. He was found to be a deceiver, and +was put into the king's kitchen to work."</p> + +<p>A boy once told Mr. Kynnersley that <i>a quorum is a question asked at a +meeting which the chairman is unable to answer</i>. I saw a definition of +paradox, equally absurd: "<i>A paradox is something which is apparently +not what it seems to be</i>."</p> + +<p>It is a favourite geographical test to require a pupil to describe a +coast journey between two seaports, and mention capes, rivers, and towns +seen on the way.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">{212}</a></span> "Describe a trip from Greenock to the Isle of Man," +said a teacher to his class; "I give you an hour to write it out." Very +few were past Lochryan at the hour's end. One daring youth took his +boat, which he christened "<i>The Comet</i>," right round the Mull of +Kintyre, with intent to reach Douglas by way of Cape Wrath, the North +Sea, Dover, Land's End, and St. George's Channel. When time was up, the +<i>Comet</i>, all torn and tattered by the strumpet wind, was beating round +the north end of Skye. That boy will, in all probability, turn out a +deep-sea captain.</p> + +<p>"How many days are there in a year?" asked an inspector of a class of +Highland youngsters. No answer was given. "Tut, tut," said the inspector +testily, "this is ridiculous. Is there <i>no one</i> who knows how many days +there are in the year?" "Oh, yes, sir," said a boy reproachfully, "<i>God +knows</i>."</p> + +<p>"What kind of king was William III.?" inquired another examiner. "He had +an aquiline nose, sir," said a boy. "What does that mean?" said the +examiner. "<i>It means</i>," answered the boy, "<i>that William III.'s nose was +turned up at the point like the beak of an eagle!</i>" "What right had +William to the English throne?" continued the examiner, changing his +ground. "<i>No right under heaven</i>," was the forceful Jacobite rejoinder.</p> + +<p>Here is a tale, from the eastern seaboard of Scotland.</p> + +<p><i>Inspector</i>, M.A., Ph.D., LL.D., etc. (examining a class of ten-year +olds): "Now, boys, what is the shape of the earth?"</p> + +<p><i>Boy:</i> "Roon, like an orange."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">{213}</a></span></p> + +<p><i>Inspector:</i> "But how do I <i>know</i>, how can I be <i>sure</i> that the earth is +round like an orange?"</p> + +<p><i>Boy:</i> "<i>Because I tell't ye.</i>"</p> + +<p>Pupils show great affection for the phrases of their text-books. Not +long ago, at a written examination, a lad wrote in reply to a historical +question which was puzzling him: "<i>The answer to this question is known +only to the Great Searcher of Hearts</i>." What could the boy mean? Was it +"cheek," ignorance, or piety? It was none of these. <i>It was Collier!</i> +About thirty years ago, Dr. Collier, a modern Euphuist, composed a +<i>History of England</i>, which deserves to be reckoned among the glories of +the reign. Carlyle may be great, but Collier is greater: Collier is a +theologian, philosopher, and <i>a' that</i>. The style of his history is a +wondrous blend of <i>Ossian</i> and Hervey's <i>Meditations among the Tombs</i>; +and its special peculiarity is that the words, owing to some feature, +never really analysed, linger in the mind long after the sentences of +the Shorter Catechism have become blurred. Collier is strong in +tropes—a highly-dangerous feature. It is no doubt true, as he says, +that William the Conqueror ruled with a rod of iron, but when a boy, +after reading this metaphor, asserts that that sovereign ruled his +subjects <i>with a long iron pole</i>, you begin to question the utility of +historical study. "Joy-bells pealed and bonfires blazed," is a phrase of +the Doctor's which sets all the caverns of the mind ringing, even though +its historical setting is long forgotten. But unction is the chief +feature of the history: there is a rotund finality about the author's +spacious utterances, and a dodging of investigation by means of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">{214}</a></span> pious +generalisations. The book has all the effect of a benediction. When it +is really too tiresome to inquire into all the authorities on some +affair of magnitude, it is so respectable to sum up in the phrase +imitated by the youth alluded to above.</p> + +<p>It is in the Secondary Schools of the country that the confusion of +thought is apt to be most painfully seen. Far too much is attempted, and +the pupils are overworked. A teacher in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, a +<i>laudator temporis acti</i>, has a manuscript collection of howlers, drawn +from elementary, secondary, and university sources, with the following +fearful lines as a preface:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Ye statesmen all, of high or humble station,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Collective conscience of the British nation,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whether the frothing vat has made your name<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or tropes in carpet-bags begot your fame,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Behold the <i>product</i> of the education<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wherewith is dosed the rising generation.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And see the modern devotee of cram<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At midnight hour hard-grinding for the exam.,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A moistened towel garlanding his brow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And coffee simmering on the hob below.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">High on a three-legged stool uncushioned, he<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sits glowering through his goggles painfully,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nagging his brain with all a grinder's might<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till <i>one</i> sounds on the drowsy ear of night.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like Sibyl's leaves the papers strew his floor<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wrought-out examples, 'wrinkles' by the score,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Conundrums algebraic, 'tips' on Conics<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And thorny 'props' remembered by mnemonics.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Betweenwhiles as the slow time lagging goes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He takes the spectacles from off his nose,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Removes the damper from his aching head,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">{215}</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pours out the coffee, cuts a slice of bread,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sips wistfully the liquid from his cup:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The zeal to pass the exam. has eaten <i>him</i> up.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thrice happy ye! born 'neath the ancient reign<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When <i>Tityre tu</i> alone possessed the brain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Ere Tyndall's tubes made sweating students numb)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the whole aim of life was <i>di, do, dum</i>."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3>COMPETING SUBJECTS.</h3> + +<p>So numerous indeed are the subjects of the school curriculum in our day +that howlers and confusion are bound to result. Formerly there was but +one scheme (containing classics, mathematics, and a little English), and +everybody took it. Now there is a kind of competition among the +departments of a school as to which is the most culturing. When a fond +mother asks the opinion of the masters as to what course of study her +boy (whom she is entitled to think a genius of the first order) ought to +pursue, she is often puzzled by the variety of answers. Mr. Test-tube, +the Science Master, invariably prescribes an extensive course of +chemistry. If a boy is to be a lawyer, he ought to know the principles +of atomic combination and the doctrine of gases; if he thinks of the +ministry, why then, having a thorough acquaintance with science, he will +be competent to close the mouths of heretics, infidels, and such vermin. +Dr. Aorist, on the other hand, believes that a sound knowledge of "<i>qui</i> +with the subjunctive" is a splendid sheet-anchor for every squall in +life's rude sea. "I wish my boy to be a civil engineer; what advice +would you give me as to his studies?" "I have no hesitation in +affirming," the Doctor replies,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">{216}</a></span> "that the boy will build bridges all +the better if he has his mind expanded and (so to speak) broadened by +the study of subjects outside his special trade, such, <i>e.g.</i>, as the +interesting fact that in ancient times 'All Gaul was divided into three +parts.'"</p> + +<p>The average boy has an impartial mind. As a rule, he has no prejudice in +favour of either science or letters, his maxim being never to do to-day +what he can put off till to-morrow.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">His favourite books for home<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are buccaneering combats on the foam,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or grim detective tales of Scotland Yard,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where gleams the bull's-eye lamp and drips the poniard.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Parents may be reminded that the wide spaces of the colonies remain to +be peopled and that many a <i>stickit minister</i> might have made a +first-class empire-builder.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">{217}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">A TRIP TO SHETLAND.</span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Aberdeen—En route—Lerwick—Past and present saints—Some notes +on the islands—A Shetland poet—A visit to Bressay—From +Lerwick to Sandwick—Quarff—"That holy man, +Noah"—Fladibister—Cunningsburgh—"Keeping off"—The indignant +elder—Torquil Halcrow—Philology—A Sandwick gentleman—Local +tales—Foulah and Fair Isle—The fishing season.</p></div> + + +<h3>ABERDEEN.</h3> + +<p>The most expeditious and comfortable way of getting to Shetland is by +way of Aberdeen.</p> + +<p>I have passed through the city of <i>Bon Accord</i> about six times during +the last twelvemonth, and like it better the more I see of it. It is one +of the stateliest towns in Britain, and its main street, spacious, airy, +and symmetrical, is hard to match. The architectural taste of the new +University Buildings is perfect, and will be more striking still to the +casual visitor, when the unsightly buildings all round have been torn +down. It would be worth while going to Aberdeen if for nothing but to +see the superb stretch of sandy beach between the mouths of the Don and +the Dee: one could sit and dream away a whole forenoon there and be +entirely oblivious to the proximity of a large town.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">{218}</a></span></p> + +<p>The finest tribute paid to Aberdeen was written nearly four hundred +years ago by the great Scotch poet, William Dunbar. Three years before +Flodden, Queen Margaret passed through the town, and Dunbar, who +accompanied her, was so delighted with the hospitality, loyalty, and +lavish expenditure of the magistrates, that he wrote a eulogistic poem +to commemorate the occasion. Dunbar carried away the impression that +Aberdeen was a <i>blythe</i> place:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>Blythe</i> Aberdeen thou beryl of all tounis,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou lamp of beauty, bounty and <i>blitheness</i>."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I do not find that the town has produced many poets, but it has been the +cause of poetry in others.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> A few years ago Mr. William Watson, out +of gratitude for the LL.D. bestowed on him by the University, wrote a +pleasant sonnet in which Aberdeen is represented as</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Beaming benignant o'er the northern main."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>As I sat on the seashore, repeating to myself the lines of Mr. Watson's +poem, and breathing the fresh air, which an official of the bath-house +told me was <i>made in Germany</i> (meaning thereby that the wind was blowing +from the east), the thought struck me that it would be a pardonable +pastime to employ the spare time I had before the boat started for +Lerwick, in writing a <i>Sonnet to Mr. William Watson</i>. In such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">{219}</a></span> +exercitations it is necessary to employ the second person singular:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Watson! I would thy pen were fluenter,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yet, perchance, thou usest stores of ink,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ampler than any of thy readers think,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In blotting that wherein the first quick stir<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of thought and genius made the language err.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If Heaven had lent thy polished Muse a blink<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of saving humour for her crambo-clink,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then never-dying fame had fallen to her.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet Heaven be thanked for what it has bestowed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On thee of what is tunefullest and best:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The trim epistle, the heart-stirring ode,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The witching freshness of a <i>Prince's Quest</i>,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The soft romance that dreams of years gone by,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bright noons and dewy glades of Arcady.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h3>EN ROUTE.</h3> + +<p>The little steamer that plies between Aberdeen and Lerwick is timed to +leave the former port at 11.30 a.m., <i>or as soon afterwards as the tide +will permit</i>. Often the boat does not leave for some hours after 11.30 +a.m., the tide not being always to blame. What a capacity the boat has +for empty barrels! I counted six heaped lorry-loads of them that were +rolled on board, destined, later on, to be filled with herring up north +among the islands.</p> + +<p>It is extremely interesting (see Virgil III., 690) to stand in calm +weather on the deck of a moving vessel and talk about the notable places +on the coast with one who knows them well. Much information of a varied<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">{220}</a></span> +and piquant kind may thus be acquired. The Aberdeenshire coast is rather +unpicturesque, but many historical legends linger airily on the stern +old ruins that are passed from time to time. I omit mention of these, +preferring to tell an anecdote of recent years that is associated with +the immense rocky sea-caverns, of world-wide fame, not far from Cruden +Bay. During the Boer War, some Scotch journalists, strong in the science +of genealogy, undertook to prove that all the generals at the front had +Scotch blood in their veins. It seems that these patriotic penmen +succeeded quite easily in making their contention good with respect to +all the generals <i>save one</i>. No Scotch lineage could be found for +General Buller. The difficulty was at last surmounted by the felicitous +conjecture that he was one of the famous <i>Bullers of Buchan</i>!</p> + +<p>About eight miles past Cruden Bay is Peterhead, the most easterly town +in Britain. Great efforts are being made at present to boom this place +as a health resort. I have heard it said that "printers who die at 30 of +consumption elsewhere, weigh 21 stone at over threescore in Peterhead," +also that "centenarians there have been known to get up at 5.30 a.m., to +chop wood, no chill or bacillus daring to make them afraid." The Home +Office has long thought highly of Peterhead as a place of permanent +retreat for those afflicted with ethical infirmities.</p> + +<p>After Peterhead is left behind, the steamer soon gets entirely away from +land. All night long she battles through the surges, passes about 2 a.m. +the lonely Fair Isle, encompassed by the rushing roost, and two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">{221}</a></span> hours +later Sumburgh Head is visible. The approach to Bressay, especially if +the rocks and precipices are half seen through driving haze, is +suggestive, to a student, of the landscape of "Beowulf," with its <i>windy +walls</i>, <i>shadow-helms</i>, <i>broad nesses</i>, and <i>glimmering sea-cliffs</i>.</p> + +<p>As seen from the sea, Lerwick looks trim and picturesque, but when the +visitor lands, he is apt to lose his bearings among its tortuous lanes. +I followed a porter who was tottering under the weight of trunks, and +asked him, as we treaded a flag-paved vennel: "Is it far to the main +street?" He grimly replied: "This <i>is</i> the main street, sir." The +response unnerved me, shaky as I was with seventeen hours' tossing on +the North Sea. Once in the hotel, my spirits rose. A most welcome and +savoury breakfast—consumed near an open window commanding a view over a +sun-lit sound—is well able to hearten the most downcast.</p> + + +<h3>LERWICK.</h3> + +<p>The town of Lerwick is indeed one of the finest of our island capitals, +and is constantly becoming finer. No visitor can fail to be impressed by +its unique natural harbour, gloriously screened by the God-given shelter +of the island of Bressay. Commercial Street, which runs along the +water's edge, is at the foot of a hill, and is so narrow in parts that +two vehicles can hardly get past each other. If I stayed in Lerwick, I +should not like to have any resident enemies, for it would be difficult +to keep from brushing clothes with them in the main street. Up from this +main street to the newer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">{222}</a></span> town, on a plateau at the top, run numerous +quaint wynds, sinuous, and not always well-scavenged. This new and +well-built part contains the far-seen and notable Town Hall, the +architecture of which would have pleased Ruskin, especially as its fine +windows are all appositely illustrative of Shetlandic annals. By +climbing the dusty clock-tower, one has a splendid view of all +surrounding slopes and seas.</p> + +<p>Here is a hint to prospective tourists. Take to the left when you quit +the hall, get down the lane leading to the sea-crags, and walk for two +miles in the direction of the rifle-range. It is a glorious and solitary +walk—not altogether solitary, for the sea is invariably good company. +Don't be so foolish as to keep on your hat: off with it, and let the +air-borne sea-spume wet your brow. It is also a good thing to recite +Byron's vigorous "Address to the Ocean,"—the odd cows you may pass will +not stop their grazing for that. There is no finer air in King Edward's +dominions than that which blows in this region, for the hill air meets +the sea air that has come all the way from Norway, and the two coalesce +to give the rapt pedestrian a mouthful of exhilarating ether. One who is +really a poet and not merely a casual sonneteer, should try to get a +site for his tent on this particular shore, and retire to compose an +epoch-making epic. The mediæval saints knew what they were doing when +they retired to little nooks and isles along this coast to pray and +meditate undisturbed: it is much easier to feel devout in a fresh +atmosphere, than in the squalor of a town.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">{223}</a></span></p> + + +<h3>PAST AND PRESENT SAINTS.</h3> + +<p>What indeed astonishes the visitor to these northern isles is the +immense number of ecclesiastical ruins. The Christian missionaries seem +speedily to have translated their enthusiasm into stone and lime. What +hymns were chanted and what sermons preached up there in bygone times, +passes the wit of man to reckon! It is a far cry from Palestine to the +Shetland creeks and voes, but the voice of the lowly Nazarene +effectually reached the Celts and Norsemen of these treeless +storm-lashed isles.</p> + +<p>Many of the smaller islands have the appellation <i>papa</i>, which +indicates, as I hinted above, that some monk or hermit, withdrawing from +the world to pray and meditate, has bequeathed a whiff of sanctity to +headland and skerry.</p> + +<p>"The hermit good lives in the wood," says Coleridge, but for the +Shetland <i>papa</i> there was no <i>nemorum murmur</i>:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">No sun-illumined leafage met his eye<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Raised from perusal of the Holy Word,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No murmur of the woodland zephyr-stirred<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blended with his devotions sped on high,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only the chiding of the billows nigh.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The clangour of the wheeling ocean-bird,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or soul-astounding shriek of storm-fiend heard<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the dun cloud-battalions hurrying by,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Greeted his ear: yet piously through all<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His life the austere anchorite remained,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">{224}</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">On his lone island, buffeted by squall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And sea, and faithful unto death obtained<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The promised guerdon that the Lord bestows<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upon the pure in heart, and only those.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It has been asserted by those who have means of knowing, that the days +of theological rigidity are past and gone in the Shetlands. Thing +unheard of in the Hebrides—the shops are open on Sunday mornings for +the sale of Saturday's <i>Scotsman</i> and <i>Herald</i>. In some parts of +Scotland you could not hire a trap for a Sunday drive; in others, you +<i>might</i> manage, by salving the driver's conscience with a double fare. +In Shetland the tariff is the same for the first and the last days of +the week. To explain the ecclesiastical differences between the islands +of the North and the West would require a philosopher with all Buckle's +shrewdness and ingenuity. Buckle accounted for the sombre nature of +Scotch theology by dwelling on the awe-inspiring reverberations of +thunder among the Highland peaks. The easy-going creed of the Shetlands +might perhaps be accounted for by a reference to the happy-go-lucky way +in which the sea wanders at will among the confusion of peninsulas, +islets, and skerries. Any theory is better than none at all, and +geopsychical explanations are fashionable at present.</p> + +<p>The pulpit stars twinkle with great lustre in these boreal regions. A +country minister, with no preparatory groans, but sharp and trippingly +thus began his homily some Sundays ago: "It is now thirty-five years +since the Lord sent me to labour in this part of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">{225}</a></span> vineyard, if +vineyard I may call it, where no grape was ever seen. On a bright summer +morning thirty-five years ago, I turned the corner of the road and came +among you. Young women, your mothers were in the fields, busy with the +work of the crofts. Your mothers were exceedingly fair to look upon, and +I am happy to say, my dear young sisters, that, by the providence of +God, the beauty of your mothers has lost nothing by being transmitted to +your comely selves. And now for my text, which you will find in Ezekiel, +chapter <i>x</i> and verse <i>y</i>."</p> + + +<h3>SOME NOTES ON THE ISLANDS.</h3> + +<p>A century ago Shetland was almost an unknown land to the Lowlanders of +Scotland. When a Shetland minister was deputed to attend the General +Assembly, it might take him a year to get there and back. His journey +was a very circuitous one: he had to go in a trading vessel to Hamburg, +take boat from Hamburg to London, and from London proceed to Leith. To +return from Edinburgh, the journey was performed the reverse way. Now +that there is a regular service between Aberdeen and Lerwick, and +between Leith and several of the Shetland ports, the journey can be +performed with comfort and expedition. Tourists flock North in the +summer season to admire the scenery, catch the trout, and inhale the +health-giving breezes.</p> + +<p>The natives, being mainly of Norse descent, look with a kindly eye over +the water in the direction of Bergen. They do not love Scotland, and +they have their reasons. When the Shetlands were handed over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">{226}</a></span> to the +Scotch kings, numbers of needy adventurers, armed with cheaply-got +charters, swooped down on the islands and dispossessed the native +proprietors. This has neither been forgotten nor forgiven. Mr. Russell, +who lived for three years among them, says:—"They believe that the +present lairds are interlopers, and that they themselves have been +defrauded and despoiled. They speak of these things only among +themselves, and not openly; but those who have been in the country, and +have gained their confidence, know that there is a strong undercurrent +of feeling against Scotland and Scotsmen.... They conceive that they +have a claim even as things are, to dwell on the land, and that a +proprietor has no right to remove them from his estate." I was +dreadfully shocked to notice that in a volume of tales published by a +Lerwick author only four years ago, the leading villain was from the +mainland. "Scotland is nothing to us," said a Shetlander to an inspector +of schools. "What has Scotland ever done for us except send us <i>greedy +ministers and dear meal</i>?"</p> + +<p>In the old days, when communication with the mainland was uncertain and +fitful, the luxuries of civilised life were quite unknown. In one +outlying district a box of oranges was washed ashore from a wreck: these +the natives boiled, under the impression that the orange was a novel +kind of potato. A cask of treacle, come by in a similar way, was used +like tar to daub the bottom of a smack. By and by a cow was seen to lick +the boat with evident relish, and this opened the eyes of the natives to +the real nature of the substance. Now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">{227}</a></span>adays the natives are well in line +with modern civilisation, one of the most convincing proofs being that +they buy drugs and patent medicines of every kind. One has only to scan +the advertisement pages of the Shetland newspapers to note the +persistent way in which quacks of all shades bring their nostrums before +the notice of the islanders. Dyspepsia and rheumatism are the commonest +ailments; and to combat these, myriads of pills and numberless elixirs +are annually swallowed. Faith does a lot even when the drugs of a +legitimate practitioner are concerned: the fact that you have swallowed +something with a bitter taste is often a distinct aid to recovery. Mr. +Russell, whom I referred to above, says: "To my surprise, I learned that +some who were in extreme poverty, and had hardly enough food to eat, +were in the habit of sending South for pills and patent medicines."</p> + + +<h3>A SHETLAND POET.</h3> + +<p>Long before I ever thought of visiting Shetland, I was acquainted with +the dialect spoken there, through having studied a most interesting +little book of poems called <i>Rasmie's Büdie</i>, published in Paisley. The +author of this book is Mr. Haldane Burgess, a very prolific and able +writer, but unfortunately afflicted with blindness. During my short stay +in Lerwick, I gave myself the pleasure of calling upon him, and I was +intensely delighted with my reception. When the sense of sight is lost, +that of touch becomes inordinately keen: Mr. Burgess has accordingly +excellent control over his type-writer, and can compose as nimbly as in +the days<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">{228}</a></span> when his eyesight was unimpaired. He spoke of his most recent +novel, <i>The Treasure of Don Andreas</i>, and expressed himself as highly +pleased at the criticism passed upon it by a reviewer in the <i>Athenæum</i>. +Mr. Burgess begins composition every morning at seven, and regulates his +life with military precision. On all departments of Shetlandic history, +folk-lore, and dialect, he discourses with great knowledge, fluency, and +animation. But his interests in the general field of modern literature +are extremely wide. He speaks the Norse language almost as easily as +English, has studied Icelandic, and knows a good deal about the writers +of modern France. Some friend had been reading Arnold's <i>Literature and +Dogma</i> to him shortly before my visit. He was loud in praise of that +book, the ironical insolence and pawky humour of which he had greatly +enjoyed.</p> + +<p>On parting from Mr. Burgess, I received from him a copy of his pleasant +Shetlandic story <i>Tang</i>, a careful and illuminating study of island life +and manners. The English style struck me as full, robust, and strongly +tinged with poetical figures, and the character sketches drawn with the +precision of intimate knowledge. All his prose works display great +wealth of material, and much psychological insight. His most +characteristic production, however, is his little book of poems +mentioned above, <i>Rasmie's Büdie</i>. Rasmie is a Shetland crofter who is +typical of the race: shrewd, kindly, thoughtful, and gifted with a touch +of quaint sarcasm. He has perfectly clear views of life, this old +peasant, and is quite free from cant, or superstition, or mystery. Some +of his metaphors are droll: after long pondering<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">{229}</a></span> on the scheme of +creation, he comes to the conclusion that earth is the field, heaven the +house, and hell the "midden." Pope, speaking of <i>Paradise Lost</i>, +complains that—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"In quibbles angels and archangels join,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And God the Father turns a school-divine."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>What would the great Augustan have thought of verse in which God the +Father is likened to a cosmic Crofter?</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Dis Universe is Güd's grit croft,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It's His by richt, wis never koft<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Frae gritter laird<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And ne'er sall be, laek laand o Toft<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Wi' idder shared."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>For those who have the patience to pierce through the husk of Rasmie's +dialect, much amusement and delight is in store.</p> + + +<h3>A VISIT TO BRESSAY.</h3> + +<p>If Charles Lamb and Herbert Spencer had been sent to Lerwick and Bressay +to write a report on what they saw, I daresay the difference of their +accounts would have astonished every reader. Lamb would probably have +swilled porter in the <i>Ultima Thule</i> Refreshment Bar and written a most +interesting account of Bressay without ever crossing the Sound. The ribs +of a big uncouth Dutch boat, square, cumbrous, shell-fretted, and tilted +up on the beach, would probably have bulked more in Lamb's narrative +than the modern steam-trawlers that abound in these waters. His +politico-economical reflections on the rise in price of peppermint<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">{230}</a></span> +lozenges, consequent on the annual arrival of the Dutch fishing crews +would, I am sure, have furnished excellent reading. Spencer's report +would have dealt, I fancy, with the rotation of crops, the cause of the +different currents, the varieties of pigmentation (with percentages) +among the islanders, and the evolution of fishing gear from its +rudimentary forms—in sum with the definite combination of heterogeneous +changes both simultaneous and successive, in correspondence with +external coexistences and sequences. No two out of a hundred visitors +see the same things, a fact which may help to prove Bishop Berkeley's +theory that the universe is subjective entirely.</p> + +<p>I went over to Bressay with a genial and erudite clergyman to visit the +schoolhouse and inspect the ruins of an eighth century church. Three +Shetland women rowed us over the Sound and handled the oars splendidly. +The minister, a plump, jolly be-spectacled gentleman, who has not +"perpetrated matrimony," declared with a sigh that he was an unprotected +male, and on our arrival at the Bressay beach, he called aloud to the +oarswomen to lift him out of the boat. These muscular dames shrieked +with laughter and proceeded to unship their oars as if to buffet him: +he, thereupon, leaped lightly enough on the strand and, turning round, +would have improved the occasion by a word in season had not the +tittering Nereids begun to splash him as he stood on the shingle.</p> + +<p>Innumerable sheep pasture on the Bressay slopes, and on the sky-line of +some of the hills one can discern companies of rollicking Shetland +ponies. My friend,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">{231}</a></span> the minister, who is writing a book on Darwin, got +into conversation with Mr. Manson, the Bressay pony-breeder. The latter +spoke thus about his tiny steeds: "Pony-breeding is a more puzzling +business than anything else in God's universe. The parents, +grandparents, and great grandparents of a given pony have all been +perfect in every point. Good! You naturally expect that a pony with such +exceptionable ancestry will itself be without a flaw. But is it? No, +often it is not. Too frequently you get bitter water from sweet, and +thistles instead of grapes. Just look at that tricky, mischievous, +ill-tempered, wall-eyed little rascal. Where did he get his evil +cantrips and his wall-eye? I have known his ancestors for four +generations back and they were all without a blemish." The minister made +a note of this fact within the book and volume of his brain: it may be +useful in the pulpit, and I expect to see it in print when he publishes +his book on Darwin.</p> + +<p>The eighth century church was at last reached. It is about three miles +from the landing-place and quite near the water. Every point was most +lucidly explained by my ecclesiastical guide. To the outer eye the place +consisted of some low, ruined walls enclosing various species of rank, +wet grass. Such remains of olden piety are provocative of gloomy +reverie, which the rushing of the inconstant tide close by only serves +to deepen. Immediately after the Crucifixion and long before this church +was reared by saintly hands, the little Christian communities thought +the kingdom of God would shortly be established and all sin and +suffering be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">{232}</a></span> banished from the world. But the apostles died, and so +successively have</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Priest, doctor, hermit, monk grown white<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With prayer, the broken-hearted nun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The martyr, the wan acolyte,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The incense-swinging child"—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>the bishop, the church-builder, and the patriot in all those +generations, and the kingdom of God is not with us yet, seems, indeed, +to be as far off as ever. When the world has been at peace for a while +and the millennium seems imminent, all of a sudden a perverse, +stiff-necked, <i>wall-eyed</i> generation supervenes, and evolution gives way +to deterioration!</p> + +<p>Lightly bounding down the ages, my companion turned my thoughts from +unrealised dreams of religion to those of politics. Along these waters +that cast their spray on the ancient ruin, James Hepburn, Earl of +Bothwell, third husband of Queen Mary, fled in hot haste, with a +pursuing squadron at his heels, in the year 1567. Kirkaldy of Grange +entered the Sound of Bressay as Bothwell was leaving by the northern +exit.</p> + +<p>Our walk lasted about four hours, and ended up in the school-house, +where the teacher's hospitable dame regaled us to a welcome and +excellent cup of tea. It did us good after the strain of so many +reminiscences. The teacher is a hearty and sociable gentleman, who loves +his books and his fireside. On the fine Saturdays, friends ferry across +from Lerwick for a round of golf with him over the Bressay links. The +fine library, recently sent from Paisley, furnishes a pleasant variety +of reading both for himself and his pupils. On my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">{233}</a></span> remarking that, as +chairman at the lecture next evening, he need not speak more than thirty +minutes, he replied, with visible emotion, that he would concentrate his +remarks into a space of thirty seconds.</p> + +<p>We got back to Lerwick in a lugsail that was full of passengers, +potatoes, and milk-cans. There was a good deal of loud, elementary chaff +during the twenty minutes' crossing. An old, wrinked, peat-smoked dame +gave us much good advice and (better still) a sprig of white heather +apiece. I found by subsequent experience that the trip is not always so +amusing. Next evening a boatman pulled us over, and it was stiff work +for him, as the Sound was lumpy and the wind contrary. Coming back, he +hoisted his sail, and we careered over in rollicking style. I was a +little scared at the swift-rushing currents and the switchback motion of +the boat. Overhead were moon, stars, and flying clouds; the hulls of big +steamers loomed like phantoms on the surface of the Sound; on the hill +opposite twinkled the ever-nearing light of Lerwick.</p> + +<p>Bressay, I may add, has a nice little hall, with all items of modern +convenience, including ventilation. The building is used for every +legitimate purpose, from worship to <i>weel-timed daffin'</i>.</p> + + +<h3>FROM LERWICK TO SANDWICK.</h3> + +<p>I have a vivid recollection of a day's drive from Lerwick to Sandwick, +down the long, narrow peninsula that terminates in Sumburgh head. I was +accompanied by the reverend gentleman already alluded to in connection +with Bressay.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">{234}</a></span></p> + +<p>It is a common saying in the isles that Shakespeare had his eye on the +soil of Shetland when he pronounced the famous line:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Tis true, 'tis <i>peaty</i>, 'tis <i>peaty</i> 'tis, 'tis true."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>On all sides in the country you see acre after acre of bog, dripping +with moisture and exuding black runnels whenever the spade of the +peat-cutter begins to slice its fibrous bulk. Should a wayfarer leave +the road by mishap after nightfall, he would soon be plunging in the +treacherous morasses. It is well for him to have a lantern swinging at +his girdle when the sun has gone down.</p> + +<p>Such are the reflections suggested by a view of the country between +Lerwick and the little clachan of Quarff.</p> + + +<h3>QUARFF.</h3> + +<p>Quarff is the headquarters of a minister who is said to be the only +extempore preacher in Shetland, if the word can be appropriately applied +to one who, being blind, has to prepare his sermons in "the quick forge +and working-house of thought" without the succour of books. This +gentleman spent long years in the little islets called <i>Skerries</i>, and, +like a miniature Augustine or Columba, claims to have been the first to +preach the sublime truths of Christianity on these limestone formations.</p> + +<p>Though blind, he enjoys his pipe, and I had a smoke with him at the +fireside. Between the puffs, he indulged in a furious onslaught on the +Lord Chancellor and the Wee Frees. Lord Halsbury he considered a poor,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">{235}</a></span> +benighted creature, who didn't know the difference between a Trades +Union and a body of Christians. "<i>If he ever comes to Shetland</i>," said +the minister, "<i>he had better bring his woolsack with him, for I won't +let him down soft!</i>" After Lord Halsbury had been adequately trounced, +the talk turned on notable things that had happened in the district +within the last decade or two. One of the tales (which was very +divertingly told) had to do with the trite subject of intemperance, but +as it contains one or two novel touches, I here briefly rehearse it.</p> + +<p>An elder of the place, who, with his trap, had come to grief one market +night on the way back from Lerwick, told his session a strange tale to +account for the catastrophe. "When I got to Lerwick in the forenoon, I +said to the driver: 'Young man, if I mistake not, you have had no tip +from me for a long time.' 'That's very true, sir,' said he. 'Well,' said +I, 'there's half-a-crown; go and spend it judiciously.' During the day I +transacted business with various friends, omitting none of the usual +rites. About five o'clock my driver returned, and harnessed the horse +for the return journey. At first I thought he had brought his brother +with him, but, on rubbing my eyes, I found it was an optical delusion. +As I watched him narrowly, I saw the outlines of a bottle bulging out +from his buttoned coat, and distinctly heard, as he moved to and fro, +the gurgling sound of liquid in agitation. He was smiling in +self-approval, and when I reproved him for his slowness, he quoted +Habakkuk v. 5, 'Hurry no man's cattle,' adding that his authority was +the Revised Version. As<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">{236}</a></span> we went rattling along the road, his tricks +were fantastic in the extreme. At a point about two miles from Lerwick, +I saw, a little in front of us, a tall individual enveloped in a long +waterproof, of which the collar was turned up to cover his ears. The +eyes of this person glowed like live coal as he peremptorily demanded a +lift. Not waiting for permission, he, with a sudden spring, vaulted on +the trap and squeezed himself between the driver and myself. The air +grew hot and close. The driver became ten times friskier than before. I +determined to unmask the unceremonious stranger, and, putting down my +hand, grasped him by the foot. He had no boots on, and what I seized was +a cloven hoof. I asked him there and then if he was Beelzebub. 'I am,' +said he, 'and clever and all as you are, it will take all your talents +to slip out of my clutches this night.' At this point there is a blank +in my souvenirs. I only remember sparks flying and the sensation of +falling down from my seat on to a steep embankment. On recovering +consciousness, I found myself lying on a crofter's bed, with aching +limbs. I told him the story of my escape, and he said, after hearing it: +'We live in troublous times, John, and the Arch-deceiver seems to be off +the chain. Watch and pray, or you may fall further next time.'"</p> + + +<h3>"THAT HOLY MAN, NOAH."</h3> + +<p>Particular stories are suggested by the place where one first heard +them. This profound remark is worked out in detail by Sir William +Hamilton and Professor Sully. As I look at the map of the road I +traversed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">{237}</a></span> that day, I am reminded of certain anecdotes retailed by my +genial and reverend guide.</p> + +<p>"After leaving college," said he, "I was appointed assistant to a worthy +D.D. who regarded the higher critics as a species of vermin. Hell with +him was not a mere unpleasant state passed in <i>this</i> world, but an +actual raging bonfire specially prepared for everyone who could not +repeat the Shorter Catechism. The parishioners of this worthy man were, +in consequence, devoutly orthodox, and had, one and all, a keen nose for +bad doctrine. They did not like to be fobbed off with a sermon of the +spineless order; they liked bones, blood, and fire—not a mosaic of +cheery quotations from Tennyson about the larger hope and about worms +not being cloven in vain. They had also a great liking for the +patriarchs, especially Noah. By ill luck, I spoke one Sunday on the +patriarchs, and handled them pretty roughly. I felt that sacred +enthusiasm which every man feels in denouncing the sins of others. I +gave the Captain of the Ark a special lick of tar. This sermon caused a +mighty commotion in the district. I might as well have asserted that the +paraphrases were inspired, or that Sankey's hymns were canonical. I +could see that the elders began to look coldly upon me. In barn and byre +little groups discussed my preaching, and there was much wagging of the +head and shooting out of the lip. A deputation came out of a +potato-field to me one day as I was walking along the road, and the +leader, an old theological crofter, said bluntly: 'Your sermons are not +pleasing us, if you please, sir.' 'Is the doctrine bad?' I asked.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">{238}</a></span> 'Not +exactly that, but the folk say it's very unseemly.' 'What special sermon +do they object to?' 'They think you're not sound on that holy man, +Noah.' 'Do they go the length of saying Noah was perfect?' 'They don't +just go that length; but, while admitting Noah was human, they desire' +(here the old man raised his head, shut his eyes, and shouted) 'to hear +no more from a young inexperienced lad like you, a single word about the +patriarch's shortcomings. The man was a patriarch, and therefore a +saint. Talk about his virtues as much as you like, but don't fash about +his trespasses, there's a good boy, I speak as your friend.'"</p> + + +<h3>FLADIBISTER.</h3> + +<p>When my friend had delivered himself of this story, he pointed with his +pipe to a little confused collection of low, thatched cottages which we +were rapidly approaching on the left, and, oblivious of Noah, went thus +musing on: "You are now in the charmed domain of Fladibisteria, of which +the core or citadel, as it were, is this village of Fladibister. This is +no settlement of Norsemen: no, this is a Celtic nook where second sight +and such witchcraft flourished not so many years ago. Did not the +minister once rebuke them for their spells and mystic whims by aptly +applying to them the words of St. Paul to the Galatians: '<i>Oh, foolish +Fladibisterians, who hath bewitched you?</i>' There is an atmosphere of +tranquillity and Arcadian peace swimming over Fladibister such as is +nowhere else to be found in Shetland. The young men of the place roam +far over the sea, as mariners and fishers; but like the exiled +Jacobite<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">{239}</a></span>—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Who sighed at Arno for his lovelier Tees,'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>they never feel happy till they are back home here under the roofs of +thatch. And what a work their women folks make with them when they +return! What feasting and merrymaking! What screwing of fiddle-pegs, +nimble motion of elbows and long-sustained dancing and skipping. I don't +deny that there is clink of glasses, too, at times, to aid the passage +of the hours far past the noon of night."</p> + + +<h3>CUNNINGSBURGH.</h3> + +<p>Cunningsburgh, the journey to which was shortened by these tales, is one +of those places you might pass through without being aware of it; that +is to say, there is no feature about it so startling or abrupt as to +impress itself at once on the attention. The district all round is well +tilled, and the houses bien and comfortable.</p> + +<p>The minister of the place arrests the attention instantly. His genial +face and hearty handshake have a more Christianising effect on the soul +than a ton of sermons. I have never heard a more kindly voice or seen a +face in which tenderness, merriment, and intellectual keenness, were all +so harmoniously blended. He does not smoke himself, but has that wise +and wide perception of things which leads him to press those who are +anxious to smoke, but say they are not, to take out their pipes in his +drawing-room. It was easy to see the man he was, by a hasty look at his +book-shelves. All the philosophers were represented there, from Plato<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">{240}</a></span> +to the present-day mystical Germans. Lang's <i>Odyssey</i> was side by side +with the Icelandic sagas and the Song of the Niebelungs. I did not see +many books of Systematic Theology; but the Greek tragedians, the Sacred +Books of the East, German and French novels, had all a place in the +bookcase of this cosmopolitan clergyman of a remote Shetlandic parish.</p> + + +<h3>"KEEPING OFF."</h3> + +<p>In secluded townships like Cunningsburgh where life's round has much of +the monotony of fashionable society, and involves a still recurring +succession of similar duties, the minister is indeed a power. If he is a +man of broad and enlightened mind, his influence for good is +incalculable. The Kirk-Session is a permanent Court of Justice, taking +cognisance of minor matters of morality, and enforcing its decisions by +religious sanctions. To be barred from participating in the communion +rites might not seem a very alarming punishment to the easy-going +Lowlander; but to a Shetland peasant, being <i>keepit off</i>, as it is +technically called, is a terrible and humiliating penalty. A crofter +came to the manse to complain about his wife's unruly and satirical +tongue. "But what can I do to her?" said the minister, "she's your wife, +and you must assert your authority." "I've tried everything," said the +man, "but she still continues to be a troubler in Israel." The minister +professed his inability to interfere. "I can do nothing at all," he +said. "Yes you can," said the crofter, with a wink and a fearful +whisper, "<i>You can keep her off!</i>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">{241}</a></span></p> + + +<h3>THE INDIGNANT ELDER.</h3> + +<p>Since the Reformation the people have lived and thriven under the +jurisdiction of the Session. In the records of the Session one finds a +chronicle of the sins, eccentricities, and merriments of the people for +the last two or three centuries. Several incidents based on these +minutes will make what I say abundantly clear. The Quarrel of the Elder +and the Minister's Housekeeper, for example, convulsed a still remoter +parish in much the same overmastering way as the Dreyfus Trial agitated +Paris. Herodotus is the only author I can think of who could have done +justice to this northern <i>affaire</i>. Let me briefly summarise it. Between +the minister's garden and that of one of his elders ran what was termed +a hedge. The shrubs which formed the base of this hedge were so +ill-grown that the minister's fowls could easily go, clucking and +scraping, from one garden into the other. Evidence was given to prove +that the cabbages and pot-herbs in the elder's plot were torn and +spoiled in parts. Every morning he stood at a gap in the hedge and sang +aloud like a skipper in a storm or Achilles at the trench of the Greeks: +"I am being ruined and brought to poverty by the minister's hens." This +cry grated upon the ears of the manse housekeeper, who by and by thought +it her duty to go out and reason with the elder. "It's no' the +minister's hens ava that's to blame, it's the craws o' the firmament." +"It's the hens." "No, the craws." "Hens I declare!" "You're a <i>deceitful +impostor</i>!" said the housekeeper. Now, no self-respecting elder could +stand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">{242}</a></span> that. Boiling with wrath as he was, he remembered his +ecclesiastical status, merely remarking that there was work for the +Session at last. By nightfall he had been in every croft within the +Session's jurisdiction, laying off his tale in each, and as he got +practice and more vehemence with constant repetition, he attained +extreme fluency and impressiveness before the day was done. An +unspeakable joy came over the community at the prospect of a delicious +scandal. To avoid the breach being healed by an apology, many of the +crofters sought to envenom the quarrel by refusing to believe that the +elder was altogether right. "Crows," they said, "had been known to play +havoc with cabbage. Elders were but human, and so, hasty in laying +charges on insufficient evidence. The case was certainly one for the +Church courts. The housekeeper must have a good defence to make, and +would no doubt make it at the proper time and in the proper place. We +must hear both sides." One may see by this that the spirit which +animates a great nation (the desire, namely, to divert itself with the +contentions of those who come before the public eye), animates also the +smallest communities in the realm. The great passion-stirring process, +<i>Hens versus Crows</i>, lasted for some seven months. Over and over again +the hedge was examined. Now the elder thought he had the best of it, +only to be damped by a revulsion of feeling in favour of the +housekeeper. The finding of the Session was adverse to the lady. The +fact that she had practically called the elder a son of Belial could not +be got over. The minister, holding the scales of justice, was forced, in +spite of himself, to declare<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">{243}</a></span> against her. Considering her position, +some mildness was shown in pronouncing her condemnation and the penalty. +Having regard to the dignity of the offended man, nothing less than the +sentence of <i>keeping off</i> could meet the ends of ecclesiastical law. But +one "keeping off" was deemed adequate. The elder was avenged. At the +ensuing communion, he was seen to smile and rub his hands diabolically, +as he glanced towards the back of the church, where sat, outside the +pale of the privileged elect, the unhappy and vanquished housekeeper, +who had called him an impostor.</p> + + +<h3>TORQUIL HALCROW.</h3> + +<p>Torquil Halcrow's case presents features of a different order. For some +reason a <i>fama</i> spread abroad respecting him to the effect that his +language and demeanour left much to be desired, and that not even the +presence, or at least proximity, of women operated to mellow the +strength of his vocabulary. Nothing definite was openly formulated +against him, but Torquil became aware that in certain quarters his +reputation was being slowly undermined. It is precisely this vague kind +of aggression on a man's character that is the most difficult to combat. +He took the bull by the horns in a most heroic way. <i>He got up a public +testimonial to himself, and went round canvassing for signatures.</i> The +testimonial ran thus:—"We, the undersigned women of the parish, have +pleasure in bearing witness that we have known Torquil Halcrow for +twenty years, and never have we known him do an unseemly act or utter an +unworthy expression." Thereafter followed a list of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">{244}</a></span> forty names. +Furnished with this document, he strode up to the manse, fluttered it in +the minister's face with a gesture of triumph, laid it down on the study +table, then turned on his heel and walked away. The minister, when he +examined the paper minutely, found that Torquil, in the belief that the +heading of the testimonial was not sufficiently strong, had added this +further clause in his own handwriting: "<i>but many a precious word of +truth and gracious spiritual comfort have we heard proceeding from his +lips</i>."</p> + +<p>I have already referred to the beautiful and pathetic saying of Mr. +Barrie that every window-blind is the curtain of a tragedy. I thought of +that dictum as the minister of Cunningsburgh pointed to one cot after +another in the neighbourhood, and narrated the calamities that had +fallen upon them within recent years. Here, an old widow was mourning +the loss of a son who had gone to the deep-sea fishing and would never +return: his bright young life had been swallowed up in the insatiable +ocean, and she was left lamenting in her indigence. There, it was a +father who had been engulfed in the roost; or again, the illness of a +mother had cast a blight for years upon this other household. Sometimes +I have seen two old people, all their sons dead, living a kind of +stupefied half-life, automatically moving about, poor and wretchedly +clad, unable to understand anything except the welcome heat of the sun +and the animal comfort of a little food. There are many sad things in +this world: none is more sad than the sight of two old people outliving +their progeny and wandering about in decrepit second childhood with no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">{245}</a></span> +more substance than a dream. The sea is mainly answerable for the great +and deep tragedies of the Shetlands: it is like a pitiless monster, +howling in anger at their doors and claiming its yearly prey. No native +writer has as yet attempted to make vocal for us the immense dumb +sorrows of these fisher folks in the way Loti has done for the seafarers +of Brittany.</p> + + +<h3>PHILOLOGY.</h3> + +<p>Jakobsen, the Danish philologist, spent some years recently in +collecting the remains of the old Norwegian speech that still linger in +the conversation and the place-names of the islanders. Perhaps the most +interesting point brought out by Jakobsen is the prevalence in +comparatively recent times of lucky words, which the fishermen used when +at the deep-sea fishing, and only then. This practice is undoubtedly a +relic of pagan ages when the sea-depths were regarded as the dominion of +dread water spirits, who keenly watched those who intruded in their +realms. The strange feature about this deep-sea speech is that its +expressions were purely Norse, whereas the home idiom of the fishers was +overwhelmingly English. The pagan beliefs respecting the hostile powers +of the sea found expression in old words handed down from a +pre-Christian epoch. These old words may have been originally liturgical +or worship words, for the sea was an object of veneration and awe to the +Norsemen who, in the conquering days, made their home on its angry +waters. It was believed that the jealous powers of the ocean were +vehemently hostile to Christianity, and hence the Shetland fishers, up +till<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">{246}</a></span> quite recently, carefully avoided any direct mention of <i>church</i> +or <i>minister</i> when on the water: the <i>haaf</i> or lucky words being +respectively <i>benihoose</i> (prayer-house) and <i>upstander</i>. Even the +domestic animals had special <i>haaf</i> appellations. This conception of the +sea as filled with weird mysterious beings of unspeakable malignity, +ever ready to whelm the boat of an unwary intruder, carries the mind +back to the old alliterative lay of <i>Beowulf</i>, the contest of that hero +with the wallowing ocean-monsters, and the grim subterranean glow in the +sea-home of Grendel's mother. The Shetlanders have only too much reason +to brood over the cruelty of the sea. On July 20, 1881, during a +terrific squall, sixty-three breadwinners were engulfed in the thwarting +currents of the Sound of Yell.</p> + + +<h3>A SANDWICK GENTLEMAN.</h3> + +<p>During all the foregoing discussion in the Cunningsburgh manse and +garden, our driver had been wondering what subjects of talk could +possibly be keeping us from continuing our journey to Sandwick. The two +ministers—the original one and the Cunningsburgh man also—at length +mounted the trap with me, and we all went joyfully on the final lap. The +object of the journey was to visit Mr. Sinclair of Sandwick, a gentleman +well worth going fifty miles to see. Mr. Sinclair has many qualities +that make a man notorious. He went to Australia in an emigrant ship many +years ago, and wrote a book upon it, in which he playfully remarks that +he got the full value of his passage money, inasmuch as there was a +birth, a death, and a suicide, between Ply<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">{247}</a></span>mouth and Melbourne. Another +of his distinctions is great dexterity in playing the violin, his +favourite pieces being "The Scalloway Lasses" and "The Auld Wife ayont +the Fire." The title of the last-named piece rather staggered me, until +I was informed by one of the ministers, who is a scholar and an +antiquarian, that it relates to a time when the fire was in the middle +of the room and when the smoke escaped by a hole in the roof, or in +default of that, by the door. Mr. Sinclair rendered these pieces with +infinite gusto, and, like all true artists, got as much pleasure as he +gave. He had also the most diverting way of ejaculating the word <i>hooch</i> +I have ever heard in my journey through life. It gives me pleasure to +add that he wrote a poem on fifty whales that were driven from the sea +by the local fishermen into Sandwick Bay. These whales were all +beautifully cooped in the narrow inlet and stranded on the beach, when +lo! the local landowners, citing some old statute, claimed from the +fishermen a share of the spoil. Mr. Sinclair, indignant and astute at +once, took upon himself the championship of the fishermen, and managed +matters so admirably that the lords of the soil were completely worsted +in the Edinburgh law-courts. Flushed with such signal success, he put +the whole story into metre. A printed and framed copy of the poem hangs +in a conspicuous place in his sitting-room. At our special request, he +favoured us by singing the impassioned stanzas. It was a unique treat to +hear him do so. There he was in the centre of the room holding the +framed verses in his hand, gazing fondly thereat even as a mother +regards her child. When the chorus<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">{248}</a></span> came on, he laid down the poem, and +lifted up his voice with glorious enthusiastic force. Inspiration was in +his eye, his grey locks became dishevelled, his arms swung rhythmically +to the beat of the melody. The entire interview was intense: it was one +crowded hour, of which time is unable to cancel the memory.</p> + + +<h3>LOCAL TALES.</h3> + +<p>The evening was a glorious one, and we <i>walked</i> back some miles of the +way. The Cunningsburgh minister was full of stories. He alluded +laughingly to one of his flock who, when under the influence of drink, +was powerful in prayer. "<i>When he gets a dram he goes to his knees at +once.</i>" The anecdote seemed to me to run counter to the views of the +hymnologist who says "Satan trembles when he sees, the weakest saint +upon his knees." Another of his stories had reference to two old +crofters, both over eighty, who began one evening to talk of the follies +of the young fisher-lads when they took to dram-drinking. One of the two +remarked: "I wonder now what folly we two old men would commit if we +chanced to get intoxicated, say at a funeral." "Well," said the other +hoary-headed and infirm octogenarian, "I have no idea what you would do, +but I am certain of this, that if I ever got the least bit touched, I +would go and make love to the lasses at once." Thereupon the two feeble +old fellows skirled a wicked laugh, and nearly gasped out their slim +residue of life in unseemly merriment.</p> + +<p>Both ministers assured me that the belief in fairies still lingers on +among the Shetland peasantry. Up on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">{249}</a></span> the hill-side the trow is supposed +to wander about, and the little fellow can be seen skipping on the +moon-light sward, by all who have eyes and the necessary faith. It is +believed that he haunts the road-side even when the moon is not shining: +consequently, when the crofters have to go out of doors at night, they +protect themselves from his spells by carrying with them a blazing peat +gripped with tongs. This smokes and sparkles in the darkness and the +trow does not like it. It is easy for the electric-lighted citizens of +Glasgow and Edinburgh to laugh at the simple folk-lore of fisher and +crofter; but no one, however learned and sceptical, can quite escape +from the mystic influence of fairy-lore if he lives through a winter +among believing dalesmen. Let him look on the long silvery glimmer of a +sea-voe, and hear the natives tell of trows chasing the ebbing Neptune +down there on the dim sea-strand in a night of haze, before he says +(with Theseus, in the <i>Midsummer Night's Dream</i>):</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">"I never may believe<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These antick fables, nor those fairy toys."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>To the ear and eye of the philological Jakobsen, the Shetlanders both in +speech and looks are remarkably like the Norwegians of the Saettersdal. +In that part of Norway the trow is also a very popular terror. Children +of a disobedient and obstreperous turn are afraid to venture near a wood +at nightfall for fear of a little bogie with a red cap, who may suddenly +slide down a pine-tree and snatch them off.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">{250}</a></span></p> + + +<h3>FOULAH AND FAIR ISLE.</h3> + +<p>I do not altogether envy the candidate for parliamentary honours who has +to <i>nurse</i> a remote insular constituency like Orkney and Shetland. I met +Mr. Cathcart Wason in Lerwick, and learned that he had been going the +round of the islands and had even paid a visit to the isolated and +mountainous rock of Foulah. Now this was a very daring feat indeed, for +I have heard of a young man who went once to visit his friends there and +was kept a prisoner for five months owing to the squalls. The papers +complimented Mr. Wason on his intrepidity: he went over from Walls in a +smack, and did not make his address too lengthy, for fear the weather +might change and Westminster be deprived of his eloquence for a space. +Mr. Wason is a very tall gentleman, but in Foulah he met his peers in +point of stature. The islanders are a fine set of men, hardy and godly. +They are adroit fowlers and nimble cragsmen. It gives one a queer +sensation to hear that the face of their sheer precipices used to be +(like level land elsewhere) apportioned equitably among the various +families. If A did not wish to catch birds on his aerial lot, he could +let it to B and claim a certain percentage of the spoil. The population +of the island is about 250: owing probably to intermarriage, there are +many childless homes.</p> + +<p>I do not know if Mr. Wason has ever been to the Fair Isle, but I +understand an Ex-Moderator of the Church of Scotland visited the little +community there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">{251}</a></span> in 1903. There are two ways of getting to this islet: +(1) by means of a sailing boat which leaves Grutness for Fair Isle once +a fortnight with the mails; if the weather is bad, this mode of +communication is suspended, as in winter no sane man would venture +through the roost in such a boat; (2) by taking a passage on board the +<span class="smcap lowercase">S.S.</span> <i>Pole Star</i>, which calls on the first of every month with stores +for the lighthouse. She is a strong, swift boat, and makes the journey +from Stromness, seventy miles away. I may remark that a lecturer wishing +to speak in the Fair Isle need not trouble himself about placards or +handbills: the whole population will be on the shore to welcome him when +he lands, and he could conveniently intimate his subject then, if he has +any breath left in his body. The Fair Isle possesses a church organ and +a non-surpliced choir. The islanders have a great appetite for sermons, +as the following story, told by Mr. Russell, amply proves. "The minister +of Dunrossness went one summer to dispense the communion in the Fair +Isle, and a storm came on which detained him there for about eight days. +The weather also prevented the boats from going to the fishing. As the +people had no pressing work to do at the time, and as it was only on +rare occasions that they enjoyed the presence of the parish minister, +they were anxious to avail themselves of his services while he was among +them. <i>Accordingly, at their desire, he preached every day during his +stay. In all, he preached thirteen times.</i> He had taken the precaution +of bringing a good stock of sermons with him. Before this was exhausted, +the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">{252}</a></span> weather providentially improved, so that he was able to get +home."<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p> + +<p>The cherished legends of one's youth get sorely demolished in the course +of travel and investigation. The school-books used to say that the +Shetlanders were taught to knit by Spanish women saved from the wreck of +the Armada. The islanders stoutly deny any indebtedness, and declare +that there never was the slightest friendship between their ancestors +and the crews of King Philip's galleons.</p> + + +<h3>THE FISHING SEASON.</h3> + +<p>To Lerwick, during the fishing season, thousands of women come from the +island of Lewis to gut the myriad herring that are daily brought into +the bay. There is an extemporised town for the strangers on the +outskirts, over which float many odours, weird, pungent, and unsavoury. +All the processes of gutting, curing, and kippering go on in grand +style. The women, clad<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">{253}</a></span> in a kind of oilskin, handle their dangerous +implements in most dexterous fashion. It is a horrid business, but well +paid. Prolific Nature is never tired supplying these women with work, +for as many as 68,000 eggs have been found in the roe of one female +herring. My friend, Mr. M'Kenzie of Ullapool, who is in the service of +the Fishery Board, took me to see the official examination of several +hundred barrels of fish, preparatory to the branding thereon of the +official stamp. The owners pay for this examination, but the additional +value given to each barrel by the Government mark far surpasses the fee +exacted by the Board. The branding-officer selects at random a barrel +here and there, extracts some dozen fish from each, and satisfies +himself as to the size and quality. If the herring are puny or of +inferior sort, the officer refuses to brand, and the examination fee is +refunded. Mr. M'Kenzie remarked that this was the only case in which he +had ever seen men reluctant to receive money. I followed that gentleman +as he walked over the long lines of slippery herring barrels, lying in +horizontal juxtaposition, and I cannot recommend the exercise to those +who have had no training in gymnastics.</p> + +<p>The great success of the Shetland fisheries during the last year or two +has brought to Lerwick a palpable increase of business and droves of +business men. In the Grand Hotel there were, in August last, thirty +gentlemen resident who were in some way brought thither by the traffic +in herring—among the number a young Russian, who, with his wife, sat at +a little table apart, and kept jabbering their language with glib +expressive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">{254}</a></span>ness. His name was Walk-off, and his object was the +annexation of fish for Muscovite consumption. He had a flabby face and +long, dark hair, which he publicly combed. <i>She</i> was small and +pretty—doll-like, indeed—with jewels in her ears, which glittered and +flashed in the gas-light. She was a very loquacious wee creature, and +her intonation reminded me of the caressing way the Swedes articulate +English. I heard him read the Russian newspapers to her with evident +emotion, but the only word I could make out was <i>Kouropatkin</i>. The +herring-agents at the hotel table were full of drollery. One of them, +hailing from Wick, addressed a neighbour abruptly to this effect: "I am +a rather expensive man to sit beside, and to one like you especially so, +for you seem to be a water-drinker. When I tell you who I am, however, +you will insist on standing me a bottle of champagne." He was frigidly +asked to state his grounds for such a preposterous expectation. "Prepare +to gasp," he replied; "you see before you one who is a model and a +beacon to all the men of Caithness. I am the sire of nine sturdy sons, +and <i>they have only three birth-days among them</i>, seeing that they came +into this vale of tears three at a time."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">{255}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS AND THEIR ANECDOTES.</span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Trials of commercials—The two-est-faced knave—Mary, the maid +of the inn—Anecdotes of the smoking-room: Sonnet to +Raleigh—Peelin's below the tree—"She's away!"—A mean +house—One of the director's wives—Temperance hotels—A +memorial window—The blasted heath—The day for it—The +converted drummer—A circular ticket—A compound +possessive—Sixteen medals—"She's auld, and she's thin, and +she'll keep"—The will o' the dead—Sorry for London—"Raither +unceevil"—An unwelcome recitation—A word in season—A Nairn +critic—A grand day for it—A pro-Boer—"Falls of Bruar, only, +please!"—A bad case of nerves.</p></div> + + +<h3>TRIALS OF COMMERCIALS.</h3> + +<p>The commercial traveller (that bustling and indispensable middleman) +leads a life of mingled joy and pain. He is constantly on the move, and +from meeting innumerable types of men, becomes very shrewd in judging +character. Resource, readiness, abundance of glib phrases must in time +become his. He must not, for fear of offence, show any marked bias in +politics or religion. His temper must be well under control; he must +have the patience of an angel; he must smile with those that are merry, +be lugubrious with those that are in the dumps, and listen, with +apparent interest,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">{256}</a></span> to the stock stories of hoary-headed prosers. It is +not enough that he should book orders. Some shaky customers are only too +ready to give these. It is his business to book orders only from those +that are likely to pay. A big order delivered to a scoundrel who means +to fail next week, is a horrible calamity, which, if it does not result +in pains and penalties, means a sharp reprimand and a loss of prestige +at headquarters, that may take years to redeem.</p> + +<p>He has to sleep in many a different bed. It is lucky for him if a damp +couch has not rheumatised his limbs. No one knows better than he that +what seems a bell-pull has often, owing to former violence and broken +wires, no connection with the bell. Here a chimney smokes, there the +flue is blocked with birds' nests. In certain country inns, the flimsy +gossamer of spiders makes an undesirable fretwork over the greenish +knobs of the ill-puttied panes. Mice, rats, and "such small deer" +scamper uncannily the live-long night along the worn waxcloths and +unspeakable carpets. As he undresses by the light of a three-inch +candle, he has his soul horrified by early Victorian prints, of Paul +tumbling from his horse on the way to Damascus, of the gory relief of +Lucknow, or of some towsy-headed clansman smiling out of perspective. He +is by no means a tourist on pleasure bent. He must face gust and surge, +for he cannot choose his time and weather. His duty is to cover as much +ground as he can in a given week, fill his order-book with +irreproachable orders, and get home to report, preparatory to another +sally in another direction. Competition stings him into feverish +activity. If he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">{257}</a></span> sells tea, he well knows that an army of rivals is +scouring the whole country with samples as good, or perhaps a great deal +better, than his own.</p> + + +<h3>THE TWO-EST-FACED KNAVE.</h3> + +<p>Nevertheless, the jovial facetiousness of these commercial gentlemen +knows no limits, and hotel-waiters are, at all times, fair game for +their stings and arrows. In one of the northern hotels, there used to be +a portly and rubicund waiter who might have passed for the High Priest +of the Goddess of Health. His face shone, if I may say so, with the +radiance of perfect digestion. A pert commercial, one day, approached +him with an affected look of deep concern and said, "<i>Well, I hope +you're keeping better</i>," accompanying the remark with a dig in the +waiter's stomach. The waiter, who had never known a minute's ill-health +in his life, swore vividly for fifteen minutes without repeating +himself, and among many references to the commercial's ancestry, called +him the <i>two-est-faced</i> knave that had ever set foot on the Shetland +Islands. Such a superlative was felt by all to be a masterpiece of +language, and turned the laugh against the bagman.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">{258}</a></span></p> + + +<h3>MARY, THE MAID OF THE INN.</h3> + +<p>I have a great deal of sympathy with hotel-porters and waiters, and +think them unduly longsuffering at times. As to Mary, the exemplary maid +of the hotel alluded to, she can hold her own in repartee with any of +the visitors. She is a distinct character, and Molière could have made a +"type" of her. She has no sinecure of a situation, and, after eleven at +night, when the last supper is over, she has to polish the knives for +the morrow's breakfast. She is young, slim, and active, and wears a +string of red corals round her neck. The place is not frequented by +plutocratic tourists, and so her tips are meagre. In spite of her long +days and her slim perquisites, the girl is affable, smiling, and gay. +She trips out and in, sylph-like, can carve fowls most dexterously by +the light of nature, never spills the soup, and has a laughing and +appropriate word for all. Mary, I hope, will get some decent fellow for +husband, and be a stay and comfort to him all the days of his life. +Meanwhile, however (to use the historic present), a nice old gentleman +in the soft goods line, who hails from the flourishing village of +Dundee, is paying her marked attentions. She will have none of him, for +all his apostolic looks. He repeats to her, with a comically sentimental +air, the lines of Omar:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Here with a book of verse beneath the bough,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A loaf of bread, a cup of wine, and thou<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beside me singing in the wilderness,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The wilderness were Paradise enow."<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">{259}</a></span></div></div> + +<p>Mary looks in amazement at the old gentleman with the insinuating voice, +anon bursts into a merry peal, and trips off with the remark, "<i>There's +nae fules like auld anes</i>," which a listening Londoner takes to mean, +"There's nothing fills like onions!"</p> + + +<h3>ANECDOTES OF THE SMOKING-ROOM.</h3> + +<h4>SONNET TO RALEIGH.</h4> + +<p>The conversation of an intelligent commercial traveller is, as I said, +of a facetious and entertaining turn. He speaks to so many people in the +course of a day and hears so many anecdotes as he rushes about, that his +sense of humour becomes very keen. Old Burton, author of the <i>Anatomy of +Melancholy</i>, used to dissipate his sombre thoughts by listening to the +coarse badinage of bargemen: a modern, afflicted with Burton's +complaint, might well find a cure in the smoking-room of a hotel among a +company of commercial travellers. One Saturday night, in a Shetland +hotel, I listened to a crowd of these merry gentlemen communicating to +each other their several collections of stories. Before doing so, they +all sang with great fervour the well-known hymn <i>The Sands of Time are +Sinking</i>, a whisky-traveller officiating at the harmonium. One of the +number ostentatiously beat time with his pipe. It was a very affecting +scene, and certain of the singers were moved to tears at their own +melody.</p> + +<p>The company then settled down, in a pleased frame of mind, to tell +stories. I noted some of these, and as they were new to me, I cherish +the hope that they may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">{260}</a></span> not be stale to others. The following +preliminary sonnet to Sir Walter Raleigh seems to be apposite and new; +it is needed to give atmosphere to the tales:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Raleigh! the benefactor of thy kind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May azure undulations ever roll<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As incense to thee from the glowing bowl,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy rapt disciples fume with placid mind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In easy chair, by ingle-nook reclined!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Next to the mage, Prometheus, who stole<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From Heaven's court with philanthropic soul,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The wonder-working fire, thou art enshrined<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In mortal bosoms as a friend, for thou<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Did'st bring from sunset isles the magic leaf<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That weaves enchantment's halo round the brow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alleviates the pang of every grief<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And stirs the bard, exempt from fretting cares,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To wail the weird of pipeless millionaires.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And now for the stories.</p> + + +<h4>"PEELIN'S BELOW THE TREE."</h4> + +<p>A Sunday School teacher in the island of Luing was giving a lesson on +the disobedience of Adam and Eve, and the fruit of that forbidden tree +whose mortal taste brought death into this world, and other ills. At the +close of his harangue, which was rather above the heads of the children, +he said, "Can any of you tell me <i>how the Creator knew</i> that Adam had +eaten the apple?" There was silence for a time. At last one boy, with a +glimmer of light in his eyes, shouted: "Please, sir, because He <i>saw the +peelin's below the tree</i>."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">{261}</a></span></p> + + +<h4>"SHE'S AWAY."</h4> + +<p>An Englishman staying in Oban, wished to visit the island of Coll, and +discovered, on enquiry at Macbrayne's office, that the S.S. <i>Fingal</i> +left for that outer isle at five in the morning. He accordingly gave +serious instructions to the "boots" of his hotel to rap him up at 4.30 +<span class="smcap lowercase">A.M.</span>, and to show him no mercy. At <i>six</i> o'clock, the tourist was +awakened by a noise like that of a battering-ram at his door, and a +stentorian voice sternly enquiring: "Are you the gentleman that's going +with the early boat?" "Yes, yes, I am," said the tourist, leaping to his +feet. "<i>Well, she's away</i>," said the boots. (This is a story that grows +on one.)</p> + + +<h4>A MEAN HOUSE.</h4> + +<p>Another hotel story: Feeling somewhat thirsty in the middle of his +dinner and not judging that water was sufficiently slockening, a visitor +rang the bell and asked the waiter to bring him a bottle of lager. This +was done. "How much do you charge for this?" enquired the traveller. +"Ninepence," replied the waiter. Anger, consternation, and incredulity +were all depicted, by turns, on the visitor's cheek. "What!" he shouted, +"<i>ninepence</i>. Why, I could buy a dozen bottles for half-a-crown. It's +downright robbery to ask ninepence for one bottle. You've made a +mistake." "I've made no mistake," said the waiter; "I was told to ask +ninepence. <i>But</i>," (at this point he sidled up to the traveller and +whispered, with terrible accents, in his ear) "<i>it's a damp mean house +this you're in, and I'm leaving mysel' the morn!</i>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">{262}</a></span></p> + + +<h4>ONE OF THE DIRECTOR'S WIVES.</h4> + +<p>A gentleman who loved tobacco exceedingly well, went into a first-class +smoking compartment, filled his pipe, and settled down, with a newspaper +in front of him, to enjoy the luxury of a long and undisturbed worship +of the weed. He had a journey of fifty miles before him. Just as the +train was moving off, a lady, who was panting and flustered, was pushed +up into the compartment by a porter. It was soon evident that pipes and +tobacco were not congenial to this dame. She began to sniff in a very +haughty fashion, but the smoker, utterly indifferent to her presence, +continued to roll out with deliberate relish his dense tobacco fumes. +Soon she lost all patience, and said with extreme bitterness: "You +there, behind that paper, you have no manners. You have no right to +smoke before a lady. Do you know who I am? <i>I am one of the directors' +wives, sir.</i>" Down went the journal, and "Oh, indeed," said he, "you are +one of the director's wives, are you? Well, let me tell you this, that +even if you were the director's <i>only</i> wife, I do not intend to +encourage you, by any compliance of mine, in the bad habit of rushing +for trains and getting into the wrong compartment!"</p> + + +<h4>TEMPERANCE HOTELS.</h4> + +<p>An English clergyman—a pronounced teetotaler and temperance worker—was +being driven through the streets of a Scotch town in an open machine. +Looking round, with expansive benevolence, on the streets and people, he +was overjoyed to see such a large number of temperance hotels. "Driver," +he exclaimed, "I am<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">{263}</a></span> delighted to see, by the hotels, that total +abstinence has got such a firm hold in this place." "Indeed, sir," said +the driver, "don't be too sure of that. We have two kinds of temperance +hotels here: the first kind would like the licence, but can't get it; +the second kind have had the licence, and lost it through bad behaviour +and disorderly conduct."</p> + + +<h4>A MEMORIAL WINDOW.</h4> + +<p>An inn-keeper in Ross-shire, with great enthusiasm, said to a visitor: +"There's nobody I work for with more satisfaction than an English +gentleman. Now, there's Sir Samuel Oatts, the wealthy Liverpool merchant +that has the shootings near here. He is a fine gentleman, and so +considerate. He is not very good at shooting, I must admit: he often +misses the birds, and he goes through a good number of dogs. One day he +shot the keeper in the right eye, and blinded it. But he gave the keeper +a handsome present and a fine new glass eye. We call that eye '<i>Oatts' +Memorial Window</i>,' and the keeper can sleep during the sermon now +without anybody knowing, provided he does not snore."</p> + + +<h4>THE BLASTED HEATH.</h4> + +<p>Two English tourists—big, hearty fellows—were travelling in the same +compartment with a communicative Scot, when the train stopped at Forres. +"Gentlemen," said the Scot, "this is Forres, and I'm sure you've read +about it; quite near Forres is the <i>blasted heath</i> where Macbeth was +accosted by the witches." "How shocking," said one of the English<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">{264}</a></span>men; +"how really shocking! Well, you see, we haven't read about that yet: +we've been up North for some time, and <i>we have'nt seen the pypers for +ten dyes!</i>"</p> + + +<h4>THE DAY FOR IT.</h4> + +<p>The driver of the bus which goes through the delightful part of +Argyllshire known as Hell's Glen, is often chaffed by the summer +tourists rather unmercifully. One day, a nervous southern was +criticising him on his furious and careless driving: "You shouldn't be +on the box at all; I never saw such a wild driver." "Drive!" said Jehu, +in a voice of thunder. "Why, man, once every year, I drive the +mail-coach <i>down that steep hill-side</i> among the bracken. <i>And this is +the day for it!</i>" So saying, the humorous fellow made as if to whip the +horses down the cliff, and the terrified tourist shrieked aloud. "Seeing +I've such a nervous passenger," said the driver, with a guffaw, "I had +better break my own rules, and keep to the main road."</p> + + +<h4>THE CONVERTED DRUMMER.</h4> + +<p>A dilapidated Scot, with a strong odour of the accursed, staggered into +a Salvation Army meeting one night, and was deeply impressed by the +service. He became a changed man, professed conversion, and got a +thorough moral overhaul. Like many others, he had great difficulty in +keeping his good resolutions, but persevered, nobly and successfully. +Latterly, he was admitted into the orchestra, and got command of the big +drum. He was so anxious to show his zeal, that he beat far too +vehemently, and drowned all the other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">{265}</a></span> instruments in his ecstatic +rataplan. The captain mildly remonstrated with him, and requested him to +beat a little more gently. "<i>Gently!</i>" shouted the reformed drummer, +"that's impossible. Since I've got salvation, I feel so happy, that I +could ding the whole slammed thing to bits!" (or rather "slim the whole +danged thing to bits").</p> + + +<h4>A CIRCULAR TICKET.</h4> + +<p>Three commercials, travelling from Cork to Dublin, had a discussion on +the illiteracy of the Irish railway employés. "Look here," said one of +them, "the majority of the ticket collectors can't even <i>read</i> the +tickets they are supposed to check." The other two refused to believe +him, but he stoutly maintained his assertion. Taking out of his pocket +the round ticket given him at the office of the Cork hotel, and +containing the number of his bedroom, he said, "I intend to offer this, +instead of my railway ticket, at the first station where tickets are +punched." Shortly thereafter, the train stopped, and a porter came round +the carriages to look at the tickets. There was silence deep as death +when the commercial handed his bedroom ticket to the official. The +latter looked long and carefully at the thing and muttered, "Bejabbers, +I never saw one like that before!" "Don't keep the train waiting," said +the commercial, in a pretended fury, "don't you see it's a <i>circular +ticket</i>." "Oh, and in faith it's you that's right: it <i>is</i> a circular +ticket," said the porter. So saying, he punched the hotel check and +withdrew, leaving the three travellers to weep for joy all the way to +Dublin.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">{266}</a></span></p> + + +<h4>A COMPOUND POSSESSIVE.</h4> + +<p>The following grammatical story will doubtless be new to most readers. A +Sunday School jaunt had been arranged in an Ayrshire town, and the +children were all ready to go in carts to a field, some miles away, for +games and open-air junketing. Everyone was impatient to set out, but the +piper was late, and the procession of carts could not start without +music. The minister became impatient, and sent a youth to tell the piper +to hurry up. The boy, on coming to the piper's house, saw a woman +standing at the door, and addressed her in these words: "<i>Are you the +man-that-plays-the-pipes's wife?</i>"</p> + + +<h4>SIXTEEN MEDALS.</h4> + +<p>Those who doubt the efficacy of self-lauding advertisement are refuted +by this story. A commercial traveller, representing a whisky firm, +craved an order from a small Highland innkeeper. "Come, Donald," he +said, "you must give me an order this time." "You will be getting no +order from me, for your whisky is no good whatever. Dewar of Perth has +got sixteen medals for his whisky; it is so good to drink, and makes +people drunk so nice and quiet. But <i>your firm never got a single medal +for filling folk fou</i>." The granting of medals for quiet and comely +intoxication is a brilliant, although droll, idea.</p> + + +<h4>"SHE'S AULD, AND SHE'S THIN, AND SHE'LL KEEP."</h4> + +<p>In a lone isle of the West, funerals are functions that cannot be +celebrated (at least in the way consecrated tradition prescribes) +without ample dispensing of whisky<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">{267}</a></span> among the mourners. As there is no +pier on the island, the steamer very frequently may not be able to call +for days, during the terrific gales of winter. The legitimate stores of +insular whisky thus occasionally become exhausted, and should a death +occur during the period of dearth, a very regrettable situation arises. +In the epigrammatic style of King James I., who used to say "<i>No bishop, +no king</i>," we might express the difficulty by saying <i>No whisky, no +funeral</i>. While a gale of exceptional ferocity was raging some winters +ago, an old woman passed away, and there was not enough whisky on the +island to bury her with credit. Her son scanned the angry sky and sea +daily, in the hope that the weather would show signs of clearing up. +After a week's blighted hopes, he still refused to sanction interment, +remarking, "<i>She's auld, and she's thin, and she'll keep</i>." Next day the +sea was calm, the <i>Dunara</i> called, and the old lady got her <i>munera +pulveris</i>.</p> + + +<h4>THE WILL O' THE DEAD.</h4> + +<p>The foregoing story suggested to one of the auditors the tale told in +connection with the death of Lord Forglen, one of the Judges of the +Court of Session, in 1727. After a long illness, in which he had endured +the expert advice of several eminent physicians, Forglen, one morning, +departed into the land of shadows. Not knowing of the fatal termination, +one of the medical men, Dr. Clark, called as usual and asked David Reid, +clerk to Forglen, how his master was. David's answer was: "I houp he's +well,"—a gentle euphuism, indicating that all was over, and also a +timid hope that Heaven had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">{268}</a></span> received a new inhabitant. The doctor was +shown into a room where he saw two dozen of wine under the table. Other +doctors arriving, David made them all take seats, while he detailed, +with much pathos, the affecting incidents of his master's dying hours. +As an antidote to their grief, the company took a glass or two, and +thereafter the doctors rose to depart, but David detained them. "No, no, +gentlemen; not so. It was the express will o' the dead that I should +fill ye a' fou, and I maun fulfil the will o' the dead." All the time +the tears were streaming down his cheeks. "And indeed," said Dr. Clark +afterwards, when telling the story, "he did fulfil the will o' the dead, +for before the end o't there was na ane of us able to bite his ain +thoom."</p> + + +<h4>SORRY FOR LONDON.</h4> + +<p>The following story is a good example of insular patriotism. Certain +shooting tourists in the island of Mull, who hailed from London, and who +were expecting important news from the capital, were greatly exasperated +to find, on calling at the local post-office, that telegraphic +communication with the mainland had broken down. Some very uncanonical +language was indulged in, which the local postmaster deeply resented. +One tourist after another, exclaimed with blank despair: "Alas, poor +Mull will get no news from London to-day." "What will Mull do without +the London news?" "No news from London, what a misfortune for Mull!" +This harping on the forlornness of the island caused the blood of the +postmaster to boil with indignation, and he shouted in ire: "It is not +Mull I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">{269}</a></span> will be sorry for, at all, at all. Mull can do without the +London news. But what will poor London do, when she finds she will not +be able to get any news from Tobermory, or from Salen, or from Dervaig, +or from Craignure, or from Lochdon, or from Lochbuie, or from Bunessan, +the whole of this blessed day!"</p> + + +<h4>"RAITHER UNCEEVIL."</h4> + +<p>A well-known boat, <i>The Stormy Petrel</i>, had been to Ardrossan for coal, +and was conveying the precious cargo to the romantic terminus of +Cairndow at the head of Loch Fyne. At St. Catherine's a great thirst +took possession of the crew, and they put in there for refreshments. The +conversation was most animated, and extended itself over a wide tract of +political and theological topics. On setting out for Cairndow early next +morning, all the crew had wistful, lustreless eyes, confused thoughts, +and bad consciences. He to whom the coal was being conveyed, was +awaiting them. He rowed out to <i>The Stormy Petrel</i> in a small boat, and +on coming near assailed them, in English and Gaelic, with all the most +vituperative expressions he could remember. But the crew, each and all +of them, knew they had been guilty of culpable delay, and uttered not a +word, good or bad, as their assailant rowed round their boat and +withered them with his invective. They had no fight left in them, and +sat, with bowed heads, till the storm would subside. After enduring the +agony for half an hour, one of the crew looked up and said, "Do you no' +think, Mr. Sanderson, that you're <i>raither unceevil so early in the +morning</i>?" This remark, uttered in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">{270}</a></span> quiet, sad, reproachful way, +staggered Mr. Sanderson far more than the most thunderous abuse would +have done, and brought home to him the undoubted fact that he had been +defective on the score of good taste.</p> + + +<h4>AN UNWELCOME RECITATION.</h4> + +<p>One of the travellers, on being asked to contribute his item to the fund +of anecdotes, said that instead of telling a tale, he would give a +recitation. Before doing so, he sneezed artificially six times, and then +recited a poem on</p> + +<h5><i>Influenza.</i></h5> + +<div class='block'><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Influenza has come like the wolf on the fold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the duke and the ditcher are down with the cold.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The doctor is smiling, for business is here,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the chink of the guinea resounds in his ear.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No household is spared: both the villa and cot<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their quota of swollen-nosed patients have got.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The clerk of the weather is gloating on high<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At the lords of creation that bed-ridden lie.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each chamber resounds with the echo of sneezing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With deep-laboured coughing and bronchial wheezing.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While, loading the table, the victim can spy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lotions, tonics, and ointments confusedly lie.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The druggist (douce man) is thanking his stars<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For this nice epidemic of paying catarrhs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He's making his hay, though no sunshine is seen,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And his till gleams with silver where copper has been.<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + + +<h4>A WORD IN SEASON.</h4> + +<p>This dismal piece of verse effectually cleared the smoking-room, and +filled me with a great sorrow, since<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">{271}</a></span> I had just recollected three or +four stories of my own. I now take the liberty of laying these before +the ingenuous reader. If he says they are dull, let me tell him (i.) +that he has no perception of humour, and (ii.) that occasional dulness +is the inalienable privilege of every free-born Briton. Many a spry +wight thinks it his duty to be <i>continuously funny and monotonously +merry</i>. Let a quiet and demure dulness be the foil of your +side-splitting sallies. Learn to keep the peace, yea for hours at a +time. If you are in a mixed company, cultivate the dictum of "give and +take." Be not for ever doling out your scraps of mirth to the dyspeptic +stomachs of your associates. A wise reciprocity and interplay of +merriment is the best rule—a fair share among the entire party. Burns +himself, sparkling talker as he was, is recorded to have been at times +sunk in gloom and shadow. But anon emerging from his moodiness, he would +utter such words as set the table in a roar. And now for these +masterpieces of humour.</p> + + +<h3>A NAIRN CRITIC.</h3> + +<p>Why is it that publishers, aye, and even booksellers, are so often out +of sympathy with the poets? I spoke once to a bookseller in Nairn about +a local poet's volume that was lying on the counter. "Do you personally +know this bard?" I asked. "Ay, that I do," was the reply; "he's an +eccentric wee chap. I've many a laugh at him as he goes along the +street, muttering to himself and picking his teeth with a fountain-pen. +Eccentric! bless my soul, how could a poet be anything but eccentric? +Besides, he's bound to be a liar: for if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">{272}</a></span> he can't get the end of a line +to come right with truth for a rhyme, he has got to make it <i>clink with +a whopper</i>. Why, man, it's a great worry for an honest man like me to +speak the truth in plain prose. If I were to send out my bills in metre +to my customers, there would be a rise of temperature soon in the town +of Nairn. No, no: the only thing that can be done with a poet's +manuscript is to take it to the head of the garden, sprinkle it with +paraffin, and apply a vesta."</p> + + +<h3>"A GRAND DAY FOR IT."</h3> + +<p>While one of the great six-day battles of the Eastern war was going on, +a country doctor, by some mistake in delivery, did not get his <i>Herald</i> +to breakfast one morning. Anxious to get the news, he bolted his meal +and sallied forth to hear the latest from the seat of war. He saw a +wrinkled old churl trimming the roadside hedge with a bill-hook, and +humming a tune like the gravedigger in <i>Hamlet</i>, Act v. "Any news of the +war?" gasped the doctor. "Eh?" said the old man, without discontinuing +his work. "Are you not aware," said the doctor, "that there is a great +battle raging in Manchuria?" "No," said the man, "I know nothing about +it, and care less." "What!" shouted the doctor. "You care nothing about +it? Why, man, the Russians and Japanese are at this moment <i>fighting for +the hegemony of all Eastern Asia</i>." "Lord, do you say so?" replied the +old cock, lopping unconcernedly at his hedge; "well, all I can say is, +that <i>they're gettin' a grand day for it</i>."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">{273}</a></span></p> + + +<h3>A PRO-BOER.</h3> + +<p>On one occasion, in the West Highlands, I availed myself of a lugsail +ferry to cross an arm of the sea and so avoid a long détour by land. The +boat was old, the sail was thick with big-stitched patches, and the +ferryman was an elder. I had much edifying talk with him, and at last +gliding from the Declaratory Act, of which he did not approve, I asked +him if he had any family. "Yes," he replied, "I have two sons. One of +them is a polissman in Glasgow, a nice lad, a very nice lad: he sends me +ten shillings every month; oh! an excellent lad is he indeed. But my +other son is a disgrace to me; he is bad, very bad. He is a drunkard and +a card-player and a Sabbath-breaker, and what's a thousand times worse +than all that, he's a <i>Pro-Boer</i>." This instance of patriotism in a +remote Highland nook was very refreshing for me to hear, and I gave the +anti-Krugerite elder a substantial fare for his trouble in ferrying me +over the loch. He invoked the blessing of Heaven on me, and I hope his +prayer will be answered.</p> + + +<h3>"FALLS OF BRUAR, ONLY, PLEASE!"</h3> + +<p>Some years ago, I had occasion to spend a day at Blair Athol, where I +was dosed with nothing but kindness by a genial son of the famous Clan +Macdonald. He put his trap and driver at my disposal, in order that I +might, with comfort and expedition, go and view the Falls of Bruar, +immortalised in one of Burns's cleverest poems. No sooner had we set off +than the driver began to calumniate Burns in unmeasured language, and to +throw withering scorn on the Falls, which, he declared,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">{274}</a></span> were utterly +unworthy of being visited by any sane man. "If you want to see real +falls," said he, "I'll take you to the Falls of Tummel, which could +knock those of Bruar into a cocked hat!" (such was the curious metaphor +he employed). I told him he could take me to both if there was time, but +Bruar I must see. He landed me at the Tummel, and drove on recklessly +himself a mile further to see his sweetheart. The desire to pay a visit +to his Bonnie Jean was the sole cause of his gibes at the poet. Back he +came in an hour, chanting merrily, and we drove to Bruar. I found the +varlet had lied most expansively: the Falls are gloriously fine, and +worth walking a good many miles to see. On the homeward road, I could +see he was ill at ease: he was dreadfully afraid that his amorous flight +would be discovered by his master. He said to me once every minute, +"<i>Falls of Bruar, only, please: keep your thumb on Tummel!</i>" Latterly he +set these words to a kind of rough music, and sang them continuously in +my ear, winking the while and smiling roguishly. I obeyed him.</p> + + +<h3>A BAD CASE OF NERVES.</h3> + +<p>While I was sitting alone in the smoking-room of the hotel, a tall, +thin, restless-eyed, aristocratic young fellow came quietly in. He went +up to the sideboard, poured out half a tumbler of water, and carefully +measured out about ten drops of phospherine therein. He swallowed the +mixture, smacked his lips, and sighed. He then remarked that it was a +nice evening<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">{275}</a></span> and that he was very ill with a nervous complaint. "I +suppose, now," he said, "you would actually tell me not to worry, to +take everything easy, and, above all, to firmly believe there is nothing +whatever the matter with me?" "Most certainly," I said, "you ought to +consider yourself in perfectly good health; by and by you would come to +be so in reality. The Christian Scientists say you might even learn to +hold fire in your hand by thinking of the frosty Caucasus." "I suppose, +too, you would recommend me to have a hobby, such as golf, or gardening, +or amateur photography." "Yes, I believe a harmless hobby such as you +mention would relieve the mental strain and take you out of yourself." +"Well, I essayed golf, but, alas! I massacred a ram; I tried gardening, +and tired of it before the flowers began to show; and as to photography, +it only increased the number of my enemies." "What about cycling or +horse-riding?" "These won't do—I can <i>think</i> at both of them. Now, I +<i>don't want to think: in fact, I mustn't</i>." "Fishing? wouldn't that be a +reposeful diversion?" "No, no," he said, "I could not stand the sight of +an animal enduring pain." "Well, you surely might try a little light +reading." "The strange thing about my reading is this," said he, "I look +at a sentence and understand it, but I am aware of something, either at +the back of my head or behind me, which says, 'All this is futile stuff +and nonsense: give it up, it's not for you; you are condemned to +everlasting emptiness, and your life will never know any more fulness or +joy.'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">{276}</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Immense vacuity of intellect!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I lift a volume, but a sentence tires;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even a flimsy magazine requires<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From me more concentration and direct<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Volition than my vagrant wits elect<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To give the pages. All my soul desires<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is to gaze without purpose on the fire's<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Crackle of glowing cinders, and detect<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Weird shapes of beasts and palaces and men<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the red mass of photographic coal;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Perchance my lazy mind may, now and then,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Without exertion, read as on a scroll<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(While the glede sinks to ashes in the grate)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The dust and nothingness of mortal state."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Well," I said, "your case is a queer one, and I am at a loss to suggest +anything further." At this, the young man burst into a loud peal of +laughter. He was supremely delighted at finding himself so unique, so +singular. He took me by the hand, shook it most heartily, saying, "I +haven't enjoyed myself so much for a long time. If I were oftener in the +company of men like you, I might regain hope."