Part 4
Not another trout, however, can be tempted to bite in that eddy; the fish are too well fed by the spate, or too timid. “There will be more to catch,” says Jeanie, “higher up the becks.” She is right. Perhaps the trout in these narrow streamlets are less sophisticated than their kind lower down, for in rivulets so narrow as almost to be hidden by the bent-grass there seem plenty of fish eager to take the bait. These are darker in colour than the trout in the river, taking their shade from the peat, and though small, of course, averaging about a quarter of a pound in weight, are plump, and make merry enough rivalry in the whipping of them out.
But the mists droop lower overhead, and a small smirring rain has been falling for some time; so, as Jeanie, at least, has a fair basketful, it will be best to put up the lines, discuss a sandwich under the shelter of the birches close by, and hold a council of war.
Desolate and silent are these grey hillsides. Hardly a sheep is to be seen; the far-off cry of the curlew is the only sound heard; and as the white mists come down and shroud the mountains, there is an eerie, solemn feeling, as at the near presence of the Infinite. Something, however, must be done. The rain is every moment coming down more heavily, and the small leaves of the birches afford but scant protection. Off, then; home as fast as possible! The mountain maid knows a shorter way over the hill; and lightly and swiftly she leads the Indian file along the narrow sheep-path. On the moor, amid the grey mist and rain, appear the stone walls of a lonely sheepfold; and just below, in the channel of the beck, lies the deep pool, swirling now with peaty water and foam, where every year they wash the flocks.
The shepherd’s wife appears at her door. Her goodman is home. A great peat fire is glowing on the warm hearth, and she is “masking the tea.” “Ye’ll find a basin of soft water in the little bedroom there, and ye’ll change ye’re coats and socks, and get them dried,” says the kindly woman.
This is real hospitality. The rough coats and thick dry socks bespeak warm-hearted thoughtfulness; and a wash in clean water after the discomforts of fishing is no mean luxury. The small, low-raftered bedroom, with quaintly-papered walls, and little window looking out upon the moors, is comfortably furnished; and the stone-floored kitchen, clean and bright and warm, with geraniums flowering in the window, has as pleasant a fireside seat as could be desired. Why should ambition seek more than this, and why are so many hopeless hearts cooped up in the squalid city?
Here comes Jeanie down from the “loft,” looking fresher and prettier than ever in her dry wincey dress, with a little bit of blue ribbon at the throat. The tea is ready; her mother has fried some of the trout, and the snowy table is loaded with thick white scones, thin oatmeal cakes, home-made bramble jelly, and the freshest butter. Kings may be blest; but what hungry man needs more than this? The shepherd, too, is well-read, for does not Steele and Addison’s “Spectator” stand there on the shelf, along with Sir Walter Scott, Robert Burns, and the Bible? With fare like this for body and mind, man may indeed become “the noblest work of God.”
But an hour has passed, too quickly; the rain has cleared at last, and away to the south and west the clouds are lifting in the sunset. Yonder, under the clear green sky, glistens the treacherous silver of the Solway, and as far again beyond it in the evening light rises the dark side of Skiddaw, in Cumberland. The gravel at the door lies glistening after the shower, the yellow marigolds in the little plot are bright and opening, and the moorland air is perfumed with mint and bog-myrtle. A hearty handshake, then, from the shepherd, a warm pressing to return soon from his goodwife, a pleasant smile from Jeanie, and the road must be taken down hill with a swinging step.
IN KILT AND PLAID.
All dust has been swept from the causeways by the clear wind from the firth, as if in preparation for this great gala-day of the North. Unusual stir and movement fill the streets of the quiet Highland town, and the bright sunshine glitters everywhere on jewelled dirk and brooch and skeandhu. The clean pavements are ringing far and near with the quick, light step of the Highlander, and, from the number of tartans to be seen, it might almost be thought that the Fiery Cross was abroad, as in days of old, for the gathering of the clans.
