B*li Ul vT" 1 ;,._) i>!mma--;!iU':..!:ii-:iii->i.'>ii;;ift.' I^IHKARV OK THl, University of California. BOUGHT WITH FUND GIVEN BV SCOTTISH SOCIBTltS OF CALIFORNIA. Class i^l*l ■■■ TV- ' -f «■■ '. ,1^ •'•. ,f, v:.'-. ■A^. -.*^ .•,■■/.■-.-■■'*■■ » ' ■ •> *^ .. .v i -;.■ '■Ci^^ ^^:^.^-•^■ VV,- ■ . '*■: /-j^' ' ■■'■ .' . 4 ■■'. «• '.'■ v?>t . . ,-;■»-■>. - • *^>.»>lS, V'i.* > SPORTS AND PASTIMES SPORTS AND PASTIMES OF SCOTLAND HISTORICA L L Y IL L US TRA TED BY ROBERT SCOTT FITTIS AUTHOR OF " HEROINES OF SCOTLAND," ETC. "The heart-cheering pleasure of the fields, The choice delight of heroes and of kings." Somerville's "■Field Sports." "By sports like these are all their cares beguiled." Goldsmith's ' ' Traveller. " ALEXANDER GARDNER publisher to Jktt iMafestg ti)e <3.nttn PAISLEY; AND 26 PATERNOSTER SQUARE, LONDON 1891 s- cXJ r o c /c. PREFACE. It is hoped that no reader will expect to find in this book anything more than what the title-page professes it to embody. The compilation is entirely outside the category of practical Manuals and Handbooks of Sports, many of which exist and are deservedly popular. Its sole object is to set forth a sort of history, somewhat after (though confessedly a long way behind) the model of Strutt's Sports and Pastimes of the People of Eiiglatid: " only this and nothing more." The compilation has been the pleasing labour of years. Portions have previously appeared in print here and there ; but these have been much amplified with new matter ; and, so far as I am aware, the book, as it now stands, is the only one dealing with the generality of Scottish Sports on the same lines. I trust it will be found both interesting and useful, as illustrative of varied phases of the habits, manners, and customs of byegone generations of Scotsmen of all ranks and classes. R. S. F. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I.— The Old Scottish Wild Cattle, - 9 II. — The Wolves, ----- 34 III. — The Deer Forest and the Grouse Moor, ------ 50 IV. — FoX-HUNTING, - - - - - 71 V. — The Salmon River, - - - - 81 VI. — The Race Course, - - - - 106 VII. — Archery — Football — Golf,- - - 126 Archery, 126 Football, - - - - - 144 Golf, ------ 149 VIII. — The Revels of Fastren's E'en,- - 158 IX. — The Rustic Sports of Lammas, - - 171 X. — The Highland Games, - - - 179 IX. — Curling, 189 XII. — Miscellaneous, - - - - - 200 Bowls, ------ 200 Riding at the Ring, and Running AT the Glove, - - - - 204 Caitch-Ball, 207 The Kiles, ----- 208 Cricket, ------ 209 SPORTS AND PASTIMES, CHAPTER I. THE OLD SCOTTISH WILD CATTLE. ]\Iightiest of all the beasts of chase, That roam in woody Caledon, Crashing the forest in his race, The Mountain Bull comes thundering on ! Fierce, on the hunters' quiver'd band, He rolls his eyes of swarthy glow, Spurns, with black hoof and horn, the sand, And tosses high his mane of snow. ScoWs " Cadyow Castle. I '^N the remote and misty past, — in epochs far be- yond the ken of history, those pre-historic times which stretch back indefinitely to the emergence of our island from the bosom of the sea, — various species of wild and savage animals were common in Britain, partly contemporaneously, and partly in succession to each other, according to the climatic changes, most of which races have been long extinct in this country. The fact of their existence is attested by their remains found chiefly in the limestone caverns and the river deposits. The elephant and the rhinoceros grazed on British soil, and the hippopotamus wandered on the banks of British 10 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. rivers. The moose-deer or elk once roamed here, though in small numbers. The rein-deer are believed to have spread over Britain and Ireland, towards the close of what is known as the glacial period. Ancient tradition asserts that in some distant age the Norwegians were wont to cross over to Scotland for the purpose of hunting the rein-deer ! And tradition is so far supported in this story by an olden authority of fair repute, the Orkneyinga Saga, which states explicitly that the Norse lords of the Orkneys were accustomed to pass over to Caithness to enjoy the chase of the rein-deer. " The Jarls of Orkney were in the habit of crossing over to Caithness almost every summer, and there hunting in the wilds the red deer and the rein-deer : " and those Jarls [Earls] are said to have been Ronald and Harold, who lived in the middle of the twelfth century, — though we suspect the date of the existence of rein-deer in Caithness is rather too recent. Numerous remains of the rein-deer have been discovered there and in other parts of the country. In Perthshire, during drainage operations at the Loch of Marlce. many years ago, the horns and some of the leg-bones of a rein- deer were found. It should also be remembered that the rein-deer moss is still common in Scotland. The rc- introduction of the rein-deer has been attempted in modern times, both on the hills of Athole, Perthshire, and in Mar Poorest, Aberdeenshire ; but in each case the project failed, — the animals having died soon after being liberated in the wilds. It is believed that the elk and the rein-deer, or other animals of the deer tribe, were contemporaneous in Britain with carnivorous enemies — two species of lions one greater and the other smaller in structure ; a species of the leopard or panther ; the hya:na ; the grisly and brown bears, etc. Most of the larger beasts of prey were THE OLD SCOTTISH WILD CATTLE. II ultimately exterminated, perhaps by a constantly-increas- ing