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HIOaiHS, A» THB CHRONICLE OnPrClB, BBOCK STBBST. 1869. maSSSmSaaBSiSSSSIMSSm Iv t3(>f , V31 .' 61 W THE LAST RAID OF THE CATERAN. [To our Soctoh readers, especially, the following story of The Lut Raid of the Oate^'an must prove highly interesting. It is from the pen of an occasional correspondent— a gentleman long well known in this oommunity, and widely respected wherever bis name is koown. Al- though the story has been frequently to)d, and given to the public through the Scottish press, as also, sometime since, in the SeottUh American Journal^ all have tailed in accuracy of detail ; and our cor- respondent, being now probably the last of living men in possession of the true version, has been obliging enough to write it for these col- umns.] 7b the Editor of the Whitby ChronieU, Dkab Sib,— Since the great majority of our printed periodicals^ whether political, moral, or religions, have now their stories ; and however excellent the publication may otherwise be, if it have no scory, it is set down by the many as being of little account ; one is, therefore, almost induced to believe that he now lives in story-telling times; But so far from my presuming to find fault with either the taste of the great mass of the reading public, on this score, or with those who cater for their entertainment in this special department of literature, I, too, would follow suit by furnishing a story. With this difference, however, that while most of the stories whioh find ready acceptance wi'th the public— their heroes, heroines, incidents, &o., never bad an existence, otherwise than in the imagination of their authors — mine is veritable throughout. It is true, it belongs to the olden times, being an account of the last attempt made by the Oateran to levy black- mail on the Lowlanders of Scotland, in the year 1707. But as the affair in question has never had, as yet, a place assigned to it in the page of history, and having acquired my information, bordering on sixty years since, through a sure channel from the sons of fathers who mingled in the bloody strife, I am enabled to give you the authentic de- tails of that romantic adventure, with all the freshness of a recent event But before I enter on a description of the raid, perhaps it will afford some interest to a part of the many readers of the Ohronicle, to first glance at the curious and out-of>theway causes which pro- duced the commencement of the blackmail levying visitations, from time to time inflicted on the Lovrlanders of Scotland, and continued during a period exceeding three hundred years ; and in course of which crimes of the deepest dye wore frequently committed by a class of men who were neyer known to drop the tear of pity over those their cruel and exacting ararioe had made widows and fatherless chil- dren. As a part of the legacy which the eventful battle of Hastings con- ferred on the country, nortl% of the" tweed, in less than two centuries thereafter the ancient Oeltio had tc give place to a dialect of the Saxon* which became the living language of the people, all south of t^e Grampians. But the Highlanders' being, then as now, greatly in love wHb their Qselio, and confidently believing that it was in it and in no other that our first parents had chatled to each other in Paradise, they consequently looked upon the newly imported Saxon jargon with abhorrence, and no longer viewed the Lowlanders as brethrnn descend- ed from the same pure unadulterated stock and lineage with tbem- sahres ; but a mongrel people, alien in blood and in language, and with whom no friendly intercourse should be held. If this had been all> probably no great harm would have followed ; but by a most uncon- scious perversion of common sense justice, many of the Highlanders set up a claim of right to levy black- mail on the Lowlanders ; for th« exceedingly frivolous reason that, in their estimation, their Lowland neighbors and fellow subjects were no better than the Sasaanaeh or the Southern, a term which they had long held in contumely ; and previous to the introduction of the new language, had been ex- clusively applied to the English as hereditary enemies. Hence the origin of the formation of powerful bands of banditti, who were called *'Oateran," (a Osalic name, meaning hill-robbers.) They became an organized body by electing a chief ot their own, to whom they acknow- ledged a petty allegiance, and,as often as cupidity prompted, or opportu« nity favored, they» under his leading, made sudden raids into the Low- lands, and there seized by violence whatever property their eyes and hearts coveted ; and, before the slow arm of legal justice could over- take them, had hurried back with their booty into the remote fast- enesses of the hills, where the neighboring Clans gave them indirect protection, and who were believed not to be always a disinterested party Then a division and an appropriation of the plunder took place. Strange to say, the most cruel and opprensive of all those raiding Ohiefs which history takes notice o^ was Alexander, Earl of Buchan, a son