Sad enough are the memories here of the last war summons of the chiefs. High-hearted, indeed, was the town on the morning when the clans marched forth under “Bonnie Prince Charlie” to do battle for the Stuart cause. But before an April day had passed, the gates received again, flying from fatal Culloden, the remnants of the broken chivalry of the North, and the streets themselves shook under the thunder of the Lowland guns.
The wounds of the past, however, are healed, the feuds are forgotten, and the clouds of that bygone sorrow have been blown away by the winds of time. A lighter occasion now has brought gaiety to the town, and the heroes of the hour go decked with no ominous white cockade. Already in the distance the wild playing of the pipes can be heard, and at the sound the kilted clansmen hurry faster along the streets; for the business of the day is on the greensward, and the hill folk, gentle and simple, are gathering from far and near to witness the Highland games.
A fair and appropriate scene is the tourney-ground, with the mountains looking down upon it, purple and silent--the Olympus of the North. The eager crowd gathers thick already, like bees, round the barricade. Little knots of friends there, from glens among the hills, discuss the chances of their village hero. Many a swarthy mountaineer is to be seen, of pure Celtic blood, clear eyed and clean limbed, from far-off mountain clachan. Gamekeepers and ghillies there are, without number, in gala-day garb. And the townspeople themselves appear in crowds. On every side is to be heard the emotional Gaelic of the hills, beside the sweet English speech for which the town is famous, and only sometimes one catches the broader accent of a Lowland tongue.
The lists have just been cleared, and the “chieftain” of the day has gathered his henchmen around him. The games are about to begin.
Yonder go the pipers, half a dozen of them, their ribbons and tartans streaming on the wind. Featly they step together to the quick tune of the shrill mountain march they are playing. Deftly they turn in a body at the boundary, and brightly the cairngorms of their broad silver shoulder-brooches flash all at once in the sun. No wonder it is that the Highlander has the tread of a prince, accustomed as he is to the spring of the heather beneath his feet, and to music like that in the air. The Highland garb, too, can hardly fail to be picturesque when it is worn by stalwart fellows like these.
The programme of the games is very full, and several competitions are therefore carried on at the same time. Here a dozen fleet youths speed past on the half-mile racecourse. Some lithe ghillies yonder are doing hop, step, and leap to an astonishing distance. And, farther off, five brawny fellows are preparing to “put” the heavy ball. Out of the tent close by come some sinewy men, well stripped for the encounter, to try a bout of wrestling. A pair at a time, they wind their strong arms about each other, and each strains and heaves to give his rival a fall. One man scowls, and another smiles as he picks himself up after his overthrow--the sympathy of the crowd goes largely by these signs. Most, however, display the greatest good-humour, and every one must obey the ruling of the umpire. Gradually the two stoutest and heaviest men overcome the rest; and at last, the only champions remaining, they stand up to engage each other. The grey-headed man has some joke to make as he hitches up his belt before closing, and the bystanders laugh heartily at his pleasantry; but his opponent evidently looks upon the contest too seriously for that. Hither and thither they stagger in “the grips,” the back of each as rigid as a plank at an angle of forty-five degrees. More than once they loosen hold for a breath, and again grasp each other, till at last, by dint of sheer strength, the grey-headed wrestler draws the younger man to himself, and, with a sudden toss, throws him clear upon the ground.
The slim youths at the pole-vaulting look like white swallows as they swing high into the air on their long staves to clear the bar; and a roar of applause from the far end of the lists, where the dogged “tug of war” has been going on, tells that one of the teams of heavy fellows straining at the rope has been hauled over the brink into the dividing ditch. The brawny giants who were throwing the axle a little while ago are just now breathing themselves, and will be tossing the mighty caber by and by. And ever and anon throughout the day there float upon the breeze the wild strains of the competing pipers--pibrochs and strathspeys and “hurricanes of Highland reels.”
Meanwhile the grand pavilion has filled. Lord and lady, earl and marquis and duke are there. And beside these are others, heads of families, who count their chieftainship, it may be, through ten centuries, and who are to be called neither esquire nor lord, but just ---- of that Ilk. Chiefs by right of blood, they need no other title than their name.