diminution of food, following the total separation of our island from the Continent of Europe. The lions, the leopard, the hyaena disappeared ; but the brown bear survived until long after the Roman invasion. In the SylvcE Caledonia, — the great Caledonian Forest which overshadowed a vast extent of Scotland beyond the Forth, covering the vales of Menteith and Strathearn, and away across Athole and Lochaber, and which proved so formidable an obstacle to the progress of the Roman arms northward, — the blue-painted Pict could vary his fierce contest against the " masters of the world " with scarce lesser war against bears, wolves, boars, and those wild white cattle whose chase was the most exciting and perilous of all. The existence of the brown bear in Britain during the Roman times is established beyond the possibility of doubt. The animal was hunted by the Romans of the occupation : it was captured alive, and sent over the sea to Rome for the savage purposes of the amphitheatre. The Romans, writes Plutarch, " trans- ported bears from Britain to Rome, where they had them in great admiration." The bears were used otherwise than for the ordinary sport of the populace of the Eternal City. It was the practice to crucify " malefactors " — pro- bably in many cases Christian martyrs — in the circus, and then to let loose British bears to lacerate and devour the living victims nailed to the cross ! The poet Martial, in his 7th epigram, mentions the barbarous custom, — how that Laureolus, a noted robber, was crucified on the stage, in a drama, and torn to pieces by " a Caledonian bear" Such was one of the many refinements of cruelty by which the vaunted Roman civilization was disgraced ! Centuries after the Roman occupation of Britain had ceased, the brown bear was still found in the island. An 12 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. old Welsh manuscript states that the bear was authorita- tively reckoned among the beasts of chase, and its flesh was considered as equal to that of the hare and the boar. To this day different localities in the Principalit\' are called by names referring to the bear. In regard to England generally, — about the year 750, Archbishop Egbert wrote in his Penitentiak that " when any one strikes a wild beast with an arrow, and it escapes and is found dead three days afterwards, if a hound, a wolf, a fox, or a bear, or any other wild beast hath begun to feed upon it, let no Christian touch it." In the reign of Edward the Confessor, the town of Norwich was bound to furnish to the King one bear annually, and six dogs for the baiting of it : so it is entered in Doomsday Book : although doubt may be expressed whether the native bear was not extirpated in England prior to the era of the Norman Conquest. The bear-baiting which con- tinued so long a popular pastime in England was at first supplied from the native race ; but afterwards bears for that sport were imported from the Continent. Martial, as we have seen, speaks of the Caledonian bear. In Scotland the brown bear seems to have lingered longer than in the southern portion of the island. The rugged nature of the country, especially of the Highlands, afforded every facility for the shelter of wild beasts. Historical writers of the si.xteenth century specify bears as having existed numerously in Scotland in ancient times, though the period of their extirpation is not indicated. Thus, Bishop Lesley says that the Caledonian Forest was once full of bears : and Camden, in his Britannia, writes that Athole was " a country fruitful enough, having woody vallies where once the Caledonian Forest (dreadful for its dark intricate windings, and for its dens of bears, and its huge, wild, thick-maned bulls)," had THE OLD SCOTTISH WILD CATTLE. extended itself far and near in these parts. Traditions of the bear are still remembered in the north, where it is distinguished as the MagJi-GIianihainn — "the paw calf," and also under the more general term of beiste, or " the monster " — as — Ruigh-jta-beiste, " The Monster's Slope," and Loch-na-beiste " The Monster's Lake." The surname of the Clan Forbes is said to have arisen in connection with the chase of the bear. An Irish chieftain, Ochonchar, came to Scotland, and hearing that a district in Aberdeen- shire was ravaged by a bear, he went thither, tracked the destroyer to its lair, and was successful in putting it to death, for which exploit he was rewarded with lands, and the title of Forbear or Forbeiste was given him, while he was also granted three bears' heads as an armorial cognizance, which has ever since been borne by his descendants. Another version of the legend is to the effect that the hero killed the bear to obtain the hand of a beautiful heiress, named Bess or Elizabeth, and on accomplishing his object he assumed the name of " For Bess." A third version relates that a boar, not a bear, having devoured nine young women at a spring in the parish of Auchindoir, Aberdeenshire, it was "slain by a young man of the name of Forbes, the lover of one of the young women, and a stone with a boar's head cut on it, was set up to preserve the remembrance of his gallantry and courage. The stone," continues the Old Statistical writer, " was removed by Lord Forbes to his house of Putachie ; and it is from this circumstance that a boar's head is quartered in the arms of the family ; " — a mistake, the Forbes arms being three bears' heads. The spring where the tragedy happened was thenceforth known as the " Nine Maidens' Well." Ochonchar's slaughter