</p> + +<p>The improvement was, unfortunately, of very short duration. He continued +his observations thus:</p> + +<p>"And yet, and yet: <i>Sunt lacrimae rerum</i>. What is this world but a +succession of fleeting images chasing each other across a background of +joy or pain! Now we quaff the sour cup of misery, by and by we drink the +intoxicating vintage of hope. Heaven alone stands firm, gemmed with the +pitiless stars. The day breaks,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">{277}</a></span> rises to its glory in the shimmering +height of noon, and dies away in the west: so does the utmost pride of +man's career fade away to nothing, a harvest for Time's scythe. On all +this growth and decay the stars gaze with their unpitying and eternal +eyes. I think I'll have a little more phospherine."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">{278}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">LEGENDS AND LITERARY NOTABILIA.</span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Gairloch folk-lore: Prince Olaf and his bride—A laird who had +seen a fairy—Tales from Loch Broom: The dance of death—The +Kildonan midwife—The magic herring—Taisch—Antiquities of +Dunvegan—Miscellaneous terrors—St. Kilda—Lady +Grange—Pierless Tiree—Lochbuie in Mull—Inveraray Castle—The +sacred isle—Appin—Macdonald's gratitude—Notes on the +Trossachs—Lochfyneside: Macivors, Macvicars, and +Macallisters—Red Hector—Macphail of Colonsay—Tales from +Speyside: Tom Eunan!—Shaws and Grants—The wishing well—Ossian +and Macpherson—At the foot o' Bennachie—Harlaw—Lochaber +reivers—Reay and Twickenham—Rob Donn—Rev. Mr. Mill of +Dunrossness.</p></div> + + +<h3>GAIRLOCH FOLK-LORE.</h3> + +<p>I do not think anyone interested in local history and antiquities could +find a greater treat than that furnished by Mr. Dixon's <i>Account of the +Parish of Gairloch</i>. That romantic and lovely district is fortunate in +having found a historian of unlimited enthusiasm and untiring industry. +There is not a single dry page in his long and detailed narrative. Many +of the legends he tells are known to me from other sources, but I am +certain that no Scotch compiler (Mr. Dixon, let me say, is English) has +written of them with such enjoyable sympathy and poetical ardour. I have +been assured by local authorities that the facts adduced by Mr. Dixon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">{279}</a></span> +are invariably reliable. That I can well believe; but what is still more +rare, Mr. Dixon's facts are everywhere made to gleam and glitter in the +radiance of romance. Let me narrate, in concentrated form, one of the +legends which this clever writer has alluded to in more than one of his +chapters.</p> + + +<h4>PRINCE OLAF AND HIS BRIDE.</h4> + +<p>In the ninth century of the Christian era, one of the islands that in +such picturesque fashion dot the surface of Loch Maree, was honoured by +being the abode of a pious hermit, despatched thither from the sacred +isle of Iona. His presence there, implying as it did austerity, +perpetual worship of Heaven, and the reading of devout treatises, +inspired veneration in the minds of the obstreperous tribes around. They +felt themselves better from having such a good man near them. Wherever +in these old times of war and gore, a saintly pioneer established +himself, the kingdom of chaos and night was pushed back for miles around +his cell.</p> + +<p>The Picts of the ninth century revered this man, and his fame was known +also to the predatory seamen who came buccaneering among the islands of +the West. A Viking of royal blood, Prince Olaf, in the intervals of his +sea-roving, hied sometimes to the hermit's retreat, for instruction and +spiritual blessing. The young man, as tradition alleges, was not beyond +the need of guidance, for his temper was of the most fiery violence, +and, at the slightest provocation, his hand was on the hilt of his +sword. No doubt the saint of Isle Maree managed to moderate the Prince's +vehemence, and draw<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">{280}</a></span> him somewhat away from wrath which (as Homer puts +it), waxeth like smoke in the breasts of warriors, and is far sweeter to +them than trickling honey.</p> + +<p>By and by, this youth fell in love, and in characteristic fashion he +loved with a whole-souled and overwhelming passion. The hot-tempered +Viking became a new man, and he thus communed with himself: "How can I +ask this maid to share my life on the stormy sea? She is too tender and +gentle to go under the dark clouds in a war-galley with me and my rude +mates, when we sail to meet the enemy. Nor, were she my wife, could I +leave her behind and unprotected. Marry her I must, but I can neither +take her with me thereafter, nor defend her in my absence. Go to, I'll +e'en visit the monk of Isle Maree and get counsel from <i>him</i>."</p> + +<p>It is pleasant to note that the holy father found a way out of the +difficulty. "Marry her, my son," said he, "and build a tower of strength +as her abode on this isle of mine. When you are away, she will be near +me. Old man as I am, the natives respect me for my devotion and my hoary +hairs." The prince's scruples, so honourable to his love, were overcome. +The marriage was celebrated with great pomp and rejoicing. The green +pathways of the isle were thronged with feasters; tents were erected +beside the thickets of oak and holly, and the Loch had little rest from +the plashing of oars. The hermit blessed the couple and blessed the +castle too in which the twain were for a time to reside.</p> + +<p>Prince Olaf and his lady were perfectly happy, and the golden hours of +their wedlock sped merrily by.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">{281}</a></span> But the hours that were short to them, +were long and dreary to the Norse rovers, lying inactive in the ships +anchored hard by in the waters of Loch Ewe. Murmurs, growing at length +in volume, were muttered by the men as they reflected, day by day, on +the soft uxoriousness of their leader. They wished to be at sea on an +expedition that had been planned aforetime ere the marriage had taken +place. These murmurs reached the prince's ears, and, with many tears, he +tore himself away from the bridal tower to take his place at the head of +the squadron. It was a bitter severance, but tempered by the expectation +of a speedy reunion. The prince took with him two pennons, a black and a +white. "If I am successful in my expedition," he said, "I will display +the white pennon on my galley; if misfortune befalls me (which God +avert) the black will be flying on the prow. Do you come to meet my +returning fleet and let a similar indication be visible on your barge to +tell of your safety or your misfortune. A lover feels his excitement +growing, the nearer he comes to his home: let us abridge, by such a +device, the length of our anxiety."</p> + +<p>Love did not make Olaf a worse fighter: rather, indeed, it improved his +prowess. The thought of the fair young wife in the lonely tower, +protected mainly by the sanctity of an old hermit, nerved his arm, and +he speedily got through the expedition with great applause. He swept +everything before him, and turned homeward in the expectation of a +cordial and meet welcome. During his absence, the lady had been +fretting. Finally, as the days passed, she became downright<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">{282}</a></span> angry. "He +is neglecting me," she cried; "he goes away from my arms to the society +of rough seamen. I am a mere bauble, a plaything for his leisure. He is +tired of me, and perhaps on some distant coast he is dallying with a +newer sweetheart. But I will try his heart. When I hear of his +homecoming, I will go forth on my barge and have the black flag of +desolation flying from the prow. In this way I may obtain some hint of +his real feelings."</p> + +<p>Olaf came homeward in great glee, and on entering Loch Ewe from the +outer sea, the white pennon of success flapped gaily in the wind. The +princess, on the other hand, let prepare her boat, and, clothed in the +weeds of death, lay down on the deck, while simulated sobs of woe and +lamentation were raised by all her attendants. Slowly the boat, with its +ill-omened signal, moved to meet the conquering hero. Olaf, the +impetuous, was chilled to the heart, when he saw what he thought the +sure indication of his lady's misfortune. What a sight met his eyes when +he leapt on board! The princess stretched out in apparent death, and +robed in the garments of the grave! He could not endure the torment and +disillusion. He drove a dirk into his bosom with such passionate might +that he fell down, bereft of life, mighty and mightily fallen, on the +deck beside her.</p> + +<p>She had not expected such a tragic conclusion to her blamable artifice. +Remorse, of course, got hold of her, and drawing the gory weapon from +her dead lord's breast, she plunged it into her own. Too late was she +convinced of his true love for her: she had only one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">{283}</a></span> duty, and that was +to die with him. It is said in the legend that her life was not extinct +when the barge, with its weird freight, returned to the hermit's isle. +The old man, holding in his quaking hand the cross before her dying +eyes, strove to comfort her somewhat as her blood ebbed quickly away.</p> + +<p>"The bodies of the unhappy pair," says Mr. Dixon, "were buried within +the inclosure on the island, beneath the shade of the sacred hollies; +they were laid with their feet towards each other, and smooth stones +with outlines of mediæval crosses were placed over the graves, and there +they remain to this day. A few stones still indicate the site of the +hermit's cell, and a considerable mound marks where the tower stood."</p> + +<p>The last time I stood beside the little pier on Loch Maree, I noticed +many indications of the advent of southern tourists. Empty bottles were +floating on the waves, and the tiny steamer that plies on the loch was +getting ready for the summer traffic. Visitors from the Lowlands do not +suspect that such tales as I have narrated still live on the lips of the +Gairloch natives, and help to pass the hours at many an evening reunion. +How the centuries meet in such nooks of Ross! Steamers on Loch Maree, +and Olaf's cross still standing on the hermit's isle! The driver of the +mail-coach from Achnasheen to Gairloch will discuss creeds and schisms +with you, and tell you he does not believe in modern religious +developments at all; anon, as the coach passes the Gairloch Church, he +will point with extended whip to a grassy hollow on the left, and say: +"That is where the Free Church used to have its open-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">{284}</a></span>air Communion +Service: the place is called <i>Leabaidh na Ba Bhàine</i>, because Fingal +scooped it out as a bed where his white cow might calve." "But did +Fingal lodge in this neighbourhood?" you ask. "Oh yes, he did whatever," +the driver will reply, "and the best proof of it is, that if you go to +the north end of Loch Maree, you will see the <i>sweetheart's +stepping-stones</i>, placed there by Fingal to keep his feet dry when he +went that way to court Malvina."</p> + + +<h4>A LAIRD WHO HAD SEEN A FAIRY.</h4> + +<p>Bailie Nicol Jarvie, whom we all know so well, confessed that when he +heard the wild stories of the North, he felt his blood tingle and his +pulses leap. This fact, which as a sober man of business he felt bound +to apologize for, was probably due to heredity, his mother having been a +Macgregor. The Bailie lived at a time when rumours of witchcraft and +fairydom were more common than now, and when there was less +dissemination of Scripture truth. It is a saying in some parts of the +North that the profuse spread of the Shorter Catechism has been the +means of driving witches and fairies out of their old haunts. For my own +part, I know of nothing more likely to make them decamp.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p> + +<p>I was lucky enough to meet a gentleman who declared, not with an oath, +but with a <i>pretty strong</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">{285}</a></span> asseveration, that he had once seen a fairy. +It was in a railway train that I knit conversation with him. He was a +kilted country squire, tall, thin, and soulful: on his head was a +glengarry with a pair of flying ribbons. He spoke in rapt sentences, as +if he were looking on a vision. This is the substance of his remarks:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">One autumn morning, when the world lay fair<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Under the radiant blue, I musing lay<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By a green knoll, beside a rippling bay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When, suddenly, gliding through the silent air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A green-clad apparition, wrinkled, spare,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Angry, and grieving, passed along the way<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before me for a moment's space. The fay<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was old and did not see me lying there.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I grieved to see her sob in fretful mood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And often since I marvel in my mind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What grievous heart-pang drove her from the wood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To ease her heart away from her own kind.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strange, that these tiny, soulless beings should,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like us, be grieved and be with passion blind!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>These are the words of a man who speaks with conviction. I ought to +mention that, ecclesiastically (and I hope in other ways, too,) he was a +Moderate. Two things annoyed him greatly: (1) that the fairy did not +deign to look at him; (2) that nobody but his little grand-daughter of +eight would believe he had seen a fairy at all. "Why," he said, "I could +draw that fairy now, if I had pencil and paper. I see her as plain as I +see you. <i>Her little bosom was heaving, and she wore a necklace of +twisted corn-stalks. I am sorry I did not offer her some refreshment.</i>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">{286}</a></span></p> + + +<h3>TALES FROM LOCH BROOM.</h3> + +<p>The enquirer will find a specially abundant crop of old stories if he +stays long on Loch Broom side. The bard of Ullapool, Mr. Roderick +Mackenzie, has made an excellent collection of romantic incidents +associated with the neighbourhood, and has told them in a very quaint +and effective fashion. From his collection I now cite a specimen or two. +I by no means recommend them as reading for the small hours of the +morning.</p> + + +<h4>THE DANCE OF DEATH.</h4> + +<p>Three young fellows belonging to Strathmore, in the parish of Loch +Broom, were returning from the Low Country, where they had been living +for some time. It was long before the days of Watt and Macadam; roads +were not good, progress was slow, and rain was frequent. When they, in +the final lap of their journey, arrived at the green hillside of +Lochdrom, the weather was extremely inclement. Seeing a commodious +shieling on the braeface, the young men entered, and one of them, with +the object of driving dull care away, struck up a lightsome tune on his +pipes. His two comrades at once began to fling their legs about and +caper merrily. Soon, having succeeded in dancing themselves dry, they +all agreed that female partners would be a great acquisition. The wish +was at once gratified. Three women mysteriously glided into the +shieling, and the dancing began in earnest. One of the women stood close +by the piper, while the other two skipped about, with their partners, +all round the building. Outside it thundered and lightened in terrific +fashion. Tired and sweating,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">{287}</a></span> the two couples were at length fain to +stop, and they sat down to rest on seats of turf and heather. The piper +stopped too: he felt some malign influence coming over him; he was +certain some devilish deed was a-doing. Stealing a glance at his two +friends, he perceived that they were both stark dead, and that the two +infernal huzzies were smiling a hideous smile of triumph. Action, he +felt, was immediately necessary: he flung the still groaning bagpipes +full in the face of the witch near him, stunned her thus for an instant, +and with one wild leap cleared the threshold. And now began a hot race +and hot pursuit. Like another Tam o' Shanter, but without the mare, the +piper sped over the moor and through the rain, plying a foot as good as +wings. Not till they came in sight of the clachan of Fasagrianach, did +the witches relinquish the chase. The exhausted piper had a sad tale to +tell to the mothers of his two hapless friends. Next day a company of +mourners went to the scene of the infernal dance, and, amid much +mourning, they sang a weird wail with the sad refrain, <i>Airidh mo +Dhubhaich</i>, which, being interpreted, means "Shieling of my Sorrow."</p> + +<p>Let me give another tale, but of less sombre issue, culled from the +folk-lore of the same locality.</p> + + +<h4>THE KILDONAN MIDWIFE.</h4> + +<p>A woman living at Kildonan, on the north shore of Little Loch Broom, and +exercising the useful profession of howdie, or midwife, had been +summoned to attend a case at Keppoch. She did not arrive at her +destination, although she left home after telling her neighbours<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">{288}</a></span> where +she was going. It was on Christmas eve that Fair Sarah, as she was +called, left Kildonan, and for the space of an entire year, not a word, +good or bad, was heard of her. Search parties were organized, but all to +no purpose. Exactly twelve months after her disappearance—the next +Christmas eve, namely—back came the errant midwife to her home, not a +hair the worse for her long absence. She was immensely astonished to +find she had been so long away, her own impression being that only an +hour or two had elapsed. It was evident to all the natives of Kildonan +that Fair Sarah had been among the fairies, in whose company, as every +one knows, months and years slip past as quickly as hours and days. +Sarah was asked to speak out and tell her experiences. "It seems to me," +said the flustered howdie, "that it was but last night that I left for +Keppoch. Just as I passed the White Knoll, between Strathmore and +Strathbeg, I came upon a company of little folk, who would have me with +them, right reason or none. I accepted their hospitality, and what +drinking, skipping, revelry, and glee my eyes beheld! At last I grew +sick of their cantrips and capers. Remembering I was a Christian and a +communicant, <i>I blessed myself in the name of the Glorious Trinity</i>, +with the result that I was unceremoniously bundled out of the place."</p> + +<p>The White Knoll had long had the repute of harbouring fairies; Sarah's +experiences put the matter beyond all doubt. That worthy female +continued to ply her vocation for many years after, with unvarying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">{289}</a></span> +dexterity and signal success. She was certainly a more prosperous woman +after her year's excursion into Fairy-land.</p> + + +<h4>THE MAGIC HERRING.</h4> + +<p>There is an interesting legend told of the device by which shoals of +herring were first induced to come into Loch Broom.</p> + +<p>It seems that long ago (the precise date is unessential) the lochs round +the island of Lewis were invariably, at the herring season, visited by +magnificent shoals of fish, while not a tail was ever seen to twinkle in +the spacious waters of Loch Broom. Abundance on one side of the Minch, +destitution (for no earthly or apparent reason) on the other! After +mature consideration, the dwellers by Loch Broom came to the conclusion +that the anomaly could only be explained by the malignant operation of +the Lews witches. Query: How best neutralise the spells of these partial +harridans? A remedy, both unique and effective, was at length devised. A +silver herring was made and given into the hands of a sturdy crew, who +set sail with it over the water to Lewis. On arriving there, the men +partook of an adequate amount of refreshment, let down the silver fish +(attached to a cord) among the jostling shoals in one of the lochs, and +then, with the metallic animal trailing in the sea behind them, they +turned the prow of the boat in the direction of home. The ruse was +successful beyond all belief: glimmering clouds of phosphorence followed +through the seas below in the wake of the boat and its silver lure. +Under the stars of night, in all the rapture of excitement and success, +the Loch Broom fishers led the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">{290}</a></span> droves of herring right up to the +farthest reach of their loch. The metallic herring was then allowed to +sink to the bottom: there it remains, and so long as it is there, an +abundant harvest of the deep will be the portion of the resourceful +toilers of these shores. Perhaps I ought to mention that the famous boat +which did the feat was painted black on one side and red on the other. I +am not sufficiently versed in the niceties of <i>grammarye</i> to be able to +render a reason for this piebald device.</p> + +<p>Of late years, as I have been told, the prosperity of Ullapool is not as +high as it was. Can it be that the Lews witches are at their old tricks +again? Or has the silver herring been borne, by the wash of retreating +surges, out into the Hebridean deep. Every visitor who walks through the +sea-facing, white-washed little town, must be struck by the silence of +the streets and the utter lack of business animation.</p> + + +<h3>TAISCH.</h3> + +<p>The most interesting place in the island of Skye is, beyond question, +the neighbourhood of Dunvegan. It was of surly, superstitious, +loyal-hearted Samuel Johnson that I chiefly thought when I leapt out of +the trap that landed me at the Hotel of Dunvegan, for I had just been +reading his famous <i>Journey</i>, with its diverting remarks on +second-sight. It would not, I confess, have surprised me over much, in +my tired and wind-beaten condition, to see the Doctor and the Auchinleck +laird, walking arm in arm along the road. I should have put it down to a +kind of inverted <i>taisch</i>, certainly to nothing stronger.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">{291}</a></span></p> + +<p>It may surprise many southerners to know that the belief in <i>taisch</i> is +not by any means extinct. I have met educated Skyemen who firmly +believed in the mysterious visual gifts of the seventh son of a seventh +son. In old days, the Highlanders were wont to attribute the gift to +none but those of an austere and devout cast, who, living a solitary +life in the eye of nature, were thought to be specially prepared for +receiving supernatural impressions. I am afraid the vast majority of +<i>taisch</i> tales are dreadful nonsense. Mr. MacCulloch, in his recent work +on Skye, has usefully summarized the various types of second-sight as +expounded by the very credulous Macleod of Hamera: (1) The seer is aware +of a phantom winding-sheet enwrapping the doomed person; (2) he may see +the corpse of some one still in life; (3) he may behold a drowning or +accidental death; (4) he may hear noises as of a coffin being hammered; +(5) he may see a living person dwindle to the size of a child, and anon +expand to normal bulk. As Johnson remarks, many of the seers declared +themselves poignantly afflicted by what they saw. Aubrey tells of a +clairvoyant who asked the presbytery to pray that the gift (or curse) +might be taken away. Instant prayer removed the obsession.</p> + +<p>The extraordinary futility and droll language of the sentences uttered +by some of the seers are very mirth-provoking. Here are one or two +prophecies of the Brahan Seer:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The heir of the Mackenzies will take<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A white rook out of the wood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And will take a wife from a music-house<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With his people against him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">{292}</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the heir will be great<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In deeds, and as an orator,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the Pope in Rome<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Will be cast off his throne,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Over opposite Creagh-a'-chon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Will dwell a little lean tailor," etc.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The following is excellent: "<i>When the big-thumbed sheriff-officer and +the blind man of the twenty-four fingers shall be together in Barra, +Macneill may be making ready for the flitting.</i>" It is said that the +same seer prophesied thus of the Strathpeffer wells: "The day will come +when this disagreeable spring, with thick-crusted surface and unpleasant +smell, shall be put under lock and key, so great will be the crowd of +people pressing to drink the waters."</p> + +<p>Belief in clairvoyance and prophecy was quite common among the Lowland +Covenanters; and I believe <i>Peden's Prophecies</i> may still be found among +the lumber of the book-shops. An old lady, in Irvine, once repeated to +me the following couplet, as having been uttered by Peden:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Between Segton and the sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A bloody battle there shall be."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Now, as Segton is the old name for Kilwinning, it would seem that the +locale of the battle (probably, as the lady, indeed, thought, the battle +of Armageddon) will be <i>in the immediate neighbourhood of the site at +present occupied by Nobell's Dynamite Factory</i>.</p> + + +<h3>ANTIQUITIES OF DUNVEGAN.</h3> + +<p><i>Taisch</i> has taken me a long way from Dunvegan, of which I meant to say +something. No souvenir is to me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">{293}</a></span> more delicious than that of some days +spent there, on one of which I visited the fine old castle of the +Macleods, stablished on its rocks, and filled with romance from base to +topmost turret. On the landward side are lawns, flowers, and abundance +of eye-gladdening leafage, while, seaward, there is the unspeakable +glory of isle-dotted loch and distant sea. By the kindness of Macleod of +Macleod (you must not call that grand and most genial gentleman by any +more garish title: he is <i>the</i> Macleod; he typifies the clan—that is +his highest glory), I visited the delightful old castle and saw every +room, relic, and dirk of importance. What gave me the most pleasure was +the illuminating commentary of Macleod himself and of his charming +daughters. One cannot hear the history of some of the rooms without a +feeling of terror. In the drawing-room of the castle (the room now used +for prayers, and well it may be,) a horrible outrage was planned to take +place by Black Ian, a usurping chief. The atrocious deed happened in the +middle of the sixteenth century, and was due to Ian's fear that the +Campbells, who had landed with a large force in Skye, would expel him +from Dunvegan castle. Ian, pretending that he wished to discuss terms, +invited eleven of the leading Campbells to a banquet. At table, Macleods +and Campbells were seated side by side; and, at a given signal, which +consisted in placing a cup of blood in front of each guest, all the +Campbells were simultaneously stabbed to death, each Macleod +exterminating his man. I was glad to get out of that drawing-room.</p> + +<p>The main relics in the castle are: (1) The Fairy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">{294}</a></span> Flag; (2) Rory Mor's +Drinking-horn; and (3) the Dunvegan Cup.</p> + +<p>It is not as well known as it should be that one of the mediæval chiefs +of the Macleods married a fairy. This dainty little woman presented her +lord with a yellow silk flag, dotted here and there with red spots. The +virtue of the flag, she told him, resided in its efficacy to save the +chief of the Macleods on three different occasions. After the third +employment of the flag, it would flutter away to fairy-land. The flag +has twice saved a chief out of a particularly awkward predicament, and +it is still in Dunvegan, though sadly grimed and rent. The present +chief, who has served his country nobly, is quite fit, in soldierly +fashion, to grapple single-handed with any difficulty he may encounter; +but he is in hopes that the flag may yield its residual virtue to the +contentment of some one or other of his successors.</p> + +<p>Rory Mor's drinking-horn, which could contain, I should think, between +two and three bottles of wine, is an interesting indication of +pre-Reformation thirst. Of old, each chief as he came of age, was +expected to drink off its contents at one draught as a proof that he had +arrived at years of discretion.</p> + +<p>The cup is made of dark wood, and is finely adorned with silver work. It +is dated 1493, and contains a Latin inscription.</p> + +<p>The Fairy Tower in Dunvegan Castle contains the room in which Dr. +Johnson and Sir Walter Scott slept during their respective visits to the +castle. The burly lexicographer would have little wind left for +argument<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">{295}</a></span> after he had toiled up the steep and narrow spiral stairway +leading to the room. Formerly, so the smiling chief told me, the young +lady chosen by the Macleod to be his wife, had to pass a night alone in +this haunted chamber, in order that the fairies might have an +opportunity of seeing her, and formally approving the choice.</p> + + +<h3>MISCELLANEOUS TERRORS.</h3> + +<p>He who investigates Celtic demonology will hear a good deal about a +gruesome and insidious animal called the <i>Water Horse</i>. This fell beast, +though able at need to transform itself into the shape of a human being, +is normally like a horse, though much bulkier and fiercer. Its usual +abode is in the deep lochs, but it may occasionally be seen, with wreck +or sea-weed clinging to its hoof or mane, feeding on the hill-side among +earthly horses. The detestable feature about the brute is its fondness +for human beings. There is no hope for any man, woman, or child, who +gets upon its back: at a furious gallop, the animal bounds off by the +nearest road to the loch, and leaps under the waves to devour its prey. +Foals of a specially vicious turn are believed to have this brute for +their sire: in some such way the furious nature of the horse called +"Kelpy" in George Macdonald's story might be explained.</p> + +<p>Certain lochs in Skye are believed to harbour a variant terror, the +water-bull. Loch Morar, on the mainland, contains a huge mystic bogie, +undefined in shape, but of terrible malignity. I have heard too, in +Uist, of a phantom dog, with eyes of glede and unearthly bark, that +frequents the entrance to the old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">{296}</a></span> wayside burying-ground. No driver, +unless fortified by several glasses, will drive you that way after dark.</p> + +<p>"Duncan," said a commercial traveller to a driver, "I'll have to go to +Gruiginish farm to-night. Have everything ready at 8.30."</p> + +<p>"I can't do that, Mr. Smith; it'll be dark."</p> + +<p>"But you have lamps, Duncan."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, but I can't go. You have to pass the old cemetery."</p> + +<p>"I know that, but I must attend to my business. What ails you at the +cemetery?"</p> + +<p>"There's the dog at the gate, the dog with the eyes of burning coal. +What is he doing there? And the wee man inside, <i>What is he doing +there?</i>"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what he's doing, but to Gruiginish this night I must go. +Do you think a glass of <i>forked lightning</i> would do you any good?"</p> + +<p>"Well, it might help."</p> + +<p>In spite of more than one glass of forked lightning, poor Duncan was in +a terrible state of excitement when the cemetery was approached. He kept +his head averted, and clutched the reins so nervously that the vehicle +was in imminent danger of being upset.</p> + +<p>It is a beautiful saying of Goldsmith that innocently to amuse the +imagination in this dream of life is wisdom. Judged by this standard, +the imaginative operations taking place in Duncan's brain, considering +their effect on his happiness, cannot be pronounced either innocent or +wise. To add ideal terrors to the prosaic hardships of a place like Uist +is the very height of folly. And yet it is precisely in such bare and +rough<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">{297}</a></span> regions where man has to fight with nature as with a constant +foe, that the unseen powers are believed to be most terrible. The +<i>lutin</i> of the smiling land of France is a mere capering trickster, and +the "lubber fiend" of Milton's poem is pictured as an unpaid adjunct of +the dairy. Duncan's "wee man up on the hill-side" is a permanent and +unspeakable horror of the night. "<i>What is he doing there?</i>"<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p> + + +<h3>ST. KILDA.</h3> + +<p>St. Kilda, the lonely and precipitous island, forty miles west of Lewis, +which Boswell at one time thought of buying, has now, like so many other +islands of the West, a well-furnished library from Paisley. I hope the +minister of the place encourages the reading of the books, and does +everything in his power to broaden the religious views of the people by +healthy secular literature. A luckless inspector of schools crossed over +once to examine the school of this island. His boat arrived late on +Saturday, and was to leave again early on Monday. To suit his own +convenience, the greatly-daring official proposed to examine the +scholars on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">{298}</a></span> Sunday. Never was their such indignation among the +islanders. What! examine the school on the first day of the week! Did +the unhappy man wish the wrath of Heaven to fall in fire and brimstone +on the island? The inspector was angrily hooted and denounced. Still, as +he must needs return by his steamer, the islanders agreed to send their +children immediately after Sunday was over, <i>i.e.</i>, <i>the bairns were +assembled at midnight</i>, and parts of speech were bandied about then in +the visible darkness of the tiny school.</p> + +<p>St. Kilda belongs to the Macleod, and every spring the factor goes over +to collect the rents. All winter the island is isolated, and has no +outer news save, perhaps, from some stray Aberdeen trawler. For twenty +years the factor went over in a sailing-boat belonging to the chief, but +by some mishap, in which no lives were lost, this boat was +ill-manœuvred and, with sails full-set, was engulfed in a whirlpool. +He now goes over in the steamer.</p> + +<p>The first question propounded to the factor is this: "<i>Has there been +war anywhere, my dear?</i>" If the answer is "Yes," a great joy is visible +on every face. "<i>That's good, that's good: tell us all about it.</i>" +Having heard all about the war, the natives show an eagerness for +sweets, of which they are inordinately fond.</p> + +<p>The natives are expert cragsmen, and much of their time is occupied in +collecting birds' feathers. The oil of the solan goose is also a source +of wealth. Rough tweeds are now woven in many of the houses. The factor +informed me that, for some unknown reason, everything that comes from +the island is impregnated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">{299}</a></span> with a heavy odour that is most disagreeable. +Means have been tried to neutralise this smell, but success is only for +a time: by and by the odour returns, as bad as ever, to fabric and +feather. Merchants, both at home and abroad, are loath to purchase such +unfragrant wares.</p> + +<p>In Dunvegan Castle are to be seen several of the little letter-boats +employed by the St. Kildeans to convey news to Scotland in the winter +months. The tide is watched, and the letter-boat cast into the sea. +Usually the message is washed ashore on some part of the Long Island. +Natural superstition supplements, in a small degree, the lack of mails: +when the islanders, for example, hear <i>the notes of the cuckoo</i>, they +are convinced that the Macleod is dead. Happily the cuckoo is rarely +heard breaking the silence of the seas so far west.</p> + + +<h3>LADY GRANGE.</h3> + +<p>To this day there are in the possession of the Macleod family certain +old accounts of the years 1744 and 1745, that recall one of the most +diabolical and continuous pieces of cruelty recorded in history. I refer +to the accounts paid in these years to the Laird of Macleod for the +board and burial of Lady Grange. No one who knows the history of that +ill-fated lady can look at these time-stained documents without a +knocking of the seated heart at the ribs.</p> + +<p>Everyone who has enjoyed the light and graceful poetry of Ovid, has +sighed over the relegation of that city man to the barbarous horrors of +the Black Sea. As Gibbon exquisitely phrases it: "The tender Ovid,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">{300}</a></span> +after a youth spent in the enjoyment of wealth and luxury, was condemned +to a hopeless exile on the frozen banks of the Danube, where he was +exposed without remorse to those fierce denizens of the desert with +whose stern spirits he feared that his gentle shade might hereafter be +confounded." The banishment of Lady Grange to St. Kilda, in 1734, by her +rascally husband, is to me fully as pathetic as Ovid's expatriation to +Tomi. She, a refined and beautiful woman, the light of Edinburgh +drawing-rooms, was hustled off to a lonely rock and left remorselessly +to pine there amid the squalls. Let me briefly summarise this affecting +history.</p> + +<p>Lord Grange, a Scottish judge of strong Jacobite leanings, was known by +his Lady to be concerned in a plot, along with Lovat, Mar, and others, +to bring back the Pretender. This was in the year 1730. Stung in her +wifely pride by her husband's ill-treatment and licentiousness, she +openly threatened to expose his treason. To prevent such exposure, +Grange caused his wife to be kidnapped and clandestinely conveyed first +to a small island off North Uist, and subsequently to St. Kilda. In the +latter island, no one could speak any English except the catechist, and +here for seven years this polished society dame lived amid the blasts +and the screaming ocean-fowl, lacking even the privilege, which Ovid +enjoyed, of sending letters to child or friend. In 1741, when the +catechist left the island, she made him bearer of letters to her +law-agent, Hope of Rankeillor. Hope fitted out a sloop, with twenty-five +armed men on board, and set out for St. Kilda to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">{301}</a></span> rescue the lady. +Macleod, who was, of course, privy to her detention, at once removed her +to Skye, and Hope's expedition came to nothing. The poor woman, worn out +with sorrow and suffering, died in 1745, a helpless imbecile!</p> + +<p>The story, which throws a lurid light on the savagery of the eighteenth +century, and which, to my thinking, surpasses in pathos anything +occurring in fiction, was long disbelieved. But it was only too true. It +is said that ill-luck pursued the lady even after death, and that her +funeral was a miserable parody. A coffin filled with stones and turf was +interred, before a large crowd, in the churchyard of Duirinish, the real +remains being, with maimed rites or none at all, secretly buried +elsewhere.</p> + +<p>It is noteworthy that Lady Grange died in 1745, the year when Prince +Charlie's hopes were shattered on Culloden Moor. Like her, he too had +the ill-luck to be a hopeless wanderer in the Misty Isle.</p> + + +<h3>PIERLESS TIREE.</h3> + +<p>I regret to say that I did not stay long enough in the island of Tiree +to add to my store of legends, and yet, I went there with a capacious +note-book and excellent intentions. What is more, I read from beginning +to end, Dr. Erskine Beveridge's detailed book on the island, and could +have passed an examination on semi-brochs, rock-forts, marsh duns, +islet-forts, sandhill dwellings, and prehistoric burial-sites. I steeped +myself so thoroughly in the <i>minutiae</i> of pre-Reformation churches, that +I almost forgot to go to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">{302}</a></span> the modern ones. Tiree took hold of me +completely, and so did the Norse invaders of the Hebrides—men like +Ketil Flatnose, Magnus Barelegs, Hako, and Somerled. I got a pocket map +arranged for my own use (copied from Dr. Beveridge's large one) with a +red cross at all the sites of ancient forts. It was my fond hope, for +pride attends us still, that I might find some inaccuracy in Dr. +Beveridge's book, and, from measurements on the spot, be able to +contradict some of his statements. But what are the hopes of man! I did +not know that predestination, in the form of dirty weather, was working +against me, and was about to quench all my interest in <i>duns</i>. On +September 5th, 1907, I determined to take Dr. Beveridge's measurements +for granted.</p> + +<p>On that day, in fact, I was for some time under the impression that my +last lecture had been delivered. It was on the way between Coll and +Tiree. The gale was a furious one and, combined with the greasy odours +of the <i>Fingal</i>, was enough to sicken a practised seafarer. I did notice +that some of the crew were prostrated, so that there was some excuse for +a landsman not being proof against Neptune's dandling. So low, exposed, +and precarious is the shore at Scarinish, that, often for weeks, the +ferrymen dare not venture out to the steamer for passengers. I asked one +of the <i>Fingal</i> men if there was any chance of being landed. He was a +cruel cynic, and said: "No, not to-day. The sea is too wild for the +ferry to come out. We'll go right across to Bunessan in Mull, so prepare +for three more hours' shaking. You won't forget the <i>Dutchman's Cap</i> +for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">{303}</a></span> the rest of your life." Then with a remark addressed to the +Creator, he added: "<i>There's the ferryboat after all; she's racing over +the water like a stag.</i>"</p> + +<p>He was right: the lugsail was careering out to us and came alongside at +length, and, after fearful trouble, got fastened to the <i>Fingal</i>. +Sometimes the ferryboat was even with our deck, sometimes far above it, +sometimes fifteen feet below. It looked like certain death to leap into +that lugsail.</p> + +<p>I hesitated, and shouted to the captain: "Is it safe to jump?"</p> + +<p>He replied, "I wish to Tophet I had the chance."</p> + +<p>I watched for the next opportunity of the ferryboat and the <i>Fingal</i> +being approximately on the same plane, and leaped into the arms of a +boatman.</p> + +<p>Other passengers followed,—men, women, even babies. Then came the +mails; and finally, live stock. I remember being struck on the mouth by +a sheep heaved into the boat by the above-mentioned cynic. "Come, come, +that's enough, keep the rest; let us be off," shouted a boatman. +Everybody was wet to the skin: the wind was howling; the women weeping; +and the babies were mixed up with the sheep.</p> + +<p>Once clear of the <i>Fingal</i>, the adroit ferrymen did their duty well, and +in less than ten minutes we were all landed. A crowd of islanders were +waiting to lift us out. All agreed that it had been a <i>close shave</i>.</p> + +<p>Such was my introduction to <i>Pierless Tiree</i>.</p> + +<p>I did not stay long enough in the island to measure brochs, but quite +long enough to experience the good-will and kindliness of the natives. +The houses are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">{304}</a></span> solid and substantial, the inhabitants strong and +muscular. Great gales from the Atlantic blow almost continually, sweep +up the sand in clouds, and prevent any trees from taking root. I did not +see much poverty with my own eyes, but the ministers all assured me +there was a great deal. Maize, more than oatmeal, is the cereal used for +porridge. For supplementary information, Dr. Beveridge's admirable and +accurate work may be consulted.</p> + + +<h3>LOCHBUIE IN MULL.</h3> + +<p>The great straggling island of Mull, so full of scenery, romance, and +song, still awaits its historian. Few, who have ever visited the noble +isle, will refuse to say with Macphail, the bard of Torosay:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"O the island of Mull is an isle of delight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the wave on the shore and the sun on the height,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the breeze on the hills and the blast on the Bens,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the old green woods and the old grassy glens."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The gem of the island is undoubtedly the haven of Lochbuie, one of the +choicest nooks in insular Scotland. The modern mansion, which is but a +step or two from the well-preserved castle of olden times, is quite near +the shore, and looks straight south over the Atlantic to the island of +Colonsay. The entire surroundings are a delight to the eye: great +towering mountains behind, the sea in front, and in the space between, +green lawns, rocks, gorse, and many-tinted garden-plots.</p> + +<p>The MacLaines of Lochbuie trace their descent from the great Gillean of +the Battle-axe, a redoubtable warrior who flourished his weapon to some +purpose in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">{305}</a></span> the reign of Alexander III. But the most notorious of all +the MacLaines is <i>Ewen of the Little Head</i>, who died in battle, and +thereafter assumed the rôle of family ghost. Before the death of any of +his race, this phantom-warrior gallops along the sea-beach near the +castle, announcing the event by cries and loud lamentations. The doctor, +who attended the present chief's mother, declares that, while sitting +beside her bed during the silent watches of the night, he heard the +noise of the spectral horse just before the old lady's decease. The +natives of Mull can describe the ghost and horse with accurate detail. +The horse is a small, hardy, sure-footed animal of brown colour, and +Ewen is known by the smallness of his head, and by a long floating +mantle of green. He performed a weird and long-continued gallop round +the bay in 1815, before the news of the valiant Sir Archibald MacLaine's +death became known by official despatch from the seat of war.</p> + +<p>Lochbuie, like so many other places in Scotland, has its Piper's Cave. +There is a remarkable similarity in all such tales—diversified, +however, by quaint local additions. MacLaine's piper, a foolhardy man, +determined once to test the allegation that a certain cave on Lochbuie +was connected with another cave at Pennygown on the Sound of Mull. +Attired in his official costume and having his dog at his heels, he +entered the cave, blowing his pipes triumphantly. Those above, on the +hills, were able to make out his line of passage by the sound of the +music. At a certain point the pipes ceased, and nevermore did the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">{306}</a></span> piper +come up to the shores of light. The dog got to the cave of Pennygown—a +limp and hairless parody of its former self.</p> + +<p>Browning, in his "Pied Piper of Hamelin," has but poetised one version +of a world-wide tale. Often, in the Highland tales, it is money the +piper is after. There is a deep cave near Melvaig, in Wester Ross, into +which a piper is said to have led a band of men in search of gold, and +never returned. In this case the pipe-music is said to have continued +for years—some natives even asserting that it may be heard still by +those who have ears to hear.</p> + +<p>In spite of all the legendary lore connected with the family of the +MacLaines, the chief interest of Lochbuie for a lover of literature, +centres round the visit of Boswell and Johnson. In one of the rooms of +the castle there is a fine portrait of Johnson. On looking at it, my +mind reverted to the amusing question addressed to the sage by the +"bluff, comely, noisy old gentleman" who was the laird of Lochbuie in +1773: "Are you of the Johnstons of Glencro or of Ardnamurchan?" "Dr. +Johnson," says Boswell, "gave him a significant look, but made no +answer; and I told Lochbuie that he was not Johnston, but Johnson, and +that he was an Englishman."</p> + +<p>I regret to say that the great war saddle, which was in Lochbuie's +possession in 1773, and which Boswell did not see because the young +laird had taken it to Falkirk with a drove of black cattle, is no longer +in the island: somebody took it to America, and forgot to bring it +back.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">{307}</a></span></p> + +<p>The present laird is greatly beloved by his tenantry. At the lecture I +gave at Lochbuie, he was unable, owing to illness, to take the chair. +His absence was a terrible grief to the people, and the piper of the +family, in a brief speech, alluded in a most touching way to the sorrow +felt by all present.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></p> + + +<h3>INVERARAY CASTLE.</h3> + +<p>Three days after Johnson and his friend left Lochbuie, they were +entertained by the Duke of Argyll in Inveraray Castle. Boswell's +description of the incidents of this visit is one of his finest efforts. +He tells us that Johnson admired the "utter defiance of expense" shown +by the Duke in the building and appointments of the place. Records exist +which show that the masons were paid at the rate of 4½d. a day, +<i>plus</i> a weekly bonus of meal!</p> + + + +<p>It is interesting to note that the Rev. John Macaulay (grandfather of +Lord Macaulay) was one of the ministers of Inveraray in 1773. Boswell +gives him a very high character, but this had no emollient effect on the +great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">{308}</a></span> historian, when he came to review <i>Croker's Edition of Boswell's +Johnson</i>.</p> + +<p>Inveraray Castle is a superb object-lesson in Scotch history. All the +Campbells of note for centuries past are hanging on the walls, from the +old Duke who passed away last, to the squinting Marquis (<i>Gleed Argyll</i> +mentioned in the "Bonnie House o' Airlie"), who was beheaded on the +Castle Hill of Edinburgh in 1661. The Duke, who commanded at Sheriffmuir +("when we ran and they ran, and they ran and we ran," etc.) is standing +in his accoutrements of pride, painted by the son of Allan Ramsay:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Argyll the State's whole thunder, born to wield<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And shake alike the Senate and the Field."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Mediæval armour, firelocks from Culloden, flags from a score of +battlefields, mutely suggest the glory and gore of the olden times. It +is impossible to walk through the rooms of such a place without feeling +intimately in touch with the events of the past.</p> + +<p>The present hotel is the one in which Johnson and his biographer lodged. +Burns came sixteen years later, and wrote on the pane of his bedroom +window the scandalous epigram on Inveraray so often quoted. The present +Duke (who has perpetrated a fair amount of poetry himself) would give +much of his odd cash to recover that pane, which was cut out some years +ago by a pilfering visitor.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">{309}</a></span></p> + + + +<h3>THE SACRED ISLE.</h3> + +<p>Wordsworth came to Iona (which also belongs to the Argyll family) in +1833, and wrote four poor sonnets on the sacred isle. This is what he +saw:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">"To each voyager<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some ragged child holds up for sale a store<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of wave-worn pebbles, pleading on the shore<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where once came monk and nun with gentle stir."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Owing to its ecclesiastical renown as the cradle of Christianity in +Britain, no island is so much visited as Iona. The audience I addressed +was the most miscellaneous I have ever seen: there were boatmen and +barristers, anglers and artists, curates and crofters, French and +Germans.</p> + +<p>The present-day natives seem desirous of keeping up the old reputation +for theology. The boatman who ferries visitors ashore, remarked to me +with pride that his favourite book was one entitled <i>The Great +Controversy between God and the Devil</i>, a book with which I was, and am +still, unacquainted.</p> + +<p>Dr. Johnson's remarks on Iona remain the most eloquent tribute to the +island. He never wrote any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">{310}</a></span>thing finer. All the children in the Iona +school should be made to learn the piece by heart.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a></p> + +<p>It is most gratifying to think that Christianity has been the great +purifying force in Europe. The introduction of Christianity into the +world must be reckoned as the most revolutionary event of history. +Nothing was ever more needed. To one who knows the morality of the most +brilliant society of the Greeks and Romans, there is no need to extol +the pure and lofty moral tone of Jesus of Nazareth. But those who have +not read the masterpieces of ancient art, with their mingled beauty and +foulness, may be assured that literature owes more to Christianity than +has ever yet been told. With Christianity a great healthy breeze swept +over the world. Men became ashamed of wallowing in the mire. An ideal +was raised up before them for their worship and imitation. The old Adam +and his deeds needed stern repression after the wild iniquities of the +effete society of imperial Rome. The spirit needed to curb the flesh, +literature needed to be cleansed. We, living to-day and nursed on the +accumulated tradition of so many anterior Christian centuries, are +sometimes disposed to minimise the debt we owe, in pure and simple<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">{311}</a></span> +morality, to the teachings of the New Testament. I find it impossible to +imagine what the world would be without these teachings. They renewed +the world, they made it do penance for its sins, they made advance +practicable. An entirely retrograde movement is impossible when once man +is indoctrinated with a grand ideal.</p> + + + +<h3>APPIN.</h3> + +<p>In this chapter (as, indeed, in all the others) I am rummaging among my +souvenirs for materials that are in some way noteworthy. It is utterly +impossible to exhaust the romance and glamour of the Highlands. Those +who go regularly North are certain to bring back, on each occasion, a +host of interesting memories. "Swift as a weaver's shuttle fly our +years": the chief difficulty is to jot down all that one sees and hears.</p> + +<p>On the occasion of my second visit to Appin, I stayed in the fine new +hotel built on the eminence called Druim-an-t-Sealbhain. The landlord is +a man of great wit and reading, and with him I had some enjoyable hours +of miscellaneous conversation. Mr. Macdonald (for that is his name) has +an excellent knowledge of the Celtic dialects, has translated into +Gaelic verse some of the best-known poems of Burns, Tannahill, and +Byron, and is extremely clever at retailing the legendary tales that +still go rumouring along the Strath of Appin. He has also a good +knowledge of English literature, and told me certain details regarding +Scott and Wordsworth which I was pleased to know.</p> + +<p>It seems that Sir Walter was at one time tutor in Appin House, and was +in the habit of visiting the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">{312}</a></span> cot of an old shepherd, a notorious +<i>seanachie</i>, full of romantic lore, for the purpose of hearing, and +writing down, the old man's tales. An oak tree is still pointed out, +under which, it is said, Scott composed part of <i>The Lord of the Isles</i>. +Appin is not very far from the castles of Dunollie and Dunstaffnage, +which Sir Walter wrought skilfully into the texture of his tales.</p> + +<p>The most interesting item mentioned by Mr. Macdonald had reference to +the visit of William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy, in the year +1803. Everyone who has read the life of the great poet of Nature knows +the charming description of the district contained in one of his +sister's letters. "We arrived," she says, "at Port-na-croish. It is a +small village—a few huts and an indifferent inn, by the side of the +loch; ordered a fowl for dinner, had a fire lighted, and went a few +steps from the door up the road, and turning aside into a field, stood +at the top of a low eminence, from which, looking down the loch to the +sea through a long vista of hills and mountains, <i>we beheld one of the +most delightful prospects that, even when we dream of fairer worlds than +this, it is possible to conceive in our hearts</i>." Here follows a +description so exquisite of the sea-scenery and the Morven Hills, that +it deserves to be classed with the finest examples of word-painting in +the English language.</p> + +<p>The new hotel at Appin is built on the low eminence referred to in the +above-cited letter. The name Druim-an-t-Sealbhain is giving way to the +complimentary title of "Dorothy Wordsworth's View." From the front +windows of the hotel, the same calm inland seas, grassy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">{313}</a></span> hills, Morven +mists, grim old forts, and intricate communion of land and water, can be +seen precisely as they were seen by the Wordsworths more than a century +ago. The Port-na-croish inn has become a village store: it is well +worthy of note, not merely for the reference in the letter, but for a +fine legend, which I shall now narrate.</p> + + +<h3>MACDONALD'S GRATITUDE.</h3> + +<p>The first tenant of the inn was a Macdonald of Glencoe, a man between +sixty and seventy at the time of the story, the year 1755 namely. He had +around him a family of stalwart sons, all imbued with intense hatred of +the clan Campbell. The peculiar and fiendish malignity of the terrible +massacre of Glencoe precluded all possibility of forgiveness on the part +of the clan. Highland hospitality has always been a lavish and +magnificent thing, and Colonel Campbell and his assassins had been +treated with exceptional kindness in Glencoe. The bloody outrage, in a +midnight of winter snows, was too terrible a meed of hospitality to be +readily forgotten or forgiven by the Macdonalds. This old innkeeper of +Port-na-croish, then, hated the Campbells with the unquenchable hate +that deep wrongs, done not alone to an individual but to a tribe, +engender in the Celtic soul.</p> + +<p>One day a white-bearded wayfarer begged food and shelter in the little +hostel, and in the course of conversation over the meal that was soon +spread on the board for his wants, he let slip an avowal that, in his +youth, as one of Campbell's men, he had taken part in the gruesome +massacre of the "valley of weeping." Without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">{314}</a></span> more ado, the landlord +slipped out and posted his sons at the door, with whispered orders to +them that the stranger should be dirked to death on crossing the +threshold of the inn. Returning indoors, old Macdonald, dissimulating +his fell intentions, proceeded to ply the visitor with question upon +question, so as to gain a detailed knowledge of all the incidents of the +weird carnage. Finally he said, "Tell me, Campbell, what part of that +devilish business made the strongest impression on your mind?" "I will +tell you," said the old soldier, "what to me was the outstanding +incident of that night. Towards the close of the massacre, a child's +voice was heard piercingly on the night air—a scream it was, and seemed +to come from no great distance. The captain sent me in the direction of +the sound, bidding me, if the child should be a male Macdonald, to kill +it forthwith; if a girl, to spare. I soon came up to the place whence +the sound proceeded, and saw through the whirling snow, under the +protection of a jutting cliff, a nurse with a boy of four years old, +both of them wailing and shivering with cold. The child was gnawing a +bone and, near by, a dog was crouching. Pity wrung my heart. I drove my +bayonet through the trembling cur, and, going back to the captain, +showed him the bloody steel as a proof that I had obeyed his commands."</p> + +<p>The innkeeper, who had been all ears, said: "You, then, were that +soldier?" "I was, indeed," replied the old wanderer. "<i>And I was that +child!</i>" said the landlord, "and <i>your</i> life is saved. My sons stand at +the threshold of the inn, ready to fall upon you when you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">{315}</a></span> leave. I +countermand the order for your destruction. Here you shall stay, an +honoured guest, till the end of your days, as a recompense for saving my +life on that awful night."</p> + +<p>The story goes on to state that the foot-weary Campbell lived for some +years a pensioner in Port-na-croish inn, and was buried at the expense +of the grateful innkeeper. I do not know any story that comes nearer +perfection.</p> + + +<h3>NOTES ON THE TROSSACHS.</h3> + +<p>The Rev. Mr. Wilson, the cultured and genial minister of the Trossachs, +has recently published a most readable little book on the district he +knows so well. Perhaps no district indeed on the world's surface is so +well known (even to those who have never seen it), as the Trossachs. +Little did Sir Walter suspect, when he penned the stirring iambics of +<i>The Lady of the Lake</i>, that he was furnishing materials to the +pedagogue which would be parsed, analysed, and dissected by myriads of +pupils in all the schools of the British Empire. We shall all carry with +us to the grave the leading passages of that romantic lay: the +stag-hunt, the duel at Coilantogle Ford, the whistle that garrisoned the +glen, and the episode of the Fiery Cross. Such lines, we may say, have +gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. +Happening to pass Strathyre station in July, 1907, I was requested by a +bright-eyed little Japanese gentleman in the compartment to tell him +where we were. On being informed, he (after casting an eye of pity on +the deplorable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">{316}</a></span> stork that is supposed to decorate the drinking-fountain +of the station), began to declaim, in capital English, the passage that +begins—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Benledi saw the Cross of Fire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It glanced like lightning up Strathyre,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er dale and hill the summons flew,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor rest nor pause young Angus knew;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The tear that gathered in his eye<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He left the mountain breeze to dry."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Mr. Wilson's book to which I have alluded is a collection of the +impressions written down by eminent visitors to the locality, from +Dorothy Wordsworth to Queen Victoria. Carlyle, who was in Perthshire in +1818, wrote the following note, which, though short, is finely +characteristic of him: "The Trossachs I found really grand and +impressive, Loch Katrine exquisitely so, my first taste of the beautiful +in scenery. Not so, any of us, the dirty, smoky farm-hut at the +entrance, with no provision in it but bad oatcakes and unacceptable +whisky, or the Mrs. Stewart who somewhat royally presided over it, and +dispensed these dainties, expecting to be flattered like an +independency, as well as paid like an innkeeper." The foregoing note, by +itself, is good value for the cost of Mr. Wilson's book (two shillings, +namely), and raises regrets that the author of <i>Sartor</i> did not travel +oftener through the Land of Cakes. (The only other place in the +Highlands where I have heard Carlyle spoken of, is Kyleakin in Skye, +where he was the guest of Lady Ashburton, and where (as the natives +say), the cocks and hens had to be removed out of ear-shot for his +convenience.)<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">{317}</a></span></p> + +<p>One of Mr. Wilson's stories (contributed by a lady) is apposite at the +present time, when so much is being heard of women's rights. Glengyle, a +district of the Trossachs, was once <i>entirely ruled</i> by a number of +women, who constituted a sort of High Court with women as Judge and +Jury. "The most notorious case which they dealt with, and which probably +led to their downfall through drawing the ridicule of the country upon +them, was a case of horse-stealing. The accused man had been seen riding +furiously away on someone else's horse, and all evidence pointed to his +guilt. To the astonishment of the outsiders, the jury returned a verdict +of 'not guilty,' and the Judge on summing up declared the horse was the +culprit, as it had run away with the man. <i>She condemned the unfortunate +animal to be hanged, and hanged it was, while the man got off scot +free.</i>"</p> + + +<h3>LOCHFYNE-SIDE.</h3> + +<p>None of the mainland counties of Scotland can boast of such wonderful +ramifications of sea and loch as the county of Argyll. The present +amiable and cultured head of the Clan Campbell declaimed, with great +applause, at a social gathering not long ago, a fine poem, in which the +beauties of his ancestral shire were floridly—but not +unjustly—elaborated. It would be difficult to over-praise the county of +Argyll, with its splendid sea-board, its rugged and impressive peaks, +and its unrivalled fiords and lakes. Thanks to its proximity to large +centres of population, few counties are so much visited. Its fame, in +our day, is likely to be more widespread than ever, owing to the +graceful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">{318}</a></span> and entertaining writings of Mr. Neil Munro, who probably +knows the details of its local history better than any man living, and +who possesses the inimitable art of interesting others in his +delineations of the past. I confess that I feel, personally, as much +interest in the Wars of Lorn as I do in the Siege of Sphacteria, and +that "Glee'd Argyll" seems fully as attractive as Cleon or Brasidas.</p> + +<p>Of course, long before Mr. Munro, Loch Fyne had a European reputation, +which it owed to its herring. The Popes of Rome used to eat these +herring in mediæval times, and sent for them <i>viâ</i> Amsterdam or Antwerp. +Orthodox Catholics have always had good judgment in the matter of fish, +and especially the French, who belong to a country which proudly boasts +of being <i>the eldest daughter of the Church</i>. For many a generation the +French came annually to Lochgilphead, and bartered their kegs of claret +for barrels of salt herring. The French Revolution, among its many other +effects, put a stop to this trade. War lasted for so many years between +Britain and France, that, at the end of it all, the continental sailors +had forgotten the way to Loch Fyne.</p> + +<p>Argyllshire is rich in legends, for many of which no date can be given +except the elastic one <i>long ago</i> or <i>in byegone times</i>. Let me cite one +or two of these:—</p> + + +<h4>MACIVORS, MACVICARS, AND MACALLISTERS.</h4> + +<p>On the road to Kilmartin is a place called the Robber's Den, the +locality of which may be firmly fixed in the tourist's memory by noting +that it is just<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">{319}</a></span> behind a large distillery. Here, long ago, lived one +Macvicar, whose wife was a Macivor. These names are important, and so +also is that of the Macallisters of Tarbert, who one day stole cattle +belonging to the Macivors. Mrs. Macvicar noticed these Tarbert +scoundrels driving her father's cattle through the glen, and mentioned +the fact to her boy. Young Macvicar followed the robbers, and found them +in a forest feeding joyously on a slain bullock belonging to his +grandfather. As each Macallister finished picking a bone, he would throw +it violently against a big stone, remarking at the same time, with a +chuckle: "<i>If a Macivor were here, that's how I would treat him</i>." The +boy, from his hiding-place in the foliage, threw a stone and struck one +of the feasters. The injured man blamed one of his own clansmen, and, +after much recrimination, a free fight of Macallisters was the result. +During the mêlée, the boy slunk off and told his mother's family what +was happening. The Macivors, in a furious and determined band, soon fell +upon their disordered foes, and completely routed them and regained +their cattle, <i>minus</i> the consumed bullock. The chief of the +Macallisters was slain by a woman, who took off her stocking, placed a +<i>large stone therein</i>, and heaved it at his head. That same night, Mrs. +Macallister, wife of the chieftain thus ignominiously laid low, gave +birth, perhaps prematurely, to a son, whom the care of a discriminate +midwife secreted from the vengeance of the Macivors, who were howling +all round the house. This child grew up to manhood with the picture of +the stone-laden stocking ever before his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">{320}</a></span> mind's eye. He prepared a most +effective retaliation: he sent to Ireland and got over a large band of +Antrim men, who were quite pleased to help him in his bloody projects. +The Macivors were completely overpowered, and even the Macvicars had a +taste of Irish steel. Macvicar, father of the boy who distinguished +himself in the wood, was attacked in his own house. He was an athlete of +great powers, and was <i>able to jump thirty feet either in a backward or +a forward direction</i>. The Irishmen set fire to his house, and +Macvicar—hoping, no doubt, to make a final leap for life—tried to +escape by the chimney. His foes struck him on the knee with a spear: he +fell into their hands, and was at once despatched.</p> + + +<h4>RED HECTOR.</h4> + +<p>We hear a good deal of the Irish in the traditions of Argyllshire. The +ruthless Colkitto, notorious for his own deeds and also for Milton's +mention of him, brought over a contingent of men from Ireland to help +Montrose in the Royalist wars. These auxiliaries swooped down on +Kintyre, murdered hundreds of Campbells, and devastated with fire and +sword the whole of Argyll's country. To this period belongs the story of +Red Hector and the Irish colossus, Phadrig Mor.</p> + +<p>Hector was a little, red-haired kern of the Campbell clan, who was +caught by Colkitto's men skulking in the wood, and dragged with pinioned +arms before the son of that bandit. Hector was about to be hanged +without more ado, but as preparations were being made he cried out: +"<i>Give me a sword and I'll fight any one of you. If I am beaten, kill me +then.</i>" The Irishmen, to whom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">{321}</a></span> an "illigant foight" has always been +welcome, agreed to the proposal of Red Hector. They chose Phadrig Mor, a +fierce giant of a man, to fight with the little fellow. The latter, to +neutralise the advantages of Phadrig's stature, leapt nimbly on the sawn +stump of a tree, and, in an attitude of defence, awaited the oncoming of +his foe. The wee man parried most dexteriously every blow that Phadrig +wished to deal, and there was much mirth and excitement among the +spectators. At length, seeing a terrific blow coming his way, Hector +speedily leapt off the trunk of the tree, and the Irishman's sword came +fiercely down and was embedded in the timber. Now was Hector's chance: +he laid about the defenceless giant to such purpose that Phadrig was +soon a corpse.</p> + + +<h4>MACPHAIL OF COLONSAY.</h4> + +<p>Leyden, the polyglott poet, has written a poem on an Argyllshire +tradition attaching to the whirlpool of Corryvreckan. Near that dreaded +tumult of waters, Macphail, a Colonsay man, was pulled out of his boat +by a mermaid, and taken down to her shell-strewn chamber at the bottom +of the sea. They stayed for years together, and five little, unbaptized +Macphails claimed him at length as their sire. By and by he grew tired +of the eternal swirling of the currents, the saltwater garden growths, +and the irritating deflection of the sunlight. His mind continued to +revert to Colonsay and the girl he had left behind him there. One day he +got the mermaid to take him near the strand of his native island, +whereupon he suddenly leapt ashore and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">{322}</a></span> escaped. In future years he +avoided the sea as much as possible, preferring to devote his time and +talents to cultivating the soil of Colonsay.</p> + + +<h3>TALES FROM SPEYSIDE.</h3> + +<p>Part of my purpose in this chapter is to show to any of my readers who +may have poetical talents, that abundance of material for verse, and +that of the most pathetic, thrilling, and gruesome kind, is still to be +found in the North country. No one since Scott has thought fit to draw +much on traditions of the Highlands: and though Scott poetised a great +many of these, plenty of them still remain unsung. Many fine tales are +associated with the delightful district of Speyside.</p> + + +<h4>TOM EUNAN!</h4> + +<p>Near the little village of Kincraig is a queer old church built on a +hill called Tom Eunan, just beside the Spey. This church is declared to +be the only one in Scotland in which services have been continuously +held since the seventh century. The outside is antique in the extreme; +inside, there have been renovations: there is a deal of varnished +wainscoating that would have scared the Culdees, and instead of the +uneven cobble stones of old, there is a modern floor of wood. On one of +the windows of the church, there is a fine old bronze bell that exists +as a relic of Culdee times. Some profane person once laid hands on this +bell and carried it off to Perth; but it <i>would not</i> ring away from +Speyside. To speak figuratively, the bell was broken-hearted: from its +metallic tongue, night and day, came the mournful wail, "Tom Eunan, Tom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">{323}</a></span> +Eunan." I am happy to say that it was brought back to its beloved +hillock.</p> + +<p>Rural churches with earthen floors were not uncommon in Scotland even in +the nineteenth century: in such there would be no great trouble in +interring the dead. Two Speyside stories, dealing with kirks and +kirkyards, are told of the Grants of Rothiemurchus.</p> + + +<h4>SHAWS AND GRANTS.</h4> + +<p>For several generations the possession of Rothiemurchus was a constant +subject of dispute between the Shaws and the Grants. The Shaws were the +original owners, but having waxed fat and kicked against the Government +on more than one occasion, word was sent from Edinburgh to one of the +Grants, who was Laird of Muckerach, that he should dispossess the Shaws +of the lands of Rothiemurchus, <i>gin he could</i>. Grant was by no means +"blate" in availing himself of the hint, but the Shaws were tough +fighters. In a final and decisive contest between the two clans, the +Grants were victorious and the chief of the Shaws slain. The victorious +Muckerach, now unequivocal Laird of Rothiemurchus, caused his dead rival +to be buried deep down within the kirk beneath his own seat. Every +Sunday <i>when he went to pray</i> he stamped his feet triumphantly upon the +place under which lay the corpse of his enemy.</p> + +<p>Patrick Grant, surnamed Macalpine, cuts a rather picturesque figure in +clan history. With a body of gaily-dressed retainers he paraded round +the countryside, dispensing justice and letting the minimum of time +elapse between the sentence and the execution.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">{324}</a></span> He was twice married, +and his second wife survived him. That forlorn lady had much to endure +from the first family, and notably from the wife of Macalpine's eldest +son and heir. The widow took a very dramatic way of publicly showing her +grievances. Once after the service in the kirk was over, she stepped up, +with her fan in her hand, to the corner of the kirkyard, and, taking off +her high-heeled slipper, she tapped with it on the stone laid over her +husband's grave, crying out through her tears, "<i>Macalpine! Macalpine! +rise up for ae half-hour and see me richted!</i>"</p> + +<p>A diverting legend explains the <i>low-lying situation of Ballindalloch +Castle</i>, a beautiful specimen of baronial architecture, standing near +the junction of the Spey and the Avon. In planning the place, somewhere +about 1545, the laird fully intended to secure a wide prospect, and to +that end, chose a commanding site. But his views did not commend +themselves to the Powers of the Air, and the masons could make no +progress. Every night, when the workers had retired from building the +walls, a prodigious gale came roaring from the summit of Ben Rinnes and +swept stones and mortar into the bed of the Avon. The laird, sorely +puzzled at this strange phenomenon, lay in watch one night, with the +result that he was blown off his feet, and landed right up among the +branches of a holly-tree. Having taken the conceit out of the laird in +this abrupt way, the Mysterious Power, chuckling in fiendish fashion, +called out "<i>Build on the cow-haugh</i>." Frightened out of his wits, the +laird was only too glad to comply.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">{325}</a></span></p> + + +<h4>THE WISHING WELL.</h4> + +<p>Round the old Castle of Rothes clings a legend of a more pathetic kind. +"Fierce wars and faithful loves shall moralise my song," says Spenser, +and it is with these well-worn but ever-fresh subjects that the story +deals. The heiress of one of the old lairds of Rothes, being allowed to +roam at will with her foster-mother, cast an eye of love on the son of +the laird of Arndilly. As in ballad lore, the love seems to have been +immediate, reciprocal, and unquenchable. The girl's father, hearing of +the attachment, summarily forbade it, and commanded his daughter to turn +her back on young Arndilly, and take a different road in future. But as +journeys end in lovers meeting, the two young people, by whatever way +they set out, invariably met at the <i>Wishing Well</i>. A sad severance +came, however, for young Arndilly, like so many mediæval knights of song +who had faithful mistresses, must needs go crusading to the Holy Land. +During his absence, the lady hied daily to the Wishing Well, and many a +tear she let fall therein as she thought of the lad that was so far +away. But after many a month, back from Palestine came young Arndilly, +and went, of course, straight to the old trysting-place, where he found +his lady-love praying for his safe return. The meeting was rapturous but +tragically short. A dark shape glided upon the scene, and drove a fatal +dirk in the young soldier's back. The lady shrieked aloud and swooned +away. For the rest of her life she was an imbecile: she never left the +castle, and spent her time crooning a plaintive song and rocking a +cradle. Her ghost still haunts the place, and those who have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">{326}</a></span> ears to +hear can, at nightfall, make out, above the sough of the wind, the +mournful notes of a weird lullaby, and mysterious cradle-rockings within +the ruined walls. Close by the Well, at the spot of the murder, a bush +sprang up, whereof the leaves resembled crosses; in autumn they turned +to a bright scarlet colour, as if typical of the blood that had flowed +there from its victim's wounds. Others will have it that the lady's +ghost may be seen flitting about, distractedly, in the woods, on a +particular night of the year—the anniversary, it is supposed, of +Arndilly's murder.</p> + + +<h3>OSSIAN AND MACPHERSON.</h3> + +<p>The beautiful little town of Kingussie is famous for its association +with "Ossian" Macpherson, who was born near by. No man, born on Scottish +earth, except perhaps, Sir Walter Scott, had ever such an influence on +European literature as this Highland dominie. "His Ossian," as Professor +Macmillan Brown says, "was translated into almost every European +language; and its influence is apparent in Goethe's Werther, in +Schiller's Robbers, and in all the Storm-and-Stress literature of +Germany, in the productions and speeches of the French Revolutionists, +in the romantic literary movement that preceded and followed the +Revolution, and in much of the Italian, Spanish, and Danish poetry of +the time. It generally affected the prose style of eighteenth century +romance, and was a direct antidote to Johnsonianism in the imaginative +literature. In our own century it bent the genius of Scott to the +Highlands, and moulded the dramas of Byron, and the often vague<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">{327}</a></span> imagery +of Shelley; it appears in the style of Kingsley's Hereward, and directly +or indirectly it is responsible for the pioneering efforts of Walt +Whitman in prose poetry and for the rapid growth of poetic prose through +De Quincey, Bulwer Lytton, and Ruskin. During last century it stirred +Blake to misty prophecies, led writers of romance back into the less +known periods of the past, and gave the new audience a delight in +mysterious and almost formless legend and tale and idea."</p> + +<p>The extraordinary vogue of Macpherson's Ossianic poems was due to +literary merit of a high order, and also to the parched and dry state +into which the poetry of Europe had sunk in the middle of the eighteenth +century. Boileau and his rules had crushed all sap and life out of +European verse, and the poet had become either a teacher of rimed ethics +or a framer of dexterous satire. How refreshing Ossian must have been to +the men of such a time:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The hills were round them, and the breeze<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Went o'er the sun-lit fields again;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their foreheads felt the wind and rain."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Let the modern reader go through the <i>Rape of the Lock</i>, and then take +up the song of the hunter Shilric from Macpherson's "Carric-thura."</p> + +<p>Shilric, not knowing that his love Vinvela is dead, thus communes with +himself:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"I sit by the mossy mountain; on the top of the hill of winds. +One tree is rustling above me. Dark waves roll over the heath. +The lake is troubled below. The deer descend from the hill. No +hunter at a distance is seen.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">{328}</a></span> It is mid-day; but all is silent. +Sad are my thoughts alone. Didst thou but appear, O my love! a +wanderer on the heath! thy hair floating on the wind behind +thee; thy bosom heaving on the sight; thine eyes full of tears +for thy friends, whom the mist of the hill had concealed! Thee I +would comfort, my love, and bring thee to thy father's house!"</p></div> + +<p>To him mourning thus, the spirit of his dead love appears:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"But is it she that there appears, like a beam of light on the +heath? bright as the moon in autumn, as the sun in a +summer-storm, comest thou, O maid, over rocks, over mountains to +me? She speaks: but how weak her voice! like the breeze in the +reeds of the lake.</p> + +<p>"'Alone I am, O Shilric! alone in the winter-house. With grief +for thee I fell. Shilric, I am pale in the tomb.'</p> + +<p>"She fleets, she sails away; as mist before the wind! and wilt +thou not stay, Vinvela? Stay and behold my tears! fair thou +appearest, Vinvela! fair thou wast, when alive!</p> + +<p>"By the mossy mountain I will sit; on the top of the hill of +winds. When mid-day is silent around, O talk with me, Vinvela! +come on the light-winged gale! on the breeze of the desert, +come! Let me hear thy voice, as thou passest, when mid-day is +silent around.'"</p></div> + +<p>The readers of the eighteenth century did not stay to consider whether +the foregoing was, or was not, a genuine antique: it suited their taste +admirably. Rousseau had brought sentimentalism into favour; the "return +to nature" was a kind of creed with the French<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">{329}</a></span> philosophers: these +facts aided greatly in causing the epidemic of Ossianism that overran +Europe.</p> + +<p>I should not like to be condemned to read nothing but Ossian for a year. +The short staccato sentences, the difficulty of getting hold of anything +definite amid so many moonbeams, gliding ghosts, whistling reeds, and +feasts of shells, has a very debilitating effect on the mind. There is +too much weeping: one is constantly saying with Tennyson, "Tears, idle +tears, I know not what they mean." Yet, no one can dip into Macpherson +without being rewarded by some phrase of an impressive or refreshing +kind, <i>e.g.</i>:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Thou art with the years that are gone; thou fadest on my soul."</p></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Why dost thou build the hall, son of the winged days?"</p></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Her steps were like the music of songs; she saw the youth and +loved him. He was the stolen sigh of her soul."</p></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Why does Ossian sing? Soon shall he lie in the narrow house, +and no bard shall raise his fame."</p></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"When shall it be morn in the grave to bid the slumberer wake?"</p></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Mixed with the murmur of waters rose the voice of aged men, who +called the forms of night to aid them in the war."</p></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Autumn is dark on the mountains; grey mist rests on the hills."</p></div> + + +<h3>AT THE FOOT O' BENNACHIE.</h3> + +<p>I have on several occasions, during the last year or two, visited that +part of Aberdeenshire which is immediately under the glorious ridge of +Bennachie. Like all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">{330}</a></span> lovers of ballad lore, I know by heart the poem of +the little wee man who had such prowess, and who invited the poet to go +with him to his green bower. After seeing magnificent examples of +dancing, the poet found himself lying in the mist at the foot of +Bennachie:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Out went the lichts, on cam' the mist,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Leddies nor mannie mair could I see;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I turned aboot, and gave a look,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I was just at the foot o' Bennachie."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The exquisite little ballad from which I quote is calculated to raise +expectations of beauty which the picturesque surroundings of Bennachie +are well able to satisfy. Great tracts of Aberdeenshire are flat, +treeless, and painful in their monotony; in winter, great gusts sweep +the cold plains, and make driving or walking a trying ordeal; the +country is thinly peopled, and the impression of the visitor is that, in +some districts, railway stations are more numerous than villages. Round +Bennachie, however, the scenery is most pleasant and picturesque. The +villages of Oyne and Insch, in which hospitality to strangers is a +religion, are beautifully placed and well-foliaged all around. The +region is, indeed, one of romance, and the little brook of Gadie ripples +on in the radiance and glamour of pathetic song.</p> + + +<h3>HARLAW.</h3> + +<p>Those who consider, like Ruskin, that the stories of the past add no +inconsiderable item to the beauty of a landscape, as it appears to the +eye and intelligence of modern observers, will not fail to remember the +momentous issues decided at no great distance from the foot of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">{331}</a></span> +Bennachie, in 1411. Teutonic and Celtic Scotland came to grips at +Harlaw, near by:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The Hielandmen, wi' their lang swords,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">They laid on us fu' sair;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And they drave back our merry men<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Three acres' breadth and mair.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">. . . . . . . . . .<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gin anybody speer at ye<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For them we took awa',<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ye may tell them plain and very plain,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">They're sleeping at Harlaw."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Burton, in his <i>History of Scotland</i>, declares that the check given to +Donald of the Isles at Harlaw, was a greater relief to Scotland than +even Bannockburn was. If the Stuart kings, hard pressed as they were by +England on the south, had been threatened by a formidable Celtic +sovereignty on the north, Holyrood might have been in ruins a good many +centuries earlier. I am not going to shock my Highland friends by saying +it was a good thing for the country that Donald, with the remnant of his +plaids and claymores, had to retreat to the misty straths and islands of +the west. The coalition of Celt and Teuton has taken place in an +unostentatious way, to the advantage of both races: Macfadyen does not +now, as in the days of Dunbar, bide "<i>far norrart in a neuk</i>;" he has +come to the Lowlands long ago, and rarely goes North, except on holiday. +And the language, which to the finical ears of James Fourth's +poet-laureate, seemed too terrible even for the devil to tolerate, has +come south, too, and has a chair all to itself in the University of +Edinburgh. <i>Time</i>, says<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">{332}</a></span> Sophocles, <i>is a god who performs difficult +things with ease</i>.</p> + +<p>Mention of Harlaw suggests a comic tale told to the credit of the +Provost of Inverness. That gentleman, on being threatened with a +predatory visit from Donald in 1400, took the remarkable plan of sending +an ample supply of Inverness whisky into the Celtic camp. The men of +Lewis and Skye tackled the liquid bounty with great glee, and soon were +in a state of maudlin intoxication. The wily Provost meanwhile collected +a force and attacked Donald's men, who (as they magnified the attacking +host to <i>double its real numbers</i>) were easily scared and routed. At +Harlaw, eleven years later, the Provost of Aberdeen, evidently a man who +lacked the resource of the chief magistrate of Inverness, was killed, +and 500 men with him.</p> + + +<h3>LOCHABER REIVERS.</h3> + +<p>The predatory habits of the Highlanders gave great trouble to the +Aberdeenshire farmers <i>for fully three hundred years after Harlaw</i>. In +1689 a dozen wild Lochaber men came right down into the heart of +Aberdeenshire and lifted six score of black cattle. The fate of the +marauders is thus described by the author of <i>Johnny Gibb</i>:—</p> + +<p>"They were pursued by a body of nearly 50 horsemen, well mounted and +armed, and each carrying bags of meal and other provisions, both for +their own support, and to offer in ransom for the cattle, if peaceful +negotiations could be carried through. On through the hills, over +marshes, rocks, and heather, the spirited<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">{333}</a></span> horsemen followed, under +their leader; and guided by a herd-boy whom they encountered, they +traced the robbers by Loch Ericht side into the heart of their own +country. At nightfall, they came upon them at Dalunchart, encamped and +busily engaged roasting a portion of the flesh of one of the cattle they +had stolen. They offered, after some parley, to give each of the +freebooters a bag of meal and a pair of shoes in ransom for the cattle. +The Highlanders treated such an offer for cattle driven so far and with +so much trouble with contempt; the herd was gathered in, and the fight +began in deep earnest, the result being that the Lochaber men were all +shot down, killed or wounded, except three, who escaped unhurt to tell +the tale; and the cattle were, of course, recovered."</p> + + +<h3>REAY AND TWICKENHAM.</h3> + +<p>Perhaps the least attractive of the Scotch counties, in respect of +scenery, is Caithness. The North-going train enters it a little after +Helmsdale, and from thence to Thurso the journey is of a most dreary and +depressing character. He who wishes to see the romantic part of the +county should quit the train at Helmsdale, and go right to John o' +Groats by the shore road: thereafter he should proceed along the line of +the Pentland Firth to the dainty town of Thurso and to the village of +Reay, the citadel of the Mackays. The district round Reay is a +delightful one, and has great historical interest.</p> + +<p>Some good examples of the power assumed of old by the country ministers +are furnished by a perusal of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">{334}</a></span> life of an eighteenth century +minister, the Rev. Alexander Pope, who was stationed for many years in +Reay. He was a huge giant of a man, and invariably carried about with +him a nail-studded cudgel that was a terror to sinners. A lout of a +fellow in his parish refused to come to church and get rebuked for an +infringement of the usual commandment. Mr. Pope sent three elders with +ropes to pinion the adulterer, hale him to church, and fasten him to a +conspicuous pew right under the pulpit. The minister cannonaded the +culprit to his heart's content, beginning thus: "<i>Shame, shame, son of a +beggar, where art thou now?</i>"</p> + +<p>Another parishioner who neglected family worship on the ground that he +could not make up a prayer, was severely taken to task by Mr. Pope, who +gave the man a year within which to manufacture one. At the end of the +twelvemonth, Mr. Pope called and requested to hear the prayer. The man +glibly rattled off a long succession of phrases that did not please the +minister at all. "That won't do," he said, "you must prepare over +again." "And is all my long labour to go for nothing," said the man, +"all my year's toil? No, no: rather than lose my labour, I'll <i>break the +prayer up and make two graces of it</i>." For the rest of his life, as the +story runs, he did actually employ the two parts of his mutilated prayer +as Grace before and Grace after meat respectively. Could there be a +finer example of natural thrift in the spiritual world?</p> + +<p>An Inverness journalist, Mr. Carruthers, wrote a life of the great poet, +Alexander Pope, in which occurs the following curious note respecting +the minister of Reay,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">{335}</a></span> just mentioned: "The northern Alexander Pope +entertained a profound admiration for his illustrious namesake of +England; and it is a curious and well-ascertained fact that the simple +enthusiastic clergyman, in the summer of 1732, rode on his pony all the +way from Caithness to Twickenham, in order to pay the poet a visit. The +latter felt his dignity a little touched by the want of the necessary +pomp and circumstance with which the minister presumed to approach his +domicile; but after the ice of ceremony had in some degree been broken, +and their intellects had come in contact, the poet became interested, +and a friendly feeling was established between them. Several interviews +took place, and the poet presented his good friend and namesake, the +minister of Reay, with a copy of the subscription edition of the +'Odyssey' in five volumes quarto."</p> + +<p>A grandson of the Reay minister, a Mr. James Campbell of Edinburgh, gave +a description to Mr. Carruthers of a snuff-box which the poet had +presented to the Rev. Mr. Pope. A series of letters to the <i>Northern +Ensign</i>, in April, 1883, brought out the information that a Wick +gentleman, Mr. Duncan, had in his possession two volumes of de Vertot's +<i>History of the Roman Republic</i>, bearing an inscription to the effect +that they had been presented by the poet of Twickenham to his northern +namesake.</p> + +<p>It has been suggested that the poet and the minister were distant +blood-relations. Mr. Campbell, alluded to above, said that "the two +Popes claimed kin." In any case, the friendship of the two men, one +living on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">{336}</a></span> the shores of the wild Pentland Firth, in sight of the +Orkneys, and the other not far "from streaming London's central roar," +is pleasant to think of. In 1737, Pope wrote the lines—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Loud as the wolves on Orca's stormy steep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Howl to the roarings of the northern deep,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>adding, in a note, that he refers to "the farthest northern promontory +of Scotland, opposite to the Orcades." Perhaps his mind reverted to the +burly incumbent of Reay as he penned the note.</p> + + +<h3>ROB DONN.</h3> + +<p>The little township of Reay is less famous for the Rev. Mr. Pope's +incumbency than for the fact of Rob Donn, the satirical Gaelic bard, +being a native of the district. The author of the <i>Dunciad</i> is the +greatest satirist in British Literature; Rob Donn is supreme among +Gaelic bards for the sharpness of his tongue and his clever way of +showing up his contemporaries to ridicule. He was in the habit of giving +praise to people in order to make his satire more biting. Praise on his +tongue was compared to oil on the edge of a razor: the cut was all the +deeper. Rob, although a master of language, was unable to read or write, +so that though he "lisped in numbers"—he began to compose at the age of +three—he could not say, like Pope:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Why did I <i>write</i>? What sin to me unknown<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Dipt me in ink</i>, my parents' or my own?"<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">{337}</a></span></div></div> + +<p>Blackie speaks thus of him: "Rob Donn, according to all accounts, though +outwardly of such fair respectability that he attained an honour, +unknown to Robert Burns, of acting as an elder of the kirk, was not +always so chaste in his words as he might seem to be in his deeds; he +took his plash as a poet, and not always in the clearest waters; +besides, he had a terrible lash at his command, which he could wield +with an effect at times that paid little respect to the bounds set in +such matters by Christian charity, or even by social politeness. The +consequence has been that much of the wit and humour of his pieces, +however telling for its immediate purpose, has lost half of its interest +by the disappearance of the persons to whom it referred. These personal +allusions also import an additional difficulty into the language which +he uses, and cause his productions, however belauded, to be less known +amongst Highlanders generally than those of Duncan Ban and Dugald +Buchanan. Severe moralists also very properly object to the undue +license and occasional coarseness of his verses."<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">{338}</a></span></p> + + + +<h3>REV. MR. MILL OF DUNROSSNESS.</h3> + +<p>Before concluding the present chapter, I should like to refer briefly to +a valuable and amusing book (brought under my notice in Shetland) that +furnishes details of the life of Mr. Mill, minister of Dunrossness from +1742 till 1805. Mr. Mill's special talent was his unrivalled power of +exorcism: he was a strenuous foe to the devil in every shape and form, +and his life was one long battle with the Prince of Darkness. The latter +was constantly bringing into play all manner of gins, traps, and wiles +to confound the uncompromising clergyman; but, on a calm review of the +evidence, one cannot but admit that the devil was far inferior in +intelligence to his opponent.</p> + +<p>On one occasion, Satan had the effrontery to come into Dunrossness +Church and take his seat at the Communion Table. Mr. Mill at once +recognised his life-long adversary, and began to speak in all the deep +languages, and, last of all, in Gaelic, and that beat him altogether. +Satan went off like a flock of "doos" over the heads of the people, many +of whom swooned. "As a permanent reminder of the hostility cherished +against him by the Arch-Enemy, it was said that Mr. Mill always had the +wind in his face. One day he came up to officiate at Sandwick, in the +teeth, as usual, of a pretty stiff breeze. An ordinary person would +naturally have expected the wind to be on his back on the return +journey. But during the service the wind veered round. Mr. Mill's only +comment, as he started for home, was, 'It's all he can do.' In one +respect, Mr. Mill benefited by the penalty of always having the wind in +his face,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">{339}</a></span> for on his very numerous sea-journeys he could always secure +a favourable breeze <i>by sitting with his back to the head of the boat</i>."</p> + +<p>The following additional tale from Mr. Mill's biography only brings into +more striking relief the resource of the minister in all emergencies. +"One day a very respectable gentleman entered the house of a tailor in +Channerwick, and ordered a suit of clothes to be made out of cloth which +he brought with him. The tailor's delight at having such a fine +gentleman for a customer was, however, turned into perplexity and fear +as he opened up the cloth and found that the colour kept constantly +changing. He at once sent for the minister and laid the matter before +him. He was advised to spread a sheet on the floor and cut the cloth +upon it, so that none of the clippings should be scattered about the +room, and the minister said that he would be present to meet the +stranger when the latter called to get the clothes. The day came, and +when the stranger entered the house, Mr. Mill stepped forward to meet +him. A terrible controversy ensued, and the respectable-looking +gentleman was swept out of the house in a cloud of blue, sulphurous +flame. It is not recorded if he took the new suit with him. A clue to +his identification was furnished by his accidentally striking his foot +against the door-step as he departed. The result of the collision was +that a mark as of a cloven hoof was imprinted on the stone."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">{340}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">METRICAL AND SUPPLEMENTARY.</span></h2> + + +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="right">I.</td><td align="left"><a href="#ARRIVAL_OF_THE_MAIL-TRAIN_AT_A_HIGHLAND_STATION">Arrival of the Mail-train at a Highland Station.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">II.</td><td align="left"><a href="#DEFOE">Defoe, the Father of Journalism.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">III.</td><td align="left"><a href="#A_VILLAGE_TOPER">A Village Toper.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">IV.</td><td align="left"><a href="#A_REVEREND_HELLENIST">A Reverend Hellenist.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">V.</td><td align="left"><a href="#ANTIGONE">Antigone.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VI.</td><td align="left"><a href="#SHADOWS_OF_THE_MANSE">Shadows of the Manse.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#MY_HEARTS_IN_THE_HIGHLANDS">"My Heart's in the Highlands."</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VIII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#SADDELL">Saddell, Kintyre.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">IX.</td><td align="left"><a href="#SPRINGTIME_IN_PERTHSHIRE">Springtime in Perthshire.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">X.</td><td align="left"><a href="#DR_GEORGE_MACDONALDS_CREED">Dr. George Macdonald's Creed.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XI.</td><td align="left"><a href="#ABBOTSFORD">Abbotsford.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#CARLYLE">Carlyle.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XIII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#SHELLEY">Shelley.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XIV.</td><td align="left"><a href="#PICTURE_IN_AN_INN">Picture in an Inn.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XV.</td><td align="left"><a href="#RAIN-STORM_AT_LOCH_AWE">Rain-storm at Loch Awe.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XVI.</td><td align="left"><a href="#KINLOCHEWE">Kinlochewe.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XVII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#GENERAL_WADE">General Wade.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XVIII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_SOUND_OF_RAASAY_IN_DECEMBER">Sound of Raasay in December.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XIX.</td><td align="left"><a href="#LES_NEIGES_DANTAN">Les Neiges d' Antan.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XX.</td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_ISLANDS_OF_THE_NESS">The Islands of the Ness.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXI.</td><td align="left"><a href="#AMERICAN_TOURIST_LOQUITUR">American Tourist Loquitur.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_MINERS">The Miners.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXIII.</td><td align="left"><a href="#IN_A_COUNTRY_GRAVEYARD">In a Country Graveyard.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXIV.</td><td align="left"><a href="#NO_PLACE_LIKE_HOME">No Place like Home.</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">{341}</a></span></p> + + +<h3><a name="ARRIVAL_OF_THE_MAIL-TRAIN_AT_A_HIGHLAND_STATION" id="ARRIVAL_OF_THE_MAIL-TRAIN_AT_A_HIGHLAND_STATION"></a>I.<br /> +<br /> +ARRIVAL OF THE MAIL-TRAIN AT A HIGHLAND STATION.</h3> + +<div class='block'> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>Hark! 'tis the twanging horn.</i>" So Cowper sang<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the slow post-boy by the flooded Ouse;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In different fashion now the great world's news<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Goes to each nook of Britain. The harangue<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of politician; great events that hang<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In Fortune's hand, with magic speed diffuse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From London's centre to the furthest Lews,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their tingling rumour and resounding clang.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Daily along yon track of curving steels<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comes to this Highland clachan, Watt's machine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rolling in triumph on its iron wheels,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And bringing letter, journal, magazine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To kilted Celts with collies at their heels<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And frivolous tourists from the putting-green.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">{342}</a></span></div></div> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3><a name="DEFOE" id="DEFOE"></a>II.<br /> +<br /> +DEFOE<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">(FATHER OF JOURNALISM).</span></h3> + +<div class='block'> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Father of journalists! illustrious liar!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Untiring wielder of the nimblest quill<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That ever shed the stanchless inky rill<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upon the virgin whiteness of the quire.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What full and varied stores of gold and mire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Magnificence and squalor, good and ill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Prayers, curses, loyalty and treason fill<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy books! But that which children most admire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of all thy hundred volumes, is the one<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fated for ever more to charm mankind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the far Orient to the Setting Sun.