The presence of so much that is noble and illustrious lends a feudal interest to the games, and imports to the rivalry something of that desire to appear well in the eyes of the chief which was once so powerful an influence in the Highlands. The young ghillie here, who has out-stripped all but one competitor at throwing the hammer, feels the stimulus of this. He knows not only that his sweetheart’s eyes are bent eagerly upon him from the barrier at hand, but that he has a chance of distinguishing himself before his master and “her ladyship,” who are watching from under the awning yonder. So he breathes on his hands, takes a firm grasp of the long ash handle, and, vigorously whirling the heavy iron ball round his head, sends it with all his strength across the lists. How far has it gone? They chalk the distance up on a board--95½ feet. There is a clapping of hands from the crowd, and a waving of white kerchiefs from the pavilion. He is sure of winning now, and the shy, pretty face at the barrier flushes with innocent pride. Is he not _her_ hero?
There, on the low platform before the judges, go the dancers, two after two. They are trimly dressed for the performance, and wear the thin, low-heeled Highland shoes, while the breasts of some of them are fairly panoplied in gold and silver medals won at former contests. Mostly young lads, it is wonderful how neatly they perform every step, turning featly with now one arm in the air and now the other. Cleverly they go through the famous sword dance over crossed claymores, and in the wild whirl of the Reel o’ Tulloch seem to reach the acme of the art.
But in the friendly rivalry of skill and strength the day wears on. The races in sacks and over obstacles, as well as the somewhat rough “bumping in the ring,” have all been decided; the “best dressed Highlander” has received his meed of applause; and the sun at last dips down behind the hills. Presently, as the mountain-sides beyond the river are growing grey, and their shadows gather upon the lists, the spectators melt by degrees from the barricades, and in a slow stream move back into the town. By and by the Assembly Rooms will be lit up, and carriages will begin to arrive with fair freights for the great Caledonian Ball. But, long before that, the upland roads will be covered with pedestrians and small mountain conveyances with family parties--simple folk, all pleased heartily with their long day’s enjoyment, and wending their way to far-off homes among the glens, where they will talk for another twelvemonth of the great feats done at the gathering here by Duncan or Fergus or Hamish.
AT THE FOOT OF BEN LEDI.
Sit here in the stern of the boat, and let her drift out on the glassy waters of the loch. After the long sultry heat of the day it is refreshing to let one’s fingers trail in these cool waters, and to watch the reflection of the hills above darkening in the crystal depths below. Happy just now must be the speckled trout that dwell in the loch’s clear depths; and when the fiery-flowering sun rolls ablaze in the zenith there are few mortals who will not envy the cool green domain of the salmon king. But now that the sunset has died away upon the hills, like “the watch-fires of departing angels,” a breath of air begins mysteriously to stir along the shore, and from the undergrowth about the streamlet that runs close by into the loch, blackbird and water-ousel send forth more liquid pipings. The cuckoos, that all day long have been calling to each other across loch and strath, now with a more restful “chuck! chu-chu, chu, chuck!” are flitting, grey flakes, from coppice to coppice, preparatory to settling for the night The grouse-cocks’ challenge, “kibeck, kibeck, kibeck!” can still be heard from their tourney-ground on the moraine at the moor’s edge; and from the heath above still comes the silvery “whorl-whorl-whorl” of the whaup. These sounds can be heard far off in the stillness of the dusk.
But listen to this mighty beating of the waters, and look yonder! From the shadow of the hazels on the loch’s margin comes the royal bird of Juno, pursuing his mate. In his eager haste he has left the water, and with outstretched neck, beating air and loch into foam with his silver wings, he rushes after her. She, with the tantalising coyness of her sex, has also risen from the water, and, streaming across the loch, keeps undiminished the distance between herself and her pursuer. At this, finding his efforts vain, he gives up the chase, subsiding upon the surface with a force which sends the foam-waves curling high about his breast. Disdainfully he turns his back upon the fair, and, without once inclining his proud black beak in her direction, makes steadily for the shore. This, however, does not please the lady. She turns, looks after her inconstant lover, and, meeting with no response, begins slowly to sail in his direction. Suddenly again at this, with snowy pinions erect, neck curved gallantly back, and the calm waters foaming round his breast, he surges after her, ploughing up the loch into shining furrows. Again the coy dame flees, again and again the same amorous manœuvres are gone through, and when night itself falls, the splendid birds will still be dallying over their long-certain courtship. No plebeian affair is the mating of these imperial denizens of the loch. Seldom do mortals witness even this wooing of the swans.