of Robert l£, to whom the people gave the appropriate name of thu "Wolfe ot Badeoooh." Irrespective of bis blood stained raids into the Lowlands, in the year 1389. that madoap burned the town of Forres, and in the following year, having had a squabble with the Bishop, he also burned the cathedral of Elgin, esteemed the roost beau- tiful'building of its kind iti Scotland. Having alike defied the power of bis father's government to arrest and bring him to justice, and what was then far more terrible, the excommunication of the Pope (Olemeut VII.,) death alone put an end to hii savage career. The Wolfe of fiadenoch had a son, who, in the opening years of his manhood, bade fair to equal bis father's ferocity of character, but in after life turn- ed over a new leaf, and became one of the most honorable distin* guished collateral branches of the House, of Stuart— conducted a pow- erful raid into Forfarshire, and rrbile there carrying on the usual work of murdering and plundering thi) unoffending inhabitants.he was unsuo-, cessfully opposed by two Lowland gentlemen, who were both slain to- gether with sixty of their men. Elated by bis victory, and his followers being loaded with plunder, the young Earl of Buchan was in no hast* to quit the scenes of his cruel devastations, which enabled one of the king's lieutenant's, the Earl of Crawford, to come up with him, when to the satisfaction of all honest men, ample justice was inflicted on the rascally Oateran. But let this suffice as a "swatch of Hornbook's way." ^bout the year 1666, there was suddenly heard, on a cold winter evening, a sharp plaintive noise at a farmer's door in the parish of Cortachy, Forfarshire, which considerably alarmed the female inmates of the house, who said they were sure "it was no earthly thing," a likely conclusion in those superstitious times. But the farmer himself was of firmer stuff"; he assured them that the noise which they heard was no other than that of the broket stirk, (a spotted steer, a year old — probably had been a pet,) "for he was ay rouotin (lowing) about the doors ;" and to show them that he was correct in his guess at once opened the door, but no hroJcet atirh was to be seeiK There was discovered, however, a small wicker basket, in which was neatly stowed ftway with tasteful surroundings, a fine male infant, and which the; humane farmer carried into the house. At the sight of this strange and unlooked for presentation, sui prise and wouder speedily superseded the fears oi the good folks ; and having without loss of time and wit^ due circumspection, applied the uaual test '''in use at the time to prove,; its identity, and finding to their satisfaction that the infant stranger was no other than a veritable unit of humanity, the farmer and his fam* ily kindly cared for and fostered the baby. Days and years thereafter sped away, but the heartless parents of the foundling boy were nerer known ; and when time at la«t had sboted the young fellow into manhood, he was of lofty stature, powerful build, posiessed of daring courage and prodigioua strength, l^ut the "Broket stirli," (fo^ he waa ever after best known by that unpropitious name,) had then no relish' for the humble, every-day ploddingi of honest labor ; but indulged ii) idle, restless, wandering habits, and finally, to the great grief of his foster parents, was chosen Chief of the Oateran. Daring the next M- teen or twenty years, the foundling Chief had led various successful raids ; and if he was not on those occasions accused, as some of hia Tillainous predecessors in office bad justly been, of wantonly destroy- ing human life, still his name became teirible to the inhabitants of the line of parishes which flank the north side of the great central valley of the kingdom. With a viejr of putting an end to the daring bandit's depredations, and in response to the bitter complaints of the pillaged people, the government had offered a reWard for his rxpprehension and even made several attempts to arrest him ; but regardless of these^ the "Broket stirk" persistently and deflantly, carried on his lawl«» l traffic. Early one morning towards the efid of April, in the year 1707, the tarmers of the parish of Fearn (Forfarshire) woke up to discover, that the whole of their cattle throughout the entire parish (it has an area of a little over twenty-four square miles) had been stolen in course of the preceding night. At any period in the annals of agriculture, the loss of the whole cattle on a large farm district of country would have been a grave matter to their owners, but at the time when this wholesale robbery took place the loss was ipanifold more serious than it would have been at the present time. In the beginning of the last century, probably, farming was at its lowest possible ebb in Scot- land. The annual rent then paid for farm land, — which is always a sure index to the state of farming in every country, ranged from a siz< pence, to one shilling and three pence an acre (Imperial), and such was the poverty, and dissatisfaction which pervaded the rural population, which a century of retrogade