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Prompt-witted Daniel! thou has left behind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upon the Sands of Time, distinctly traced,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One footmark that can never be effaced.<br /></span> +</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">{343}</a></span></div></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + + +<h3><a name="A_VILLAGE_TOPER" id="A_VILLAGE_TOPER"></a>III.<br /> +<br /> +A VILLAGE TOPER.</h3> + +<div class='block'> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">John loved strong waters and ne'er stirred his feet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Abroad in leafy spring or summer's heat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Autumnal breeze or winter's rimy chill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unsolaced by the nectar of the still.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Spirits came always kindly to his lips,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And time he measured not by hours but "nips."<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Teetotalers to him were curse and gall,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Grim Banquos at the world's wide festival,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Men, whom a weird and fate-ordainéd bale,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had smitten with the hate of cakes and ale,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A soda-water, syphon-squirting crew,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Guilty of treason to the revenue:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their lurid language and their unctuous warnings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their moral-pointings and their tale-adornings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, worst of all, their shameful <i>waste of ink</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0">In signing pledges to abstain from drink,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Proved them a witless and a churlish band,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unfit to dwell in any Christian land.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">{344}</a></span></div></div> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3><a name="A_REVEREND_HELLENIST" id="A_REVEREND_HELLENIST"></a>IV.<br /> +<br /> +A REVEREND HELLENIST.</h3> + +<div class='block'> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In that old ivied manse exists<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A scholar, wrinkled, bent, and gray,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His student lamp gleams through the mists<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And twinkles on till break of day.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">This sage is wedded to his books,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And Sultan-like his harem's full,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He dotes upon them in their nooks<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With love and joy that never cool.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">No wonder that his back is bent,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or that his eye has mystic glows,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He pores on pages redolent<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of love and love's undying rose.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">No earthly maiden, fresh and sweet,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Could please his fancy half so well<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As a Greek nymph with twinkling feet<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Skipping in some Arcadian dell.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">{345}</a></span></div></div> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3><a name="ANTIGONE" id="ANTIGONE"></a>V.<br /> +<br /> +ANTIGONE +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">(READ IN A HIGHLAND MANSE).</span></h3> + +<div class='block'> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A form of beauty blent with hardihood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Majestic as Olympus wreathed in snows,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What modern pages of romance disclose<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A radiant maiden of such dauntless mood!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet, when the tyrant strives with outrage rude<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The unyielding maid in darkness to enclose,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then, only then, her burning heart outflows<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In anguished cries of love, but unsubdued<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By baser throbbings. Ah! that nuptial hymn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unsung! that bond in death! All men agree<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To crown thee in that chamber dark and dim<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With love's immortal wreath, Antigoné.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since love and duty in thy death combine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An immortality of praise is thine.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">{346}</a></span></div></div> +</div> +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3><a name="SHADOWS_OF_THE_MANSE" id="SHADOWS_OF_THE_MANSE"></a>VI.<br /> +<br /> +SHADOWS OF THE MANSE.</h3> + +<h4>I.</h4> + +<div class='block'> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Lo! we have him of shaven face<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And curls of long and lustrous hair,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who breathes an atmosphere of grace<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And has a wondrous gift in prayer.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">You'd ne'er suspect to see him there,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shaking his head in solemn guise,<br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>The college life of deil-may-care</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Diversion that behind him lies</i>.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h4>II.</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And then the little starveling pope<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Who strives to make his sermons new<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By stringing florid scraps of hope<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And faith and love to dazzle you:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">From Stopford Brooke a phrase or two,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A gleaming line from Arnold's page,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whole screeds of Browning and a few<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stolen thunders from the Chelsea sage.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">{347}</a></span></div></div> + + +<h4>III.</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Perhaps the most diverting wight<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is he who sees in Holy Writ<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Old Jewish fables gross and trite<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To semblance of a system knit—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Fables for modern taste unfit,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Until <i>he</i> cleans the dross away<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And shows the tiny little bit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of gold that gleams amid the clay.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h4>IV.</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But worst of all is he who jests,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or tries to jest, in pulpit gown,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lord, save us from such holy pests<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Who so unseemly act the clown<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And pull the tabernacle down<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To something worse than pantomime:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On all such zanies let us frown<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And scourge them both in prose and rhyme.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">{348}</a></span></div></div> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3><a name="MY_HEARTS_IN_THE_HIGHLANDS" id="MY_HEARTS_IN_THE_HIGHLANDS"></a>VII.<br /> +<br />"MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS." +</h3> + +<div class='block'> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Puzzling over musty tomes,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">What a life to lead,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While each gay companion roams<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where his fancies lead!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">One beside a shady pool<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sweeps the wave for hours,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comes home with his basket full,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When the evening lowers.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Some more energetic wights<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Leave the level land,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mountaineer on dizzy heights,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Alpenstock in hand.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Others boat in sunny bays<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where bright sands are seen<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Glimmering amid a maze<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of tangled flowers marine.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Luck to all is what I wish<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With a meed of fun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'll row, mountaineer, and fish,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When <i>your</i> sports are done.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">{349}</a></span></div></div> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3><a name="SADDELL" id="SADDELL"></a>VIII.<br /> +<br /> +SADDELL +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">(KINTYRE).</span></h3> + +<div class='block'> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Fresh gusts of wind ripple the ocean's face,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the green slopes, after the night's soft rain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Glitter beneath the blue.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Most glorious are the sea-descending glens,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Vivid with countless ferns, and with the blaze<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of sun-enamoured broom.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The dark, tip-tilted rocks of cruel mood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Show a stern beauty through the creamy foam<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That flecks their rugged flanks.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">See, from this hill-top, how the blazing Sound<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is marked by moving shadows of the clouds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That skim aloft in air.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Through the clear radiance of the freshened morn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The eye can see the far farm-windows gleam<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Up on the Arran hills.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">{350}</a></span></div></div> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3><a name="SPRINGTIME_IN_PERTHSHIRE" id="SPRINGTIME_IN_PERTHSHIRE"></a>IX.<br /> +<br /> +SPRINGTIME IN PERTHSHIRE.</h3> + +<div class='block'> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Returning Springtime fills the woods with song—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The ring-dove, sick for love, is cooing sweet;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lark, scorning the daisies, soars to greet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sun, while the brown swarms of bees among<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The flowery meadows skim in haste along.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Once more the young year glories in the feat<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of driving winter off with vernal heat<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And tepid sap luxuriantly strong.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Winter has drawn aloof his snowy powers<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the high peaks that domineer the plain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, like a vanquished leader, grimly lowers,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From a safe distance, on the victor's reign.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">E'er many months have passed, his arrowy showers<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And gusty cohorts will descend again.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">{351}</a></span></div></div> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3><a name="DR_GEORGE_MACDONALDS_CREED" id="DR_GEORGE_MACDONALDS_CREED"></a>X.<br /> +<br /> +DR. GEORGE MACDONALD'S CREED.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">(WRITTEN AT CULLEN).</span></h3> + +<div class='block'> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">God will not suffer that a single one<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of His own creatures, in His image made,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Should die, and in irrevocable shade<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lie evermore—neglected and undone.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It is not thus a father treats his son,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And those whose folly credits it, degrade<br /></span> +<span class="i0">God's love and fatherhood, that never fade,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By lies as base as devils ever spun.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Man's love is but a pale reflex of God's,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And God <i>is</i> love, and never will condemn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beyond remission—though He school with rods—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His children, but will one day comfort them.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dives will have his drink at last, and stand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Among the faithful ones at God's right hand.<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">{352}</a></span></p> + +<h3><a name="ABBOTSFORD" id="ABBOTSFORD"></a>XI.<br /> +<br /> +ABBOTSFORD.</h3> + +<div class='block'> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Dryden and Scott, men of a giant seed!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So said I to myself, gazing upon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The pictured countenance of Glorious John,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In Abbotsford, hard by the storied Tweed.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These twain were brothers, kin in mind and deed:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Old England never had a brawnier son<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than Dryden; and in fervid Scotland none<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Better than Scott exemplified the breed.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">After five centuries of blood and hate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Britain is one leal land from north to south,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From gusty Thurso to St. Michael's Mount,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I therefore, Scot and Briton, am elate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To think that from Sir Walter's golden mouth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dryden's career received the fit account.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">{353}</a></span></div></div> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3><a name="CARLYLE" id="CARLYLE"></a>XII.<br /> +<br /> +CARLYLE +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">(AT ECCLEFECHAN).</span></h3> + +<div class='block'> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The ploughman in the loamy furrow sings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sailor whistles as he reefs the sail,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blithe is the smith as the blows fall like hail<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From his huge hammer, and the stithy rings.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Work is the sole and sovereign balm that brings<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Peace to the torpid soul when doubts assail,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And sickening pleasures are of no avail<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To lull the torture of affliction's stings.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Give me the work I love, the work I feel<br /></span> +<span class="i0">God in His Heaven has willed that I should do,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And you may offer the whole commonweal,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lands, mansions, jewels, gold, and temples too,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Vainly to me. By strenuous work alone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Man mounts on Jacob's ladder to God's throne.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">{354}</a></span></div></div> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3><a name="SHELLEY" id="SHELLEY"></a>XIII.<br /> +<br /> +SHELLEY.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></h3> + +<div class='block'> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Twas but a passing visit that he paid<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the gross air of earth, this mystic seer,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The tyrannies of sense were too severe<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For one of clay more fine than Adam's made.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The inhumanity of man, the trade<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of coining gold from the serf's groan and tear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The galling fetters of religious fear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And vain ecclesiastic masquerade<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tortured his gentle soul, and made his life<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One bitter struggle with the powers that be:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet not in vain he lived; his manful strife<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With all the deadening despotisms we see<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Will ring along the centuries, until<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Good has her final triumph over ill.<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">{355}</a></span></p> +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3><a name="PICTURE_IN_AN_INN" id="PICTURE_IN_AN_INN"></a>XIV.<br /> +<br /> +PICTURE IN AN INN.</h3> + +<div class='block'> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A wood of pines through which the setting sun<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pours from the western sky a parting flame,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beside the shore, a church called by the name<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of some old saint whose pious race was run<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Long ere schismatic Luther had begun<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To work the Pope and his disciples shame.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In earnest-seeming talk, a knight and dame<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sit in a painted galley, rowed by one<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose back is to the setting orb of day.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The soldier and his mate, their faces lit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With all love's animation and the ray<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the down-lapsing globe of crimson, sit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Together in the gilded vessel's prow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And there will sit for evermore, as now.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">{356}</a></span></div></div> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3><a name="RAIN-STORM_AT_LOCH_AWE" id="RAIN-STORM_AT_LOCH_AWE"></a>XV.<br /> +<br /> +RAIN-STORM AT LOCH AWE.</h3> + +<div class='block'> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The topmost mountain-snows are melting fast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">See, how the swollen waters hurry down<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In perpendicular runnels from the crown<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of every wreathéd hill. The train has past<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beside a dark stream into which are cast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A hundred huddling rills whose foam is brown<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With pilfered soil. No dweller in a town<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ever beheld such manifold and vast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Torrents of roaring water. Each small isle<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Spaced on the loch, glooms through the hanging haze<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like a dream-picture, and for many a mile<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beneath those clouds that lean upon the braes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Encompassing Loch Awe, the watery plain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is pricked with million lances of the rain.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">{357}</a></span></div></div> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3><a name="KINLOCHEWE" id="KINLOCHEWE"></a>XVI.<br /> +<br /> +KINLOCHEWE.</h3> + +<div class='block'> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The mist, retreating, gems the leaves with dew,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Soft blows the breeze along the fragrant meads,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A little brawling burn runs through the reeds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And ripples away under the cloudless blue.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I never saw the world so fair to view,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For Spring has riven old Winter's funeral weeds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And given new sap and vigour to the seeds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That lay inanimate the cold months through.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Old man! with jaded limbs and wrinkled brow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That walkest feebly in this lenient sun<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like a day-dream, thy life is winter now.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But life and death in ceaseless cycles run,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And tireless Time and Heaven have in store<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For thee a myriad resurrections more.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">{358}</a></span></div></div> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3><a name="GENERAL_WADE" id="GENERAL_WADE"></a>XVII.<br /> +<br /> +GENERAL WADE.</h3> + +<div class='block'> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Houses are fewer here than milestones are:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We stand a thousand feet aloft in air<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upon a bouldered hillside stern and bare,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Down which the roadway serpentines afar.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There are no clouds in the wide blue to mar<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The passage of the sun's imperial glare<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Over a dreary-stretching landscape, where<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rough winds hold riot all the calendar.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who that has footed o'er these firm-knit paths<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But lauds the men whose strenuous axe and spade<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drove roads through the wild glens and hilly straths<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Under the generalship of tireless Wade!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the safe tracks behind them, commerce came<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The unruly spirit of the Celt to tame.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">{359}</a></span></div></div> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3><a name="THE_SOUND_OF_RAASAY_IN_DECEMBER" id="THE_SOUND_OF_RAASAY_IN_DECEMBER"></a>XVIII.<br /> +<br /> +THE SOUND OF RAASAY IN DECEMBER.</h3> + +<div class='block'> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A snowy gust is whirling down the strait,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Raasay is gleaming ghostly to the sight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, robed in lawn, from sea to topmost height<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Skye and her lordly mountains stand in state.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ever from heaven falls the silent weight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of wavering flakes that dim the stars of night.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our gallant little boat with all the might<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the wild-hissing surges holds debate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Plunging and struggling, till at last we see<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A spacious haven, sudden and serene<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, high aloft, the twinkle of Portree.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At once the winds are hushed, the moon is seen<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To free her face from cloudy drift, and fill<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With silver light the clefts of Essie Hill.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">{360}</a></span></div></div> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3><a name="LES_NEIGES_DANTAN" id="LES_NEIGES_DANTAN"></a>XIX.<br /> +<br /> +LES NEIGES D'ANTAN.</h3> + +<div class='block'> +<h4>I.</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Where is Macfee, that valiant preacher,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Gifted with voice, so harsh and loud,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Aye, louder and harsher than any screecher<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of birds that sail on the black storm-cloud?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And his beadle John, with back so bowed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where is <i>he</i> that had never a peer?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is he too rolled in his mortal shroud?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But where are the snows of yester-year?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h4>II.</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Donald the Gay, that steered his steamer<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Many a year through the Sound of Mull,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He that was never a Celtic dreamer,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But a captain of captains masterful:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">O Death, thou madest the world more dull<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When you nailed <i>him</i> down in his narrow bier,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And sent his ghost into Charon's hull;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But where are the snows of yester-year?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h4>III.</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Duncan, the bard of rocky Staffin,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Away in the north of rainy Skye:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has <i>he</i> given over his rimes and daffin',<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In the mould of the bleak kirkyard to lie?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">{361}</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i2">His cot was built where the sea-gulls fly,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And his misty isle to his soul was dear;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ere his song is finished, the bard must die;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But where are the snows of yester-year?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h4>IV.</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And Dougal, who carried King Edward's mails<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Every day o'er the moor and heather,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Scorning the chill of the winter gales,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the ten-mile walk in the sultry weather:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Has <i>he</i> too come to the end of his tether<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And gone to the ghosts with all his gear,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">His whistle, his satchel and strap of leather?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But where are the snows of yester-year?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h4>V.</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Prince, they have gone from the regions that knew them,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Gone at the summons that none can resist,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Praise and every honour be to them,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">They did their best and they will be missed.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We, too, shall soon be erased from the list<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of workers below in this mortal sphere,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And be no more to those that exist<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than the vanished snows of yester-year.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">{362}</a></span></div></div> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3><a name="THE_ISLANDS_OF_THE_NESS" id="THE_ISLANDS_OF_THE_NESS"></a>XX.<br /> +<br /> +THE ISLANDS OF THE NESS.</h3> + +<div class='block'> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A fairyland of trees and leafy bowers<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where one may sit and dream the hours away,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or 'mid the devious walks and alleys stray,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While perfume rises from a world of flowers,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The girdling river, swollen with upland showers,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sends rippling round to every creek and bay<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The vagrant branches of his water-way;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then gathering up his current's parted powers,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Swiftly-majestic in a broadening bed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He glistens on by many a chiming spire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And past the castle's pennoned turrets red,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till he attain the goal of his desire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And into the salt sea exulting throws<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His subsidy of rains and melted snows.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">{363}</a></span></div></div> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3><a name="AMERICAN_TOURIST_LOQUITUR" id="AMERICAN_TOURIST_LOQUITUR"></a>XXI.<br /> +<br /> +AMERICAN TOURIST LOQUITUR +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">(AT BERRIEDALE, CAITHNESS).</span></h3> + +<div class='block'> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">If I had wealth like Vanderbilt<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or some such millionaire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'd live in Scotland, don a kilt,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And <i>pay to prove</i> my forbears spilt<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Their blood in forays there.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I'd buy a picturesque estate<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Beside the ocean's flow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With knolls of heather at my gate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And pine-clad hills to dominate,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The ferny dells below.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I'd be a father to the folk<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That laboured on the soil,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With old and young I'd crack my joke,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drink with them in their thirst, and smoke<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The pipe that lightens toil.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For hens I'd have a special run,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For ducks a special pool,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My calves should frolic in the sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My sheep should be surpassed by none<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whose backs are clothed with wool.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">{364}</a></span><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Although I'm not a Walton quite,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Betweenwhiles I should try<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To lure the finny tribe to bite<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(At the right time, in the right light,)<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My simulated fly.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When winter heaped his rattling hail<br /></span> +<span class="i2">High on the window sill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With pipe and wassail, rime and tale,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'd never miss the nightingale<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or cuckoo on the hill.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Nay, musing by the ingle-lowe<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With summer in my brain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'd cloth with leaves the frozen bough<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all the ice-bound brooks endow<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With tinkling life again.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a><br /></span> +</div></div></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">{365}</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3><a name="THE_MINERS" id="THE_MINERS"></a>XXII.<br /> +<br /> +THE MINERS.</h3> + +<div class='block'> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The afternoon is cool and calm,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Near by flashes the mighty sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Inland rise green, dewy hills,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Crowned with eye-bewitching trees.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Suddenly the eye is amazed and terrified,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A hideous procession sordid and grimy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of men and boys, slaves of the coal-pit,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is seen on the road, shaming the daylight.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">All the day long they work in the darkness,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far from the songs of the birds and the sunshine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now they return to their sordid villages,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ill-smelling rows of comfortless cottages.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The rich and dainty ladies of fashion<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stand aloof from these swart coal-hewers,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are ready to swoon as the air is poisoned<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With odours of subterranean foulness.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Coarse of look, and of speech far coarser!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Laughter loud with no merriment in it!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No more soul than the beasts that perish!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These are the men despised for their toiling.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">{366}</a></span></div></div> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3><a name="IN_A_COUNTRY_GRAVEYARD" id="IN_A_COUNTRY_GRAVEYARD"></a>XXIII.<br /> +<br /> +IN A COUNTRY GRAVEYARD.<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a></h3> + +<div class='block'> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Man dreads the tomb, but dreads oblivion more;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He fears, when death has loosed the load of years,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His name shall cease to sound in mortal ears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, in the dusty darkness, all be o'er.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some o'er the scrolls of ample science pore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tome after tome the nimble authors write,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And gain a meed of glory: soon the night<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comes: the author with his laurel disappears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The painting fades, the marble busts decay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The kingly structures fall in ruin down,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Devouring Time consumes the artist's prize,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The centuries like lightning pass away,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or hurrying billows: emperor and clown<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sink with the myriads in impartial clay.<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">{367}</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3><a name="NO_PLACE_LIKE_HOME" id="NO_PLACE_LIKE_HOME"></a>XXIV.<br /> +<br /> +NO PLACE LIKE HOME.</h3> + +<div class='block'> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Where'er these wandering footsteps lead me to,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Peak-dominated glen, hill where the sheep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Graze in the sun, mountains that ever keep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A solemn guard o'er lakes profound and blue,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or undulating tracts of treeless view;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No matter if the rain and whirlwind sweep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The landscape, or the gladdening sunshine peep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through muffled vapours that the winds undo;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let it be night speckled with myriad fires,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clear dawn, hot noon, or cool of dying day;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be it in cities with their chiming spires,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or country fields with fragrant ricks of hay;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ever the voices of my hearth I hear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And muse on those to me for ever dear.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">{369}</a></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368"></a></span></div></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">(<span class="smcap">Chiefly of Proper Names</span>).</span></h2> + +<ul class="IX"><li>Aberdeen, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li> + +<li>Acharacle, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> + +<li>Achnasheen, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li> + +<li>Ainsworth, Mr., <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li> + +<li>Ajax, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li> + +<li>Aliens, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li> + +<li>Alness, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li> + +<li>Altnacealgach, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> + +<li>Anacreon, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li> + +<li>Anglers, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> + +<li>Anecdotes of Commercials, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>-<a href="#Page_277">277</a></li> + +<li>Appin, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></li> + +<li>Ardeonaig, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> + +<li>Ardersier, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li> + +<li>Argyll, Duke of, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></li> + +<li>Arnisdale, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li> + +<li>Arnold, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> + +<li>Arpafeelie, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li> + +<li>Asquith, Mr., <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li> + +<li>Auldearn, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li> + +<li>Avebury, Lord, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li></ul> + + +<ul class="IX"><li>Bagpipes, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> + +<li>Bain, Professor, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li> + +<li>Ballads, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li> + +<li>Banff theorist, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li> + +<li>Barrie, Mr., <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> + +<li>Battle of Brunanburh, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> + +<li>Beauly, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li> + +<li>Ben Eay, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li> + +<li>Ben-na-Ceallich, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> + +<li>Bennachie, <a href="#Page_329">329</a></li> + +<li>Ben Screel, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li> + +<li>Ben Slioch, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li> + +<li>Beowulf, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li> + +<li>Beveridge, Dr., <a href="#Page_301">301</a></li> + +<li>Biggar, <a href="#Page_98">98</a></li> + +<li>Biblia abiblia, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> + +<li>Blackie, Professor, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> + +<li>Books, second-hand, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li> + +<li>Borders, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li> + +<li>Boswell, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a></li> + +<li>Brahan Seer, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> + +<li>Bressay, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + +<li>Broadford, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li> + +<li>Browning, <a href="#Page_306">306</a></li> + +<li>Buchanan, <a href="#Page_61">61</a></li> + +<li>Bullers of Buchan, <a href="#Page_220">220</a></li> + +<li>Burgess, Mr., <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li> + +<li>Burke, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> + +<li>Burns, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a></li> + +<li>Burton, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></li></ul> + + +<ul class="IX"><li>Caithness father, a, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> + +<li>Captains, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li> + +<li>Catholics, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>-<a href="#Page_155">155</a></li> + +<li>Chairmen, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li> + +<li>Chartists, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> + +<li>Coll, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li> + +<li>Columbus, <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li> + +<li>Commercials (<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">Chap. VI.</a>), <a href="#Page_255">255</a>-<a href="#Page_277">277</a></li> + +<li>Competing School-subjects, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li> + +<li>Congested Districts Board, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li> + +<li>Connaught, H.R.H. Duke of, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li> + +<li>Connington, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li> + +<li>Corelli, Miss Marie, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li> + +<li>Cowper, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> + +<li>Craignish, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>-<a href="#Page_169">9</a></li> + +<li>Crofters' cottages, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>-<a href="#Page_30">30</a></li> + +<li>Cromarty, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li> + +<li>Cullen, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li> + +<li><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">{370}</a></span>Cunningsburgh, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li></ul> + + +<ul class="IX"><li>Dancing, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li> + +<li>Dandie Dinmont, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li> + +<li>Defoe, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li> + +<li>Depopulation, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li> + +<li>Dingwall, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li> + +<li>Dixon, Mr., <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + +<li>Doctors, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> + +<li>Dodger, an artful, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li> + +<li>Dominies, insular, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>-<a href="#Page_181">1</a></li> + +<li>Dowden, Professor, <a href="#Page_124">124</a></li> + +<li>Drimnin, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li> + +<li>Dryden, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> + +<li>Dunbar, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></li> + +<li>Dungeon lecture, a, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></li> + +<li>Dunvegan, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></li> + +<li>Durness, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li></ul> + + +<ul class="IX"><li>Educational (<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">Chap. IV.</a>), <a href="#Page_180">180</a>-<a href="#Page_216">216</a></li> + +<li>Education Department, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> + +<li>Eigg, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li> + +<li>Emigration, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>-<a href="#Page_74">4</a></li> + +<li>Episcopalians, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>-<a href="#Page_158">8</a></li> + +<li>Essayists, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li> + +<li>Established Church, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> + +<li>Ethical teaching, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>-<a href="#Page_143">3</a></li></ul> + + +<ul class="IX"><li>Fairies, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> + +<li>Fair Isle, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> + +<li>Faith Mission, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></li> + +<li>Feeding the Hungry, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li> + +<li><i>Fernaig MS.</i>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li> + +<li>Fishing season, <a href="#Page_253">253</a></li> + +<li>Fishwives, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + +<li>Fladibister, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> + +<li>Fort George, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li> + +<li>Foulah, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> + +<li>French Literature, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> + +<li>Frere, Miss, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li></ul> + + +<ul class="IX"><li>Gairloch, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + +<li>Gaelic, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> + +<li>Geologist, an ordained, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> + +<li>Germany, made in, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></li> + +<li>Gibbon, <a href="#Page_300">300</a></li> + +<li>Gigha, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li> + +<li>Gipsies, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li> + +<li>Glasgow Fair, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li> + +<li><i>Glasgow Herald</i>, quoted, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Footnote_2_2">note</a></li> + +<li>Glenelg, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li> + +<li>Golspie, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li> + +<li>Grange, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li> + +<li>Grantown, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></li> + +<li>Greatness, real, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li> + +<li>Greek, <a href="#Page_124">124</a></li></ul> + + +<ul class="IX"><li>Haaf-words, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li> + +<li>Halsbury, Lord, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> + +<li>Harlaw, <a href="#Page_330">330</a></li> + +<li>Harris, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li> + +<li>Hector, Red, <a href="#Page_320">320</a></li> + +<li>Hermits, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li> + +<li>Hobbes, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li> + +<li>Holyoake, Mr., <a href="#Page_60">60</a></li> + +<li>Homer, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> + +<li>Horace, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></li> + +<li>Hotels, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> + +<li>Howlers, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>-<a href="#Page_214">214</a></li></ul> + + +<ul class="IX"><li>Inspectors, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> + +<li>Inveraray, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li> + +<li>Inverness, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> + +<li>Iona, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></li> + +<li>Islay, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li> + +<li>Isle Ornsay, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li></ul> + + +<ul class="IX"><li>Jakobsen, Dr., <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li> + +<li>Jamieson, Dr., <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li> + +<li>Johnson, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a></li> + +<li>Josephus, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li> + +<li>Jura, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li></ul> + + +<ul class="IX"><li>Killin, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> + +<li>Kilmartin, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> + +<li>Kiltarlity, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li> + +<li>Kingussie, <a href="#Page_326">326</a></li> + +<li>Kinlochewe, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li></ul> + + +<ul class="IX"><li>Lanark, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li> + +<li>Lang, Mr. Andrew, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li> + +<li>Latin, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li> + +<li>Lerwick, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>-<a href="#Page_222">2</a></li> + +<li>Letter-boats, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li> + +<li>Lewis, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li> + +<li>Libraries in schools, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li> + +<li>Liddesdale, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li> + +<li><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">{371}</a></span>Literature, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li> + +<li>Lochaber, <a href="#Page_332">332</a></li> + +<li>Lochaline, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li> + +<li>Lochbuie, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li> + +<li>Loch Broom, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> + +<li>Loch Eck, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li> + +<li>Loch Fyne, <a href="#Page_317">317</a></li> + +<li>Loch Hourn, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li> + +<li>Lochmaddy, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li> + +<li>Loch Maree, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li> + +<li>Loch Ranza, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li> + +<li>Loubet, M., <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li></ul> + + +<ul class="IX"><li>Mallaig, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li> + +<li>Mary, the maid of the inn, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + +<li>Martin, Sir Theodore, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li> + +<li><i>Men of Skye</i>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> + +<li>Military, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li> + +<li>Mill, Rev. Mr., <a href="#Page_338">338</a>-<a href="#Page_339">9</a></li> + +<li>Miller, an ordained, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li> + +<li>Milton, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> + +<li>Miners, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li> + +<li>Mod, the, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> + +<li>Model minister, a, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> + +<li>Moderates, the, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>-<a href="#Page_145">5</a></li> + +<li>Moon, the, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> + +<li>M.P.'s, <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li> + +<li>Moray Firth, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li> + +<li>Morar, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> + +<li>Morley, Lord, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> + +<li>Muck, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + +<li>Munro, Dr. Neil, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a></li> + +<li>Murray, Sir James, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li> + +<li>Music, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>-<a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li> + +<li>Macallisters, etc., <a href="#Page_318">318</a></li> + +<li>Macbain, Dr., <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> + +<li>M'Cheyne, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li> + +<li>Macdonald, Dr. George, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> + +<li>Macdonald's gratitude, <a href="#Page_313">313</a></li> + +<li>Macdonald, Rev. Mr., <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + +<li>M'Gregors, the, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li> + +<li>Macivors, <a href="#Page_318">318</a></li> + +<li>Mackays, the, <a href="#Page_337">337</a></li> + +<li>Macleod, <a href="#Page_61">61</a></li></ul> + + +<ul class="IX"><li>Nicholson, Sheriff, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> + +<li><i>Night Thoughts</i>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li> + +<li>Norse blood, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> + +<li>"North, Christopher," <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li></ul> + + +<ul class="IX"><li>Olaf and his bride, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></li> + +<li>Old Parochials, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> + +<li>Ossian, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>-<a href="#Page_339">339</a></li> + +<li>Ovid, <a href="#Page_300">300</a></li></ul> + + +<ul class="IX"><li>Paisley, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li> + +<li>Parish Councils, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li> + +<li>Paul, St., <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li> + +<li>Peat-reek, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li> + +<li>Peden, the prophet, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></li> + +<li>Peterhead, <a href="#Page_220">220</a></li> + +<li>Phillimore, Professor, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Footnote_24_24">note</a></li> + +<li>Pigmentation, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li> + +<li>Plymouth Brethren, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>-<a href="#Page_165">5</a></li> + +<li>Poetry (<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">Chap. VIII.</a>), <a href="#Page_340">340</a>-<a href="#Page_367">367</a></li> + +<li>Policemen, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li> + +<li>Poolewe, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> + +<li>Pope, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>-<a href="#Page_129">9</a></li> + +<li>Pope, Rev. Alexander, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>-<a href="#Page_336">6</a></li> + +<li>Portknockie, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li> + +<li>Portree, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> + +<li>Portsoy, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li> + +<li>Postmen, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> + +<li>Prince Charlie, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li></ul> + + +<ul class="IX"><li>Quarff, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li></ul> + + +<ul class="IX"><li>Raasay, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li> + +<li>Ramsay, Sir William, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> + +<li><i>Rasmie's Büdie</i>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li> + +<li>Rats, <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li> + +<li>Reay, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>-<a href="#Page_336">6</a></li> + +<li>"Red-riding Hood," <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li> + +<li>Religious books, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li> + +<li>Rob Don, <a href="#Page_337">337</a></li> + +<li>Robertson, Mr. J. M., <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li> + +<li>"Rob Roy," <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li> + +<li>Romance and Augustanism, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> + +<li>Rosebery, Lord, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li>Rosehearty, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li> + +<li>Rothes, <a href="#Page_325">325</a></li> + +<li>Royal Engineers, <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li> + +<li>Ruskin, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li> + +<li>Russian merchant, a, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li></ul> + + +<ul class="IX"><li>Sabbath, the, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li> + +<li><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">{372}</a></span>Saddell, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></li> + +<li>St. Kilda, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li>Salen, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li> + +<li>Sandwick, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li> + +<li>Saxon and Celt, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> + +<li>Scalloway, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> + +<li>School Boards, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li> + +<li>Science and Literature, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li> + +<li>Scotch Dialect, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li> + +<li>Scott, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a></li> + +<li>Sea-sickness, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> + +<li>Sermons in metre, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>-<a href="#Page_161">161</a></li> + +<li>Session Records, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li> + +<li>Shakespeare's Sonnets, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li> + +<li>Shaws and Grants, <a href="#Page_323">323</a></li> + +<li>Shetlands (<a href="#CHAPTER_V">Chap. V.</a>), <a href="#Page_217">217</a>-<a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> + +<li>Sidlaws, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> + +<li>Skye, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a></li> + +<li>Sound of Sleat, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li> + +<li>Spencer, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> + +<li>Spenser, <a href="#Page_128">128</a></li> + +<li>Staffin, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> + +<li>Stewart, Dugald, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li> + +<li>Stornoway, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>-<a href="#Page_34">4</a></li> + +<li>Strachur, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li> + +<li>Suetonius, <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li> + +<li>Surprises, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li> + +<li>Sutherland, Duchess of, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li></ul> + + +<ul class="IX"><li>Taisch, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li> + +<li>Tarbolton, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> + +<li>Tannahill, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li> + +<li>Tea-drinking, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li> + +<li>Tee-names, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li> + +<li>Teeth, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li> + +<li>Tennyson, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> + +<li>Tiree, <a href="#Page_301">301</a></li> + +<li>"Tom Eunan," <a href="#Page_322">322</a></li> + +<li>Trossachs, <a href="#Page_315">315</a></li> + +<li>Truants, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li></ul> + + +<ul class="IX"><li>Ullapool, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li></ul> + + +<ul class="IX"><li>Village halls, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li> + +<li>Virgil, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li></ul> + + +<ul class="IX"><li>Ward, Mrs. H., <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li> + +<li>War Office, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li> + +<li>Wason, Mr. C., <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> + +<li>Watson, Mr. William, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></li> + +<li>Weaving, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li> + +<li>Weir, Mr. Galloway, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + +<li>Whalsay, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> + +<li>Whiting Bay, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li> + +<li>Wordsworth, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></li></ul> + + +<ul class="IX"><li>Xenophon, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li></ul> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>FOOTNOTES.</h2> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Let the southern reader remember that a boy born in a city +like Glasgow has, as respects opportunities of getting on, infinitely +better chances than a lad of equal ability born in a Highland village. +The crofter's son has no reading-room with costly works of reference, +scientific manuals, English translations of Latin authors, etc., to go +to when he is in need of help. He begins the battle of life at a very +serious disadvantage, and often gives up the fight altogether. Anything +that tends to equalise the chances of town and country, from the point +of view of mental equipment, would do more general good to Scotland, by +bettering the available brain power, than any half-dozen Acts of +Parliament taken at random.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> In an editorial of June 6, 1908, the <i>Glasgow Herald</i> +excellently says:—"The first requisite for a Highlander is such a +knowledge of English as will open up to him the lucrative employment +from which ignorance of English must shut him out, and it is no kindness +to him to interfere with his acquisition of this indispensable +accomplishment.... So good a Gael as Professor Magnus Maclean has +observed that 'even more remarkable than the dearth of philosophical and +dramatic poems, and, we might add, of narrative and pastoral poetry +proper, is the scarcity of Gaelic prose.' By all means, however, let a +literary knowledge of the Gaelic language be encouraged among +Gaelic-speaking children. It is a very different matter to enforce such +steps as would lead to the teaching of Gaelic to children that live +indeed in Gaelic-speaking districts but yet speak only English."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Coll is also a very interesting island for the antiquarian. +It contains distinct traces of twenty-nine Hill-forts or Duns, so that +there must have been lively times out there long ago. Some fine shells, +beads, pins and pottery have been found in the prehistoric +<i>kitchen-middens</i>. Before the Reformation the island was thickly +peopled, and sites of old churches and deserted crofts are numerous. +Coll has gone back in population; in 1901 it had 432 inhabitants; in +1755 the number of natives was 1,193.</p></div> + + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> At Spean Bridge there is a worthy old farmer, Mr. Chalmers, +who has a widespread fame for dexterous bone-setting, a talent which is +said to have descended to him from a long line of forbears. A young +gentleman from Glasgow was in the hotel there during my stay, and from +personal experience spoke of Mr. Chalmers's remarkable powers. He told +me that patients come from far and near (after eminent surgeons have +failed to give benefit), in order to be treated at Spean Bridge.</p></div> + + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> The student of eugenics will note that among the +tea-bibbing islanders of the west the teeth of the natives are poor. My +experience tends to show that the best teeth in Scotland are to be found +in Aberdeenshire. When a Buchan audience laughs, there is a gleam of +polished ivory that is very impressive; but rural Aberdeen has deviated +less into slops than any other part of Britain.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> "There are probably now more persons of Highland descent in +the Lowlands than in the Highlands themselves."—<i>Scotland of To-Day</i>, +by Henderson and Watt, p. 300. See also note at end of chapter on +Inverness surnames, etc.</p></div> + + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> I have heard it maintained by some zealots, whom I greatly +esteem, that Gaelic is a highly <i>moral</i> language, that the use of it +conduces to purity of life and thought, and that everyone would be +improved in tone by contact with its roots. Those ministers who have +charge of Session Records, chronicling events that happened before +English was known in the West, cannot unreservedly corroborate these +views.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> In his book, <i>Edinburgh and its Neighbourhood</i>, Hugh Miller +tells the following story, on the authority of Robert Chambers:—"Though +legally only transferable with the works and the minerals to which they +were attached, cases occasionally occurred in which miners were actually +transferred <i>by sale</i> from one part of the country to another. During +the early part of the XIXth century, the son of an extensive +coal-proprietor was examining with a friend the pits of another +proprietor, and finding a collier whose speech resembled that of the +colliers of his own district, he inquired where he came from. 'Oh!' +exclaimed the man with surprise, 'd'ye no' ken me? <i>Do ye no' ken that +your faither sell't me for a powny?</i>'"</p></div> + + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Such emigration has, of course, nothing to do with the +systematic work instituted by Mr. William Quarrier of Bridge of Weir. +That devout philanthropist occupied himself with the waifs and strays of +Glasgow, taught them trades, and sent large numbers of them to the +colonies to learn farming. One Saturday, in 1907, I saw a hundred and +twenty of these lads, who were on Bridge of Weir platform waiting for +the train. The scene was pathetic in the extreme—enough to melt a heart +of nether millstone. Many of the lads were in tears as they answered the +roll-call for the last time. In the afternoon they (and over two +thousand emigrants) left the Clyde, amid sobs, cheers, and the waving of +multitudinous handkerchiefs. These boys go, in the first instance, to +Brockville, in the province of Ontario, whence they are distributed out +among the Canadian farmers.</p></div> + + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> It is not often possible, in the <i>islands</i>, to get +anything but a trap or open coach. In Lochranza, on a day of dreary, +disheartening rain, I found on enquiry that there was no covered vehicle +to be had except the <i>hearse</i>.</p></div> + + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Islay is yearly becoming better known. It is an undulating +island, covered with rich meadow-land, the home of horses, sheep, and +cattle. There should not be a hungry man within its circumference. Under +the old lairds—the Campbells—there were 14,000 inhabitants, now there +are 6000.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Judging from the number of clans that make a similar +claim, we might fancy that all King Arthur's knights +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">"Gartened low their leg,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And rowed their hurdies in a philabeg."<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> A favourite and appropriate book in this part of Scotland +is Wilson's <i>Tales of the Borders</i>. There are not many farm-houses in +the Lowlands of Scotland in which one does not find old copies, bound +and unbound, of Wilson's <i>Tales</i>. Usually they show unmistakable +evidence of having been frequently perused. One is bound to admit that +the modern reader, if he spends an evening turning over these old pages, +will find little reason to pride himself on the superiority of the +popular reading of to-day. The short story, now in vogue, may be finely +illustrated, and highly sensational, but its matter is certainly +inferior, as a rule, to the general run of Wilson's stories. Wilson, in +his humble way, was a gleaner in the field so richly harvested by Sir +Walter Scott. <i>The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border</i> had called +attention to the great stores of poetry and romance lingering among the +peasantry of the Debateable Land. Wilson's <i>Tales</i> showed how much of +the old spirit remained more than two centuries after the Union, and, in +spite of all Christianity and an orderly Government had done for the +softening of manners. Hogg, in speaking of his own countryside, said: +"The poor people of these glens know no other entertainment in the long +winter nights than repeating and listening to the feats of their +ancestors recorded in songs which I believe to have been handed down +from father to son for many generations." Wilson and his successors +gathered up as much of the romantic material as they found available, +and printed it for the delight of their generation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Mr. Lee has collected an amount of evidence which seems to +prove that T. T., <i>i.e.</i>, Thomas Thorpe, who wrote the dedication, was +not only a piratical publisher, but also a humourist. The dedication, +read in the light of these observations, acquires a character of +jocularity, and <i>begetter</i> means <i>procurer</i> or <i>getter</i>. Thorpe thus +becomes what we know Curll to have been a century later, a printer of +stolen copy, with a turn for cynical waggery. Mr. W. H., the begetter, +accordingly, is not a glittering aristocrat, but an unscrupulous +go-between, who has made free with somebody's escritoire, and handed the +sonnets over to the gay T. T.!</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Penalties of a really deterrent kind might at least be +laid upon those gentlemen who write <i>more than three</i> pages of notes to +one of the author's text: +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O that the Kaiser showing sense for once<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would loose his fury on each learned dunce,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And visit with his summary proceedings<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The rogues who tease us with their <i>variant readings</i>.<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Mr. Tocher, a Peterhead gentleman, has adopted a special +line of investigation. He has sent out schedules to every school in +Scotland asking for detailed information as to the colour of the eyes +and hair of the boys and girls. His desire is to connect <i>pigmentation</i> +and race-origin. He believes it is still possible to get definite +information, by such means, of the settlement and blending of Picts, +Celts, Norsemen, and Anglo-Saxons.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> How differently the items in the Sacred Canon are regarded +in scholastic circles in the South! A Glasgow teacher, discussing the +Origin of Evil with a Government official, expressed great resentment at +the loss of paradise through Adam's sin, and added: "It comes specially +hard on me, seeing that I don't care a <i>docken</i> for apples."</p></div> + + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Ministers, being public men, are, of course, as Mr. +Macdonald means to point out, exposed to the criticism, frequently so +absurd, that eminence entails. I recently examined the bye-laws of a +literary association in Ross-shire, of which the president is a +sheep-farmer, and the secretary, a postman. It is a rule of this +association that no minister is ever to be president, the reason +assigned being that ministers would try to elevate the natives <i>too +hurriedly</i>. The people do not object to be elevated, but they wish the +process to be performed without unnecessary haste.</p></div> + + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> I may here refer to a pleasant three hours spent in rowing +on Lochaline in the company of Mr. Hugh Macintyre, an old gentleman full +of Scott and well versed in the lore of the locality. He was a policeman +in Glasgow for thirty-five years (latterly as guardian of the +Kelvingrove Picture Gallery), and now, in the enjoyment of good health +and a pension, spends his time reading and doing good in his native +district. Mr. Macintyre's earliest recollection is of his father being +evicted from a small holding, at the head of the loch, in the "forties." +</p><p> +Tennyson and Palgrave were visitors at Ardtornish, as Mr. Lang tells us, +but made no special impression on the natives, who styled them +respectively <i>Tinman</i> and <i>Pancake</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> I could mention another rural parish, considerably further +north, where, two winters ago, the roads were so badly blocked with snow +that for five consecutive weeks no church services could be held! Both +minister and congregation were overcome with grief.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> In that part of South Arran which lies between Dippen and +Shannochie, there is high up on the hillside, a row of cottages and +crofts collectively nicknamed "Mount Misery." The reason for this +sinister name is that in most of the houses there is some maimed, +consumptive, or imbecile child boarded out by the Parish Council. The +children are better there than selling matches at St. Enoch's Station: +they are well looked after and almost invariably improve in health.</p></div> + + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> A country teacher in Kintyre, with a roll of eight, said +to me: "We have had only one marriage in the district during the last +year, and the bridegroom was aged <i>three score and fifteen</i>. I wonder +what education is coming to: there is little or no patriotism about +Kintyre or my roll would be higher. I wish I could get the people to +think more imperially than they do at present."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> A striking object-lesson on the instability of mortal life +is permanently given to the Loch Ranza pupils by the proximity of the +churchyard, which is just over the wall from the school. The thoughtful +visitor should not fail to read the tombstones. If a lover of books, he +will be interested in learning that the founder of the famous publishing +firm of Messrs. Macmillan belonged to the North Cock farm near Loch +Ranza. The pensive moralist will perhaps be most affected by an old +stone, <span class="smcap lowercase">A.D.</span> 1813, declaring that Elspa Macmillan left this <i>inhospitable +world</i>, aged 86. <i>That</i> was no rash inference.</p></div> + + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> It is a notorious fact that very few graduates, when they +leave college, are able to read Latin from an author they have not +specially studied, with ease or pleasure. For this melancholy fact there +are several reasons. The range of reading is miserably meagre. Only a +few authors are read, and almost every sentence of these is cumbered +with such an amount of annotation as to render progress and literary +appreciation alike painful. Composition in Latin absorbs far too much +time: the first duty of the teacher ought to be to turn out pupils who +can read Latin with fluency. No amount of grammatical detail or +laborious composition, as at present practised, will ever make up for +the lack of wide reading. Professor Phillimore's recent suggestion that +the less-known authors should be read more than they are, is wise and +opportune. The authors he mentions would furnish a welcome relief from +the unspeakable dreariness of over-annotated texts.</p></div> + + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> A recent publication shows that Greek verse is well +written at the University. Paisley folk should know that an Aberdonian +Hellenist has put some of Tannahill's verses into Greek.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> The prayers of as many righteous men as possible are +requested for the inspectors of schools who have to examine and report +on the state of education in the Orkneys and Shetlands. I had the +pleasure of conversing with one of these hard-worked officials in +November, 1906. He spoke very warmly of the improved educational benefit +of the libraries that have been sent from Paisley to the isles and +skerries. This gentleman inspects the Fair Isle school once every two +years. On the occasion of his last visit, he was rowed from Lerwick in a +"sixern," and had a most tempestuous time going through the <i>roost</i>. Two +of his oarsmen sickened, and were helpless. On getting ashore at last, +he forgot all his sorrows and soaking, when he heard heartsome strains +of welcome being played on the <i>insular pianola</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> As to language, one hears, especially in the Hebrides, +phrases of amusing quaintness, due no doubt to the speaker handling a +foreign tongue. The school in one of the Mull villages is very small, +and I made a remark to that effect in the hearing of the hotel-porter. +"Oh, no," said he, "<i>it is a good deal bigger than you would wonder</i>." +The same waiter, who had a talent for confusing his language, said in +reply to an irate visitor who had questioned his intelligence: "You need +not talk like that; I am as good as you; <i>I am as good as any other man +put together</i>."</p></div> + + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> A very similar account is given, of the dearth of the +little folk in England, by the poet Chaucer; only, that eminent writer +declares that the phenomenon is due to the zeal and prayers of the monks +and begging-friars, who paced about the country muttering blessings and +exorcistic paragraphs.</p></div> + + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Collins's long <i>Ode on Popular Superstitions in the +Highlands of Scotland</i>, addressed to Home, author of <i>Douglas</i>, contains +some excellent rhetorical passages. Speaking of the second-sighted seer, +Collins represents him as one who +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"In the <i>depth of Uist's dark forest</i> dwells."<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +We may say of Uist what Lord Rosebery said of Caithness, that it is +<i>entirely delivered from the contaminating influence of foliage</i>. The +air one breathes there does not suffer deterioration by coming through +any such <i>dark forest</i> as Collins mentions: it blows from the Atlantic +in an absolutely pure and strong condition.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> I am inclined to think that the relationship formerly existing +between the Highland chief and the member of his clan was perfect in its +way—a <i>model</i> of class relationship. There was nothing menial about the +clansman's attitude, though he gave unbounded homage to his lord. At the +battle of Inverkeithing, a clansman and his seven sons gave up their +lives to shield from death their chieftain, Sir Hector Maclean. As the +old man saw his boys fall one after the other, he shouted with glee and +pride, "<i>Another for Sir Hector!</i>" until he himself lay, like a true +thane, beside his progeny. Nothing could be finer or more touching than +such a scene.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Burns tells us that when in Inveraray Hotel, he was entirely +neglected by the servants, who gave all their attention to some +gentlemen from the Castle. In our day, the Campbells have shown +contrition by their willingness to admit that Burns was one of their own +clan. Burns's ancestors were, it is said, Campbells of Taynuilt. +Taynuilt means in English, Burnhouse. When the poet's ancestors +emigrated to Forfarshire, they were known as <i>Campbells from Burnhouse</i>. +In course of time the appellation was shortened into Burnhouse simply, +and latterly into Burness or Burns.—Q.E.D.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Boswell's religious instincts come well out in his account of the +visit to Iona. Two of his descendants, Messrs. Albert and James Boswell, +devoted themselves entirely to religion, and were well known in +Ayrshire, thirty years ago, as zealous evangelists. These two gentlemen +went on a preaching campaign through the northern islands, and did much +highly appreciated philanthropic and religious work there. They were +members of the sect called Plymouth Brethren.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Rob was at one time in the army, for every Mackay has the fighting +instinct in him. (Reay is one of the few townships in the North that +possess a drill-hall and a military instructor. It is impossible +adequately to describe the consternation in the Mackay country at the +time of our South African reverses. Everyone was in a fury and it was +felt there was urgent need for the Mackays to straighten out matters at +the seat of war. It was at this time that the drill-hall was built in +Reay. Many of the young men went to the front as volunteers, and if the +war had lasted much longer, there would have been few Mackays left in +Sutherlandshire.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> Let me here pay a tribute to the marked excellence and literary +skill of the newspapers of provincial Scotland. These are very +numerous—even Ailsa Craig has a sheet of its own, <i>The Ailsa Craig +Banner</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Reprinted (by kind permission) from the <i>Scotsman</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Suggested by a copy of his poems in a West Highland bookcase.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Berriedale, which moved the American to commemorative song, is on +the Caithness shore, and there the Duke of Portland has one of his +numerous residences. The Duke's seat is high up on the hills and behind +it is a mountain of grim aspect which serves for a deer-forest. At +Berriedale, the road traversed by the coach is simply appalling: boards +marked <i>Dangerous</i> forewarn all wheel-men that risks cannot be taken +with impunity. An honest descent can be easily coped with, but here the +road to the glen is not merely steep, it is as lacking in +straightforwardness as the links of Forth. Once down at the level of the +village, the breeze no longer blows fresh and chilly, but subsides into +a quiet air, grateful with the odour of flowers. Passengers are +requested to walk up the corresponding hill to a level equal to the +height of the road before the interruption of the terrible Berriedale +chasm. When the ascent is reached, one has a view of unsurpassed +splendour. The wooded Wye, which Wordsworth sang so rapturously and +which he saw with his mind's eye in the dinsome town, has no landscape +to compare in grandeur and beauty with the country round Berriedale, +viewed from this eminence. Hills of richest green, diversified with +purple heather; a back-ground of wild bog and mountain; blue sea; and +great banks of cloud shepherded over the heights by the mighty winds.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Suggested by a French poem of Monsieur Desessarts, +entitled <i>Se Survivre</i>.</p></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1_1" id="Page_1_1">{1}</a></span></p> + +<p class='center'><b>Publisher & Bookseller<br /> +by<br /> +Special Appointment<br /> +To Her late Majesty<br /> +Queen Victoria.</b></p> + + +<p class='center' style="font-size: x-large;"><b>A LIST OF BOOKS</b> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 50%;">PUBLISHED BY</span> +<br /> +ALEX. GARDNER, PAISLEY.</p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<div style="text-indent: -1.5em; margin-left: 2em;"><p><i>Aitken.</i>—Love in Its Tenderness. By J. R. Aitken. 3s. 6d.</p> + +<p><i>Anderson.</i>—Morison-Grant.—Life, Letters, and Last Poems of +Lewis Morison-Grant. By Jessie Annie Anderson. 4s. 6d.</p> + +<p><i>Anderson.</i>—Verses at Random. By Thistle Anderson (Mrs. Herbert +Fisher). 2s. 6d. nett.</p> + +<p>—— Dives' Wife, and other Fragments. By Thistle Anderson (Mrs. +Herbert Fisher). 2s. 6d. nett.</p> + +<p><i>Anton.</i>—The Flywheel: and What Keeps Us Steady. By Rev. Peter +Anton. 3s. 6d. nett.</p> + +<p>—— Staying Power: Reconsiderations and Recreations. By Rev. +Peter Anton. 3s. 6d. nett.</p> + +<p><i>A. O. M.</i>—Two Brothers. By A. O. M. 2s. 6d.</p> + +<p><i>Auld.</i>—Lyrics of Labour and other Poems. By Thomas C. Auld.</p> + +<p><i>Ayles.</i>—Gillicolane. By Grueber Ayles. 4s. 6d.</p> + +<p><i>Aytoun.</i>—The Braes o' Balquhidder. By Douglas Aytoun. 6s.</p> + +<p>Ballads of the Scottish Border. With Introduction and Notes. 1s. +nett.</p> + +<p><i>Ballingal.</i>—A. Prince of Edom. By J. Ballingal, B.D. 2s. 6d.</p> + +<p><i>Beatty.</i>—The Secretar. By W. Beatty. 6s.</p> + +<p>—— The Shadow of the Purple. By W. Beatty. 2s. 6d.</p> + +<p><i>"Belinda's Husband."</i>—Plain Papers on Subjects Light and +Grave. By "Belinda's Husband." 2s. 6d. nett.</p> + +<p><i>Beveridge.</i>—Sma' Folk and Bairn Days. Translated from the +Norse by the Rev. John Beveridge, M.A., B.D. Second Edition. 3s. +6d.</p> + +<p><i>Blair.</i>—The Paisley Thread Industry and the Men who Created +and Developed It. By Matthew Blair. 6s. nett.</p> + +<p>—— The Paisley Shawl and the Men who Produced It. By Matthew +Blair. 7s. 6d. nett.</p> + +<p><i>Brownlie.</i>—Hymns of the Holy Eastern Church. Translated by +Rev. John Brownlie. 3s. 6d. nett.</p> + +<p>—— Hymns from the Greek Office Books: Together with Centos and +Suggestions. Translated by Rev. John Brownlie. 3s. 6d. nett.</p> + +<p>—— Hymns from the East. Translated by Rev. John Brownlie. 3s. +6d. nett.</p> + +<p><i>Buchan.</i>—The Ballad Minstrelsy of Scotland. By Patrick Buchan. +5s.</p> + +<p>The Songs of Scotland. Chronologically Arranged. 5s. Uniform +with above.</p> + +<p><i>Burns.</i>—The Selected Works of Robert Burns. Edited by Rhona +Sutherland. Crown 4to. 430 pp. With Illustrations. Price 5s. +nett. Or in various Bindings—Prices on application.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2_2" id="Page_2_2">{2}</a></span></p> + +<p><i>Bute.</i>—Coronations—Chiefly Scottish. By the Marquess of Bute, +K.T. 7s. 6d. nett.</p> + +<p>—— Essays on Foreign Subjects. By the Marquess of Bute, K.T. +10s. 6d.</p> + +<p>—— Seven Essays on Christian Greece. Translated by the +Marquess of Bute, K.T. 7s. 6d.</p> + +<p><i>Caird.</i>—Sermons. By the late Rev. J. Renny Caird, M.A. With +Memoir, by Rev. Robert Munro, B.D. 3s. 6d. nett.</p> + +<p><i>Calder.</i>—Poems of Life and Work. By Robert H. Calder. 2s. 6d. +nett.</p> + +<p><i>Campbell.</i>—Notes on the Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Eastwood +Parish. By the late Rev. George Campbell. 12s. 6d. and 25s. +nett.</p> + +<p><i>Campbell.</i>—Popular Tales of the West Highlands. By the late J. +F. Campbell, Islay. Four vols. 7s. 6d. each.</p> + +<p><i>Campbell.</i>—The Elder's Prayer-Book. By Rev. Wm. Campbell, B.D. +1s.</p> + +<p><i>Carslaw.</i>—Heroes of the Scottish Covenant. By Rev. W. H. +Carslaw, D.D.<br /> + +Vol. I.—James Guthrie, of Fenwick.<br /> +II.—Donald Cargill, of the Barony, Glasgow.<br /> +III.—James Renwick, the last of the Martyrs.<br /> +1s. 6d. nett each. The three vols. in one, 3s. 6d. nett.</p> + + +<p>—— Six Martyrs of the First and Second Reformations. By Rev. +W. H. Carslaw, D.D. 2s. nett.</p> + +<p>—— Exiles of the Covenant. By Rev. W. H. Carslaw, D.D. 2s. +nett.</p> + +<p><i>Chalmers.</i>—Chalmers' Caledonia. 25s. and 40s. per vol. Vol. +VIII.—the Index—sold separately, 15s. and 25s. nett.</p> + +<p><i>Cheviot.</i>—Proverbs, Proverbial Expressions, and Popular Rhymes +of Scotland. By Andrew Cheviot. 6s. nett.</p> + +<p><i>"Claverhouse."</i>—Gretna Green and Its Traditions. By +"Claverhouse." 1s. nett.</p> + +<p><i>Craigie.</i>—Scandinavian Folk Lore. By W. A. Craigie, M.A., +F.S.A. 7s. 6d.</p> + +<p><i>Drummond.</i>—Life of Robert Nicoll. By the late P. R. Drummond, +Perth. 5s.</p> + +<p><i>Edgar.</i>—Old Church Life in Scotland. By Andrew Edgar, D.D. 7s. +6d.</p> + +<p>—— The Bibles of England. By Andrew Edgar, D.D. 7s. 6d.</p> + +<p><i>Eyre-Todd.</i>—The Glasgow Poets. Edited by George Eyre-Todd. 7s. +6d. nett.</p> + +<p><i>Fergusson.</i>—Alexander Hume. By R. Menzies Fergusson, M.A. 5s. +nett.</p> + +<p>—— A Student of Nature. By R. Menzies Fergusson, M.A. 4s. +nett.</p> + +<p>—— A Village Poet. By R. Menzies Fergusson, M.A. 3s. 6d. nett.</p> + +<p>—— Rambles in the Far North. By R. Menzies Fergusson, M.A. 3s. +and 2s.</p> + +<p>—— Logie: A Parish History. By R. Menzies Fergusson, M.A. 2 +vols. 15s. nett. each vol.</p> + +<p>—— The Viking's Bride, and other Poems. By R. Menzies +Fergusson, M.A. 3s.</p> + +<p><i>Ferguson.</i>—The King's Friend. By Dugald Ferguson. 3s. 6d.</p> + +<p><i>Fergusson.</i>—The Poems of Robert Fergusson. Edited by Robt. +Ford. 5s. nett.</p> + +<p><i>Fife.</i>—And I Knew It Not. By David Fife. 3s. 6d. nett.</p> + +<p><i>Findlay.</i>—Medici Carmina. By William Findlay, M.D. 3s. 6d. +nett.</p> + +<p>—— Ayrshire Idylls of Other Days. By "George Umber." 5s.</p> + +<p>—— In My City Garden. By "George Umber." 6s.</p> + +<p>—— Robert Burns and the Medical Profession. By William +Findlay, M.D. ("George Umber.") 6s. nett.</p> + +<p><i>Fittis.</i>—Curious Episodes in Scottish History. By R. Scott +Fittis. 6s.</p> + +<p>—— Heroines of Scotland. By R. Scott Fittis. 6s.</p> + +<p>—— Romantic Narratives from Scottish History and Tradition. By +R. Scott Fittis. 6s.</p> + +<p><i>Fleming.</i>—Ancient Castles and Mansions of Stirling Nobility. +By J. S. Fleming, F.S.A. 21s. nett.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3_3" id="Page_3_3">{3}</a></span></p> + +<p><i>Ford.</i>—American Humourists. Selected and edited by Robert +Ford. 3s. 6d.</p> + +<p>—— Auld Scots Ballants. 6s.</p> + +<p>—— Ballads of Bairnhood. Selected and edited by Robert Ford. +5s.</p> + +<p>—— Ballads of Babyland. Selected and edited by Robert Ford. +5s.</p> + +<p>—— Children's Rhymes, Games, Songs, and Stories. By R. Ford. +3s. 6d. nett.</p> + +<p>——Ford's Own Humorous Scotch Stories. 1st and 2nd Series, 1s. +each nett. Both Series in 1 vol., 2s. 6d. nett.</p> + +<p>—— Poems and Songs of Alexander Rodger. Edited by Robert Ford. +3s. 6d. nett.</p> + +<p>—— Tayside Songs and other Verses. By Robert Ford. 3s. 6d. +nett.</p> + +<p>—— The Harp of Perthshire. Edited by Robert Ford. 15s. and 7s. +6d.</p> + +<p>—— Thistledown. By Robert Ford. 3s. 6d. and 1s. nett.</p> + +<p>—— Vagabond Songs and Ballads of Scotland. Edited by R. Ford. +5s. nett.</p> + +<p>—— Miller's "Willie Winkie," and other Songs and Poems. Edited +by Robert Ford. 3s. 6d. nett.</p> + +<p>—— The Heroines of Burns. By Robert Ford. 3s. 6d. nett.</p> + +<p>—— Popular American Readings. Popular English Readings. +Popular Irish Readings. Popular Scotch Readings. Edited by +Robert Ford. 1s. each. Also in one vol., 4s.</p> + +<p><i>Forsyth.</i>—Elocution: Simple Rules and Exercises for Correct +and Expressive Reading and Reciting. By John Forsyth. 1s. 6d. +nett. Gardner's Verse for Schools. Parts I. and II. 6d. nett +each part.</p> + +<p><i>Grosart.</i>—The Verse and Miscellaneous Prose of Alexander +Wilson, the Ornithologist of America. Edited by Rev. A. B. +Grosart, LL.D. 12s. 6d.</p> + +<p><i>Hogg.</i>—A Tour in the Highlands in 1803. By James Hogg. 2s. 6d.</p> + +<p><i>Holmes.</i>—The Teaching of Modern Languages in Schools and +Colleges. By D. T. Holmes, B.A. 2s. nett.</p> + +<p>—— Literary Touring in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. By +D. T. Holmes, B.A. 4s. 6d. nett.</p> + +<p><i>Johnson.</i>—A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland in +1773. By Samuel Johnson, LL.D. New Edition. 2s. 6d. nett.</p> + +<p><i>Kennedy.</i>—David Kennedy, the Scottish Singer: Reminiscences of +his Life and Work. By Marjory Kennedy. And Singing Round the +World: a Narrative of his Colonial Tours. By David Kennedy, Jun. +7s. 6d.</p> + +<p><i>Kennedy.</i>—Reminiscences of Walt Whitman. By William Sloane +Kennedy, Camden, N.J. 6s.</p> + +<p><i>Ker.</i>—Mother Lodge, Kilwinning, "The Ancient Lodge of +Scotland." By Rev. W. Lee Ker, Kilwinning. 4s. 6d.</p> + +<p><i>Kilgour.</i>—Twenty Years on Ben Nevis. By Wm. T. Kilgour. 2/6 & +1/6 nett.</p> + +<p>—— Lochaber in War and Peace. Illustrated. By Wm. T. Kilgour. +7s. 6d. nett.</p> + +<p><i>King.</i>—Shipwreck Wood: A Story of "Some that lift and some +that lean." By Carrol King. 2s.</p> + +<p><i>Mackean.</i>—The King's Quhair. Done into English by Wm. Mackean. +3s. 6d.</p> + +<p><i>M'Gown.</i>—Ten Bunyan Talks. By G. W. T. M'Gown. 2s. nett.</p> + +<p>—— A Primer of Burns. By G. W. T. M'Gown. 1s. nett.</p> + +<p><i>MacKenzie.</i>—History of the Outer Hebrides. By William C. +MacKenzie. 12s. 6d. nett. Large Paper, 21s.</p> + +<p><i>MacKenzie.</i>—The Lady of Hirta. By Wm. C. MacKenzie, F.S.A. +Scot. 6s.</p> + +<p>—— A Short History of the Scottish Highlands and Isles. By Wm. +C. MacKenzie. New Edition. 5s. nett.</p> + +<p><i>Menzies.</i>—Provincial Sketches and other Verses. By G. K. +Menzies. 2s. 6d. nett.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4_4" id="Page_4_4">{4}</a></span></p> + +<p><i>Menzies.</i>—Illustrated Guide to the Vale of Yarrow. By James M. +Menzies. 1s. 6d. nett.</p> + +<p><i>Metcalfe.</i>—SS. Ninian and Machor—the Legends of, in the +Scottish Dialect of the Fourteenth Century. By W. M. Metcalfe, +D.D. 10s. 6d. nett. On Whatman Paper, 15s. nett.</p> + +<p>—— A History of the Shire of Renfrew from the Earliest Times +down to the Close of the Nineteenth Century. By W. M. Metcalfe. +D.D., F.S.A. 25s. nett. On Whatman Paper, 40s.</p> + +<p>—— History of Paisley. By W. M. Metcalfe, D.D. Illustrated.</p> + +<p>—— Charters and Documents relating to the Burgh of Paisley. By +W. M. Metcalfe, D.D. 21s. nett.</p> + +<p>—— Ancient Lives of the Scottish Saints. Translated by W. M. +Metcalfe, D.D. 15s. On Whatman Paper, 25s.</p> + +<p>—— Pinkerton's Lives of the Scottish Saints. Revised and +enlarged by W. M. Metcalfe, D.D. 2 vols. 15s. per vol.</p> + +<p>—— The Natural Truth of Christianity. Edited by W. M. +Metcalfe, D.D. 5s.</p> + +<p>—— The Reasonableness of Christianity. By W. M. Metcalfe, D.D. +5s.</p> + +<p><i>Metcalfe.</i>—The Great Palace of Constantinople. Translated from +the Greek of Dr. A. G. Paspates, by William Metcalfe, B.D. 10s. +6d.</p> + +<p><i>Miller.</i>—Selections from the Works of Hugh Miller. Edited by +W. M. Mackenzie, M.A., F.S.A. (Scot.). 3s. 6d.</p> + +<p><i>Mitchell.</i>—A Popular History of the Highlands and Gaelic +Scotland. By Dugald Mitchell, M.D., J.P. 12s. 6d. nett.</p> + +<p><i>Mitchell.</i>—Jephtha: a Drama. Translated by A. G. Mitchell. 3s. +6d. nett.</p> + +<p>—— John the Baptist: a Drama. Translated by A. G. Mitchell. +3s. 6d. nett.</p> + +<p><i>Robertson.</i>—Practical First Aid. By Wm. Robertson, M.D., +D.P.H. 1s. 6d. nett.</p> + +<p>—— The Stone of Dunalter. By Wm. Robertson, M.D., D.P.H. 3s. +6d.</p> + +<p>Scotland Eighty Years Ago. Thirty-two Fine Copperplate Etchings +of the Chief Towns and their Surroundings. £5 5s. to subscribers +only.</p> + +<p><i>Smith.</i>—The New Testament in Braid Scots. Rendered by Rev. Wm. +Wye Smith. New Edition. 6s. nett.</p> + +<p><i>Symington.</i>—Hints to Our Boys. By A. J. Symington. 1s. 6d.</p> + +<p><i>Tannahill.</i>—Poems and Songs of Robert Tannahill. Edited by the +late David Semple, F.S.A. New Edition. 3s. 6d. nett.</p> + +<p><i>Taylor.</i>—The Autobiography of Peter Taylor. 3s. 6d.</p> + +<p><i>Taylor.</i>—Twelve Favourite Hymns: their Messages and their +Writers. By Rev. Wm. Taylor, M.A. 2s. nett.</p> + +<p><i>Wright.</i>—Laird Nicoll's Kitchen, and other Sketches of +Scottish Life and Manners. By Joseph Wright. 2s. 6d. nett.</p></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 100px;"> +<img src="images/logo.png" width="100" height="117" alt="" title="Publisher's logo" /> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Literary Tours in The Highlands and +Islands of Scotland, by Daniel Turner Holmes + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY TOURS *** + +***** This file should be named 29178-h.htm or 29178-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/1/7/29178/ + +Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/29178-h/images/logo.png b/29178-h/images/logo.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bf6114f --- /dev/null +++ b/29178-h/images/logo.png diff --git a/29178-h/images/title.jpg b/29178-h/images/title.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..77144c8 --- /dev/null +++ b/29178-h/images/title.jpg diff --git a/29178.txt b/29178.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c95130b --- /dev/null +++ b/29178.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11329 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands +of Scotland, by Daniel Turner Holmes + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland + +Author: Daniel Turner Holmes + +Release Date: June 20, 2009 [EBook #29178] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY TOURS *** + + + + +Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +_LITERARY TOURS_ + + + + + Literary Tours in + The Highlands and + Islands of Scotland + + By D. T. Holmes, B.A. + + + "Gaudia, discursus, nostri est farrago libelli" + --_Juvenal_, i. 74 + + + _PAISLEY: ALEXANDER GARDNER_ + Publisher by Appointment to the late Queen Victoria + 1909 + + + * * * * * + + + _To_ + _James Coats, Junr., Esq.,_ + _Ferguslie House, Paisley._ + + + _You, but for whom I'd never been + Much further north than Aberdeen; + Whose mandate sent my willing feet + To realms of heather, broom, and peat: + Accept this record of my tours + As something less my own than yours._ + + _D. T. HOLMES._ + + + + +_PREFACE._ + + + _White stands the long Kilpatrick row + Of hills with deep and dazzling snow, + And eastward, in a glimmering haze, + Stretch to the Forth the Campsie Braes._ + + _But see! beyond the Clyde, a stain + Of smoke that runs across the plain, + And flecks for miles the vivid gleam: + It is the tireless steed of steam._ + + _An old acquaintance! Ben and Strath + Daily behold his thunderous path, + That ceases not, until he feels + The breeze of Mallaig cool his wheels._ + + _And Memory, fondly gazing back + On many a journey by that track + Of splendour, would, at home, retrace + The charms and lore of every place;_ + + _Yea, pass, in thought, to storied Skye, + Where all the glens in glamour lie; + And, lightly scorning gust and spray, + Leap o'er the Minch to Stornoway._ + + _And many a northern beach besides, + Splashed by the foam of racing tides, + Rises in thought: from here to there, + Let Fancy's coinage pay the fare,--_ + + _Fancy, that wafts us o'er the main + To utmost Thule and home again, + Through mingled din of sea and sky, + Even in the twinkling of an eye._ + + _D. T. H._ + + _Ingleholm, Bridge of Weir, + 16th January, 1909._ + + + + + +CONTENTS. + + PAGE + +CHAPTER I.--INTRODUCTORY, 9 + + Village libraries--Difficulties of travel--Literary Societies in + the Highlands--Gaelic books--Happiness and geniality of + natives--Oban to Gairloch--Winter sailing--A crofting + village--Horrors of the Minch--Notes on Lewis--Highland + doctors--Hotels and anglers--Recent books--Military--Moray + Firth--Among the miners--Handloom weaving--Professor Blackie and + the Highlands. + +CHAPTER II.--MUSIC, SPEECHES, AND LITERATURE, 60 + + Scotch a reading nation--Hardships of students in old + days--Homer in Scalloway--When education ends--Objects of + chapter--Music--M.P.'s--Rural depopulation--Its + causes--Emigration--Village halls--The moon--A lecture in + Islay--Mental and material wealth--Real greatness--A Highland + laird on literature--Varieties of chairmen--"Coming to the + point"--Moral obligation--Compliment to Paisley--Oratory at + Salen--Lecture in a dungeon--Surprises--A visit to the + Borders--Tarbolton--Scotch language--Choice books--The + essayists--A Banff theory--Goldsmith in Gaelic--_Biblia + abiblia_--Favourites for the road--Horace--Shakespeare's + Sonnets--Xenophon--French literature and journalism--Romance and + Augustanism--Victorian writers--Celt and Saxon. + +CHAPTER III.--ECCLESIASTICAL, 134 + + Sectarian feeling--Typical anecdotes--Music and + religion--Ethical teaching in schools--The Moderates--A savoury + book--The Sabbath--"The Men of Skye"--The auldest kirk--The + Episcopal Church--An interlude of metre--The Christian + Brethren--Drimnin in Morven--Craignish--A model + minister--Ministerial trials in olden times--An artful + dodger--Some anecdotes from Gigha--Growing popularity of Ruskin. + +CHAPTER IV.--EDUCATIONAL, 180 + + Some Insular Dominies--Education Act of 1872--Education in the + Highlands--Feeding the hungry--Parish Council + boarders--Dwindling attendances--Arnisdale--Golspie Technical + School--On the Sidlaws--Some surprises--Arran schools--Science + and literature--Study of Scott--The old classical dominie--Vogue + of Latin in former times--Teachers and + examinations--Howlers--Competing subjects. + +CHAPTER V.--A TRIP TO SHETLAND, 217 + + Aberdeen--En route--Lerwick--Past and present saints--Some notes + on the islands--A Shetland poet--A visit to Bressay--From + Lerwick to Sandwick--Quarff--"That holy man, + Noah"--Fladibister--Cunningsburgh--"Keeping off"--The indignant + elder--Torquil Halcrow--Philology--A Sandwick gentleman--Local + tales--Foulah and Fair Isle--The fishing season. + +CHAPTER VI.--COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS AND THEIR ANECDOTES, 255 + + Trials of commercials--The two-est-faced knave--Mary, the maid + of the inn--Anecdotes of the smoking-room: Sonnet to + Raleigh--Peelin's below the tree--"She's away!"--A mean + house--One of the director's wives--Temperance hotels--A + memorial window--The blasted heath--The day for it--The + converted drummer--A circular ticket--A compound + possessive--Sixteen medals--"She's auld, and she's thin, and + she'll keep"--The will o' the dead--Sorry for London--"Raither + unceevil"--An unwelcome recitation--A word in season--A Nairn + critic--A grand day for it--A pro-Boer--"Falls of Bruar, only, + please!"--A bad case of nerves. + +CHAPTER VII.--LEGENDS AND LITERARY NOTABILIA, 278 + + Gairloch folk-lore: Prince Olaf and his bride--A laird who had + seen a fairy--Tales from Loch Broom: The dance of death--The + Kildonan midwife--The magic herring--Taisch--Antiquities of + Dunvegan--Miscellaneous terrors--St. Kilda--Lady + Grange--Pierless Tiree--Lochbuie in Mull--Inveraray Castle--The + sacred isle--Appin--Macdonald's gratitude--Notes on the + Trossachs--Lochfyneside: Macivors, Macvicars, and + Macallisters--Red Hector--Macphail of Colonsay--Tales from + Speyside: Tom Eunan!--Shaws and Grants--The wishing well--Ossian + and Macpherson--At the foot o' Bennachie--Harlaw--Lochaber + reivers--Reay and Twickenham--Rob Donn--Rev. Mr. Mill of + Dunrossness. + +CHAPTER VIII.--METRICAL AND SUPPLEMENTARY, 340 + + Arrival of the Mail-train at a Highland Station--Defoe, the + Father of Journalism--A Village Toper--A Reverend + Hellenist--Antigone--Shadows of the Manse--"My Heart's in the + Highlands"--Saddell, Kintyre--Springtime in Perthshire--Dr. + George Macdonald's Creed--Abbotsford--Carlyle--Shelley--Picture + in an Inn--Rain-storm at Loch Awe--Kinlochewe--General + Wade--Sound of Raasay in December--Les Neiges d' Antan--The + Islands of the Ness--American Tourist Loquitur--The Miners--In a + Country Graveyard--No Place like Home. + +INDEX, 369 + + + + +LITERARY TOURING. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +INTRODUCTORY. + + Village libraries--Difficulties of travel--Literary Societies in + the Highlands--Gaelic books--Happiness and geniality of + natives--Oban to Gairloch--Winter sailing--A crofting + village--Horrors of the Minch--Notes on Lewis--Highland + doctors--Hotels and anglers--Recent books--Military--Moray + Firth--Among the miners--Handloom weaving--Professor Blackie and + the Highlands. + + +VILLAGE LIBRARIES. + +At pretty frequent intervals, during the last four years, I have sallied +forth from my home in Renfrewshire, north, south, east, and west, to +some of the most remote and isolated nooks of insular and provincial +Scotland, on a mission so uncommon as to justify the writing of a book +of impressions and experiences. The Highlands and Islands of Scotland +are, of course, visited every summer by a great host of excursionists, +who go thither to fish, play golf, lounge, climb hills, and otherwise +picturesquely disport themselves. A few earnest devotees of science +spend their holidays botanising in the glens, scanning the geological +strata, looking for fossils, measuring the outlines of brochs and +prehistoric forts, or collecting relics of Culdee churches. My journeys +were undertaken for none of the objects named: they were entirely +connected with _libraries_ and _lecturing_, and, being undertaken mainly +in the months of winter and spring, they have given me the opportunity +of noting a great many interesting particulars that the summer +traveller, bent on recreation or science, cannot be expected to notice. + +_I do not think any finer gift could be given to a village community +than a collection of useful and entertaining books._ The libraries with +which my work was connected were sent, free of charge, to strath and +glen, and nothing was asked in return, except that the volumes should be +well housed and delivered to the people to read by some local librarian. +You will find these libraries in all the townships of the Hebrides, from +Ness in Lewis, down the long chain of islands, to Islay and Jura. About +thirty of them are established in the Shetlands, and as many in the +Orkneys. Scores of little villages in Aberdeen, Ross, Sutherland, +Argyle, Bute, and Perth, have been gratuitously supplied with them. The +same is true of many a weather-beaten, quaint, red-tiled little +fishing-village along the shores of the Moray Firth. In the barracks of +Fort-George, Inverness, and Dingwall, the soldiers can solace their +leisure hours by delightful, patriotic, and instructive reading, +furnished to them without money and without price. Even in quiet, +pastoral Roxburghshire, at a spot near the birthplace of Dandie +Dinmont, you will find one of these serviceable collections of books. + +It is a pleasure to me to be able to say that I have visited a great +number of the districts mentioned, for the purpose of speaking to the +people in a familiar and non-academic way on some of the books which +have been presented to them. In this way I have spoken to about 40,000 +people, the majority of whom had never previously been present at a +discourse on a literary topic. Most of them had, of course, been in the +habit of attending religious services and election meetings: but neither +of these is the very best preparation for a literary evening. Some of my +experiences have been intensely amusing, and I do not think any lecturer +has ever, as regards rough roads, inclement weather, and amazing votes +of thanks, had quite the same joys and sorrows as I have come through. I +have often laughed (good-naturedly, I hope) at what came under my +notice, but I am not so conceited as to suppose that the hilarity was +always on one side. + + +DIFFICULTIES OF TRAVEL. + +It can very easily be seen that he who proposed to visit all the above +districts would have some hard and continuous work in prospect. Even on +the mainland of Scotland there are many villages of difficult access. +The nearest railway station to Durness on Loch Eriboll is Lairg, sixty +miles away. Gairloch in Ross-shire is thirty miles distant from the +railway station of Achnasheen. In the great county of Aberdeen there are +a good many villages that can only be reached by long and tiresome +driving in a mail coach. At different parts of the Moray Firth little +townships lie huddled at the foot of precipitous cliffs, and, at first +sight, seem inaccessible except by sea. To one accustomed to the +sumptuous equipment of the Clyde steamers, even the journey to the +shrine of Hugh Miller at Cromarty is pleasant only in good weather: a +wee, puffing, hard-wrought steam-launch takes a slant course of five +miles from Invergordon to Cromarty pier, accomplishing the journey in +forty-five minutes. The fare between the two piers is one shilling, and +there is no extra charge for the use of the cabin, which is reached by a +perpendicular and very slippery ladder, and would be better suited for +philosophical reflection in a gale if the crew did not use it as a +store-room for engine-grease and old oilskins. In the Outer Islands, +Watt's machine is, of course, unknown, and many of the roads which +imaginative cartographers have inserted in their maps, will perhaps be +finished when the last trump is about to sound. + +Railway travelling, too, is attended with some inconveniences in winter. +The Glasgow-Inverness train, for example, may, on the coldest night of +the year, break down at Dalnaspidal; and in such a case the passengers +will have to sit, entertained by howling blasts, till a fresh engine +comes up from Blair Atholl. Such an experience was once mine, and I +always think of it when I read the ninth ode of Horace's first book. +Outside were the great snow-sheeted mountains, and the moon was gazing +in blear-eyed compassion through a screen of haze. From end to end of +the train resounded the rhythmic beat of cold-footed passengers striving +to bring some warmth of blood to the toes. + +In Grantown-on-Spey, I got an uncommon surprise one February. There had +been some snow in the Lowlands, but at Grantown the fall had been +excessive, and the roads were encumbered. On arriving at the station, +the travellers saw a sleigh waiting to convey them to the hotel. The +conveyance suited the weather admirably, and the horses seemed to be +enjoying the fun. No wheeled vehicles were to be seen: even the milkmen +sleighed their commodity from door to door. "_If we had a brace of +grand-dukes and a bomb or two, we could fancy ourselves in Russia_," +said the facetious hotel-porter. He asserted that it was well for the +country when abundant snow came down early in the year. It seems that +Grantown is apt to suffer from drought in a hot summer following on a +rainless spring. A copious fall of snow early in the year is retained in +the mountains, and ensures plenty of moisture during the months of heat. +Moisture is needed in summer, for the population is trebled then, and +most tourists require a little water, sometimes, to qualify their +potations. + +It is evident from what I have said, that the pedantic and vexatious +system adopted by Euclid in his Elements of Geometry could not be +employed in arranging the chapters of this book. The stern +consecutiveness of that immortal but unpopular author would be out of +place in describing journeys which might have been taken in the reverse +order without much difference in the results. + + +LITERARY SOCIETIES IN THE HIGHLANDS. + +Winter with its long nights gives leisure to the remote glensmen and +crofters. The distractions of the town are not there to take their minds +away from study and meditation. Books may not be abundant, but what +literature is available is eagerly fastened on and thoroughly digested. +In the Lowlands we skip over our books and know nothing thoroughly. The +Highlander, with his limited means and choice, is forced to peruse and +re-peruse, even though he has nothing more lively than Boston's +_Fourfold State_, or Hervey's _Meditations among the Tombs_. But he +knows well what he has so often read, and is quite competent to discuss +and criticise his little row of volumes. A few of the Highland townships +have literary societies in which every variety of subject is debated: +the meetings are usually opened with prayer, but not always closed in +that way. There is a tiny clachan, some twenty miles distant from +Ullapool, on the side of a hill, in view of the grotesque peaks of +Suilven, which has a most flourishing literary society--with president, +vice-president, rules, minutes, and committees. Not once, but twice a +week does this society meet, and when the full moon is propitious for a +clear journey home through the morasses, the debates are often unduly +prolonged and the chairman's summing-up luxuriantly prolix. How many +politicians of note in London have been raked fore and aft in that +little schoolroom! What measures and enactments, plausible to the +unthinking metropolitans, have been cut and slashed there, while the +conscious moon, gleaming in at the window, strove vainly to disperse +the loquacious throng! Listen to the chairman's modest remarks: "_I do +not wish_," he says, "_to embarrass the Government, but_...." Unthinking +Asquith, here is a man who does not wish to embarrass you; he could do +it, but he is merciful! You may breathe freely, you and your Cabinet, +for spite of your slips and blunders, the Ross-shire crofters will not +turn round and rend you. They do not wish to embarrass the Government; +but have a care: their eyes are on you, and forbearance has its limits. +Think not because they live remote from train and telegraph, that you +are immune from their censure. Far from it! Round the hill-side at a +stated hour every day, in shine or shower, gust or calm, comes the +mail-coach of King Edward VII., bringing its pile of letters and +newspapers. I see the little throng of village politicians, eager-eyed, +peruse the latest parliamentary news. There they get all the needed +pabulum for the next political debate. If the answers to Mr. Galloway +Weir have been shifty and evasive, it will go hard with the Government +to-night in the little schoolroom, and the plaster will fall in showers +of dust from the ceiling as the iniquities of our rulers are ruthlessly +shown up. I should not like to feel the rough side of that chairman's +tongue. + +A library of representative English works, presented to a remote +provincial society like the one I speak of, is a centre of unspeakable +entertainment and instruction. The _entertainment_, during the long +nights of winter, when the natives gather round the ingle and someone +reads aloud, is a very palpable addition to the joys of life. The +_instruction_ is perhaps slower in coming, but is none the less sure. +Only by comparison of books can their relative value as literature be +determined. Bigotry and narrow-mindedness in literature and religion are +almost always the result of ignorance. In the Highlands it is oftenest +the local teacher who is the librarian, and the books are accommodated +in the school. The teacher is thus able to make his instruction in +literature vivid and interesting to his senior pupils; he can authorise +a pupil to take a particular volume home and require an essay to be +written on it within a given time; and he can, in school, read aloud +typical passages of good prose to supplement the limited extracts of the +class text-books. The books have been selected (i.) to form useful +reading for adults; (ii.) to supply suitable pabulum for literary +societies; (iii.) to aid the schemes of the Education Department in +connection with what is called the "Supplementary Course of Instruction +in English Literature." The selection of the books for the use of senior +scholars has been, as a rule, easy enough. Dictionaries of the French +and German languages, good atlases, and works of reference have, in most +cases been included.[1] + + [1] Let the southern reader remember that a boy born in a city + like Glasgow has, as respects opportunities of getting on, + infinitely better chances than a lad of equal ability born in a + Highland village. The crofter's son has no reading-room with + costly works of reference, scientific manuals, English + translations of Latin authors, etc., to go to when he is in need + of help. He begins the battle of life at a very serious + disadvantage, and often gives up the fight altogether. Anything + that tends to equalise the chances of town and country, from the + point of view of mental equipment, would do more general good to + Scotland, by bettering the available brain power, than any + half-dozen Acts of Parliament taken at random. + + +GAELIC BOOKS. + +In selecting the books specially intended for the perusal of the older +people, an attempt is made to meet the needs of the various localities. +In the bi-lingual districts there is always a shelf of Gaelic books, +such as the original texts of Norman Macleod's exquisite sermons, +M'Rury's religious compilations, Macleod's clever poetry _The Lyre of +the Grove_, Campbell's _Popular Tales of the West Highlands_, and Magnus +Maclean's manuals of Celtic Literature. There being a distinct dearth of +comely Celtic reading that the ordinary native can understand, +arrangements have been made for the translation into Gaelic in several +volumes by competent scholars, of extracts from Mr. Lang's _True Story +Book_, and from other sources. + +The regrettable thing about Gaelic is its hopelessly bewildering +spelling. The sounds are pleasing and melodious in a high degree, but +they hide themselves behind most peculiar disguisements of print. Most +people will admit, I think, that a language which spells Avon, +_Amhuinn_, and Rory, _Ruaridh_, would benefit greatly by a visit from +Pitman. The utility of sane phonetics was brought home to me very +forcibly by a story I heard from a gentleman in the west of Skye. This +gentleman is an excellent English scholar, can speak Gaelic but is +unable to read it. He got a letter once from St. Kilda composed by an +islander who spelt Gaelic by ear and not according to the awe-inspiring +orthography of the dictionary. The gentleman, who could not have made +out the letter had it been spelt correctly, was able to read it as it +stood, without the slightest hesitation. If a more rational spelling +were generally adopted, an immense number of Lowlanders who are +interested in philology, would study the grand old tongue, were it only +to understand the numberless place names of Celtic origin that occur in +British geography. + +What I have said about Gaelic spelling explains the inability of a large +percentage of the population to read a book printed in the native idiom. +What is the use then, it may be asked, of translating the _True Story +Book_? The answer is obvious to one who knows the Highlands. In the +Outer Isles there are many old people who know no English and whose only +literary solace comes from listening to others reading. At the evening +_ceilidh_ a competent reader of Gaelic can usually be found. Then, +again, we are likely to see, in the near future, a notable revival of +interest in the old language, consequent on the efforts of the _Mod_, +and on the recognition of Gaelic by the Department as a fit subject of +study in the Highland schools. Such a revival, to be lasting in its +effects, must be enforced and sustained by a constant supply of pure and +interesting Gaelic books, both native and translated. Religious books +there are in abundance, thanks to the zeal of the Protestant clergy. +Needless to say, the compilations of the Dean of Lismore are as +unintelligible to the modern Gael as Cynewulf is to a London cab-driver. +I should like to see a round dozen of good English novels put into +Gaelic by translators who knew the idiom thoroughly. + +The fervour displayed at Highland gatherings, admirable as it is from a +sentimental point of view, is apt to grow cold at the prospect of +laborious work to be done. It is not creditable that the great majority +of Gaelic speakers are unable to read a page of Gaelic print. Nor is it +creditable that those who can both read and speak, do so little for the +interpretation of the literature. Blackie's books and translations are +still among the best, and Blackie was a Lowlander, was born, indeed, in +the Saltmarket of Glasgow. My frequent visits to the north and west have +convinced me that another difficulty in the way of a possible resurgence +of Gaelic is the lack of a recognised standard of colloquial speech. The +language is split up into many dialects, each possessing its own special +idioms and vocabulary. A Glasgow firm of printers not long ago conceived +the idea of printing post-cards with Gaelic greetings: they found that +every city Highlander they consulted had either in grammar or turn of +phrase some special way of framing the sentences. "Grand Gaelic to-day!" +is an exclamation sometimes heard at the door of a Highland church in +town, and indicates that the minister who has officiated comes from the +same strath as the person speaking. + +A moderate amount of encouragement to Gaelic is all that can reasonably +be expected from the Government, seeing that the prime duty of the +schoolmaster everywhere is to impart a sound knowledge of English.[2] + + [2] In an editorial of June 6, 1908, the _Glasgow Herald_ + excellently says:--"The first requisite for a Highlander is such + a knowledge of English as will open up to him the lucrative + employment from which ignorance of English must shut him out, + and it is no kindness to him to interfere with his acquisition + of this indispensable accomplishment.... So good a Gael as + Professor Magnus Maclean has observed that 'even more remarkable + than the dearth of philosophical and dramatic poems, and, we + might add, of narrative and pastoral poetry proper, is the + scarcity of Gaelic prose.' By all means, however, let a literary + knowledge of the Gaelic language be encouraged among + Gaelic-speaking children. It is a very different matter to + enforce such steps as would lead to the teaching of Gaelic to + children that live indeed in Gaelic-speaking districts but yet + speak only English." + + +HAPPINESS AND GENIALITY OF NATIVES. + +What has struck me most in my travels by land and sea, is the +extraordinary amount of happiness, geniality, and good humour that still +exists in the world. There is a substantial amount of felicity in the +majority of men. Every one knows the sentence of Emerson: "Give me +health and a day, and I will make the pomp of empires ridiculous." I +like to give concrete examples of philosophic maxims, and I should +particularise Emerson's dictum thus: "Bard Macdonald of Trotternish, +Skye, whose only cow came near being impounded by the Congested +Districts Board in order to pay for the price of seed-potatoes furnished +to him by the said Board, having good health, makes the pomp of empires +ridiculous three hundred and sixty-five days every year." Bard Macdonald +is a very poor man, yet he has contrived to hitch his waggon on to a +fixed star. He lives in one of those low thatch-roofed bothies that, +with the accompanying croft, are rented at from L2 to L4 a year. He has +a wife and a large family. Yet, tormented as he is by present poverty +and past arrears, he eyes the future with serenity. I heard him sing a +Gaelic poem of his own composition, containing twenty-five verses of +intricate versification, and at the conclusion he was far less exhausted +than any of the company. Then, again, Torquil M'Gillivray, schoolmaster +of a rainy township on the sea-edge of one of the Skye _nishes_, has +tranquillity of mind as great as any of the Seven Sages ever enjoyed. He +is perfectly contented with his lot of rural dominie, and when I, in my +presumption, ventured to speak critically of certain social conditions +in his beloved island, he rebuked me by crooning tenderly the following +lines: + + "Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome, + I would see them before I die, + But I'd rather not see any one of the three, + Than be exiled for ever from Skye!" + +We all know what a unique poetical gem Wordsworth composed after he +heard a Highland girl singing at Inversnaid. I witnessed many fine +examples of concentrated joy which might have resulted in metre if I had +not had the presence of mind to pull myself up and refrain. One was at +Acharacle, where in front of a croft a young fellow was dancing the +Highland fling with such whole-souled and consuming zeal that I stood +transfixed with wonder and awe. He was alone, and I came suddenly upon +him at a sharp bend of the road. He threw his legs about him with such +regardless glee, that for a moment I was afraid one of them would get +unfixed and come spinning through the air to hit me. I watched him like +one fascinated for fully ten minutes. When at length he saw me, the +glory flowed suddenly off his legs; he subsided into a country bumpkin, +and beat a hasty retreat indoors. "If Greek dances were as artistic as +this one," said I, "and if the lines of each chorus had a reference to +the diversity of the steps, it is little wonder that God in His +providence should have sent us so many commentators to explain the +mysteries of ancient scansion." + +Another instance of natural and spontaneous bliss came under my notice +about two miles along from Kinlochewe, on the banks of Loch Maree. It +was a glorious, sun-illumined spring morning, and every crevice in the +rough flanks of Ben Slioch was mirrored in the unwrinkled surface of the +noble loch. Ben Eay had a bright covering of Nature's whitest, softest +lawn. No sounds were heard except the low droning of a vagrant bee, the +whizzing of a sea-mew's pinions, or a bark from this croft answered by a +bark from that other a mile away. Suddenly the repose of the morning, in +which a pedestrian could hear the echo of his own feet, was startled by +the voice of a girl singing. For a moment I thought of the _Lorelei_; +but it was soon evident where the notes were coming from. A maiden of +ten or twelve was sitting in front of a cottage that faced the lake, +combing her long, black hair that glistened in the morning rays, and +pouring forth such exquisite trills as might have made Orpheus envious. +The whole beauty of ben, loch, and sky seemed to be gathered up in that +child's song. I had been wandering along in the sparkling air and +feeling that something ought to be done to intimate to Heaven that it +was a heavenly morning. The girl felt so happy in the gracious gift of +another blue day that her nature responded at once in a spontaneous +burst of melody. I was very grateful for her vicarious hymn of praise-- + + "Now thanks to Heaven! that of its grace + Hath led me to this lonely place. + Joy have I had; and going hence + I bear away my recompense." + + +OBAN TO GAIRLOCH. + +It is impossible for anyone who has a fair supply of the uncurdled milk +of human kindness to sail from Oban to Gairloch and not be struck with +the heartiness and good humour of the native population. Such a trip is +rarely accomplished without some memorable incident or some outstanding +impression. The landscape is doubtless magnificent, but the people one +sees on the way are infinitely more interesting. No one, I am sure, can +fail to observe the well-groomed, fresh, and imperial aspect of the pier +policemen. The general polish of their boots and belts, the +self-satisfied, Parnassian smile that never comes off, the spotless +gloves, the muscular frame, combine to make up a splendid type of +impressive Law grounded on Strength. I am ashamed to employ the term +"policemen" to a body of officials who command such instantaneous +respect. These men are King Edward's Highland satraps, and they both +know it and feel it: law in the North is never undignified or unkempt. +Then, again, the captain of the steamer is a man whom it is impossible +to regard without veneration. All Macbrayne's men are fine fellows; they +look well as they stand in stately fashion on the bridge: yet many a +scowling sky of torrential rain they have to face, many a time have +their beards been shaken by the hurricanes of the Minch. If you speak to +a ship-captain, you are certain to get the utmost civility and +politeness. It is true that most of them have several sets of +vocabularies: to passengers they are urbane and choice of speech; but +they have, within easy reach, another set of phrases, which they find of +service in addressing delinquent mariners. + +A student of Virgil in making the trip I have alluded to above, would +run the risk of recalling the passage in which the poet suggests that +the big island of Sicily was at one time connected with the mainland, +but that some huge convulsion of nature disjoined the twain and allowed +the Mediterranean to come roaring in a channel between. The scenery of +Western Scotland stirs the imagination to suppose that some similar +catastrophe permitted the sea to mangle the fair uniformity of a +prehistoric coast, submerge the low-lying lands, and leave a great +number of islands lying in lonely fashion out in the watery waste. +Heavy weather, truly, it must have been ere Coll, Tiree, Rum, and Eigg +were sundered from the mainland by the Atlantic flow. + +All the islands I mention (save Tiree) can be seen from the deck of the +_Gael_ during the earlier part of the daily passage of that boat from +Oban in the summer season. Tiree is off the main tourist track, but a +few antiquarians are now finding it worth their while to go and dig +there for relics of byegone civilisation. A friend of mine, a zealous +and erudite F.S.A., has spent many a pleasant holiday in Tiree, and has +come back with loaded trunks of valuable prehistoric remains. Certain +artists go out to the island regularly in order to transfer to canvas +some of Nature's most impressive aspects of cloud, wave, and crag. Nor +let me forget the doughty members of the _Faith Mission_, who evangelise +this and others of the outer isles, and sing such sweet melodies to the +natives as would melt any "Wee Free" heart, let alone an ordinary heart +of stone. Tiree has long been famous for its schools and for its +intelligent inhabitants; as a consequence, the libraries have been +enthusiastically welcomed in its townships, and are regarded by the +teachers there as a new and valuable adjunct of education. I have often +heard it said that Tiree produces more ministers than any other +district, of like population, in the Celtic part of Scotland. The Duke +of Argyll does not allow any licensed house on the island, but he has +not as yet suppressed the _Fingal_ and the parcels post. Should His +Grace ever unbend so far as to permit the temperance hotels to obtain +the licence, learned men might flock in greater numbers to Tiree, and +dazzle themselves and the world with further antiquarian finds.[3] + +Rum has not been dowered with a Paisley library, and I regret to say +that the natives have the reputation of not keeping the Sunday with +ostentatious strictness. Eigg, the little island contiguous, is a little +heaven below. The missionary there well deserves a word of commendation: +the island of Muck is under his spiritual supervision, and with a +sandwich and a sermon in his pocket, he often sets sail, scorning gust +and current, to preach to his parishioners in that tiny islet. + + [3] Coll is also a very interesting island for the antiquarian. + It contains distinct traces of twenty-nine Hill-forts or Duns, + so that there must have been lively times out there long ago. + Some fine shells, beads, pins and pottery have been found in the + prehistoric _kitchen-middens_. Before the Reformation the island + was thickly peopled, and sites of old churches and deserted + crofts are numerous. Coll has gone back in population; in 1901 + it had 432 inhabitants; in 1755 the number of natives was 1,193. + + +WINTER SAILING. + +The summer tourist knows Skye very imperfectly, for he goes there in a +commodious steamer and traverses the island at a season when the days +are long and the weather benign. No one should vaunt of knowing Skye +unless he has seen it in winter also. It is the small _Lochiel_ that, in +the dark days of December, bears the passengers along the chilly Sound +of Sleat, and through the narrows of Raasay, into the haven of Portree. +At such a time there is something fearsome and weird in the aspect of +the coast, as seen from the cabin window of the brave little boat as +she battles and plunges along in the teeth of the north-eastern gale. +Her progress is slow, for when passengers are few Macbrayne wisely +economises his coal. The long-stretching hills of Raasay (on the highest +of which Boswell danced a jig) are white from head to foot, and gleam +through the darkness of the afternoon, vivid and ghostly. As Raasay +House, with its lamp-lit windows shining in a snowy recess, is +approached, the engines slow down, and through the howl of the wind can +be heard the plashing of oars. The broad waves swirl and seethe cruelly +around the ferry-boat and toss it about at all angles, up and down, on +crest and in trough, till you fear it will end its struggles keel +upwards, and send the mail-bags down among the mackerel. But the boatmen +know their trade, and so do the dripping, top-booted seamen of the +_Lochiel_. Amid much running and shuffling and casting of ropes and +animated bandying of (I fear) strong expressions in Gaelic sung out upon +the night, the ship's ladder is cast down and the boat tied thereto. In +a few minutes the transfer of mails is over, the ladder up, and the +small boat leaping back to land. (I speak of December 22, 1904). A new +passenger has come on board and is seen to descend the cabin stairs to +unfreeze his fingers over the tiny stove. Half-an-hour's heaving still +remains before Portree. A lady who has been on the border-line of +squeamishness for the last hour, hurriedly leaves the cabin, probably to +see if her luggage is all right. Good news at last for all! Portree is +visible, and its lights are twinkling on the height. The moon comes +graciously out, silvering the snowy shoulders of Essie Hill. What a +contrast is this moonlit haven, with its background of terraced lights, +to the rough surges outside. Glad indeed is everyone to set foot on the +pier and trudge through disregarded slush to the warmth of home or +hotel. We are told by our island friends that all Skye is under snow and +that the roads are impassable. No mail-coach has ventured to Dunvegan +for two days and in other directions, the postmen, turned cavaliers, +have gone off on horseback with their letters. (Let me say in passing, +that a red-bearded Highland postman, clad in post-office livery and +seated on a sheltie, is a sight which any artist would go a hundred +miles to see.) + +Winter sailing may at times be as pleasant as a cruise in June. At 8 +A.M. in the snug cabin, the breakfast-table, with its tea, ham, eggs, +and sausages, is a welcome piece of scenery, and the genial talk of the +captain and his colleagues is far better than pepsine as a digestive. +After breakfast, a pipe on deck is a necessity. Who that has once seen +Ben-na-ceallich all white to the feet and softly veiled with airy mists, +but wishes he were a Turner to paint, or a Shelley to sing? The sail +from Broadford to Kyle on a calm, cold, snow-dazzling morning is (if one +is wrapped and coated well) absolutely majestic. The sun pours, if not +warmth, at least light and heat on the hundred bens of the mainland and +the breeze aiding, wakens a multitudinous smile on the glittering face +of the cold waters. + +I never take this trip without thinking of such books as _The Brave Sons +of Skye_, which gives a record of the brave men born in the misty island +who have come south and distinguished themselves in many a different +walk in life. It is a most inspiring thing to reflect on the dauntless +way in which genius treads the stony road that leads from poverty to +glory. There is not a district in Skye but has its great man, who forms +the subject of conversation round the peat fire when the winter winds +are blowing down the strath. "From Log Cabin to White House" is the +American way of putting it: in Scotland we might say "From Crofter's Cot +to Professor's Chair." + + +A CROFTING VILLAGE. + +The sight of a crofting village is at first rather surprising to one +accustomed to large towns. The low roofs are not far from the ground. +Often, while driving, if you turn a corner swiftly, you run the risk of +being thrown out of the trap on to one of the chimneys. It does not take +much imagination, especially in the dim dusk, to transform a +low-thatched cot into some weird animal that might begin to walk along +the hill-side at any moment. So irregularly grouped are the townships, +dropped here and there, as it were, that you might fancy the houses had +begun at one time to run a race with each other, and in the middle of it +had suddenly stopped. Dr. Johnson complained that the windows were fixed +into the walls and could not, in consequence, be opened to let in the +air. That fault exists to some extent still: I have been told, however, +that peat reek is very purifying, and that its thick fumes make short +work of any noxious germs that might lodge about the nooks of the +interior. Great changes are gradually coming over many of the clachans, +changes not loved by an artist or a devotee of the picturesque. Instead +of thatch, held down by ropes weighted with heavy stones, there is often +to be seen a roofing of tarred cloth or corrugated iron. Romance might +attach itself to a roof of thatch, but corrugated iron, with its +distressing parallelism, could never awaken a genuine lyric note. +Further, it does not make a very comfortable seat, whereas thatch is +soft. Now, children in the Highlands are rather fond of sitting and even +playing on the roof: thatch is less cruel on bare feet than iron is. + + +HORRORS OF THE MINCH. + +I have alluded to the distresses of winter voyaging to Skye. But there +are other routes worse, notably that from Tarbert in Harris to +Lochmaddy, which is a perfect Tartar of a trip. When the wind is high +and contrary, the traveller (if he can stay on deck and maintain an +interest in the scenery), beholds a sight of extreme grandeur. The waves +are to be seen all along the Harris coast leaping up to a terrific +extent with an unbroken line of foam extending for miles. So much does +the boat romp and dance, however, that most passengers forsake the deck +and retire inelegantly below. When a man lies in a stuffy cabin wishing +himself wedged into it to prevent the perpetual rolling to this side and +to that, and hearing the desperate thud of the Minch flinging itself +against the port-hole, a series of vivid panoramic pictures pass before +his mental eye. Home appears so lovely and reposeful: faces of friends +on shore arise, transfigured by the glow of love: the squeamishness and +retching he endures seem to the sufferer a special and direct judgment +on him for impiously endeavouring to find pleasure otherwise than by the +practice of the domestic virtues. Disquieting memories of bursting +boilers surge up to the surface of the mind, and old catches like the +weird ballad of Sir Patrick Spens lilt themselves to the clank of the +staggering ship's machinery-- + + "The anchor's brak and the tapmast lap, + It was sic a deadly storm, + And the waves dashed into the gude ship's side + Till a' her planks were torn." + +The romance of the sea is apt to vanish as you look out upon a +wilderness of foaming water, tossing the boat like an insignificant toy, +drenching the bulwarks and vehemently smiting everything in its riotous +anger. Neptune seems a mere blind force without reverence or mercy for +the works of man. It is good for a boy of romantic disposition to cross +to the Long Island in a gale: it will effectually cure him of all desire +to take up the profession of pirate. What a sad moment for such a youth +when he sees his breakfast where it shouldn't be, and reflects that he +has not the staying power of Sir Ralph the Rover! + +I regret to say that I have no specific to give as a preventive for +sea-sickness. Even the Phoenicians who had time, during the intervals +of their hardy voyaging, to invent the alphabet, were unable to devise a +remedy for the _mal de mer_. Custom does not create immunity, for even +the mighty Nelson, who had a life-long acquaintance with the ocean, was +afflicted with sea-sickness to the end of his days. In France there +exists a _Ligue contre le mal de mer_, commenting upon which a French +journalist says: _Avec une ligue on est toujours assure d'une chose: a +defaut de progres, qu'elle nous fera peut-etre attendre, elle fera des +congres: et c'est du moins une consolation que de pouvoir discourir de +son mal._ + +He that will to Cupar maun through Fife, and he that has business in the +Lews must brave the billows of the Minch. + + +NOTES ON LEWIS. + +The great island of Lewis, formerly so distant from Edinburgh and +Glasgow, can now be reached in fourteen hours by one who leaves the +latter city at 5.40 A.M. The old route was very tiresome and circuitous: +the traveller had to proceed to Inverness, take the Dingwall and Skye +line to Strome Ferry, and then sail over the Minch to Stornoway. The +opening up of the West Highlands by the railway to Mallaig has changed +all that. At Mallaig pier, when you leave the train, you find the +connecting steamer ready to set off, at noon, for its journey to +Stornoway, where it arrives about eight in the evening. + +I don't think anyone would want to stay more than a week at a time in +Stornoway. The town itself is just like the fishy part of +Boulogne-sur-Mer, only more so. There is a pervading odour of mussels, +bait, and herring, and the gulls go flapping overhead in crowds +everywhere. If the tourist remained a week in the place, he would go +every day to the Castle grounds. Here, if anywhere, is the paradise of +the Lews. There is a profusion of dells, burns, glades, ivy-grown +bridges, and far-extending vistas over sea, moorland, and town. As with +a knife (so precise is the division) the well-wooded policies are +separated from the barren and disheartening moor. When one gets to the +highest point of the grounds and gazes over the long, tiresome slopes of +the island, one's belief in _design in nature_ gets a sudden stab. A man +will think long and sore before he arrives at any _raison d'etre_ for +including such a wilderness of bogs in the scheme of creation. + +The men of the island are, in the main, shrewd, resourceful, and +intelligent--qualities fostered by their constant fighting with the sea. +"The young fellows here," said one of the hotel-keepers to me, "will +either make a spoon or spoil a horn. They come to a decision speedily +and put it into practice at once. It is hit or miss with them, usually +hit. At sea, in a gale, there is no time for parliamenting; and Lewismen +act on land with the swift decision that is needed in a tempest." All +round the coast are fishing-villages, thickly populated by these +intrepid children of the tempest. + +Fishing is a precarious industry, and often fails. The harvest of the +land may fail at the same time as that of the sea: in such a case the +plight of the islanders is sad indeed. During the last five years, the +trade of weaving has been wisely fostered by the Government, so that in +future, when sea and soil are churlish, the loom will to some extent +supply the lack. The Duchess of Sutherland and the Congested Districts +Board have done excellent service in encouraging the tweed-weaving +industry all over the Long Island. Her Grace, some years ago, made a +progress through Lewis and addressed the people by means of an +interpreter, on the advantages of such industry in their homes. She also +instituted exhibition sales of work in the big cities of the south, with +the result that large quantities of cloth were sold and a precious +publicity given to the scheme. Depots for receiving the cloth from the +workers are now established in Stornoway and Harris. The Congested +Districts Board advance money without interest for the purchase of +looms, provide an experienced instructor to supply the people with new +patterns, and give an adequate supply of dye-pots free of charge. This +instructor goes over the whole of Lewis and Harris, spending month about +in each, erecting new looms and modernising old ones. There is a large +carding mill in Stornoway, where the natives can have the wool +expeditiously carded in the most approved modern style. An industry thus +fostered and supervised is bound to succeed. + +Educationally, the Long Island is making great progress. Higher +education is almost entirely centred in the Nicolson Institute, +Stornoway, a school admirably conducted and finely equipped. The pupils +of marked ability in the elementary schools of Lewis come here to +continue their higher studies, and, in many cases, to prepare themselves +for the University. I have seen specimens of a magazine, annually put +forth by the senior pupils of this school, and containing many +interesting essays and poems, grave and gay. The English of the essays +was remarkably good, and contained here and there some piquant +suggestions of Gaelic idiom. The pupils read French well, probably +because their native Gaelic contains such a rich reservoir of nasal +sounds to draw upon. + + +HIGHLAND DOCTORS. + +I have a great respect for the medical gentlemen who have taken up their +position in remote districts of Scotland, and devote themselves to the +healing art under most disadvantageous circumstances. The distances are +incredibly long and dangerous in winter: I have in my mind an insular +doctor who has a deal of midnight boating to do in glacial weather, and +whose bills are often paid not in coin but _in fleece newly off the +sheep's back_. As the population gets smaller, the doctor's work becomes +more laborious and less remunerative. The institution of district nurses +has been a great success, and I wish there were more of them. A +sympathetic and competent _nurse_ is a valuable asset in a crofting or +seafaring community. In one district of Mull, recently visited, I found +that the nurse was also the village librarian. She was quite at home +both with lotions and literature, and could recommend a poet or prepare +a poultice with equal skill. The ante-room to the village hall was her +dispensary: it seemed to me remarkably complete, and to have as +scientific an odour as any city pharmacy. I was glad to see that the +Clan Maclean was so well supplied with the resources of modern +civilisation. + +In every one of the village libraries there is a copy of Black's +_Medical Dictionary_, a most useful compilation, written in clear and +simple language, and detailing all the commonest remedies. Many rural +teachers and clergymen have considerable skill in coping with illness. +Every country minister should have at least a smattering of medical +knowledge.[4] + + [4] At Spean Bridge there is a worthy old farmer, Mr. Chalmers, + who has a widespread fame for dexterous bone-setting, a talent + which is said to have descended to him from a long line of + forbears. A young gentleman from Glasgow was in the hotel there + during my stay, and from personal experience spoke of Mr. + Chalmers's remarkable powers. He told me that patients come from + far and near (after eminent surgeons have failed to give + benefit), in order to be treated at Spean Bridge. + + +HOTELS AND ANGLERS. + +Wherever the angler goes, you find a good hotel. Uist is low-lying and +barren, with nothing to attract the eye--no tourist would go near the +place for anything it has to show in the way of scenery. But as it has +hundreds of small lochs, full of fish, ardent anglers go thither from +all parts of the British Isles; and so at Lochmaddy and Lochboisdale the +hotels are not merely good, they are excellent. The recording angel is +kept busy, during the season, in taking a note of all the myths told +there by the fishers in the evening over the whisky and soda. + +There may be heard, at night, in most hotels in the Western Isles, the +riotous scampering of rats overhead and along the walls. In Lochmaddy +hotel there used to be an old frisker (perhaps he is living still) that +gave great entertainment, though no one ever saw him. He lifted a stone, +evidently with his mouth, ran a yard or two with it, and then dropped it +with a great clatter. The game was a pleasure to him, for he would +practice it for half an hour at a time. The anglers who frequented the +hotel called him _the mason_. + +I have got into conversation with innumerable knights of the rod, and +can sympathise to a slight extent with their enthusiasm. Nothing seems +to take hold of a man so irrevocably as Walton's mania. Travelling by +night in the north lately, I looked out into the dusk from the carriage +window and beheld a bright flash of lightning, and by the gleam thereof +saw a midnight maniac with his rod silhouetted against the vast inane. +How few fishers nowadays, except perhaps Mr. Andrew Lang, can write +their experiences in good marrowy English-- + + The quaint loquacious wits of long ago, + Whose ease was never broken by the shrill + Whistle of engine panting round the hill, + Could by the brook where fishful waters flow, + Spend the long hours in angling to and fro, + And hooking lusty trout and salmon, till + The low-descending sun and evening chill + Would send them to the merry ingle-glow; + Then, after fit refection, pen and ink + Would consecrate on paper all their feats + In rippling phrases flashing with the blink + Of forest glades and living water-sheets; + The race is poorer now than it was then: + We have no anglers that can wield the pen. + +I believe the best region in all Scotland for trout is the wild and +picturesque county of Sutherland. In the district of Assynt alone there +are 150 lochs, fine sheets of water most of them, lying about among the +hills. Half-way between the two seas and just on the borders of +Sutherland and Ross, is the cosy wee hotel of Altnacealgach, with a +well-stocked loch at the door, from which hundredweights of trout are +taken every year. The air that blows about the house is to that of +London as champagne is to dish-water. + +There is a close connection, as I said, between the frequentation of a +district by anglers and the excellence of its hotels. Where there is no +great influx of tourists, the hotel accommodation is decidedly poor. I +remember one inn, at a cold windy clachan on the west coast, which only +stress of weather and dire necessity would make a man enter. Dirty stone +steps, worn and crumbled in the centre, led to an upper room which had +apparently not been swept out for a year or two. Not even the city of +Cologne in Coleridge's time could have produced from among its imposing +catalogue of stenches anything to match the complex ensemble of that +malodorous inn. There was stale fish intil't, and bad beer intil't, and +peat reek intil't, and mice intil't, and candle grease intil't, and the +devil and all intil't. Though I was the only visitor, I feared I should +not have the bed to myself: so I e'en wrapped myself in my Highland +plaidie (after the minimum of disinvestiture), and stretched my limbs on +an arthritic settee, with intent to sleep. No sleep came till the +quaffing roysterers of the clachan had ceased fighting under the moon +outside, about 2 A.M. namely. Rather than stay two nights in such a +place, I boated out early next day into the mid-channel of the Sound of +Mull, and clambered up the sides of Macbrayne's _Lapwing_, which took me +to Oban. + + +RECENT BOOKS. + +The most charming of recent works on the Outer Islands is that one of +which the preface was written in Jerusalem. I refer to the volume of +Miss Goodrich Frere, a lady whose vivacity, fervour, and picturesque +style are deserving of unqualified praise. All the libraries in the +bilingual districts contain the book, and few are so often asked for. In +conversation and publicly I have often given myself the pleasure of +recommending it, alike to Highlander and Lowlander. My admiration for +Miss Frere's talents makes me wish that one or two of her prejudices had +been less glaringly displayed. She speaks, for example, with something +like scornful reproach of Lochmaddy, because the habit of taking +afternoon tea is common in that township. It would have been more to the +purpose if Miss Frere had issued a general warning to the people of the +Hebrides not to drink tea as black as porter, and, above all, not to +boil it. The pale anaemic faces one so often sees in the north and west, +the mental prostration and actual insanity so alarmingly on the increase +in the Long Island, are unquestionably due, in great measure, to the +abominably strong tea that is swilled in such quantities there. A +Tarbert doctor told me that the medical profession now talk quite +familiarly of the Harris stomach just as drapers talk of Harris tweed: +the former is, he averred, as weak and devoid of tone as the latter is +strong and of good texture. This doctor was called up at two one morning +to attend a patient in one of the moorland townships. At that hour, away +over there on the gusty rim of the Atlantic, the natives were all afoot. +People were talking to each other at the doorsteps; lamps were lighted +inside, and tea that had been boiling for hours among the red peats, was +being imbibed with infinite gusto. This, the doctor assured me, was the +normal style of living.[5] + +Talking of North Uist, Miss Frere shows indignation at the invasion of +southern ideas, and thinks that everything is being vitiated by the +taint of Lochmaddy. Lochmaddy, characterised in so droll a way, is a +tiny township with a Sheriff Court, a church, a few well-built modern +houses, a school, and an excellent hotel. Cleanliness is a welcome +feature of the place, and I am sorry to say that the same can not be +said of certain crofting villages not far distant. I expect that the +visits of the Government Sanitary Officer, whom I met at Lochmaddy, and +who knows his business well, will ultimately work an enormous amount of +good. That gentleman gave me such unsavoury details regarding the +conditions of life in certain of the townships as made me hope that the +"taint of Lochmaddy," that is to say, the cleanliness and civilised +life of that village, may more and more become evident throughout both +the Uists. Improved sanitation would allow heaven's breath to circulate +through the low-lying cots and prevent them from being hot-beds of +malignant disease. + +One feature of Miss Frere's book which does honour to her fine sympathy, +but which is not ethnologically justifiable, is the persistent attempt +to draw a sharp racial distinction between Highlander and Lowlander. The +truth is, that no part of the Highlands is purely Celtic: the population +is a welter of Picts, Gaels, Norsemen, Danes, and Saxons. The Lowland +blood is, in like manner, a bewildering blend, there being no +uncontaminated Anglo-Saxon district in any single county of Scotland. +Mr. J. M. Robertson's clever book, _The Saxon and the Celt_, seems to me +to dispose finally of certain fallacies that Hill Burton and others have +light-heartedly written on the subject of racial characteristics. The +conditions of life, the ungeniality of sea and soil, the wild and grand +aspect of nature, influence thought, feeling, and character at least as +much as blood and heredity.[6] + +Another delightful book on the Outer Hebrides is that written by Mr. W. +C. Mackenzie. Proceeding in the order of chronology, the author gives a +vivid series of historic summaries (enlivened by many a piquant episode +and humorous touch) of the Long Island from the earliest times. The +wanderings of Prince Charlie, and the condition of the country after +Culloden, have never been better told than in Mr. Mackenzie's narrative. + + [5] The student of eugenics will note that among the tea-bibbing + islanders of the west the teeth of the natives are poor. My + experience tends to show that the best teeth in Scotland are to + be found in Aberdeenshire. When a Buchan audience laughs, there + is a gleam of polished ivory that is very impressive; but rural + Aberdeen has deviated less into slops than any other part of + Britain. + + [6] "There are probably now more persons of Highland descent in + the Lowlands than in the Highlands themselves."--_Scotland of + To-Day_, by Henderson and Watt, p. 300. See also note at end of + chapter on Inverness surnames, etc. + + +MILITARY. + +I hinted at the beginning of this chapter that the barracks of the +Highland regiments had been supplied with extensive libraries for the +use of the soldiers during their leisure hours. Fort-George, the +erection of which was directly due to the Highland rebellions, has been +presented with two fine libraries, and I am happy to say that the men +greatly appreciate the gift. I happened to be in the vicinity of +Fort-George when the Duke of Connaught was conducting an official +inspection. The little town of Ardersier, which is some two miles from +the Fort, was gay with bunting for the ducal visit. The books at the +Fort are under the charge of Sergeant-Major Markham, an able +elocutionist and one who, in his own sphere, does an immense amount of +good. He gets the young recruits to band themselves together in social +clubs, organises games and entertainments for them, and encourages them +to read and study. The philanthropic Sergeant-Major was engaged in +typing a catalogue of the books when the genial Duke came upon the +scene. His Royal Highness was astonished to see such a magnificent +selection of reading matter at the disposal of the soldiers, and eagerly +asked for information as to the origin of the boon. His curiosity was +satisfied, and when he heard that the same donor had given appropriate +libraries to the garrisons at Inverness, Dingwall, and Kinbrace, he +exclaimed, "Such a gentleman is indeed the Soldier's Friend." + +Since the Duke's visit, a small library of books has been sent to the +children's school at the Fort. The population of this military +community, containing as it does a great many married men with their +wives and families, is fully equal to that of Ardersier, and +necessitates a separate school. I was struck with the pronunciation of +the children in this part of the country. Many of the Fort children, +having mothers from the other side of the Border, speak with an +unmistakable English accent and are rather unscrupulous with respect to +the aspirate. The town of Inverness, which is at no great distance from +Fort-George, has long been famous for its clear and unprovincial English +speech, a fact which Johnson (oddly enough) thought due to some of +Cromwell's soldiers having settled there. + +Dr. Johnson devotes two pleasant little paragraphs to describe his visit +to Fort-George and his entertainment there by Sir Eyre Coote. I have +always admired the Doctor's sly way of avoiding a description of the +Fort: "I cannot," he says, "delineate it scientifically, and a loose and +popular description is of use only when the imagination is to be +amused." + +In spite of the menace of Fort-George, the Highlanders fondly cherished +the memory of Charlie for many a year. To no subject even now do their +descendants listen with such rapt attention as to his tragic story. I +have heard indeed of a Highland minister who was so displeased at the +homage paid to the Prince's memory by some of his flock, that he threw +at them the unanswerable question, "What will Prince Charlie do for you +at the day of judgment?" + +I have had the curiosity to ask some of the Session Clerks of country +parishes that were in the line of the insurgents' advance or retreat, if +any references to the rebellion appear in the minutes of the year 1745. +No references appear, as a rule, for that year; but, under 1746, there +are brief accounts of church discipline being exercised in the case of a +few illegitimate births,--the paternity being ascribed usually to _ane +sodger_.[7] + +At Inverness and Dingwall there exist similar libraries of great range +and excellence. The men show an interest in Miss Marie Corelli's works +that is rather astonishing. Their hard and strenuous drill does not +deprive them of a curiosity to know something about _Barabbas_ and _The +Sorrows of Satan_. Sir Conan Doyle and Dr. Neil Munro are also great +favourites, and deserve to be. + +A large number of the Inverness recruits come from the Long Island. They +almost invariably require to be taken to the hospital a week or two +after their arrival. Change of diet and new modes of life seem to upset +them at first. For those who have a mind to improve themselves, there +are abundant opportunities. The reading and recreation rooms are well +appointed and comfortable. Altogether, the regular life, physical drill, +and healthy tone of the barracks must have a most beneficial effect on +the men. + +I am bound to say that I do not greatly admire the English style of the +gentleman who composes the War Office placards that one sees at railway +stations in the north. These are meant to allure country labourers to +join the army, but the following piece of fatuous rhetoric must surely +act rather as a deterrent than otherwise:--"Are you, the descendants of +those who conquered India and carried the colours of the Gordon +Highlanders through the Peninsula and at Waterloo, _content to sit at +home, or be satisfied with dull labours in the fields or at the mills_, +whilst the ranks of your own regiment are filled by strangers from the +South?" I heard two freckled rustics, with difficulty and labour hard, +spelling out the phrases of the foregoing sentence at the little station +of Fyvie. They did not seem at all impressed by the fervent +interrogation nor by this picture of prospective delights: "_Many of +your countrymen have seen the wonders of the Indian Empire and enjoyed +the soft calm of Malta, and of Ceylon, the Paradise of the Ancients._" +It does not evince much knowledge of a ploughman's mind to seek to +awaken his martial ardour by old myths about the Garden of Eden; nor is +it specially alluring to him to mention, as the acme of glory, that he +may distinguish himself so much as to gain "_thanks from both Houses of +Parliament_." Such weak and watery declamation won't do for a country +that has had thirty-eight years of compulsory education. If our War +Office wishes to rouse patriotic feeling, it should cease to contrast +"the dull labour of the fields" with "the soft calm of Malta": the +veriest clown would not be caught by such chaff. It would be more to the +point to send gratuitous copies of _The Barrack Room Ballads_ to all the +village libraries. + + [7] I have heard it maintained by some zealots, whom I greatly + esteem, that Gaelic is a highly _moral_ language, that the use of + it conduces to purity of life and thought, and that everyone + would be improved in tone by contact with its roots. Those + ministers who have charge of Session Records, chronicling events + that happened before English was known in the West, cannot + unreservedly corroborate these views. + + +MORAY FIRTH. + +My various visits to the shores of the Moray Firth have convinced me +that a man may enjoy the majesty and terror of the sea without embarking +on a boat at all. All he need do is to take a ticket to Portsoy in the +month of March, when the wind is snell and the clouds low. I have never +seen a more grim or cruel-looking coast than that which stretches for +miles east and west of Portsoy. One shudders even at the thought of +those detestable, razor-edged rocks, tilted up at all angles, with the +tide for ever boiling and hissing about them. Neither by land nor sea, +at many parts of the coast, can you get to what might be reasonably +called a beach. The so-called shore-road is high up on the hills, and +gives a good view far out over the billows, but does not take the +traveller's feet near the water at all. Ill-advised would he be who +should strive to guide his skiff from the outer firth to any chance cove +on the shore, for the uncouth crags, huge and sombre, would have no +mercy on any timber jointed by the hand of man. Perhaps the summer sun +would give a gentler appearance to the rocky and wave-beaten shore, but +I am certain Mr. Swinburne would prefer to see it in March. + +The town of Portsoy in itself cannot be said to have much comeliness; +the streets are irregular, the houses dismal, and the shops few. God +has, as is meet, the best of the architecture, most of the churches +being graceful and well-spired. + +About twenty minutes by rail from Portsoy is the trim and typical +fishing village of Portknockie, high-raised on a hill, and with little +protection from any wind that Aeolus may send out of his cavern. The +population comes near 1,600 souls, and it is rare to find a native who +is not called by one of the following surnames: _Mair_, _Wood_, _Munro_, +_Pirrie_. I believe such a dearth of appellatives is the invariable rule +in the fishing villages of the North Sea. To counteract the confusion +that would inevitably arise, an agnomen or "tee-name" is usually +appended. The Portknockie tee-names are _Mash_, _Deer_, _Doodoo_, +_Bobbin_, and _Shavie_. Examples of postal addresses are-- + + John Wood (Bobbin), Portknockie. + Duncan Munro (Doodoo), " + Samuel Pirrie (Shavie), " + Daniel Mair (Mash), " + +I don't envy the young minister who, fresh from Lucian, has to read with +solemnity a roll of such communicants. + +Between Portknockie and the sea-town of Cullen is a charming stretch of +links and sea-sands. Over the broad Firth, as one looks north-west, may +be faintly seen the hills of Sutherland and Caithness. + +It is pleasant to read books amid the scenery in which they were +conceived, and among the people they portray. Those who spend their +holidays at Cullen would act wisely in reading George Macdonald's novels +there. No one has drawn the character of the Moray Firth fisherman so +lovingly, beautifully, and sympathetically as he. After reading such a +tale as the _Marquis of Lossie_ one looks upon places like Portknockie +and the sea-town of Cullen with different eyes. The toilers of the deep +that go forth on the waters from these seaboard shires are serious and +moral men. Contact with the sea and the presence of danger at all hours, +have made them alert, keen, and dexterous. Most of the crews carry a box +of choice books with them for their odd hours of leisure when they go to +the Yarmouth fishing. Let a stranger get into conversation with one or +two of these hardy heroes, and he will be surprised at their +intelligence and wide interests. He will certainly conclude that the +young fisherman, Malcolm Macphail, whom Macdonald introduces in the +novel mentioned, is no exaggeration, but true to the life. + +The sea-town of Cullen consists of some hundreds of houses closely +huddled together just at the edge of the sea. The rank odour of wreck, +tar, fishing-gear, and bait, pervades the air, and is effectually kept +from corruption by the searching sea-breezes that are ever blowing. When +not engaged on the water, the men are busy mending their nets, stitching +their sails, making fast the seams of their craft and tarring the big +inflated floaters that support the lines. They are quite ready to chat +with a stranger and discuss their methods of working, their gains, +mishaps, and partnerships. + +When the fishing season is over and the crews are known to be on the way +home, the excitement among the women is intense. No Bourse ever tingled +more feverishly with rumours and sinister fears than Sandhaven or +Rosehearty or Seatown at such a crucial time. Costly nets may be riven, +boats may be stove in by untoward accidents, or worse than all, fathers, +husbands and brothers may be drowned on the road home to their loved +ones. Rarely does a season pass without bringing sorrow to the heart of +some waiting wife or sister. + +The joys, hopes, and fears of these maritime townships have been +worthily made vocal by Dr. George Macdonald. He has done this with a +grace and an artistic conception that raise his stories to a very high +rank in pure literature. I am afraid Macdonald is not much read by the +present generation: his stories are too long, too philosophical, perhaps +too poetical, for the taste of to-day. Every book of his is saturated +from beginning to end with the religion of the Gospels--a religion of +love, beauty, tolerance, and sympathy. + +I am happy to say that I saw Dr. Macdonald once and heard him speak. His +venerable aspect and chaste elocution made a powerful impression on all +who heard him. His discourse could not be reported in cold print, for +the flash of the mystic's eye, the human kindness that emanated from his +whole being, and the felt emotion of his every tone could not be +reproduced by any artifice known to the printer. + +The Forfarshire fishwives have quite a Dutch mania for cleanliness. On +Saturdays they give their homes a complete overhaul, and the men are +driven out of doors during the ceremony. What man could stay at home +when his wife, supplied with a mop and a big pail of soapy water, is +sousing the floor and the walls? Furniture is scrubbed and dusted, glass +ornaments, porcelain hens, and shell-boxes have to be carefully wiped, +grates and fire-irons must be rubbed to a glittering polish. These +industrious women, panting with the enthusiasm of work, enjoy Saturday +more than any other day of the week. The enjoyment springs from various +causes. There is first the delight that comes from a vigorous exercise +of the muscles. This pleasure is heightened by the knowledge that the +work is for a good end, and that on Sunday the house will be +resplendent, immaculate, and peaceful. It is not to be denied that the +feeling of satisfaction at having evicted the husband is also an +important item. When he comes home from discussing politics with his +co-mates and brothers in exile, she will not fail to jibe him on the +general worthlessness of his existence, and accuse him of intemperance. + + +AMONG THE MINERS. + +A fishing village has a picturesqueness and a kinship with Nature and +the hills, utterly lacking in a mining locality. The squalid rows of the +latter, arranged in wretched, heart-breaking symmetry, are an offence to +the landscape. Mud and filth cumber the door-steps, runnels of +malodorous water ooze along the rows, ragged and ill-kempt bairns tumble +about like little savages. A pitiful sight it is to see the black squads +of colliers returning to their homes after a day in the damp bowels of +the earth: greasy caps with little oil-lamps attached, wet, miry +clothing and grimy faces, all make up a most saddening spectacle. The +wages given to these poor fellows are miserably meagre, considering that +after the age of forty-five, their limbs are stiffened with rheumatism +and their lungs the seat of chronic asthma. It is not surprising that +miners should be intemperate, and that their recreations should rise no +higher than dog-racing and cock-fighting. + +It is very unpleasant to think that so much good bone and muscle is +being ground and destroyed by work so brutalising and unnatural. Coal +must be brought to the surface for the wants of civilisation, and in the +process the collier is destroyed, body and soul. Society needs +constantly to be reminded of its duties towards those who, in Helot +fashion, clean the drains and work the mines. Those duties involve more +than the distribution of tracts. + +I had the opportunity of speaking to a crowded meeting of miners in the +county of Stirling quite recently, and was immensely pleased with the +behaviour and close attention of the audience. Before the speaking +began, the proceedings resembled a University Graduation Ceremony, that +is, there was a great deal of whistling, cat-calling, and rowdy +merriment. The audience kept on their caps, and many of them, disdaining +the use of chairs and benches, squatted against the walls in the +position so dear to subterranean workers. Once the lecture began, the +resemblance to a University gathering ceased, for the colliers behaved +like gentlemen. What subject, it may be asked, could possibly interest +an assembly of illiterate miners? It so happens that, in Scotland, we +have a great number of working-men poets, who have, in a homely but very +graphic way, voiced the feelings of the labouring classes, and given fit +expression to every joy and sorrow that men experience in this mortal +round. These hodden-gray bards furnish abundance of material for giving +even the humblest and most untrained mind a few glimpses of what is +meant by literature. Burns has a broad and brawny humanity that appeals +to all men, and, besides Burns, there are scores of major and minor +warblers that are interesting, quotable, and full of grace. + +The wild and unruly manners of some mining districts, even at the +present day, may partly be explained by remembering that up to the end +of the eighteenth century, colliers were serfs and, as such, were not +allowed to leave the mines and seek work elsewhere. When a pit was sold, +the workers passed as a matter of course into the hands of the new +proprietor. The son of a miner was compelled to follow the father's +occupation.[8] Slavery fixed a brutalising mark on generation after +generation that is not yet entirely erased. In the first half of the +nineteenth century the knights of the shuttle--intellectual, +disputatious, and lyrical--looked down with infinite contempt on the +ignorant and boorish slaves of the pick. Poetry has, in consequence, +little to say about the digger for coal. The song of "The Collier +Laddie," attributed to Burns, is one of the very few pleasant pieces of +verse associated with the miner. + +The Scotch mining villages of to-day contain a queer juxtaposition of +nationalities, and the proportion of native colliers is becoming less +and less. Thousands of Irish families from Ulster and Connaught are now +settled permanently in the counties of Lanark, Stirling, and Ayr. The +alien Pole, too, is to be found in the same regions uttering melodious +oaths learned on the banks of the Vistula. To complete the welter, +huckstering Orientals may be seen gliding about among the rows of +houses, fulfilling prophecy and selling highly-coloured pictures of the +Virgin Mary. + + [8] In his book, _Edinburgh and its Neighbourhood_, Hugh Miller + tells the following story, on the authority of Robert + Chambers:--"Though legally only transferable with the works and + the minerals to which they were attached, cases occasionally + occurred in which miners were actually transferred _by sale_ from + one part of the country to another. During the early part of the + XIXth century, the son of an extensive coal-proprietor was + examining with a friend the pits of another proprietor, and + finding a collier whose speech resembled that of the colliers of + his own district, he inquired where he came from. 'Oh!' exclaimed + the man with surprise, 'd'ye no' ken me? _Do ye no' ken that your + faither sell't me for a powny?_'" + + +HAND-LOOM WEAVING. + +The miner is still with us, but the weaver is almost obsolete in the +Lowlands. You must search diligently for him. In Laurencekirk (a quaint +village of one long street, in the shire of Forfar), and in similar +out-of-the-way nooks, can still be faintly heard the music of the +hand-loom. I went recently into a weaver's shop in Laurencekirk, and +found three old men and one aged woman plying their shuttles. The oldest +of the men was born four years after the battle of Waterloo, and there +he sat, like a vision of the vanished years, striving to weave a few +more yards of drugget before going to rejoin his contemporaries of the +reign of George III. He told me there were once seven hundred hand-loom +weavers in the place, and "_that young fellow_" said he, pointing to a +wrinkled carle of eighty on the loom behind, "remembers it as well as I +do." + +The industry of hand-loom weaving, which, a century ago, made every town +in Scotland resonant with the din of shuttles, is thus almost a thing of +the past, and the men who engaged in it have gone the way of their +shoe-buckles, knee-breeches, and seventeen-hundred linen. Yet weavers +were typical of all that was intellectual in Scottish life: every shop +was in its way a miniature university, and every weaver a man who +believed himself capable of giving Pitt a lesson or two on the +management of the war, and Dundas a few hints on political economy. They +had, indeed, far clearer views on politics than most of their +legislators; from their ranks at a subsequent period the Chartist +agitators--regrettably extreme as they were--were largely recruited; and +it is not too much to say that the minds of many of our leading +accredited reformers took the ply from these politicians of the loom. +These men who, in a way so characteristic of Scotland, managed to make +high-thinking subsist on homely fare, can never quite fade from memory +while their tuneful poetical exponent, Tannahill, is read and enjoyed. +In his works we have a page out of the past; and as we read his life and +poems, we behold the Scotch village as it was a century ago; we see the +old houses with their outside stairs, the antique boulder-paved cross, +and the assemblies of aproned craftsmen discussing news much older than +their ale. + +In Broadford, Skye, there is an old crofter who, in his early years, +worked at the loom with Alexander Bain, late Professor in the University +of Aberdeen. Half a century ago, John Stuart Mill said that Bain's +erudition was encyclopaedic. From long residence in France, I know that +few British philosophers are better known than Bain (whose name the +French amusingly pronounce to rhyme with _vin_). This old crofter tells +how he used to chaff the future professor for invariably having a book +in front of him as the shuttle was plied. Bain, by slow and careful +work, overcame prejudice, and secured a high position among the leaders +of thought. Long ago, those who had to sit for the London degrees used +to regard him as the greatest thinker in Europe. When he retired from +the examinership at London, students lost some of their old veneration +for him, and when he married a second time, a Miss Barbara Something, +they even ventured to make a logical joke on him, and say that he had +been fascinated by _Barbara's perfect figure_. I know that many pupils +of our public schools, in love with football more than syntax, often +regretted that Bain ever composed his _English Grammar_. No book (unless +perhaps Morell's _Analysis_) has ever been more cordially execrated, and +no book ever more richly deserved it, for though, like Aberdeen granite, +it is stately and impressive, it is also ruthless, cold, and implacable. +The draught may be wholesome and medicinal, but there is no honey on the +rim of the cup. + + +PROFESSOR BLACKIE IN THE HIGHLANDS. + +One hears a great deal of Professor Blackie in the North and West, and +no wonder. He was a laughing, jocular, impressionable man, who hobnobbed +with landlords and amiably slapped drivers and policemen on the back, +throwing a Gaelic greeting at them as he did so. His faculty for writing +poetry is seen in many a guidebook; Oban, Inverness, Pitlochry, and +numberless other places, have had their beauties celebrated by this +animated writer. He was a good friend to the Highlands--studied Gaelic +most arduously, translated some of the finest of the Celtic bards, +worked assiduously for the establishment of a Celtic Chair in Edinburgh, +spoke many a good word for the crofters--in fact, did everything well +except what he was paid to do, viz., teach Greek to his students. Grave +D.D.'s could not understand or condone his cantrips. I have been assured +that on one occasion, when Professor in the College of Aberdeen, he +actually _stood on his head_ before a class of students. Mr. Barrie has +given a very amusing and quite unexaggerated account of the Professor's +normal demeanour in Edinburgh. Blackie's text books of _Greek Dialogues_ +are full of the most waggish remarks. + +The landlady of Kinlochewe Hotel gave some lessons in Gaelic to this +convulsive old scholar. He would come in with a Celtic Bible below his +arm, and, opening the sacred volume, read a chapter or two at a terrific +rate of speed, and whistle triumphantly when he had finished. Highland +folk did not care to converse with Blackie for three reasons: (1) he +spoke too quickly for the leisurely and composed conversation of the +Gael; (2) his pronunciation was bad, and people did not like to tell him +so or correct him--(no one ever pronounced Gaelic to perfection who did +not get the language with his mother's milk); (3) he was fond of using +literary words, taken from the older bards, in his ordinary +conversation; now, such words are obsolete in every-day talk and quite +unfamiliar to crofters and cottars. In the Highlands, Blackie's English +was better understood than his Gaelic. + +Blackie was undoubtedly a very able scholar--not, indeed, of that minute +burrowing kind famous in Germany, but rather of the class that delights +in the literature and vivid force of a language. He _spoke_ Latin and +Greek, and held views on the teaching of these tongues that seemed more +eccentric in his time than they do now. He declared that the linguistic +achievement of which he was proudest was his mastery, such as it was, of +the language of the Gael. + +It affords me pleasure in the retrospect to think of old Blackie at a +distribution of prizes to school-children in a town of the West some +years before his death. During the chairman's opening remarks the merry +old man continued to whistle like a mavis. When the chairman sat down, +Blackie embraced him and called him fellow-sinner. Some recitations +followed from the children, one of which was Burns's "Address to a +Haggis." When the young elocutionist came to the lines-- + + "Till a' their weel-swall'd kites belyve + Are bent like drums." + +Blackie rolled in his chair, held his sides and uproariously expressed +his approbation. Then came the distribution of prizes, during which the +Grand Old Boy made some pun or quaint remark on each of the children's +names, as he presented the books: _"Miss Minnie Morrow_: never put off +till to-morrow what you can do to-day; _James Glen_: be a real genuine +_Glen_ all through life, not a _valet_ or flunkey; _William Lindsay_: +Willie, my lad, imitate your ancestors at Otterburn: 'The Lindsays flew +like fire about till a' the fray was done'; _Mary Black_: black but +comely like the daughters of Jerusalem," and so on, in a bird-witted, +half-daft way that the audience contemplated with benevolent wonder. + + +NOTE ON INVERNESS SURNAMES, ETC. + +Let me mention here a very useful and interesting piece of philology +that was done by Dr. Macbain in 1895. That eminent scholar, working on +the _Inverness Directory_, analysed the names occurring there, explained +them on sound principles of etymology, and gave percentages of Celtic +and Saxon surnames in the Highland capital. + +Roughly speaking, the _Directory_ of 1894-1895 had 5,000 single entries, +and _750 distinct surnames_. Of these surnames, only 110 are pure +Gaelic. About 70 per cent. of the natives are, however, supposed to be +of Highland descent. + +Dr. Macbain points out that certain Highland clans have names that are +not Celtic: _Grant_ is from the French "grand"; _Fraser_ from the French +"fraise," a strawberry (the Frasers have a strawberry in their +coat-of-arms); _Chisholm_ is English and means "gravel-holm,"--the +Anglo-Saxon _ceosol_ (pebble) is preserved in _Chesil Beach_ and +_Chiselhurst_; _MacLeod_ signifies "son of Ljot"; and _ljotr_ is the +Norse word for "ugly." _Campbell_ is probably Norman-French, though Dr. +Macbain suggests _cam-beul_, Gaelic for "crooked mouth." In olden times +an external conqueror would sometimes subdue a district, and call the +natives after his noble self. + +The commonest names in the town are Fraser, Macdonald, Mackenzie, +Macintosh, Ross, Cameron, and Munro. About 1,200 of the population have +one or other of the first three names. The Frasers are an easy first, +and form more than 9 per cent. of the population. + +_John_, _Alexander_, and _William_, are the commonest Christian names in +Inverness. "It is remarkable and indeed regrettable," says Dr. Macbain, +"that the Gaelic Christian names (Donald, Duncan, Kenneth, Murdoch, and +Angus), are not higher in the list." + +The name of the first recorded inhabitant of Inverness (A.D. 1200) is +Geoffrey Blount, a feudal warrior no doubt (French _blond_). In the +thirteenth century we have the names _Noreys_, _Grant_, and _Hay_. In +the fourteenth century the leading name is Pilch, derived from +_peluche_, the French for "plush." In the fifteenth century, _Reid_, +_Vaus_, and _Cuthbert_ are prominent citizens. _Vaus_ is said to mean +"of the vales," _i.e._, _de Vallibus_; _Reid_ is Scotch for "red"; and +_Cuthbert_ is pure Lowland. Evidently the leading men were aliens and +interlopers. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +MUSIC, SPEECHES, AND LITERATURE. + + Scotch a reading nation--Hardships of students in old + days--Homer in Scalloway--When education ends--Objects of + chapter--Music--M.P.'s--Rural depopulation--Its + causes--Emigration--Village halls--The moon--A lecture in + Islay--Mental and material wealth--Real greatness--A Highland + laird on literature--Varieties of chairmen--"Coming to the + point"--Moral obligation--Compliment to Paisley--Oratory at + Salen--Lecture in a dungeon--Surprises--A visit to the + Borders--Tarbolton--Scotch language--Choice books--The + essayists--A Banff theory--Goldsmith in Gaelic--_Biblia + abiblia_--Favourites for the road--Horace--Shakespeare's + Sonnets--Xenophon--French literature and journalism--Romance and + Augustanism--Victorian writers--Celt and Saxon. + + +SCOTCH A READING NATION. + +I think it was Mr. Holyoake, the veteran lecturer, who, in a volume of +reminiscences, declared he found the audiences in Scotland more +intelligent than elsewhere. I cannot draw such comparisons, for I have +not spoken often south of the Tweed; this I can say with assurance, +however, that no one need hesitate to address an audience of Scotch +peasants on a topic of literary interest. Predestination and such +religious trifles may stir them to disrespectful heat, but pure +literature invariably draws forth their cool and critical attention. +Probably no nation has ever devoted so much attention to books, and, as +the result of this characteristic, Scotland, considering its size and +population, has produced far more than its proportion of eminent men. At +the Reformation epoch, when the comforts of a Lowland cottage would be +little in advance of those in a present-day Uist croft, writers like +George Buchanan and his fellows of the _Deliciae Poetarum Scotorum_ made +the excellence of Scotch scholarship known in every university of +Europe. Buchanan was really a typical Caledonian man of +genius--open-eyed, sagacious, patriotic, and cosmopolitan--and I can +strongly recommend the occasional perusal of his Latin Psalms to all +modern readers who wish to keep their feelings of reverence fresh and +prevent their Latin quantities from getting amorphous. + + +HARDSHIPS OF STUDENTS IN OLD DAYS. + +Those who think highly of the Scotch intellect, point with pride to the +fact that for many a year the Prime Minister, the leader of the +Opposition, and the Archbishop of Canterbury all hailed from the North. +For my own part, I am chiefly interested in cases where eminence has +resulted from the cultivation of literature on a little oatmeal. A few +months ago, I had the pleasure of chatting, over a cup of tea, with the +suave old gentleman who combines the postmastership of Dunvegan with the +office of factor to the Macleod of Macleod. He held me spell-bound for +an afternoon as he narrated in graphic language the hardships of the +Skye students in former times. Many a Skye youth, I was told, bent on +studying the humanities at Aberdeen, would mount his sheltie, traverse +thereon the rough roads of his misty island as far as Kyleakin, cross +the ferry there, ride on east through the ben-shadowed track of Glen +Moriston, and finally bear down on the streets of the Granite City. +There the o'erlaboured sheltie would be sold to pay the matriculation +fees. + + +HOMER IN SCALLOWAY. + +Many little out-of-the-way townships in insular Scotland contain +scholars who would find themselves quite at home among a set of college +dons. In the course of my travels in Shetland I came to the tiny village +of Scalloway, and while standing on the pier gazing alternately at the +confusion of sea and island, and at the grim old ruined castle where +Earl Patrick, the wicked viceroy, once resided, I heard a conversation +on geology being carried on between a tall and brawny shopman and some +sailors. The latter, who were on board a ship, shouted their replies +over a few yards of water to the shopman, who was on the pier near me. I +was interested in the men's talk, which had to do with the subsidence of +the land at this part of the coast. One of the sailors alleged that his +grandmother's cabbage-patch was now covered by the water on which his +boat was floating. The big shopman, turning to me, quoted the well-known +passage of Tennyson (everyone can repeat it) of the sea flowing where +the tree used to grow. "O Earth, what changes thou hast seen." This +quotation led to a literary talk in which he remarked that of all poets +he preferred Homer. "What translator do you like best?" I enquired. +"Blackie's," he replied, "as being the most faithful to the original. +But I rarely read a translation, '_I prefer Homer in his own Greek._'" +This remark made by one whose fingers were glistening with +herring-scales, came to me as a pleasant surprise. Later on in the day, +I visited his house and saw his fine library and his splendid selection +of classical books. Not many teachers of my acquaintance have a better +array of the editions of Homer. He was not one of your ignorant +collectors who know only the outside of what they buy. He had read over +the whole forty-eight books of the text again and again, and could +discuss knotty passages in most interesting and original fashion. His +memory was evidently an excellent one. He informed me that most of his +reading was done in the early morning, and that he found five hours' +sleep quite adequate. I have a most agreeable recollection of my +interview with this self-taught scholar. I believe there are many like +him in not a few outlandish nooks of Scotland,--men who read books not +for any material advantages that result from their studies, but simply +and solely for the intense pleasure that comes from communion with the +masterminds of bygone generations. + +Travel in remote districts of Britain reveals the fact that our +provincials, whenever they have the chance, are a studious and +thoughtful race. The isolation and monotony of life in many parts are +bound to drive men to study and reflection if the means for these are at +hand. Sisyphus himself had hardly less variety of occupation than some +of our shepherds whose work on the hills involves long absences from +social intercourse. To such men (whose life is suggestive of a repeating +decimal) the access to an ell or two of good books often means mental +salvation. Nothing is so melancholy as to find a countryman of brains +who has never had the opportunity of cultivating his mind in such a way +as to eliminate prejudice and widen the range of interest. + + +WHEN EDUCATION ENDS. + +I am sometimes inclined to think that many of our rural clergymen, +intent on shielding their congregations from pestilent doctrine and +latitudinarism, are actuated by much the same spirit as the Sultan Omar +when he set fire to the great Library at Alexandria. The Bible is no +doubt the best of books, and it may be that the Confession of Faith +comes next: but when these have got their share, there still remains the +religious duty of educating the intellect by a wide perusal of the +inspired apostles of secular literature. A Highland teacher, who +presided at one of the lectures in the north, expressed himself very +appositely thus on the subject of education: "The supposition that +education is over when a boy leaves school, is far too prevalent," he +said. "Education properly considered comes to an end when the last +breath of life is drawn. Edward Young in his _Night Thoughts_ says: +'Were man to live coeval with the sun, the patriarch-pupil would be +learning still.' Young was undoubtedly right: some of the most forceful +and penetrating lessons of life are given to us long after we have cast +our text-books into some dusty corner, never to be opened more. In our +early days, we cannot choose our own teachers, and there is often a good +deal of force and constraint. The delightful thing about our education +in mature life is that we have the selection of our own masters. There +is no compulsion whatever. I am convinced that for everyone of us there +is some one author whose works will act as medicine for the mind and be +an unfailing tonic in all conditions of the soul." + + +OBJECT OF CHAPTER. + +I intend to devote this chapter to a description of a few of the +speeches delivered by some of the speakers at such literary evenings in +various parts of the country. After I had said my say, I sometimes +invited an expression of opinion. Almost invariably someone responded to +the invitation, with the object of asking a question, expressing +dissent, or intimating concurrence. I do not recollect a single meeting +out of hundreds that could be called monotonous. It did not in the +slightest detract from the interest of a meeting that many of the +remarks erred on the score of irrelevancy. The attention never flagged +from first to last, and it was no uncommon thing for the proceedings to +last for over three hours. In giving typical speeches delivered by +crofters, lairds, tradesmen, and clergymen, I mean to indicate to the +reader _the subjects that are of interest to our provincial population, +their attitude to questions of literature and social life, and +incidentally the great amount of humour that still exists in the world_. + + +MUSIC. + +The free and unconventional character of these meetings was perhaps seen +best of all in the musical part of the proceedings, which was always +arranged locally. Usually the songs were well-known Highland or Lowland +airs, in many cases so exquisitely rendered that it was quite evident +there had been much previous preparation. When my opinion was asked +beforehand, I invariably recommended national melodies. It was always a +treat to get a Gaelic song or two well rendered. At Acharacle (a little +place at the far end of Lochshiel) Mr. Rudd's piper gave some fine +Highland tunes, which evoked great enthusiasm. Personally I prefer the +pipes to every other instrument, for this reason, that even if I don't +understand all the music, I can appreciate the scenic effects. The +Acharacle piper was a fine specimen of the Celt, and his get-up was +glorious: + + "He screwed his pipes and gart them skirl + Till roof and rafters a' did dirl." + +Sometimes the phonograph formed part of the musical programme. I do not +approve of this demoralising instrument except to a very limited extent. +The cylinders usually gyrate with records of fatuous music-hall songs, +unedifying coster-airs and farcical speeches. The _vox humana_ +interpreting national melodies is infinitely better. What vigour and +illustrative expression the islanders can throw into their songs! I have +but to shut my eyes to see the policeman of Staffin interpreting "The +Bonnie House o' Airlie." When his big, manly voice threw out the +terrible threat, "_I'll no' leave a staunin' stane in Airlie_," his eyes +shot fire, his teeth gleamed, and his ponderous fist came thundering +down on the table in front of him. + +I still remember with infinite pleasure the strains of Mr. Cameron's +Poolewe Choir, heard in Gairloch school-house. That energetic and +complaisant conductor brought his clear-throated minstrels over to the +meeting in a brake. It was a luxury to see them with their white robes +and tartan sashes, while in front of them stood their genial leader clad +in kilts. The Gaelic _Mod_, which is now a regular institution in the +land, is bound to do splendid service towards keeping alive the fine old +music of the North. The Poolewe Choir, I am happy to say, won much +distinction at the _Mods_ of both Inverness and Greenock. _There is +great need for choirs, and great need, also, for innocent songs of a +secular character._ Before I spoke to the people of Eigg, I requested +the teacher to arrange, if possible, for a musical programme. The reply +staggered me: "No man, woman, or child in this island would for a moment +even dream of singing a worldly song. We are all converted here, except +a few benighted Catholics. The vain, fleeting joys of this world are as +dross to us. The missionary has a modulator, and he trains the young men +and women in the sol-fa so that they may sing Sankey's hymns in all the +parts." I was dreadfully floored by this answer, and could only mutter +mechanically, "_Dross_," "_Missionary_,'" "_Modulator_," in a vain +effort to seize the situation. Conversion I understood and approved of, +but where, in the wee island of Eigg, were the vain, fleeting joys? +There is no public-house in the place, and little temptation of any +kind. The most disquieting item of all was the modulator: I have not +seen one for a long time, and am not sorry, for there is nothing which +so spoils the appearance of a wall nor anything so dismal as practising +scales. A compromise was come to, and it was arranged that some Gaelic +readings, containing a dash of religion, should take the place of songs, +and give some variety to the evening's proceedings. + +At some of the meetings there was perhaps an _excess of realism_. +Bottom, in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," wishing to avoid excitement and +fear among the ladies when he is acting the part of Pyramus, says: +"Write me a prologue; and let the prologue seem to say, we will do no +harm with our swords, and that Pyramus is not killed indeed; and for the +more better assurance tell them that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but +Bottom the weaver: this will put them out of fear." I thought of +Bottom's extreme delicacy when I was present at a meeting in Tomatin not +long ago. An outstanding feature of the evening's proceedings was the +vividly dramatic rendering of the song, "Macpherson swore a feud," by +the local postman. The latter, a big, burly man, was extremely +formidable in his Highland attire. When he came to the verse dealing +with the untimely decease of Macpherson, he whipped the dagger out of +its sheath, flourished it as in act to kill, and terrified some of the +lady visitors by his vivid suiting of the action to the word. They were +as much astonished at the flash of the _skian dhu_ as the Commons were +when Burke threw a dagger on the floor of the House. + +A musical treat is sometimes got in the most unexpected places. I was +particularly struck with a children's glee-party in Jura (a rough island +known chiefly for its sterile Paps). The bairns admirably rendered Ben +Jonson's delightful ditty, "Drink to me only with thine eyes," and the +Shakespearian song, "Where the bee sucks, there suck I." In such islands +a musical teacher is a valuable asset. Let me add that all the libraries +have been gratuitously supplied with fine collections of Scottish music. + +At Acha, in the island of Coll, four sturdy farm-maidens, ruddy with +health and robed in white, gave various English and Gaelic airs in +admirable style. A divinity student sang a _coster song_ (think of this +in an island of craggy shores, gulls, wild-swans, and curlews!), and on +being encored, he gave a "Cradle Lullaby," and by gently swaying a chair +backwards and forwards on the platform, he strove to illustrate the +movements of childhood's earliest receptacle. + +A military gentleman--an ex-major--in proposing a vote of thanks, one +evening, to the singers, said he had sung a song but once in his life, +the occasion being his admission to the Royal Engineers, thirty years +before. It was a standing law in that body that every novice should sing +a song or drink a mixture consisting of whisky, ink, and cayenne pepper. +He chose the former alternative, and at the end of the first verse the +Royal Engineers had all left the room in a demoralised condition! + + +M.P.'s. + +At one of the meetings in Argyleshire, I had the joy of speaking under +the chairmanship of the glib and able Mr. Ainsworth, M.P. for that +county. Among the votes of thanks was one for the chairman: it made a +profound impression upon me, as much by its form as by its substance: "I +hope, Mr. Ainsworth, that you will take better care of your health in +future (hear, hear). No, no, you are not taking care of your health at +all (laughter). We all expect you to be Prime Minister, and that is the +reason we would like you not to roam about so much and undermine your +constitution (cheers). You are always travelling. You are like the +Wandering Jew. No! you are like a little bird on a bough. To-day, we see +you on a tree near the door; to-morrow, we see you on a tree a hundred +miles away" (great cheering). Mr. Ainsworth kindly promised that, in +view of his destiny, he would cease to range around the country so +indiscriminately. + +Unfortunately, I have never met Mr. Galloway Weir, but I have heard much +of the zeal of himself and his agents. The following story hinges on the +fact that _Weir_ and _wire_ have the same pronunciation in Lewis. An old +illiterate crofter came to record his vote by word of mouth, and told +the polling sheriff: "I will vote for the right man, yes, yes, it's the +right man I will be voting for this time." "That may be," said the +sheriff, "but unless you will tell me his name, you can't vote." "Well, +if you must know," said the old man, handing the sheriff a +stocking-wire, "_I will be voting for the man that has the same name as +that_." + + +RURAL DEPOPULATION. + +The mention of that eminent politician brings to my mind the frequent +references made at these meetings to the painful subject of rural +depopulation. Everyone regrets the exodus of young men from the country +to the town, a practice which depletes the rural villages and deprives +the land of the strong arms that should find employment in working it. +The ministers are not without hope that the rush city-wards may be +checked by improving the conditions of country life, rendering it more +attractive to the young, and enlisting the aid of Government in the +scheme of small-holdings. Motives of health, morality, and patriotism, +are all concerned in the fostering of a hardy peasantry. Everything that +makes country life attractive to young men must operate to make them +regret to quit it. I wish I could reproduce textually all the strong and +astounding speeches I have heard in the Highlands on this subject of +depopulation. + +"We often hear," said a farmer, "that it's healthy men and women that +make up the true wealth of a country, and if that is true, Scotland, for +all its increase of riches, is every year growing poorer. How can the +people left in the glens continue to propagate a hardy race, if all the +young healthy bloods leave for the cities and settle there? I am afraid +that both brain and brawn will continue to get feebler among us, unless +the Government give some kind of inducement for the peopling of the land +with bien, self-respecting men _that have a bit land of their own_. It's +impossible to get farm-hands round Tayside nowadays, and it's not to be +wondered at. Suppose a young man stays here, what prospect has he, what +incentive has he to work? At the age of seventeen he has earned the +highest wage he will ever earn. Thereafter his life is a slow, +monotonous serfdom; he has no hope whatever of rising, he is doomed to +live from hand to mouth all the years of his existence. But put before +that young man the hope that he can _become the owner_ of a morsel of +land, however small, and you put life and pride into him. He will work +in that case with intelligent purpose, knowing that every penny he saves +is to be employed in making him a landed proprietor, and every detail of +experience he gains will tell in the future for his direct benefit. Our +young fellows don't really want to leave the land and go to die +prematurely (as a great many of them do) in the slums of Glasgow and +Edinburgh. They go to the cities because there is at least _a chance_ of +bettering their lot there, a chance which is entirely lacking at home. +Some of them go away to the colonies and thrive as farmers there. I +rejoice to hear of such success; but I rejoice with trembling when I +think how much of Britain's best manhood has to leave her shores to till +Transatlantic fields, while so much land at home remains unoccupied. By +and by, if you want to see a good specimen of the Highlander, you will +have to go to Canada. Sooner or later, and the sooner the better, the +vigorous action of Government will be demanded to remedy the present +iniquities of land-tenure, and to put a stop to the compulsory +degradation of those who till the soil." + + +ITS CAUSES. + +The present seems to be an opportune time for directing public attention +to some remarkable changes that are taking place in the population of +the rural districts of Scotland. A great deal of speaking and writing +has been expended of late years in lamenting the depopulation of the +country. Young fellows do not like the monotony of village and farm +life: they prefer the stir and excitement of the cities. Such things are +not to be wondered at. Town life has always had an attraction for those +whose energy requires a wide scene of action. Energy and ambition go +together, and it is the possessor of such qualities that makes the +successful city man. The country does not give scope enough for their +adequate display. + +The railway train and the inventions of modern times are both answerable +for a certain amount of depopulation. I believe the condition of +farm-hands has been markedly improved of late years. They have now a +shorter day, higher wages, better food, and superior house +accommodation. Mechanical appliances have made farm-work lighter and +more agreeable. The drudgery of the threshing flail is now unknown; the +hook and the scythe have given way to the reaping-machine: in every way +hand labour has been lightened. But it is precisely this machinery that +lessens the need for large numbers of agricultural labourers. It is also +notorious that shoemakers, tailors, and blacksmiths, are not so much +required in the country as they used to be. Ready-made shoes and clothes +are brought by rail from the city, and local tradesmen are reduced in +numbers. + + +EMIGRATION. + +There seems to be in our day a competition among the Governments of the +New World, which of them can lure away the greatest number of our +peasantry. The latest candidate for our rural youth is the State of +Virginia, the legislature of which has voted a large sum of money to +pay the expenses of two delegates, who are at work in the East of +Scotland, hunting for likely emigrants. These Virginian delegates--Mr. +Koiner and Col. Talliafer--paid the passage-money of over a hundred +stalwart lads from Lochtayside in the autumn of 1906. + +No one who has the opportunity of travelling through Scotland can fail +to be struck by the absolute frenzy for emigration that exists +everywhere. There is a constant stream of emigrants from all our +agricultural counties to the wide plains of Canada. That great colony is +being "boomed" in a most energetic way. In Sutherlandshire, I saw a +large van, with placards and specimens of Canadian produce, being driven +through Strath Halladale, to tempt the crofters over the deep. I have +also, at the railway stations in the North, beheld heart-rending scenes +of parting as the young fellows said good-bye to their parents and +friends: + + "Who could guess + If ever more should meet these mutual eyes."[9] + + [9] Such emigration has, of course, nothing to do with the + systematic work instituted by Mr. William Quarrier of Bridge of + Weir. That devout philanthropist occupied himself with the waifs + and strays of Glasgow, taught them trades, and sent large numbers + of them to the colonies to learn farming. One Saturday, in 1907, + I saw a hundred and twenty of these lads, who were on Bridge of + Weir platform waiting for the train. The scene was pathetic in + the extreme--enough to melt a heart of nether millstone. Many of + the lads were in tears as they answered the roll-call for the + last time. In the afternoon they (and over two thousand + emigrants) left the Clyde, amid sobs, cheers, and the waving of + multitudinous handkerchiefs. These boys go, in the first + instance, to Brockville, in the province of Ontario, whence they + are distributed out among the Canadian farmers. + + +VILLAGE HALLS. + +In most of the places I have visited, the school-house is the only +available hall for public meetings. Now, a school-room, with its small, +cramped seats, its lack of platform, and its defective ventilation, is +not well adapted for large gatherings. No man likes to speak _up to the +waist in audience_, under a low roof, and in stifling air. If less money +were spent on needless church-building, every district in the Highlands +might have its hall for purposes of recreation, reading, and lecturing. +As it is, the churches should everywhere be used far more than they are +for secular gatherings of an elevating kind. Religion suffers greatly +from the closing of churches to concerts and lectures. + +The kindness of local lairds is nowhere more pleasantly shown than in +the giving of funds towards the creation of village halls and recreation +rooms. The little village of Alness has a splendid Working Men's Club, +furnished with everything requisite for pleasure and +profit--smoking-room, billiard-room, and reading-room. This Club owes +its existence to the generosity of Mr. Perrins--known everywhere for the +excellence of his famous condiment--who has an estate in the vicinity. +Kiltarlity and Beauly have, for similar instances of discreet bounty, +permanent reason for blessing the name of Mr. Phipps. Other instances +that occur to me are the spacious Dunbar Hall in Auldearn, due to the +kindness of the family of which the genial Sir Frederick Dunbar, Bart., +is the present representative, and the Astley Hall in Arisaig, named +after the family so long associated with that charming West Highland +village. + +It must not be supposed that the natives do not thankfully welcome such +work on their behalf. Many of the townships, it is true, have had +libraries and halls for many a year, and have established these entirely +on their own initiative; but outside help and enterprise stimulate local +effort in a way often impossible otherwise, as the natives themselves +admit. At Nethy Bridge, a fine hall, with club-room, has been recently +erected, largely owing to the enthusiasm of a London lady resident in +the vicinity. She was distressed to see the young fellows of the place +loafing aimlessly about at night, and proceeded to organise some +rational amusement for them. Her philanthropy has been greatly +appreciated. At Kilmartin, the jubilee of Queen Victoria was signalized +by the erection of the Poltalloch Victoria Hall--an enterprise in which +laird and crofter alike willingly co-operated. It is in this hall that +the Library is established. Mr. Dixon, the erudite historian of +Gairloch, set aside the profits of his book to help in furnishing the +reading-room at Poolewe, in Wester Ross. + +When a rural community has a library and a place to meet in, a literary +society is, as a rule, soon formed. Such a society, founded for an +elevating and educational purpose, forms a common meeting-ground for all +sects, schisms, and parties. I am aware that in most towns of any size +there are such societies in connection with the special churches. In the +Highlands it is better to eliminate the denominational element, for the +very good reason that, the population being small, no one of the too +numerous churches would furnish a representative enough roll of +members. I was charmed to find that the little town of Portree, of which +the population is not much more than eight hundred, has a fine literary +society, established on the broad and rational lines I have indicated. +As might be expected from the intellectual advancement and strong +literary bent of the inhabitants, the lectures given and the subjects +discussed at the meetings of the Portree society are of a more erudite +nature than anywhere else in the West Highlands. Most of the Portree +clergymen and professional men are on the list of members. + + +THE MOON. + +Very few city people pay much attention to the moon: in the country that +luminary has to be constantly deferred to when arrangements are being +made for social meetings, dances, or lectures. When many of the audience +have to come six, or even ten miles by land or water, light is needed, +and light from above is best. It increases a lecturer's pride to be told +that the plashing of oars over there on the argent face of the waters is +an indication that some of his audience are coming from the other side +of the loch. At the conclusion of many of the lectures, I have seen half +a dozen traps, boats, and bicycles speeding away merrily in different +directions. But for the bright moon, the audience would have been +limited to the immediate neighbourhood of the place of meeting. + +It has often happened that my hotel was as much as seven miles from the +lecture hall. As closed carriages are rare in certain districts, and as +it frequently rains--when it is not snowing--in the West and North of +Scotland, I had many good opportunities for gauging my powers of +endurance. The road from Killin to Ardeonaig is a fair example of a +Highland highway:-- + + "Rough, hilly roads, that stain the spokes with mire; + Thick folds of ebon night on loch and law; + The moan of breezes wailing through the shaw + Like the weird plaints of an AEolian lyre: + And intermittently through the clouds, the fire + Of lightning streaks the night with glitter and awe, + And lapses swiftly in the dismal maw + Of darkness, 'mid the din of thunder dire. + But to relieve the sad night's sullenness, + And clear the heavens for the timid moon, + The straight-descending rain riots like hail + For a fierce hour, in prodigal excess; + Anon the clouds unmuffle, and the pale, + Thin crescent of Diana gilds night's noon." + +The place of meeting at Ardeonaig was on the shores of Loch Tay, and the +main road from Killin is high up and does not go near the water at this +point. After alighting from the machine, I had to descend to the +loch-side by a steep, miry, and circuitous road through a wood. As the +"thin crescent of Diana," alluded to above, was not adequate to light my +footsteps here, I struck some futile vestas, which the dripping leaves +at once extinguished. Two elders, swinging lanterns and calling me by +name, by and by divided the night in my vicinity. Their appearance was +welcome, for the torrential rain had made the track one continuous +slippery quagmire. The hospitality of the Ardeonaig minister speedily +banished all recollection of the "sad night's sullenness."