More commonplace, though not, perhaps, less happy, are the three brown ducks and their attentive drake, which having, one after another, splashed themselves methodically on the flat stone by the margin of the loch, now swim off in a string for home. Young trout are making silver circles in the water as they leap at flies under the grassy bank; and the keen-winged little swallows that skim the surface, sometimes tip the glassy wave with foot or wing.
Before the daylight fades there are beautiful colours to be seen on shore. The fresh young reeds that rise at hand like a green mist out of the water deepen to a purple tint nearer the margin. The march dyke that comes down to the shallows is covered with the red chain-mail of a small-leaved ivy; and the gean-tree beside it, that a week or two ago raised into the blue sky creamy coral-branches of blossom, still retains something of its fragile loveliness. On the stony meadow beyond, the golden whinflower is fading now, but is being replaced by the paler yellow splendour of the broom. The rich blush-purple of some heathy banks betrays the delicate blossom of the blaeberry, and patches of brown show where the young bracken are uncurling their rusty tips.
And silent and fair on the mountain descends the shadowy veil of night. Darkening high up there against the sapphire heaven, the dome-topped hill, keeping watch with the stars, has treasured for twenty centuries strange memories of an older world. Whether or not, in the earth’s green spring, it served as a spot of offering for some primeval race, no man now can tell. But long before the infant Christ drew breath among the far-off Jewish hills, grave Druid priests ascended here to offer worship to their Unknown God. On the holy Beltane eve, the First of May, the concourse gathered from near and far, and as the sun, the divine sign-manual set in the heavens, arose out of the east, they welcomed his rising with an offering of fire. From sea to sea across dim Scotland, from the storm-cloven peaks of Arran to the sentinel dome of the Bass, could be seen this mountain summit; and from every side the awed inhabitants, as they looked up and beheld the clear fire-jewel glittering on Ben Ledi’s brow, knew that Heaven had once more favoured them with the sacred gift of flame. For the light on the mountain-top, like the altar fires of the Chaldean seers on the hills of the East of old, was understood to be kindled by the hand of God; every hearth in the land had been quenched, and the people waited for the new Bal-tein, or Baal-fire from Heaven, for another year.
Rude these people may have been--though that is by no means certain,--but few races on earth have had a nobler place of worship than this altar-mountain, which they called the Hill of God.
The climber on Ben Ledi to-day passes, near the summit, the scene of a sad, more modern story. On the shoulder of the mountain lies a small, dark tarn. It is but a few yards in width, yet once it acted a part in a terrible tragedy. Amid the snows of winter, and under a leaden heaven, a funeral party was crossing the ridge, when there was a crash; the slow wail of the pipes changed into a shriek of terror, and a hundred mourners, with the dead they were carrying, sank in the icy waters to rise no more. That single moment sufficed to leave sixty women husbandless in Glen Finglas below. No tablet on that wind-swept moor records the half-forgotten disaster; only the eerie lapping of the lochlet’s waves fills the discoverer with strange foreboding; and at dusk, it is said, the lonely ptarmigan may be seen, like souls of the departed, haunting the fatal spot.
On a knoll at the mountain foot, where the Leny leaves Loch Lubnaig, lies the little Highland burial-place to which the clansmen were bearing their dead comrade. Only a low stone wall now remains round the few quiet graves; but here once stood the chapel of St Bride, and from the Gothic arch of its doorway Scott, in his “Lady of the Lake,” describes the issuing of a blithesome rout, gay with pipe-music and laughter, when the dripping messenger of Roderick Dhu rushed up and thrust into the hand of the new-made groom the Fiery Cross of the Macgregors--
“The muster place is Lanrick mead; Speed forth the signal! Norman, speed!”