national prosperity bad produced, and the hopeless prospect of seeing more prosperous times, that landlords were qiite willing to grant long leases to their tenants at the low rents indicated, for periods of eighty, and ninety years, and in a few exceptional esses, much longer,! which the majority of their tenants had the good sense readily to accept. The plough then in use was charac- teristic of the times,, a huge, clumsy, ponderous machine, which re- quired the enormous draught power of from four to six yoke of oxen ; Ktd as a consequence, the furrow which it drew was quite a ditch r tbe that } an lUrte tore, oald thiff' xiou8 of the Scot- ays* asii- shwaa lation, ., and idlorda he low a few ,nt8 bad charac- hich re- of oxen ; a ditcb ootnpared to the depth of the modem plonghfurrow. | The chief grain crop grown, wag an inferior species of barley, called bigg, or bere, which being 80?m in an unsValf'jIly prepared, ungenial soil, in th« ar^ge of seasons returned but the shadow of a crop to the poor far- mer ; and the only other grain worth naming, was oats, a hardy, long, hungry-bodied grain, which was held to be of so little account, that it was frequently not sown at all, but grew wild in what they called, their "out fields." And, to cite but one of the many pi oofs which could be adduced of the extreme scarcity of money, and low price of labour, the farmer, and his family, whether at home, or elsewhere, rejoiced in their homesr^an \7aed8, *'hodin-gray and a' that" which were made up by taf rs, who plied their aTocation, by traveling from house to hoase throu, ' "^ut the year, at the low churge of t/uto-penc« a daj/, and their victuals. | And much later in the century, when the members of the trade succeeded in raising their pay to four-pence a day, their employers stoutly asserted that surely tailors charges had at last reached their ultimate point of extravagance 1 In short, the chie^ if not the only personal property, possessed by the farmers, annualy convertible into a little money, ufas their spare cattle, which they sold in the summer and autumn markets, then as now, being held in the country, tn view of these depressing circumstances, no wondtr con- Bternation had seized the minds of the farmers on the dlsoove>*y of the loss of their cattle, without which their farms inost have Iain barren for the year. But the first burst of surprise and vexation being over, and knowing well who hadstolen their live stock, the men of Fearn were not wanting in promptitude, and decision of character how to act on the oeoassion. Swift messengers were sent through the parish, warning every able-bodied man to turn out armed, at mi early hour of the day, and meet in the churchyard, each man carrybg provisions to suffice for a short campaign. By noon a hundred and twenty-three men had convened, and, after council being taken, it was unanimously resolved that they should, without loss of time, pursue the Gateran, and if possible, recover their cattle by force of arms. Having appointed one of their number to act as leader, all the men moved from the graveyard with seeming unanimity of purpose. But alas for "the best laid plans of mice, and men ;" the newly appointed leader had advanced his men but a little way^ when he ordered them to halt. He then, in effect, told them that a change had come suddenly "over the spirit of his dream ;" represented the Cateran as being numerous, powerful and ferocious, with whom they could have no chance ot 8uo~ eesa ib a personal conflict, and as for himself he had resolved to ge 8' home anil submit to the loss of hia live stock, rather than foolishly sacrifice iiis life in so hopeless an undertaking. This insidious, craren counsel was keenly opposed by a tall slender young man, of the nam« of Ladin Henry, who had lately returned from the H military school, where he had acquired the reputation of being an expert swordsman, who chiefly argued from the fact that as their cattle had been all stolen under night he had reason to believe that the Oateran were few in numb veak, and afraid to meet them in arms, and that if they would aocepi a as their leader, he was confident they would be successful in recovering their live stock. The men then divided, when thirty- two went over to Henry's side, and eighty-nine went home with their self-repudiated, cowardly leader, who had nearly knocked the whole un< dertakingon the head. After saying a few words of encouragement to his men, the new leader at once resumed his march ac: js the parish to reach the hills, the route ho was confident the Oateran had taken with their cattle. On the march thither they were joined by an un- acceptable recruit, in the person of a stout crazy man, whom no counsel would induce to remain at home, and as a last resort to get rid of hiiQ, they locked the man into the barn of the last farm town they visited before entering the hills. But the crazy man shewed more sagacity than all the thirty-three had done ; he patiently waited in the barn until they were some miles ahead, then slipped the inside bar off the large door which communicated with the stock