[10] + +A more trying, because a longer, drive is that from Kilmun to Strachur, +by way of Loch Eck. In the leafy month of June, nothing could be finer; +but in a winter blizzard, one's appreciation of the glory of nature is +somewhat less than rapturous. I mention the Strachur meeting because it +was graced by the presence of a large contingent of local volunteers in +civilian attire. The War Office ought to know that the inclement weather +prevented these warriors appearing in their uniform. + + [10] It is not often possible, in the _islands_, to get anything + but a trap or open coach. In Lochranza, on a day of dreary, + disheartening rain, I found on enquiry that there was no covered + vehicle to be had except the _hearse_. + + +A LECTURE IN ISLAY. + +The westerly leg of Islay contains one or two places that have public +libraries sent from Paisley: Portnahaven and Port Charlotte on the sea, +and Gruinart inland and more to the north. It is a weird experience to +drive along the shore road from Bridgend on a night of pitiless rain, +and see the heavy mists broken every now and then by the far-reaching +flash of the Portnahaven lighthouse. Equally weird is it to lecture in a +school with no lamps (as happened at Port Charlotte). At eight o'clock I +could see the faces of the audience well enough, but by and by the room +became quite dark, and I seemed to be addressing an audience of silent +and attentive ghosts. After I had finished, a Phantom arose in the far +corner of the room and proposed a vote of thanks; and thereafter a Voice +somewhere pronounced the benediction. Then there was a movement of feet, +and the shadowy spectres trooped out into the night. The foolish virgins +had no oil in their lamps; in Port Charlotte, there was neither oil +_nor_ lamps.[11] + + [11] Islay is yearly becoming better known. It is an undulating + island, covered with rich meadow-land, the home of horses, sheep, + and cattle. There should not be a hungry man within its + circumference. Under the old lairds--the Campbells--there were + 14,000 inhabitants, now there are 6000. + + +SOME SPEECHES. + + +MENTAL AND MATERIAL WEALTH. + +I never heard the difference between mental and material wealth more +forcibly expressed than by an old Perthshire shoemaker. "Supposing," +said he, "that I had fifty pounds in my pocket at the present moment. +What a wild supposition, but good enough for an illustration! What +inference would you draw from me having that sum of money? This, namely, +that no other person in the universe has the same fifty pounds. The same +pair of boots cannot be worn by two persons at the same time. The same +guinea cannot be twice spent by the same man. It is different with +spiritual things, and with works of art. Scores of people can +simultaneously enjoy a great painting or a fine piece of music: _my_ +enjoyment does not interfere with _yours_, indeed, it is more than +likely that my enjoyment will be greatly increased from knowing that +other people are enjoying it as I am. Then again, you can't eat the same +loaf of bread twice: but you can return a hundred times to the same +song, poem, or picture, and like them better the hundredth time than the +first. A pathetic old tune does not lose anything in being sung by +generation after generation. It is always as good as new. Like the +widow's cruise of oil, it can be used without being consumed. These +facts show that works of art--good books, good poems, good music--are, +in a certain sense, immortal and divine. A hundred years ago, our +ancestors sang 'Bonnie Doon'; we, to-day, sing it with undiminished +fervour; a hundred years after this, the song will be fresh. Aye, and a +humorous American writer thinks some of us will hanker for it in heaven: + + 'Perhaps in that refulgent sphere + That knows not sun or moon, + An earth-born saint would long to hear + One verse of Bonnie Doon.'" + + +REAL GREATNESS. + +The Rev. Chairman of this meeting emphasised the shoemaker's remarks in +the following admirable words: "I often wonder what is really the +greatest thing ever done by a citizen of this country of ours, by a man +of English speech. If we agree with our worthy shoemaker and his way of +thinking, we shall not look at the big accumulation of guineas as an +indication of greatness. Certain commercial men (who ought to know +better) seem to think God has sent us into this lovely world for the +sole purpose of piling up as much money as possible, and then, by death, +leaving it to others to spend. _That_ can hardly be considered our +reasonable service. Life is not so low-pitched as that. The best work of +man does not admit of being put into an equation with cash. The greatest +feat, to my mind, an Englishman ever performed was the writing of +_Paradise Lost_. How much did John Milton get in money for his +incomparable epic during his lifetime? _Five Pounds_: and if he had got +five million pounds, the recompense would have been absolutely +inadequate. History, however, has indemnified Milton for the neglect and +poverty he endured. He has shot up into stature while those of his +contemporaries who bulked largest in the eyes of the world have dwindled +and shrunk into insignificance in comparison with him. The witty, +dissolute king, Charles II., is now seen to be a wretched pigmy: Milton, +who died in blindness and political disgrace, is the real king of that +era, overtopping all the rulers, cabals, and intriguers. So, too, in +Scotland, Burns is the giant of _his_ period. During Burns's life, the +Earl of Dundas was to all intents and purposes king of the country. He +could say to whomsoever he pleased, '_Friend, come up higher; be you a +Sheriff, or Lord-Lieutenant, or Justice of the Peace_.' Dundas is pretty +well forgotten by this time: probably he will by and by be remembered +solely by Burns's description of him: _That slee, auld-farrant chiel +Dundas._ Kings and men of temporary renown do well to keep on good terms +with the men of letters." + +It is always a great treat to hear a working-man who has the power of +utterance deliver a speech in a straightforward and unrhetorical way. +There is _always_ a pith and vigour about such deliverances quite +unattainable in a formal harangue. The magnates of the little Fife +villages are specially notorious for their gift of the gab: when Bailie +M'Scales or Provost Cleaver gets up to speak, no one has any inclination +to fall asleep. + + +A HIGHLAND LAIRD ON LITERATURE. + +Max O'Rell has told us that his chairmen sometimes took advantage of +their position to push their claims for the Town Council. I have not had +the time at my disposal curtailed by any such municipal oratory, though, +occasionally, my remarks on literature have seemed to the chairmen to +stand in need of supplementing. One gentleman, in proposing a vote of +thanks, pulled a copy of Bacon out of his pocket and read the whole of +the famous essay on _Studies_. Another managed to bring in a lengthy +dissertation on radium! The following speech, delivered by a Highland +laird of a poetical turn, is noteworthy: "I am very fond of poetry," he +said, "and yet I turn with a very languid interest to the writings of +modern poets like Watson and Davidson. The verses of these gifted +singers are for others, not for me. The truth is, I don't want any more +lyrics and such like sugar pellets. My brain is already stocked with a +plenteous supply on which I browse in weal and woe, which I almost think +I personally composed, and to which I have attached a great many +emotions and extraneous incidents known to nobody but myself. My old +poetic favourites have been lying in various corners of my brain for +forty or fifty years; I know every turn, rhyme and rhythm of them; and +as they have served my need and alleviated my sorrow so long, I do not +intend to give them many fellow-lodgers more. I do not know at what +particular time literary nausea sets in, but Solomon had it when he said +that of the making of books there was no end. No doubt his father David +had primed him well in boyhood in the Psalms, and Solomon, feeling (like +many others since) that the paternal psaltery met all his need of +literary stimulus, would turn wearily from the heaps of presentation +copies of new verse sent by the rising poets of Judaea for their +sovereign's inspection. When a new book came out, Charles Lamb re-read +an old one,--an excellent practice and one which has the additional +recommendation of economy. It is not an unpleasant thing to find +yourself falling back on old favourites and losing interest in the +current hour. I knew a happy old gentleman whose reading was confined to +Walter Scott. Every evening the lamp was lighted in the trim snuggery, +and the appropriate _Waverley_ taken down from the shelf. For such a man +to begin a new novel would have been as irksome as travelling in a +foreign land." + +I am bound to say that I have great sympathy with the sentiments I have +quoted from the speech of this kilted critic. If it were possible to +retain the elasticity and adjustableness of the mind till the end of +life, new authors would perhaps fix our attention as much as the old. +But only a limited number of articulate-speaking men, such as the +omnivorous Professor Saintsbury of Edinburgh, preserve their appetite +tireless and intact. The Professor, like a literary Livingstone, can +grapple with the most arid and dusty libraries, and is the envy of all +scholars; but, alas! the majority of us have to take something less than +the whole of knowledge for our province. + +It must not be supposed that all the remarks made at these meetings were +like those I have quoted. An airy irrelevancy was quite as common as the +serious note. + + +VARIETIES OF CHAIRMEN. + +I have had experience of hundreds of chairmen, and admired most of them. +It is rather a painful thing to have one who is utterly unversed in +speaking. I remember being introduced in the ante-room to the chairman +of the evening, and, big bucolic giant as he was, he seemed fearfully +perturbed. His hand trembled, his lips were ashy-gray, and his laugh was +a nervous grin. "I am not much used to this sort of thing," said he, +with a poor attempt at mirth and a furtive movement of his hand to his +waistcoat pocket, where he had his introductory speech. "All you have to +do is to introduce me," I hinted; "you needn't say much." On the +platform he shook so much that the whole structure quivered. He rose, +and was received with loud applause. Happily he did not read his speech, +but simply pointed to me and said, "G-g-go on." He sank in his chair, +while runnels of sweat coursed down his cheeks. I admired that chairman +more than one in Caithness, who, after angling for the honour of taking +the chair, grew so terrified towards the hour of meeting, that he went +to bed and sent word he couldn't be present owing to flying pains in his +leg! In country districts, reluctance to take the chair arises from a +man's fear of making himself ridiculous; once he cuts a poor figure in +public, discredit is for ever attached to his name. + +Highlanders as a rule make excellent chairmen. The superior gifts of the +Celtic mind, in imagination and wealth of florid expression, nowhere +show themselves to better purpose than when compliments have to be paid. +Then again, the kilt is very impressive on a brawny chairman's legs: it +commands attention and respect at once. I have little knowledge of +colloquial Gaelic, though I have studied the grammar, and have some +skill in reading. A little Gaelic goes a long way in stirring the soul +of a Highland audience. Often I have heard a kilted chairman quitting +his English for a little and giving the audience a mellifluous Ossianic +sentence or two. The effect was electric: eyes gleamed, breath came +quick and fast, the souls of the hearers seemed to have tasted a tonic. +Spoken Gaelic is akin to the elements: it has a mystic affinity with the +winds that sough around the flanks of the mountains and along the +surface of the lonely lochs. There is perhaps not much business +precision about it, but for preaching, praying, and poetry, it is a +splendid medium. + +In Arran, a jovial chairman thus introduced me: "Before I left home, I +thought of a great many nice things to say as a preface to the remarks +of our friend from Paisley. (Here he coughed violently.) Unfortunately, +I am unable to bestow these tit-bits on the audience owing to a +_kittlin'_ in my throat. Instead of saying what I meant to say, I think +I had better tell you a story. A minister one Sunday had occasion to be +highly displeased with the precentor, who broke down twice in quite a +simple psalm-tune. 'Excuse me, minister,' said the precentor, 'but I've +got a kittlin' in my throat this morning.' '_Kittlin'!_' hissed the holy +man in scornful wrath: '_it's mair like a big tom-cat_.' Ladies and +gentlemen, after these few and decidedly imperfect remarks, I resume my +seat, merely expressing the hope that our friend will feel himself as +much at home here as the deil did in the Court of Session." + +Another chairman in an adjoining island, while engaged in tremulously +reading his introductory speech, came to a sudden stop. An irreverent +youth shouted, "_Is that a blot?_" After the laughter provoked by this +query had subsided, the chairman said: "I feel to-night like a square +pin in a round hole, or rather, like the Irishman who, when asked if he +was dead, replied, '_No, I'm not dead, I'm only spacheless._'" Having +said these words with a weird attempt at mirth, the chairman sat down +too hurriedly, and struck his head so violently against the back of his +chair, that the noise of the impact was heard in every part of the hall. + +I may hint to anyone who lectures or preaches in the Highlands, not to +adopt a patronising attitude or make it appear that he is talking down +to the audience. Such a feature would be at once detected and deeply +resented. A well-known Professor lectured to a Bute audience on +Electricity, and out of ignorance, spoke in a very elementary way to the +audience, defining the simplest terms, and interspersing a great many +"_you know's_" and "_you see's_." The chairman, in proposing a vote of +thanks, slyly remarked: "We have listened to-night to a very good +discourse, and I'm only sorry there are so few young people here. Next +time the Professor comes to speak to us, I hope to see all the +school-children in the hall, for the lecture to-night was admirably +adapted to their capacity." + + +COMING TO THE POINT. + +A very loquacious lawyer proposed a vote of thanks to the chairman in +the following fashion: "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "it is often a +very difficult thing to come to the point. When I was at College, I +consented once to write an essay on 'The Progress of America,' the +subject being one of my own choosing. I wrote twenty-five pages of +preliminary matter, and at the end of my writing, I found that Columbus +was not landed. As my essay was to bring my hearers up-to-date on +American progress, I became nettled at my failure to _get Columbus +ashore_ and went round canvassing among my friends to secure a +substitute. No one would relieve me, so I was forced to slaughter an +aunt. I was wired for, by arrangement, on the day before the meeting, +and responded with great alacrity, knowing that there would be no +funeral. Without wasting more words let me on _this_ occasion come to +the point, and ask you to accord to our worthy chairman a very hearty +vote of thanks for the brilliant way in which he has kept us all in +order this evening." + + +MORAL OBLIGATION. + +A minister of a western parish thought it his duty, in the course of his +introductory speech, to make some jovial remarks on the subject of +conscience and moral obligation. "A student of my acquaintance," said +he, "went to Arrochar on Loch Long by excursion steamer. At mid-day, +being thirsty, he _drifted thoughtlessly_ into the hotel and asked for a +cup of tea. With this beverage he washed over some dry biscuits he had +brought with him from home. Imagine his surprise on being told that the +cup of tea would cost him two shillings. Bang went not one sixpence but +four! He looked at the maid and his breath came quick and fast; but he +counted out the money nevertheless. Having occasion to visit the +bathroom to cool his throbbing brow, he perceived a razor on a little +shelf near the mirror there. At once he pocketed this razor and made +off, whistling _Scots Wha Hae_. He had recouped himself for the +overcharge on the cup of tea. Strange to say, every time he shaved with +the stolen razor he feared some impending calamity. He knew enough Greek +to be aware that Ajax committed suicide with the very sword that hero +got from the enemy. Whenever the student disfigured his chin and +reddened the lather with a new-made gash, he felt in his inmost soul +that a Nemesis was being wrought out. _By this simple tale, my friends, +one may see the sovereign power of conscience, which, though dormant for +a time, invariably asserts itself and flogs the culprit._" + + +COMPLIMENT TO PAISLEY. + +The following remarks made by a speaker at one of the meetings are worth +citing: "I do not wish our Paisley friend," he said, "to go back to the +banks of the Cart under the impression that we are not a very literary +people up here in Ross-shire. On the contrary, we are clean gone on +literature. Just look at our syllabus! One night we have a discussion on +Shakespeare. Eh? What do you think of that? Shakespeare no less! Next +night we deal with _an equally great poet--Tannahill_." (No doubt the +speaker meant to compliment Paisley in thus comparing the author of +_Lear_ and _Hamlet_ with the poet-laureate of the loom.) I have heard +Milton's _Paradise Lost_ and Pollok's _Course of Time_ clashed together +in the same ludicrous way. I was dreadfully nonplussed on one occasion +by hearing a speaker strongly recommend the audience to give their days +and nights to the study of Bunyan and M'Cheyne. "Bunyan by all means," +said I to myself, "but who is M'Cheyne that one should be mindful of him +and put him for importance alongside of the immortal tinker?" + + +ORATORY AT SALEN. + +I shall never forget a vote of thanks proposed in my hearing by the +excellent doctor of Salen, a pleasant little place situated on a +V-shaped creek of Loch Sunart. I never expect to meet a more genial or +more humorous man than the doctor, on this side of eternity. He knows +the roads of gusty Ardnamurchan better than any other living man, and, +night and day, by sun and by moon, in weather of clear blue, and under +the eddying blinding flakes, he is ever on the move. He found time to +come to the meeting and propose a vote of thanks to the donor of the +library. Everyone listened intently to him as he stood there in his +professional frock-coat,--a thin, wiry, twinkling-eyed gentleman. "If +the donor by any chance," said he, looking at me, "should ever sail up +Loch Sunart in his yacht, and land among the people of Salen, to whom +his books have given such pleasure, I should advise him not to stand too +near the edge of the pier, for fear some of the grateful natives might +push him over into the loch, _in order to have the pleasure of saving +his life!_" This unexpected sally convulsed the audience, and gave a gay +and rollicking touch to the speeches that came after. Mr. M'Gregor, a +farmer from Resipol, broad and brawny, rose to make a few remarks. The +schoolhouse was very hot and close, but he disdained to throw off the +thick and ample Highland cloak which he had on, and which he had worn +all day at the Oban Cattle Show, and on the deck of the boat that had +brought him thence. Mr. M'Gregor had been much struck by my remarks on +the knights of King Arthur, and their custom of sitting at the Round +Table, to avoid questions of precedence. He spoke to this effect: "I do +not wish the lecturer to go back to Paisley under the impression that +Salen is not a very bye-ordinary and consequential place. We have a +fleet of yachts out there, the like of which is not to be seen _between +this and Manch-oo-ria_. We have a blacksmith that can preach and quote +Scripture as well as any D.D. in the land; my friend the grocer over +there, will give you such bargains as you could never get in +Sauchie-_hall_ Street; and we have a choir here that might give the +angels singing-lessons. I am a very modest man, but I would like to say +just a word about this Round Table business. The lecturer says the Table +was round so that every knight might be at the head of it. That's the +theory, but what's the fact? I'll tell you. _One of King Arthur's +knights was an ancestor of mine, and his name was M'Greegor._[12] Now, +wherever M'Greegor sat, that was always considered the head of the +table." This contribution to Arthurian criticism was delivered with such +force, faith, and genial glee, that no one, considering the powerful +muscles of the speaker, was disposed to question it. (Mr. M'Gregor's +eulogy of Salen did not comprise a reference to the local hotel, which +is conducted on the Gothenburg system. It is comfortable and snug, but +not whole-heartedly patronised by some of the natives, as they consider +the system is an un-Celtic innovation, and believe further that every +drink they take is written down in a big book with an alphabet on the +edge of the leaves to facilitate reference). + + [12] Judging from the number of clans that make a similar claim, + we might fancy that all King Arthur's knights + + "Gartened low their leg, + And rowed their hurdies in a philabeg." + + + + +LECTURE IN A DUNGEON, ETC. + +I have an agreeable recollection of my stay in Saddell, on the coast of +Kintyre, as the guest of Colonel Macleod, son of the never-to-be-forgotten +Dr. Norman Macleod. The Colonel was born in 1820, was present at the +Eglinton Tournament, and is, to-day, in spite of his eighty-eight +years, hale in body, sound of wind, and perfectly clear in the +intellect. He is a walking encyclopaedia of all the social and political +changes that have come about since the accession of Victoria. He is also +an authority on live stock, and it is intensely amusing to see his +horses scampering from the far-end of the field when they see him, in +the hope of getting some of the bits of sugar he always carries in his +pocket for their benefit. + +The school-house being badly situated for the convenience of the people, +the meeting was held in the _dungeon of the old castle_, a spacious and +airy place quite near the beach. Altogether, I reckon this meeting as +the drollest in all my experience. There were no windows in the +overhanging vaulted roof, and the long stone stair leading to the ground +above, was filled with the audience that could not get accommodation +below. The aged Colonel presided over about one hundred prisoners, and +humorously remarked that the table at which he was standing, was really +a _patent incubating apparatus_, under which four dozen of Mrs. +Macleod's chickens were coming to maturity. He hoped these embryo fowls +would not interrupt the lecture by any unseemly remarks. At the risk of +wearying the chickens, I spoke for an hour and a half, dealing in the +course of my remarks (to be as apposite as possible) with the dungeon +scene in "The Legend of Montrose," where Dugald Dalgetty squeezes the +windpipe of the Duke of Argyll. + +In one little village hall in Kintyre, I was much perturbed by some of +the placards that had been placed on the walls. The hall had been used +for evangelical purposes, and there, facing me, in yard-long type, was +the dreadful command, _Get right with God_. To speak on Hood and his +puns with those colossal letters burning their message into your soul, +would need nerves of steel. I have not nerves of steel, and I felt +dreadfully incommoded by the bill. For the space of five minutes I might +occasionally forget it, and then, in the midst of some light and +skittish quotation, my eye would light upon it, and the verses would +come feebly and falteringly off the tongue. _Vox faucibus haesit._ + + +SURPRISES. + +My narrative would be lacking in completeness if I did not frankly +confess that I have sometimes met with humiliations of a kind to wring +the heart and call forth a sigh. In one nook of the north I stayed in +the manse of an excellent clergyman, an eloquent preacher, but austere +and extremely devout. He took the chair at the lecture, which was very +well attended. Before the meeting began I was told that a local +gentleman wished to ask me _an important question_. This was good news +for me, as I thought the inquirer might have some literary difficulty +which it would be profitable to handle in the course of my remarks. The +anxious enquirer proved to be the local hotel-keeper, who, in a deadly +earnest whisper made the following request: "You have a big meeting," he +said, "and it's not likely there will be such a number of people so near +my hotel for many a long day. _Would it be asking too much of you to +finish up about half-past nine and give the audience time to sample +some of my commodities before departing homewards?_ It's chiefly the +minister I have to fear; for if he suspects I wish to do business, he'll +prolong the vote of thanks till after the stroke of ten." + +One of my compensations in wandering Scotland thorough has been the +heartfelt but rather naive way in which some of the provincials have +expressed their gratitude. "_I've paid half-a-crown for worse_," said an +old man of Ross to me, shaking me warmly by the hand and believing he +was uttering a most delicate and hyperbolical compliment. (Now, during +my remarks, I had noticed this man taking copious pinches of snuff to +enable him, as I suspected, to sit out the meeting.) Another rustic, +this time an Aberdonian, was impressed by the number of authors +mentioned and the copious citations from their works. "Heavens!" he +cried, "what a memory that man has! That's the kind of partner I should +like to have at whist: he would never forget the cards that were out." + +I know not whether to laugh or weep when I think of the occasion on +which the following charmingly irrelevant remarks were made to me: "We +are all proud of our village library and _even prouder of the feeling +that prompted such a gift_. I am reminded," the speaker went on to say, +"of a cousin of mine who got a present of exquisite fruit (preserved in +wine) from a friend in a distant part of the country. He wrote to the +donor saying, 'Your fruit is delicious: I like it very much; but I like +even more _the spirit in which it has been sent_.'" + + +A VISIT TO THE BORDERS. + +In order that these pages may fitly represent all the districts of +Caledonia that I have traversed as an uncommercial traveller, I should +like to give a short sketch of how I reached Tweedside by way of Lanark, +at a season when the Glasgow people were beginning their Fair holidays. +Winter, as I remarked, is the time I prefer for travelling, but untoward +circumstances have now and again compelled me to be on the move when +"mid-summer, like an army with banners, was marching through the +mid-heavens." + +I may say at once that it is a great trial to leave Glasgow at that +particular date. The city pours forth its myriads at such a time. The +stations are surging and heaving with throngs of men, women, and +children, all in a hurry and all impatient. Families by tens and dozens +are swarming about. How pathetic it is to see the father with one child +in his arms and two clinging to his coat-tails, while the mother (poor +bedraggled soul) is vainly striving to quieten a squalling fourth! Some +children have lost their parents, and grope about underneath, nipping +the legs of tourists to attract attention and get hold of the right +father; others fall among bales of strawberries that were pulled +yesterday in the fresh country air, but are now being trampled into gory +pulp. Even in the fetid and dust-laden air, rendered almost unbearable +by the hot sunlight that blazes through the overarching glass of the +station roof, Cupid twangs his arrows, and soft eyes speak love to eyes +that speak again. Suddenly the train arrives, and on the already +crowded platform lands the human freight of twenty carriages--a fresh +addition to the welter and confusion worse confounded. What a wealth of +language one hears! Cyclists tinkle with bell and horn to secure the +needed lane of passage. Porters, in desperate madness, throw wooden +boxes down and rope-tied trunks of tin with little sympathy for injured +knees and fiery corns. The train just in will shortly leave with a new +load of passengers. A rush is made for the vacated seats: in tumbles the +surging crowd without regard for the class of ticket they have +purchased. A score of occupants per carriage is about the average; many +swarm into the guard's van, where they are regaled with pandemoniac +odours of ancient fish and decaying vegetables. The heavy train at +length steams out into the open, and in an hour's time Lanark is +reached. "_God made the country and man made the town_" is the +involuntary reflection of the city man as he steps out of the train and +breathes the fresh air of the hills. + +From Lanark to Peebles, by road, is thirty miles. The track is +excellent, and if the wind is not adversely strong the joy of cycling +the distance is difficult to parallel. + +On this route, no lumbering vehicles, laden with heavy merchandise, tear +up the soil into ruts. No cab-drivers cast sarcastic remarks at you from +their high perch. The only annoyance comes from the cast-off nail of a +horse-shoe or the sharp splinter of a macadamised stone. The air is as +fresh as on Creation's morn. Up hill and down again one can hurry on +without ever touching the brake. For the first ten miles, the stately +bulk of Tinto dominates the landscape. What a splendid range of scenery +the eye could grasp from the high vantage-ground of its summit in clear +weather! As one approaches the base of the big hill, the road turns +sharply to the east, and you feel about your ears innumerable breezes +that blow along from the little glens leading down from Tinto's breast. +By and by, the clean, trim, little town of Biggar appears. (The +inhabitants are proud of the fact that John Brown, author of the +beautiful story, _Rab and his Frien's_, was a native of the town.) One +notices the name of Gladstone prominent above the shops, and it is a +fact that the ancestors of the Grand Old Man were, in the days of yore, +denizens of those quiet hamlets. After a short rest here, we (for you +are with me, _ami lecteur_) shoot on and pass the sleepy street of +Broughton, lying clear and radiant in the slanting rays of the sun. Here +is the ideal spot for a country clergyman in love with Hebrew roots and +gardening and quiet contemplation. Soon we strike the tiny waters of the +infant Tweed, prattling and gushing up and bubbling clear over its +snow-white pebbles. Now the breeze of gloaming blows more snell. Away +low in the west the sun begins to gather golden clouds in pomp around +his setting. A gorgeous glimmer, gold and red, is thrown over the whole +sky. Keeping close beside the ever-widening stream, we dash through +little clachans on the bank, beneath long, over-arching avenues of +trees, and past the gates of ivy-mantled homes of blessed outlook. Here +a croquet party stops playing, for the grass is getting wet with +evening dew, and there, in the river, and up to the knees in it, are +half a dozen anglers sweeping the wave with their spurious fly. Peebles +is not far off, and the quiet nooks of the high road are filled with +pedestrians. The entrance to Peebles is exquisite. The long rows of +trees, the situation of the road high above the river in the dell, +combine to make an eerie blend of sound from sighing leaves and gurgling +waters. An old Border peel, Needpath Castle, stands near the straggling +outskirts of the town, and proves, by its choice situation on the knoll, +that our cattle-reiving ancestors were quite alive to the advantages of +a good view. It was a stirring quarter here in the days of the old +Scotch kings. The deadly thrust of lance has reddened every burn in the +wide Borderland. Every brae has had its gory bicker. + +On this _tournee_ I had the pleasure of giving a lecture on "Scotch +Ballads," at a little village not more than half a mile from the +birthplace of Dandie Dinmont. The place was full of sturdy, firm-knit +Borderers, descendants of the dare-devil troopers who wrought such +devastation along the Marches when the Stuarts reigned in Holyrood. +Fresh, ruddy faces, coloured by breeze and sun; hard, keen, inquisitive +looks; intelligence such as comes from knowledge of nature, hereditary +quickness and good circulation of blood: all these could be instantly +seen by glancing round the audience. (How insignificant a mere bookworm +or scholar feels among a company of brawny Liddesdale farmers!) During +the lecture, it was easy to note by the grim smile on their faces, their +flashing eyes and the way they gripped their big sticks, that the old +stirring rhymes of fight struck a sympathetic chord in their hearts. Now +and again, during the address, one could see the lips of the listeners +moving in soft repetition of the lines, as some typical quotations were +being made. + +It is not likely that there has been much change or influx of population +in these districts for centuries. The alertness and intelligence of the +natives must be to some extent an inheritance from the generations of +strenuous clansmen whose blood flows in their veins. Life in a +historical district is bound to have an ennobling effect on a man, +especially if he feels knit to the past by lineal descent from the +historical actors. A glamour of romance clings to hill and glen. The +dalesman you meet on the highway can tell you all the lore of his +parish, giving dates and citing illustrative lays. It is pleasant to +find that the stories of the Borderland are still known where they first +took birth, and that the local names, which to students instantly +suggest delightful bits of rhyme, have also to those who dwell near +them, a romance that is borrowed from the olden time.[13] + +Anyone who has travelled in the shires that run along the Cheviots and +the Tweed, will conclude that poetry and romance may ever find a home +there. The hills, with their green pastoral slopes and abundant leafage, +are a delight to the eye in fresh spring and tinted fall. The sound of +the streams, as Ruskin has pointed out, is sweet and rhythmic to an +extraordinary degree, combining with the sough of the winds to form an +undersong of Nature's own melody. As the traveller drives or cycles +along the roads, he now and again gets such impressive vistas of +long-stretching waterways, wooded to the brink with graceful trees, as +grave themselves on the memory for evermore. For rock, crag, and dashing +linn, the northern Highlands are supreme; but in the green Borderland, +there is a more sedate and proportioned beauty. Nature is none the less +attractive for losing somewhat of her wildness and austerity. + + [13] A favourite and appropriate book in this part of Scotland is + Wilson's _Tales of the Borders_. There are not many farm-houses + in the Lowlands of Scotland in which one does not find old + copies, bound and unbound, of Wilson's _Tales_. Usually they show + unmistakable evidence of having been frequently perused. One is + bound to admit that the modern reader, if he spends an evening + turning over these old pages, will find little reason to pride + himself on the superiority of the popular reading of to-day. The + short story, now in vogue, may be finely illustrated, and highly + sensational, but its matter is certainly inferior, as a rule, to + the general run of Wilson's stories. Wilson, in his humble way, + was a gleaner in the field so richly harvested by Sir Walter + Scott. _The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_ had called + attention to the great stores of poetry and romance lingering + among the peasantry of the Debateable Land. Wilson's _Tales_ + showed how much of the old spirit remained more than two + centuries after the Union, and, in spite of all Christianity and + an orderly Government had done for the softening of manners. + Hogg, in speaking of his own countryside, said: "The poor people + of these glens know no other entertainment in the long winter + nights than repeating and listening to the feats of their + ancestors recorded in songs which I believe to have been handed + down from father to son for many generations." Wilson and his + successors gathered up as much of the romantic material as they + found available, and printed it for the delight of their + generation. + + +TARBOLTON. + +In the agricultural lowlands of Scotland it is not rare to come upon +little villages that seem entirely left behind by modern progress. Not +long ago my work took me to Tarbolton, a quiet, uneven village in the +heart of the queenly shire of Ayr. The railway company has treated the +place very badly: a full fifteen minutes' drive is needed to reach the +town from the station. It is as if the company said: "Make what you can +of our line, ye insignificant Tarboltonians; our trains are in a hurry +to get from Ayr to Muirkirk; be thankful if we set you down only three +miles from your home." If it is not wet, the drive is a grand one. Five +miles to the right, Mauchline shows its red complexion on the green +hillside, and awakens lyric memories of Burns's imperishable mouse and +share-torn gowan. Over the pasture lands on the right come freshening +winds that hint of the heaving Firth not far away. The road pursued by +the coach meanders among all that is best of rural and pastoral scenery, +for coaly Annbank, defaced by the exhumed entrails of the earth, is +happily on the rear. At a turn of the road, a majestic spire, that of +Tarbolton Parish Church, suddenly stands before the view of the +traveller, and suggests Eternity even when tolling the hours of Time. +Soon the village is reached, and one is in a position to form an idea of +eighteenth century Scotland. The main street is built with that +irregularity so charmingly illustrative of the evolution of the +builder's art. Old cots roofed with thatch take the mind back to the +time when George I. was defending the faith and maltreating his wife. +Side by side with such are trim two-storey houses with all modern +elegancies. + +I have a pleasant recollection of this interesting village, not merely +from its associations with Burns (which Mr. T.F. Henderson in a dainty +little book has recently recounted anew), but also from the fact that +the natives keep alive the literary traditions of the place in quite a +worthy way. The local baker has written a fluent volume of Essays +dealing with village incidents and worthies, which proves, as Mr. Barrie +says, that life in every stage, if truthfully portrayed, is intensely +interesting, and that every window-blind is the curtain for some tragedy +or comedy. + + +THE SCOTCH LANGUAGE. + +Very fine Scotch is still spoken in the rural districts of Ayrshire, and +most of Burns's dialect words are in daily use, at least by the older +generation. The Education Department has most wisely given encouragement +to the study of Lowland Scotch, and I do not see why a special grant +should not be given for special excellence in that department. Some +national movement for a complete Dictionary of Modern Scotch with +explanations in up-to-date philology ought to be organised. + +During the lifetime of Sir Walter Scott, Dr. Jamieson published the +famous _Scottish Dictionary_, which still holds the field as the most +elaborate compendium of the Lowland dialects. Looked at in the light of +modern science, the derivations are often absurd and fanciful. +Jamieson's love for Gothic parallels led him constantly astray. +Nevertheless, his dictionary, as amended by various revisers, remains a +stately monument of industry and a necessary adjunct in the study of the +Scotch language. + +In our own day, Dr. Murray of Oxford has compiled an illuminating +grammar of the language, indicating the various dialects of the Lowlands +and their geographical areas. Local antiquarians have also written out +lists of words special to particular counties. Dialect books, such as +the entertaining _Johnnie Gibb of Gushetneuk_, as well as Mr. Barrie's +delightful sketches, have put excellent specimens of provincial speech +within the hands of a wide circle of readers. A good dictionary of +modern Scotch, dealing with what has been written during the last two +centuries, would be a very useful and a very interesting compendium. It +would show that a great many expressive words employed by thirteenth +century English writers are still in use on the Scotch side of the +Border. + +There is no denying the fact that book-English will soon push out the +relics of the old Scotch tongue. Burns will soon be read by lexicon, +even in the shire of Ayr. Men now write poetry in Scotch as boys at Eton +and Harrow write Latin verses, the result in both cases being, as a +rule, hideous and artificial doggrel. The little book, _Wee Macgregor_, +written in what may be called the Scotch Cockney dialect, was a brave +and amusing attempt to phonograph the talk of a Glasgow boy of the lower +middle class. The unlovely speech employed by the author is, happily, +quite unlike the careful and deliberate speech of the educated citizen +of Glasgow or Paisley. The main differences between the educated Scot +and the educated Englishman are that the vowel sounds of the former are +pure and that _r_ and _h_ have a real value in most words where these +letters occur. + +It seems to me a _very undesirable_ thing that a uniform system of +pronunciation should be aimed at in every country of the British Isles. +So long as clear and expressive enunciation of English is attained, +intelligible differences of vocalisation, pitch, and even of vocabulary, +are allowable, and at times positively charming. Monotony is the bane of +life. + + +CHOICE BOOKS. + + "Whether the books are borrowed books or no + That show their varied stature row on row + Along your walls, there will I truly find + The image of your character and mind. + Light, flimsy novels suit the flying train + Or _Western Isle_ excursions of Macbrayne, + Where, dazed by gleaming firths of visible heat, + The torpid soul disdains substantial meat; + But oft-read volumes, to which men recur + The whole year round, bespeak the character." + +The above lines, written by some unknown poetaster, indicate that it is +the book we read over and over again that has the greatest potency in +our education. I quite agree with the author, and I love to behold the +well-thumbed pocket-edition that speaks to the eye of much handling and +frequent perusal. There are very few books _worth_ reading once that are +not worth reading oftener. Hobbes used to say that if he had read as +much literature as the majority of men, he would have been as ignorant +as they. In that remark what depths of meaning lie! The sage of +Malmesbury attributed his success in philosophy to his habit of +judicious selection--to the fact that he concentrated his attention on +those authors who were likely to help the development of his powers. +Selection is more required now than in Hobbes's time. Few men would care +to read more than a hundred books through in a year, and yet there are +twenty thousand volumes added annually to the shelves of the British +Museum. + + +THE ESSAYISTS. + +It has been my privilege, during the last three or four years, to +examine with more or less care something like four hundred bookcases, +containing works on all departments of literature. _I am inclined to +turn away in disgust if the Essayists are not patronised._ + +Those delightful Essayists! Happy is the man who has his shelves full of +them--writers who talk sense with wanton heed and giddy cunning, who +spread their souls out on paper, who disarm hostility by taking you +completely into their confidence. Addison, with the roguish gleam in his +eye as he is calculating the number of sponges in the cost of a lady's +finery; Goldsmith, in his London garret, talking of the ludicrous +escapades of the Man in Black; Lamb luxuriating in reminiscences of Old +Benchers. All these splendid, unsystematic delights, mingled with the +breezes of byegone summers and the sunsets of long ago! Old ghosts +whisper you their secrets; you hear the brush of sweeping garments that +have been moth-eaten these hundred years. Crowded streets of people +appear before the eye of fancy--London in the days of Anne and the +Georges. In the company of such wits, there are no slow-moving hours: +you have in them friends who never need tire you, for should the +slightest tedium intervene, you may, without offence, stop their flow of +conversation. Our living intimates are prone to drynesses and huffs; but +these old prattling wits ever welcome us with a smile of affability. + + +A BANFF THEORY. + +While speaking of Essayists, I ought to mention a peculiar Banffshire +theorist who addressed me in the following words: "Give me an old set of +_Blackwood_ in the Kit North days, and I can easily forego your +pinchbeck stories and propagandist novels of to-day. I put the most +interesting period for reading at _sixty years ago_, and I think Scott +must have known the charm of that number when he gave the alternative +title to _Waverley_. It is pleasant to know how the world wagged when +your grandfather was a ruddy egg-purloining rogue of five. When I read +farther back than a century, I feel imagination flagging--the Merry +Monarch is not much more to me than John the Baptist. But the men of the +forties stand out clear and distinct. If I have never seen an +out-and-out fiery Chartist, I have at least seen some smouldering +specimens--men with much of the eloquence and a little of the enterprise +of the original five-pointers. It may be that as I grow older, my most +interesting historical period will move with me, keeping always at a +distance of sixty years from the present, until, when I get within hail +of the Psalmist's stint, I shall be most interested in childish things." +These words rather staggered me, and set me thinking of geometrical +_loci_. A man holding such views would find it difficult to obtain a +bird's-eye view of history. + + +GOLDSMITH IN GAELIC. + +If I had an adequate knowledge of Gaelic, combined with plenty of money +and leisure, I should set myself the task of translating the whole of +Goldsmith's Essays and Tales into that language, for the benefit of +those who had no English. It would be a great feat if one could impress +on the modern Celtic mind the conviction that piety and diversion are by +no means incompatible. Goldsmith's _Auburn_ introduces us to the most +delightful prospect on earth: a simple village community, unacquainted +with luxury and uncorrupted by vice. The inhabitants are full of health +and joy--they till the soil and gain ample satisfaction for their +unambitious wants. Life passes along bringing a pleasant succession of +happy hours. After the labours of the day, the young people dance +merrily on the green, and the old folk look on and regret that their own +legs are too stiff to keep time to the fiddles. Certain Highland +landlords might also read with advantage the exquisitely pathetic lines +in which the poet pictures the desolation and ruin of the rural +paradise, and perhaps conclude therefrom that, when glen and strath are +depleted of their inhabitants, and these latter driven over the seas to +seek a foothold in strange lands, it is the very heart's blood of +Britain that is being drained away. + +On the whole, probably no English writer has given such genuine delight +as Goldsmith, and such genuine instruction too. Ineradicably frivolous, +culpably negligent of the morrow, whimsically vain and living all his +days from hand to mouth, he had the faculty of drawing upon himself the +pity, and even the contempt, of his associates. But in the eyes of +posterity, his happy-go-lucky life is amply redeemed by the work he has +left behind him, for _it_ is pure and good. His river of speech flows +ever on shining like molten gold. No man of his time possessed the +adroit knack of bright writing in a more eminent degree. The pawky +humour of his side-hits, the blending of light and shade in the process +of the narrative, the beauty and melody that can be noted even in the +sound of the sentences, combine to delight the judgment, the ear, and +the fancy. Though the _Vicar of Wakefield_ is a prose production, it +produces all the effect of a poem on the affections of the heart. Of +wit, properly speaking, it is as full as any volume of _The Spectator_; +with humour it is flooded from beginning to end; and in those pathetic +delineations of life which no one can read without being profoundly +touched, there are few poems so rich. + + +BIBLIA ABIBLIA. + +In many (indeed most) houses I have visited, I see in the bookcase large +publications in six or seven well-bound parts and as good as new, +dealing with subjects of little interest to anyone who breathes the +vital air of heaven. Such titles as _Science for All_, _The Thames from +its Source to the Sea_, _The Queens of England_ are among the commonest +on the boards of the books I allude to. The presence of these editions +indicates that the possessor at a certain period of his life was shy and +could not say _no_ to that limb of the Evil One--the book-canvasser. The +latter individual is the forerunner of the colporteur, who will bring +you, if you wish poetry, an edition of the works of Shakespeare which is +peculiarly ill-adapted for holding in the hand and reading. The print is +large, the page is in size like a miniature wall-map, and the +illustrations are got up with an easy defiance of archeology. The +annotations, though stolen, are distinguished for extreme futility. +After you have begun the purchase of such a book, shame and chagrin +drive you to attempt the study of it; but it is of no use, and on each +occasion of the very regular advent of the colporteur, you are inclined +to swear horribly, after which a period of extreme dejection supervenes +when you recollect the many fine things you could purchase for the +half-guinea periodically expended. The knowledge of human nature +displayed by the man who books the order surpasses anything in the works +of the analytical philosophers. Every artifice of attack is his, and he +knows how to play on all the emotions so ably and exhaustively +catalogued in the manuals of Professor Bain. I believe a gay and +chaffing rejoinder is what he can least overcome. Suggest to him that +you are far gone in poverty and offer to _sell_ him a few of your own +books. Frequent exercise will confirm your principles, until finally, +when you see one of the book-canvassing tribe, you will foresee half an +hour's innocent amusement. + +Certain of the points he so feelingly brings before you may no doubt +awaken a responsive echo in your own bosom. You are well aware, for +example, that your knowledge of the Queens of England is culpably +imperfect. You know you are never likely to go in steadily for the study +of constitutional developments, and so are led to admit the +reasonableness of tackling history from a lighter and more entertaining +point of view. Again, as to the River Thames, one must really grant that +a considerable amount of self-complacency and internal sunniness would +result from the ability to contradict your friends as to the length in +miles of some of its minor tributaries. In science, too, you are no +Kepler or Linnaeus, and there is something satisfactory when pedants +talk of orbits, planes, bulbs, or beetles, in being able to say that +_you have a big book at home that tells all about those things_. + +Many people buy books, not because they have a present need for them, +but on the chance that at some time in the future such volumes as they +see for sale will solve a doubt or answer a need. The precise doubt or +the pressing need rarely arises. I met a Celt who had bought a copy of +Josephus in most irritating type, in the hope that it would help him to +confute a Roman Catholic on the Power of the Keys. Then again, people of +a wavering and bird-witted type of mind are constantly changing the +subject of their interest: this month they are attacked by the _furor +poeticus_, next month it will be a _furor botanicus_ or _politicus_. +Each separate frenzy means expenditure. When Browning is the temporary +subject of the mania, a host of expository books on that poet have to be +purchased, all of which are duly consigned to the topmost shelves when +the soreness of the fit is past. There is also a tendency to purchase, +because on the chance opening of a book you light on something that +pleases the whim of the moment. It is a thousand to one that when you +have bought the book you will not find another item worth perusing in +the entire contents. This tendency to buy a book in a panic may be +neutralised by remembering the story (whether true or not) of Defoe, who +is said to have boomed the languid sale of the dreary _Drelincourt on +Death_ by means of a spicy little ghost story as introduction! Buy in +haste, repent at leisure. + + +SECOND-HAND BOOKS. + +It is a much pleasanter sight to my eyes to see a bookcase with +second-hand books in it, for these are almost always bought to be read. +In a teacher's house near Elgin, I recently saw a most remarkable +collection--a veritable ragged regiment of books: single volumes of +Plutarch, unexpurgated plays by Farquhar and Mrs. Behn, Civil War +pamphlets, and rows of oddities. Mr. Forbes (the owner) was at one +period of his life assistant in Falkirk, and every Saturday morning, +rain or shine, he proceeded to the city of Glasgow, for no purpose but +to roam through the dusty byeways and side streets in quest of +bookstalls. He knew all the dealers by name, and they welcomed him, for +he never left them without a purchase, however slight. It was a saying +of his that while it took half-a-crown to purchase you two hours' +amusement at a theatre, for a couple of shillings, or even less, you +might divide out a whole Saturday most enjoyably in the old book-shops. +He simply rioted in haggling over a threepenny piece. Even old Henderson +feared him. This Henderson was a thirsty old bookseller who kept a shop +at the corner of Cowcaddens and Ingram Street, and whose leading +speciality was second-hand family Bibles, with the former genealogical +leaf riven out and replaced by a clean sheet pasted in for the family of +the next purchaser. To him, sitting enthroned on a pile of Bibles, +Forbes, entering, spake: "Have you a copy of the _Lives of the Twelve +Caesars_?" "Aye, aye," said old Henderson, with a gracious smile; +"_thirteen_ if you like." The copy of Suetonius was produced, and "How +much do you want for Suet.?" queried Forbes. "Half-a-crown," said old +Henderson. "I'll give you ninepence," said Forbes. "Make it +one-and-six," said the bookseller, rising from his Biblical throne, "and +the book's yours." "I'll give you a shilling and a half of whisky," +retorted Forbes. "Say a whole glass and the shilling, and we'll do +business," quoth the vendor of volumes. This was agreed upon, and the +two retired into the nearest dram-shop to conclude the bargain. Every +Saturday evening, Forbes came home by the last train, carrying his +bundle of volumes. He was careful to fumigate them for the purpose of +destroying any microbes, and finally would sprinkle them with _eau de +Cologne_ to make them tolerable to the nose. On Sunday, he enjoyed the +luxury of desultory reading. + +Like Mr. Forbes, I enjoy a ramble among these old shops, and can say, as +he said to me at parting:-- + + "I love the trundling stall + Where ragged authors wait the buyer's call, + Where, for the tariff of a modest supper, + You'll buy a twelvemonth's moral feast in Tupper; + Where Virgil's tome is labelled at a groat, + And twopence buys what tittering Flaccus wrote; + Where lie the quips of Addison and Steele, + And the thrice-blessed songs of Rob Mossgiel; + And some that resurrection seek in vain + From the swart dust that chokes the lumbering wain." + + +FAVOURITES. + +I have often been asked: "You who are so much on the move, who have had +so much train-travelling to do, what books would you recommend for a +long railway journey?" I do not know that one man's likes and dislikes +in reading are of value save as showing his own limitations, yet there +are certain books of which I never tire. I never leave home without the +following books handy for perusal: (i.) The _Odes of Horace_, (ii.) The +_Sonnets of Shakespeare_, (iii.) A French novel and a few copies of the +Paris _Matin_, (iv.) A Greek book of some kind, (v.) Pope or Addison, +(vi.) Some Victorian classic. The list is varied enough, and has +furnished me with much of the material for my speaking. + + +HORACE. + +The pleasant thing about Horace is that his odes are so short: you can +read one in a few minutes--shut your eyes and enjoy the mental taste of +it--try to repeat it, and, if you fail, consult the original--then, +finally (as Pope and many others have done), endeavour to find modern +parallels. Suppose, _e.g._, you are reading, as is likely, the first Ode +of the first Book, you might find present-day resemblances like the +following:-- + +_Curriculo pulverem._ + + What mad attractions sway the world! + Some are unhappy save when whirled + In motor cars that madly race, + To leave a stench in every place, + And maim those foolish folk that stray + Abroad upon the king's highway. + +_Tergeminis honoribus._ + + Yon babbling wight, of sense forlorn, + Who thinks himself a Gladstone born, + Although a bailie, still must strain + To gain himself a Provost's chain. + And, after that, the worthy prater + Aspires to be a legislator; + Dreams of St. Stephen's, where he sees + Himself hobnobbing with M.P.'s. + +_Patrios agros._ + + But Farmer Bob is somewhat saner-- + He minds his stock and is the gainer; + Content to pass his life amid + The scenes that his old father did. + With hose in hand he cleans the byre, + And saves himself a menial's hire; + But gives his girls an education + That may unfit them for their station. + But don't ask Bob to tempt the tide, + Even on a turbine down the Clyde; + Neptune and Ceres don't agree, + And farmers hate the name of sea. + +_Mox reficit rates._ + + When Skipper Smith (whose usual goal + Is Campbeltown with Ayrshire coal) + Is labouring thro' Kilbrannan Sound, + He sighs for Troon and solid ground, + And swears, if he were safe on shore, + He'd never be a sailor more. + But once on shore--he thinks it dull, + And soon begins to tar the hull + And caulk the timbers of his ship: + "I'll try," he says, "another trip." + +_Lene Caput._ + + Some love to mangle turf: I see + Them drive their balls from sandy tee, + And think their day's delight begins + When they are up among the whins. + Some elders, full of godly zeal, + Turn crazy about rod and reel; + And ministers, reputed wise, + Take service with the Lord of Flies + (Beelzebub), and like the work + Better than prosing in a kirk. + +_Conjugis immemor._ + + Sir Samuel Croesus (noble wight! + Who paid so dear to be a knight) + Forsakes his lady for the hills, + And aims at birds he never kills. + Too late in life he shouldered gun, + Breathless he toils beneath the sun, + Sips whisky every other minute, + Until his flask has nothing in it; + Then, at the end of strength and tether, + Falls tipsy in the blooming heather. + +_Praemia frontium._ + + But as for me, my wants are few: + L3,000 a year would do; + A villa built upon a height, + With ample view to left and right; + A garden with a sunny seat, + A grassy lawn with borders neat. + Inside, a study furnished well + (Like a true scholar's citadel) + With books and pipes and easy chairs; + Here, in despite of worldly cares, + If I should write a verse or two-- + A lyric that a _judge_ like you + Could read, without once yawning, through-- + I'd be as proud as any man + That scribbled since the world began. + +Horace is thus fit for all times and conjunctures, and is the most +modern of all the Latin writers-- + + "Horace still charms with pleasing negligence, + And without method talks us into sense." + +The translation of Horace's Odes into modern speech is generally +admitted to be one of the most difficult tasks to which a versifier can +apply himself. And yet there is no task so often essayed. It is a common +saying in France that, when a lawyer quits the bar and retires, he is +certain to publish a new translation of Horace after a year or two's +studious ease. M. Loubet, we know, is a zealous devotee of the Sabine +bard. Not the least droll of Mr. Gladstone's many feats was the +publication, shortly before his death, of a translation of Horace's +Odes, a translation wholly worthless indeed, in spite of the writer's +immense scholarship, but valuable as showing the fascination exercised +by Horace over the most austere and ecclesiastical of minds. It seemed +strange indeed to see the great statesman turn aside from his study of +Butler and the Fathers of the Church, in order to put into English verse +the gay, and often scandalous odes, of an old Pagan epicure. Mr. Morley, +who revised the translation, must have smiled as he read the old man's +rendering of-- + + "_Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa._" + +It is a fact, I suppose, that poetic translations of Horace are rarely +read, save by scholars, and the verdict is almost always unkind. Yet an +excellent anthology could be compiled by selecting the happiest +renderings of the most talented translators. Dryden's paraphrase of +III., 29, has been uniformly praised, and was a great favourite of +Thackeray's. Cowper's nimble wit and classic taste are seen in his +translation of II., 10, an ode beautifully rendered also by Mr. William +Watson. Sir Theodore Martin and Connington are always readable, Francis +is uniformly insipid, and Professor Newman, with his metrical capers, +absolutely absurd. Pope's "Imitations of Horace" are so brilliant, that +no student of English literature can afford to neglect them. Pope's +method of replacing ancient allusions by modern ones, was employed by +Johnson in some magnificent renderings of Juvenal, and no doubt +suggested to our Scotch vernacular poets a mode (still popular) of +translating Horace into Doric speech. Our Scotch bards preferred, as a +rule, to work on the Odes, and they succeeded best when they departed +most widely from the Latin text. + + +SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. + +The same blessed quality of brevity that attracts one in Horace is to me +one of the recommendations of Shakespeare's Sonnets. I am glad the +mystery of them is never likely to be discovered. From frequent perusal +of them in the train, I know the majority by heart, but despair of +finding any cryptogram in them. + +The cord on which these exquisite beads of poetry are strung is of the +most flimsy and frayed character. In other words, the characters are all +bad, and the verses that laud them are of the utmost brilliancy and +fascination. The poet himself supplies material that would justify us in +stigmatising his friend as a heartless and dissipated rogue. He also +lets us know that the pale-faced lady was an unwholesome and treacherous +minx. Yet he addresses the one in language that would be too laudatory +for Sir Galahad, and the other he idolises and insults by turns. + +How strange it is that the poet, while lingering fondly over the doings +of these two un-moral persons, should give utterance to some of the most +impressive lines in English literature! Certain of the sonnets pierce +the heart as with an arrow: such are those that deal, in broad and +pathetic fashion, with the ceaseless flux of all things human, the grim +realities of the grave, the ruthless sequence of earthly events, and the +measureless melancholy of the reflecting mind. The effect produced is +often like what we experience in reading Ecclesiastes or Omar Khayyam. +"Golden lads and lasses must, like chimney-sweepers, turn to dust." + +Though Shakespeare is dolefully impressed by the decay and destruction +of all material things and by the evanescent nature of beauty, he has no +doubt whatever of the immortality of the verses he is writing. He vaunts +as boldly as ever Horace did--indeed, in words that suggest the _Exegi +monumentum_ ode--that his verses will outlast the proudest works of man. +It is a sorry anti-climax to such a boast that the poet harps on the +immortality of the dissolute youth as a consequence of the sonnets +having an eternity of renown. Was there ever such a puzzling and +unworthy association of ideas? The puzzle is rendered more perplexing +still by the fact that Shakespeare took no pains to enlighten posterity +as to the identity of the youth he praises, or even to supervise the +publication of the sonnets. Thorpe's piratical edition was full of +misprints, but Shakespeare, so far as we know, took no notice of it, and +made no attempt, by giving the world a correct and authentic version, to +secure what his verses declare him to be anxious to bring about, viz., +the renown of his friend among generations to come. For us the youth +still exists, no doubt, but not as an historical character. _He takes +his place among the creatures of the poets imagination, and is far more +of a shadow or phantom than any one of them._[14] + +_If we suppose_ the sonnets to be connected with real life, it is not +easy to understand why the radiant youth, "the world's fresh ornament," +"only herald to the gaudy spring," etc., should need such an amount of +persuasion to marry. Seventeen sonnets of great poetical beauty and +felicitous language are devoted to this object. It is an exquisite treat +to read them as works of art, but taken literally they are unspeakably +absurd. No sane man would draw out such lengths of linked sweetness for +the purpose named; nor would any youth, however credulous, _take the +sonnets at their face value_. Shakespeare is merely practising his art, +and we may be perfectly sure that these "sugared" sonnets (as Meres +calls them), if they did circulate among the poet's private friends, +were regarded as rhetorical exercises. They are intensely interesting, +as showing the overpoweringly dramatic nature of Shakespeare's genius. +Being impressed with the desirability of perpetuating beauty, he is +driven to express the idea in the conventional form of a +sonnet-sequence. The result is an exhaustiveness of treatment, a wealth +of imaginative ornament, and a dramatic vividness of presentation that +makes the reader marvel how so much could be made out of so little. + + [14] Mr. Lee has collected an amount of evidence which seems to + prove that T. T., _i.e._, Thomas Thorpe, who wrote the + dedication, was not only a piratical publisher, but also a + humourist. The dedication, read in the light of these + observations, acquires a character of jocularity, and _begetter_ + means _procurer_ or _getter_. Thorpe thus becomes what we know + Curll to have been a century later, a printer of stolen copy, + with a turn for cynical waggery. Mr. W. H., the begetter, + accordingly, is not a glittering aristocrat, but an unscrupulous + go-between, who has made free with somebody's escritoire, and + handed the sonnets over to the gay T. T.! + + +XENOPHON. + +There is one Greek book, of which I have gone through three or four +copies by carrying it about in the pocket for my _moments perdus_. I +refer to the _Economist_ of Xenophon, a gem of a book, and one on which +I have often lectured. The title is not an attractive one, but the body +of the work is charming in the highest degree, and gives a better notion +of ancient Greek life than any other book in existence. Ruskin, who had +an unerring instinct for good literature, got two of his disciples to +put the book into English, himself furnishing a preface of +characteristic insight and brilliancy. He might well do such homage to +the old Greek soldier, for the _Economist_ contains teaching remarkably +like what is to be found in certain of the chapters of _Unto This Last_. +A reader cannot fail to be struck by the wonderful modernness of +Xenophon's writing, his love for the country, his simple and genuine +piety, his soldierly directness, and his practical common sense. Here is +a delightful sidelight on Greek family life, written twenty-three +centuries ago, but which might have been spoken yesterday: "_My wife_," +says one of the characters, "_often puts me on trial and takes me to +task--When I am candid and tell her everything, I get on well enough, +but if I hide or disguise anything, it goes hard with me, for I cannot +make black seem white to her._" + +The _Economist_ is an ideal volume for the country calm: it will not +deliver up its best to you in the city; but if it is leisurely perused +while hayrick fragrances are in the air, while butterflies are +fluttering round the lawns, and while the flow of a clear-gushing brook +chimes with your fancy and the quiet tone of the old Greek's musings, +then (be sure) the mellow sweetness of the "Attic Bee" will be +adequately enjoyed. + +It is a great pity that life is so short, that there are only +twenty-four hours in the day, and that, owing to the general scarcity of +money among the intellectual portion of the community, the possession of +free-will is a pathetic fallacy. Nobody, in these bonds of time and +space, can do precisely what he would like to do. Mr. T. P. O'Connor +once said that, if he were master of his fate, and his feet in every way +clear, he would at once proceed to Athens and learn Greek. I can +conceive no keener or greater joy than that: it is the wish of a genuine +lover of letters. At the age of ten, I came upon an old copy of Pope's +_Homer_, and have been in love with Greek literature ever since. The +cares of this world, including rates and taxes, prevent me likewise from +proceeding to the City of the Violet Crown, but there are plenty of +cheap copies of Homer to be had in Scotland, and it is no disadvantage +that some of them have the translation printed on the opposite page. + +So many things have to be learned at school now, that Greek is being +pushed out. In future, it will be a University subject solely. That is a +great pity, for although there are fine translations of the Greek +authors in English, these are not so much read as they ought to be. +Greek itself would be much easier to learn if editors would write fewer +and shorter notes.[15] + + [15] Penalties of a really deterrent kind might at least be laid + upon those gentlemen who write _more than three_ pages of notes + to one of the author's text: + + O that the Kaiser showing sense for once + Would loose his fury on each learned dunce, + And visit with his summary proceedings + The rogues who tease us with their _variant readings_. + + +FRENCH LITERATURE AND JOURNALISM. + +I am always delighted to see French books on the shelves of a rural +library. I notice Dowden's _French Literature_ in many a Highland +bookcase; and I am sure it will please that erudite and most excellent +professor to know he has hundreds of students who never saw his face. +Everybody should learn the French language: I don't know a better +intellectual investment. French is rich in precisely those qualities +that English lacks. It is not necessary, for proof of that statement, to +read Gautier, Bourget, or Hugo. A daily paper from Paris supplies all +the proof required. + +I freely admit that the French newspaper seems, on first acquaintance, +to be a wonderful and puzzling affair. It is never dull or tiresome, or +glum. You may have your dearest susceptibilities wounded by it, but you +won't fall asleep as you read its columns. Humour trickles from +paragraph to paragraph; wit coruscates in the accounts of the most +ordinary police cases; and abundant of dexterous literary workmanship is +to be found in the leading articles. In spite of such admirable +qualities, there is an element of frivolity, a lack of seriousness (I +speak of the typical Boulevard sheet) that is at first rather shocking +to a British reader. He finds grave subjects treated with a fineness of +touch and a lucidity of reasoning at once charming and full of +edification: but, lo! a pun trails accidentally off the journalist's +pen, or an odd collocation of ideas jostle each other in his brain: the +writer at once stops his instructive reasoning; he goes off the main +line and careers bounding down some devious side-path of entertaining +nonsense. Our home papers are almost uniformly staid; they are written +conscientiously, laboriously, commendably. But, after all, the French +are right in trying to inject as much entertainment as possible into the +daily record of mundane things. + +I regret to say that the majority of French newspapers do not give their +readers a quite fair or accurate account of events happening outside of +France. French topics, as is right, have the bulk of the space, and +foreign events are usually treated in a very prejudiced and perfunctory +way. The Frenchman's enthusiasm for home politics does not leave him +much emotion to spare for the rest of the world. Political life with him +is always more or less in a state of turmoil. There is usually some +scandalous _affaire_ afoot or impending, to which political import can +easily be given. Many of the most talented editors, being members of the +Chamber, import into their articles much of the heat and unreasoning +vehemence engendered by the violence of direct debate. There has always +been a feeling since the _great_ Revolution that _others_ might follow, +and that one or other of the royal gentlemen of this or that +disestablished race might, by some cyclone of popular or military +sympathy, be blown back to power in Paris. Unluckily, there are far too +many parties in France, far too many nicknames, badges, and shibboleths. +The language of political discussion is bitter, and heated beyond +anything the cooler Anglo-Saxon would tolerate. And yet, amid all such +electric discharges of wordy rancour, the French nation goes on its way +rejoicing, not a penny the worse, making wines, silks, and fashions, for +an ungrateful world. + +There is now, and always has been, a strange sympathy between France and +Scotland. A Scot learns French, as a rule, easily. One of the striking +differences between dialect Scotch and book English is precisely the +peculiar French ingredients in the former. For three hundred years the +two countries were allies, and the advantages to England may be gathered +from the remark of King Henry V. in Shakespeare's play-- + + "For you shall read that my great-grandfather + Never went with his forces into France, + But that the Scot on his unfurnished kingdom, + Came rolling like the tide into the breach." + + +GIL BLAS. + +One French book that has solaced my leisure (in train, steamer, and +trap), is that altogether delectable volume _Gil Blas_. It would be +worth learning French to be able to read the book in the original. The +characters are non-moral reprobates who lie, rob, and drink with the +most unaffected sincerity. Vice loses all its grossness, and becomes +intensely entertaining. The tone of the confessions is at once subtle +and naive, tragic and trivial, comic and pathetic. The humour is +absolutely colossal: many English books, alleged to be humorous, do not +contain, in their entire bulk, as much humour as a single chapter of +this great work. For brilliancy of style it stands very high, and few +authors, either in France or elsewhere, have attained such admirable +clearness, precision, and pith. Read _Gil Bias_, say I, if you wish to +appreciate the possibilities of the French tongue, and taste all the +delicate flavour of its racy idiom. + + +ROMANCE AND AUGUSTANISM. + +There is a well-known text of Scripture, "In my father's house are many +mansions" which, with a slight turn, might be applied to the House of +Literature. There is room there for every pure and beautiful expression +of human thought and emotion. Romance and Augustanism have both the +right of entry. + +I am glad to see that Alexander Pope, the cleverest of our English +bards, is still a popular favourite wherever I go. It would be a pity if +this were not so, for he is head of the guild of Queen Anne wits, and +no one of them can rival his instinctive delicacy, careful workmanship, +and crystalline lucidity. His skill in the coining of impressive +aphoristic couplets is unrivalled: it is almost as good as a novel +addition to truth to find an old maxim supplied with the winged words of +such a consummate verbal artist. Pope is a writer who appeals directly +to all readers, for he never hides poverty of thought in a cloud of +vague words. + +In Pope and his fellows we miss the lavish magnificence and unchartered +freedom of the spacious times of great Elizabeth. Instead of Spenser's +amazing luxuriance of matter and metre, we have a neat uniformity and +trim array of couplets, which suggest the constant supervision of the +pruning craftsman. Compared with the Elizabethans, Pope's time has less +wealth but more careful mintage, less power but more husbanding of +strength, fewer flights of imagination but finer flutterings of fancy, +little humour but abundance of clear and sparkling wit. _It is not a +difficult task, by means of suitable selections, to bring home to an +audience of crofters the salient differences between the poetry of Pope +and of Spenser._ + +It is also easy to show to any audience that the quality which pleases +to such a high degree in poems like the _Highland Lass_ and _Yarrow +Revisited_, there is a romantic charm and thrilling magic which Pope +never could produce. A line or two from one of the poems cited has a far +more potent effect over the affections of the heart than the gorgeous +declamatory rhetoric of _Eloisa and Abelard_. But it would be foolish +to suppose that because Pope has not the passion for nature nor the glow +of self-oblivious benevolence, he has not highly educative and estimable +features. He should not be censured for what he never meant to supply: +we should rather strive to cultivate catholicity of taste by extracting +from his poems the information and enjoyment they are so well able to +furnish. + +The Prologue of Pope's _Satires_ is, of course, the best introduction to +a systematic study of the works of this writer. That poem is the +masterpiece of Pope's volume, and exemplifies better than any other +piece the striking and brilliant qualities for which he is so famous. In +perusing it, the reader soon discovers that he is in presence of a work +which is the result of incessant and prolonged labour, and which, +consequently, deserves patient study. The works of a great technical +artist require such elaborate treatment if the force of their genius is +to be adequately felt. + + +VICTORIAN WRITERS. + +If any man proposes to stay a month among scenery of hill, mountain, and +lake, I should advise him to slip a copy of Wordsworth into his pocket, +and read therefrom an hour daily; not hurrying over the pages, but +turning aside, now and again, to take in the glory of pinewood, heather, +and linn. In no volume, ancient or modern, can a tired man find such +soft and genial balm for his weariness as in the calm pages of the Rydal +singer. The poet is at his best in the broad region of natural religion. +He looks round on the beauties of the world with that solemn awe a man +feels in the hallowed precincts of a mediaeval temple. The grandeur and +mystery of the world throw him into a kind of enchantment: his own soul +and that of the universe touch and commune with each other. In his rapt +verses we feel some of that mystic thrill felt by a devotee in the open +sanctuary of the Almighty. No man ever interpreted Nature in such +inspired strains as William Wordsworth. What supremely delights the +lover of scenery is that this poet's muse can overwrap the exact and +detailed knowledge of Nature with a superb mantle of idealistic glory. +He saw and understood the harmony of Nature's forms and colours through +all the seasons: at the quiet ingleside he meditated on what he had seen +and heard, enshrined these in verse, and added to them the warmth of his +own devout and sensitive soul. There is no exaggeration in Arnold's +tribute:-- + + "He laid us, as we lay at birth, + On the cool, flowery lap of earth, + Smiles broke from us, and we had ease; + The hills were round us, and the breeze + Went o'er the sunlit fields again. + Our foreheads felt the wind and rain, + Our youth returned; for there was shed + On spirits that had long been dead-- + Spirits dried up and closely furled-- + The freshness of the early world." + +Of Wordsworth and his successor, Tennyson, it is impossible to speak +save in terms of affectionate gratitude. God looked kindly on Britain +when he sent two such men to minister to us. Tennyson did more than all +the bishops of the Church of England to stifle crude infidelity and +equally crude religious bigotry. There is not a single line he ever +wrote of which in his last days he had need, from the point of view of +truth and morality, to be ashamed. He increased the world's stock of +happiness by poems which have been the solace of men and women in the +hours of darkness and doubt, which have led men to rise to nobler things +on the stepping-stones of their dead selves, and which, I am certain, +his grateful fellow-countrymen will not willingly let die. + +It is not the least of Tennyson's claims to our gratitude that his +genius was sensitive alike to the beauties of Celtic and of Anglo-Saxon +verse. It would be difficult to overpraise his masterly rendering of the +"Battle of Brunanburh," a vigorous old poem he found in the _Saxon +Chronicle_. Equally fine is his "Voyage of Maeldune," founded on a +Celtic legend of the seventh century. Those who wish to know what is +meant by Celtic glamour should read the last-named poem without delay. + + +CELT AND SAXON. + +Between the literatures of the Celt and the Saxon there are, indeed, +well-marked differences. The Anglo-Saxons were a set of enterprising +pirates, who drove their keels over the misty ocean, came to Britain and +took forcible possession of it, dispersing or enslaving the original +possessors. They left a literature which is, in many respects, highly +interesting, but is in the main devoid of sunshine, humour, and +sprightliness. The old poem of "Beowulf," with its rough and sturdy +verses, all splashed with brine, contains very few figures of speech: it +is a poem, but not markedly poetical; it is solid and impressive, but +not beautiful. Now, no one can read Celtic poetry, even in translation, +without being powerfully struck by its refined beauty and mystic +romance. The metaphors and similes are somewhat too abundant. The +typical Anglo-Saxon has a firm grip of the world, but is not poetical +enough; the Celt, on the other hand, is probably too much of a dreamer +and a poet--he sits on the hill-side (forgetting sometimes to till it) +and muses on fairies, second-sight, and enchantments. St. Paul used the +right word in speaking to the old world Gaels, _i.e._, Galatians: "O +foolish Galatians, who hath _bewitched_ you?" ([Greek: tis humas +ebaskane?]) + +Combine these two races in the right proportion, and you get an +admirable blend. It is not for me to say where the just man made perfect +is to be found, the man in whom the elements--practical and +poetical--are mixed in such exquisite proportion, that Nature might +stand up and say, "_There is a man_." What is certain, is that there is +a very pronounced strain of Celtic blood coursing through the veins of +the average Scotch Lowlander. Few Scots have to rummage far among their +ancestry before they find a piece of tartan: such mixture of genealogy +probably accounts for much that is best in their composition. + +The supposition that the Scotch race-combination is Celt and Saxon, and +only that, is of course erroneous. There is a very marked Scandinavian +element both in the east and the west of the country. In the year 1600 +A.D., the Norse tongue was spoken all over the Long Island from the Butt +of Lewis to Barra. Certainly, in Lewis and Skye, an enormous number of +the place-names are Scandinavian, and date from a time when the +sea-kings had dominion over the islands of the West. Many fascinating +problems of ethnology continue to occupy the attention of investigators, +and are not likely to be settled for a long time to come. One thing is +abundantly clear, viz., that purity of race and speech does not exist in +any county of Scotland: everywhere there is a mixture of blood and +language.[16] + + [16] Mr. Tocher, a Peterhead gentleman, has adopted a special + line of investigation. He has sent out schedules to every school + in Scotland asking for detailed information as to the colour of + the eyes and hair of the boys and girls. His desire is to + connect _pigmentation_ and race-origin. He believes it is still + possible to get definite information, by such means, of the + settlement and blending of Picts, Celts, Norsemen, and + Anglo-Saxons. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +ECCLESIASTICAL. + + Sectarian feeling--Typical anecdotes--Music and + religion--Ethical teaching in schools--The Moderates--A savoury + book--The Sabbath--"The Men of Skye"--The auldest kirk--The + Episcopal Church--An interlude of metre--The Christian + Brethren--Drimnin in Morven--Craignish--A model + minister--Ministerial trials in olden times--An artful + dodger--Some anecdotes from Gigha--Growing popularity of Ruskin. + + +SECTARIAN FEELING. + +In a small country township, all the influences that operate to divide +men into sects and parties are keenly and continuously felt. To a +dweller there, it is well-nigh impossible to keep out of the arena of +strife. Now that there is so much confusion and division in religious +matters, strong feeling is more easily stirred on any secular subject +that may happen to arise for discussion. If the Wee Frees, for example, +desire a new road in a certain direction, the United Frees will probably +deride the scheme and unanimously petition against it. Their antipathy +to each other becomes envenomed by their persistent proximity: if you +are a villager, you cannot get away from your adversary--in the morning, +when looking out of the window, you see him tilling his croft, mending +his nets, or washing his face in a tub at his front door. The fact that +he is there is an obstacle to your peace of mind. If you did not see +him so often, you would more readily come to believe that he possessed a +conscience and some shred of principle and decent doctrine. + +In a distant seaside town a library had been procured, and (though +doctrine was not at stake at all) a most virulent debate at once arose +as to where it should be housed. The United Frees voted for the school; +the Wee Frees called aloud for the post-office. It would require the pen +of Dean Swift (who did such justice to the strife between the +Big-Endians and Little-Endians) to recount in appropriate style the +intrigues and stratagems of the rival religionists. The local teacher +did not wish the books in school _because_ the proposal came from the +enemy. He was powerfully supported by all the young fellows of the +place, whose reverence for him, born of recent severe whackings, was +limitless. This teacher had an eloquent and vitriolic tongue, and +delivered himself thus: "What have I not done for the island? What have +these reprobates ever done? Who was it that got the frequent Macbrayne +connection with the mainland? _I did._ Who got up the concert to buy +seats for visitors coming north from Glasgow? And yet for every blessing +I give them, I get ten curses. _But I'll choke them yet._" It was +needless for the United Frees to demand a plebiscite--or, as they called +it, a _ple-biscuit_--the dominie was too forceful, persistent, and +phraseful for them, and at the public meeting he laughed down a teetotal +opponent by singing out: "Sit down on your seat, man; _it's the drink +that's speaking, no' you!_" + +No matter what the subject may be, there is usually a smack of +ecclesiasticism in the ordinary give-and-take of conversation. I cannot +illustrate this better than by giving the Lewis man's reply to an +enquiry as to _how his wooden leg was behaving_. The enquirer was a +newly-elected United Free elder, while he of the timber toes was a +staunch Disruptionist. "Well," said the latter, "my wooden leg is not +unlike a U. F. elder; it's not exactly perfection, but, considering +everything, we must just be putting up with what we can get." This was +said at a time when the Wee Frees were in a big majority in certain +parts of the Highlands, and when, as a consequence, United Free elders +had to be selected out of diminished congregations. + + +TYPICAL ANECDOTES. + +The venerable Lord Halsbury, so well known for his judgment in the great +Church case, resided, shortly after the decision, in the neighbourhood +of Forres. Men plucked each other by the sleeve as he passed along the +street, and pointed with awe to the keen-witted lawyer who had caused +such a kick-up in the realm. His most innocent doings were watched. One +day he went into a book-shop and made a purchase. When he came out, in +rushed a brace of theologians to enquire what he had bought. It turned +out that he had purchased a copy of _Comic Cuts_. The news was all round +Forres in an hour's time, and caused much consternation. "What great men +do, the less will prattle of," and it is so difficult for the former to +act up to their heroic role. + +How thoroughly our dear native land has enjoyed its theological battles! +Will there ever be a truce to the long wars of faith? One cannot see +much ground for a too sanguine hope. After a library had been given to a +little village in the West, I paid the usual visit to the place, and +requested a free expression of views as to the suitability of the books +that had been given. One venerable old native, with eyes of fire, called +out: "_This Paisley Library has one fatal lack: it contains no works on +controversial divinity._" I ventured to hint that perhaps the omission +was intentional, but that he absolutely refused to believe. + +Coming through the Sound of Mull one blustery November day, I heard a +most animated discussion on the question "Has the Deity unlimited Free +Will?" The disputants had all the appearance of sensible crofters--they +certainly talked more intelligibly than most commentators on Kant. Some +of the ship's crew joined in the talk in such a way as to show that they +understood perfectly well the question at issue. Every member of the +ring was wet (the rain was coming down in torrents during the whole +argument), but neither "Ayes" nor "Noes" would admit defeat. When the +boat touched the terminus of Tobermory, much still remained to be said, +and the amateur theologians retired to sum up in a local bar-room. The +incident is characteristic, and could have happened in no other country +but Scotland. Presbyterianism has made the Scot somewhat too +disputatious, but it is surely better to see a man interested in +religion than in nothing at all. + +Talking of the union of the Free and U.P. Churches, I am reminded of a +laughable tale told of a Hebridean minister. "Themselves and their +Union, I say, themselves and their Union," he remarked; "I will have +nothing to do with it. I was born Free, ordained Free; I have lived +Free, and I will die Free." "But what about the stipend, Angus?" said +his wife, douce and cautious woman. "Ah, the stipend! Well, if I lose my +stipend, you will have to put on a short petticoat, strap a creel on +your back, and sell _fush_." "And what will you do, Angus, when I'm away +selling _fush_?" "Oh, I will stay at home and pray for a blessing on +your efforts." + +The use of Scriptural expressions undoubtedly gives great force to the +language of every-day life. As is well known, certain classes in cookery +have recently been established in a few northern villages. A Highland +minister, in publicly commending these classes, remarked, with a rueful +grimace: "I _do_ wish such classes as these had been in existence when +my wife was young; for, as it is, every dinner she serves up to me is +either a _burnt offering or a bloody sacrifice_!" + +The following story comes from a minister in the neighbourhood of Loch +Awe. "A clergyman of my acquaintance was stationed in a poor parish near +my own, and he called on the local laird for financial aid to help on +some of the church schemes. This laird was a well-known philanthropist, +but the call was made at the wrong psychological moment, for he chanced +on this particular day to be in a very bad humour. He listened to the +minister with great impatience, and at last, bounding to his feet and +pointing to the door, he shouted: 'Silver and gold have I none, but such +as I have, give I unto thee: in the name of Beelzebub, rise and +_walk_!'" + +It was my unfortunate experience to witness a great amount of sectarian +strife in the north and west during my various visits. Sometimes my +prospective chairman was unable to preside, owing to his having taken +part in a doctrinal scuffle, and having his coat torn, and his church +captured. These fantastic doings are in no way edifying, and are +extremely shocking to our national pride. + +Theologically, many districts of the Highlands have not advanced beyond +the stage occupied by Lowland Scotland in the time of Burns. In certain +parishes, the communion is dispensed in the open air, in the way +familiar to readers of the "Holy Fair." Sky overhead, grassy turf +beneath, solemnity, sobs, and sighs all around, certainly make up a most +impressive whole. The sermon is unmercifully long--two hours, at least: +probably, if translated into English, and shorn of repetitions, it could +be given in one-fourth of the time. If you or I, dear Lowlander, should +stand on the outside of the crowd, and appear more curious than devout, +we should certainly be alluded to in the sermon as _those wicked +people_. The discourses are no gilt-edged harangues dealing with the +"larger hope," and larded with quotations from Tennyson and Browning. +They are, on the contrary, full of Tartarean sulphur and strange fire, +and rich in grotesque illustrations, of which this is a sample: "My +friends, crowds of loathsome fiends are sent by the Prince of the Power +of the Air to tempt us to our destruction. They hang over us waiting for +their opportunity, just like a regiment of black crows hovering over a +potato-field." + +I am afraid that crude Calvinism, as preached in certain parts of the +north, is nothing less than monstrous. The good God, beneficent Father +of us all, is unrecognizable when eternal reprobation is represented as +the inevitable fate of the vast majority of His children. In time, no +doubt (and the sooner the better), the results of modern theological +thought will penetrate into the uttermost nooks of the land. + + +MUSIC AND RELIGION. + +It is not easy to see why religion should be associated with gloom and +disheartening ugliness. The long-drawn music of an Old Testament psalm +is not without a certain doleful impressiveness, but the human soul +needs occasional stimulus, even on Sundays, of something less +lugubrious. Certain congregations hate hymns: they consider them carnal +and uninspired. As for organ-music in a church, that would be _praising +God by machinery_, a preposterous and intolerable approximation to +Popery. Not long ago, a poor crofter in a Hebridean township, came to +his minister, requesting that good man's offices for the christening of +a child. The crofter in question was the possessor of an asthmatic old +concertina, and the clergyman, before the rite of admission to the +visible church could be performed, insisted on the annihilation of the +ungodly instrument of music. The minister, in person, visited the croft, +and disabled the concertina with a hammer. The child was then +christened, and the clerical zany strode off victorious, feeling he had +done a good day's work for Heaven. "Who ever heard of the Apostle Paul +playing on an organ?" was the question once propounded by Dr. Begg. The +argument was a splendid _reductio ad absurdum_, and resembles the old +reason for the reluctance of the peasantry to eat potatoes, because no +mention was made of them in Holy Writ. But songs and music are filtering +into the glens, in an official way, by the agency of the Scotch +Education Department. Musical drill is a feature of the school-room, and +it is a joy to think that such is the case. Some of the old folk, +however, look on astounded and shocked; they shake their heads, and +would, if they could, abolish such frivolity. "Why all this singing and +tramping?" said a Skyeman to me once. "What good will all the songs of +the world do to a man when he comes to his death-bed? I would rather, +this very moment, sit down in a public-house, and drink till I was +intoxicated, than screech and howl these worldly airs." Life was not so +absurd in the days of the Catholic ascendency. But human nature is +slowly asserting itself, and the days of the glum tyrannical zealot are +assuredly numbered. + + +ETHICAL TEACHING IN SCHOOLS. + +In some districts of the North, the inspectors have considerable trouble +with certain teachers of the devout type who, from conscientious +scruples, refuse to read to the children anything in the nature of a +fairy tale. While examining a class in a remote Sutherland school, an +inspector requested the schoolmaster to narrate to the children, in +Gaelic, the story of Little Red Riding Hood, and get them thereafter to +put it into English. But the teacher most emphatically refused: "No, no, +I cannot do that: it is all a lie; wolves do not speak; _no animal +speaks_." The inspector, to refute him, unwisely alluded to the +Scripture account of Balaam's ass in the twenty-second chapter of +Numbers; whereupon, the dominie nearly swooned at the impiety of +comparing that inspired animal with a secular beast like Grimm's wolf. +For some time after, the inspector was bombarded with anonymous letters, +accusing him of habitually _sitting in the scorner's chair_. He was +terrified lest some Member of Parliament, eager for a grievance, should +be got to move the adjournment of the House of Commons, with the +righteous object of directing the attention of Government to Little Red +Riding Hood and the naughty inspector of schools.[17] + +The question of religious teaching in schools is capable of an easy +solution, and we in the south have come pretty near solving it. The best +solution is to have no dogma at all in the school-room. The Catechism +and Prayer-book are excellent in their way, but the school is no place +for them. We have a very complete and extensive organisation of churches +in the land, and an army of officials ordained to teach doctrines and +tenets: let them take up the inculcation of creeds and rites, but don't +let us perplex the school children with catechisms and metaphysical +definitions. It is easy to make a distinction between morality and +doctrine--a distinction which is alike clear and reasonable. Morality is +an earthly and secular affair, and has to do with matters of elementary +honesty such as every responsible citizen of a free country ought to +practice. Religion is a higher affair, dealing with our relationship to +the unseen: it is outside the province of the teacher, and should not be +thrust into the school programme along with history and geography and +grammar. Morality is of this world: religion of the next. Let everything +be kept in its proper place. As to that division of duty which deals +with right conduct, there is no controversy whatever. _Thou shalt not +steal_; _thou shalt not bear false witness_--these, and the like +elementary rules of conduct, are universally admitted to be right, for +they are the groundwork of society. Take these away, and the world +lapses into chaos. The following virtues are capable of being taught in +schools:--(1) a strict adherence to the truth; (2) the application of +the golden rule; (3) cheerful obedience at the call of duty; (4) +reverence and respect for everything noble and great in the history of +the world. These can all be taught, and are actually taught, by every +conscientious teacher in the country. They constitute not the whole of +duty, indeed, but the most difficult part of it--certainly all that need +come into the realm of pedagogy. + + [17] How differently the items in the Sacred Canon are regarded + in scholastic circles in the South! A Glasgow teacher, discussing + the Origin of Evil with a Government official, expressed great + resentment at the loss of paradise through Adam's sin, and added: + "It comes specially hard on me, seeing that I don't care a + _docken_ for apples." + + +THE MODERATES. + +_Ami lecteur_, have you ever heard of the _Moderates_? If, by chance, +you have dipped into the interminable controversies that gyrated round +the Disruption year, it is probable you may have heard more than enough +of them. One gets the impression that they were an unimpassioned, +easy-going, anti-brimstone, but highly estimable body of men. They were +blamed for preaching morality and not the penetrating mysteries of the +faith. In "The Holy Fair," Burns gives us an inimitable picture of the +moral philosopher in the pulpit:-- + + "But hark! the tent has changed its voice, + There's peace an' rest nae langer, + For a' the real judges rise-- + They canna sit for anger. + Smith opens out his cauld harangues + On practice and on morals, + An' aff the godly pour in thrangs + To gie the jars an' barrels + A lift that day. + + "What signifies his barren shine + Of moral powers an' reason? + His English style and gesture fine + Are a' clean out o' season. + Like Socrates or Antonine, + Or some auld pagan heathen, + The moral man he does define, + But ne'er a word o' faith in + That's richt that day." + +I confess to a certain liking for Smith. He knew what was good for the +Holy Willies and the other "chosen samples" and "swatches o' grace" in +his auditory. Like a sensible man, and like the Apostle James, he laid +more stress on "practice and on morals" than on lip-worship and faith. +"Faith without works is dead" is a dictum that needs to be incessantly +emphasised, and nowhere more than in certain ultra-orthodox localities +of Scotland at the present day. + +The Established Church is, with few exceptions, a negligible +denomination in the Hebrides. For some reason it is regarded as the +modern representative of the Moderate or Broad type of Calvinistic +Christianity, and, as such, an abomination to the zealots. To show what +a poor hold the Establishment has in Lewis, it is enough to remark that +there are in that island only 183 Auld Kirk communicants out of a +population of 32,947. Figures almost equally striking could be given for +the Presbyteries of Uist, Skye, and Glenelg. The chief occupation of +some parish ministers in insular Scotland must be that of killing time. +I once met one of these reverend gentlemen in one of the hotels in +Stornoway. He seemed to take a pleasure in running contrary to all the +darling prejudices of the islanders. Dancing he approved of; he did not +believe in prefacing his prayer or homily with a sanctimonious whine; +and he actually was willing to admit that a few Catholics might get to +heaven. An equally glaring fault--in the eyes of bigotry, I mean--was +that he _dropped into poetry_ at stated times, and sent his Gaelic +verses to one of the Highland newspapers. The Parish Church buildings, +in many localities of the West Highlands, are in a woeful state of +disrepair. They have a prevailing odour of must and damp; the seats are +hard deal, unkind to the human anatomy; doors and windows rattle and +shake during the service; creeping things move along the walls; +sometimes the floors are nothing but the uneven and unconcealed Scottish +earth. In such churches, there is some credit in being devout. + + +A SAVOURY BOOK. + +An outstanding member of the clan Macdonald, for some time minister at +Applecross, deserves a cordial vote of thanks for a savoury book he has +written on the social and religious condition of the Highlands. He is +not a bit scared by the Darwinian theory of evolution. "We have a good +deal in common," he says, "with the brute creation, and have no cause to +feel ourselves degraded on that account. The lower animals, not +excluding the much-despised monkey, are specimens of divine workmanship +which _reflect the highest honour on the skill and power of the Maker_." +Could any admission be more handsome or candid than that? + +I have learned a great deal from Mr. Macdonald's cheery and broad-minded +volume. He is strong in history, and has had, it would seem, access to +information that is closed to the general eye. There is a glorious +simplicity in his views on Caledonian ethnology. A roguish prince, +Gathelus, son of the king of Greece, migrated to Egypt, and married +Scota, daughter of that Pharaoh who persecuted the Israelites. The +various plagues "that o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung," terrified +Gathelus, and he flitted in hot haste to Spain, and called his followers +Scots, to please his wife. Later in life, he sent his son Hiber to +Ireland, where the lad settled, and named the island after his noble +self, Hibernia. Scots continued to pour into Ireland, _via_ the Bay of +Biscay, and finally, under Simon Brek, subdued the entire extent of the +Green Island. In 360 A.D., they came over to Argyllshire, and aided the +indigenous Picts (who were also Celts) against the legions of Rome. This +is so compact and clear an account, that I wish it were true. The way in +which sacred and profane history are blended strikes me as singularly +able. + +Mr. Macdonald has an intimate knowledge of Celtic superstitions, and +always castigates the right thing. Certain diseases of the brain were, +till quite recently, believed to be curable if the afflicted man could +procure a suicide's skull and take a drink out of it. Mr. Macdonald +rightly dwells upon the absurdity of such a specific, but confesses that +one might as well try to "bale out the Atlantic" as eradicate the +foolish pagan notions that still linger in the glens. + +Ministers have a great deal of captious criticism to stand, if we may +judge by Mr. Macdonald's anecdotes. They are blamed for terminating +their discourses _with a silver tail_ (_i.e._, intimating a special +collection). The sermon itself is not immune from cruel jests, as the +following report of a parishioner's criticism will show: "A minister is +like a joiner. The joiner takes a piece of wood and shapes it roughly +with the axe. Then he applies his rough plane, and smooths it down a +bit. After that, he takes his fine plane; and, lastly, he rubs it with +sandpaper, and finishes it with polish till he makes it appear like +glass. And so with the minister: he works his sermon, from sheet to +sheet, with pen and ink, till he makes it at last so smooth _that a +flea could not stand on it_."