Well did the poet paint the parting of bride and groom; and to-day on the mossy stones of the little burial-place are to be read the wistful words of many who have bid each other since then a last good-bye. Surely the arcana of earth’s divinest happiness is only opened by the golden key of love. Sweet, indeed, must be that companionship which unclasps not with resignation even when sunset is fading upon the hills of life, and the shadows are coming in regretful eyes, but would fain stretch forth its yearnings through the pathways of a Hereafter. Simple and lacking excitement may be the lives of the folk who dwell under these hills, but something of the sublime surely is latent in hearts whose hopes extend beyond a time when heaven and earth shall have passed away.
CADZOW FOREST.
High on the edge of the crumbling cliff here, like the grey eyrie of some keen-winged falcon, hangs the ruined keep of Cadzow. Bowered and all but hidden by the leafy luxuriance of “the oak and the ash and the bonnie ivy-tree,” with the Evan roaring down its rocky bed far below at the foot of the sheer precipice, there is enough left of this ancestral home of the Hamiltons to give some idea of its ancient strength. Perched where it was unassailable on one side save by foes who had the gift of wings; on the other hand, the deep moss-grown moat and the massive remains of thick walls tell how secure a refuge it gave to its possessors. Secluded, too, in the depths of the old Caledonian forest, the fastness had endless facilities for secret communication and for safe hiding in case of necessity, and the deeds of its owners need have been subject to the curiosity of prying eye. Who can tell what captives have languished in the dungeons into which now, at places through the broken arch, the sunshine makes its way? Birds have built their nests, and twitter joyously about their callow young, where once only the sighs of the prisoner were heard and the iron clank of his chain. Alas! he had not the linnet’s wing to fly out and speed away along these sunny woodland paths.
But not vindictive above their peers were the chiefs of the ancient race that held these baronies. Rather has the gleam of romance come here to lighten the records of their gloomy age. For it was within these walls, tradition says, that Queen Mary found an asylum upon the night following that of her escape from Loch Leven Castle--a tradition the more likely to be true since the Hamilton Palace of that day was but a rude square tower. And it is easy to imagine how in that sweet May morning, the second of her new-born liberty and of her fresh-reviving hopes, the eyes of the fair unfortunate Queen may have filled with tears of happiness as she gazed from this casement forth upon the green waving forests and the silver Evan in its gorge below, and heard in the courtyard and the woods behind the tramp of horses and the ring of arms. Alas! whatever her frailties, she suffered sorely for them. There are few perhaps whose errors lie so much at the door of circumstance. From the Rout of Solway, which heralded her birth, to the last sad scene at Fotheringay, her life was a walk of tears; and the student of her reign is tempted to think that had she been a less lovable woman she might have been a more successful queen. That was the last gleam of sunshine in her life, the eleven days between Loch Leven and Langside. Short was the respite, but it must have been sweet, and doubtless these Hamiltons made chivalrous hosts. They fought for her gallantly at anyrate, if in vain, for they were the foremost to rush against her enemies’ spears in the steep narrow lane at Langside.
And at last she rode away from this place, surrounded by a brave little troop of nobles, their armour glancing in the sun as they caracoled off along these grassy forest glades. Then amid the restored quiet, only the whisper of the woods about them and the murmur of the river far below, the women waited here, listening. Presently, sudden and ominous, they heard a sound in the distance--cannonading near Glasgow, ten miles away. The Queen had been intercepted on her journey to Dunbarton. There was not much of the sound, and it died feebly.
Hours afterwards, anxious waiting hours, down these forest avenues, slowly, with drooping crest and broken spear, came riding the lord of the castle, haggard, and almost alone. For of the gallant gentlemen who had followed him to Langside many had fallen upon the field, and the rest were scattered and fleeing for their lives.