yard, seized a pitchfork, ran after, and soon overtook Henry and his men, who rather than injure the poor ir.an, at last allowed him to follow them. {This trifling incident would have been unworthy of notice, had not the crazy man been destined to perform an important act of service in the approaching struggle with the Oateran.] The Fearn men tra- velled all that afternoon among the hills, without finding the least traoe of the robbers ; and all next day till evening with no better success. Just as the sun was setting, they luckily came across the trail of the cattle, and judging from the recent droppings of the animals, they con- cluded they were then near the Oateran. Henry and his men at onoa resolved to encamp for the night, having; no other than the bleak moun • tain side fcNT a bed, and the starry canopy for a covering. Early next morning the men weie moving about, and after a frugal breakfast, and all ready to resume the pursuit of the robbers, one of the men, with a sad countenance, informed Henry, that he had ureamed in course of the past night, that they were to fight with the Oateran that day, and that he (the dreamer) was to be killed, but being convinced they had circle on one side of their chiefs, and the Oateran a similiar figure on the other. The combat began. Henry was at once made aware that h0 had encountered a swordsman of the first mark, and what was to him kr more serious, that he had neither strength of arm, nor strength of weapon, to enaUe him to keep up his guards in fighting with such an overwhelmingiy powerful man as the Broket stirk ; the consequence was, at the first, or second pass of the Chiefs sword, he smashed Henry's sword blade in pieces, leaving him a stump of some three or four inches beyond the hilt But in that most perilous mo-> ment of his life the Fearn leader's happy presence of mind did not forsake him, for while the tremendous hack aimed to cut him down was actually descending, he cleverly evaded the blow by springing in below the arm pit of the sword arm of the Chief^ when the point of his sword cut deep into the elevated tipot of ground whereon the van* quished Henry had stood but the fraction of a second ^before, which enabled him to leap back and remingle with his command unhurt Heanti:ne the Fearn men, being alarmed at the extreme danger of their leader, and forseeing that if the agreement to which he had fool* ishly assented was to bo carried out in good faith^ their cattle would be hopelessly lost, one of them darted forward, «nd simultaneously with the Chief raising stroke, and while his sword for the moment, was entangled in tlxe ground among the matted heather, gave him a sword cut across the bare houghs (he wore a kilt) separating the ten* dons of both limbs, vhich instantly compelled hifia to drop to his knees. 'xh*j9 foul stroke given the Chief, by the Fearn man, in breach of the compact entered into by both chiefs, and tacitly by both parties, and also in violation of the usage which the lapse of many centuries had given the force of law for the protection of single combatants from outside assault, so enraged the Cateran, that an immediate general iTuUe ensued. Many of the men hastily advanced a few paces, o aen retreated as far, all in quest of the most favorable positions for th^ contest, and while a number of Homeric battles were being fought, Imprecations, and reproaches, were loudly, and bitterly bandied b)' both sides, and when to these were added the clashing of swords, the shrieks of the wounded, and the moans of the dying, the noise which had suddenly sprung up was horrible in the extreme. Both j^arties ^fOQght with desperate courage, the one obviously to recover thetr q(ol«n property, the oiher to keep what they had gotten ; but the ^<^r*o, dMeoivi^^ b^ thf lou of their oonquednj chie^ and their tSSmmmSm f ' ( 12 enemies oefhg more than two to one ag&inst thdbi, at ttlst fled, teftvinj; four of their number killed behind them. After a shoK and un&Vniling (iursuit of the fagUlves, the Fearn men retbrned to debpatch the i^ounded Chief who could not run away, and who throughout the general fight had sudCessfutty defended himself against all his ass& lants. l!hen was witnessed one of thoSe rare displays of heroic, indivi- dual effort, which would have done credit to the days of chivalry } for however much we may detest the vile avocatior. in which the Broket' Btirk had embarked, tt is difficult td Withhold our admiration of the courage of the man, who, although deserted by 4II his followers, badly wounded, reduced to Bght upon his knees, surrounded by hl8 enemies who would give no quarter, and the last shred of hope that he could escape with his life torn from hiril ; yet so powerfully and dexterously did he wield his terrible sWol-d as to compel thirty-two firmed men, Bushed with recent victory, and all school -trained to the Use of the weapon with which they fought, to stand at bay for a con- siderable part of that, the.laet of his days. And yet, after all, perhaps ihe F*»arn men judged wisely and well for believing, as they after- Wards acknowledged, that they