[18] + + [18] Ministers, being public men, are, of course, as Mr. + Macdonald means to point out, exposed to the criticism, + frequently so absurd, that eminence entails. I recently examined + the bye-laws of a literary association in Ross-shire, of which + the president is a sheep-farmer, and the secretary, a postman. It + is a rule of this association that no minister is ever to be + president, the reason assigned being that ministers would try to + elevate the natives _too hurriedly_. The people do not object to + be elevated, but they wish the process to be performed without + unnecessary haste. + + +THE SABBATH. + +I was not a little surprised during my attendance at Highland churches +to hear the ministers devoting much strong rhetoric to the sin of +Sabbath-breaking. Taking the air on the first day of the week for quiet +meditation and the good of one's health, has always seemed to me a +laudable practice, but in many Highland parishes, a Sunday stroll +implies ungodliness, even although the stroller may have attended one or +more diets of worship earlier in the day. Such a state of matters is +preposterously absurd, and, to my thinking, quite irreligious--it at +least tends to make hypocrites. Some years ago, I spent a week in a +typical insular village, lodging in the local inn. It was noticeable +that on Sundays, the front blinds of the house were never drawn up. When +the church-bells tolled the hour for public worship, the solemn devotees +could be seen (through holes in the blind) pacing along, looking fixedly +at the toes of their boots. The landlord of the house thought it no sin +to observe the passers-by, so long as he could do so in a clandestine +way. He had no desire to mend the blind. + +The restfulness and peace of a British Sunday is a blessed thing, as +every Briton who has been long resident abroad, will readily admit. +There is, however, a reasonable medium to be found between the unnatural +Calvinistic Sabbath (with its limited view of the world through a torn +blind) and the Continental Sunday, gay with skipping and junketing. +Within recent years, to some extent owing to the bicycle and motor-car, +the Sabbath has become rather too animated and bustling. The change is +perhaps not entirely regrettable. The terrible Sunday dulness of some of +our large towns has been, of late years, rendered less oppressive by the +opening of museums and art galleries. I heard a man of fifty confess +that in his boyhood he prayed fervently once, and only once, a week: the +prayer in question was said on Sunday evening, and consisted of a +heartfelt ejaculation of thanks to Heaven that the holy day was over for +another week. + +Church-going is a splendid and salutary practice, and every man who does +not base his life on some religious sanction, is leading a mutilated +life. There is such a thing, however, as ecclesiastical dyspepsia, a +disease engendered by forced attendance at too many religious services +when one is young. The disease is unfortunately apt to develop in mature +years, into complete indifference to doctrine of all kinds. + +After all, doctrine is largely useful as a mental exercise, and may +easily become divorced from practical honesty. Not once but fifty times +have I been told that the village experts in theology were precisely the +men who needed most watching in mundane matters. "So-and-so is a +specialist on the millennium: _beware of him_." "Old Duncan is the +strictest Sabbatarian in the island, but on Monday he's worth keeping an +eye on." "Many a man that keeps the fourth commandment is not so +particular about the others." Such are the phrases one is perpetually +hearing, and they go far to prove how inoperative are ritual, +profession, and form, in the life of some Christians. + +To keep the ten commandments, or rather, I should say, the eleven, is no +easy matter for either Celt or Saxon. It is far easier to be +ostentatiously religious than scrupulously moral, to say prayers than to +pay debts, to split hairs of doctrine than to love your enemies. I never +read a more markedly scriptural book than _The Men of Skye_, nor one +that displays such intolerance to the school of Laodiceans. I am not +insensible to the intense enthusiasm of the author for the memory of the +illiterate catechists who went round the island preaching to the people +in a homely and graphic way. The unlovely feature of the book is the +antagonism displayed towards those who wish to bring about a union of +the Presbyterian bodies. "Not all the cement outside of heaven," one man +says, "could bring about a union of the Free and U.P. Churches." The +Declaratory Act, secular teaching in schools, instrumental music, and +such like, all come in for severe treatment or ironical reference. + + +_THE MEN OF SKYE._ + +The book to which I have referred (_The Men of Skye_) gives a wonderful +insight into the religious psychology of the Celtic zealot. It was in +Portree that I first got a look at the little work, which consists of a +series of biographies of outstanding lay preachers. I enjoyed the +perusal of it immensely, and I am afraid the pious author will regard me +as little better than one of the wicked when I say that I had many a +hearty laugh at its contents. I am very unwilling to seek gaiety in +pious books, very averse to laugh at honest, heart-felt beliefs, but the +author of _The Men of Skye_ was too many for me. His quaint metaphors, +droll tenses and unlicensed syntax, were a perpetual feast of nectared +sweets. + +The language in which the book is written is not Gaelic, though it has +not quite reached the stage of English. The following extract is a +typical one: "John Mackenzie lived at Galtrigil, was a God-fearing man, +and professed religion, and his conduct was worthy of his profession, +consistent in all its parts. He was employed as fishcurer to Dr. Martin. +When he would be busy in the store, on the shore, his wife would go down +with his food. He had a large heap of salt beside him, but he was so +scrupulously conscientious that when she took down an egg, she would +need also to bring from his own house the grain of salt he would put in +it. He would not take so much as a grain of salt that was not his own. +He was careful about what belonged to the cause of Christ, and would +like to know that those who took up a profession of religion had +undergone what he termed a _clean conversion_." + +Some of the stories told of Angus Macleod, are altogether unique: "He +was one day entrusted with the herding of the minister's cattle, but +while he prayed, the cattle made their way into the corn. The minister +came out and began to advise and rebuke him, but Angus said, 'Let the +righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness; and let him reprove me, it +shall be an excellent oil which shall not break my head.'" (Psalm cxli. +5.) I consider that story and the two which follow quite equal, in their +diverting pointlessness, to any of those told by Cicero in _De Oratore_, +Book ii. At one time it was thought advisable to teach Angus how to +read, but he never could be got to master the alphabet. He would utter +aloud the following reflections: "_A_ _b_, _ab_: Ah! that is but dry. +There is no food there for my soul. There is no word about Christ or God +there, no word about forgiveness of sin. I would rather be at the back +of a dyke where I would get a moment of the presence of the Lord." As +Angus usually replied to his associates by a text of Scripture, he must +have had a good ear for Holy Writ. "His father was one day repairing a +dyke. Angus tried to assist him and broke the spade. His father's temper +was roused, and he ran after his son to punish him. Angus ran away +calling out, 'Oh, Lord, avenge me of mine adversary.'" On one occasion, +when asked why he had refused to pray in public, he replied that it was +out of his power to do so at the time. "Why," said his interlocutor, +"Jonah was able to pray even in the whale's belly." "Yes, yes," said +Angus, "but I was in a worse state than Jonah: for the whale was in my +belly." + +It may not be unnecessary to state that the word Men in the title of the +book is to be understood as meaning "men of exceptional piety." The word +is a technical one in that sense. All the _men_ I have read about were +fervid Frees, many of them being elders and catechists in that body. +After the Disruption, there was a wonderful crop of these men produced +in the Highlands, and through their means, _religion became a very real +and forcible affair_. Their attitude to life and general outlook on the +world are quite unlike anything to be found among the luke-warm +believers of the Laodicean South. We read of one zealot devoting a whole +winter to the task of combating shinty and tobacco. It is impossible to +withhold some measure of admiration from Christians so staunch, logical, +and uncompromising. _Logical?_ Well, here at least is a gem of +ratiocination. What, for example, was the cause that forced so many +Skyemen to emigrate to the Canadian plains and the Australian bush? The +fathers of Skye believed that the crofters, having insufficiently +appreciated the unique opportunities of divine worship at home, were +driven by a wrathful deity over the water to a land where there were +_few or no Presbyterian Churches_. + + +THE AULDEST KIRK. + +There are some parts of Scotland that the Reformation seems never to +have reached. I have been told that up till this day no Protestant +minister ever preached in Morar (the delightful spot, with lake of same +name, near Mallaig), and that in consequence Catholics call it "Blessed +Morar" (_Morar Bheanaichte_). There is a Catholic strip of country, +extending right through the heart of Scotland, along the Caledonian +Canal; aristocrats, chiefs, and crofters there boast that their +ecclesiastical history goes back, uncontaminated by schisms and private +judgment, right to the time of Ninian and Columba. + +It appears evident that the iconoclastic Parliament of 1560, which made +it unlawful to obey the Pope or say mass, pretty effectually paralysed +the Catholic Church in the land. Only in secluded districts, such as +Uist, Barra, Morar, Arisaig, and Glengarry, were the faithful safe from +prosecution. The organisation of the Church was maimed and broken, and +hundreds of priests took to flight. To use the cruel words of Milton-- + + "Then might ye see + Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, tossed + And fluttered into rags; then relics, beads, + Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls-- + The sport of winds." + +Having visited a fair number of Catholic districts in the West of +Scotland, I have given myself the pleasure of reading, as far as is +available, the historical records of the Pope's faithful adherents +there. _These are most interesting as showing the pertinacity of +religious faith among the most hostile surroundings._ The Scots College +at Rome, founded by Clement VIII., supplied a large number of priests, +who spread themselves abroad in the glens, and kept the old faith from +completely perishing. The Roman Catholic College at Scanlan, on the +Braes of Glenlivet, was a turf-built erection, dating from 1712. It was +often compulsorily closed and the students dispersed. The most important +school for priests in the West was at Buorblach, near Morar. Here the +aspirants for priesthood studied for a year or two, after which they +proceeded to some one of the Scots colleges abroad--such as Paris, +Ratisbon, Valladolid, or Rome. Those students who received the whole of +their instruction at home, and got ordained without going abroad, were +styled _heather priests_. + +The best-known Catholic township of the West Highlands at the present +time is undoubtedly Arisaig, a charming spot, where the mild air allows +the wild flowers to spring in profusion and where the fuchsia thrives +better than anywhere else in Scotland. There is a strikingly elegant +Catholic Church here, built on a commanding site that dominates the bay. +In September, 1904, I addressed a meeting in the Astley Hall of Arisaig, +under the genial chairmanship of the Clerk of the House of Commons. The +audience was overwhelmingly Catholic, and it was quite evident that all +were keenly appreciative of the library that had recently been sent to +the district. It gave me no ordinary pleasure to note that the literary +society of the place was made up of both Catholics and Protestants, and +that all the inhabitants, forgetting their religious differences, could +assemble together as friends on the common meeting-ground of literature. +Such an amalgamation is bound to mitigate the sectarian rancour that +too often works like a pestilence in small villages and rural +communities. It is an excellent feature, too, in such places as Arisaig, +that the local priest gives every encouragement to his people to read +and study secular books of an elevating character. It would be strange +indeed if the representative of a Church which in mediaeval times gave +such splendid encouragement to art and letters, should deem it a duty to +prohibit his people from availing themselves of the means of culture. + +It undoubtedly comes as a surprise to a Lowlander, who is prone to think +that every born Scot is necessarily a born Protestant, to find in remote +nooks of his native country, home-grown specimens of the faith that was +once prevalent everywhere. He has to sit down and muse on the hillside +over the matter, and, if he is imaginative, he will see by fancy's eye +the skiff of St. Columba breasting the breakers on its way from Ireland +to Iona. + + +THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH. + +Of all the Churches or sects in Scotland, probably the most remarkable +is the Episcopalian. Many Englishmen settle in the Lowlands for purposes +of trade, and, in most cases, bring their religion with them. Such +immigration explains the numerous Episcopal chapels in the towns of +southern Scotland. But no such cause can explain the presence of scores +of small Episcopal congregations in the rural districts of Aberdeen and +Banff. These have not been imported from over the Border, but in reality +have a long history behind them. Many of them date from the sixteenth +and seventeenth centuries. The Stuart kings never liked Presbyterianism, +and James I. tried to make the Scotch Church as like the English one as +possible: in 1610, indeed, he managed to bring about the consecration of +a certain number of Scotch bishops. The Episcopalians in the North +showed a warm affection for the Stuarts during the distresses of that +royal house, and such Jacobitism did the scattered congregations a deal +of harm. The number of Episcopal chapels throughout the land is fairly +high, but the total of the communicants is relatively small. The clergy +are a most estimable and cultured body of men, and perform their duties, +which are often very laborious, in an eminently exemplary fashion. Their +stipends are ridiculously poor, and the scene of their labours is +frequently the reverse of lively. Very often, in the bleak moors and +glens of north-east Scotland, I have spent pleasant and memorable +evenings in the village rectory. The modes of speech and general +atmosphere of a Scotch rectory differ piquantly from those of the manse. +It is certain that a clergyman who is in constant touch with the +Anglican ritual, develops a special turn of talk and a characteristic +set of mannerisms. + +I am convinced that, in learning and culture, the Episcopal clergy +compare very favourably with those of the other Churches. Some of them +have written, both in the departments of theology and general +literature, works of outstanding and permanent value. In spite of all +that, however, it does not seem probable that they will make many +converts to their creed. Presbyterianism has a firm grip on the +country: symbol and ritual do not thrive well in the cold air of the +North. Once upon a time, in the Black Isle, as the records of the +Arpafeelie Episcopal Church show, there was a strong feeling of +antagonism to Presbyterianism; but that was in 1711, and was probably +more political than religious. + +It is a well-known fact that a large proportion of the aristocracy and +landed-gentry of Scotland are Episcopalians. This is due, not so much to +the leisure they have for studying theological problems, as to the fact +that most of them have been educated in English public schools. + +How pleasant it is to contemplate the broad-mindedness of the greatest +of our Scotch Episcopalians, Sir Walter Scott, as seen in the +thirty-seventh chapter of _Guy Mannering_! Speaking of religious +differences, he makes Pleydell say: "_A plain man may go to heaven +without thinking about them at all_." Even at the present day, there is +a most regrettable lack of such urbanity in the disputes of educated +theologians. I picked up a book not long since, which amused as well as +shocked me greatly. It purported to be a history of _the_ Church in +Scotland. The author was a facetious Episcopalian, for his history made +no mention of either the Free, the Established, or the United +Presbyterian denominations. The Episcopal sect alone had the honour of +being dubbed a Church. Now, if a writer ever took it on him to write a +history of the Church in England, he ought to devote space to _all_ the +bodies, and be careful not to omit mention even of the Plymouth +Brethren. I rather think that the Plymouth Brethren should have the +lengthiest treatment of all, seeing that no shred of the Church +resembles so closely the original type of Christianity. + + +AN INTERLUDE OF METRE. + +I have often endeavoured to fix discourses from the Highland pulpits by +embodying in metre (I do not say poetry) the leading thought or most +striking illustration that I carried away. For the sake of variety and +to prevent this chapter from appearing too frivolous, I, at this point, +give one or two "moderate" sermons in little. + + +I. + + When heavy-laden Christian, panting sore, + Had gained the home of the Interpreter, + He saw a sorry fellow with great stir + Ply a vile muck-rake on a filthy floor; + And the more mire the churl raked, the more + He smiled, although a winged messenger + Floating aloft was eager to confer + On him the crown that in her hands she bore. + So is it with those fools that waste their days + In raking stores of dross and minted gear, + Oblivious of the crown of deathless rays + That God is offering freely to them here. + Miser! your stay on earth is short indeed, + Renounce the dross and choose the heavenly meed. + + +II. + + He that is wise will not in haste decide, + But look and think before believing aught; + Then, having long reflected, will confide + To no breast but his own his finished thought, + Until experience warrants every jot. + Man! Suffer not thy soul to yield to pride + Of intellect. Small is thy mortal lot + Of wisdom. Others seek the truth beside + Thyself. Behold aloft in air there fly + Fowls diverse all in nature, strength of wing + And keenness: even so the men who hie + On the soul's quests. In genius differing, + They all some twinkling sparks of truth may see, + But the whole flaming round is hid from them and thee. + + +III. + + Thou who in folly thinkest Heaven's King + Has sent thee into this fair world to gain + As many guineas as, with toil and pain, + In threescore years thine avarice can wring + From poorer men, be warned! With tiger-spring + Fell death will leap upon your life amain + And rive you from your opulence, though fain + To tarry. Then the jovial heir will fling + To the four winds of heaven thy gathered hoard + In flaunting joys and unrestricted glee, + While costly dishes glitter on the board + And the wine flows in ruddy runnels free. + Thou, meanwhile, in the shady realms below + A bloodless ghost, wilt wander to and fro. + + +IV. + +I. + + Though lilies on their graceful stalk + Droop, fade, and die, + Earth's still renewing forces mock + Death's cruelty. + +II. + + For roots and seeds within the mould + Will thrust again + Their sheathed beauties manifold + Up to the plain. + +III. + + Though flowery hopes of dazzling gleam + Wither and die, + New hopes in the soul's garden teem + Unceasingly. + +V. + + O Lord of light, disperse my baffling fears, + Give me a look but for a moment's space + Upon the tranquil glory of Thy face, + To serve as force to fight the chilling years. + Clouds hide Thee from me, and the bitter tears + Run down my cheek in floods. Out of Thy grace + Let my heart's chamber be a dwelling-place + For Thee. Come for a little space. Mine ears + Strain for the hearing of a word divine + Straight from Thy holy lips. No single task + Can I at all accomplish or design + Without the full assurance that I ask + This, namely, that my soul is one with Thee, + And Thou dost work Thy purposes by me. + + +THE CHRISTIAN BRETHREN. + +It would be well-spent labour if some sympathetic historian could find +time to write a short account of the Plymouth Brethren, giving details +of the origin, tenets, divisions, and influence of the sect. I am +surprised that Mr. Barrie in his notable excursions into Scotch life and +religion, has never portrayed such a fine specimen of the working-man +turned theologian. + +It must not be supposed that only the rich and the leisurely have what +is called religious experiences and shadowed souls. The finest +developments, doubtless, of the religious sense require time and money. +That leisurely groping after tendencies, that introspective analysis of +the sins of omission and commission, that delightful perception of the +falling away from righteousness of your brethren and sisters--all these +choice sweets are, if they are to be adequately enjoyed, compatible only +with a minimum of L300 a year. The religious sense and the musical are +in many points alike. If you wish to develop an initially melodious +soul, it means expense: you must go to professors, study counterpoint, +practice many hours daily, and attend concerts of the most exclusive and +expensive kind. Similarly with religion in its finest flower. You need +slaves to cook and wash for you if you mean to ecstaticise and see +beatific visions: you must get the most fashionable and picturesque +specialists to come and feel your religious pulse, and you must on no +account neglect the subscription lists. But only those rich enough to be +hypochondriac can afford such luxuries. Now, in the toiling classes +there are often good ears for music, and exquisite responsiveness to +religious sensations. What satisfies such natures and such wants must be +cheap. The Plymouth Brethren (I ought rather to say _Christian_ +Brethren), have no General Assembly, little or no pedantry of a costly +kind, and yet, I believe, they supply all the exhilaration of schisms, +splits, counter-splits, and heresy-hunts. Every man his own General +Assembly! There may be a lack of the finer touches in such a system, but +what is lacking in elegance is fully made up in clearness of view and +rombustious vigour. + +In many of the fishing villages on the east coast of Scotland, there are +large congregations of these worthy men raising their Ebenezers, and +making a joyful noise on the first day of the week. I have a good deal +of sympathy with their democratic and direct style of worship. In +Scotland, when a man gets converted, he feels constrained to _do +something_, but very often there is little outlet for his energy in the +calm routine of the fashionable churches--hence the necessity for +bethels and mission-houses. At their revivals, let me add, one is in +presence of that mysterious awakening to which every religion owes its +birth. + +In the autumn of 1906, I had an interesting talk with the minister of a +seaside village on the shore of the Moray Firth, and was distressed to +find that he was sorely harassed by the lively sect I have mentioned. +Every now and again a wandering evangelist comes along the coast, +pitches a tent, and begins a series of gospel services. Those who are +converted, neglect the church and all its ordinances, and begin +preaching on their own account; nay, they even buttonhole the minister +and preach to _him_, accusing him of being an unjust steward, a +hireling, and no shepherd, and so on. Such conduct creates a very +painful situation. With a good deal of detail, the long-suffering +clergyman gave me an account of a visit he had paid to an old woman +recently converted. The narrative of her conversion as told by herself +was quaint and touching: "They were a' gettin' it," she said, "and I +wasna gettin' it. So I jist went to the door and steekit my e'en, and +raised them to the lift, and _I got it_. Isn't that the way o't, auld +man?" "Aye, aye, that's the way o't, auld wife," chimed in the husband. +The latter then took up the wondrous tale: "When she came in and tell't +me she had got it, I went doon on my knees to thank the Lord jist at the +fireside, and lo and behold, when I opened my e'en, I was at the street +door. The Spirit had taken me there, unbeknown to me. So I lifted up my +voice and called on God's people. And in five minutes the room and +kitchen were filled wi' saved folk, a' singing hymns, because my auld +wife had got it at last." + +I also remember meeting an old thatcher of eminent talents who seemed to +me to be on the straight road for Zion, for he fulfilled the Scriptural +injunction to be fervent in spirit as well as not slothful in business. +James had at one time been precentor in one of the regular churches, but +owing to some cantankerous criticism of his melody, he seceded to the +Brethren, who fearlessly accepted his services gratis. James was +specially lyrical on the roof, and it was a treat to hear him sing +"_There is rest for the weary_," as he pushed the thatch into its long +home:-- + + "There is rest for the weary, + There is rest for the weary, + There is rest for _you_" (with a forceful thrust). + +I must not omit to mention (and with reverence be it spoken) that James +had a reputation far and wide in the country-side, for the vigour and +extreme unction of his grace before meat. Though giving a humble tenor +to the initial phrases and using the tar-brush on himself, and the +hungry company as putrid sinners unworthy even of the least of the +mercies, he always contrived to reassure everyone by sunnily rounding +off the matter with some rich and racy allusions to the gracious and +ample promises of Holy Writ. One could have felt quite comfortable even +in a slight excess of gluttony after such introductory words of +blessing. You felt that the occasion had been met, that something like +perfection had been attained. James was willing to admit shortcomings in +thatching, or in any department of human activity, so long as his +superiority in pre-prandial supplication was admitted. But it so +happened that Fate, whose delight it is to imperil even the stablest +reputations, sent his way a South-country Brother with a gift in prayer +truly appalling. At a gathering at which James was present, this +stranger was honoured by being asked to say grace. In the process, he +soared to such heights of oratory and supplicatory fervour, that the +uniform opinion of the guests, as evinced by looks, demeanour, and even +congratulation, was that James had at last been beaten on his own +ground. Supreme dejection settled on the thatcher, and neither bite nor +sup could dislodge the settled melancholy of his soul. After long +pondering with chin on chest in a corner of that pious throng, he had an +idea. Sidling up to the matron of the house, he, with a terrible whisper +of earnestness, addressed her in these words: "Mistress, before we gang +hame, doon wi' a whang o' cheese and a farl o' cake--it'll no' cost ye +much--and _I'll ha'e a tussle wi' him for't yet_." She gladly complied +with his request. His excitement gave him inspiration, and over that +cheese and oatcake, he delivered himself of such a grace as had never +before proceeded from his lips. A murmur of involuntary admiration +greeted the conclusion. James was comforted, and once more held his head +erect. + +To talk of the Evolution of Religion to men like James would be a +complete waste of time. Such men regard themselves as the acme of the +process: whatever modifications may supervene after their day will be +deteriorations. It is quite impossible to persuade an enthusiast that he +is a mere phenomenon of development, and not, actually and now, the roof +and crown of things. Even if persuasion were possible, it would be a +cruelty to disillusionise these happy wights,--men who, with such +sublime confidence, can read their title clear to mansions in the sky. +They have a complete key to the universe, and are as happy as if they +had seen the whole vast circle of truth. + + +DRIMNIN IN MORVEN. + +How many of my readers know where Drimnin is? If I should say, "In the +parish of Morven," it is possible the majority of them would not be +greatly edified, unless they had acquaintance with the saintly Macleod's +_Reminiscences of a Highland Parish_. Well, Drimnin is on the mainland, +nearly opposite the entrance to the haven of Tobermory. The _Chevalier_ +nears into the coast when anyone wishes to land, and two boatmen, +obeying a signal, pull out from shore into the open, and the passenger +leaps, as gracefully as circumstances permit, into their arms--amid the +cheers of those left on the steamer. + +The clergyman of Morven ministers to a parish that has over a hundred +miles of seaboard, and, strange to say, there have been only three +incumbents in it during the last hundred and thirty years, himself being +the third, with twenty-six years' ministry to his credit so far. These +facts procured him an extraordinary reception in America, where he spent +a holiday recently. The Americans, with whom change is the permanent +element, looked with amazement on a minister who came from a parish with +such a record. They thronged round his hotel to get shaking hands with +him, while he blushed to think that homage was being paid to the +longevity of his predecessors. It is no treat to be a lion in Maine. + +The visitor to Drimnin should return to Oban by driving to Lochaline, +where there is a pier. A mere glance up that inlet of Lochaline is +sufficient to prove the unerring accuracy of Sir Walter's description: +"Fair Lochaline's woodland shore." Scott had a marvellous eye for +scenery, and having once seen a locality, could describe it better than +a native could do who had lived in the neighbourhood from youth +upwards.[19] + + [19] I may here refer to a pleasant three hours spent in rowing + on Lochaline in the company of Mr. Hugh Macintyre, an old + gentleman full of Scott and well versed in the lore of the + locality. He was a policeman in Glasgow for thirty-five years + (latterly as guardian of the Kelvingrove Picture Gallery), and + now, in the enjoyment of good health and a pension, spends his + time reading and doing good in his native district. Mr. + Macintyre's earliest recollection is of his father being evicted + from a small holding, at the head of the loch, in the "forties." + + Tennyson and Palgrave were visitors at Ardtornish, as Mr. Lang + tells us, but made no special impression on the natives, who + styled them respectively _Tinman_ and _Pancake_. + + +CRAIGNISH. + +At Craignish (two miles _or so_ from Ardfern, next pier to Luing on the +way from Crinan to Oban) I was astonished to find what I think is unique +in Scotland, an old clergyman, born in 1824, still, without any aid +whatever, performing all the duties of a parish minister in one of the +wildest parts of Argyllshire. I refer to the Rev. Mr. M'Michael, who was +chairman at the lecture. The old gentleman, who is remarkably hale in +body and never melancholy at meal-time (as he slyly puts it), is prone +to speak by preference of the events of "auld lang syne." He gave me a +most vivid account of Professor John Wilson (whom, as I do not now live +in Paisley, I may safely venture to call Paisley's _greatest_ son), who +was one of his teachers, and who, as "Christopher North," wrote so many +witty and solid articles that undeservedly perished in _Blackwood's +Magazine_ at the beginning of last reign. I have rarely had such a treat +as my talk with this hale-hearted octogenarian. His charming daughters +keep house for him, and employ their leisure time weaving at a loom of +their own. The sheep that graze on the glebe supply the wool, and the +intermediate stages between the back of the sheep and the woollen +overcoat on the back of the needy are all supervised by these dexterous +daughters of the manse. + +The coach to Craignish passes through a bit of Scotland that, in the +leafy month of June, must be glorious to behold. I passed along in a +fierce and chilling blizzard of sleet and snow. If a poet could keep +warm, thought I, this would be the spot for him to get impressive scenes +for his word-pictures. At one part, the road ziz-zags up a hill for +three miles, alongside a furious burn, to a height of six hundred feet; +from which eminence one sees, on the right, great bare crags and steep +heights, and, on the left, an inlet of the Atlantic foaming wildly +below. Ye gentlemen of the cloth, whose lot is cast in towns and who sit +at home in ease, think of the trials of your rural brethren in their +attempts to drive in winter through drifting snow to a presbytery +meeting fourteen miles away![20] + + [20] I could mention another rural parish, considerably further + north, where, two winters ago, the roads were so badly blocked + with snow that for five consecutive weeks no church services + could be held! Both minister and congregation were overcome with + grief. + + +A MODEL MINISTER. + +Not far from the city of Aberdeen is a little village of seafaring folk, +and the worthy minister, the Rev. Mr. Pollock, is guide, philosopher, +and friend to the entire community. Up to his manse, which is a mile +from the uneven and fishy streets, there is a constant _va-et-vient_ of +parishioners. One old widow wishes him to write to her son at the +Yarmouth fishing, herself being ignorant of English spelling; this old +man, painfully hobbling uphill on his stick, and muttering to himself as +he goes, desires the faithful pastor to come and cheer a bed-ridden wife +who is failing fast; that young fisher-lass will blush as she tells that +her young man is on the way home to claim her as his own, with the +Church's aid. Mr. Pollock is the confidential repository of all their +secrets: nothing in their lives is hidden from him; he knows all of +comic and tragic in their lowly careers. Along with his wife, he visits +every house in the place, and from intimate knowledge can tell you, +nodding his head to this or that house as he walks along, the worth or +worthlessness of every native of the village. His time is so fully taken +up with pure religion and undefiled, that he has no time to waste on the +Higher Criticism. + +A tout for some wandering minstrels recently came over from Aberdeen, +meaning to leave one of his red-and-yellow bills (announcing a +performance) in each of the local shops. The minister saw him as he +distributed the bills, and closely followed up on his trail. Mr. Pollock +entered each shop and said to the shopkeeper: "Please let me see the +bill you have there in the window." On getting it, he would scan it, and +request to get keeping it. In no shop was he refused, so that by the +time he got to the end of the village, he was carrying two dozen large +concert placards, while the tout, merrily whistling, and all unconscious +of the nullity of his labours, was on his way back to Aberdeen. "Lead us +not into temptation," said the minister, as he thrust the garish +announcements into his study stove. None of Mr. Pollock's flock were at +the concert that night. Perhaps, if any had gone, little harm would have +been done. The minister, however, thought they were better at home, or +at the local prayer-meeting. + +Mr. Pollock's predecessor was a thin, unemotional man--a geologist--who +spent an important percentage of his time chipping rocks and looking for +fossils. Owing to this mania, his flock were forgotten, and came to +forget _him_. No wonder if the church attendance dwindled! _Ab uno disce +omnes_, as Virgil says. One day this ordained geologist had agreed to +baptize a child in a hamlet some miles away, and set forth to walk to +the place in good time. Unhappily, by the roadside, there was a quarry, +into which, by instinct, the minister glided, keen and eager-eyed. He +stayed therein for four hours, and forgot all about the infant +(squalling, no doubt, in special robe, and impatient for the +christening), the waiting relatives, the inevitable decanter, and the +thick cuts of indigestible bun. The minister, I say, trudged home with +his treasure-trove of petrified ferns and foot-marked shale--a greater +fossil than any under his own cases of glass. His memory was stirred by +his wife's catechising, but it was too late to undo the mischief. + + +MINISTERIAL TRIALS IN OLDEN TIMES. + +In modern times, ministers are badly paid, considering the expenses of +their training and long education, but they are better paid than they +used to be. In 1756, the minister of Ferintosh, a big, active man, with +the object of adding something to his stipend, leased the meal-mill of +Alcaig from the laird of Culloden. The combination of miller and +minister did not please his parishioners. It never occurred to these +clowns that the occupation of miller is singularly adapted for +reflection: spiritual and bodily nourishment (thought of together) might +well form a field of thought fertile in instructive metaphors; "the dark +round of the dripping wheel," the work of separating husks and flour, +the topics of dearth and abundance, might all come to have a homiletic +value to a serious-minded teacher of religion. But a cry of scandal, +directed not against themselves for underpaying their minister, but +against that worthy man for being an _ordained miller_, arose in the +parish. A member of the congregation was deputed to give a gentle hint +to the minister that the two occupations were incompatible. The +interview took place on the high road. "What news this morning, Thomas?" +said the minister. "Have you not heard of the fearful news?" said +Thomas. "No, what is it?" "Well, everybody's saying," said Thomas, with +a whisper of affected horror, "that _the minister's wife has taken up +with the big miller of Alcaig_." The delicacy of this hint was such that +the minister resigned his lease. + +The trials of ministers long ago were truly great. Witches had to be +reckoned with, as the aforementioned Ferintosh minister, who was their +foe, knew to his cost. By their incantations they caused him to be +afflicted with somnolency. As this sleepy fit usually came on in church +between the first psalm and the prayer, it can be easily seen how awful +were the reprisals of these Satanic hags. + + +AN ARTFUL DODGER. + +The Rev. Mr. Rogers, minister of a parish in Fife, was, like many +another worthy man, in sore financial straits at one period of his life. +He was a widower, and probably this fact accounts for his displenished +exchequer. With supreme audacity he touched the bell of a rich old +maiden lady, and on entering her boudoir he bluntly admitted his lack of +funds, and said, "Give me L200 and I'll marry you." She gave him the +money, and for months after never saw his face. Finally she wrote asking +an interview. He came, and she tartly said, "Did you not say, Mr. +Rogers, that if I gave you L200, you would marry me?" "Certainly I did," +said the cunning minister, "and _I'm ready to marry you whenever you +produce your man: where is he_?" This anecdote shows the difficulty of +being unambiguous when speaking English, and furnishes an argument for +the adoption of French as the language of courtship as well as of +diplomacy. + +The same foxy ecclesiastic wished two things, both of which his heritors +flatly refused: (a) a new manse, and (b) a site with a wide +prospect. Finding them intractable, he professed humility, and craved +merely a species of scaffolding to buttress up one of the walls of the +old manse. The heritors marvelled a little at the strange request, but, +glad of being saved from the cost of a new building, authorised the +buying of some sturdy joists to prop up a wall that the minister averred +was off the plumb. No sooner was the buttressing timber in position than +Mr. Rogers appeared with a violent complaint in the Sheriff Court, +declaring that the manse was like to fall about his ears, and that the +heritors had palpably admitted the danger by erecting a scaffold. The +Sheriff expressed strong disapproval of the heritors' stinginess, and +ordered them to get a new manse built for the minister. Now as to the +site! To spite Mr. Rogers, the heritors determined to deprive him of a +good view, and directed the St. Andrews builder to erect the new manse +down in the valley on a broad bank by a burnside. The master-builder +placed pegs and marks in the ground at the prescribed place and returned +to St. Andrews, telling his workmen to proceed next day to begin the +work, and mentioning that they would know the site by marks he had +placed there. At cockcrow the minister was afoot, busy transferring the +pegs to the summit of a lovely knoll. The tradesmen came out to the +country, and looking for the site found it on the hill-top and began +their work. After they had been a week or more on the walls, out from +St. Andrews came the master to see how his men were progressing. He came +near a complete collapse when he saw his men on the hill instead of in +the valley. He spoke winged words to them, but it was too late. In such +fashion did Mr. Rogers outwit his heritors. I regret that no literary +relics of this acute divine are to be had. He seems to have been in his +way a kind of Higher Critic judging from a remark he made on the Ark: +"How did you manage," he said, as if addressing Noah in person, "how did +you manage to keep the first plank of your boat from getting rotten +before the last was nailed on, if you actually took 120 years to put the +whole thing together?" + + +SOME ANECDOTES FROM GIGHA. + +The late minister of Gigha, a small island community of 360 souls off +the coast of Kintyre was a cleric of great humour and full of stories. +His church was the only one in the island, a fact of which he was proud. +At a communion service, a minister from the mainland, struck off a +monumental phrase in one of his prayers. He said "Thou hast shown, O +Lord, Thy confidence in Thy servant, the devout minister of Gigha, for +lo! out of the plentitude of Thy great mercy Thou has seen fit _to give +him an island all to himself_." I have heard and do in part believe it, +that the effect of such a supplication in Gaelic is overpoweringly +strong. + +This same minister "of the island," whose digestion I may say, was so +perfect that he could triumphantly absorb strong tea and poached eggs as +a regular midnight meal, told me one night over this collation, the +story of a fisherman in one of the Western Islands, whose prayer before +going to sea was of a singular character. He invariably addressed the +Deity as _Sibshe_ (You) instead of the ordinary _Thusa_ (Thou). On one +occasion, when the weather was squally and danger was anticipated, he +prayed thus: "O Lord God, my Beloved, if You would be so good as to take +the care of Mary and Jessie, my daughters; but that She-Devil, my wife, +the daughter of Peter Macpherson, I am indifferent about her: she will +have another husband before I am eaten by the crabs!" + +Here follows another well-known story from the same authority. A +Lowlander, taking a week's sail on one of Macbrayne's cargo-boats +stepped ashore, on Sunday morning, at a remote insular port, to attend +church, as was fit and proper. The text was the well-known verse "Can +the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?" The minister, +strange to say, preached a long and painfully vivid sermon on _leprosy_. +The tourist waited, after sermon, in order to talk with the minister and +quietly remonstrate with him. He said: "You gave us an excellent +discourse to-day, but do you think it followed quite appropriately from +the text: surely you are aware that a _leopard_ and a _leper_ are two +different things." The minister, eying the tourist with a look of +indignant scorn for a second, lifted up his voice and denounced him +thus: "Out of my sight with you: I know what you are; you are one of +these pestilent fellows called Higher Critics. Begone!" + +In the Long Island, it is an article of fixed belief among the stricter +Presbyterians that Catholics are outside any scheme of salvation. +Episcopalians, too, are regarded as being in an extremely dubious +position. Any stick, however, is good enough to beat the partisans of +the Pope. "Brethren," said a minister near Stornoway, "I have forgotten +my sermon to-day: but _I'll just say a word or two against the +Catholics_." Such a philippic, he seemed to think, could never be out of +season. + +Denunciation has always been a favourite method of the religious bigot. +If the various sects of the Christian Church, could go on their way, +ameliorating the world, and leaving each other in peace, the millennium +would be within reasonable distance. I heard a U.F. say to a Wee Free: +"Donald, you'll no' gang to Heaven, _because I'm bad_." The sentence is +good enough for an epigram. Unfortunately, too many of our sectaries +think it the prime virtue of their faith to run down their neighbours. + + +GROWING POPULARITY OF RUSKIN. + +One of the most cheerful features in the present-day thought of +Scotland, and one from which we may anticipate excellent results in +every department of social and religious life, is the growing popularity +of the great apostle of the nineteenth century, John Ruskin. Though +dead, he continues to speak; and from close inspection of the registers +that show in detail the nature of the books asked for, at the various +village libraries, I have noted, with no small pleasure, that Ruskin's +works are eagerly read all over the Highlands and islands of Scotland. +This is something quite new, and will, I am certain, work immense good. + +For Ruskin's work in the department of religion, no words can be too +commendatory. His genius was in thorough accord with the spirit of the +Biblical writers, and his modes of speech and illustration perpetually +reminiscent of Scripture. He loses no opportunity of dwelling on the +culturing influence of the Bible. There is also a fine tolerance in his +religious teaching, which is alike helpful and suggestive. His is that +variety of teaching which we find most effectively outside of the ranks +of professional commentators, and which comes through the keen flashes +of genius that accompany the insight of the literary artist. He has +pointed out to us with great eloquence that, while specific doctrines +take at various epochs very different degrees of importance, and aspects +of rite, ceremony, and all that, appeal with changing force to different +generations, the essence of religious feeling, without which dogma +becomes harsh and rite insipid, hardly varies at all; seeing that in the +musings of the great minds of all ages, we have oftenest the pure gold +of devotion, mingled, though it may sometimes be, with the adhesive +dross of superstition. He also warns us of the danger of mistaking +pugnacity for piety, and earnestly urges that, at every moment of our +lives, we should be trying to find out, not in what we differ from other +men, but in what we agree. Ruskin considers this to be the correct +spirit in which to approach ancient as well as modern religion, +believing that if a reader cannot understand a spiritual agency, or +thinks that the best of ancient men were not dominated by any such, the +understanding of the very alphabet of history will be endangered. It +would tend greatly to salvation from arid formalism, if ministers would +teach that Plato, Sophocles, Browning, Carlyle, are all apostles of +religion. A living word from an intuitionist like the last-named not +unfrequently vivifies with new force the dark sayings of a Hebrew seer, +in much more direct fashion than half-a-score of mutilated Pentateuchs +made in the delirium of the Higher Criticism. + +In spite of his unsystematic procedure, Ruskin deserves to be numbered +among the men who have earned the gratitude of their fellows, by +translating some of the ever-vital aspects of religion into the +vocabulary of the hour. The language of religious discourse is liable to +a subtle kind of pedantry, requiring a vigorous intellect adequately to +dissolve. New illustrations, novel forms of definition, are often +helpful in expelling the dreariness of outworn and meaningless phrases. +Ruskin's task is facilitated by the nice balance of his intellectual and +imaginative endowments, by the fact that his words are not mere symbols +of definite connotation, but marvellous centres of emotional force. +Happily he did not seek to elaborate any system of religion: but now +here, now there, in his books, one comes upon the pure gold of religion, +enshrined in exquisite jewelries of diction, which glimmer on (if I may +say so) to the utmost verge of emotion, and more successfully than any +formal harangue, work out their intended function. Such works as _Unto +this Last_ and _Munera Pulveris_, however keen the mental antagonism +they may initially provoke, mark a period in the spiritual life of the +reader: no matter what the prepossessions of a man may be, these books +will modify them. He is reverent, but, like Plato, he is dynamic. You +can't sit at ease as you read his pages, for they are charged as much +with defiance as with guidance. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +EDUCATIONAL. + + Some Insular Dominies--Education Act of 1872--Education in the + Highlands--Feeding the hungry--Parish Council + boarders--Dwindling attendances--Arnisdale--Golspie Technical + School--On the Sidlaws--Some surprises--Arran schools--Science + and literature--Study of Scott--The old classical dominie--Vogue + of Latin in former times--Teachers and + examinations--Howlers--Competing subjects. + + +SOME INSULAR DOMINIES. + +It is by no means an easy matter for a teacher to get south again once +he is installed in a remote Highland school. He accepts a distant rural +or insular post, marries the girl of his heart, gets settled in the +schoolhouse of the glen or township, and rarely moves thence all the +succeeding years of his life. He becomes identified with local affairs; +plays whist maybe with the doctor, the factor, and the banker; and is +apt to magnify the cackle of his bourg into the great Voice that echoes +round the world. The monotony of his life is varied by such happenings +as a birth or a death in his own household, a visit from the emissary of +My Lords, an epidemic of measles, a general election, and the like. I +don't say these men are unhappy, but unless they develop a hobby, +torpidity is bound to settle like a mist upon their brains. Such studies +as geology, botany, and gardening, are sovereign for driving off the +vapours of ennui. Nor are golf, angling, and the composition of verse, +specifics that the rural dominie can afford to despise. + +I have in my mind at this moment the portraits of many notable gentlemen +(for true gentlemen they are, though their purses are thin) who have +given up their lives to educating the progeny of the inclement North. +Lamont, for example, whom I remember as a first-class mathematician, is +living in the marshy navel of an Outer Isle, amid wild-fowl and spirals +of peat-reek. If you want to visit him you have (1) to cross the billowy +western deep; (2) drive fifteen miles in a trap; (3) traverse a +four-mile arm of the sea in a ferry that needs baling; (4) proceed seven +miles to another ferry two miles in breadth; (5) hop, step, and jump +three miles along a narrow and tortuous track, enough to give vertigo to +a goat. Lamont is not unhappy: he keeps his mind active by solving stiff +quadratic equations and fiddling with Cartesian co-ordinates. I hope he +will get credit for all these studies, when the last trump sounds, for +he gets little enough at present. + +Ramsay, too, is a dweller among these treeless bogs, and is engaged, +during his leisure, on a translation of Anacreon which will never be +finished, or, if finished, will never be published. I called on him and +immolated myself on the altar of his Anacreon in order to give him a +little pleasure. He, later on, enlarged on his school, scholars, and +daily life. The horizon of the boys and girls is extremely limited: most +of them have never seen either a pig or a policeman. Cabbages have only +been recently introduced into the district, but are already thriving +wonderfully well considering the thin soil. There are of course no +trees: for what trees could stand against the buffeting of the fierce +wintry gales of the Atlantic? Ramsay's only chum is a missionary, who is +of an antiquarian turn, and goes fumbling about for arrow-heads and +prehistoric bracelets, especially after a storm, when the hill-sides are +laid bare. + +Neither Lamont nor Ramsay know a word of Gaelic, and there they are in +districts where English is a foreign language. Needless to say, the lack +of Gaelic is a terrible drawback to these two men. They should never +have been where they are, for they are aliens. The scholars, unbreeched +little rogues, have an advantage over their teacher, and in the +playground talk the tongue of the Celt invariably, and may be maligning +him for all he knows. I am afraid, too, that teacher and minister do not +always consider themselves as auxiliaries in these outer isles. The +younger generation of teachers have, as might be expected, a more +extensive knowledge of books than the old school of Presbyterian +ministers. The latter, feeling their literary inferiority, are inclined +to regard the teacher as an intruder whose work in the school-room will +cause the rising generation to look slightingly on the "essentials." I +have in my possession numerous letters from Highland teachers dealing +with this fear on the part of the clergy, that novels and secular +literature generally will pervert the minds of the people. The addition +of Mrs. Humphrey Ward's books to a library was recently likened to the +arrival of the Serpent in Eden. + + +EDUCATION ACT OF 1872. + +In one of the best-known chapters of _Rob Roy_, Bailie Nicol Jarvie, the +utilitarian Glasgow merchant, says to his cattle-reiving kinsman: "Your +boys, Rob, dinna ken the very multiplication table, which is the root o' +a useful knowledge, and it's my belief they can neither read, write, nor +cipher, if sic a thing could be believed o' ane's ain connections in a +Christian land." Rob replies in a sentence that is worthy of being put +alongside the remark of old Earl Douglas in the poem of _Marmion_: +"Hamish can bring down a blackcock on the wing with a single bullet, and +Rob can drive a dirk through a twa-inch board." These quotations +adequately explain the almost complete absence of prose remains in the +literature of the Gael. Bards there were in plenty, but they could +neither read nor write. + +In the year 1872, education was made the concern of the nation. It was +rightly considered to be a standing menace to the security of the realm +that ignorance, which is the parent of disorder and lawlessness, should +be the doom of a large proportion of the nation. Rather than hazard the +dangers of an illiterate population, education was undertaken by the +State, and paid for out of the national purse. The analogy between +disease and ignorance is, in truth, sufficiently close to justify both +sanitation and education coming into the wide domain of imperial duties. + +Looking back on the changes that resulted in the Lowlands from the +Education Act of 1872, we see grounds for criticism. The measure, like +all earthly things, was imperfect. There was something hard and +inelastic about the system fostered by the old Code. The psychology of +Child Nature was almost totally ignored. A system of examination was +established that assumed an equal and mechanical progress on the part of +every child every year. Yet, in spite of grave defects, the Act of 1872 +brought inestimable blessings with it. For one thing, the health +conditions of education were vastly improved. Many of the old schools +were absolute hovels. After 1872, large, airy, and spacious buildings, +were erected in every district of the land. It was no longer a case of +one old dominie facing singly a whole regiment of unruly youngsters: +every school was organised and disciplined into regular and seemly +order. We had the advantage in Scotland of a complete system of School +Boards, and that awakened an intense and universal interest in +educational affairs. The old parochial schools of Scotland had many +admirable features, but in 1872 they were quite unfit to cope with the +nation's needs. On the whole, the School Board system was a decided boon +to the land. + + +EDUCATION IN THE HIGHLANDS. + +It is only since the Act of 1872 that any education of a serious or +systematic kind has been attempted in the Celtic parts of Scotland. +Nevertheless, a word of praise is due to the Society for Promoting +Christian Knowledge and other civilising agencies of the Churches +(Established and Free), for their work during the educational night that +preceded the Act. These agencies were, of course, utterly inadequate to +meet the needs of the Highlands, as may be easily seen from the fact +that in 1862, over 47 per cent. of the men who married, could not sign +their own names. But, indeed, what resources, save those of the Imperial +Treasury, could ever be adequate to meet the expense of educating the +children spread over such wide and sparsely-peopled tracts? Sheriff +Nicolson, one of the most fervid Gaels that ever lived, made a report to +Government in 1865, characterising the education given in the Highland +schools as lamentably insufficient. + +The effects of the Act of 1872 were slow but sure, and in the course of +fifteen years a change, analogous to that effected by General Wade in +the state of the roads, was brought about in the realm of education. Yet +the expenses involved in the working of the measure were of an unduly +burdensome kind, in spite of the generous bounty of the Education +Department. In some of the large parishes of the Long Island, the heavy +school rate was such a cause of complaint that My Lords were forced to +take very drastic measures to relieve the financial strain. In summing +up the results of the Education Act, Professor Magnus Maclean says: +"Among the good things that education has brought the Highlanders, are a +knowledge of English, wider social and political interests, a brighter +intelligence and brighter outlook, freedom from mental vacuity and +traditional superstitions." + + +FEEDING THE HUNGRY. + +Probably, as I have hinted, one of the chief benefits of the Education +Act, was that teaching had to be carried on in conditions of space and +air. Given such conditions and an enthusiastic master, some good +progress will certainly be made. + +Connected with the physical side of education we have had, of late, +signs of a new departure. There is a talk of _feeding the hungry_. + +Every parent worthy of the name is proud to provide food and clothing +for his children. That's what he's there for. But it does not require +much keenness of vision to see that there are many parents unworthy of +the name, and that, by the dark and inscrutable degrees of Heaven, such +worthless individuals are often allowed to be parents of a numerous +progeny. We must (i) inject into these wastrels the feeling of +responsibility and (ii) prevent the children from dying of starvation. +The first problem requires lengthy treatment and is perhaps hopeless of +accomplishment; the second can be done at once by philanthropy, either +individual or national. + +However much it may wound the pride of our gilded youth, it can hardly +be asserted that birth and rank are matters that involve the slightest +personal merit. It seems to be an affair of the purest accident into +what class of society a child is born. We have overcome the difficulties +and dangers of youth--most of us--but it might well have been otherwise. +Soften your hearts, ye political economists, and cease to regard the +poor, the weak, and the wretched as criminals. If there is no wealth +but life, our country must soon be poor indeed should the rising +generation be sickly and underfed. Bairns must not be allowed to study +on an empty stomach. + + +PARISH COUNCIL BOARDERS. + +Let me here mention a point alluded to by more than one friend of the +Highlands. It has reference to one aspect of the new science called +Eugenics, which deals with the means for producing the maximum of vigour +in our nation. It is not well enough known that for years the +authorities have been pouring into a few of the islands and straths of +the North and West a great number of maimed, consumptive, and mentally +defective children. Some houses in the Hebrides have three or four of +these children, who, but for the action of the authorities, would be +living under the most deplorable conditions of life in the towns. The +results, as regarding improvement in health and physique, are of the +most encouraging kind.[21] + +After a certain age the official subsidy ceases, and the children as a +rule go to work on the farms and crofts. It is evident that such +extensive planting out of city boys and girls is bound by and by to work +a great change in the composition of our rural districts. It is believed +that some of the islands would soon be without children but for these +incomers: it is a well-known fact that the indigenous youthful +population of certain of them is very meagre indeed. We are thus in +modern times witnessing some most instructive operations of Nature: for +generations the country has been depleted to swell the bloated +population of the towns; and now the wastage of the cities is being sent +back to the country to get a renewal of vigour at the primeval fountain +of health. + +There is one further point of great moment. As a proportion, relatively +large, of these children come of morally dubious parentage, it is of +supreme interest to know their subsequent career and conduct. I have +seen reports and statistics which seem to prove that questionable +heredity can be overborne by healthy surroundings and good training; in +other words, that the offspring of criminals may, if rescued early from +a vicious environment, become respectable citizens. Such facts ought to +rejoice the hearts of all moral reformers. + + [21] In that part of South Arran which lies between Dippen and + Shannochie, there is high up on the hillside, a row of cottages + and crofts collectively nicknamed "Mount Misery." The reason for + this sinister name is that in most of the houses there is some + maimed, consumptive, or imbecile child boarded out by the Parish + Council. The children are better there than selling matches at + St. Enoch's Station: they are well looked after and almost + invariably improve in health. + + +DWINDLING ATTENDANCES. + +It is in the country school that the need for new blood is most apparent +to the eye. In schools capable of holding 120 children, you will often +find a shrunken roll of less than a dozen. A gentleman of mature years +usually does all the teaching and keeps himself from getting insane by +breeding hens and cultivating roses in his spare time. He has also, in +all likelihood, the little pickings of officialdom in the district, and +is registrar, session-clerk, and precentor. One facetious teacher, who +dwelt on a wide moor, headed his letter to me _Parish Council Chambers_, +thereby suggesting marble staircases and sumptuous furniture. It was +this same teacher who, on being asked to bring forward Standard V. for +inspection, had to admit that Standard V. was laid up with a broken leg. +For such small schools there is an increasing difficulty in finding male +teachers.[22] Widows, who in their ante-nuptial days, had been engaged +in teaching are often preferred to men, for reasons of salary. The lot +of such women, who have usually families to support out of their meagre +earnings, is hard indeed: if they keep their health, they manage +tolerably well, but when illness comes into the house, there must be a +deal of suffering and distress. The young pupils who attend the remote +schools of the uplands, also deserve much sympathy. During the heavy +snows and extreme cold of winter, these children--often ill-shod and +scantily fed--have to trudge along miles of country cross-roads or +hill-paths to their little school. Our country is a glory to the eye +when mid-summer and autumn are there, but think of the harsh winter +months with their torrents of driving rain, their whirlwinds of hail +and sleet and the icy nip of the blasts that blow down the snow-sheeted +glens. + + [22] A country teacher in Kintyre, with a roll of eight, said to + me: "We have had only one marriage in the district during the + last year, and the bridegroom was aged _three score and fifteen_. + I wonder what education is coming to: there is little or no + patriotism about Kintyre or my roll would be higher. I wish I + could get the people to think more imperially than they do at + present." + + +ARNISDALE, ETC. + +It will be perhaps interesting to the general reader if I strive, by +drawing on my reminiscences, to give him an idea of how education is +carried on in certain remote corners of Scotland at the present time. He +will, perhaps, be led to admire as much as I do the noble work that is +being done by teachers and inspectors for the rising generation of the +country. + +Arnisdale, on the mainland facing Skye, is a very destitute district, +and has suffered much from the failure of the once-flourishing +herring-fishery of Loch Hourn. One can see by the attire of the children +that the poverty must be exceptional, even for the Highlands. The +teacher says that in winter she has to think as much how to feed the +children as to teach them. By the charity of some benevolent visitors, +she was, last winter, able to give the pupils a mid-day meal of cocoa +and biscuits. It is a sad contrast to the extraordinary beauty of this +picturesque spot that such dire misery should overtake a proportion of +the natives during the winter season. + +Arnisdale is not very accessible, even in the height of the summer +traffic, and when one gets there, it is a problem how to get away. I +asked the captain of the _Glencoe_ to set me down near what is called +the _dry island_, in Loch Hourn, and thence I was rowed ashore by two +very wild-looking, unkempt boatmen. The school-house, where I lodged, is +right on the beach, and just at the base of the gigantic Ben Screel. +Twelve miles along the coast, by a road of the most awe-inspiring kind, +one comes to the interesting nook of Glenelg, with its Pictish towers +and ruined barracks. + +It was a mild and hazy morning when I traversed the road between +Arnisdale and Glenelg. On coming to the summit, a great breeze arose and +drove away the heavy white mists from the Sound of Sleat, and showed the +white, sentinel-like lighthouse of Isle Ornsay and great fertile +stretches of the near portion of Skye. Reluctantly the clouds finally +curled and rolled away before the wind and the glitter of the sun, until +the Cuchullins were visible beyond the water and the green peninsula of +Sleat. + +In a cosy recess near the highest part of the road, beside a bubbling +spring, a _gipsy family_ had pitched its tent. I admired the taste shown +in the selection of a place commanding such a view. The family was still +under canvas, but hanging on the branch of a tree was a worn and +mud-stained skirt. Do not ladies in hotels, in similar fashion, hang out +their dusty and travel-soiled attire at the doors of their chambers? And +perhaps the dark-skinned owner had hung up her dank and dripping weeds +in the hope that some silvan faun or Robin Goodfellow would, without a +tip, perform the dusting process, in this case so palpably necessary. We +do wrong in supposing that imagination is not the portion of these +woodland rovers. + +One of the most difficult problems of the Education Department is to see +that gipsy children get a suitable amount of schooling. "Here awa', +there awa', wandering Willie," is applicable to all their tribe. How +can progressive instruction be carried on where there is no fixity of +habitation? One day the camp is pitched on an eminence overlooking Loch +Hourn; but before twelve hours have passed, the nomads may have crossed +the ferry at Kyleakin and be warming their hands round a blaze of stolen +peats in the wild moorland between Portree and Dunvegan. Only in winter, +when frost and snow drive the gipsies into the city slums, do the +children get some smattering of the three R's. + + +GOLSPIE TECHNICAL SCHOOL. + +There are now in the Highlands a number of excellent higher class public +schools, in which the elements of secondary education are taught. The +pupils in these schools are drawn from wide areas, and, by means of +bursaries, can board away from their own homes. The Golspie Technical +School is an altogether unique higher-grade institution. At a library +lecture delivered in Golspie, the boys belonging to the school +(forty-eight in number, divided into four clans, each with a chief) were +present, accompanied by the Principal and his staff. My attention was at +once drawn to them by their fine physique, their gentlemanly bearing, +and their earnest attention. Next day, I had the pleasure of visiting +the school and seeing the working of the scheme initiated by the Duchess +of Sutherland. + +The institution is really a boarding-school for poor lads of talent +belonging to the northern counties. They are under the eye of some +teacher at every hour of the day, and are kept incessantly busy, not at +books alone. They are taught to do their own washing, dusting, +scrubbing, cooking, and darning. The training is excellent: one is +impressed by its practical character and educational thoroughness. Latin +and Greek are not attempted at all, the literary instruction being +entirely based on English and the modern tongues. The science part of +the curriculum is remarkably complete, and art is by no means neglected. + +Before a pupil has the good fortune to be admitted, the Principal visits +the parents. It is almost incredible (so he told me) the squalor of some +of the cots he had seen. Too often, in the Highlands, the one bedroom of +the family (frequently identical with the kitchen) has free +communication with a malodorous byre or stye. What a contrast with the +dormitory of the Technical School, where there is no lullaby of lowing +kine, but a tranquil, high-roofed hall that would do for the siesta of +the Duke of Sutherland himself! + + +ON THE SIDLAWS. + +High up on a spur of the Sidlaw Hills in the county of Forfar, there is +a wee school that supplies education for a wide and sparsely-peopled +countryside. The teacher is Mr. Brown, who was once a dominie in the +island of Whalsay. He is a jovial and courteous man, and leads you on +very astutely to ask him how long he taught there. Such a question gives +him the opportunity of replying with a laugh: "_I was there exactly the +length of time Napoleon was in St. Helena, five years and seven +months_." When in Whalsay, Mr. Brown took the service on Sunday, if the +minister happened to be ill. In this capacity he achieved great +popularity by the meritorious device of shortening the sermon to fifteen +minutes. He was so much in love with the first sermon he wrote, that he +never wrote another, contenting himself with giving it again and again, +and merely varying the text. If he could only hit upon a suitable title, +and a suitable publisher for this sermon, Mr. Brown would get it +printed, and scattered broadcast over the Shetland Islands. I believe it +would furnish unique food for thought even to sinners on the mainland. + +Mr. Brown received me with extreme kindness, and invited me inside to +see his school. I heard his senior class read, and thought the +pronunciation extremely good. About 12.55 the attention of the pupils +became visibly impaired; glances were furtively cast towards the door; +there was a feeling of expectancy all along the benches. Suddenly the +door sprang open, as if by some violent external impact, and a +middle-aged dame entered, carrying in each hand a large pail of steaming +potato-soup. Accompanying her was a young woman with dozens of small +pewter basins, and large spoons. I never saw such expeditious ladling, +such quick distribution, such speed of consumption, and such manifest +enjoyment all round. The steam of the soup obscured the wall-maps, and +the parsing exercise on the blackboard. The children could get as many +helpings as nature would permit, _for one farthing_. When the mist +cleared away, teacher and taught once more proceeded to tackle simple +proportion and analysis of sentences. I personally examined the soup, +and found it to be "nae skinking ware that jaups in luggies." + + +SOME SURPRISES. + +Some surprises are in store for one who calls in casually at some of the +remoter schools. I have more than once found the teacher _giving +instruction in his shirt sleeves_. In one school, I saw the master with +_a large melodeon_ (the Board being too stingy to supply a piano), +giving an inharmonious accompaniment to the musical drill. I got a +dreadful surprise on meeting the schoolmaster of a district in Jura: the +unfortunate gentleman was _stone-deaf_, his auditory nerves being +completely destroyed. Yet he managed, unaided, a school of forty-seven +pupils, and got excellent reports. The case is unparalleled in my +experience, and I should not have believed it possible had I not +personally seen the man at his work. He heard with his eyes, and could +most nimbly interpret what his pupils said by watching their lips. The +scholars liked him, and did not attempt to take advantage of his defect. +In another insular school, I was introduced to a lady-teacher who had +_lost both her arms in youth_, and who, in consequence, has been forced +to bring up her pupils entirely on the principles of moral suasion. By +holding the pen with her teeth, she can write a fine running _hand_ (if +I may say so without violence to language). She is an extremely clever +lady: it was a treat to see how well she could control the children with +a word or a glance. + +Some teachers in the Lowlands complain of children playing truant. That +vice is not common in the Highlands, but it exists to a slight extent. + +In my presence the teacher of a school in Skye made the absentees of +the previous day, write out their reasons for non-attendance. I give +some of the typical answers: + + (i.) Dear Sir,--I had to work all day at the peats. + + (ii.) I was kept at home for harrowing with the horses. + + (iii.) I was herding the lambs and keeping them from the sheep. + + (iv.) _I was on the shore all day, but I will not do it again._ + + +ARRAN SCHOOLS. + +The Arran schools that I had the pleasure of visiting struck me as being +very well managed. It is wonderful how much excellent work some of these +country children get through. The schools are almost all supplied with +Paisley libraries, and thus the pupils, under the guidance of their +masters, can overtake an extensive course of reading in British authors. +At Loch Ranza the higher pupils study Shakespeare, Shelley, and +Wordsworth.[23] + +There is no desire whatever on the part of the young people to be taught +the language of their forefathers. As a consequence, Gaelic is rapidly +dying out in the island. Twenty years ago it was the language of the +playground at Whiting Bay: now the pupils speak English only. At my +request the teacher there addressed a few Gaelic phrases to the +assembled children, but only two knew what he was saying. In the +neighbourhood of Lagg, there is a more general knowledge of the +venerable tongue. + +In spite of the decay of Gaelic, Arran has produced some Celtic scholars +of great brilliancy, the most eminent being the late Dr. Cameron of +Brodick. Mr. Kennedy of Caticol has made a great reputation for himself +in philology: he is in touch with Celtic scholarship on the Continent +and is also an adept in Irish Gaelic. In his manse, I saw a famous +Celtic manuscript, the _Fernaig MS._, a brown-leaved passbook, full of +old poems written carefully in a very small neat hand. It is said to be +worth L2,000, but not having that amount of loose cash about me, I could +not gratify myself by offering to purchase it. + + [23] A striking object-lesson on the instability of mortal life + is permanently given to the Loch Ranza pupils by the proximity of + the churchyard, which is just over the wall from the school. The + thoughtful visitor should not fail to read the tombstones. If a + lover of books, he will be interested in learning that the + founder of the famous publishing firm of Messrs. Macmillan + belonged to the North Cock farm near Loch Ranza. The pensive + moralist will perhaps be most affected by an old stone, A.D. + 1813, declaring that Elspa Macmillan left this _inhospitable + world_, aged 86. _That_ was no rash inference. + + +SCIENCE AND LITERATURE. + +Those rural teachers cannot be too strongly commended who combine +literary studies with work in the open air. I know some masters who +encourage their pupils to collect, say, all the flowers mentioned in +Wordsworth and Burns. That is idealising the study of botany in a most +delicious way. Wordsworth's descriptions of flowers are nothing less +than divine: to take a single example out of hundreds, his lines on the +daffodils beginning-- + + "I wandered lonely as a cloud." + +Even the gayest of our lyrists, Herrick, has something to say about that +flower that is as powerful as a sermon. Birds, trees, and flowers +should, as far as possible, be known by all the young people, and some +poetic word associated with each. It is astonishing how accurately our +best poets describe the objects of nature, and how their imaginative +touches show insight and give a pleasure above mere science. Spenser's +catalogue of the trees is worth knowing by heart. All the vicissitudes +of the changing months have their apt poetical descriptions if we only +look for them. Cowper, Thomson, and Wordsworth might be especially +recommended to pupils for their brilliant word-painting of landscape. I +cannot think of a finer adjunct to the teaching of open-air science than +the auxiliary descriptions of such great masters of verse. + +As Mendelssohn composed _songs_ without words, so may the schoolmaster +give _lessons_ of the most powerful import without a word being spoken. +A beautiful interior in a schoolroom is a silent lesson in order and +good taste. Beauty and order have a most valuable influence on the +emotions and the character. It is a pleasure to see the attention that +is now given to the cultivation of taste. Clean, bright class-rooms; +pictures of artistic merit on the walls; busts; collections of fossils, +sea-shells, and the like--these are to be found even in remote country +schools. Such spontaneous education of the eye is something that cannot +be overestimated for importance and fruitfulness. + +Lord Avebury puts the case for artistic environment very well indeed. +"Our great danger in education," he says, "is the worship of +book-learning--the confusion of instruction and education. We strain the +memory instead of cultivating the mind. The children are wearied by the +mechanical act of writing and the interminable intricacies of spelling; +they are oppressed by columns of dates, by lists of kings and places, +which convey no definite idea to their minds, and have no near relation +to their daily wants and occupations. We ought to follow exactly the +opposite course, and endeavour to cultivate their taste rather than fill +their minds with dry facts." + +There is one precious faculty that runs the risk of being stifled by too +much memory work. I mean the faculty of imagination. Youth is the time +when fancy is busy; it is the period when the brain can furnish +unlimited scaffolding for castles in the air. Wordsworth was so +impressed, indeed, by the opulence of the youthful fancy, that he could +only account for it by supposing recent contact with heaven. + + +STUDY OF SCOTT. + +I sometimes think that in the training of the youthful intellect and +imagination we have not made sufficient use of the novels and romances +of Scott. Of late years a great improvement is noticeable in this +respect, and Scott is coming to be regarded as (for school purposes) our +greatest historian. In some schools, as Lord Avebury has hinted, it was +formerly thought that pupils knew history adequately when they could +rattle off a list of dates and tell something of the deeds and misdeeds +of a set of unhappy persons who masqueraded as statesmen and courtiers. +Such unedifying farce has nothing to do with history, which is a +serious, instructive, and all-embracing study. The social life of the +great mass of a nation is far more important and interesting than the +eccentric deeds of a few high-placed rogues or saints. The old +school-history was, unfortunately, too often a glum compendium of +insignificant detail, told without breadth of view or fire of +restorative imagination. + +In the history of Scotland, most of what is worth knowing may be most +enjoyably learned from the pages of Sir Walter. Hardly any epoch of +Caledonian annals, hardly any county in the land has escaped the +treatment of his masterly hand. From the Borders to the rain-lashed +Shetlands (the _Pirate_ deals with gusty Thule), from Perth to Morven, +the great wizard has made his country known to all lands. In his stories +the past faithfully reproduces itself, and we are impressed, instructed, +and amused. + + +THE OLD CLASSICAL DOMINIE. + +It is a pleasure to think that a few of the old school of Scotch +dominies, who date from before the 1872 Act, are still to the fore, and +still engaged in teaching. They have all fixity of tenure, and so enjoy +the privilege of criticising, as adversely as they like, the degeneracy +of modern educational developments. These "_old parochials_," as they +are called, are men of good scholarship, well versed in Horace and +Virgil, and generally fond of snuff and Latin quotations. + +The Act of 1872 did a great deal for elementary education, but very +little indeed to encourage that type of higher instruction, which was +the glory of the old parish school. Ian Maclaren and other writers have +given pleasant sketches of country schoolmasters who were strong in the +ancient tongues, and who sent their pupils straight to the benches of +the University. I believe such men as "Domsey" were quite common in this +country. Porteous, whom I knew, was one of these. Porteous was a +philologist second to none in these realms, and was on intimate terms of +acquaintanceship with the famous Veitch, who gave such a _redding up_ to +the Greek verbs. It was very amusing to hear the complete way in which +Porteous could silence some imperial young examining professor on the +weighty subject of classical derivation. The latter would appeal to some +such authority as Curtius, whereupon Porteous would unlock the desk in +which lay the tawse, and taking therefrom a copy of the invoked Curtius, +open it at the root in question, and display the page all marked with +pencil corrections and emendations. In support of his views, would come +such a torrent of erudition from half a score of Classical, Sanscrit, +Gothic, and Anglo-Saxon rills, that the young professor would feel "like +one of sense forlorn," and be fain to put palm to forehead in dazed +amazement. A pupil learning the rudiments under such a teacher, was +dazzled rather than instructed by the ruthless surgery of words that +constantly went on. No word was too small for Porteous to operate upon: +he settled _hoti's_ business, and could so inflate Greek vocables by +supplying digammas and dropped consonants, that Plato would have +disowned them. Give him chalk, a blackboard, and a class of six, and he +would in ten minutes fill the board with hieroglyphics, curves, +arrow-headed diagonals, etc., all meant to illustrate the relationships, +divergencies, and contrarieties of the Aryan roots. His life was spent +in the company of these radicals, and he could call them forth out of +their trickiest hiding-places. In the midst of his chalky toil, he would +turn round with radiant glee as if to say, "This is a merry and exciting +trade: it is my fun and is as good as poaching or golf." But woe betide +the youth who showed levity. Soon would there be weeping and wailing and +tingling of palms. His reputation for strap-wielding made roots +respected. + +Another teacher of the school of Porteous was Thomas Taylor, whose death +I saw announced a few weeks ago. Where has all _his_ Greek lore gone to, +so assiduously cultivated, so continuously added to? If Taylor's soul is +ever re-incarnated in a mortal body, it is absurd to suppose that he +must begin to learn the Greek alphabet just like a novice. His clay is +indeed mixed with the clay of common men, but I love to think of him +dwelling on the other side of the River in the meads of asphodel, +discussing with kindred shades, the topics he delighted to handle when +he was here. With tearful eye I pen these doleful decasyllabics to his +memory:-- + + What chums Tom Taylor and Charles Lamb had been + O'er bottled porter and the _Fairy Queen_! + In youth, one day, seeking forbidden fruit + Tom tumbled from the branches with his loot, + And broken bones compelled the lad to go + On straddling crutches, warily and slow, + Counting the pebbles on his path below. + The noisy pleasures of the open air, + The football kicked exuberant here and there. + Cricket, beloved of sinewy juvenals, + And golf with all its hazards, clubs and balls, + Were not in Taylor's province: so he turned + To calmer pastimes where the ingle burned, + And when the whole world turned to _goals_ and _tees_ + He took to _Iliads_ and to _Odysseys_. + He'd croon like one possessed the magic strain + Of heroes tossed along the unvintaged main, + And, crutch aloft in air, would fondly beat + Time to the rushing of the poet's feet. + Poetry was all his solace: those bright dames + That old Dan Chaucer in his rapture names, + And those in Villon's pages that appear + As dazzling-white as snows of yester-year, + Trooped past his eye in long procession fair. + O, Sovereign Virgin, what a crowd was there! + Helen, alas! with Paris by her side, + On the high deck crossing the sunny tide, + Circe, bright-moving in her godlike bloom + Before the throbbing music of the loom. + The love-lorn heroines of Shakespeare's plays, + The red-cheeked country girls of Burns's lays, + Would to his raptured eye the tear-drop bring, + And set his crazy quill a-sonnetting. + + +VOGUE OF LATIN IN FORMER TIMES. + +The old-world schoolmaster believed Latin was a universal specific. He +loved the language and knew all the flock of frisky little exceptions of +gender and conjugation, even as a shepherd knows his sheep. He gave his +pupils gentle doses of the _Delectus_, and watched with eager, almost +menacing, eye, for the working of the charm. It is quite possible that +no pupil ever went over that _Delectus_, with its world-weary fragments +of trite morality, without a feeling of pleasure at the _Decline and +Fall of the Roman Empire_. Yet it was educative, and moreover a boy was +equipped for life with quotations suiting every juncture. Fate was +powerless against one who had mastered the _Delectus_. The faculty of +Latin quotation was to some extent also a badge of respectability. +Fancy, too, the glory of being the exclusive possessor in a mixed +company of the knowledge that Castor and Pollux came out of the one egg! +It was a sore drawback to a boy once upon a time if he were shaky on the +compounds of _fero_. + +"_The pest of the present day is the prevalence of examinations_:" +these, it is alleged, have destroyed the grand old freedom of learning +which gave full scope for the individuality alike of teacher and pupil. +Oh! those were days of the gods, when five hours were spent daily +burrowing in Virgil and Horace! Arcadia was realised--a sunny clime of +Nymphs, Fauns, and Graces. The supreme luxury of abundant time--the +leisurely chewing of sweet-phrased morsels--is gone: it is gone, that +chastity of phrase and perfection of idiom, which felt a bad quantity +like a wound. The examination craze has destroyed the classical dominie, +and the intrusion of science, falsely so-called, has well-nigh +asphyxiated the Napaeae of the dells. It was formerly possible for the +teacher to develop to the full his literary taste and declaim the +sonorous tit-bits of Virgil till the tears started from his eyes. Now +the instructors of youth seem to regard the works of the tuneful Mantuan +as composed for the purpose of illustrating the use of the Latin +subjunctive. Youths cannot get at the Aeneid, the spirit and majesty of +it, I mean, owing to the pestilential numbers of grammatical +reminiscences recalled by almost every line. When once you begin to set +examination papers on a subject, the romance seems to evaporate. There +is something withering about test-questions. This modern disease of +grammatical annotation, engendered largely by prosaic examiners, who +have published grammars, is spreading to the English Classics, and we +may soon expect Burns to furnish a text for exceptional scansion, +bob-wheel metrics and general philological catechising. Items which +glide effortless into the brain in desultory reading are not so easily +remembered if the examination is in store. Certain gentlemen have +recently been reading Milton with a pair of compasses in order to +discover the exact point of the caesural pause in every line: they give +figures, strike percentages, and set questions which even the leading +character in "Paradise Lost" couldn't answer. Literary microscopy is +likely to ruin Shakespeare's reputation in school and would have done so +long ago but for Lamb's _Tales_--a darling compilation and by far the +best introduction to the poet. "_Shakespeare is a horrid man_" is the +deliberate verdict of the schoolgirl who has been teased to death by the +notes within the tawny covers of the Clarendon Press Edition. And fancy +what Chaucer's Prologue must seem like, taught by a man bent only on +philological hunts, variant readings, and a complete explanation of all +the final e's. + + +TEACHERS AND EXAMINATIONS. + +It has always seemed to me a matter for surprise that those who had for +years studied the elements of Latin and Greek at school (and that with +no small difficulty), should entirely neglect these tongues afterwards +and read nothing composed in them. Most elaborate preparations are made +to reach the Promised Land, but the weary passenger never gets there. +Can it be that the preparations are too elaborate?[24] They are +certainly not very interesting, and are, indeed, well fitted to disgust +pupils with the classical tongues. Sir William Ramsay of Aberdeen, in a +letter to the _Herald_ some time ago, spoke strongly on this subject. + +Sir William says, with justice, that a teacher should teach his subject +without any thought of examination. Every teacher would like to do that +if he could. As a matter of fact, the secondary schoolmaster is forced +to become a crammer. He codifies the catch questions of previous +university preliminaries, excogitates similar weird lists of anomalies +and exceptions, and doses the pupils on such stuff instead of really +teaching the important parts of his subject. Experience seems to prove +that the most effective way of rendering a subject dry, uneducational, +and generally useless is to set examination papers on it. What can be +more outrageous and grotesque than the practice of setting +out-of-the-way questions because of the ease thus afforded to the +examiners in correcting the answers of the helpless and puzzled +candidates! Even though the questions set were plain and +straightforward, it would be absurd to suppose that an hour or two in an +examination hall could furnish sufficient data to pass or fail a +candidate. + +It used to be the glory of our universities that an average college +class contained representatives of every grade of society in the land. +Professor Ramsay says it is not so now: the professors have become +pedagogic coaches, and the students grind rather than study. Sir William +assures us that many who would make good students are frightened away by +the preliminary examination. It would be interesting to know where these +latter go when they leave school. Do they rush off to business at once, +or do they proceed with their education in some extra-mural way? If they +can afford the time, the university is certainly the place for them. Let +the university gates be opened as wide as possible to all serious-minded +youths, and let it be remembered that it is not necessarily those who +sweat most over their books or take the highest honours that get most +good from attendance at the lectures. + +It does not appear that, at present, our universities are adequately in +touch with the nation. The great commercial community of Glasgow does +not benefit nearly enough from having a famous seat of learning in its +midst. We might learn a lesson from the Sorbonne how best to nationalise +our universities. In Paris, the lecture halls are open to all, and it is +possible for either native or foreigner to listen for hours daily, if he +be so minded, to some of the finest and most erudite orators and +scholars of Europe. There are, it is true, special students' courses, +from which the general public is excluded, but the most important +lectures are open to all. Hence the Sorbonne is a national institution +in every sense of the word. I do not say that Glasgow does not benefit a +little from the corps of professors at Gilmorehill. But the benefit is +spasmodic, discontinuous, and extremely limited. Some of the professors +do at times come down into the open and speak words of wisdom. But more +is wanted than that if the universities are to be saved from +denationalisation. We hear of Dugald Stewart's class-room being, in the +old days, crowded with the keenest intellects of the Capital. But a +university was not then a kind of higher-grade secondary school. + + [24] It is a notorious fact that very few graduates, when they + leave college, are able to read Latin from an author they have + not specially studied, with ease or pleasure. For this melancholy + fact there are several reasons. The range of reading is miserably + meagre. Only a few authors are read, and almost every sentence of + these is cumbered with such an amount of annotation as to render + progress and literary appreciation alike painful. Composition in + Latin absorbs far too much time: the first duty of the teacher + ought to be to turn out pupils who can read Latin with fluency. + No amount of grammatical detail or laborious composition, as at + present practised, will ever make up for the lack of wide + reading. Professor Phillimore's recent suggestion that the + less-known authors should be read more than they are, is wise and + opportune. The authors he mentions would furnish a welcome relief + from the unspeakable dreariness of over-annotated texts. + + +HOWLERS. + +Almost every schoolmaster I have met, either in the Highlands or +Lowlands, has his budget of anecdotes, usually dealing with children's +answers or the droll eccentricities of the local School Board. The +answers of children are invariably entertaining; and I wish the +Educational Institute of Scotland would appoint a committee to codify +the howlers that come under the notice of its members. A collection of +genuine howlers would be no unimportant service to the science of +juvenile psychology. Let it be remembered that the eminent Professor +Sully considered it in no way derogatory to his philosophical status to +write on the subject of _dolls_. In bi-lingual districts children's +answers would have a special value. Children are everywhere, of course, +more or less bird-witted and inattentive. Here is a story which +illustrates what Latin scholars call _contaminatio_. A teacher had given +a lesson on the geography of Kent, laying special stress on Canterbury, +as giving a title to the Anglican primate, and on Greenwich as the place +through which, on the map, the first meridian is made to pass. At the +close of the lesson, he wished to test the scholars, and asked one of +them what Canterbury was famous for. At once came the glib reply: +"Canterbury is the seat of an _archbishop through whom the first +meridian passes_." The difficulty young pupils have in concentrating +their ideas, is largely accountable for many of the diverting essays we +have all heard and seen. On a recent visit to the romantic shores of +Skye, I was shown the following essay on Water: "Water is a liquid, but +in winter you can slide on it. In all kinds of water, little beasts +occur to a greater or to a less extent. Even a great amount of heat +cannot kill these curious little animals. _Hence some people prefer +spirits._" From the same quarter I procured this nugget on patriotism. +"Patriotism is love of country such as we see in Burns or Sir Walter +Scott. Burns and Sir Walter wrote beautiful lines about their native +land, and thousands of tourists came and circulated their money there. +_It would be telling us_ if writers would imitate these great patriots +in our day." Many of the young scribes on the mainland can also indulge +in a deal of brilliant irrelevancy. One of them being asked to write an +essay on "Rivers," began thus: "_In ancient times, the chief use of +rivers was for the baptizing of converts_." Another, in the course of a +short life of King Alfred, made a strong point of that monarch's +humility, adding, "In order to discover the plans of the Danes, he +demeaned himself so far as to go to their camp _disguised as a poet_." +The annual blue book of the Scotch Education Department used to include +a recreative series of howlers that had been sent up in the various +reports of the Government Inspectors. These tit-bits were well +calculated to keep up the gaiety of nations. Of late years these howlers +have been excised, but if Scotland had Home Rule they might re-appear. + +The finer attenuations of speech are unknown to the soaring human boy. +I was shown an essay on Ireland the other day in which the young writer +compendiously remarked, "_The Irish are a bloodthirsty, lazy, and +resentful race_." On Wordsworth, another juvenile critic thus expressed +himself: "_Wordsworth's compositions are utter bosh_." The following +extract is from an "Essay on the '15": "_The Rising of '15 was a failure +because the Old Pretender was an unmitigated ass. Fancy an ass trying to +take charge of a Rebellion!_" + +A genial gentleman, Mr. Sneyd-Kynnersley, who retired from the +Inspectorate some years ago, published in 1908 a book of choice +reminiscences, containing some good specimens of schoolboy answers. Some +of his howlers have long been known in the North: but a howler (like +history) is wont to repeat itself. I saw in a Paisley boy's essay on +Lambert Simnel the following sentence: "Lambert Simnel was a claimant +for the English crown, and went about the country boasting that he was +one of the princes who had been murdered in the Tower." Mr. Kynnersley's +examinee wrote thus: "Prince Charles Edward claimed to be one of the +little princes murdered in the Tower. He was found to be a deceiver, and +was put into the king's kitchen to work." + +A boy once told Mr. Kynnersley that _a quorum is a question asked at a +meeting which the chairman is unable to answer_. I saw a definition of +paradox, equally absurd: "_A paradox is something which is apparently +not what it seems to be_." + +It is a favourite geographical test to require a pupil to describe a +coast journey between two seaports, and mention capes, rivers, and towns +seen on the way. "Describe a trip from Greenock to the Isle of Man," +said a teacher to his class; "I give you an hour to write it out." Very +few were past Lochryan at the hour's end. One daring youth took his +boat, which he christened "_The Comet_," right round the Mull of +Kintyre, with intent to reach Douglas by way of Cape Wrath, the North +Sea, Dover, Land's End, and St. George's Channel. When time was up, the +_Comet_, all torn and tattered by the strumpet wind, was beating round +the north end of Skye. That boy will, in all probability, turn out a +deep-sea captain. + +"How many days are there in a year?" asked an inspector of a class of +Highland youngsters. No answer was given. "Tut, tut," said the inspector +testily, "this is ridiculous. Is there _no one_ who knows how many days +there are in the year?" "Oh, yes, sir," said a boy reproachfully, "_God +knows_." + +"What kind of king was William III.?" inquired another examiner. "He had +an aquiline nose, sir," said a boy. "What does that mean?" said the +examiner. "_It means_," answered the boy, "_that William III.'s nose was +turned up at the point like the beak of an eagle!_" "What right had +William to the English throne?" continued the examiner, changing his +ground. "_No right under heaven_," was the forceful Jacobite rejoinder. + +Here is a tale, from the eastern seaboard of Scotland. + +_Inspector_, M.A., Ph.D., LL.D., etc. (examining a class of ten-year +olds): "Now, boys, what is the shape of the earth?" + +_Boy:_ "Roon, like an orange." + +_Inspector:_ "But how do I _know_, how can I be _sure_ that the earth is +round like an orange?" + +_Boy:_ "_Because I tell't ye._" + +Pupils show great affection for the phrases of their text-books. Not +long ago, at a written examination, a lad wrote in reply to a historical +question which was puzzling him: "_The answer to this question is known +only to the Great Searcher of Hearts_." What could the boy mean? Was it +"cheek," ignorance, or piety? It was none of these. _It was Collier!_ +About thirty years ago, Dr. Collier, a modern Euphuist, composed a +_History of England_, which deserves to be reckoned among the glories of +the reign. Carlyle may be great, but Collier is greater: Collier is a +theologian, philosopher, and _a' that_. The style of his history is a +wondrous blend of _Ossian_ and Hervey's _Meditations among the Tombs_; +and its special peculiarity is that the words, owing to some feature, +never really analysed, linger in the mind long after the sentences of +the Shorter Catechism have become blurred. Collier is strong in +tropes--a highly-dangerous feature. It is no doubt true, as he says, +that William the Conqueror ruled with a rod of iron, but when a boy, +after reading this metaphor, asserts that that sovereign ruled his +subjects _with a long iron pole_, you begin to question the utility of +historical study. "Joy-bells pealed and bonfires blazed," is a phrase of +the Doctor's which sets all the caverns of the mind ringing, even though +its historical setting is long forgotten. But unction is the chief +feature of the history: there is a rotund finality about the author's +spacious utterances, and a dodging of investigation by means of pious +generalisations. The book has all the effect of a benediction. When it +is really too tiresome to inquire into all the authorities on some +affair of magnitude, it is so respectable to sum up in the phrase +imitated by the youth alluded to above. + +It is in the Secondary Schools of the country that the confusion of +thought is apt to be most painfully seen. Far too much is attempted, and +the pupils are overworked. A teacher in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, a +_laudator temporis acti_, has a manuscript collection of howlers, drawn +from elementary, secondary, and university sources, with the following +fearful lines as a preface:-- + + "Ye statesmen all, of high or humble station, + Collective conscience of the British nation, + Whether the frothing vat has made your name + Or tropes in carpet-bags begot your fame, + Behold the _product_ of the education + Wherewith is dosed the rising generation. + And see the modern devotee of cram + At midnight hour hard-grinding for the exam., + A moistened towel garlanding his brow, + And coffee simmering on the hob below. + High on a three-legged stool uncushioned, he + Sits glowering through his goggles painfully, + Nagging his brain with all a grinder's might + Till _one_ sounds on the drowsy ear of night. + Like Sibyl's leaves the papers strew his floor + Wrought-out examples, 'wrinkles' by the score, + Conundrums algebraic, 'tips' on Conics + And thorny 'props' remembered by mnemonics. + Betweenwhiles as the slow time lagging goes, + He takes the spectacles from off his nose, + Removes the damper from his aching head, + Pours out the coffee, cuts a slice of bread, + Sips wistfully the liquid from his cup: + The zeal to pass the exam. has eaten _him_ up. + Thrice happy ye! born 'neath the ancient reign + When _Tityre tu_ alone possessed the brain + (Ere Tyndall's tubes made sweating students numb) + And the whole aim of life was _di, do, dum_." + + +COMPETING SUBJECTS. + +So numerous indeed are the subjects of the school curriculum in our day +that howlers and confusion are bound to result. Formerly there was but +one scheme (containing classics, mathematics, and a little English), and +everybody took it. Now there is a kind of competition among the +departments of a school as to which is the most culturing. When a fond +mother asks the opinion of the masters as to what course of study her +boy (whom she is entitled to think a genius of the first order) ought to +pursue, she is often puzzled by the variety of answers. Mr. Test-tube, +the Science Master, invariably prescribes an extensive course of +chemistry. If a boy is to be a lawyer, he ought to know the principles +of atomic combination and the doctrine of gases; if he thinks of the +ministry, why then, having a thorough acquaintance with science, he will +be competent to close the mouths of heretics, infidels, and such vermin. +Dr. Aorist, on the other hand, believes that a sound knowledge of "_qui_ +with the subjunctive" is a splendid sheet-anchor for every squall in +life's rude sea. "I wish my boy to be a civil engineer; what advice +would you give me as to his studies?" "I have no hesitation in +affirming," the Doctor replies, "that the boy will build bridges all +the better if he has his mind expanded and (so to speak) broadened by +the study of subjects outside his special trade, such, _e.g._, as the +interesting fact that in ancient times 'All Gaul was divided into three +parts.'" + +The average boy has an impartial mind. As a rule, he has no prejudice in +favour of either science or letters, his maxim being never to do to-day +what he can put off till to-morrow. + + His favourite books for home + Are buccaneering combats on the foam, + Or grim detective tales of Scotland Yard, + Where gleams the bull's-eye lamp and drips the poniard. + +Parents may be reminded that the wide spaces of the colonies remain to +be peopled and that many a _stickit minister_ might have made a +first-class empire-builder. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +A TRIP TO SHETLAND. + + Aberdeen--En route--Lerwick--Past and present saints--Some notes + on the islands--A Shetland poet--A visit to Bressay--From + Lerwick to Sandwick--Quarff--"That holy man, + Noah"--Fladibister--Cunningsburgh--"Keeping off"--The indignant + elder--Torquil Halcrow--Philology--A Sandwick gentleman--Local + tales--Foulah and Fair Isle--The fishing season. + + +ABERDEEN. + +The most expeditious and comfortable way of getting to Shetland is by +way of Aberdeen. + +I have passed through the city of _Bon Accord_ about six times during +the last twelvemonth, and like it better the more I see of it. It is one +of the stateliest towns in Britain, and its main street, spacious, airy, +and symmetrical, is hard to match. The architectural taste of the new +University Buildings is perfect, and will be more striking still to the +casual visitor, when the unsightly buildings all round have been torn +down. It would be worth while going to Aberdeen if for nothing but to +see the superb stretch of sandy beach between the mouths of the Don and +the Dee: one could sit and dream away a whole forenoon there and be +entirely oblivious to the proximity of a large town. + +The finest tribute paid to Aberdeen was written nearly four hundred +years ago by the great Scotch poet, William Dunbar. Three years before +Flodden, Queen Margaret passed through the town, and Dunbar, who +accompanied her, was so delighted with the hospitality, loyalty, and +lavish expenditure of the magistrates, that he wrote a eulogistic poem +to commemorate the occasion. Dunbar carried away the impression that +Aberdeen was a _blythe_ place: + + "_Blythe_ Aberdeen thou beryl of all tounis, + Thou lamp of beauty, bounty and _blitheness_." + +I do not find that the town has produced many poets, but it has been the +cause of poetry in others.