could not have made a rush in to cut the infuriated bandit down without S4crificing two or three of their number — they preferred keeping at a Safe distance from his sword, and there gave free and ready expression to reiterated threats and taunts of (heir speedy triumph over him ; and whil^ they made feints from time to time as if they would have gone in upon him, the crazy man at last succeeded in giving him a severe stab In the back with his long* handled pitch-fork, having driven both tines deep into his body in the region of the heart. This fatal wo\ind caused the sword arm of the strong man to hang by his side, when the Fearn men, seeing their op- portunity, hurried In and completed his death. : Thus fell the last, and probably the most notable Chief the Caterab ever had, a man who had the name of being more powerful, daring, and. dreaded than any other man of his country in his time, tie was harshly treated when he came into the world, and he neither sought ioir, nor obtained mercy when he was^ent out of it ; and if his 'means of acquiring daily bread had been as honest as they were disreputable and injurious to his fellow men, the conclusion would have been un- avoidable, that he was cheated out of his life. The casualties on the fide of the Cateran Were Bve killed, and two mortally wounded ; one of tde latter vvas observed to run from the contest early, using his best ^endeavors as be ran, to iiold in his protruding bowels. On the Feirn side there was only one man killed by the fire of the Cfateran, the wmm rzswm 13 /Riling ch the uf the k tants. indtvl- ivalry ', Brdket* of the llowets, by bi« >pe that illy and rty-two 3 to the r a con- perhups ey after- in to cut I of their urord, and taunts of ints from razy man I his long- . body in irm of the their op- je Cateratt I, daring, I. He was :ier sought s 'means of isreputable been un- ties on the jnded ; one ing his be«t the Fe*rn !aterao, the ttiAn who dreamed ; the rest, wonderful to siy, got off Mcratch freei With the exception of the great prifce, the recovery of their cattle, the spoil which fell to the victors was iiisignifloant; a few guns, swords^ and old plaids, were all they gathered up. It was a day of great joy and rejoicing among the people of Feam when the news reached them that the Cateran had baen defeated, and their cattle recovered ; indeed, they have had no such another day of rejoicing since. And it i.4 to be charitably hoped that it had still fur- ther added to the gratification of many of them, when they were shortly after informed that the galUot, but incautious Ladin Henry, who in the face of much craven opposition, had spirited on a small minority of their nnmbertothe successful rescue of their live-^tock— was neither neglected nor forgotten by the men who were at the helm ol Govern- ment at the time. The Lords of Her Majesty's (Queen Anne) Treasury for Scotland, conferred a pension upon him, caused a new house to be built and carefully fortified, for his accommodation, and safe protectior in his native parish ; to which they added a small piece of farm land, freefor liffe. Such was the liberal reward which the government con- ferred upon an obscure young man, tt a time when government re> wards were, as a rule, but rarely and scantily dealt out in Scotland, a circumstance of itself suggestive of strong presumptive proof of the magnitude of the pest of which he bad been instrumental in ridding hiscour.try. • But if Ladin Henry was secure from the assaults of his numerous enemies in his new and strong house, it was far otherwise with hiib, On various occasions out of it. The malevolent Gateran asserted to the last of their days, thult their much idolized chief had been mur- dered by the treachery of the Fearn men, and holding Henry respon- sible for their acts, and being enraged at the applause and regard ho had received for inflicting an irreparable injury upon them, they pursued him with intense malice and desire to wieak their vengeanc« upon him, which they had resolved to accomplish by all the means th^ Could devise. But of the several attempts made by them from first to last, I shall only briefly notice one of them, from which the ex- Fearn leader made but a hair-breadth escape with his life. Years after the raid in question, a farmer of the parish got up a 'feMt, to which he invited a number of neighbors, and along with others, Henry, for whom he affected especial friendship and regard. When the day of entertainment came round, all were friendly, social and happy, and no one present was so unremitting in his obliging Attentions to Henry as was his ever^smiling host. And when the time i^&m^ij5iiM-*~--^ - MXJW , iii! If: i^ 14 of his leaving (o go home esnte. being a few hours after night fall, hit gracioufl landlord would sCill adu •:n additional proof of his friendship, by acuoqipanying him a little bit on bis way home. Henry waM then a little over two milea from his house and family, the road to whioh lay at the foot of the hill, and h!" entertainer for the day having c*ai- pleted his short convoy shook hands, with apparent cordiality, and bade him good night, Dut the treacherous wretch bad only allowed bis retiring guest to progress a littie way when he piped out at the top of his voice, three times in succession, "Qood-night, Ladin Henry." Poor Henry knew at once he had been betray 3d ; indeed there could be fio mistake about it, for the preconcerted signal was scarcely given, when up ntarted a number of armed men and althougti he saw but imperfectly, yet he readily knew from the noise of their foot-treads, they were rapidly surrounding him. Not a moment was to be lost, he ran lor his life, and a host of Cateran pell mell after him, but Henry, being a tall agile man in the prime of life, ran a good foot, and, after .• loQg race, found that he could head some way the swiftest of his pursuers. But then the momentous question started in bis mind- where was be to find a place of safety ? For he rightiy judged, from the large number of enemies who were in pursuit of him, that they had used the precaution to put a guard on his dwelling house, and that his -endeavor to enter it would have issued in certain death; again, if be should attempt to keep the hills, and head his enemies by speed offoot Jot the night, he was sure to be run down long before morning, and, without mercy, hacked to pieces. While these perplexing thoughts harassed his mind, he happily remembered a small cave, in the face o' one of the neighbouring hills, the mouth of which was partially coo- coaled from view, by the long shaggy heather which grew around it To it he put, at the top of his speed, and having darted into it| 'ftnd drawn his dog, which accompanied him, in between his knees, be there resolved to abide the perils of the night. A minute or so there- after had scarcely elapsed, when past rushed the Oateran in hot pur* suit, no doubt believing that the game would soon be at their feet , This was so far reassuring to Henry, that bis enemies being strangers to the locality, knew not of his hiding place, neither had they seen him .enter it; yet his hope of safety waned considerably, when about an hour after he heard their footsteps returning, and so near came they ia Tepassipg, that many of them went over the top of his place of bid- ijng, when he distinctly beard one make the omnious remark, *'It was Jubt hereabout we lost sight of him." In short they sought him throug- Jh9tib tbQ entire sight, down te daybreak, with the most paios-takipg 15 dship, it then which ,, mnd illowed the top ienry." ould b« ' given, ^-treads, be lost, i Henry, rfid, »ftw it of hii s mind — from the they had ,d that Ilia gain, if be :ed oPioot •ning, and, thoughts the face o* lially con- around it ^d into it, [g Icnees, be r 80 there- in hot pur- , thetr feet \g strangers ey seen hi» en about an came they in place of hid- irk, "It was t him tbroug- painstaking faclustry. Sometimes h« heard their fboisteps near, at other time* taoredistaht; but a gracious Proyidenoe having protected him, Henry; remained in his hiding place until some hours after sunrise, and ^heii. bo ventured oat be neither savr friead nor foe tbroughrut the barren waste, and, to the great joj of his wite and family, he reached his ^ome in safety. It aftervrard transpired, that on the near approach of day, their night long, unavailing, blood hound travel, had j^roved quite enough for evei> the hardy, and enduring Oateran, id probably having had a com- mendable regard for a Qovernment proclamation, in which special rea> sons were given for their being wanted at head-quarters, which the euni Ding rogues suspected, was for no other purpose than that of 'marek'i tng them up a ladder, and down a tow,' they at onoe *(deared out't for parts unknown. But if the failure /o' their deep laid scheme, which had for its object, to tako life, had imposed grievous disappoint- ment on the Cateran on their leaving the confines of the Lowlanda that morning, their dissapointment was much more embittered when they were afterwards informed, where, and by what means, their de- voted victim had escaped their murdering fangs on the night of theip harpy's feast. Small parties of their hopeless fraternity made stealthy visits to inspect the nest after the bird had flown, and when they remembered how often they had passed and repassed in course of the night the spot where he lay ; the diligent search which they had made in and about tho place where he had disappeared Irom therf view, and the ease which they conceived they should have had in discovering the place of his concealment ; they settled down in the be* lief that nothing less than a ^Scharmed life" had saved him from their clutches. And indeed, the Oateran were not far astray in their coming to this conclusion ; for the ex-Fcarn leader hnd a charmed life in as far as their malevolent cravings to deprive him of it were destined never to be gratifled. ' q The decline of the power and extinction of the long standing ttitd much dreaded Cateraii, were not long in following after the disaster th«y tsxperienced in the issue of the Fearn raid. On the fall of their redoubted ohieftan on the banks of the Sanghs, who had long been