[25] A few years ago Mr. William Watson, out +of gratitude for the LL.D. bestowed on him by the University, wrote a +pleasant sonnet in which Aberdeen is represented as + + "Beaming benignant o'er the northern main." + +As I sat on the seashore, repeating to myself the lines of Mr. Watson's +poem, and breathing the fresh air, which an official of the bath-house +told me was _made in Germany_ (meaning thereby that the wind was blowing +from the east), the thought struck me that it would be a pardonable +pastime to employ the spare time I had before the boat started for +Lerwick, in writing a _Sonnet to Mr. William Watson_. In such +exercitations it is necessary to employ the second person singular: + + Watson! I would thy pen were fluenter, + And yet, perchance, thou usest stores of ink, + Ampler than any of thy readers think, + In blotting that wherein the first quick stir + Of thought and genius made the language err. + If Heaven had lent thy polished Muse a blink + Of saving humour for her crambo-clink, + Then never-dying fame had fallen to her. + Yet Heaven be thanked for what it has bestowed + On thee of what is tunefullest and best: + The trim epistle, the heart-stirring ode, + The witching freshness of a _Prince's Quest_, + The soft romance that dreams of years gone by, + Bright noons and dewy glades of Arcady. + + [25] A recent publication shows that Greek verse is well written + at the University. Paisley folk should know that an Aberdonian + Hellenist has put some of Tannahill's verses into Greek. + + +EN ROUTE. + +The little steamer that plies between Aberdeen and Lerwick is timed to +leave the former port at 11.30 a.m., _or as soon afterwards as the tide +will permit_. Often the boat does not leave for some hours after 11.30 +a.m., the tide not being always to blame. What a capacity the boat has +for empty barrels! I counted six heaped lorry-loads of them that were +rolled on board, destined, later on, to be filled with herring up north +among the islands. + +It is extremely interesting (see Virgil III., 690) to stand in calm +weather on the deck of a moving vessel and talk about the notable places +on the coast with one who knows them well. Much information of a varied +and piquant kind may thus be acquired. The Aberdeenshire coast is rather +unpicturesque, but many historical legends linger airily on the stern +old ruins that are passed from time to time. I omit mention of these, +preferring to tell an anecdote of recent years that is associated with +the immense rocky sea-caverns, of world-wide fame, not far from Cruden +Bay. During the Boer War, some Scotch journalists, strong in the science +of genealogy, undertook to prove that all the generals at the front had +Scotch blood in their veins. It seems that these patriotic penmen +succeeded quite easily in making their contention good with respect to +all the generals _save one_. No Scotch lineage could be found for +General Buller. The difficulty was at last surmounted by the felicitous +conjecture that he was one of the famous _Bullers of Buchan_! + +About eight miles past Cruden Bay is Peterhead, the most easterly town +in Britain. Great efforts are being made at present to boom this place +as a health resort. I have heard it said that "printers who die at 30 of +consumption elsewhere, weigh 21 stone at over threescore in Peterhead," +also that "centenarians there have been known to get up at 5.30 a.m., to +chop wood, no chill or bacillus daring to make them afraid." The Home +Office has long thought highly of Peterhead as a place of permanent +retreat for those afflicted with ethical infirmities. + +After Peterhead is left behind, the steamer soon gets entirely away from +land. All night long she battles through the surges, passes about 2 a.m. +the lonely Fair Isle, encompassed by the rushing roost, and two hours +later Sumburgh Head is visible. The approach to Bressay, especially if +the rocks and precipices are half seen through driving haze, is +suggestive, to a student, of the landscape of "Beowulf," with its _windy +walls_, _shadow-helms_, _broad nesses_, and _glimmering sea-cliffs_. + +As seen from the sea, Lerwick looks trim and picturesque, but when the +visitor lands, he is apt to lose his bearings among its tortuous lanes. +I followed a porter who was tottering under the weight of trunks, and +asked him, as we treaded a flag-paved vennel: "Is it far to the main +street?" He grimly replied: "This _is_ the main street, sir." The +response unnerved me, shaky as I was with seventeen hours' tossing on +the North Sea. Once in the hotel, my spirits rose. A most welcome and +savoury breakfast--consumed near an open window commanding a view over a +sun-lit sound--is well able to hearten the most downcast. + + +LERWICK. + +The town of Lerwick is indeed one of the finest of our island capitals, +and is constantly becoming finer. No visitor can fail to be impressed by +its unique natural harbour, gloriously screened by the God-given shelter +of the island of Bressay. Commercial Street, which runs along the +water's edge, is at the foot of a hill, and is so narrow in parts that +two vehicles can hardly get past each other. If I stayed in Lerwick, I +should not like to have any resident enemies, for it would be difficult +to keep from brushing clothes with them in the main street. Up from this +main street to the newer town, on a plateau at the top, run numerous +quaint wynds, sinuous, and not always well-scavenged. This new and +well-built part contains the far-seen and notable Town Hall, the +architecture of which would have pleased Ruskin, especially as its fine +windows are all appositely illustrative of Shetlandic annals. By +climbing the dusty clock-tower, one has a splendid view of all +surrounding slopes and seas. + +Here is a hint to prospective tourists. Take to the left when you quit +the hall, get down the lane leading to the sea-crags, and walk for two +miles in the direction of the rifle-range. It is a glorious and solitary +walk--not altogether solitary, for the sea is invariably good company. +Don't be so foolish as to keep on your hat: off with it, and let the +air-borne sea-spume wet your brow. It is also a good thing to recite +Byron's vigorous "Address to the Ocean,"--the odd cows you may pass will +not stop their grazing for that. There is no finer air in King Edward's +dominions than that which blows in this region, for the hill air meets +the sea air that has come all the way from Norway, and the two coalesce +to give the rapt pedestrian a mouthful of exhilarating ether. One who is +really a poet and not merely a casual sonneteer, should try to get a +site for his tent on this particular shore, and retire to compose an +epoch-making epic. The mediaeval saints knew what they were doing when +they retired to little nooks and isles along this coast to pray and +meditate undisturbed: it is much easier to feel devout in a fresh +atmosphere, than in the squalor of a town. + + +PAST AND PRESENT SAINTS. + +What indeed astonishes the visitor to these northern isles is the +immense number of ecclesiastical ruins. The Christian missionaries seem +speedily to have translated their enthusiasm into stone and lime. What +hymns were chanted and what sermons preached up there in bygone times, +passes the wit of man to reckon! It is a far cry from Palestine to the +Shetland creeks and voes, but the voice of the lowly Nazarene +effectually reached the Celts and Norsemen of these treeless +storm-lashed isles. + +Many of the smaller islands have the appellation _papa_, which +indicates, as I hinted above, that some monk or hermit, withdrawing from +the world to pray and meditate, has bequeathed a whiff of sanctity to +headland and skerry. + +"The hermit good lives in the wood," says Coleridge, but for the +Shetland _papa_ there was no _nemorum murmur_:-- + + No sun-illumined leafage met his eye + Raised from perusal of the Holy Word, + No murmur of the woodland zephyr-stirred + Blended with his devotions sped on high, + Only the chiding of the billows nigh. + The clangour of the wheeling ocean-bird, + Or soul-astounding shriek of storm-fiend heard + From the dun cloud-battalions hurrying by, + Greeted his ear: yet piously through all + His life the austere anchorite remained, + On his lone island, buffeted by squall + And sea, and faithful unto death obtained + The promised guerdon that the Lord bestows + Upon the pure in heart, and only those. + +It has been asserted by those who have means of knowing, that the days +of theological rigidity are past and gone in the Shetlands. Thing +unheard of in the Hebrides--the shops are open on Sunday mornings for +the sale of Saturday's _Scotsman_ and _Herald_. In some parts of +Scotland you could not hire a trap for a Sunday drive; in others, you +_might_ manage, by salving the driver's conscience with a double fare. +In Shetland the tariff is the same for the first and the last days of +the week. To explain the ecclesiastical differences between the islands +of the North and the West would require a philosopher with all Buckle's +shrewdness and ingenuity. Buckle accounted for the sombre nature of +Scotch theology by dwelling on the awe-inspiring reverberations of +thunder among the Highland peaks. The easy-going creed of the Shetlands +might perhaps be accounted for by a reference to the happy-go-lucky way +in which the sea wanders at will among the confusion of peninsulas, +islets, and skerries. Any theory is better than none at all, and +geopsychical explanations are fashionable at present. + +The pulpit stars twinkle with great lustre in these boreal regions. A +country minister, with no preparatory groans, but sharp and trippingly +thus began his homily some Sundays ago: "It is now thirty-five years +since the Lord sent me to labour in this part of his vineyard, if +vineyard I may call it, where no grape was ever seen. On a bright summer +morning thirty-five years ago, I turned the corner of the road and came +among you. Young women, your mothers were in the fields, busy with the +work of the crofts. Your mothers were exceedingly fair to look upon, and +I am happy to say, my dear young sisters, that, by the providence of +God, the beauty of your mothers has lost nothing by being transmitted to +your comely selves. And now for my text, which you will find in Ezekiel, +chapter _x_ and verse _y_." + + +SOME NOTES ON THE ISLANDS. + +A century ago Shetland was almost an unknown land to the Lowlanders of +Scotland. When a Shetland minister was deputed to attend the General +Assembly, it might take him a year to get there and back. His journey +was a very circuitous one: he had to go in a trading vessel to Hamburg, +take boat from Hamburg to London, and from London proceed to Leith. To +return from Edinburgh, the journey was performed the reverse way. Now +that there is a regular service between Aberdeen and Lerwick, and +between Leith and several of the Shetland ports, the journey can be +performed with comfort and expedition. Tourists flock North in the +summer season to admire the scenery, catch the trout, and inhale the +health-giving breezes. + +The natives, being mainly of Norse descent, look with a kindly eye over +the water in the direction of Bergen. They do not love Scotland, and +they have their reasons. When the Shetlands were handed over to the +Scotch kings, numbers of needy adventurers, armed with cheaply-got +charters, swooped down on the islands and dispossessed the native +proprietors. This has neither been forgotten nor forgiven. Mr. Russell, +who lived for three years among them, says:--"They believe that the +present lairds are interlopers, and that they themselves have been +defrauded and despoiled. They speak of these things only among +themselves, and not openly; but those who have been in the country, and +have gained their confidence, know that there is a strong undercurrent +of feeling against Scotland and Scotsmen.... They conceive that they +have a claim even as things are, to dwell on the land, and that a +proprietor has no right to remove them from his estate." I was +dreadfully shocked to notice that in a volume of tales published by a +Lerwick author only four years ago, the leading villain was from the +mainland. "Scotland is nothing to us," said a Shetlander to an inspector +of schools. "What has Scotland ever done for us except send us _greedy +ministers and dear meal_?" + +In the old days, when communication with the mainland was uncertain and +fitful, the luxuries of civilised life were quite unknown. In one +outlying district a box of oranges was washed ashore from a wreck: these +the natives boiled, under the impression that the orange was a novel +kind of potato. A cask of treacle, come by in a similar way, was used +like tar to daub the bottom of a smack. By and by a cow was seen to lick +the boat with evident relish, and this opened the eyes of the natives to +the real nature of the substance. Nowadays the natives are well in line +with modern civilisation, one of the most convincing proofs being that +they buy drugs and patent medicines of every kind. One has only to scan +the advertisement pages of the Shetland newspapers to note the +persistent way in which quacks of all shades bring their nostrums before +the notice of the islanders. Dyspepsia and rheumatism are the commonest +ailments; and to combat these, myriads of pills and numberless elixirs +are annually swallowed. Faith does a lot even when the drugs of a +legitimate practitioner are concerned: the fact that you have swallowed +something with a bitter taste is often a distinct aid to recovery. Mr. +Russell, whom I referred to above, says: "To my surprise, I learned that +some who were in extreme poverty, and had hardly enough food to eat, +were in the habit of sending South for pills and patent medicines." + + +A SHETLAND POET. + +Long before I ever thought of visiting Shetland, I was acquainted with +the dialect spoken there, through having studied a most interesting +little book of poems called _Rasmie's Buedie_, published in Paisley. The +author of this book is Mr. Haldane Burgess, a very prolific and able +writer, but unfortunately afflicted with blindness. During my short stay +in Lerwick, I gave myself the pleasure of calling upon him, and I was +intensely delighted with my reception. When the sense of sight is lost, +that of touch becomes inordinately keen: Mr. Burgess has accordingly +excellent control over his type-writer, and can compose as nimbly as in +the days when his eyesight was unimpaired. He spoke of his most recent +novel, _The Treasure of Don Andreas_, and expressed himself as highly +pleased at the criticism passed upon it by a reviewer in the _Athenaeum_. +Mr. Burgess begins composition every morning at seven, and regulates his +life with military precision. On all departments of Shetlandic history, +folk-lore, and dialect, he discourses with great knowledge, fluency, and +animation. But his interests in the general field of modern literature +are extremely wide. He speaks the Norse language almost as easily as +English, has studied Icelandic, and knows a good deal about the writers +of modern France. Some friend had been reading Arnold's _Literature and +Dogma_ to him shortly before my visit. He was loud in praise of that +book, the ironical insolence and pawky humour of which he had greatly +enjoyed. + +On parting from Mr. Burgess, I received from him a copy of his pleasant +Shetlandic story _Tang_, a careful and illuminating study of island life +and manners. The English style struck me as full, robust, and strongly +tinged with poetical figures, and the character sketches drawn with the +precision of intimate knowledge. All his prose works display great +wealth of material, and much psychological insight. His most +characteristic production, however, is his little book of poems +mentioned above, _Rasmie's Buedie_. Rasmie is a Shetland crofter who is +typical of the race: shrewd, kindly, thoughtful, and gifted with a touch +of quaint sarcasm. He has perfectly clear views of life, this old +peasant, and is quite free from cant, or superstition, or mystery. Some +of his metaphors are droll: after long pondering on the scheme of +creation, he comes to the conclusion that earth is the field, heaven the +house, and hell the "midden." Pope, speaking of _Paradise Lost_, +complains that-- + + "In quibbles angels and archangels join, + And God the Father turns a school-divine." + +What would the great Augustan have thought of verse in which God the +Father is likened to a cosmic Crofter? + + "Dis Universe is Gued's grit croft, + It's His by richt, wis never koft + Frae gritter laird + And ne'er sall be, laek laand o Toft + Wi' idder shared." + +For those who have the patience to pierce through the husk of Rasmie's +dialect, much amusement and delight is in store. + + +A VISIT TO BRESSAY. + +If Charles Lamb and Herbert Spencer had been sent to Lerwick and Bressay +to write a report on what they saw, I daresay the difference of their +accounts would have astonished every reader. Lamb would probably have +swilled porter in the _Ultima Thule_ Refreshment Bar and written a most +interesting account of Bressay without ever crossing the Sound. The ribs +of a big uncouth Dutch boat, square, cumbrous, shell-fretted, and tilted +up on the beach, would probably have bulked more in Lamb's narrative +than the modern steam-trawlers that abound in these waters. His +politico-economical reflections on the rise in price of peppermint +lozenges, consequent on the annual arrival of the Dutch fishing crews +would, I am sure, have furnished excellent reading. Spencer's report +would have dealt, I fancy, with the rotation of crops, the cause of the +different currents, the varieties of pigmentation (with percentages) +among the islanders, and the evolution of fishing gear from its +rudimentary forms--in sum with the definite combination of heterogeneous +changes both simultaneous and successive, in correspondence with +external coexistences and sequences. No two out of a hundred visitors +see the same things, a fact which may help to prove Bishop Berkeley's +theory that the universe is subjective entirely. + +I went over to Bressay with a genial and erudite clergyman to visit the +schoolhouse and inspect the ruins of an eighth century church. Three +Shetland women rowed us over the Sound and handled the oars splendidly. +The minister, a plump, jolly be-spectacled gentleman, who has not +"perpetrated matrimony," declared with a sigh that he was an unprotected +male, and on our arrival at the Bressay beach, he called aloud to the +oarswomen to lift him out of the boat. These muscular dames shrieked +with laughter and proceeded to unship their oars as if to buffet him: +he, thereupon, leaped lightly enough on the strand and, turning round, +would have improved the occasion by a word in season had not the +tittering Nereids begun to splash him as he stood on the shingle. + +Innumerable sheep pasture on the Bressay slopes, and on the sky-line of +some of the hills one can discern companies of rollicking Shetland +ponies. My friend, the minister, who is writing a book on Darwin, got +into conversation with Mr. Manson, the Bressay pony-breeder. The latter +spoke thus about his tiny steeds: "Pony-breeding is a more puzzling +business than anything else in God's universe. The parents, +grandparents, and great grandparents of a given pony have all been +perfect in every point. Good! You naturally expect that a pony with such +exceptionable ancestry will itself be without a flaw. But is it? No, +often it is not. Too frequently you get bitter water from sweet, and +thistles instead of grapes. Just look at that tricky, mischievous, +ill-tempered, wall-eyed little rascal. Where did he get his evil +cantrips and his wall-eye? I have known his ancestors for four +generations back and they were all without a blemish." The minister made +a note of this fact within the book and volume of his brain: it may be +useful in the pulpit, and I expect to see it in print when he publishes +his book on Darwin. + +The eighth century church was at last reached. It is about three miles +from the landing-place and quite near the water. Every point was most +lucidly explained by my ecclesiastical guide. To the outer eye the place +consisted of some low, ruined walls enclosing various species of rank, +wet grass. Such remains of olden piety are provocative of gloomy +reverie, which the rushing of the inconstant tide close by only serves +to deepen. Immediately after the Crucifixion and long before this church +was reared by saintly hands, the little Christian communities thought +the kingdom of God would shortly be established and all sin and +suffering be banished from the world. But the apostles died, and so +successively have + + "Priest, doctor, hermit, monk grown white + With prayer, the broken-hearted nun, + The martyr, the wan acolyte, + The incense-swinging child"-- + +the bishop, the church-builder, and the patriot in all those +generations, and the kingdom of God is not with us yet, seems, indeed, +to be as far off as ever. When the world has been at peace for a while +and the millennium seems imminent, all of a sudden a perverse, +stiff-necked, _wall-eyed_ generation supervenes, and evolution gives way +to deterioration! + +Lightly bounding down the ages, my companion turned my thoughts from +unrealised dreams of religion to those of politics. Along these waters +that cast their spray on the ancient ruin, James Hepburn, Earl of +Bothwell, third husband of Queen Mary, fled in hot haste, with a +pursuing squadron at his heels, in the year 1567. Kirkaldy of Grange +entered the Sound of Bressay as Bothwell was leaving by the northern +exit. + +Our walk lasted about four hours, and ended up in the school-house, +where the teacher's hospitable dame regaled us to a welcome and +excellent cup of tea. It did us good after the strain of so many +reminiscences. The teacher is a hearty and sociable gentleman, who loves +his books and his fireside. On the fine Saturdays, friends ferry across +from Lerwick for a round of golf with him over the Bressay links. The +fine library, recently sent from Paisley, furnishes a pleasant variety +of reading both for himself and his pupils. On my remarking that, as +chairman at the lecture next evening, he need not speak more than thirty +minutes, he replied, with visible emotion, that he would concentrate his +remarks into a space of thirty seconds. + +We got back to Lerwick in a lugsail that was full of passengers, +potatoes, and milk-cans. There was a good deal of loud, elementary chaff +during the twenty minutes' crossing. An old, wrinked, peat-smoked dame +gave us much good advice and (better still) a sprig of white heather +apiece. I found by subsequent experience that the trip is not always so +amusing. Next evening a boatman pulled us over, and it was stiff work +for him, as the Sound was lumpy and the wind contrary. Coming back, he +hoisted his sail, and we careered over in rollicking style. I was a +little scared at the swift-rushing currents and the switchback motion of +the boat. Overhead were moon, stars, and flying clouds; the hulls of big +steamers loomed like phantoms on the surface of the Sound; on the hill +opposite twinkled the ever-nearing light of Lerwick. + +Bressay, I may add, has a nice little hall, with all items of modern +convenience, including ventilation. The building is used for every +legitimate purpose, from worship to _weel-timed daffin'_. + + +FROM LERWICK TO SANDWICK. + +I have a vivid recollection of a day's drive from Lerwick to Sandwick, +down the long, narrow peninsula that terminates in Sumburgh head. I was +accompanied by the reverend gentleman already alluded to in connection +with Bressay. + +It is a common saying in the isles that Shakespeare had his eye on the +soil of Shetland when he pronounced the famous line: + + "'Tis true, 'tis _peaty_, 'tis _peaty_ 'tis, 'tis true." + +On all sides in the country you see acre after acre of bog, dripping +with moisture and exuding black runnels whenever the spade of the +peat-cutter begins to slice its fibrous bulk. Should a wayfarer leave +the road by mishap after nightfall, he would soon be plunging in the +treacherous morasses. It is well for him to have a lantern swinging at +his girdle when the sun has gone down. + +Such are the reflections suggested by a view of the country between +Lerwick and the little clachan of Quarff. + + +QUARFF. + +Quarff is the headquarters of a minister who is said to be the only +extempore preacher in Shetland, if the word can be appropriately applied +to one who, being blind, has to prepare his sermons in "the quick forge +and working-house of thought" without the succour of books. This +gentleman spent long years in the little islets called _Skerries_, and, +like a miniature Augustine or Columba, claims to have been the first to +preach the sublime truths of Christianity on these limestone formations. + +Though blind, he enjoys his pipe, and I had a smoke with him at the +fireside. Between the puffs, he indulged in a furious onslaught on the +Lord Chancellor and the Wee Frees. Lord Halsbury he considered a poor, +benighted creature, who didn't know the difference between a Trades +Union and a body of Christians. "_If he ever comes to Shetland_," said +the minister, "_he had better bring his woolsack with him, for I won't +let him down soft!_" After Lord Halsbury had been adequately trounced, +the talk turned on notable things that had happened in the district +within the last decade or two. One of the tales (which was very +divertingly told) had to do with the trite subject of intemperance, but +as it contains one or two novel touches, I here briefly rehearse it. + +An elder of the place, who, with his trap, had come to grief one market +night on the way back from Lerwick, told his session a strange tale to +account for the catastrophe. "When I got to Lerwick in the forenoon, I +said to the driver: 'Young man, if I mistake not, you have had no tip +from me for a long time.' 'That's very true, sir,' said he. 'Well,' said +I, 'there's half-a-crown; go and spend it judiciously.' During the day I +transacted business with various friends, omitting none of the usual +rites. About five o'clock my driver returned, and harnessed the horse +for the return journey. At first I thought he had brought his brother +with him, but, on rubbing my eyes, I found it was an optical delusion. +As I watched him narrowly, I saw the outlines of a bottle bulging out +from his buttoned coat, and distinctly heard, as he moved to and fro, +the gurgling sound of liquid in agitation. He was smiling in +self-approval, and when I reproved him for his slowness, he quoted +Habakkuk v. 5, 'Hurry no man's cattle,' adding that his authority was +the Revised Version. As we went rattling along the road, his tricks +were fantastic in the extreme. At a point about two miles from Lerwick, +I saw, a little in front of us, a tall individual enveloped in a long +waterproof, of which the collar was turned up to cover his ears. The +eyes of this person glowed like live coal as he peremptorily demanded a +lift. Not waiting for permission, he, with a sudden spring, vaulted on +the trap and squeezed himself between the driver and myself. The air +grew hot and close. The driver became ten times friskier than before. I +determined to unmask the unceremonious stranger, and, putting down my +hand, grasped him by the foot. He had no boots on, and what I seized was +a cloven hoof. I asked him there and then if he was Beelzebub. 'I am,' +said he, 'and clever and all as you are, it will take all your talents +to slip out of my clutches this night.' At this point there is a blank +in my souvenirs. I only remember sparks flying and the sensation of +falling down from my seat on to a steep embankment. On recovering +consciousness, I found myself lying on a crofter's bed, with aching +limbs. I told him the story of my escape, and he said, after hearing it: +'We live in troublous times, John, and the Arch-deceiver seems to be off +the chain. Watch and pray, or you may fall further next time.'" + + +"THAT HOLY MAN, NOAH." + +Particular stories are suggested by the place where one first heard +them. This profound remark is worked out in detail by Sir William +Hamilton and Professor Sully. As I look at the map of the road I +traversed that day, I am reminded of certain anecdotes retailed by my +genial and reverend guide. + +"After leaving college," said he, "I was appointed assistant to a worthy +D.D. who regarded the higher critics as a species of vermin. Hell with +him was not a mere unpleasant state passed in _this_ world, but an +actual raging bonfire specially prepared for everyone who could not +repeat the Shorter Catechism. The parishioners of this worthy man were, +in consequence, devoutly orthodox, and had, one and all, a keen nose for +bad doctrine. They did not like to be fobbed off with a sermon of the +spineless order; they liked bones, blood, and fire--not a mosaic of +cheery quotations from Tennyson about the larger hope and about worms +not being cloven in vain. They had also a great liking for the +patriarchs, especially Noah. By ill luck, I spoke one Sunday on the +patriarchs, and handled them pretty roughly. I felt that sacred +enthusiasm which every man feels in denouncing the sins of others. I +gave the Captain of the Ark a special lick of tar. This sermon caused a +mighty commotion in the district. I might as well have asserted that the +paraphrases were inspired, or that Sankey's hymns were canonical. I +could see that the elders began to look coldly upon me. In barn and byre +little groups discussed my preaching, and there was much wagging of the +head and shooting out of the lip. A deputation came out of a +potato-field to me one day as I was walking along the road, and the +leader, an old theological crofter, said bluntly: 'Your sermons are not +pleasing us, if you please, sir.' 'Is the doctrine bad?' I asked. 'Not +exactly that, but the folk say it's very unseemly.' 'What special sermon +do they object to?' 'They think you're not sound on that holy man, +Noah.' 'Do they go the length of saying Noah was perfect?' 'They don't +just go that length; but, while admitting Noah was human, they desire' +(here the old man raised his head, shut his eyes, and shouted) 'to hear +no more from a young inexperienced lad like you, a single word about the +patriarch's shortcomings. The man was a patriarch, and therefore a +saint. Talk about his virtues as much as you like, but don't fash about +his trespasses, there's a good boy, I speak as your friend.'" + + +FLADIBISTER. + +When my friend had delivered himself of this story, he pointed with his +pipe to a little confused collection of low, thatched cottages which we +were rapidly approaching on the left, and, oblivious of Noah, went thus +musing on: "You are now in the charmed domain of Fladibisteria, of which +the core or citadel, as it were, is this village of Fladibister. This is +no settlement of Norsemen: no, this is a Celtic nook where second sight +and such witchcraft flourished not so many years ago. Did not the +minister once rebuke them for their spells and mystic whims by aptly +applying to them the words of St. Paul to the Galatians: '_Oh, foolish +Fladibisterians, who hath bewitched you?_' There is an atmosphere of +tranquillity and Arcadian peace swimming over Fladibister such as is +nowhere else to be found in Shetland. The young men of the place roam +far over the sea, as mariners and fishers; but like the exiled +Jacobite-- + + 'Who sighed at Arno for his lovelier Tees,' + +they never feel happy till they are back home here under the roofs of +thatch. And what a work their women folks make with them when they +return! What feasting and merrymaking! What screwing of fiddle-pegs, +nimble motion of elbows and long-sustained dancing and skipping. I don't +deny that there is clink of glasses, too, at times, to aid the passage +of the hours far past the noon of night." + + +CUNNINGSBURGH. + +Cunningsburgh, the journey to which was shortened by these tales, is one +of those places you might pass through without being aware of it; that +is to say, there is no feature about it so startling or abrupt as to +impress itself at once on the attention. The district all round is well +tilled, and the houses bien and comfortable. + +The minister of the place arrests the attention instantly. His genial +face and hearty handshake have a more Christianising effect on the soul +than a ton of sermons. I have never heard a more kindly voice or seen a +face in which tenderness, merriment, and intellectual keenness, were all +so harmoniously blended. He does not smoke himself, but has that wise +and wide perception of things which leads him to press those who are +anxious to smoke, but say they are not, to take out their pipes in his +drawing-room. It was easy to see the man he was, by a hasty look at his +book-shelves. All the philosophers were represented there, from Plato +to the present-day mystical Germans. Lang's _Odyssey_ was side by side +with the Icelandic sagas and the Song of the Niebelungs. I did not see +many books of Systematic Theology; but the Greek tragedians, the Sacred +Books of the East, German and French novels, had all a place in the +bookcase of this cosmopolitan clergyman of a remote Shetlandic parish. + + +"KEEPING OFF." + +In secluded townships like Cunningsburgh where life's round has much of +the monotony of fashionable society, and involves a still recurring +succession of similar duties, the minister is indeed a power. If he is a +man of broad and enlightened mind, his influence for good is +incalculable. The Kirk-Session is a permanent Court of Justice, taking +cognisance of minor matters of morality, and enforcing its decisions by +religious sanctions. To be barred from participating in the communion +rites might not seem a very alarming punishment to the easy-going +Lowlander; but to a Shetland peasant, being _keepit off_, as it is +technically called, is a terrible and humiliating penalty. A crofter +came to the manse to complain about his wife's unruly and satirical +tongue. "But what can I do to her?" said the minister, "she's your wife, +and you must assert your authority." "I've tried everything," said the +man, "but she still continues to be a troubler in Israel." The minister +professed his inability to interfere. "I can do nothing at all," he +said. "Yes you can," said the crofter, with a wink and a fearful +whisper, "_You can keep her off!_" + + +THE INDIGNANT ELDER. + +Since the Reformation the people have lived and thriven under the +jurisdiction of the Session. In the records of the Session one finds a +chronicle of the sins, eccentricities, and merriments of the people for +the last two or three centuries. Several incidents based on these +minutes will make what I say abundantly clear. The Quarrel of the Elder +and the Minister's Housekeeper, for example, convulsed a still remoter +parish in much the same overmastering way as the Dreyfus Trial agitated +Paris. Herodotus is the only author I can think of who could have done +justice to this northern _affaire_. Let me briefly summarise it. Between +the minister's garden and that of one of his elders ran what was termed +a hedge. The shrubs which formed the base of this hedge were so +ill-grown that the minister's fowls could easily go, clucking and +scraping, from one garden into the other. Evidence was given to prove +that the cabbages and pot-herbs in the elder's plot were torn and +spoiled in parts. Every morning he stood at a gap in the hedge and sang +aloud like a skipper in a storm or Achilles at the trench of the Greeks: +"I am being ruined and brought to poverty by the minister's hens." This +cry grated upon the ears of the manse housekeeper, who by and by thought +it her duty to go out and reason with the elder. "It's no' the +minister's hens ava that's to blame, it's the craws o' the firmament." +"It's the hens." "No, the craws." "Hens I declare!" "You're a _deceitful +impostor_!" said the housekeeper. Now, no self-respecting elder could +stand that. Boiling with wrath as he was, he remembered his +ecclesiastical status, merely remarking that there was work for the +Session at last. By nightfall he had been in every croft within the +Session's jurisdiction, laying off his tale in each, and as he got +practice and more vehemence with constant repetition, he attained +extreme fluency and impressiveness before the day was done. An +unspeakable joy came over the community at the prospect of a delicious +scandal. To avoid the breach being healed by an apology, many of the +crofters sought to envenom the quarrel by refusing to believe that the +elder was altogether right. "Crows," they said, "had been known to play +havoc with cabbage. Elders were but human, and so, hasty in laying +charges on insufficient evidence. The case was certainly one for the +Church courts. The housekeeper must have a good defence to make, and +would no doubt make it at the proper time and in the proper place. We +must hear both sides." One may see by this that the spirit which +animates a great nation (the desire, namely, to divert itself with the +contentions of those who come before the public eye), animates also the +smallest communities in the realm. The great passion-stirring process, +_Hens versus Crows_, lasted for some seven months. Over and over again +the hedge was examined. Now the elder thought he had the best of it, +only to be damped by a revulsion of feeling in favour of the +housekeeper. The finding of the Session was adverse to the lady. The +fact that she had practically called the elder a son of Belial could not +be got over. The minister, holding the scales of justice, was forced, in +spite of himself, to declare against her. Considering her position, +some mildness was shown in pronouncing her condemnation and the penalty. +Having regard to the dignity of the offended man, nothing less than the +sentence of _keeping off_ could meet the ends of ecclesiastical law. But +one "keeping off" was deemed adequate. The elder was avenged. At the +ensuing communion, he was seen to smile and rub his hands diabolically, +as he glanced towards the back of the church, where sat, outside the +pale of the privileged elect, the unhappy and vanquished housekeeper, +who had called him an impostor. + + +TORQUIL HALCROW. + +Torquil Halcrow's case presents features of a different order. For some +reason a _fama_ spread abroad respecting him to the effect that his +language and demeanour left much to be desired, and that not even the +presence, or at least proximity, of women operated to mellow the +strength of his vocabulary. Nothing definite was openly formulated +against him, but Torquil became aware that in certain quarters his +reputation was being slowly undermined. It is precisely this vague kind +of aggression on a man's character that is the most difficult to combat. +He took the bull by the horns in a most heroic way. _He got up a public +testimonial to himself, and went round canvassing for signatures._ The +testimonial ran thus:--"We, the undersigned women of the parish, have +pleasure in bearing witness that we have known Torquil Halcrow for +twenty years, and never have we known him do an unseemly act or utter an +unworthy expression." Thereafter followed a list of forty names. +Furnished with this document, he strode up to the manse, fluttered it in +the minister's face with a gesture of triumph, laid it down on the study +table, then turned on his heel and walked away. The minister, when he +examined the paper minutely, found that Torquil, in the belief that the +heading of the testimonial was not sufficiently strong, had added this +further clause in his own handwriting: "_but many a precious word of +truth and gracious spiritual comfort have we heard proceeding from his +lips_." + +I have already referred to the beautiful and pathetic saying of Mr. +Barrie that every window-blind is the curtain of a tragedy. I thought of +that dictum as the minister of Cunningsburgh pointed to one cot after +another in the neighbourhood, and narrated the calamities that had +fallen upon them within recent years. Here, an old widow was mourning +the loss of a son who had gone to the deep-sea fishing and would never +return: his bright young life had been swallowed up in the insatiable +ocean, and she was left lamenting in her indigence. There, it was a +father who had been engulfed in the roost; or again, the illness of a +mother had cast a blight for years upon this other household. Sometimes +I have seen two old people, all their sons dead, living a kind of +stupefied half-life, automatically moving about, poor and wretchedly +clad, unable to understand anything except the welcome heat of the sun +and the animal comfort of a little food. There are many sad things in +this world: none is more sad than the sight of two old people outliving +their progeny and wandering about in decrepit second childhood with no +more substance than a dream. The sea is mainly answerable for the great +and deep tragedies of the Shetlands: it is like a pitiless monster, +howling in anger at their doors and claiming its yearly prey. No native +writer has as yet attempted to make vocal for us the immense dumb +sorrows of these fisher folks in the way Loti has done for the seafarers +of Brittany. + + +PHILOLOGY. + +Jakobsen, the Danish philologist, spent some years recently in +collecting the remains of the old Norwegian speech that still linger in +the conversation and the place-names of the islanders. Perhaps the most +interesting point brought out by Jakobsen is the prevalence in +comparatively recent times of lucky words, which the fishermen used when +at the deep-sea fishing, and only then. This practice is undoubtedly a +relic of pagan ages when the sea-depths were regarded as the dominion of +dread water spirits, who keenly watched those who intruded in their +realms. The strange feature about this deep-sea speech is that its +expressions were purely Norse, whereas the home idiom of the fishers was +overwhelmingly English. The pagan beliefs respecting the hostile powers +of the sea found expression in old words handed down from a +pre-Christian epoch. These old words may have been originally liturgical +or worship words, for the sea was an object of veneration and awe to the +Norsemen who, in the conquering days, made their home on its angry +waters. It was believed that the jealous powers of the ocean were +vehemently hostile to Christianity, and hence the Shetland fishers, up +till quite recently, carefully avoided any direct mention of _church_ +or _minister_ when on the water: the _haaf_ or lucky words being +respectively _benihoose_ (prayer-house) and _upstander_. Even the +domestic animals had special _haaf_ appellations. This conception of the +sea as filled with weird mysterious beings of unspeakable malignity, +ever ready to whelm the boat of an unwary intruder, carries the mind +back to the old alliterative lay of _Beowulf_, the contest of that hero +with the wallowing ocean-monsters, and the grim subterranean glow in the +sea-home of Grendel's mother. The Shetlanders have only too much reason +to brood over the cruelty of the sea. On July 20, 1881, during a +terrific squall, sixty-three breadwinners were engulfed in the thwarting +currents of the Sound of Yell. + + +A SANDWICK GENTLEMAN. + +During all the foregoing discussion in the Cunningsburgh manse and +garden, our driver had been wondering what subjects of talk could +possibly be keeping us from continuing our journey to Sandwick. The two +ministers--the original one and the Cunningsburgh man also--at length +mounted the trap with me, and we all went joyfully on the final lap. The +object of the journey was to visit Mr. Sinclair of Sandwick, a gentleman +well worth going fifty miles to see. Mr. Sinclair has many qualities +that make a man notorious. He went to Australia in an emigrant ship many +years ago, and wrote a book upon it, in which he playfully remarks that +he got the full value of his passage money, inasmuch as there was a +birth, a death, and a suicide, between Plymouth and Melbourne. Another +of his distinctions is great dexterity in playing the violin, his +favourite pieces being "The Scalloway Lasses" and "The Auld Wife ayont +the Fire." The title of the last-named piece rather staggered me, until +I was informed by one of the ministers, who is a scholar and an +antiquarian, that it relates to a time when the fire was in the middle +of the room and when the smoke escaped by a hole in the roof, or in +default of that, by the door. Mr. Sinclair rendered these pieces with +infinite gusto, and, like all true artists, got as much pleasure as he +gave. He had also the most diverting way of ejaculating the word _hooch_ +I have ever heard in my journey through life. It gives me pleasure to +add that he wrote a poem on fifty whales that were driven from the sea +by the local fishermen into Sandwick Bay. These whales were all +beautifully cooped in the narrow inlet and stranded on the beach, when +lo! the local landowners, citing some old statute, claimed from the +fishermen a share of the spoil. Mr. Sinclair, indignant and astute at +once, took upon himself the championship of the fishermen, and managed +matters so admirably that the lords of the soil were completely worsted +in the Edinburgh law-courts. Flushed with such signal success, he put +the whole story into metre. A printed and framed copy of the poem hangs +in a conspicuous place in his sitting-room. At our special request, he +favoured us by singing the impassioned stanzas. It was a unique treat to +hear him do so. There he was in the centre of the room holding the +framed verses in his hand, gazing fondly thereat even as a mother +regards her child. When the chorus came on, he laid down the poem, and +lifted up his voice with glorious enthusiastic force. Inspiration was in +his eye, his grey locks became dishevelled, his arms swung rhythmically +to the beat of the melody. The entire interview was intense: it was one +crowded hour, of which time is unable to cancel the memory. + + +LOCAL TALES. + +The evening was a glorious one, and we _walked_ back some miles of the +way. The Cunningsburgh minister was full of stories. He alluded +laughingly to one of his flock who, when under the influence of drink, +was powerful in prayer. "_When he gets a dram he goes to his knees at +once._" The anecdote seemed to me to run counter to the views of the +hymnologist who says "Satan trembles when he sees, the weakest saint +upon his knees." Another of his stories had reference to two old +crofters, both over eighty, who began one evening to talk of the follies +of the young fisher-lads when they took to dram-drinking. One of the two +remarked: "I wonder now what folly we two old men would commit if we +chanced to get intoxicated, say at a funeral." "Well," said the other +hoary-headed and infirm octogenarian, "I have no idea what you would do, +but I am certain of this, that if I ever got the least bit touched, I +would go and make love to the lasses at once." Thereupon the two feeble +old fellows skirled a wicked laugh, and nearly gasped out their slim +residue of life in unseemly merriment. + +Both ministers assured me that the belief in fairies still lingers on +among the Shetland peasantry. Up on the hill-side the trow is supposed +to wander about, and the little fellow can be seen skipping on the +moon-light sward, by all who have eyes and the necessary faith. It is +believed that he haunts the road-side even when the moon is not shining: +consequently, when the crofters have to go out of doors at night, they +protect themselves from his spells by carrying with them a blazing peat +gripped with tongs. This smokes and sparkles in the darkness and the +trow does not like it. It is easy for the electric-lighted citizens of +Glasgow and Edinburgh to laugh at the simple folk-lore of fisher and +crofter; but no one, however learned and sceptical, can quite escape +from the mystic influence of fairy-lore if he lives through a winter +among believing dalesmen. Let him look on the long silvery glimmer of a +sea-voe, and hear the natives tell of trows chasing the ebbing Neptune +down there on the dim sea-strand in a night of haze, before he says +(with Theseus, in the _Midsummer Night's Dream_): + + "I never may believe + These antick fables, nor those fairy toys." + +To the ear and eye of the philological Jakobsen, the Shetlanders both in +speech and looks are remarkably like the Norwegians of the Saettersdal. +In that part of Norway the trow is also a very popular terror. Children +of a disobedient and obstreperous turn are afraid to venture near a wood +at nightfall for fear of a little bogie with a red cap, who may suddenly +slide down a pine-tree and snatch them off. + + +FOULAH AND FAIR ISLE. + +I do not altogether envy the candidate for parliamentary honours who has +to _nurse_ a remote insular constituency like Orkney and Shetland. I met +Mr. Cathcart Wason in Lerwick, and learned that he had been going the +round of the islands and had even paid a visit to the isolated and +mountainous rock of Foulah. Now this was a very daring feat indeed, for +I have heard of a young man who went once to visit his friends there and +was kept a prisoner for five months owing to the squalls. The papers +complimented Mr. Wason on his intrepidity: he went over from Walls in a +smack, and did not make his address too lengthy, for fear the weather +might change and Westminster be deprived of his eloquence for a space. +Mr. Wason is a very tall gentleman, but in Foulah he met his peers in +point of stature. The islanders are a fine set of men, hardy and godly. +They are adroit fowlers and nimble cragsmen. It gives one a queer +sensation to hear that the face of their sheer precipices used to be +(like level land elsewhere) apportioned equitably among the various +families. If A did not wish to catch birds on his aerial lot, he could +let it to B and claim a certain percentage of the spoil. The population +of the island is about 250: owing probably to intermarriage, there are +many childless homes. + +I do not know if Mr. Wason has ever been to the Fair Isle, but I +understand an Ex-Moderator of the Church of Scotland visited the little +community there in 1903. There are two ways of getting to this islet: +(1) by means of a sailing boat which leaves Grutness for Fair Isle once +a fortnight with the mails; if the weather is bad, this mode of +communication is suspended, as in winter no sane man would venture +through the roost in such a boat; (2) by taking a passage on board the +S.S. _Pole Star_, which calls on the first of every month with stores +for the lighthouse. She is a strong, swift boat, and makes the journey +from Stromness, seventy miles away. I may remark that a lecturer wishing +to speak in the Fair Isle need not trouble himself about placards or +handbills: the whole population will be on the shore to welcome him when +he lands, and he could conveniently intimate his subject then, if he has +any breath left in his body. The Fair Isle possesses a church organ and +a non-surpliced choir. The islanders have a great appetite for sermons, +as the following story, told by Mr. Russell, amply proves. "The minister +of Dunrossness went one summer to dispense the communion in the Fair +Isle, and a storm came on which detained him there for about eight days. +The weather also prevented the boats from going to the fishing. As the +people had no pressing work to do at the time, and as it was only on +rare occasions that they enjoyed the presence of the parish minister, +they were anxious to avail themselves of his services while he was among +them. _Accordingly, at their desire, he preached every day during his +stay. In all, he preached thirteen times._ He had taken the precaution +of bringing a good stock of sermons with him. Before this was exhausted, +the weather providentially improved, so that he was able to get +home."[26] + +The cherished legends of one's youth get sorely demolished in the course +of travel and investigation. The school-books used to say that the +Shetlanders were taught to knit by Spanish women saved from the wreck of +the Armada. The islanders stoutly deny any indebtedness, and declare +that there never was the slightest friendship between their ancestors +and the crews of King Philip's galleons. + + [26] The prayers of as many righteous men as possible are + requested for the inspectors of schools who have to examine and + report on the state of education in the Orkneys and Shetlands. I + had the pleasure of conversing with one of these hard-worked + officials in November, 1906. He spoke very warmly of the improved + educational benefit of the libraries that have been sent from + Paisley to the isles and skerries. This gentleman inspects the + Fair Isle school once every two years. On the occasion of his + last visit, he was rowed from Lerwick in a "sixern," and had a + most tempestuous time going through the _roost_. Two of his + oarsmen sickened, and were helpless. On getting ashore at last, + he forgot all his sorrows and soaking, when he heard heartsome + strains of welcome being played on the _insular pianola_. + + +THE FISHING SEASON. + +To Lerwick, during the fishing season, thousands of women come from the +island of Lewis to gut the myriad herring that are daily brought into +the bay. There is an extemporised town for the strangers on the +outskirts, over which float many odours, weird, pungent, and unsavoury. +All the processes of gutting, curing, and kippering go on in grand +style. The women, clad in a kind of oilskin, handle their dangerous +implements in most dexterous fashion. It is a horrid business, but well +paid. Prolific Nature is never tired supplying these women with work, +for as many as 68,000 eggs have been found in the roe of one female +herring. My friend, Mr. M'Kenzie of Ullapool, who is in the service of +the Fishery Board, took me to see the official examination of several +hundred barrels of fish, preparatory to the branding thereon of the +official stamp. The owners pay for this examination, but the additional +value given to each barrel by the Government mark far surpasses the fee +exacted by the Board. The branding-officer selects at random a barrel +here and there, extracts some dozen fish from each, and satisfies +himself as to the size and quality. If the herring are puny or of +inferior sort, the officer refuses to brand, and the examination fee is +refunded. Mr. M'Kenzie remarked that this was the only case in which he +had ever seen men reluctant to receive money. I followed that gentleman +as he walked over the long lines of slippery herring barrels, lying in +horizontal juxtaposition, and I cannot recommend the exercise to those +who have had no training in gymnastics. + +The great success of the Shetland fisheries during the last year or two +has brought to Lerwick a palpable increase of business and droves of +business men. In the Grand Hotel there were, in August last, thirty +gentlemen resident who were in some way brought thither by the traffic +in herring--among the number a young Russian, who, with his wife, sat at +a little table apart, and kept jabbering their language with glib +expressiveness. His name was Walk-off, and his object was the +annexation of fish for Muscovite consumption. He had a flabby face and +long, dark hair, which he publicly combed. _She_ was small and +pretty--doll-like, indeed--with jewels in her ears, which glittered and +flashed in the gas-light. She was a very loquacious wee creature, and +her intonation reminded me of the caressing way the Swedes articulate +English. I heard him read the Russian newspapers to her with evident +emotion, but the only word I could make out was _Kouropatkin_. The +herring-agents at the hotel table were full of drollery. One of them, +hailing from Wick, addressed a neighbour abruptly to this effect: "I am +a rather expensive man to sit beside, and to one like you especially so, +for you seem to be a water-drinker. When I tell you who I am, however, +you will insist on standing me a bottle of champagne." He was frigidly +asked to state his grounds for such a preposterous expectation. "Prepare +to gasp," he replied; "you see before you one who is a model and a +beacon to all the men of Caithness. I am the sire of nine sturdy sons, +and _they have only three birth-days among them_, seeing that they came +into this vale of tears three at a time." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS AND THEIR ANECDOTES. + + Trials of commercials--The two-est-faced knave--Mary, the maid + of the inn--Anecdotes of the smoking-room: Sonnet to + Raleigh--Peelin's below the tree--"She's away!"--A mean + house--One of the director's wives--Temperance hotels--A + memorial window--The blasted heath--The day for it--The + converted drummer--A circular ticket--A compound + possessive--Sixteen medals--"She's auld, and she's thin, and + she'll keep"--The will o' the dead--Sorry for London--"Raither + unceevil"--An unwelcome recitation--A word in season--A Nairn + critic--A grand day for it--A pro-Boer--"Falls of Bruar, only, + please!"--A bad case of nerves. + + +TRIALS OF COMMERCIALS. + +The commercial traveller (that bustling and indispensable middleman) +leads a life of mingled joy and pain. He is constantly on the move, and +from meeting innumerable types of men, becomes very shrewd in judging +character. Resource, readiness, abundance of glib phrases must in time +become his. He must not, for fear of offence, show any marked bias in +politics or religion. His temper must be well under control; he must +have the patience of an angel; he must smile with those that are merry, +be lugubrious with those that are in the dumps, and listen, with +apparent interest, to the stock stories of hoary-headed prosers. It is +not enough that he should book orders. Some shaky customers are only too +ready to give these. It is his business to book orders only from those +that are likely to pay. A big order delivered to a scoundrel who means +to fail next week, is a horrible calamity, which, if it does not result +in pains and penalties, means a sharp reprimand and a loss of prestige +at headquarters, that may take years to redeem. + +He has to sleep in many a different bed. It is lucky for him if a damp +couch has not rheumatised his limbs. No one knows better than he that +what seems a bell-pull has often, owing to former violence and broken +wires, no connection with the bell. Here a chimney smokes, there the +flue is blocked with birds' nests. In certain country inns, the flimsy +gossamer of spiders makes an undesirable fretwork over the greenish +knobs of the ill-puttied panes. Mice, rats, and "such small deer" +scamper uncannily the live-long night along the worn waxcloths and +unspeakable carpets. As he undresses by the light of a three-inch +candle, he has his soul horrified by early Victorian prints, of Paul +tumbling from his horse on the way to Damascus, of the gory relief of +Lucknow, or of some towsy-headed clansman smiling out of perspective. He +is by no means a tourist on pleasure bent. He must face gust and surge, +for he cannot choose his time and weather. His duty is to cover as much +ground as he can in a given week, fill his order-book with +irreproachable orders, and get home to report, preparatory to another +sally in another direction. Competition stings him into feverish +activity. If he sells tea, he well knows that an army of rivals is +scouring the whole country with samples as good, or perhaps a great deal +better, than his own. + + +THE TWO-EST-FACED KNAVE. + +Nevertheless, the jovial facetiousness of these commercial gentlemen +knows no limits, and hotel-waiters are, at all times, fair game for +their stings and arrows. In one of the northern hotels, there used to be +a portly and rubicund waiter who might have passed for the High Priest +of the Goddess of Health. His face shone, if I may say so, with the +radiance of perfect digestion. A pert commercial, one day, approached +him with an affected look of deep concern and said, "_Well, I hope +you're keeping better_," accompanying the remark with a dig in the +waiter's stomach. The waiter, who had never known a minute's ill-health +in his life, swore vividly for fifteen minutes without repeating +himself, and among many references to the commercial's ancestry, called +him the _two-est-faced_ knave that had ever set foot on the Shetland +Islands. Such a superlative was felt by all to be a masterpiece of +language, and turned the laugh against the bagman.[27] + + [27] As to language, one hears, especially in the Hebrides, + phrases of amusing quaintness, due no doubt to the speaker + handling a foreign tongue. The school in one of the Mull villages + is very small, and I made a remark to that effect in the hearing + of the hotel-porter. "Oh, no," said he, "_it is a good deal + bigger than you would wonder_." The same waiter, who had a talent + for confusing his language, said in reply to an irate visitor who + had questioned his intelligence: "You need not talk like that; I + am as good as you; _I am as good as any other man put together_." + + +MARY, THE MAID OF THE INN. + +I have a great deal of sympathy with hotel-porters and waiters, and +think them unduly longsuffering at times. As to Mary, the exemplary maid +of the hotel alluded to, she can hold her own in repartee with any of +the visitors. She is a distinct character, and Moliere could have made a +"type" of her. She has no sinecure of a situation, and, after eleven at +night, when the last supper is over, she has to polish the knives for +the morrow's breakfast. She is young, slim, and active, and wears a +string of red corals round her neck. The place is not frequented by +plutocratic tourists, and so her tips are meagre. In spite of her long +days and her slim perquisites, the girl is affable, smiling, and gay. +She trips out and in, sylph-like, can carve fowls most dexterously by +the light of nature, never spills the soup, and has a laughing and +appropriate word for all. Mary, I hope, will get some decent fellow for +husband, and be a stay and comfort to him all the days of his life. +Meanwhile, however (to use the historic present), a nice old gentleman +in the soft goods line, who hails from the flourishing village of +Dundee, is paying her marked attentions. She will have none of him, for +all his apostolic looks. He repeats to her, with a comically sentimental +air, the lines of Omar: + + "Here with a book of verse beneath the bough, + A loaf of bread, a cup of wine, and thou + Beside me singing in the wilderness, + The wilderness were Paradise enow." + +Mary looks in amazement at the old gentleman with the insinuating voice, +anon bursts into a merry peal, and trips off with the remark, "_There's +nae fules like auld anes_," which a listening Londoner takes to mean, +"There's nothing fills like onions!" + + +ANECDOTES OF THE SMOKING-ROOM. + + +SONNET TO RALEIGH. + +The conversation of an intelligent commercial traveller is, as I said, +of a facetious and entertaining turn. He speaks to so many people in the +course of a day and hears so many anecdotes as he rushes about, that his +sense of humour becomes very keen. Old Burton, author of the _Anatomy of +Melancholy_, used to dissipate his sombre thoughts by listening to the +coarse badinage of bargemen: a modern, afflicted with Burton's +complaint, might well find a cure in the smoking-room of a hotel among a +company of commercial travellers. One Saturday night, in a Shetland +hotel, I listened to a crowd of these merry gentlemen communicating to +each other their several collections of stories. Before doing so, they +all sang with great fervour the well-known hymn _The Sands of Time are +Sinking_, a whisky-traveller officiating at the harmonium. One of the +number ostentatiously beat time with his pipe. It was a very affecting +scene, and certain of the singers were moved to tears at their own +melody. + +The company then settled down, in a pleased frame of mind, to tell +stories. I noted some of these, and as they were new to me, I cherish +the hope that they may not be stale to others. The following +preliminary sonnet to Sir Walter Raleigh seems to be apposite and new; +it is needed to give atmosphere to the tales: + + Raleigh! the benefactor of thy kind, + May azure undulations ever roll + As incense to thee from the glowing bowl, + Thy rapt disciples fume with placid mind + In easy chair, by ingle-nook reclined! + Next to the mage, Prometheus, who stole + From Heaven's court with philanthropic soul, + The wonder-working fire, thou art enshrined + In mortal bosoms as a friend, for thou + Did'st bring from sunset isles the magic leaf + That weaves enchantment's halo round the brow, + Alleviates the pang of every grief + And stirs the bard, exempt from fretting cares, + To wail the weird of pipeless millionaires. + +And now for the stories. + + +"PEELIN'S BELOW THE TREE." + +A Sunday School teacher in the island of Luing was giving a lesson on +the disobedience of Adam and Eve, and the fruit of that forbidden tree +whose mortal taste brought death into this world, and other ills. At the +close of his harangue, which was rather above the heads of the children, +he said, "Can any of you tell me _how the Creator knew_ that Adam had +eaten the apple?" There was silence for a time. At last one boy, with a +glimmer of light in his eyes, shouted: "Please, sir, because He _saw the +peelin's below the tree_." + + +"SHE'S AWAY." + +An Englishman staying in Oban, wished to visit the island of Coll, and +discovered, on enquiry at Macbrayne's office, that the S.S. _Fingal_ +left for that outer isle at five in the morning. He accordingly gave +serious instructions to the "boots" of his hotel to rap him up at 4.30 +A.M., and to show him no mercy. At _six_ o'clock, the tourist was +awakened by a noise like that of a battering-ram at his door, and a +stentorian voice sternly enquiring: "Are you the gentleman that's going +with the early boat?" "Yes, yes, I am," said the tourist, leaping to his +feet. "_Well, she's away_," said the boots. (This is a story that grows +on one.) + + +A MEAN HOUSE. + +Another hotel story: Feeling somewhat thirsty in the middle of his +dinner and not judging that water was sufficiently slockening, a visitor +rang the bell and asked the waiter to bring him a bottle of lager. This +was done. "How much do you charge for this?" enquired the traveller. +"Ninepence," replied the waiter. Anger, consternation, and incredulity +were all depicted, by turns, on the visitor's cheek. "What!" he shouted, +"_ninepence_. Why, I could buy a dozen bottles for half-a-crown. It's +downright robbery to ask ninepence for one bottle. You've made a +mistake." "I've made no mistake," said the waiter; "I was told to ask +ninepence. _But_," (at this point he sidled up to the traveller and +whispered, with terrible accents, in his ear) "_it's a damp mean house +this you're in, and I'm leaving mysel' the morn!_" + + +ONE OF THE DIRECTOR'S WIVES. + +A gentleman who loved tobacco exceedingly well, went into a first-class +smoking compartment, filled his pipe, and settled down, with a newspaper +in front of him, to enjoy the luxury of a long and undisturbed worship +of the weed. He had a journey of fifty miles before him. Just as the +train was moving off, a lady, who was panting and flustered, was pushed +up into the compartment by a porter. It was soon evident that pipes and +tobacco were not congenial to this dame. She began to sniff in a very +haughty fashion, but the smoker, utterly indifferent to her presence, +continued to roll out with deliberate relish his dense tobacco fumes. +Soon she lost all patience, and said with extreme bitterness: "You +there, behind that paper, you have no manners. You have no right to +smoke before a lady. Do you know who I am? _I am one of the directors' +wives, sir._" Down went the journal, and "Oh, indeed," said he, "you are +one of the director's wives, are you? Well, let me tell you this, that +even if you were the director's _only_ wife, I do not intend to +encourage you, by any compliance of mine, in the bad habit of rushing +for trains and getting into the wrong compartment!" + + +TEMPERANCE HOTELS. + +An English clergyman--a pronounced teetotaler and temperance worker--was +being driven through the streets of a Scotch town in an open machine. +Looking round, with expansive benevolence, on the streets and people, he +was overjoyed to see such a large number of temperance hotels. "Driver," +he exclaimed, "I am delighted to see, by the hotels, that total +abstinence has got such a firm hold in this place." "Indeed, sir," said +the driver, "don't be too sure of that. We have two kinds of temperance +hotels here: the first kind would like the licence, but can't get it; +the second kind have had the licence, and lost it through bad behaviour +and disorderly conduct." + + +A MEMORIAL WINDOW. + +An inn-keeper in Ross-shire, with great enthusiasm, said to a visitor: +"There's nobody I work for with more satisfaction than an English +gentleman. Now, there's Sir Samuel Oatts, the wealthy Liverpool merchant +that has the shootings near here. He is a fine gentleman, and so +considerate. He is not very good at shooting, I must admit: he often +misses the birds, and he goes through a good number of dogs. One day he +shot the keeper in the right eye, and blinded it. But he gave the keeper +a handsome present and a fine new glass eye. We call that eye '_Oatts' +Memorial Window_,' and the keeper can sleep during the sermon now +without anybody knowing, provided he does not snore." + + +THE BLASTED HEATH. + +Two English tourists--big, hearty fellows--were travelling in the same +compartment with a communicative Scot, when the train stopped at Forres. +"Gentlemen," said the Scot, "this is Forres, and I'm sure you've read +about it; quite near Forres is the _blasted heath_ where Macbeth was +accosted by the witches." "How shocking," said one of the Englishmen; +"how really shocking! Well, you see, we haven't read about that yet: +we've been up North for some time, and _we have'nt seen the pypers for +ten dyes!_" + + +THE DAY FOR IT. + +The driver of the bus which goes through the delightful part of +Argyllshire known as Hell's Glen, is often chaffed by the summer +tourists rather unmercifully. One day, a nervous southern was +criticising him on his furious and careless driving: "You shouldn't be +on the box at all; I never saw such a wild driver." "Drive!" said Jehu, +in a voice of thunder. "Why, man, once every year, I drive the +mail-coach _down that steep hill-side_ among the bracken. _And this is +the day for it!_" So saying, the humorous fellow made as if to whip the +horses down the cliff, and the terrified tourist shrieked aloud. "Seeing +I've such a nervous passenger," said the driver, with a guffaw, "I had +better break my own rules, and keep to the main road." + + +THE CONVERTED DRUMMER. + +A dilapidated Scot, with a strong odour of the accursed, staggered into +a Salvation Army meeting one night, and was deeply impressed by the +service. He became a changed man, professed conversion, and got a +thorough moral overhaul. Like many others, he had great difficulty in +keeping his good resolutions, but persevered, nobly and successfully. +Latterly, he was admitted into the orchestra, and got command of the big +drum. He was so anxious to show his zeal, that he beat far too +vehemently, and drowned all the other instruments in his ecstatic +rataplan. The captain mildly remonstrated with him, and requested him to +beat a little more gently. "_Gently!_" shouted the reformed drummer, +"that's impossible. Since I've got salvation, I feel so happy, that I +could ding the whole slammed thing to bits!" (or rather "slim the whole +danged thing to bits"). + + +A CIRCULAR TICKET. + +Three commercials, travelling from Cork to Dublin, had a discussion on +the illiteracy of the Irish railway employes. "Look here," said one of +them, "the majority of the ticket collectors can't even _read_ the +tickets they are supposed to check." The other two refused to believe +him, but he stoutly maintained his assertion. Taking out of his pocket +the round ticket given him at the office of the Cork hotel, and +containing the number of his bedroom, he said, "I intend to offer this, +instead of my railway ticket, at the first station where tickets are +punched." Shortly thereafter, the train stopped, and a porter came round +the carriages to look at the tickets. There was silence deep as death +when the commercial handed his bedroom ticket to the official. The +latter looked long and carefully at the thing and muttered, "Bejabbers, +I never saw one like that before!" "Don't keep the train waiting," said +the commercial, in a pretended fury, "don't you see it's a _circular +ticket_." "Oh, and in faith it's you that's right: it _is_ a circular +ticket," said the porter. So saying, he punched the hotel check and +withdrew, leaving the three travellers to weep for joy all the way to +Dublin. + + +A COMPOUND POSSESSIVE. + +The following grammatical story will doubtless be new to most readers. A +Sunday School jaunt had been arranged in an Ayrshire town, and the +children were all ready to go in carts to a field, some miles away, for +games and open-air junketing. Everyone was impatient to set out, but the +piper was late, and the procession of carts could not start without +music. The minister became impatient, and sent a youth to tell the piper +to hurry up. The boy, on coming to the piper's house, saw a woman +standing at the door, and addressed her in these words: "_Are you the +man-that-plays-the-pipes's wife?_" + + +SIXTEEN MEDALS. + +Those who doubt the efficacy of self-lauding advertisement are refuted +by this story. A commercial traveller, representing a whisky firm, +craved an order from a small Highland innkeeper. "Come, Donald," he +said, "you must give me an order this time." "You will be getting no +order from me, for your whisky is no good whatever. Dewar of Perth has +got sixteen medals for his whisky; it is so good to drink, and makes +people drunk so nice and quiet. But _your firm never got a single medal +for filling folk fou_." The granting of medals for quiet and comely +intoxication is a brilliant, although droll, idea. + + +"SHE'S AULD, AND SHE'S THIN, AND SHE'LL KEEP." + +In a lone isle of the West, funerals are functions that cannot be +celebrated (at least in the way consecrated tradition prescribes) +without ample dispensing of whisky among the mourners. As there is no +pier on the island, the steamer very frequently may not be able to call +for days, during the terrific gales of winter. The legitimate stores of +insular whisky thus occasionally become exhausted, and should a death +occur during the period of dearth, a very regrettable situation arises. +In the epigrammatic style of King James I., who used to say "_No bishop, +no king_," we might express the difficulty by saying _No whisky, no +funeral_. While a gale of exceptional ferocity was raging some winters +ago, an old woman passed away, and there was not enough whisky on the +island to bury her with credit. Her son scanned the angry sky and sea +daily, in the hope that the weather would show signs of clearing up. +After a week's blighted hopes, he still refused to sanction interment, +remarking, "_She's auld, and she's thin, and she'll keep_." Next day the +sea was calm, the _Dunara_ called, and the old lady got her _munera +pulveris_. + + +THE WILL O' THE DEAD. + +The foregoing story suggested to one of the auditors the tale told in +connection with the death of Lord Forglen, one of the Judges of the +Court of Session, in 1727. After a long illness, in which he had endured +the expert advice of several eminent physicians, Forglen, one morning, +departed into the land of shadows. Not knowing of the fatal termination, +one of the medical men, Dr. Clark, called as usual and asked David Reid, +clerk to Forglen, how his master was. David's answer was: "I houp he's +well,"--a gentle euphuism, indicating that all was over, and also a +timid hope that Heaven had received a new inhabitant. The doctor was +shown into a room where he saw two dozen of wine under the table. Other +doctors arriving, David made them all take seats, while he detailed, +with much pathos, the affecting incidents of his master's dying hours. +As an antidote to their grief, the company took a glass or two, and +thereafter the doctors rose to depart, but David detained them. "No, no, +gentlemen; not so. It was the express will o' the dead that I should +fill ye a' fou, and I maun fulfil the will o' the dead." All the time +the tears were streaming down his cheeks. "And indeed," said Dr. Clark +afterwards, when telling the story, "he did fulfil the will o' the dead, +for before the end o't there was na ane of us able to bite his ain +thoom." + + +SORRY FOR LONDON. + +The following story is a good example of insular patriotism. Certain +shooting tourists in the island of Mull, who hailed from London, and who +were expecting important news from the capital, were greatly exasperated +to find, on calling at the local post-office, that telegraphic +communication with the mainland had broken down. Some very uncanonical +language was indulged in, which the local postmaster deeply resented. +One tourist after another, exclaimed with blank despair: "Alas, poor +Mull will get no news from London to-day." "What will Mull do without +the London news?" "No news from London, what a misfortune for Mull!" +This harping on the forlornness of the island caused the blood of the +postmaster to boil with indignation, and he shouted in ire: "It is not +Mull I will be sorry for, at all, at all. Mull can do without the +London news. But what will poor London do, when she finds she will not +be able to get any news from Tobermory, or from Salen, or from Dervaig, +or from Craignure, or from Lochdon, or from Lochbuie, or from Bunessan, +the whole of this blessed day!" + + +"RAITHER UNCEEVIL." + +A well-known boat, _The Stormy Petrel_, had been to Ardrossan for coal, +and was conveying the precious cargo to the romantic terminus of +Cairndow at the head of Loch Fyne. At St. Catherine's a great thirst +took possession of the crew, and they put in there for refreshments. The +conversation was most animated, and extended itself over a wide tract of +political and theological topics. On setting out for Cairndow early next +morning, all the crew had wistful, lustreless eyes, confused thoughts, +and bad consciences. He to whom the coal was being conveyed, was +awaiting them. He rowed out to _The Stormy Petrel_ in a small boat, and +on coming near assailed them, in English and Gaelic, with all the most +vituperative expressions he could remember. But the crew, each and all +of them, knew they had been guilty of culpable delay, and uttered not a +word, good or bad, as their assailant rowed round their boat and +withered them with his invective. They had no fight left in them, and +sat, with bowed heads, till the storm would subside. After enduring the +agony for half an hour, one of the crew looked up and said, "Do you no' +think, Mr. Sanderson, that you're _raither unceevil so early in the +morning_?" This remark, uttered in a quiet, sad, reproachful way, +staggered Mr. Sanderson far more than the most thunderous abuse would +have done, and brought home to him the undoubted fact that he had been +defective on the score of good taste. + + +AN UNWELCOME RECITATION. + +One of the travellers, on being asked to contribute his item to the fund +of anecdotes, said that instead of telling a tale, he would give a +recitation. Before doing so, he sneezed artificially six times, and then +recited a poem on + + _Influenza._ + + Influenza has come like the wolf on the fold, + And the duke and the ditcher are down with the cold. + The doctor is smiling, for business is here, + And the chink of the guinea resounds in his ear. + No household is spared: both the villa and cot + Their quota of swollen-nosed patients have got. + The clerk of the weather is gloating on high + At the lords of creation that bed-ridden lie. + Each chamber resounds with the echo of sneezing, + With deep-laboured coughing and bronchial wheezing. + While, loading the table, the victim can spy + Lotions, tonics, and ointments confusedly lie. + The druggist (douce man) is thanking his stars + For this nice epidemic of paying catarrhs, + He's making his hay, though no sunshine is seen, + And his till gleams with silver where copper has been. + + +A WORD IN SEASON. + +This dismal piece of verse effectually cleared the smoking-room, and +filled me with a great sorrow, since I had just recollected three or +four stories of my own. I now take the liberty of laying these before +the ingenuous reader. If he says they are dull, let me tell him (i.) +that he has no perception of humour, and (ii.) that occasional dulness +is the inalienable privilege of every free-born Briton. Many a spry +wight thinks it his duty to be _continuously funny and monotonously +merry_. Let a quiet and demure dulness be the foil of your +side-splitting sallies. Learn to keep the peace, yea for hours at a +time. If you are in a mixed company, cultivate the dictum of "give and +take." Be not for ever doling out your scraps of mirth to the dyspeptic +stomachs of your associates. A wise reciprocity and interplay of +merriment is the best rule--a fair share among the entire party. Burns +himself, sparkling talker as he was, is recorded to have been at times +sunk in gloom and shadow. But anon emerging from his moodiness, he would +utter such words as set the table in a roar. And now for these +masterpieces of humour. + + +A NAIRN CRITIC. + +Why is it that publishers, aye, and even booksellers, are so often out +of sympathy with the poets? I spoke once to a bookseller in Nairn about +a local poet's volume that was lying on the counter. "Do you personally +know this bard?" I asked. "Ay, that I do," was the reply; "he's an +eccentric wee chap. I've many a laugh at him as he goes along the +street, muttering to himself and picking his teeth with a fountain-pen. +Eccentric! bless my soul, how could a poet be anything but eccentric? +Besides, he's bound to be a liar: for if he can't get the end of a line +to come right with truth for a rhyme, he has got to make it _clink with +a whopper_. Why, man, it's a great worry for an honest man like me to +speak the truth in plain prose. If I were to send out my bills in metre +to my customers, there would be a rise of temperature soon in the town +of Nairn. No, no: the only thing that can be done with a poet's +manuscript is to take it to the head of the garden, sprinkle it with +paraffin, and apply a vesta." + + +"A GRAND DAY FOR IT." + +While one of the great six-day battles of the Eastern war was going on, +a country doctor, by some mistake in delivery, did not get his _Herald_ +to breakfast one morning. Anxious to get the news, he bolted his meal +and sallied forth to hear the latest from the seat of war. He saw a +wrinkled old churl trimming the roadside hedge with a bill-hook, and +humming a tune like the gravedigger in _Hamlet_, Act v. "Any news of the +war?" gasped the doctor. "Eh?" said the old man, without discontinuing +his work. "Are you not aware," said the doctor, "that there is a great +battle raging in Manchuria?" "No," said the man, "I know nothing about +it, and care less." "What!" shouted the doctor. "You care nothing about +it? Why, man, the Russians and Japanese are at this moment _fighting for +the hegemony of all Eastern Asia_." "Lord, do you say so?" replied the +old cock, lopping unconcernedly at his hedge; "well, all I can say is, +that _they're gettin' a grand day for it_." + + +A PRO-BOER. + +On one occasion, in the West Highlands, I availed myself of a lugsail +ferry to cross an arm of the sea and so avoid a long detour by land. The +boat was old, the sail was thick with big-stitched patches, and the +ferryman was an elder. I had much edifying talk with him, and at last +gliding from the Declaratory Act, of which he did not approve, I asked +him if he had any family. "Yes," he replied, "I have two sons. One of +them is a polissman in Glasgow, a nice lad, a very nice lad: he sends me +ten shillings every month; oh! an excellent lad is he indeed. But my +other son is a disgrace to me; he is bad, very bad. He is a drunkard and +a card-player and a Sabbath-breaker, and what's a thousand times worse +than all that, he's a _Pro-Boer_." This instance of patriotism in a +remote Highland nook was very refreshing for me to hear, and I gave the +anti-Krugerite elder a substantial fare for his trouble in ferrying me +over the loch. He invoked the blessing of Heaven on me, and I hope his +prayer will be answered. + + +"FALLS OF BRUAR, ONLY, PLEASE!" + +Some years ago, I had occasion to spend a day at Blair Athol, where I +was dosed with nothing but kindness by a genial son of the famous Clan +Macdonald. He put his trap and driver at my disposal, in order that I +might, with comfort and expedition, go and view the Falls of Bruar, +immortalised in one of Burns's cleverest poems. No sooner had we set off +than the driver began to calumniate Burns in unmeasured language, and to +throw withering scorn on the Falls, which, he declared, were utterly +unworthy of being visited by any sane man. "If you want to see real +falls," said he, "I'll take you to the Falls of Tummel, which could +knock those of Bruar into a cocked hat!" (such was the curious metaphor +he employed). I told him he could take me to both if there was time, but +Bruar I must see. He landed me at the Tummel, and drove on recklessly +himself a mile further to see his sweetheart. The desire to pay a visit +to his Bonnie Jean was the sole cause of his gibes at the poet. Back he +came in an hour, chanting merrily, and we drove to Bruar. I found the +varlet had lied most expansively: the Falls are gloriously fine, and +worth walking a good many miles to see. On the homeward road, I could +see he was ill at ease: he was dreadfully afraid that his amorous flight +would be discovered by his master. He said to me once every minute, +"_Falls of Bruar, only, please: keep your thumb on Tummel!_" Latterly he +set these words to a kind of rough music, and sang them continuously in +my ear, winking the while and smiling roguishly. I obeyed him. + + +A BAD CASE OF NERVES. + +While I was sitting alone in the smoking-room of the hotel, a tall, +thin, restless-eyed, aristocratic young fellow came quietly in. He went +up to the sideboard, poured out half a tumbler of water, and carefully +measured out about ten drops of phospherine therein. He swallowed the +mixture, smacked his lips, and sighed. He then remarked that it was a +nice evening and that he was very ill with a nervous complaint. "I +suppose, now," he said, "you would actually tell me not to worry, to +take everything easy, and, above all, to firmly believe there is nothing +whatever the matter with me?" "Most certainly," I said, "you ought to +consider yourself in perfectly good health; by and by you would come to +be so in reality. The Christian Scientists say you might even learn to +hold fire in your hand by thinking of the frosty Caucasus." "I suppose, +too, you would recommend me to have a hobby, such as golf, or gardening, +or amateur photography." "Yes, I believe a harmless hobby such as you +mention would relieve the mental strain and take you out of yourself." +"Well, I essayed golf, but, alas! I massacred a ram; I tried gardening, +and tired of it before the flowers began to show; and as to photography, +it only increased the number of my enemies." "What about cycling or +horse-riding?" "These won't do--I can _think_ at both of them. Now, I +_don't want to think: in fact, I mustn't_." "Fishing? wouldn't that be a +reposeful diversion?" "No, no," he said, "I could not stand the sight of +an animal enduring pain." "Well, you surely might try a little light +reading." "The strange thing about my reading is this," said he, "I look +at a sentence and understand it, but I am aware of something, either at +the back of my head or behind me, which says, 'All this is futile stuff +and nonsense: give it up, it's not for you; you are condemned to +everlasting emptiness, and your life will never know any more fulness or +joy.' + + "Immense vacuity of intellect! + I lift a volume, but a sentence tires; + Even a flimsy magazine requires + From me more concentration and direct + Volition than my vagrant wits elect + To give the pages. All my soul desires + Is to gaze without purpose on the fire's + Crackle of glowing cinders, and detect + Weird shapes of beasts and palaces and men + In the red mass of photographic coal; + Perchance my lazy mind may, now and then, + Without exertion, read as on a scroll + (While the glede sinks to ashes in the grate) + The dust and nothingness of mortal state." + +"Well," I said, "your case is a queer one, and I am at a loss to suggest +anything further." At this, the young man burst into a loud peal of +laughter. He was supremely delighted at finding himself so unique, so +singular. He took me by the hand, shook it most heartily, saying, "I +haven't enjoyed myself so much for a long time. If I were oftener in the +company of men like you, I might regain hope." + +The improvement was, unfortunately, of very short duration. He continued +his observations thus: + +"And yet, and yet: _Sunt lacrimae rerum_. What is this world but a +succession of fleeting images chasing each other across a background of +joy or pain! Now we quaff the sour cup of misery, by and by we drink the +intoxicating vintage of hope. Heaven alone stands firm, gemmed with the +pitiless stars. The day breaks, rises to its glory in the shimmering +height of noon, and dies away in the west: so does the utmost pride of +man's career fade away to nothing, a harvest for Time's scythe. On all +this growth and decay the stars gaze with their unpitying and eternal +eyes. I think I'll have a little more phospherine." + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +LEGENDS AND LITERARY NOTABILIA. + + Gairloch folk-lore: Prince Olaf and his bride--A laird who had + seen a fairy--Tales from Loch Broom: The dance of death--The + Kildonan midwife--The magic herring--Taisch--Antiquities of + Dunvegan--Miscellaneous terrors--St. Kilda--Lady + Grange--Pierless Tiree--Lochbuie in Mull--Inveraray Castle--The + sacred isle--Appin--Macdonald's gratitude--Notes on the + Trossachs--Lochfyneside: Macivors, Macvicars, and + Macallisters--Red Hector--Macphail of Colonsay--Tales from + Speyside: Tom Eunan!--Shaws and Grants--The wishing well--Ossian + and Macpherson--At the foot o' Bennachie--Harlaw--Lochaber + reivers--Reay and Twickenham--Rob Donn--Rev. Mr. Mill of + Dunrossness. + + +GAIRLOCH FOLK-LORE. + +I do not think anyone interested in local history and antiquities could +find a greater treat than that furnished by Mr. Dixon's _Account of the +Parish of Gairloch_. That romantic and lovely district is fortunate in +having found a historian of unlimited enthusiasm and untiring industry. +There is not a single dry page in his long and detailed narrative. Many +of the legends he tells are known to me from other sources, but I am +certain that no Scotch compiler (Mr. Dixon, let me say, is English) has +written of them with such enjoyable sympathy and poetical ardour. I have +been assured by local authorities that the facts adduced by Mr. Dixon +are invariably reliable. That I can well believe; but what is still more +rare, Mr. Dixon's facts are everywhere made to gleam and glitter in the +radiance of romance. Let me narrate, in concentrated form, one of the +legends which this clever writer has alluded to in more than one of his +chapters. + + +PRINCE OLAF AND HIS BRIDE. + +In the ninth century of the Christian era, one of the islands that in +such picturesque fashion dot the surface of Loch Maree, was honoured by +being the abode of a pious hermit, despatched thither from the sacred +isle of Iona. His presence there, implying as it did austerity, +perpetual worship of Heaven, and the reading of devout treatises, +inspired veneration in the minds of the obstreperous tribes around. They +felt themselves better from having such a good man near them. Wherever +in these old times of war and gore, a saintly pioneer established +himself, the kingdom of chaos and night was pushed back for miles around +his cell. + +The Picts of the ninth century revered this man, and his fame was known +also to the predatory seamen who came buccaneering among the islands of +the West. A Viking of royal blood, Prince Olaf, in the intervals of his +sea-roving, hied sometimes to the hermit's retreat, for instruction and +spiritual blessing. The young man, as tradition alleges, was not beyond +the need of guidance, for his temper was of the most fiery violence, +and, at the slightest provocation, his hand was on the hilt of his +sword. No doubt the saint of Isle Maree managed to moderate the Prince's +vehemence, and draw him somewhat away from wrath which (as Homer puts +it), waxeth like smoke in the breasts of warriors, and is far sweeter to +them than trickling honey. + +By and by, this youth fell in love, and in characteristic fashion he +loved with a whole-souled and overwhelming passion. The hot-tempered +Viking became a new man, and he thus communed with himself: "How can I +ask this maid to share my life on the stormy sea? She is too tender and +gentle to go under the dark clouds in a war-galley with me and my rude +mates, when we sail to meet the enemy. Nor, were she my wife, could I +leave her behind and unprotected. Marry her I must, but I can neither +take her with me thereafter, nor defend her in my absence. Go to, I'll +e'en visit the monk of Isle Maree and get counsel from _him_." + +It is pleasant to note that the holy father found a way out of the +difficulty. "Marry her, my son," said he, "and build a tower of strength +as her abode on this isle of mine. When you are away, she will be near +me. Old man as I am, the natives respect me for my devotion and my hoary +hairs." The prince's scruples, so honourable to his love, were overcome. +The marriage was celebrated with great pomp and rejoicing. The green +pathways of the isle were thronged with feasters; tents were erected +beside the thickets of oak and holly, and the Loch had little rest from +the plashing of oars. The hermit blessed the couple and blessed the +castle too in which the twain were for a time to reside. + +Prince Olaf and his lady were perfectly happy, and the golden hours of +their wedlock sped merrily by. But the hours that were short to them, +were long and dreary to the Norse rovers, lying inactive in the ships +anchored hard by in the waters of Loch Ewe. Murmurs, growing at length +in volume, were muttered by the men as they reflected, day by day, on +the soft uxoriousness of their leader. They wished to be at sea on an +expedition that had been planned aforetime ere the marriage had taken +place. These murmurs reached the prince's ears, and, with many tears, he +tore himself away from the bridal tower to take his place at the head of +the squadron. It was a bitter severance, but tempered by the expectation +of a speedy reunion. The prince took with him two pennons, a black and a +white. "If I am successful in my expedition," he said, "I will display +the white pennon on my galley; if misfortune befalls me (which God +avert) the black will be flying on the prow. Do you come to meet my +returning fleet and let a similar indication be visible on your barge to +tell of your safety or your misfortune. A lover feels his excitement +growing, the nearer he comes to his home: let us abridge, by such a +device, the length of our anxiety." + +Love did not make Olaf a worse fighter: rather, indeed, it improved his +prowess. The thought of the fair young wife in the lonely tower, +protected mainly by the sanctity of an old hermit, nerved his arm, and +he speedily got through the expedition with great applause. He swept +everything before him, and turned homeward in the expectation of a +cordial and meet welcome. During his absence, the lady had been +fretting. Finally, as the days passed, she became downright angry. "He +is neglecting me," she cried; "he goes away from my arms to the society +of rough seamen. I am a mere bauble, a plaything for his leisure. He is +tired of me, and perhaps on some distant coast he is dallying with a +newer sweetheart. But I will try his heart. When I hear of his +homecoming, I will go forth on my barge and have the black flag of +desolation flying from the prow. In this way I may obtain some hint of +his real feelings." + +Olaf came homeward in great glee, and on entering Loch Ewe from the +outer sea, the white pennon of success flapped gaily in the wind. The +princess, on the other hand, let prepare her boat, and, clothed in the +weeds of death, lay down on the deck, while simulated sobs of woe and +lamentation were raised by all her attendants. Slowly the boat, with its +ill-omened signal, moved to meet the conquering hero. Olaf, the +impetuous, was chilled to the heart, when he saw what he thought the +sure indication of his lady's misfortune. What a sight met his eyes when +he leapt on board! The princess stretched out in apparent death, and +robed in the garments of the grave! He could not endure the torment and +disillusion. He drove a dirk into his bosom with such passionate might +that he fell down, bereft of life, mighty and mightily fallen, on the +deck beside her. + +She had not expected such a tragic conclusion to her blamable artifice. +Remorse, of course, got hold of her, and drawing the gory weapon from +her dead lord's breast, she plunged it into her own. Too late was she +convinced of his true love for her: she had only one duty, and that was +to die with him. It is said in the legend that her life was not extinct +when the barge, with its weird freight, returned to the hermit's isle. +The old man, holding in his quaking hand the cross before her dying +eyes, strove to comfort her somewhat as her blood ebbed quickly away. + +"The bodies of the unhappy pair," says Mr. Dixon, "were buried within +the inclosure on the island, beneath the shade of the sacred hollies; +they were laid with their feet towards each other, and smooth stones +with outlines of mediaeval crosses were placed over the graves, and there +they remain to this day. A few stones still indicate the site of the +hermit's cell, and a considerable mound marks where the tower stood." + +The last time I stood beside the little pier on Loch Maree, I noticed +many indications of the advent of southern tourists. Empty bottles were +floating on the waves, and the tiny steamer that plies on the loch was +getting ready for the summer traffic. Visitors from the Lowlands do not +suspect that such tales as I have narrated still live on the lips of the +Gairloch natives, and help to pass the hours at many an evening reunion. +How the centuries meet in such nooks of Ross! Steamers on Loch Maree, +and Olaf's cross still standing on the hermit's isle! The driver of the +mail-coach from Achnasheen to Gairloch will discuss creeds and schisms +with you, and tell you he does not believe in modern religious +developments at all; anon, as the coach passes the Gairloch Church, he +will point with extended whip to a grassy hollow on the left, and say: +"That is where the Free Church used to have its open-air Communion +Service: the place is called _Leabaidh na Ba Bhaine_, because Fingal +scooped it out as a bed where his white cow might calve." "But did +Fingal lodge in this neighbourhood?" you ask. "Oh yes, he did whatever," +the driver will reply, "and the best proof of it is, that if you go to +the north end of Loch Maree, you will see the _sweetheart's +stepping-stones_, placed there by Fingal to keep his feet dry when he +went that way to court Malvina." + + +A LAIRD WHO HAD SEEN A FAIRY. + +Bailie Nicol Jarvie, whom we all know so well, confessed that when he +heard the wild stories of the North, he felt his blood tingle and his +pulses leap. This fact, which as a sober man of business he felt bound +to apologize for, was probably due to heredity, his mother having been a +Macgregor. The Bailie lived at a time when rumours of witchcraft and +fairydom were more common than now, and when there was less +dissemination of Scripture truth. It is a saying in some parts of the +North that the profuse spread of the Shorter Catechism has been the +means of driving witches and fairies out of their old haunts. For my own +part, I know of nothing more likely to make them decamp.[28] + +I was lucky enough to meet a gentleman who declared, not with an oath, +but with a _pretty strong_ asseveration, that he had once seen a fairy. +It was in a railway train that I knit conversation with him. He was a +kilted country squire, tall, thin, and soulful: on his head was a +glengarry with a pair of flying ribbons. He spoke in rapt sentences, as +if he were looking on a vision. This is the substance of his remarks:-- + + One autumn morning, when the world lay fair + Under the radiant blue, I musing lay + By a green knoll, beside a rippling bay, + When, suddenly, gliding through the silent air, + A green-clad apparition, wrinkled, spare, + Angry, and grieving, passed along the way + Before me for a moment's space. The fay + Was old and did not see me lying there. + I grieved to see her sob in fretful mood, + And often since I marvel in my mind + What grievous heart-pang drove her from the wood + To ease her heart away from her own kind. + Strange, that these tiny, soulless beings should, + Like us, be grieved and be with passion blind! + +These are the words of a man who speaks with conviction. I ought to +mention that, ecclesiastically (and I hope in other ways, too,) he was a +Moderate. Two things annoyed him greatly: (1) that the fairy did not +deign to look at him; (2) that nobody but his little grand-daughter of +eight would believe he had seen a fairy at all. "Why," he said, "I could +draw that fairy now, if I had pencil and paper. I see her as plain as I +see you. _Her little bosom was heaving, and she wore a necklace of +twisted corn-stalks. I am sorry I did not offer her some refreshment._" + + [28] A very similar account is given, of the dearth of the little + folk in England, by the poet Chaucer; only, that eminent writer + declares that the phenomenon is due to the zeal and prayers of + the monks and begging-friars, who paced about the country + muttering blessings and exorcistic paragraphs. + + +TALES FROM LOCH BROOM. + +The enquirer will find a specially abundant crop of old stories if he +stays long on Loch Broom side. The bard of Ullapool, Mr. Roderick +Mackenzie, has made an excellent collection of romantic incidents +associated with the neighbourhood, and has told them in a very quaint +and effective fashion. From his collection I now cite a specimen or two. +I by no means recommend them as reading for the small hours of the +morning. + + +THE DANCE OF DEATH. + +Three young fellows belonging to Strathmore, in the parish of Loch +Broom, were returning from the Low Country, where they had been living +for some time. It was long before the days of Watt and Macadam; roads +were not good, progress was slow, and rain was frequent. When they, in +the final lap of their journey, arrived at the green hillside of +Lochdrom, the weather was extremely inclement. Seeing a commodious +shieling on the braeface, the young men entered, and one of them, with +the object of driving dull care away, struck up a lightsome tune on his +pipes. His two comrades at once began to fling their legs about and +caper merrily. Soon, having succeeded in dancing themselves dry, they +all agreed that female partners would be a great acquisition. The wish +was at once gratified. Three women mysteriously glided into the +shieling, and the dancing began in earnest. One of the women stood close +by the piper, while the other two skipped about, with their partners, +all round the building. Outside it thundered and lightened in terrific +fashion. Tired and sweating, the two couples were at length fain to +stop, and they sat down to rest on seats of turf and heather. The piper +stopped too: he felt some malign influence coming over him; he was +certain some devilish deed was a-doing. Stealing a glance at his two +friends, he perceived that they were both stark dead, and that the two +infernal huzzies were smiling a hideous smile of triumph. Action, he +felt, was immediately necessary: he flung the still groaning bagpipes +full in the face of the witch near him, stunned her thus for an instant, +and with one wild leap cleared the threshold. And now began a hot race +and hot pursuit. Like another Tam o' Shanter, but without the mare, the +piper sped over the moor and through the rain, plying a foot as good as +wings. Not till they came in sight of the clachan of Fasagrianach, did +the witches relinquish the chase. The exhausted piper had a sad tale to +tell to the mothers of his two hapless friends. Next day a company of +mourners went to the scene of the infernal dance, and, amid much +mourning, they sang a weird wail with the sad refrain, _Airidh mo +Dhubhaich_, which, being interpreted, means "Shieling of my Sorrow." + +Let me give another tale, but of less sombre issue, culled from the +folk-lore of the same locality. + + +THE KILDONAN MIDWIFE. + +A woman living at Kildonan, on the north shore of Little Loch Broom, and +exercising the useful profession of howdie, or midwife, had been +summoned to attend a case at Keppoch. She did not arrive at her +destination, although she left home after telling her neighbours where +she was going. It was on Christmas eve that Fair Sarah, as she was +called, left Kildonan, and for the space of an entire year, not a word, +good or bad, was heard of her. Search parties were organized, but all to +no purpose. Exactly twelve months after her disappearance--the next +Christmas eve, namely--back came the errant midwife to her home, not a +hair the worse for her long absence. She was immensely astonished to +find she had been so long away, her own impression being that only an +hour or two had elapsed. It was evident to all the natives of Kildonan +that Fair Sarah had been among the fairies, in whose company, as every +one knows, months and years slip past as quickly as hours and days. +Sarah was asked to speak out and tell her experiences. "It seems to me," +said the flustered howdie, "that it was but last night that I left for +Keppoch. Just as I passed the White Knoll, between Strathmore and +Strathbeg, I came upon a company of little folk, who would have me with +them, right reason or none. I accepted their hospitality, and what +drinking, skipping, revelry, and glee my eyes beheld! At last I grew +sick of their cantrips and capers. Remembering I was a Christian and a +communicant, _I blessed myself in the name of the Glorious Trinity_, +with the result that I was unceremoniously bundled out of the place." + +The White Knoll had long had the repute of harbouring fairies; Sarah's +experiences put the matter beyond all doubt. That worthy female +continued to ply her vocation for many years after, with unvarying +dexterity and signal success. She was certainly a more prosperous woman +after her year's excursion into Fairy-land. + + +THE MAGIC HERRING. + +There is an interesting legend told of the device by which shoals of +herring were first induced to come into Loch Broom. + +It seems that long ago (the precise date is unessential) the lochs round +the island of Lewis were invariably, at the herring season, visited by +magnificent shoals of fish, while not a tail was ever seen to twinkle in +the spacious waters of Loch Broom. Abundance on one side of the Minch, +destitution (for no earthly or apparent reason) on the other! After +mature consideration, the dwellers by Loch Broom came to the conclusion +that the anomaly could only be explained by the malignant operation of +the Lews witches. Query: How best neutralise the spells of these partial +harridans? A remedy, both unique and effective, was at length devised. A +silver herring was made and given into the hands of a sturdy crew, who +set sail with it over the water to Lewis. On arriving there, the men +partook of an adequate amount of refreshment, let down the silver fish +(attached to a cord) among the jostling shoals in one of the lochs, and +then, with the metallic animal trailing in the sea behind them, they +turned the prow of the boat in the direction of home. The ruse was +successful beyond all belief: glimmering clouds of phosphorence followed +through the seas below in the wake of the boat and its silver lure. +Under the stars of night, in all the rapture of excitement and success, +the Loch Broom fishers led the droves of herring right up to the +farthest reach of their loch. The metallic herring was then allowed to +sink to the bottom: there it remains, and so long as it is there, an +abundant harvest of the deep will be the portion of the resourceful +toilers of these shores. Perhaps I ought to mention that the famous boat +which did the feat was painted black on one side and red on the other. I +am not sufficiently versed in the niceties of _grammarye_ to be able to +render a reason for this piebald device. + +Of late years, as I have been told, the prosperity of Ullapool is not as +high as it was. Can it be that the Lews witches are at their old tricks +again? Or has the silver herring been borne, by the wash of retreating +surges, out into the Hebridean deep. Every visitor who walks through the +sea-facing, white-washed little town, must be struck by the silence of +the streets and the utter lack of business animation. + + +TAISCH. + +The most interesting place in the island of Skye is, beyond question, +the neighbourhood of Dunvegan. It was of surly, superstitious, +loyal-hearted Samuel Johnson that I chiefly thought when I leapt out of +the trap that landed me at the Hotel of Dunvegan, for I had just been +reading his famous _Journey_, with its diverting remarks on +second-sight. It would not, I confess, have surprised me over much, in +my tired and wind-beaten condition, to see the Doctor and the Auchinleck +laird, walking arm in arm along the road. I should have put it down to a +kind of inverted _taisch_, certainly to nothing stronger. + +It may surprise many southerners to know that the belief in _taisch_ is +not by any means extinct. I have met educated Skyemen who firmly +believed in the mysterious visual gifts of the seventh son of a seventh +son. In old days, the Highlanders were wont to attribute the gift to +none but those of an austere and devout cast, who, living a solitary +life in the eye of nature, were thought to be specially prepared for +receiving supernatural impressions. I am afraid the vast majority of +_taisch_ tales are dreadful nonsense. Mr. MacCulloch, in his recent work +on Skye, has usefully summarized the various types of second-sight as +expounded by the very credulous Macleod of Hamera: (1) The seer is aware +of a phantom winding-sheet enwrapping the doomed person; (2) he may see +the corpse of some one still in life; (3) he may behold a drowning or +accidental death; (4) he may hear noises as of a coffin being hammered; +(5) he may see a living person dwindle to the size of a child, and anon +expand to normal bulk. As Johnson remarks, many of the seers declared +themselves poignantly afflicted by what they saw. Aubrey tells of a +clairvoyant who asked the presbytery to pray that the gift (or curse) +might be taken away. Instant prayer removed the obsession. + +The extraordinary futility and droll language of the sentences uttered +by some of the seers are very mirth-provoking. Here are one or two +prophecies of the Brahan Seer:-- + + "The heir of the Mackenzies will take + A white rook out of the wood, + And will take a wife from a music-house + With his people against him. + And the heir will be great + In deeds, and as an orator, + When the Pope in Rome + Will be cast off his throne, + Over opposite Creagh-a'-chon + Will dwell a little lean tailor," etc. + +The following is excellent: "_When the big-thumbed sheriff-officer and +the blind man of the twenty-four fingers shall be together in Barra, +Macneill may be making ready for the flitting._" It is said that the +same seer prophesied thus of the Strathpeffer wells: "The day will come +when this disagreeable spring, with thick-crusted surface and unpleasant +smell, shall be put under lock and key, so great will be the crowd of +people pressing to drink the waters." + +Belief in clairvoyance and prophecy was quite common among the Lowland +Covenanters; and I believe _Peden's Prophecies_ may still be found among +the lumber of the book-shops. An old lady, in Irvine, once repeated to +me the following couplet, as having been uttered by Peden:-- + + "Between Segton and the sea + A bloody battle there shall be." + +Now, as Segton is the old name for Kilwinning, it would seem that the +locale of the battle (probably, as the lady, indeed, thought, the battle +of Armageddon) will be _in the immediate neighbourhood of the site at +present occupied by Nobell's Dynamite Factory_. + + +ANTIQUITIES OF DUNVEGAN. + +_Taisch_ has taken me a long way from Dunvegan, of which I meant to say +something. No souvenir is to me more delicious than that of some days +spent there, on one of which I visited the fine old castle of the +Macleods, stablished on its rocks, and filled with romance from base to +topmost turret. On the landward side are lawns, flowers, and abundance +of eye-gladdening leafage, while, seaward, there is the unspeakable +glory of isle-dotted loch and distant sea. By the kindness of Macleod of +Macleod (you must not call that grand and most genial gentleman by any +more garish title: he is _the_ Macleod; he typifies the clan--that is +his highest glory), I visited the delightful old castle and saw every +room, relic, and dirk of importance. What gave me the most pleasure was +the illuminating commentary of Macleod himself and of his charming +daughters. One cannot hear the history of some of the rooms without a +feeling of terror. In the drawing-room of the castle (the room now used +for prayers, and well it may be,) a horrible outrage was planned to take +place by Black Ian, a usurping chief. The atrocious deed happened in the +middle of the sixteenth century, and was due to Ian's fear that the +Campbells, who had landed with a large force in Skye, would expel him +from Dunvegan castle. Ian, pretending that he wished to discuss terms, +invited eleven of the leading Campbells to a banquet. At table, Macleods +and Campbells were seated side by side; and, at a given signal, which +consisted in placing a cup of blood in front of each guest, all the +Campbells were simultaneously stabbed to death, each Macleod +exterminating his man. I was glad to get out of that drawing-room. + +The main relics in the castle are: (1) The Fairy Flag; (2) Rory Mor's +Drinking-horn; and (3) the Dunvegan Cup. + +It is not as well known as it should be that one of the mediaeval chiefs +of the Macleods married a fairy. This dainty little woman presented her +lord with a yellow silk flag, dotted here and there with red spots. The +virtue of the flag, she told him, resided in its efficacy to save the +chief of the Macleods on three different occasions. After the third +employment of the flag, it would flutter away to fairy-land. The flag +has twice saved a chief out of a particularly awkward predicament, and +it is still in Dunvegan, though sadly grimed and rent. The present +chief, who has served his country nobly, is quite fit, in soldierly +fashion, to grapple single-handed with any difficulty he may encounter; +but he is in hopes that the flag may yield its residual virtue to the +contentment of some one or other of his successors. + +Rory Mor's drinking-horn, which could contain, I should think, between +two and three bottles of wine, is an interesting indication of +pre-Reformation thirst. Of old, each chief as he came of age, was +expected to drink off its contents at one draught as a proof that he had +arrived at years of discretion. + +The cup is made of dark wood, and is finely adorned with silver work. It +is dated 1493, and contains a Latin inscription. + +The Fairy Tower in Dunvegan Castle contains the room in which Dr. +Johnson and Sir Walter Scott slept during their respective visits to the +castle. The burly lexicographer would have little wind left for +argument after he had toiled up the steep and narrow spiral stairway +leading to the room. Formerly, so the smiling chief told me, the young +lady chosen by the Macleod to be his wife, had to pass a night alone in +this haunted chamber, in order that the fairies might have an +opportunity of seeing her, and formally approving the choice. + + +MISCELLANEOUS TERRORS. + +He who investigates Celtic demonology will hear a good deal about a +gruesome and insidious animal called the _Water Horse_. This fell beast, +though able at need to transform itself into the shape of a human being, +is normally like a horse, though much bulkier and fiercer. Its usual +abode is in the deep lochs, but it may occasionally be seen, with wreck +or sea-weed clinging to its hoof or mane, feeding on the hill-side among +earthly horses. The detestable feature about the brute is its fondness +for human beings. There is no hope for any man, woman, or child, who +gets upon its back: at a furious gallop, the animal bounds off by the +nearest road to the loch, and leaps under the waves to devour its prey. +Foals of a specially vicious turn are believed to have this brute for +their sire: in some such way the furious nature of the horse called +"Kelpy" in George Macdonald's story might be explained. + +Certain lochs in Skye are believed to harbour a variant terror, the +water-bull. Loch Morar, on the mainland, contains a huge mystic bogie, +undefined in shape, but of terrible malignity. I have heard too, in +Uist, of a phantom dog, with eyes of glede and unearthly bark, that +frequents the entrance to the old wayside burying-ground. No driver, +unless fortified by several glasses, will drive you that way after dark. + +"Duncan," said a commercial traveller to a driver, "I'll have to go to +Gruiginish farm to-night. Have everything ready at 8.30." + +"I can't do that, Mr. Smith; it'll be dark." + +"But you have lamps, Duncan." + +"Yes, yes, but I can't go. You have to pass the old cemetery." + +"I know that, but I must attend to my business. What ails you at the +cemetery?" + +"There's the dog at the gate, the dog with the eyes of burning coal. +What is he doing there? And the wee man inside, _What is he doing +there?_" + +"I don't know what he's doing, but to Gruiginish this night I must go. +Do you think a glass of _forked lightning_ would do you any good?" + +"Well, it might help." + +In spite of more than one glass of forked lightning, poor Duncan was in +a terrible state of excitement when the cemetery was approached. He kept +his head averted, and clutched the reins so nervously that the vehicle +was in imminent danger of being upset. + +It is a beautiful saying of Goldsmith that innocently to amuse the +imagination in this dream of life is wisdom. Judged by this standard, +the imaginative operations taking place in Duncan's brain, considering +their effect on his happiness, cannot be pronounced either innocent or +wise. To add ideal terrors to the prosaic hardships of a place like Uist +is the very height of folly. And yet it is precisely in such bare and +rough regions where man has to fight with nature as with a constant +foe, that the unseen powers are believed to be most terrible. The +_lutin_ of the smiling land of France is a mere capering trickster, and +the "lubber fiend" of Milton's poem is pictured as an unpaid adjunct of +the dairy. Duncan's "wee man up on the hill-side" is a permanent and +unspeakable horror of the night. "_What is he doing there?_"[29] + + [29] Collins's long _Ode on Popular Superstitions in the + Highlands of Scotland_, addressed to Home, author of _Douglas_, + contains some excellent rhetorical passages. Speaking of the + second-sighted seer, Collins represents him as one who + + "In the _depth of Uist's dark forest_ dwells." + + We may say of Uist what Lord Rosebery said of Caithness, that it + is _entirely delivered from the contaminating influence of + foliage_. The air one breathes there does not suffer + deterioration by coming through any such _dark forest_ as Collins + mentions: it blows from the Atlantic in an absolutely pure and + strong condition. + + +ST. KILDA. + +St. Kilda, the lonely and precipitous island, forty miles west of Lewis, +which Boswell at one time thought of buying, has now, like so many other +islands of the West, a well-furnished library from Paisley. I hope the +minister of the place encourages the reading of the books, and does +everything in his power to broaden the religious views of the people by +healthy secular literature. A luckless inspector of schools crossed over +once to examine the school of this island. His boat arrived late on +Saturday, and was to leave again early on Monday. To suit his own +convenience, the greatly-daring official proposed to examine the +scholars on Sunday. Never was their such indignation among the +islanders. What! examine the school on the first day of the week! Did +the unhappy man wish the wrath of Heaven to fall in fire and brimstone +on the island? The inspector was angrily hooted and denounced. Still, as +he must needs return by his steamer, the islanders agreed to send their +children immediately after Sunday was over, _i.e._, _the bairns were +assembled at midnight_, and parts of speech were bandied about then in +the visible darkness of the tiny school. + +St. Kilda belongs to the Macleod, and every spring the factor goes over +to collect the rents. All winter the island is isolated, and has no +outer news save, perhaps, from some stray Aberdeen trawler. For twenty +years the factor went over in a sailing-boat belonging to the chief, but +by some mishap, in which no lives were lost, this boat was +ill-manoeuvred and, with sails full-set, was engulfed in a whirlpool. +He now goes over in the steamer. + +The first question propounded to the factor is this: "_Has there been +war anywhere, my dear?_" If the answer is "Yes," a great joy is visible +on every face. "_That's good, that's good: tell us all about it._" +Having heard all about the war, the natives show an eagerness for +sweets, of which they are inordinately fond. + +The natives are expert cragsmen, and much of their time is occupied in +collecting birds' feathers. The oil of the solan goose is also a source +of wealth. Rough tweeds are now woven in many of the houses. The factor +informed me that, for some unknown reason, everything that comes from +the island is impregnated with a heavy odour that is most disagreeable. +Means have been tried to neutralise this smell, but success is only for +a time: by and by the odour returns, as bad as ever, to fabric and +feather. Merchants, both at home and abroad, are loath to purchase such +unfragrant wares. + +In Dunvegan Castle are to be seen several of the little letter-boats +employed by the St. Kildeans to convey news to Scotland in the winter +months. The tide is watched, and the letter-boat cast into the sea. +Usually the message is washed ashore on some part of the Long Island. +Natural superstition supplements, in a small degree, the lack of mails: +when the islanders, for example, hear _the notes of the cuckoo_, they +are convinced that the Macleod is dead. Happily the cuckoo is rarely +heard breaking the silence of the seas so far west. + + +LADY GRANGE. + +To this day there are in the possession of the Macleod family certain +old accounts of the years 1744 and 1745, that recall one of the most +diabolical and continuous pieces of cruelty recorded in history. I refer +to the accounts paid in these years to the Laird of Macleod for the +board and burial of Lady Grange. No one who knows the history of that +ill-fated lady can look at these time-stained documents without a +knocking of the seated heart at the ribs. + +Everyone who has enjoyed the light and graceful poetry of Ovid, has +sighed over the relegation of that city man to the barbarous horrors of +the Black Sea. As Gibbon exquisitely phrases it: "The tender Ovid, +after a youth spent in the enjoyment of wealth and luxury, was condemned +to a hopeless exile on the frozen banks of the Danube, where he was +exposed without remorse to those fierce denizens of the desert with +whose stern spirits he feared that his gentle shade might hereafter be +confounded." The banishment of Lady Grange to St. Kilda, in 1734, by her +rascally husband, is to me fully as pathetic as Ovid's expatriation to +Tomi. She, a refined and beautiful woman, the light of Edinburgh +drawing-rooms, was hustled off to a lonely rock and left remorselessly +to pine there amid the squalls. Let me briefly summarise this affecting +history. + +Lord Grange, a Scottish judge of strong Jacobite leanings, was known by +his Lady to be concerned in a plot, along with Lovat, Mar, and others, +to bring back the Pretender. This was in the year 1730. Stung in her +wifely pride by her husband's ill-treatment and licentiousness, she +openly threatened to expose his treason. To prevent such exposure, +Grange caused his wife to be kidnapped and clandestinely conveyed first +to a small island off North Uist, and subsequently to St. Kilda. In the +latter island, no one could speak any English except the catechist, and +here for seven years this polished society dame lived amid the blasts +and the screaming ocean-fowl, lacking even the privilege, which Ovid +enjoyed, of sending letters to child or friend. In 1741, when the +catechist left the island, she made him bearer of letters to her +law-agent, Hope of Rankeillor. Hope fitted out a sloop, with twenty-five +armed men on board, and set out for St. Kilda to rescue the lady. +Macleod, who was, of course, privy to her detention, at once removed her +to Skye, and Hope's expedition came to nothing. The poor woman, worn out +with sorrow and suffering, died in 1745, a helpless imbecile! + +The story, which throws a lurid light on the savagery of the eighteenth +century, and which, to my thinking, surpasses in pathos anything +occurring in fiction, was long disbelieved. But it was only too true. It +is said that ill-luck pursued the lady even after death, and that her +funeral was a miserable parody. A coffin filled with stones and turf was +interred, before a large crowd, in the churchyard of Duirinish, the real +remains being, with maimed rites or none at all, secretly buried +elsewhere. + +It is noteworthy that Lady Grange died in 1745, the year when Prince +Charlie's hopes were shattered on Culloden Moor. Like her, he too had +the ill-luck to be a hopeless wanderer in the Misty Isle. + + +PIERLESS TIREE. + +I regret to say that I did not stay long enough in the island of Tiree +to add to my store of legends, and yet, I went there with a capacious +note-book and excellent intentions. What is more, I read from beginning +to end, Dr. Erskine Beveridge's detailed book on the island, and could +have passed an examination on semi-brochs, rock-forts, marsh duns, +islet-forts, sandhill dwellings, and prehistoric burial-sites. I steeped +myself so thoroughly in the _minutiae_ of pre-Reformation churches, that +I almost forgot to go to the modern ones. Tiree took hold of me +completely, and so did the Norse invaders of the Hebrides--men like +Ketil Flatnose, Magnus Barelegs, Hako, and Somerled. I got a pocket map +arranged for my own use (copied from Dr. Beveridge's large one) with a +red cross at all the sites of ancient forts. It was my fond hope, for +pride attends us still, that I might find some inaccuracy in Dr. +Beveridge's book, and, from measurements on the spot, be able to +contradict some of his statements. But what are the hopes of man! I did +not know that predestination, in the form of dirty weather, was working +against me, and was about to quench all my interest in _duns_. On +September 5th, 1907, I determined to take Dr. Beveridge's measurements +for granted. + +On that day, in fact, I was for some time under the impression that my +last lecture had been delivered. It was on the way between Coll and +Tiree. The gale was a furious one and, combined with the greasy odours +of the _Fingal_, was enough to sicken a practised seafarer. I did notice +that some of the crew were prostrated, so that there was some excuse for +a landsman not being proof against Neptune's dandling. So low, exposed, +and precarious is the shore at Scarinish, that, often for weeks, the +ferrymen dare not venture out to the steamer for passengers. I asked one +of the _Fingal_ men if there was any chance of being landed. He was a +cruel cynic, and said: "No, not to-day. The sea is too wild for the +ferry to come out. We'll go right across to Bunessan in Mull, so prepare +for three more hours' shaking. You won't forget the _Dutchman's Cap_ +for the rest of your life." Then with a remark addressed to the +Creator, he added: "_There's the ferryboat after all; she's racing over +the water like a stag._" + +He was right: the lugsail was careering out to us and came alongside at +length, and, after fearful trouble, got fastened to the _Fingal_. +Sometimes the ferryboat was even with our deck, sometimes far above it, +sometimes fifteen feet below. It looked like certain death to leap into +that lugsail. + +I hesitated, and shouted to the captain: "Is it safe to jump?" + +He replied, "I wish to Tophet I had the chance." + +I watched for the next opportunity of the ferryboat and the _Fingal_ +being approximately on the same plane, and leaped into the arms of a +boatman. + +Other passengers followed,--men, women, even babies. Then came the +mails; and finally, live stock. I remember being struck on the mouth by +a sheep heaved into the boat by the above-mentioned cynic. "Come, come, +that's enough, keep the rest; let us be off," shouted a boatman. +Everybody was wet to the skin: the wind was howling; the women weeping; +and the babies were mixed up with the sheep. + +Once clear of the _Fingal_, the adroit ferrymen did their duty well, and +in less than ten minutes we were all landed. A crowd of islanders were +waiting to lift us out. All agreed that it had been a _close shave_. + +Such was my introduction to _Pierless Tiree_. + +I did not stay long enough in the island to measure brochs, but quite +long enough to experience the good-will and kindliness of the natives. +The houses are solid and substantial, the inhabitants strong and +muscular. Great gales from the Atlantic blow almost continually, sweep +up the sand in clouds, and prevent any trees from taking root. I did not +see much poverty with my own eyes, but the ministers all assured me +there was a great deal. Maize, more than oatmeal, is the cereal used for +porridge. For supplementary information, Dr. Beveridge's admirable and +accurate work may be consulted. + + +LOCHBUIE IN MULL. + +The great straggling island of Mull, so full of scenery, romance, and +song, still awaits its historian. Few, who have ever visited the noble +isle, will refuse to say with Macphail, the bard of Torosay: + + "O the island of Mull is an isle of delight + With the wave on the shore and the sun on the height, + And the breeze on the hills and the blast on the Bens, + And the old green woods and the old grassy glens." + +The gem of the island is undoubtedly the haven of Lochbuie, one of the +choicest nooks in insular Scotland. The modern mansion, which is but a +step or two from the well-preserved castle of olden times, is quite near +the shore, and looks straight south over the Atlantic to the island of +Colonsay. The entire surroundings are a delight to the eye: great +towering mountains behind, the sea in front, and in the space between, +green lawns, rocks, gorse, and many-tinted garden-plots. + +The MacLaines of Lochbuie trace their descent from the great Gillean of +the Battle-axe, a redoubtable warrior who flourished his weapon to some +purpose in the reign of Alexander III. But the most notorious of all +the MacLaines is _Ewen of the Little Head_, who died in battle, and +thereafter assumed the role of family ghost. Before the death of any of +his race, this phantom-warrior gallops along the sea-beach near the +castle, announcing the event by cries and loud lamentations. The doctor, +who attended the present chief's mother, declares that, while sitting +beside her bed during the silent watches of the night, he heard the +noise of the spectral horse just before the old lady's decease. The +natives of Mull can describe the ghost and horse with accurate detail. +The horse is a small, hardy, sure-footed animal of brown colour, and +Ewen is known by the smallness of his head, and by a long floating +mantle of green. He performed a weird and long-continued gallop round +the bay in 1815, before the news of the valiant Sir Archibald MacLaine's +death became known by official despatch from the seat of war. + +Lochbuie, like so many other places in Scotland, has its Piper's Cave. +There is a remarkable similarity in all such tales--diversified, +however, by quaint local additions. MacLaine's piper, a foolhardy man, +determined once to test the allegation that a certain cave on Lochbuie +was connected with another cave at Pennygown on the Sound of Mull. +Attired in his official costume and having his dog at his heels, he +entered the cave, blowing his pipes triumphantly. Those above, on the +hills, were able to make out his line of passage by the sound of the +music. At a certain point the pipes ceased, and nevermore did the piper +come up to the shores of light. The dog got to the cave of Pennygown--a +limp and hairless parody of its former self. + +Browning, in his "Pied Piper of Hamelin," has but poetised one version +of a world-wide tale. Often, in the Highland tales, it is money the +piper is after. There is a deep cave near Melvaig, in Wester Ross, into +which a piper is said to have led a band of men in search of gold, and +never returned. In this case the pipe-music is said to have continued +for years--some natives even asserting that it may be heard still by +those who have ears to hear. + +In spite of all the legendary lore connected with the family of the +MacLaines, the chief interest of Lochbuie for a lover of literature, +centres round the visit of Boswell and Johnson. In one of the rooms of +the castle there is a fine portrait of Johnson. On looking at it, my +mind reverted to the amusing question addressed to the sage by the +"bluff, comely, noisy old gentleman" who was the laird of Lochbuie in +1773: "Are you of the Johnstons of Glencro or of Ardnamurchan?" "Dr. +Johnson," says Boswell, "gave him a significant look, but made no +answer; and I told Lochbuie that he was not Johnston, but Johnson, and +that he was an Englishman." + +I regret to say that the great war saddle, which was in Lochbuie's +possession in 1773, and which Boswell did not see because the young +laird had taken it to Falkirk with a drove of black cattle, is no longer +in the island: somebody took it to America, and forgot to bring it +back. + +The present laird is greatly beloved by his tenantry. At the lecture I +gave at Lochbuie, he was unable, owing to illness, to take the chair. +His absence was a terrible grief to the people, and the piper of the +family, in a brief speech, alluded in a most touching way to the sorrow +felt by all present.[30] + + +INVERARAY CASTLE. + +Three days after Johnson and his friend left Lochbuie, they were +entertained by the Duke of Argyll in Inveraray Castle. Boswell's +description of the incidents of this visit is one of his finest efforts. +He tells us that Johnson admired the "utter defiance of expense" shown +by the Duke in the building and appointments of the place. Records exist +which show that the masons were paid at the rate of 41/2d. a day, +_plus_ a weekly bonus of meal! + +It is interesting to note that the Rev. John Macaulay (grandfather of +Lord Macaulay) was one of the ministers of Inveraray in 1773. Boswell +gives him a very high character, but this had no emollient effect on the +great historian, when he came to review _Croker's Edition of Boswell's +Johnson_. + +Inveraray Castle is a superb object-lesson in Scotch history. All the +Campbells of note for centuries past are hanging on the walls, from the +old Duke who passed away last, to the squinting Marquis (_Gleed Argyll_ +mentioned in the "Bonnie House o' Airlie"), who was beheaded on the +Castle Hill of Edinburgh in 1661. The Duke, who commanded at Sheriffmuir +("when we ran and they ran, and they ran and we ran," etc.) is standing +in his accoutrements of pride, painted by the son of Allan Ramsay: + + "Argyll the State's whole thunder, born to wield + And shake alike the Senate and the Field." + +Mediaeval armour, firelocks from Culloden, flags from a score of +battlefields, mutely suggest the glory and gore of the olden times. It +is impossible to walk through the rooms of such a place without feeling +intimately in touch with the events of the past. + +The present hotel is the one in which Johnson and his biographer lodged. +Burns came sixteen years later, and wrote on the pane of his bedroom +window the scandalous epigram on Inveraray so often quoted. The present +Duke (who has perpetrated a fair amount of poetry himself) would give +much of his odd cash to recover that pane, which was cut out some years +ago by a pilfering visitor.[31] + + [30] I am inclined to think that the relationship formerly + existing between the Highland chief and the member of his clan + was perfect in its way--a _model_ of class relationship. There + was nothing menial about the clansman's attitude, though he gave + unbounded homage to his lord. At the battle of Inverkeithing, a + clansman and his seven sons gave up their lives to shield from + death their chieftain, Sir Hector Maclean. As the old man saw his + boys fall one after the other, he shouted with glee and pride, + "_Another for Sir Hector!_" until he himself lay, like a true + thane, beside his progeny. Nothing could be finer or more + touching than such a scene. + + [31] Burns tells us that when in Inveraray Hotel, he was entirely + neglected by the servants, who gave all their attention to some + gentlemen from the Castle. In our day, the Campbells have shown + contrition by their willingness to admit that Burns was one of + their own clan. Burns's ancestors were, it is said, Campbells of + Taynuilt. Taynuilt means in English, Burnhouse. When the poet's + ancestors emigrated to Forfarshire, they were known as _Campbells + from Burnhouse_. In course of time the appellation was shortened + into Burnhouse simply, and latterly into Burness or + Burns.--Q.E.D. + + +THE SACRED ISLE. + +Wordsworth came to Iona (which also belongs to the Argyll family) in +1833, and wrote four poor sonnets on the sacred isle. This is what he +saw: + + "To each voyager + Some ragged child holds up for sale a store + Of wave-worn pebbles, pleading on the shore + Where once came monk and nun with gentle stir." + +Owing to its ecclesiastical renown as the cradle of Christianity in +Britain, no island is so much visited as Iona. The audience I addressed +was the most miscellaneous I have ever seen: there were boatmen and +barristers, anglers and artists, curates and crofters, French and +Germans. + +The present-day natives seem desirous of keeping up the old reputation +for theology. The boatman who ferries visitors ashore, remarked to me +with pride that his favourite book was one entitled _The Great +Controversy between God and the Devil_, a book with which I was, and am +still, unacquainted. + +Dr. Johnson's remarks on Iona remain the most eloquent tribute to the +island. He never wrote anything finer. All the children in the Iona +school should be made to learn the piece by heart.[32] + +It is most gratifying to think that Christianity has been the great +purifying force in Europe. The introduction of Christianity into the +world must be reckoned as the most revolutionary event of history. +Nothing was ever more needed. To one who knows the morality of the most +brilliant society of the Greeks and Romans, there is no need to extol +the pure and lofty moral tone of Jesus of Nazareth. But those who have +not read the masterpieces of ancient art, with their mingled beauty and +foulness, may be assured that literature owes more to Christianity than +has ever yet been told. With Christianity a great healthy breeze swept +over the world. Men became ashamed of wallowing in the mire. An ideal +was raised up before them for their worship and imitation. The old Adam +and his deeds needed stern repression after the wild iniquities of the +effete society of imperial Rome. The spirit needed to curb the flesh, +literature needed to be cleansed. We, living to-day and nursed on the +accumulated tradition of so many anterior Christian centuries, are +sometimes disposed to minimise the debt we owe, in pure and simple +morality, to the teachings of the New Testament. I find it impossible to +imagine what the world would be without these teachings. They renewed +the world, they made it do penance for its sins, they made advance +practicable. An entirely retrograde movement is impossible when once man +is indoctrinated with a grand ideal. + + [32] Boswell's religious instincts come well out in his account + of the visit to Iona. Two of his descendants, Messrs. Albert and + James Boswell, devoted themselves entirely to religion, and were + well known in Ayrshire, thirty years ago, as zealous evangelists. + These two gentlemen went on a preaching campaign through the + northern islands, and did much highly appreciated philanthropic + and religious work there. They were members of the sect called + Plymouth Brethren. + + +APPIN. + +In this chapter (as, indeed, in all the others) I am rummaging among my +souvenirs for materials that are in some way noteworthy. It is utterly +impossible to exhaust the romance and glamour of the Highlands. Those +who go regularly North are certain to bring back, on each occasion, a +host of interesting memories. "Swift as a weaver's shuttle fly our +years": the chief difficulty is to jot down all that one sees and hears. + +On the occasion of my second visit to Appin, I stayed in the fine new +hotel built on the eminence called Druim-an-t-Sealbhain. The landlord is +a man of great wit and reading, and with him I had some enjoyable hours +of miscellaneous conversation. Mr. Macdonald (for that is his name) has +an excellent knowledge of the Celtic dialects, has translated into +Gaelic verse some of the best-known poems of Burns, Tannahill, and +Byron, and is extremely clever at retailing the legendary tales that +still go rumouring along the Strath of Appin. He has also a good +knowledge of English literature, and told me certain details regarding +Scott and Wordsworth which I was pleased to know. + +It seems that Sir Walter was at one time tutor in Appin House, and was +in the habit of visiting the cot of an old shepherd, a notorious +_seanachie_, full of romantic lore, for the purpose of hearing, and +writing down, the old man's tales. An oak tree is still pointed out, +under which, it is said, Scott composed part of _The Lord of the Isles_. +Appin is not very far from the castles of Dunollie and Dunstaffnage, +which Sir Walter wrought skilfully into the texture of his tales. + +The most interesting item mentioned by Mr. Macdonald had reference to +the visit of William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy, in the year +1803. Everyone who has read the life of the great poet of Nature knows +the charming description of the district contained in one of his +sister's letters. "We arrived," she says, "at Port-na-croish. It is a +small village--a few huts and an indifferent inn, by the side of the +loch; ordered a fowl for dinner, had a fire lighted, and went a few +steps from the door up the road, and turning aside into a field, stood +at the top of a low eminence, from which, looking down the loch to the +sea through a long vista of hills and mountains, _we beheld one of the +most delightful prospects that, even when we dream of fairer worlds than +this, it is possible to conceive in our hearts_." Here follows a +description so exquisite of the sea-scenery and the Morven Hills, that +it deserves to be classed with the finest examples of word-painting in +the English language. + +The new hotel at Appin is built on the low eminence referred to in the +above-cited letter. The name Druim-an-t-Sealbhain is giving way to the +complimentary title of "Dorothy Wordsworth's View." From the front +windows of the hotel, the same calm inland seas, grassy hills, Morven +mists, grim old forts, and intricate communion of land and water, can be +seen precisely as they were seen by the Wordsworths more than a century +ago. The Port-na-croish inn has become a village store: it is well +worthy of note, not merely for the reference in the letter, but for a +fine legend, which I shall now narrate. + + +MACDONALD'S GRATITUDE. + +The first tenant of the inn was a Macdonald of Glencoe, a man between +sixty and seventy at the time of the story, the year 1755 namely. He had +around him a family of stalwart sons, all imbued with intense hatred of +the clan Campbell. The peculiar and fiendish malignity of the terrible +massacre of Glencoe precluded all possibility of forgiveness on the part +of the clan. Highland hospitality has always been a lavish and +magnificent thing, and Colonel Campbell and his assassins had been +treated with exceptional kindness in Glencoe. The bloody outrage, in a +midnight of winter snows, was too terrible a meed of hospitality to be +readily forgotten or forgiven by the Macdonalds. This old innkeeper of +Port-na-croish, then, hated the Campbells with the unquenchable hate +that deep wrongs, done not alone to an individual but to a tribe, +engender in the Celtic soul. + +One day a white-bearded wayfarer begged food and shelter in the little +hostel, and in the course of conversation over the meal that was soon +spread on the board for his wants, he let slip an avowal that, in his +youth, as one of Campbell's men, he had taken part in the gruesome +massacre of the "valley of weeping." Without more ado, the landlord +slipped out and posted his sons at the door, with whispered orders to +them that the stranger should be dirked to death on crossing the +threshold of the inn. Returning indoors, old Macdonald, dissimulating +his fell intentions, proceeded to ply the visitor with question upon +question, so as to gain a detailed knowledge of all the incidents of the +weird carnage. Finally he said, "Tell me, Campbell, what part of that +devilish business made the strongest impression on your mind?" "I will +tell you," said the old soldier, "what to me was the outstanding +incident of that night. Towards the close of the massacre, a child's +voice was heard piercingly on the night air--a scream it was, and seemed +to come from no great distance. The captain sent me in the direction of +the sound, bidding me, if the child should be a male Macdonald, to kill +it forthwith; if a girl, to spare. I soon came up to the place whence +the sound proceeded, and saw through the whirling snow, under the +protection of a jutting cliff, a nurse with a boy of four years old, +both of them wailing and shivering with cold. The child was gnawing a +bone and, near by, a dog was crouching. Pity wrung my heart. I drove my +bayonet through the trembling cur, and, going back to the captain, +showed him the bloody steel as a proof that I had obeyed his commands." + +The innkeeper, who had been all ears, said: "You, then, were that +soldier?" "I was, indeed," replied the old wanderer. "_And I was that +child!_" said the landlord, "and _your_ life is saved. My sons stand at +the threshold of the inn, ready to fall upon you when you leave. I +countermand the order for your destruction. Here you shall stay, an +honoured guest, till the end of your days, as a recompense for saving my +life on that awful night." + +The story goes on to state that the foot-weary Campbell lived for some +years a pensioner in Port-na-croish inn, and was buried at the expense +of the grateful innkeeper. I do not know any story that comes nearer +perfection. + + +NOTES ON THE TROSSACHS. + +The Rev. Mr. Wilson, the cultured and genial minister of the Trossachs, +has recently published a most readable little book on the district he +knows so well. Perhaps no district indeed on the world's surface is so +well known (even to those who have never seen it), as the Trossachs. +Little did Sir Walter suspect, when he penned the stirring iambics of +_The Lady of the Lake_, that he was furnishing materials to the +pedagogue which would be parsed, analysed, and dissected by myriads of +pupils in all the schools of the British Empire. We shall all carry with +us to the grave the leading passages of that romantic lay: the +stag-hunt, the duel at Coilantogle Ford, the whistle that garrisoned the +glen, and the episode of the Fiery Cross. Such lines, we may say, have +gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. +Happening to pass Strathyre station in July, 1907, I was requested by a +bright-eyed little Japanese gentleman in the compartment to tell him +where we were. On being informed, he (after casting an eye of pity on +the deplorable stork that is supposed to decorate the drinking-fountain +of the station), began to declaim, in capital English, the passage that +begins-- + + "Benledi saw the Cross of Fire, + It glanced like lightning up Strathyre, + O'er dale and hill the summons flew, + Nor rest nor pause young Angus knew; + The tear that gathered in his eye + He left the mountain breeze to dry." + +Mr. Wilson's book to which I have alluded is a collection of the +impressions written down by eminent visitors to the locality, from +Dorothy Wordsworth to Queen Victoria. Carlyle, who was in Perthshire in +1818, wrote the following note, which, though short, is finely +characteristic of him: "The Trossachs I found really grand and +impressive, Loch Katrine exquisitely so, my first taste of the beautiful +in scenery. Not so, any of us, the dirty, smoky farm-hut at the +entrance, with no provision in it but bad oatcakes and unacceptable +whisky, or the Mrs. Stewart who somewhat royally presided over it, and +dispensed these dainties, expecting to be flattered like an +independency, as well as paid like an innkeeper." The foregoing note, by +itself, is good value for the cost of Mr. Wilson's book (two shillings, +namely), and raises regrets that the author of _Sartor_ did not travel +oftener through the Land of Cakes. (The only other place in the +Highlands where I have heard Carlyle spoken of, is Kyleakin in Skye, +where he was the guest of Lady Ashburton, and where (as the natives +say), the cocks and hens had to be removed out of ear-shot for his +convenience.) + +One of Mr. Wilson's stories (contributed by a lady) is apposite at the +present time, when so much is being heard of women's rights. Glengyle, a +district of the Trossachs, was once _entirely ruled_ by a number of +women, who constituted a sort of High Court with women as Judge and +Jury. "The most notorious case which they dealt with, and which probably +led to their downfall through drawing the ridicule of the country upon +them, was a case of horse-stealing. The accused man had been seen riding +furiously away on someone else's horse, and all evidence pointed to his +guilt. To the astonishment of the outsiders, the jury returned a verdict +of 'not guilty,' and the Judge on summing up declared the horse was the +culprit, as it had run away with the man. _She condemned the unfortunate +animal to be hanged, and hanged it was, while the man got off scot +free._" + + +LOCHFYNE-SIDE. + +None of the mainland counties of Scotland can boast of such wonderful +ramifications of sea and loch as the county of Argyll. The present +amiable and cultured head of the Clan Campbell declaimed, with great +applause, at a social gathering not long ago, a fine poem, in which the +beauties of his ancestral shire were floridly--but not +unjustly--elaborated. It would be difficult to over-praise the county of +Argyll, with its splendid sea-board, its rugged and impressive peaks, +and its unrivalled fiords and lakes. Thanks to its proximity to large +centres of population, few counties are so much visited. Its fame, in +our day, is likely to be more widespread than ever, owing to the +graceful and entertaining writings of Mr. Neil Munro, who probably +knows the details of its local history better than any man living, and +who possesses the inimitable art of interesting others in his +delineations of the past. I confess that I feel, personally, as much +interest in the Wars of Lorn as I do in the Siege of Sphacteria, and +that "Glee'd Argyll" seems fully as attractive as Cleon or Brasidas. + +Of course, long before Mr. Munro, Loch Fyne had a European reputation, +which it owed to its herring. The Popes of Rome used to eat these +herring in mediaeval times, and sent for them _via_ Amsterdam or Antwerp. +Orthodox Catholics have always had good judgment in the matter of fish, +and especially the French, who belong to a country which proudly boasts +of being _the eldest daughter of the Church_. For many a generation the +French came annually to Lochgilphead, and bartered their kegs of claret +for barrels of salt herring. The French Revolution, among its many other +effects, put a stop to this trade. War lasted for so many years between +Britain and France, that, at the end of it all, the continental sailors +had forgotten the way to Loch Fyne. + +Argyllshire is rich in legends, for many of which no date can be given +except the elastic one _long ago_ or _in byegone times_. Let me cite one +or two of these:-- + + +MACIVORS, MACVICARS, AND MACALLISTERS. + +On the road to Kilmartin is a place called the Robber's Den, the +locality of which may be firmly fixed in the tourist's memory by noting +that it is just behind a large distillery. Here, long ago, lived one +Macvicar, whose wife was a Macivor. These names are important, and so +also is that of the Macallisters of Tarbert, who one day stole cattle +belonging to the Macivors. Mrs. Macvicar noticed these Tarbert +scoundrels driving her father's cattle through the glen, and mentioned +the fact to her boy. Young Macvicar followed the robbers, and found them +in a forest feeding joyously on a slain bullock belonging to his +grandfather. As each Macallister finished picking a bone, he would throw +it violently against a big stone, remarking at the same time, with a +chuckle: "_If a Macivor were here, that's how I would treat him_." The +boy, from his hiding-place in the foliage, threw a stone and struck one +of the feasters. The injured man blamed one of his own clansmen, and, +after much recrimination, a free fight of Macallisters was the result. +During the melee, the boy slunk off and told his mother's family what +was happening. The Macivors, in a furious and determined band, soon fell +upon their disordered foes, and completely routed them and regained +their cattle, _minus_ the consumed bullock. The chief of the +Macallisters was slain by a woman, who took off her stocking, placed a +_large stone therein_, and heaved it at his head. That same night, Mrs. +Macallister, wife of the chieftain thus ignominiously laid low, gave +birth, perhaps prematurely, to a son, whom the care of a discriminate +midwife secreted from the vengeance of the Macivors, who were howling +all round the house. This child grew up to manhood with the picture of +the stone-laden stocking ever before his mind's eye. He prepared a most +effective retaliation: he sent to Ireland and got over a large band of +Antrim men, who were quite pleased to help him in his bloody projects. +The Macivors were completely overpowered, and even the Macvicars had a +taste of Irish steel. Macvicar, father of the boy who distinguished +himself in the wood, was attacked in his own house. He was an athlete of +great powers, and was _able to jump thirty feet either in a backward or +a forward direction_. The Irishmen set fire to his house, and +Macvicar--hoping, no doubt, to make a final leap for life--tried to +escape by the chimney. His foes struck him on the knee with a spear: he +fell into their hands, and was at once despatched. + + +RED HECTOR. + +We hear a good deal of the Irish in the traditions of Argyllshire. The +ruthless Colkitto, notorious for his own deeds and also for Milton's +mention of him, brought over a contingent of men from Ireland to help +Montrose in the Royalist wars. These auxiliaries swooped down on +Kintyre, murdered hundreds of Campbells, and devastated with fire and +sword the whole of Argyll's country. To this period belongs the story of +Red Hector and the Irish colossus, Phadrig Mor. + +Hector was a little, red-haired kern of the Campbell clan, who was +caught by Colkitto's men skulking in the wood, and dragged with pinioned +arms before the son of that bandit. Hector was about to be hanged +without more ado, but as preparations were being made he cried out: +"_Give me a sword and I'll fight any one of you. If I am beaten, kill me +then._" The Irishmen, to whom an "illigant foight" has always been +welcome, agreed to the proposal of Red Hector. They chose Phadrig Mor, a +fierce giant of a man, to fight with the little fellow. The latter, to +neutralise the advantages of Phadrig's stature, leapt nimbly on the sawn +stump of a tree, and, in an attitude of defence, awaited the oncoming of +his foe. The wee man parried most dexteriously every blow that Phadrig +wished to deal, and there was much mirth and excitement among the +spectators. At length, seeing a terrific blow coming his way, Hector +speedily leapt off the trunk of the tree, and the Irishman's sword came +fiercely down and was embedded in the timber. Now was Hector's chance: +he laid about the defenceless giant to such purpose that Phadrig was +soon a corpse. + + +MACPHAIL OF COLONSAY. + +Leyden, the polyglott poet, has written a poem on an Argyllshire +tradition attaching to the whirlpool of Corryvreckan. Near that dreaded +tumult of waters, Macphail, a Colonsay man, was pulled out of his boat +by a mermaid, and taken down to her shell-strewn chamber at the bottom +of the sea. They stayed for years together, and five little, unbaptized +Macphails claimed him at length as their sire. By and by he grew tired +of the eternal swirling of the currents, the saltwater garden growths, +and the irritating deflection of the sunlight. His mind continued to +revert to Colonsay and the girl he had left behind him there. One day he +got the mermaid to take him near the strand of his native island, +whereupon he suddenly leapt ashore and escaped. In future years he +avoided the sea as much as possible, preferring to devote his time and +talents to cultivating the soil of Colonsay. + + +TALES FROM SPEYSIDE. + +Part of my purpose in this chapter is to show to any of my readers who +may have poetical talents, that abundance of material for verse, and +that of the most pathetic, thrilling, and gruesome kind, is still to be +found in the North country. No one since Scott has thought fit to draw +much on traditions of the Highlands: and though Scott poetised a great +many of these, plenty of them still remain unsung. Many fine tales are +associated with the delightful district of Speyside. + + +TOM EUNAN! + +Near the little village of Kincraig is a queer old church built on a +hill called Tom Eunan, just beside the Spey. This church is declared to +be the only one in Scotland in which services have been continuously +held since the seventh century. The outside is antique in the extreme; +inside, there have been renovations: there is a deal of varnished +wainscoating that would have scared the Culdees, and instead of the +uneven cobble stones of old, there is a modern floor of wood. On one of +the windows of the church, there is a fine old bronze bell that exists +as a relic of Culdee times. Some profane person once laid hands on this +bell and carried it off to Perth; but it _would not_ ring away from +Speyside. To speak figuratively, the bell was broken-hearted: from its +metallic tongue, night and day, came the mournful wail, "Tom Eunan, Tom +Eunan." I am happy to say that it was brought back to its beloved +hillock. + +Rural churches with earthen floors were not uncommon in Scotland even in +the nineteenth century: in such there would be no great trouble in +interring the dead. Two Speyside stories, dealing with kirks and +kirkyards, are told of the Grants of Rothiemurchus. + + +SHAWS AND GRANTS. + +For several generations the possession of Rothiemurchus was a constant +subject of dispute between the Shaws and the Grants. The Shaws were the +original owners, but having waxed fat and kicked against the Government +on more than one occasion, word was sent from Edinburgh to one of the +Grants, who was Laird of Muckerach, that he should dispossess the Shaws +of the lands of Rothiemurchus, _gin he could_. Grant was by no means +"blate" in availing himself of the hint, but the Shaws were tough +fighters. In a final and decisive contest between the two clans, the +Grants were victorious and the chief of the Shaws slain. The victorious +Muckerach, now unequivocal Laird of Rothiemurchus, caused his dead rival +to be buried deep down within the kirk beneath his own seat. Every +Sunday _when he went to pray_ he stamped his feet triumphantly upon the +place under which lay the corpse of his enemy. + +Patrick Grant, surnamed Macalpine, cuts a rather picturesque figure in +clan history. With a body of gaily-dressed retainers he paraded round +the countryside, dispensing justice and letting the minimum of time +elapse between the sentence and the execution. He was twice married, +and his second wife survived him. That forlorn lady had much to endure +from the first family, and notably from the wife of Macalpine's eldest +son and heir. The widow took a very dramatic way of publicly showing her +grievances. Once after the service in the kirk was over, she stepped up, +with her fan in her hand, to the corner of the kirkyard, and, taking off +her high-heeled slipper, she tapped with it on the stone laid over her +husband's grave, crying out through her tears, "_Macalpine! Macalpine! +rise up for ae half-hour and see me richted!_" + +A diverting legend explains the _low-lying situation of Ballindalloch +Castle_, a beautiful specimen of baronial architecture, standing near +the junction of the Spey and the Avon. In planning the place, somewhere +about 1545, the laird fully intended to secure a wide prospect, and to +that end, chose a commanding site. But his views did not commend +themselves to the Powers of the Air, and the masons could make no +progress. Every night, when the workers had retired from building the +walls, a prodigious gale came roaring from the summit of Ben Rinnes and +swept stones and mortar into the bed of the Avon. The laird, sorely +puzzled at this strange phenomenon, lay in watch one night, with the +result that he was blown off his feet, and landed right up among the +branches of a holly-tree. Having taken the conceit out of the laird in +this abrupt way, the Mysterious Power, chuckling in fiendish fashion, +called out "_Build on the cow-haugh_." Frightened out of his wits, the +laird was only too glad to comply. + + +THE WISHING WELL. + +Round the old Castle of Rothes clings a legend of a more pathetic kind. +"Fierce wars and faithful loves shall moralise my song," says Spenser, +and it is with these well-worn but ever-fresh subjects that the story +deals. The heiress of one of the old lairds of Rothes, being allowed to +roam at will with her foster-mother, cast an eye of love on the son of +the laird of Arndilly. As in ballad lore, the love seems to have been +immediate, reciprocal, and unquenchable. The girl's father, hearing of +the attachment, summarily forbade it, and commanded his daughter to turn +her back on young Arndilly, and take a different road in future. But as +journeys end in lovers meeting, the two young people, by whatever way +they set out, invariably met at the _Wishing Well_. A sad severance +came, however, for young Arndilly, like so many mediaeval knights of song +who had faithful mistresses, must needs go crusading to the Holy Land. +During his absence, the lady hied daily to the Wishing Well, and many a +tear she let fall therein as she thought of the lad that was so far +away. But after many a month, back from Palestine came young Arndilly, +and went, of course, straight to the old trysting-place, where he found +his lady-love praying for his safe return. The meeting was rapturous but +tragically short. A dark shape glided upon the scene, and drove a fatal +dirk in the young soldier's back. The lady shrieked aloud and swooned +away. For the rest of her life she was an imbecile: she never left the +castle, and spent her time crooning a plaintive song and rocking a +cradle. Her ghost still haunts the place, and those who have ears to +hear can, at nightfall, make out, above the sough of the wind, the +mournful notes of a weird lullaby, and mysterious cradle-rockings within +the ruined walls. Close by the Well, at the spot of the murder, a bush +sprang up, whereof the leaves resembled crosses; in autumn they turned +to a bright scarlet colour, as if typical of the blood that had flowed +there from its victim's wounds. Others will have it that the lady's +ghost may be seen flitting about, distractedly, in the woods, on a +particular night of the year--the anniversary, it is supposed, of +Arndilly's murder. + + +OSSIAN AND MACPHERSON. + +The beautiful little town of Kingussie is famous for its association +with "Ossian" Macpherson, who was born near by. No man, born on Scottish +earth, except perhaps, Sir Walter Scott, had ever such an influence on +European literature as this Highland dominie. "His Ossian," as Professor +Macmillan Brown says, "was translated into almost every European +language; and its influence is apparent in Goethe's Werther, in +Schiller's Robbers, and in all the Storm-and-Stress literature of +Germany, in the productions and speeches of the French Revolutionists, +in the romantic literary movement that preceded and followed the +Revolution, and in much of the Italian, Spanish, and Danish poetry of +the time. It generally affected the prose style of eighteenth century +romance, and was a direct antidote to Johnsonianism in the imaginative +literature. In our own century it bent the genius of Scott to the +Highlands, and moulded the dramas of Byron, and the often vague imagery +of Shelley; it appears in the style of Kingsley's Hereward, and directly +or indirectly it is responsible for the pioneering efforts of Walt +Whitman in prose poetry and for the rapid growth of poetic prose through +De Quincey, Bulwer Lytton, and Ruskin. During last century it stirred +Blake to misty prophecies, led writers of romance back into the less +known periods of the past, and gave the new audience a delight in +mysterious and almost formless legend and tale and idea." + +The extraordinary vogue of Macpherson's Ossianic poems was due to +literary merit of a high order, and also to the parched and dry state +into which the poetry of Europe had sunk in the middle of the eighteenth +century. Boileau and his rules had crushed all sap and life out of +European verse, and the poet had become either a teacher of rimed ethics +or a framer of dexterous satire. How refreshing Ossian must have been to +the men of such a time: + + "The hills were round them, and the breeze + Went o'er the sun-lit fields again; + Their foreheads felt the wind and rain." + +Let the modern reader go through the _Rape of the Lock_, and then take +up the song of the hunter Shilric from Macpherson's "Carric-thura." + +Shilric, not knowing that his love Vinvela is dead, thus communes with +himself: + + "I sit by the mossy mountain; on the top of the hill of winds. + One tree is rustling above me. Dark waves roll over the heath. + The lake is troubled below. The deer descend from the hill. No + hunter at a distance is seen. It is mid-day; but all is silent. + Sad are my thoughts alone. Didst thou but appear, O my love! a + wanderer on the heath! thy hair floating on the wind behind + thee; thy bosom heaving on the sight; thine eyes full of tears + for thy friends, whom the mist of the hill had concealed! Thee I + would comfort, my love, and bring thee to thy father's house!" + +To him mourning thus, the spirit of his dead love appears: + + "But is it she that there appears, like a beam of light on the + heath? bright as the moon in autumn, as the sun in a + summer-storm, comest thou, O maid, over rocks, over mountains to + me? She speaks: but how weak her voice! like the breeze in the + reeds of the lake. + + "'Alone I am, O Shilric! alone in the winter-house. With grief + for thee I fell. Shilric, I am pale in the tomb.' + + "She fleets, she sails away; as mist before the wind! and wilt + thou not stay, Vinvela? Stay and behold my tears! fair thou + appearest, Vinvela! fair thou wast, when alive! + + "By the mossy mountain I will sit; on the top of the hill of + winds. When mid-day is silent around, O talk with me, Vinvela! + come on the light-winged gale! on the breeze of the desert, + come! Let me hear thy voice, as thou passest, when mid-day is + silent around.'" + +The readers of the eighteenth century did not stay to consider whether +the foregoing was, or was not, a genuine antique: it suited their taste +admirably. Rousseau had brought sentimentalism into favour; the "return +to nature" was a kind of creed with the French philosophers: these +facts aided greatly in causing the epidemic of Ossianism that overran +Europe. + +I should not like to be condemned to read nothing but Ossian for a year. +The short staccato sentences, the difficulty of getting hold of anything +definite amid so many moonbeams, gliding ghosts, whistling reeds, and +feasts of shells, has a very debilitating effect on the mind. There is +too much weeping: one is constantly saying with Tennyson, "Tears, idle +tears, I know not what they mean." Yet, no one can dip into Macpherson +without being rewarded by some phrase of an impressive or refreshing +kind, _e.g._:-- + + "Thou art with the years that are gone; thou fadest on my soul." + + "Why dost thou build the hall, son of the winged days?" + + "Her steps were like the music of songs; she saw the youth and + loved him. He was the stolen sigh of her soul." + + "Why does Ossian sing? Soon shall he lie in the narrow house, + and no bard shall raise his fame." + + "When shall it be morn in the grave to bid the slumberer wake?" + + "Mixed with the murmur of waters rose the voice of aged men, who + called the forms of night to aid them in the war." + + "Autumn is dark on the mountains; grey mist rests on the hills." + + +AT THE FOOT O' BENNACHIE. + +I have on several occasions, during the last year or two, visited that +part of Aberdeenshire which is immediately under the glorious ridge of +Bennachie. Like all lovers of ballad lore, I know by heart the poem of +the little wee man who had such prowess, and who invited the poet to go +with him to his green bower. After seeing magnificent examples of +dancing, the poet found himself lying in the mist at the foot of +Bennachie:-- + + "Out went the lichts, on cam' the mist, + Leddies nor mannie mair could I see; + I turned aboot, and gave a look, + I was just at the foot o' Bennachie." + +The exquisite little ballad from which I quote is calculated to raise +expectations of beauty which the picturesque surroundings of Bennachie +are well able to satisfy. Great tracts of Aberdeenshire are flat, +treeless, and painful in their monotony; in winter, great gusts sweep +the cold plains, and make driving or walking a trying ordeal; the +country is thinly peopled, and the impression of the visitor is that, in +some districts, railway stations are more numerous than villages. Round +Bennachie, however, the scenery is most pleasant and picturesque. The +villages of Oyne and Insch, in which hospitality to strangers is a +religion, are beautifully placed and well-foliaged all around. The +region is, indeed, one of romance, and the little brook of Gadie ripples +on in the radiance and glamour of pathetic song. + + +HARLAW. + +Those who consider, like Ruskin, that the stories of the past add no +inconsiderable item to the beauty of a landscape, as it appears to the +eye and intelligence of modern observers, will not fail to remember the +momentous issues decided at no great distance from the foot of +Bennachie, in 1411. Teutonic and Celtic Scotland came to grips at +Harlaw, near by:-- + + "The Hielandmen, wi' their lang swords, + They laid on us fu' sair; + And they drave back our merry men + Three acres' breadth and mair. + + . . . . . . . . . . + + Gin anybody speer at ye + For them we took awa', + Ye may tell them plain and very plain, + They're sleeping at Harlaw." + +Burton, in his _History of Scotland_, declares that the check given to +Donald of the Isles at Harlaw, was a greater relief to Scotland than +even Bannockburn was. If the Stuart kings, hard pressed as they were by +England on the south, had been threatened by a formidable Celtic +sovereignty on the north, Holyrood might have been in ruins a good many +centuries earlier. I am not going to shock my Highland friends by saying +it was a good thing for the country that Donald, with the remnant of his +plaids and claymores, had to retreat to the misty straths and islands of +the west. The coalition of Celt and Teuton has taken place in an +unostentatious way, to the advantage of both races: Macfadyen does not +now, as in the days of Dunbar, bide "_far norrart in a neuk_;" he has +come to the Lowlands long ago, and rarely goes North, except on holiday. +And the language, which to the finical ears of James Fourth's +poet-laureate, seemed too terrible even for the devil to tolerate, has +come south, too, and has a chair all to itself in the University of +Edinburgh. _Time_, says Sophocles, _is a god who performs difficult +things with ease_. + +Mention of Harlaw suggests a comic tale told to the credit of the +Provost of Inverness. That gentleman, on being threatened with a +predatory visit from Donald in 1400, took the remarkable plan of sending +an ample supply of Inverness whisky into the Celtic camp. The men of +Lewis and Skye tackled the liquid bounty with great glee, and soon were +in a state of maudlin intoxication. The wily Provost meanwhile collected +a force and attacked Donald's men, who (as they magnified the attacking +host to _double its real numbers_) were easily scared and routed. At +Harlaw, eleven years later, the Provost of Aberdeen, evidently a man who +lacked the resource of the chief magistrate of Inverness, was killed, +and 500 men with him. + + +LOCHABER REIVERS. + +The predatory habits of the Highlanders gave great trouble to the +Aberdeenshire farmers _for fully three hundred years after Harlaw_. In +1689 a dozen wild Lochaber men came right down into the heart of +Aberdeenshire and lifted six score of black cattle. The fate of the +marauders is thus described by the author of _Johnny Gibb_:-- + +"They were pursued by a body of nearly 50 horsemen, well mounted and +armed, and each carrying bags of meal and other provisions, both for +their own support, and to offer in ransom for the cattle, if peaceful +negotiations could be carried through. On through the hills, over +marshes, rocks, and heather, the spirited horsemen followed, under +their leader; and guided by a herd-boy whom they encountered, they +traced the robbers by Loch Ericht side into the heart of their own +country. At nightfall, they came upon them at Dalunchart, encamped and +busily engaged roasting a portion of the flesh of one of the cattle they +had stolen. They offered, after some parley, to give each of the +freebooters a bag of meal and a pair of shoes in ransom for the cattle. +The Highlanders treated such an offer for cattle driven so far and with +so much trouble with contempt; the herd was gathered in, and the fight +began in deep earnest, the result being that the Lochaber men were all +shot down, killed or wounded, except three, who escaped unhurt to tell +the tale; and the cattle were, of course, recovered." + + +REAY AND TWICKENHAM. + +Perhaps the least attractive of the Scotch counties, in respect of +scenery, is Caithness. The North-going train enters it a little after +Helmsdale, and from thence to Thurso the journey is of a most dreary and +depressing character. He who wishes to see the romantic part of the +county should quit the train at Helmsdale, and go right to John o' +Groats by the shore road: thereafter he should proceed along the line of +the Pentland Firth to the dainty town of Thurso and to the village of +Reay, the citadel of the Mackays. The district round Reay is a +delightful one, and has great historical interest. + +Some good examples of the power assumed of old by the country ministers +are furnished by a perusal of the life of an eighteenth century +minister, the Rev. Alexander Pope, who was stationed for many years in +Reay. He was a huge giant of a man, and invariably carried about with +him a nail-studded cudgel that was a terror to sinners. A lout of a +fellow in his parish refused to come to church and get rebuked for an +infringement of the usual commandment. Mr. Pope sent three elders with +ropes to pinion the adulterer, hale him to church, and fasten him to a +conspicuous pew right under the pulpit. The minister cannonaded the +culprit to his heart's content, beginning thus: "_Shame, shame, son of a +beggar, where art thou now?_" + +Another parishioner who neglected family worship on the ground that he +could not make up a prayer, was severely taken to task by Mr. Pope, who +gave the man a year within which to manufacture one. At the end of the +twelvemonth, Mr. Pope called and requested to hear the prayer. The man +glibly rattled off a long succession of phrases that did not please the +minister at all. "That won't do," he said, "you must prepare over +again." "And is all my long labour to go for nothing," said the man, +"all my year's toil? No, no: rather than lose my labour, I'll _break the +prayer up and make two graces of it_." For the rest of his life, as the +story runs, he did actually employ the two parts of his mutilated prayer +as Grace before and Grace after meat respectively. Could there be a +finer example of natural thrift in the spiritual world? + +An Inverness journalist, Mr. Carruthers, wrote a life of the great poet, +Alexander Pope, in which occurs the following curious note respecting +the minister of Reay, just mentioned: "The northern Alexander Pope +entertained a profound admiration for his illustrious namesake of +England; and it is a curious and well-ascertained fact that the simple +enthusiastic clergyman, in the summer of 1732, rode on his pony all the +way from Caithness to Twickenham, in order to pay the poet a visit. The +latter felt his dignity a little touched by the want of the necessary +pomp and circumstance with which the minister presumed to approach his +domicile; but after the ice of ceremony had in some degree been broken, +and their intellects had come in contact, the poet became interested, +and a friendly feeling was established between them. Several interviews +took place, and the poet presented his good friend and namesake, the +minister of Reay, with a copy of the subscription edition of the +'Odyssey' in five volumes quarto." + +A grandson of the Reay minister, a Mr. James Campbell of Edinburgh, gave +a description to Mr. Carruthers of a snuff-box which the poet had +presented to the Rev. Mr. Pope. A series of letters to the _Northern +Ensign_, in April, 1883, brought out the information that a Wick +gentleman, Mr. Duncan, had in his possession two volumes of de Vertot's +_History of the Roman Republic_, bearing an inscription to the effect +that they had been presented by the poet of Twickenham to his northern +namesake. + +It has been suggested that the poet and the minister were distant +blood-relations. Mr. Campbell, alluded to above, said that "the two +Popes claimed kin." In any case, the friendship of the two men, one +living on the shores of the wild Pentland Firth, in sight of the +Orkneys, and the other not far "from streaming London's central roar," +is pleasant to think of. In 1737, Pope wrote the lines-- + + "Loud as the wolves on Orca's stormy steep + Howl to the roarings of the northern deep," + +adding, in a note, that he refers to "the farthest northern promontory +of Scotland, opposite to the Orcades." Perhaps his mind reverted to the +burly incumbent of Reay as he penned the note. + + +ROB DONN. + +The little township of Reay is less famous for the Rev. Mr. Pope's +incumbency than for the fact of Rob Donn, the satirical Gaelic bard, +being a native of the district. The author of the _Dunciad_ is the +greatest satirist in British Literature; Rob Donn is supreme among +Gaelic bards for the sharpness of his tongue and his clever way of +showing up his contemporaries to ridicule. He was in the habit of giving +praise to people in order to make his satire more biting. Praise on his +tongue was compared to oil on the edge of a razor: the cut was all the +deeper. Rob, although a master of language, was unable to read or write, +so that though he "lisped in numbers"--he began to compose at the age of +three--he could not say, like Pope: + + "Why did I _write_? What sin to me unknown + _Dipt me in ink_, my parents' or my own?" + +Blackie speaks thus of him: "Rob Donn, according to all accounts, though +outwardly of such fair respectability that he attained an honour, +unknown to Robert Burns, of acting as an elder of the kirk, was not +always so chaste in his words as he might seem to be in his deeds; he +took his plash as a poet, and not always in the clearest waters; +besides, he had a terrible lash at his command, which he could wield +with an effect at times that paid little respect to the bounds set in +such matters by Christian charity, or even by social politeness. The +consequence has been that much of the wit and humour of his pieces, +however telling for its immediate purpose, has lost half of its interest +by the disappearance of the persons to whom it referred. These personal +allusions also import an additional difficulty into the language which +he uses, and cause his productions, however belauded, to be less known +amongst Highlanders generally than those of Duncan Ban and Dugald +Buchanan. Severe moralists also very properly object to the undue +license and occasional coarseness of his verses."[33] + + [33] Rob was at one time in the army, for every Mackay has the + fighting instinct in him. (Reay is one of the few townships in + the North that possess a drill-hall and a military instructor. It + is impossible adequately to describe the consternation in the + Mackay country at the time of our South African reverses. + Everyone was in a fury and it was felt there was urgent need for + the Mackays to straighten out matters at the seat of war. It was + at this time that the drill-hall was built in Reay. Many of the + young men went to the front as volunteers, and if the war had + lasted much longer, there would have been few Mackays left in + Sutherlandshire.) + + +REV. MR. MILL OF DUNROSSNESS. + +Before concluding the present chapter, I should like to refer briefly to +a valuable and amusing book (brought under my notice in Shetland) that +furnishes details of the life of Mr. Mill, minister of Dunrossness from +1742 till 1805. Mr. Mill's special talent was his unrivalled power of +exorcism: he was a strenuous foe to the devil in every shape and form, +and his life was one long battle with the Prince of Darkness. The latter +was constantly bringing into play all manner of gins, traps, and wiles +to confound the uncompromising clergyman; but, on a calm review of the +evidence, one cannot but admit that the devil was far inferior in +intelligence to his opponent. + +On one occasion, Satan had the effrontery to come into Dunrossness +Church and take his seat at the Communion Table. Mr. Mill at once +recognised his life-long adversary, and began to speak in all the deep +languages, and, last of all, in Gaelic, and that beat him altogether. +Satan went off like a flock of "doos" over the heads of the people, many +of whom swooned. "As a permanent reminder of the hostility cherished +against him by the Arch-Enemy, it was said that Mr. Mill always had the +wind in his face. One day he came up to officiate at Sandwick, in the +teeth, as usual, of a pretty stiff breeze. An ordinary person would +naturally have expected the wind to be on his back on the return +journey. But during the service the wind veered round. Mr. Mill's only +comment, as he started for home, was, 'It's all he can do.' In one +respect, Mr. Mill benefited by the penalty of always having the wind in +his face, for on his very numerous sea-journeys he could always secure +a favourable breeze _by sitting with his back to the head of the boat_." + +The following additional tale from Mr. Mill's biography only brings into +more striking relief the resource of the minister in all emergencies. +"One day a very respectable gentleman entered the house of a tailor in +Channerwick, and ordered a suit of clothes to be made out of cloth which +he brought with him. The tailor's delight at having such a fine +gentleman for a customer was, however, turned into perplexity and fear +as he opened up the cloth and found that the colour kept constantly +changing. He at once sent for the minister and laid the matter before +him. He was advised to spread a sheet on the floor and cut the cloth +upon it, so that none of the clippings should be scattered about the +room, and the minister said that he would be present to meet the +stranger when the latter called to get the clothes. The day came, and +when the stranger entered the house, Mr. Mill stepped forward to meet +him. A terrible controversy ensued, and the respectable-looking +gentleman was swept out of the house in a cloud of blue, sulphurous +flame. It is not recorded if he took the new suit with him. A clue to +his identification was furnished by his accidentally striking his foot +against the door-step as he departed. The result of the collision was +that a mark as of a cloven hoof was imprinted on the stone." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +METRICAL AND SUPPLEMENTARY. + + I. Arrival of the Mail-train at a Highland Station. + II. Defoe, the Father of Journalism. + III. A Village Toper. + IV. A Reverend Hellenist. + V. Antigone. + VI. Shadows of the Manse. + VII. "My Heart's in the Highlands." + VIII. Saddell, Kintyre. + IX. Springtime in Perthshire. + X. Dr. George Macdonald's Creed. + XI. Abbotsford. + XII. Carlyle. + XIII. Shelley. + XIV. Picture in an Inn. + XV. Rain-storm at Loch Awe. + XVI. Kinlochewe. + XVII. General Wade. + XVIII. Sound of Raasay in December. + XIX. Les Neiges d' Antan. + XX. The Islands of the Ness. + XXI. American Tourist Loquitur. + XXII. The Miners. + XXIII. In a Country Graveyard. + XXIV. No Place like Home. + + +I. + +ARRIVAL OF THE MAIL-TRAIN AT A HIGHLAND STATION. + + "_Hark! 'tis the twanging horn._" So Cowper sang + Of the slow post-boy by the flooded Ouse; + In different fashion now the great world's news + Goes to each nook of Britain. The harangue + Of politician; great events that hang + In Fortune's hand, with magic speed diffuse + From London's centre to the furthest Lews, + Their tingling rumour and resounding clang. + Daily along yon track of curving steels + Comes to this Highland clachan, Watt's machine, + Rolling in triumph on its iron wheels, + And bringing letter, journal, magazine, + To kilted Celts with collies at their heels + And frivolous tourists from the putting-green. + + +II. + +DEFOE[34] + +(FATHER OF JOURNALISM). + + Father of journalists! illustrious liar! + Untiring wielder of the nimblest quill + That ever shed the stanchless inky rill + Upon the virgin whiteness of the quire. + What full and varied stores of gold and mire, + Magnificence and squalor, good and ill, + Prayers, curses, loyalty and treason fill + Thy books! But that which children most admire + Of all thy hundred volumes, is the one + Fated for ever more to charm mankind + From the far Orient to the Setting Sun. + Prompt-witted Daniel! thou has left behind + Upon the Sands of Time, distinctly traced, + One footmark that can never be effaced. + + [34] Let me here pay a tribute to the marked excellence and + literary skill of the newspapers of provincial Scotland. These + are very numerous--even Ailsa Craig has a sheet of its own, _The + Ailsa Craig Banner_. + + +III. + +A VILLAGE TOPER. + + John loved strong waters and ne'er stirred his feet + Abroad in leafy spring or summer's heat, + Autumnal breeze or winter's rimy chill, + Unsolaced by the nectar of the still. + Spirits came always kindly to his lips, + And time he measured not by hours but "nips." + Teetotalers to him were curse and gall, + Grim Banquos at the world's wide festival, + Men, whom a weird and fate-ordained bale, + Had smitten with the hate of cakes and ale, + A soda-water, syphon-squirting crew, + Guilty of treason to the revenue: + Their lurid language and their unctuous warnings, + Their moral-pointings and their tale-adornings, + And, worst of all, their shameful _waste of ink_ + In signing pledges to abstain from drink, + Proved them a witless and a churlish band, + Unfit to dwell in any Christian land. + + +IV. + +A REVEREND HELLENIST. + + In that old ivied manse exists + A scholar, wrinkled, bent, and gray, + His student lamp gleams through the mists + And twinkles on till break of day. + + This sage is wedded to his books, + And Sultan-like his harem's full, + He dotes upon them in their nooks + With love and joy that never cool. + + No wonder that his back is bent, + Or that his eye has mystic glows, + He pores on pages redolent + Of love and love's undying rose. + + No earthly maiden, fresh and sweet, + Could please his fancy half so well + As a Greek nymph with twinkling feet + Skipping in some Arcadian dell. + + +V. + +ANTIGONE + +(READ IN A HIGHLAND MANSE). + + A form of beauty blent with hardihood, + Majestic as Olympus wreathed in snows, + What modern pages of romance disclose + A radiant maiden of such dauntless mood! + Yet, when the tyrant strives with outrage rude + The unyielding maid in darkness to enclose, + Then, only then, her burning heart outflows + In anguished cries of love, but unsubdued + By baser throbbings. Ah! that nuptial hymn + Unsung! that bond in death! All men agree + To crown thee in that chamber dark and dim + With love's immortal wreath, Antigone. + Since love and duty in thy death combine, + An immortality of praise is thine. + + +VI. + +SHADOWS OF THE MANSE. + +I. + + Lo! we have him of shaven face + And curls of long and lustrous hair, + Who breathes an atmosphere of grace + And has a wondrous gift in prayer. + You'd ne'er suspect to see him there, + Shaking his head in solemn guise, + _The college life of deil-may-care + Diversion that behind him lies_. + + +II. + + And then the little starveling pope + Who strives to make his sermons new + By stringing florid scraps of hope + And faith and love to dazzle you: + From Stopford Brooke a phrase or two, + A gleaming line from Arnold's page, + Whole screeds of Browning and a few + Stolen thunders from the Chelsea sage. + + +III. + + Perhaps the most diverting wight + Is he who sees in Holy Writ + Old Jewish fables gross and trite + To semblance of a system knit-- + Fables for modern taste unfit, + Until _he_ cleans the dross away + And shows the tiny little bit + Of gold that gleams amid the clay. + + +IV. + + But worst of all is he who jests, + Or tries to jest, in pulpit gown, + Lord, save us from such holy pests + Who so unseemly act the clown + And pull the tabernacle down + To something worse than pantomime: + On all such zanies let us frown + And scourge them both in prose and rhyme. + + +VII. + +"MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS." + + Puzzling over musty tomes, + What a life to lead, + While each gay companion roams + Where his fancies lead! + + One beside a shady pool + Sweeps the wave for hours, + Comes home with his basket full, + When the evening lowers. + + Some more energetic wights + Leave the level land, + Mountaineer on dizzy heights, + Alpenstock in hand. + + Others boat in sunny bays + Where bright sands are seen + Glimmering amid a maze + Of tangled flowers marine. + + Luck to all is what I wish + With a meed of fun, + I'll row, mountaineer, and fish, + When _your_ sports are done. + + +VIII. + +SADDELL + +(KINTYRE). + + Fresh gusts of wind ripple the ocean's face, + And the green slopes, after the night's soft rain, + Glitter beneath the blue. + + Most glorious are the sea-descending glens, + Vivid with countless ferns, and with the blaze + Of sun-enamoured broom. + + The dark, tip-tilted rocks of cruel mood, + Show a stern beauty through the creamy foam + That flecks their rugged flanks. + + See, from this hill-top, how the blazing Sound + Is marked by moving shadows of the clouds + That skim aloft in air. + + Through the clear radiance of the freshened morn, + The eye can see the far farm-windows gleam + Up on the Arran hills. + + +IX. + +SPRINGTIME IN PERTHSHIRE. + + Returning Springtime fills the woods with song-- + The ring-dove, sick for love, is cooing sweet; + The lark, scorning the daisies, soars to greet + The sun, while the brown swarms of bees among + The flowery meadows skim in haste along. + Once more the young year glories in the feat + Of driving winter off with vernal heat + And tepid sap luxuriantly strong. + Winter has drawn aloof his snowy powers + To the high peaks that domineer the plain, + And, like a vanquished leader, grimly lowers, + From a safe distance, on the victor's reign. + E'er many months have passed, his arrowy showers + And gusty cohorts will descend again. + + +X. + +DR. GEORGE MACDONALD'S CREED[35] + +(WRITTEN AT CULLEN). + + God will not suffer that a single one + Of His own creatures, in His image made, + Should die, and in irrevocable shade + Lie evermore--neglected and undone. + It is not thus a father treats his son, + And those whose folly credits it, degrade + God's love and fatherhood, that never fade, + By lies as base as devils ever spun. + Man's love is but a pale reflex of God's, + And God _is_ love, and never will condemn + Beyond remission--though He school with rods-- + His children, but will one day comfort them. + Dives will have his drink at last, and stand + Among the faithful ones at God's right hand. + + [35] Reprinted (by kind permission) from the _Scotsman_. + + +XI. + +ABBOTSFORD. + + "Dryden and Scott, men of a giant seed!" + So said I to myself, gazing upon + The pictured countenance of Glorious John, + In Abbotsford, hard by the storied Tweed. + These twain were brothers, kin in mind and deed: + Old England never had a brawnier son + Than Dryden; and in fervid Scotland none + Better than Scott exemplified the breed. + After five centuries of blood and hate, + Britain is one leal land from north to south, + From gusty Thurso to St. Michael's Mount, + I therefore, Scot and Briton, am elate + To think that from Sir Walter's golden mouth + Dryden's career received the fit account. + + +XII. + +CARLYLE + +(AT ECCLEFECHAN). + + The ploughman in the loamy furrow sings, + The sailor whistles as he reefs the sail, + Blithe is the smith as the blows fall like hail + From his huge hammer, and the stithy rings. + Work is the sole and sovereign balm that brings + Peace to the torpid soul when doubts assail, + And sickening pleasures are of no avail + To lull the torture of affliction's stings. + Give me the work I love, the work I feel + God in His Heaven has willed that I should do, + And you may offer the whole commonweal, + Lands, mansions, jewels, gold, and temples too, + Vainly to me. By strenuous work alone + Man mounts on Jacob's ladder to God's throne. + + +XIII. + +SHELLEY.[36] + + 'Twas but a passing visit that he paid + To the gross air of earth, this mystic seer, + The tyrannies of sense were too severe + For one of clay more fine than Adam's made. + The inhumanity of man, the trade + Of coining gold from the serf's groan and tear, + The galling fetters of religious fear, + And vain ecclesiastic masquerade + Tortured his gentle soul, and made his life + One bitter struggle with the powers that be: + Yet not in vain he lived; his manful strife + With all the deadening despotisms we see + Will ring along the centuries, until + Good has her final triumph over ill. + + [36] Suggested by a copy of his poems in a West Highland + bookcase. + + +XIV. + +PICTURE IN AN INN. + + A wood of pines through which the setting sun + Pours from the western sky a parting flame, + Beside the shore, a church called by the name + Of some old saint whose pious race was run + Long ere schismatic Luther had begun + To work the Pope and his disciples shame. + In earnest-seeming talk, a knight and dame + Sit in a painted galley, rowed by one + Whose back is to the setting orb of day. + The soldier and his mate, their faces lit + With all love's animation and the ray + Of the down-lapsing globe of crimson, sit + Together in the gilded vessel's prow, + And there will sit for evermore, as now. + + +XV. + +RAIN-STORM AT LOCH AWE. + + The topmost mountain-snows are melting fast, + See, how the swollen waters hurry down + In perpendicular runnels from the crown + Of every wreathed hill. The train has past + Beside a dark stream into which are cast + A hundred huddling rills whose foam is brown + With pilfered soil. No dweller in a town + Ever beheld such manifold and vast + Torrents of roaring water. Each small isle + Spaced on the loch, glooms through the hanging haze + Like a dream-picture, and for many a mile + Beneath those clouds that lean upon the braes + Encompassing Loch Awe, the watery plain + Is pricked with million lances of the rain. + + +XVI. + +KINLOCHEWE. + + The mist, retreating, gems the leaves with dew, + Soft blows the breeze along the fragrant meads, + A little brawling burn runs through the reeds + And ripples away under the cloudless blue. + I never saw the world so fair to view, + For Spring has riven old Winter's funeral weeds + And given new sap and vigour to the seeds + That lay inanimate the cold months through. + Old man! with jaded limbs and wrinkled brow, + That walkest feebly in this lenient sun + Like a day-dream, thy life is winter now. + But life and death in ceaseless cycles run, + And tireless Time and Heaven have in store + For thee a myriad resurrections more. + + +XVII. + +GENERAL WADE. + + Houses are fewer here than milestones are: + We stand a thousand feet aloft in air + Upon a bouldered hillside stern and bare, + Down which the roadway serpentines afar. + There are no clouds in the wide blue to mar + The passage of the sun's imperial glare + Over a dreary-stretching landscape, where + Rough winds hold riot all the calendar. + Who that has footed o'er these firm-knit paths + But lauds the men whose strenuous axe and spade + Drove roads through the wild glens and hilly straths + Under the generalship of tireless Wade! + On the safe tracks behind them, commerce came + The unruly spirit of the Celt to tame. + + +XVIII. + +THE SOUND OF RAASAY IN DECEMBER. + + A snowy gust is whirling down the strait, + Raasay is gleaming ghostly to the sight, + And, robed in lawn, from sea to topmost height + Skye and her lordly mountains stand in state. + Ever from heaven falls the silent weight + Of wavering flakes that dim the stars of night. + Our gallant little boat with all the might + Of the wild-hissing surges holds debate, + Plunging and struggling, till at last we see + A spacious haven, sudden and serene + And, high aloft, the twinkle of Portree. + At once the winds are hushed, the moon is seen + To free her face from cloudy drift, and fill + With silver light the clefts of Essie Hill. + + +XIX. + +LES NEIGES D'ANTAN. + +I. + + Where is Macfee, that valiant preacher, + Gifted with voice, so harsh and loud, + Aye, louder and harsher than any screecher + Of birds that sail on the black storm-cloud? + And his beadle John, with back so bowed, + Where is _he_ that had never a peer? + Is he too rolled in his mortal shroud? + But where are the snows of yester-year? + +II. + + Donald the Gay, that steered his steamer + Many a year through the Sound of Mull, + He that was never a Celtic dreamer, + But a captain of captains masterful: + O Death, thou madest the world more dull + When you nailed _him_ down in his narrow bier, + And sent his ghost into Charon's hull; + But where are the snows of yester-year? + +III. + + Duncan, the bard of rocky Staffin, + Away in the north of rainy Skye: + Has _he_ given over his rimes and daffin', + In the mould of the bleak kirkyard to lie? + His cot was built where the sea-gulls fly, + And his misty isle to his soul was dear; + Ere his song is finished, the bard must die; + But where are the snows of yester-year? + +IV. + + And Dougal, who carried King Edward's mails + Every day o'er the moor and heather, + Scorning the chill of the winter gales, + And the ten-mile walk in the sultry weather: + Has _he_ too come to the end of his tether + And gone to the ghosts with all his gear, + His whistle, his satchel and strap of leather? + But where are the snows of yester-year? + +V. + + Prince, they have gone from the regions that knew them, + Gone at the summons that none can resist, + Praise and every honour be to them, + They did their best and they will be missed. + We, too, shall soon be erased from the list + Of workers below in this mortal sphere, + And be no more to those that exist + Than the vanished snows of yester-year. + + +XX. + +THE ISLANDS OF THE NESS. + + A fairyland of trees and leafy bowers + Where one may sit and dream the hours away, + Or 'mid the devious walks and alleys stray, + While perfume rises from a world of flowers, + The girdling river, swollen with upland showers, + Sends rippling round to every creek and bay + The vagrant branches of his water-way; + Then gathering up his current's parted powers, + Swiftly-majestic in a broadening bed, + He glistens on by many a chiming spire, + And past the castle's pennoned turrets red, + Till he attain the goal of his desire, + And into the salt sea exulting throws + His subsidy of rains and melted snows. + + +XXI. + +AMERICAN TOURIST LOQUITUR + +(AT BERRIEDALE, CAITHNESS). + + If I had wealth like Vanderbilt + Or some such millionaire, + I'd live in Scotland, don a kilt, + And _pay to prove_ my forbears spilt + Their blood in forays there. + + I'd buy a picturesque estate + Beside the ocean's flow, + With knolls of heather at my gate, + And pine-clad hills to dominate, + The ferny dells below. + + I'd be a father to the folk + That laboured on the soil, + With old and young I'd crack my joke, + Drink with them in their thirst, and smoke + The pipe that lightens toil. + + For hens I'd have a special run, + For ducks a special pool, + My calves should frolic in the sun, + My sheep should be surpassed by none + Whose backs are clothed with wool. + + Although I'm not a Walton quite, + Betweenwhiles I should try + To lure the finny tribe to bite + (At the right time, in the right light,) + My simulated fly. + + When winter heaped his rattling hail + High on the window sill, + With pipe and wassail, rime and tale, + I'd never miss the nightingale + Or cuckoo on the hill. + + Nay, musing by the ingle-lowe + With summer in my brain, + I'd cloth with leaves the frozen bough + And all the ice-bound brooks endow + With tinkling life again.[37] + + [37] Berriedale, which moved the American to commemorative song, + is on the Caithness shore, and there the Duke of Portland has + one of his numerous residences. The Duke's seat is high up on + the hills and behind it is a mountain of grim aspect which + serves for a deer-forest. At Berriedale, the road traversed by + the coach is simply appalling: boards marked _Dangerous_ + forewarn all wheel-men that risks cannot be taken with impunity. + An honest descent can be easily coped with, but here the road to + the glen is not merely steep, it is as lacking in + straightforwardness as the links of Forth. Once down at the + level of the village, the breeze no longer blows fresh and + chilly, but subsides into a quiet air, grateful with the odour + of flowers. Passengers are requested to walk up the + corresponding hill to a level equal to the height of the road + before the interruption of the terrible Berriedale chasm. When + the ascent is reached, one has a view of unsurpassed splendour. + The wooded Wye, which Wordsworth sang so rapturously and which + he saw with his mind's eye in the dinsome town, has no landscape + to compare in grandeur and beauty with the country round + Berriedale, viewed from this eminence. Hills of richest green, + diversified with purple heather; a back-ground of wild bog and + mountain; blue sea; and great banks of cloud shepherded over the + heights by the mighty winds. + + +XXII. + +THE MINERS. + + The afternoon is cool and calm, + Near by flashes the mighty sea, + Inland rise green, dewy hills, + Crowned with eye-bewitching trees. + + Suddenly the eye is amazed and terrified, + A hideous procession sordid and grimy + Of men and boys, slaves of the coal-pit, + Is seen on the road, shaming the daylight. + + All the day long they work in the darkness, + Far from the songs of the birds and the sunshine, + Now they return to their sordid villages, + Ill-smelling rows of comfortless cottages. + + The rich and dainty ladies of fashion + Stand aloof from these swart coal-hewers, + Are ready to swoon as the air is poisoned + With odours of subterranean foulness. + + Coarse of look, and of speech far coarser! + Laughter loud with no merriment in it! + No more soul than the beasts that perish! + These are the men despised for their toiling. + + +XXIII. + +IN A COUNTRY GRAVEYARD.[38] + + Man dreads the tomb, but dreads oblivion more; + He fears, when death has loosed the load of years, + His name shall cease to sound in mortal ears, + And, in the dusty darkness, all be o'er. + Some o'er the scrolls of ample science pore, + Tome after tome the nimble authors write, + And gain a meed of glory: soon the night + Comes: the author with his laurel disappears, + The painting fades, the marble busts decay, + The kingly structures fall in ruin down, + Devouring Time consumes the artist's prize, + The centuries like lightning pass away, + Or hurrying billows: emperor and clown + Sink with the myriads in impartial clay. + + [38] Suggested by a French poem of Monsieur Desessarts, entitled + _Se Survivre_. + + +XXIV. + +NO PLACE LIKE HOME. + + Where'er these wandering footsteps lead me to, + Peak-dominated glen, hill where the sheep + Graze in the sun, mountains that ever keep + A solemn guard o'er lakes profound and blue, + Or undulating tracts of treeless view; + No matter if the rain and whirlwind sweep + The landscape, or the gladdening sunshine peep + Through muffled vapours that the winds undo; + Let it be night speckled with myriad fires, + Clear dawn, hot noon, or cool of dying day; + Be it in cities with their chiming spires, + Or country fields with fragrant ricks of hay; + Ever the voices of my hearth I hear, + And muse on those to me for ever dear. + + + + +INDEX + +(Chiefly of Proper Names). + + +Aberdeen, 217 + +Acharacle, 21, 66 + +Achnasheen, 11 + +Ainsworth, Mr., 69 + +Ajax, 89 + +Aliens, 53 + +Alness, 75 + +Altnacealgach, 38 + +Anacreon, 181 + +Anglers, 36 + +Anecdotes of Commercials, 255-277 + +Appin, 311 + +Ardeonaig, 78 + +Ardersier, 42 + +Argyll, Duke of, 25 + +Arnisdale, 190 + +Arnold, 130 + +Arpafeelie, 158 + +Asquith, Mr., 15 + +Auldearn, 75 + +Avebury, Lord, 198 + + +Bagpipes, 66 + +Bain, Professor, 55 + +Ballads, 99 + +Banff theorist, 107 + +Barrie, Mr., 66 + +Battle of Brunanburh, 131 + +Beauly, 75 + +Ben Eay, 22 + +Ben-na-Ceallich, 28 + +Bennachie, 329 + +Ben Screel, 191 + +Ben Slioch, 22 + +Beowulf, 131, 246 + +Beveridge, Dr., 301 + +Biggar, 98 + +Biblia abiblia, 109 + +Blackie, Professor, 19, 56 + +Books, second-hand, 112 + +Borders, 96, 99 + +Boswell, 306, 313 + +Brahan Seer, 291 + +Bressay, 221, 229, 230, 233 + +Broadford, 28, 55 + +Browning, 306 + +Buchanan, 61 + +Bullers of Buchan, 220 + +Burgess, Mr., 227 + +Burke, 68 + +Burns, 82, 144, 308 + +Burton, 209 + + +Caithness father, a, 254 + +Captains, 24 + +Catholics, 153-155 + +Chairmen, 85 + +Chartists, 54 + +Coll, 26, 69 + +Columbus, 88 + +Commercials (Chap. VI.), 255-277 + +Competing School-subjects, 215 + +Congested Districts Board, 34 + +Connaught, H.R.H. Duke of, 42 + +Connington, 119 + +Corelli, Miss Marie, 44 + +Cowper, 118 + +Craignish, 168-9 + +Crofters' cottages, 29-30 + +Cromarty, 12 + +Cullen, 47 + +Cunningsburgh, 239 + + +Dancing, 21 + +Dandie Dinmont, 99 + +Defoe, 112 + +Depopulation, 71, 189 + +Dingwall, 44 + +Dixon, Mr., 76, 278 + +Doctors, 35 + +Dodger, an artful, 173 + +Dominies, insular, 180-1 + +Dowden, Professor, 124 + +Drimnin, 167 + +Dryden, 118 + +Dunbar, 218 + +Dungeon lecture, a, 92 + +Dunvegan, 28, 61, 292 + +Durness, 11 + + +Educational (Chap. IV.), 180-216 + +Education Department, 16, 141, 185 + +Eigg, 26 + +Emigration, 73-4 + +Episcopalians, 156-8 + +Essayists, 106 + +Established Church, 145 + +Ethical teaching, 141-3 + + +Fairies, 248, 285 + +Fair Isle, 220, 250 + +Faith Mission, 25 + +Feeding the Hungry, 186, 194 + +_Fernaig MS._, 197 + +Fishing season, 253 + +Fishwives, 249 + +Fladibister, 239 + +Fort George, 42 + +Foulah, 250 + +French Literature, 126 + +Frere, Miss, 39, 40 + + +Gairloch, 278 + +Gaelic, 17, 86 + +Geologist, an ordained, 170 + +Germany, made in, 218 + +Gibbon, 300 + +Gigha, 175 + +Gipsies, 191 + +Glasgow Fair, 96 + +_Glasgow Herald_, quoted, 20, note + +Glenelg, 191 + +Golspie, 192 + +Grange, 299 + +Grantown, 13 + +Greatness, real, 81 + +Greek, 124 + + +Haaf-words, 246 + +Halsbury, Lord, 235 + +Harlaw, 330 + +Harris, 39 + +Hector, Red, 320 + +Hermits, 223 + +Hobbes, 106 + +Holyoake, Mr., 60 + +Homer, 62 + +Horace, 12, 115 + +Hotels, 36 + +Howlers, 209-214 + + +Inspectors, 252 + +Inveraray, 307 + +Inverness, 48, 58 + +Iona, 309 + +Islay, 79 + +Isle Ornsay, 191 + + +Jakobsen, Dr., 245 + +Jamieson, Dr., 103 + +Johnson, 29, 43, 294, 306 + +Josephus, 111 + +Jura, 195 + + +Killin, 78 + +Kilmartin, 76 + +Kiltarlity, 75 + +Kingussie, 326 + +Kinlochewe, 22 + + +Lanark, 97 + +Lang, Mr. Andrew, 17, 37 + +Latin, 204 + +Lerwick, 221-2 + +Letter-boats, 299 + +Lewis, 32, 33 + +Libraries in schools, 16 + +Liddesdale, 99 + +Literature, 83 + +Lochaber, 332 + +Lochaline, 168 + +Lochbuie, 304 + +Loch Broom, 286 + +Loch Eck, 79 + +Loch Fyne, 317 + +Loch Hourn, 190 + +Lochmaddy, 36, 40 + +Loch Maree, 283 + +Loch Ranza, 196 + +Loubet, M., 118 + + +Mallaig, 32 + +Mary, the maid of the inn, 258 + +Martin, Sir Theodore, 119 + +_Men of Skye_, 150 + +Military, 42 + +Mill, Rev. Mr., 338-9 + +Miller, an ordained, 172 + +Milton, 154 + +Miners, 49, 51, 52 + +Mod, the, 18 + +Model minister, a, 170 + +Moderates, the, 144-5 + +Moon, the, 77 + +M.P.'s, 69 + +Moray Firth, 46 + +Morar, 154 + +Morley, Lord, 118 + +Muck, 267 + +Munro, Dr. Neil, 44, 318 + +Murray, Sir James, 103 + +Music, 65-67, 141 + +Macallisters, etc., 318 + +Macbain, Dr., 58 + +M'Cheyne, 90 + +Macdonald, Dr. George, 48 + +Macdonald's gratitude, 313 + +Macdonald, Rev. Mr., 146 + +M'Gregors, the, 91 + +Macivors, 318 + +Mackays, the, 337 + +Macleod, 61 + + +Nicholson, Sheriff, 185 + +_Night Thoughts_, 64 + +Norse blood, 183, 225 + +"North, Christopher," 107, 167 + + +Olaf and his bride, 279 + +Old Parochials, 200 + +Ossian, 326-339 + +Ovid, 300 + + +Paisley, 89 + +Parish Councils, 187 + +Paul, St., 132 + +Peat-reek, 29 + +Peden, the prophet, 292 + +Peterhead, 220 + +Phillimore, Professor, 206, note + +Pigmentation, 133 + +Plymouth Brethren, 162-5 + +Poetry (Chap. VIII.), 340-367 + +Policemen, 23 + +Poolewe, 67, 76 + +Pope, 115, 119, 123, 127-9 + +Pope, Rev. Alexander, 334-6 + +Portknockie, 47 + +Portree, 27, 76 + +Portsoy, 46, 47 + +Postmen, 28 + +Prince Charlie, 44 + + +Quarff, 234 + + +Raasay, 26 + +Ramsay, Sir William, 207 + +_Rasmie's Buedie_, 227 + +Rats, 37 + +Reay, 333-6 + +"Red-riding Hood," 142 + +Religious books, 18 + +Rob Don, 337 + +Robertson, Mr. J. M., 41 + +"Rob Roy," 183 + +Romance and Augustanism, 127 + +Rosebery, Lord, 297 + +Rosehearty, 49 + +Rothes, 325 + +Royal Engineers, 69 + +Ruskin, 177 + +Russian merchant, a, 254 + + +Sabbath, the, 148 + +Saddell, 92 + +St. Kilda, 297 + +Salen, 90 + +Sandwick, 246 + +Saxon and Celt, 41, 131 + +Scalloway, 62 + +School Boards, 184 + +Science and Literature, 198 + +Scotch Dialect, 103 + +Scott, 84, 107, 183, 199, 312, 315 + +Sea-sickness, 31 + +Sermons in metre, 159-161 + +Session Records, 44 + +Shakespeare's Sonnets, 119 + +Shaws and Grants, 323 + +Shetlands (Chap. V.), 217-254 + +Sidlaws, 193 + +Skye, 28, 61 + +Sound of Sleat, 26 + +Spencer, 229 + +Spenser, 128 + +Staffin, 66 + +Stewart, Dugald, 208 + +Stornoway, 32-4 + +Strachur, 79 + +Suetonius, 113 + +Surprises, 195 + +Sutherland, Duchess of, 33 + + +Taisch, 290 + +Tarbolton, 102 + +Tannahill, 54, 90 + +Tea-drinking, 39 + +Tee-names, 47 + +Teeth, 40 + +Tennyson, 130 + +Tiree, 301 + +"Tom Eunan," 322 + +Trossachs, 315 + +Truants, 196 + + +Ullapool, 290 + + +Village halls, 75 + +Virgil, 24, 219 + + +Ward, Mrs. H., 182 + +War Office, 45 + +Wason, Mr. C., 250 + +Watson, Mr. William, 118, 218 + +Weaving, 53 + +Weir, Mr. Galloway, 15, 70 + +Whalsay, 193 + +Whiting Bay, 197 + +Wordsworth, 21, 128, 309 + + +Xenophon, 122 + + + * * * * * + + + Publisher & Bookseller + by + Special Appointment + To Her late Majesty + Queen Victoria. + + +A LIST OF BOOKS +PUBLISHED BY +ALEX. GARDNER, PAISLEY. + + _Aitken._--Love in Its Tenderness. By J. R. Aitken. 3s. 6d. + + _Anderson._--Morison-Grant.--Life, Letters, and Last Poems of + Lewis Morison-Grant. By Jessie Annie Anderson. 4s. 6d. + + _Anderson._--Verses at Random. By Thistle Anderson (Mrs. Herbert + Fisher). 2s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Dives' Wife, and other Fragments. By Thistle Anderson (Mrs. + Herbert Fisher). 2s. 6d. nett. + + _Anton._--The Flywheel: and What Keeps Us Steady. By Rev. Peter + Anton. 3s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Staying Power: Reconsiderations and Recreations. By Rev. + Peter Anton. 3s. 6d. nett. + + _A. O. M._--Two Brothers. By A. O. M. 2s. 6d. + + _Auld._--Lyrics of Labour and other Poems. By Thomas C. Auld. + + _Ayles._--Gillicolane. By Grueber Ayles. 4s. 6d. + + _Aytoun._--The Braes o' Balquhidder. By Douglas Aytoun. 6s. + + Ballads of the Scottish Border. With Introduction and Notes. 1s. + nett. + + _Ballingal._--A. Prince of Edom. By J. Ballingal, B.D. 2s. 6d. + + _Beatty._--The Secretar. By W. Beatty. 6s. + + ---- The Shadow of the Purple. By W. Beatty. 2s. 6d. + + "_Belinda's Husband._"--Plain Papers on Subjects Light and + Grave. By "Belinda's Husband." 2s. 6d. nett. + + _Beveridge._--Sma' Folk and Bairn Days. Translated from the + Norse by the Rev. John Beveridge, M.A., B.D. Second Edition. 3s. + 6d. + + _Blair._--The Paisley Thread Industry and the Men who Created + and Developed It. By Matthew Blair. 6s. nett. + + ---- The Paisley Shawl and the Men who Produced It. By Matthew + Blair. 7s. 6d. nett. + + _Brownlie._--Hymns of the Holy Eastern Church. Translated by + Rev. John Brownlie. 3s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Hymns from the Greek Office Books: Together with Centos and + Suggestions. Translated by Rev. John Brownlie. 3s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Hymns from the East. Translated by Rev. John Brownlie. 3s. + 6d. nett. + + _Buchan._--The Ballad Minstrelsy of Scotland. By Patrick Buchan. + 5s. + + The Songs of Scotland. Chronologically Arranged. 5s. Uniform + with above. + + _Burns._--The Selected Works of Robert Burns. Edited by Rhona + Sutherland. Crown 4to. 430 pp. With Illustrations. Price 5s. + nett. Or in various Bindings--Prices on application. + + _Bute._--Coronations--Chiefly Scottish. By the Marquess of Bute, + K.T. 7s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Essays on Foreign Subjects. By the Marquess of Bute, K.T. + 10s. 6d. + + ---- Seven Essays on Christian Greece. Translated by the + Marquess of Bute, K.T. 7s. 6d. + + _Caird._--Sermons. By the late Rev. J. Renny Caird, M.A. With + Memoir, by Rev. Robert Munro, B.D. 3s. 6d. nett. + + _Calder._--Poems of Life and Work. By Robert H. Calder. 2s. 6d. + nett. + + _Campbell._--Notes on the Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Eastwood + Parish. By the late Rev. George Campbell. 12s. 6d. and 25s. + nett. + + _Campbell._--Popular Tales of the West Highlands. By the late J. + F. Campbell, Islay. Four vols. 7s. 6d. each. + + _Campbell._--The Elder's Prayer-Book. By Rev. Wm. Campbell, B.D. + 1s. + + _Carslaw._--Heroes of the Scottish Covenant. By Rev. W. H. + Carslaw, D.D. + + Vol. I.--James Guthrie, of Fenwick. + II.--Donald Cargill, of the Barony, Glasgow. + III.--James Renwick, the last of the Martyrs. + + 1s. 6d. nett each. The three vols. in one, 3s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Six Martyrs of the First and Second Reformations. By Rev. + W. H. Carslaw, D.D. 2s. nett. + + ---- Exiles of the Covenant. By Rev. W. H. Carslaw, D.D. 2s. + nett. + + _Chalmers._--Chalmers' Caledonia. 25s. and 40s. per vol. Vol. + VIII.--the Index--sold separately, 15s. and 25s. nett. + + _Cheviot._--Proverbs, Proverbial Expressions, and Popular Rhymes + of Scotland. By Andrew Cheviot. 6s. nett. + + _"Claverhouse."_--Gretna Green and Its Traditions. By + "Claverhouse." 1s. nett. + + _Craigie._--Scandinavian Folk Lore. By W. A. Craigie, M.A., + F.S.A. 7s. 6d. + + _Drummond._--Life of Robert Nicoll. By the late P. R. Drummond, + Perth. 5s. + + _Edgar._--Old Church Life in Scotland. By Andrew Edgar, D.D. 7s. + 6d. + + ---- The Bibles of England. By Andrew Edgar, D.D. 7s. 6d. + + _Eyre-Todd._--The Glasgow Poets. Edited by George Eyre-Todd. 7s. + 6d. nett. + + _Fergusson._--Alexander Hume. By R. Menzies Fergusson, M.A. 5s. + nett. + + ---- A Student of Nature. By R. Menzies Fergusson, M.A. 4s. + nett. + + ---- A Village Poet. By R. Menzies Fergusson, M.A. 3s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Rambles in the Far North. By R. Menzies Fergusson, M.A. 3s. + and 2s. + + ---- Logie: A Parish History. By R. Menzies Fergusson, M.A. 2 + vols. 15s. nett. each vol. + + ---- The Viking's Bride, and other Poems. By R. Menzies + Fergusson, M.A. 3s. + + _Ferguson._--The King's Friend. By Dugald Ferguson. 3s. 6d. + + _Fergusson._--The Poems of Robert Fergusson. Edited by Robt. + Ford. 5s. nett. + + _Fife._--And I Knew It Not. By David Fife. 3s. 6d. nett. + + _Findlay._--Medici Carmina. By William Findlay, M.D. 3s. 6d. + nett. + + ---- Ayrshire Idylls of Other Days. By "George Umber." 5s. + + ---- In My City Garden. By "George Umber." 6s. + + ---- Robert Burns and the Medical Profession. By William + Findlay, M.D. ("George Umber.") 6s. nett. + + _Fittis._--Curious Episodes in Scottish History. By R. Scott + Fittis. 6s. + + ---- Heroines of Scotland. By R. Scott Fittis. 6s. + + ---- Romantic Narratives from Scottish History and Tradition. By + R. Scott Fittis. 6s. + + _Fleming._--Ancient Castles and Mansions of Stirling Nobility. + By J. S. Fleming, F.S.A. 21s. nett. + + _Ford._--American Humourists. Selected and edited by Robert + Ford. 3s. 6d. + + ---- Auld Scots Ballants. 6s. + + ---- Ballads of Bairnhood. Selected and edited by Robert Ford. + 5s. + + ---- Ballads of Babyland. Selected and edited by Robert Ford. + 5s. + + ---- Children's Rhymes, Games, Songs, and Stories. By R. Ford. + 3s. 6d. nett. + + ----Ford's Own Humorous Scotch Stories. 1st and 2nd Series, 1s. + each nett. Both Series in 1 vol., 2s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Poems and Songs of Alexander Rodger. Edited by Robert Ford. + 3s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Tayside Songs and other Verses. By Robert Ford. 3s. 6d. + nett. + + ---- The Harp of Perthshire. Edited by Robert Ford. 15s. and 7s. + 6d. + + ---- Thistledown. By Robert Ford. 3s. 6d. and 1s. nett. + + ---- Vagabond Songs and Ballads of Scotland. Edited by R. Ford. + 5s. nett. + + ---- Miller's "Willie Winkie," and other Songs and Poems. Edited + by Robert Ford. 3s. 6d. nett. + + ---- The Heroines of Burns. By Robert Ford. 3s. 6d. nett. + + ---- Popular American Readings. Popular English Readings. + Popular Irish Readings. Popular Scotch Readings. Edited by + Robert Ford. 1s. each. Also in one vol., 4s. + + _Forsyth._--Elocution: Simple Rules and Exercises for Correct + and Expressive Reading and Reciting. By John Forsyth. 1s. 6d. + nett. Gardner's Verse for Schools. Parts I. and II. 6d. nett + each part. + + _Grosart._--The Verse and Miscellaneous Prose of Alexander + Wilson, the Ornithologist of America. Edited by Rev. A. B. + Grosart, LL.D. 12s. 6d. + + _Hogg._--A Tour in the Highlands in 1803. By James Hogg. 2s. 6d. + + _Holmes._--The Teaching of Modern Languages in Schools and + Colleges. By D. T. Holmes, B.A. 2s. nett. + + ---- Literary Touring in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. By + D. T. Holmes, B.A. 4s. 6d. nett. + + _Johnson._--A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland in + 1773. By Samuel Johnson, LL.D. New Edition. 2s. 6d. nett. + + _Kennedy._--David Kennedy, the Scottish Singer: Reminiscences of + his Life and Work. By Marjory Kennedy. And Singing Round the + World: a Narrative of his Colonial Tours. By David Kennedy, Jun. + 7s. 6d. + + _Kennedy._--Reminiscences of Walt Whitman. By William Sloane + Kennedy, Camden, N.J. 6s. + + _Ker._--Mother Lodge, Kilwinning, "The Ancient Lodge of + Scotland." By Rev. W. Lee Ker, Kilwinning. 4s. 6d. + + _Kilgour._--Twenty Years on Ben Nevis. By Wm. T. Kilgour. 2/6 & + 1/6 nett. + + ---- Lochaber in War and Peace. Illustrated. By Wm. T. Kilgour. + 7s. 6d. nett. + + _King._--Shipwreck Wood: A Story of "Some that lift and some + that lean." By Carrol King. 2s. + + _Mackean._--The King's Quhair. Done into English by Wm. Mackean. + 3s. 6d. + + _M'Gown._--Ten Bunyan Talks. By G. W. T. M'Gown. 2s. nett. + + ---- A Primer of Burns. By G. W. T. M'Gown. 1s. nett. + + _MacKenzie._--History of the Outer Hebrides. By William C. + MacKenzie. 12s. 6d. nett. Large Paper, 21s. + + _MacKenzie._--The Lady of Hirta. By Wm. C. MacKenzie, F.S.A. + Scot. 6s. + + ---- A Short History of the Scottish Highlands and Isles. By Wm. + C. MacKenzie. New Edition. 5s. nett. + + _Menzies._--Provincial Sketches and other Verses. By G. K. + Menzies. 2s. 6d. nett. + + _Menzies._--Illustrated Guide to the Vale of Yarrow. By James M. + Menzies. 1s. 6d. nett. + + _Metcalfe._--SS. Ninian and Machor--the Legends of, in the + Scottish Dialect of the Fourteenth Century. By W. M. Metcalfe, + D.D. 10s. 6d. nett. On Whatman Paper, 15s. nett. + + ---- A History of the Shire of Renfrew from the Earliest Times + down to the Close of the Nineteenth Century. By W. M. Metcalfe. + D.D., F.S.A. 25s. nett. On Whatman Paper, 40s. + + ---- History of Paisley. By W. M. Metcalfe, D.D. Illustrated. + + ---- Charters and Documents relating to the Burgh of Paisley. By + W. M. Metcalfe, D.D. 21s. nett. + + ---- Ancient Lives of the Scottish Saints. Translated by W. M. + Metcalfe, D.D. 15s. On Whatman Paper, 25s. + + ---- Pinkerton's Lives of the Scottish Saints. Revised and + enlarged by W. M. Metcalfe, D.D. 2 vols. 15s. per vol. + + ---- The Natural Truth of Christianity. Edited by W. M. + Metcalfe, D.D. 5s. + + ---- The Reasonableness of Christianity. By W. M. Metcalfe, D.D. + 5s. + + _Metcalfe._--The Great Palace of Constantinople. Translated from + the Greek of Dr. A. G. Paspates, by William Metcalfe, B.D. 10s. + 6d. + + _Miller._--Selections from the Works of Hugh Miller. Edited by + W. M. Mackenzie, M.A., F.S.A. (Scot.). 3s. 6d. + + _Mitchell._--A Popular History of the Highlands and Gaelic + Scotland. By Dugald Mitchell, M.D., J.P. 12s. 6d. nett. + + _Mitchell._--Jephtha: a Drama. Translated by A. G. Mitchell. 3s. + 6d. nett. + + ---- John the Baptist: a Drama. Translated by A. G. Mitchell. + 3s. 6d. nett. + + _Robertson._--Practical First Aid. By Wm. Robertson, M.D., + D.P.H. 1s. 6d. nett. + + ---- The Stone of Dunalter. By Wm. Robertson, M.D., D.P.H. 3s. + 6d. + + Scotland Eighty Years Ago. Thirty-two Fine Copperplate Etchings + of the Chief Towns and their Surroundings. L5 5s. to subscribers + only. + + _Smith._--The New Testament in Braid Scots. Rendered by Rev. Wm. + Wye Smith. New Edition. 6s. nett. + + _Symington._--Hints to Our Boys. By A. J. Symington. 1s. 6d. + + _Tannahill._--Poems and Songs of Robert Tannahill. Edited by the + late David Semple, F.S.A. New Edition. 3s. 6d. nett. + + _Taylor._--The Autobiography of Peter Taylor. 3s. 6d. + + _Taylor._--Twelve Favourite Hymns: their Messages and their + Writers. By Rev. Wm. Taylor, M.A. 2s. nett. + + _Wright._--Laird Nicoll's Kitchen, and other Sketches of + Scottish Life and Manners. By Joseph Wright. 2s. 6d. nett. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Literary Tours in The Highlands and +Islands of Scotland, by Daniel Turner Holmes + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY TOURS *** + +***** This file should be named 29178.txt or 29178.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/1/7/29178/ + +Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/29178.zip b/29178.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4f5fa5f --- /dev/null +++ b/29178.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..24586dc --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #29178 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29178) |