their pride, their guiding stai, and their backbone of strength in every raid and robbery in which he had been their leader ; they despaired of finding another Chief possessing even the lineaments of bis diar- iSeter, and perhaps being influenced by an avowed determination of the Qovernment to put a final stop to their lawless practices, they shrank into obscurity, and not long afler ceased to exist as aa organs* •uttmmmm ! fr II III 16 iredbody,— a eoMuntruati on wltioh bdth Highland mtn and Lowlan^ man, w'aeiher at home or in other laiide, aru not now lik«)iy to riew •• a matter of regret. It was creditable to Iho people ot Fearn the way they deported themselves towards the black-hearted scoundrel, the farmer, who had received a bribe to betray his unsuspecting guest into the hands of tbe meroiless Cateran ; he «ver after, down to tho time of his death, lived a despised and an avoided man. I In 1822,your correspondent was prompted by curiosity to pay a visit V> Ladin Henry's dwelling house, and the banks of the Saughs, wheroi the struggle with the Cateran had been. With tV,*, exception of the strong mailed door, which had been removed years before, he found the shell of the house entire as its original occupant had left ic. The side walls were a little over twelve feet high, thick and strongly built, they having been cemented throughout witn grout lime ; and instead of windows, of which it had none, both side and end walla were thickly peforated with iron cased loop-holes, which were so oonstriioted that the inside ooeunont, at any one of- them had a considerable range .of. outside view. The -ipace within Walla only measured about sixteen by twenty-two feat ; but as the building did not possess the ordinary comforts and conveniences of a modern dwelling house, it had been long without a tenant, and the only purpose which it then served was ita being a shelter to cattle in times of inclement weather. My guide experienoed no difficulty in takmg me direct to the place where the affray with the robbers had been. In burying the dead, the Fearn men had to use their broadswords instead of spades, and consequently the , trench into which the dead bodies were thrown had been shallow and the covering mould but scanty, which rain in the course of years had washed a portion of it away, so asj to expose to the view of the passing stranger a part of the bones of the fallen Oateran in the slope of the bank, about twenty feet above the level of the mountain stream, which still murmured past in the solitary waste, as it doubtless had done when the owners of those bones were busy cooking their breakfast on its banks. The remains of the Fearn man were carried to the church yard of Oortachy, and there interred with suitable respect. Many years after, a kind friend had erected a neat head stone to his memory, on which is engraved anepitaph containing a modest record of the name, time, place, and cause of the death of deceased, with this trifling error, his death is represented to have taken place a year later than it actit^ ally occurred. ttid ar| t- ' "■wTiSHHI IT * In all BUspioiouM oasea, if a piD punoture brought blood to tb« aurfJMM of the akin, then the ohild. if it waa a male, waa no ffoblin in diagaiae, and it a female, ao/airy, d;o. t In 1813 your oorreapouderit waa acquainted with a farmer in th>^ parlHh of Braohin, who was u residuary life-renter on an old (arm lease, and Liv n elDgular olaaae iu ea'd leane, he, the life-renter, was entitled to hold poeseaition of said farm, " three years after he was dead. Again, iu 1886, your oorrosp^n- dent was informed by a Sootoh lawyer, that he knew of two old farm leasee tLeu ourrent, the one of which WAH for "two hundred and eit|hty-uine years, and the tenure of the other waa equivalent to a holding in Fee Himple, being "oa long as grass grows and water runs" down a deolivity. X The modern two-horse plow, whiefa baa cnquestionably contributed lurgely to the increase of Aerioultarnl prosperity and wealtli all over the civilized world, was first introduced into Scotland about 1706, by James Small, an ingenious meobanio, of the countv ot Kdinburgh. It is true the Kother- ham two-horse plough had beeu iotroduoed into England, atid a patent procur ed for it so early as 1720 ; but whether arising from a defect iu the ooustruotiou of tlie implement or sheer prejudice operating against it, are questions wbioh cannot now be easily solved : but this much is certain, the great bulk of English farmers allowed the Rotherham plough to lie io a'ceyauoe, uutil years alter the advent of the present century : whereas Small's plough met with the ready approval of the patfon» of Agriculture on its first appearance, and soon after became the favourite plough of the great majority ot the Lowland farmers. I From the middle, and toward the end of last century, there lived a tailor of the name of David Wood, a character, on the eastsida of the North Eak river, which forms the boundary line between the counties of Forfar and Kincardine, who. In a coterie of his socials, told the follo*-«*PWB«N*a a*fcT i< * ■^m Ul...fct>MMt