of the bear is assigned to the eleventh century — the year 1057 ; but the brown 14 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. bear must have become extinct in Scotland considerably earlier than that date. The main legend is a fair example of the turn for finding out a punning or familiar explanation of the names of persons and places, which was common in unlettered times. An instance of the same thing occurs in the derivation of " Buccleugh " : — Old Buccleugh the name did gain When in the cleuch the buck was ta'en. King Kenneth Macalpin, as we are told, was hunting in Ettrick Forest, when the buck standing at bay in a hollow into which the monarch and his attendants, being on horseback, could not descend, a native of the country, a banished man, who followed the chase on foot, clam- bered down, and ran in upon the deer. Possessing great strength and daring, he seized it by the horns, and, throwing it upon his back, ascended the steep hill-side with his struggling burden, and flung it down before the King, who thereupon named him BiiccleugJi. Still another example will be given at a subsequent stage. The ancient Celtic tribes of Scotland were much devoted to the chase, from which they derived a large portion of their subsistence: the wild hog, with which the country abounded, being one of their chief beasts of pursuit, not- withstanding that the sow appears to have been somehow associated with their mythology, and its figure is found on most of the sculptured stones, — hence the conjecture has been hazarded that originally it was worshipped here as in Egypt of old.* In the Perthshire vale of Glenshee there was once a famous boar-hunt, which, because it • An image of tlie Caledonian boar stood in the Hippodrome of Constanti- nople ; and when the blind Emperor Isaac Angelus Comnenus was restored to his throne, in 1 203, he caused the statue to be removed to his Palace, in the belief that its presence near his person would avert sedition. THE OLD SCOTTISH WILD CATTLE. 15 proved fatal to the best-beloved of the Fingalian heroes, has been commemorated in song by one of Albin's olden bards. Diarmad, the son of Duine, was the nephew of Fingal, by the mother's side, and was the handsomest warrior in the train of the King of Morven, whose jealousy and hatred, however, he had the misfortune to kindle- Brave, noble Diarmad (so sung the bard) was full of strength and valour ; his might in battle was as a wintry torrent rushing on resistlessly : fair his cheek, red his lip, blue and grey blended in his clear eye, and long locks of yellow waved over his shoulders. Fingal's hate was moved against him ; but it was dissembled, and never found vent until a great hunt was held in Glenshee, where the sounds of deer and elk were ever heard, and where the stream winds at the foot of Ben Gulbin, among the grassy knolls and grey mossy cairns, on which the sunshine sweetly beams. Thither came the Fingalians, — Diarmad accompanying the " king of men." They climbed the hill with their dogs, and the great boar of Ben Gulbin was roused from his darksome cave. Fierce was the aged wild boar that issued in his wrath from the lofty echoing rocks. He sought safety in flight, but being hemmed in by the hunters and their eager pack, he turned furiously upon them, scattering the hounds and defying sword and spear. Diarmad, ever fearless and intrepid, sprung forward to the encounter. His spear shivered in splinters on the beast's thick hide, but^ drawing his thin-leaved sword, of all the arms most crowned with victory, he killed the monster with repeated strokes rapid as the levin-bolt. Sad was Fingal at the sight. It grieved his soul that Diarmad had not fallen a victim, — that the youth should even have emerged unwounded from the struggle. Long sat the King on the hill-side, musing in gloomy silence ; and, then pointing to the enormous carcase stretched on the grass, i6 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. he said — " Diarmad, measure the boar from snout to heel, that we may know its length." Diarmad did so. He measured the boar by treading with his bare feet along its back. " Measure it again, from heel to snout, against the bristles," cried the King. This was also done. But the poisonous bristles pierced Diarmad's naked soles, and the venom working quickly into his blood, he fell beside the boar, and died : and so Fingal was revenged. " Valorous chief! " laments the bard, " lightly may the clod rest upon thy golden locks ! I stand by thy grave, like a leafless, sapless bough amid the whistling blast of sorrow that scatters the withered twigs around Diarmad's bed at the bottom of Ben Gulbin. Though green was the hill when first we approached it, yet red it is this night with the blood of the youthful champion." This is the legend of the hunting of Glenshee : and somewhat may be traced in it of analogy with classic fable ; for Achilles was vulnerable only in the heel, and Adonis, the beloved of the Cyprian goddess, was slain by a boar. The clan Campbell claim their descent from Diarmad : they are called in Gaelic song Sliochd Diarmad an Titirc — " the race of Diarmad who slew the boar : " and their heraldic crest is the boar's head. A curious entry in the Sheriff of Forfar's Accounts for the year 1263 would seem to indicate that by the time of Alexander III. the wild boar had become scarce in the country. The Sheriff notes that he expended 4^ chalders of corn for the wild boars, porci silvestres : upon which Professor Innes asks : — " Are we to conclude from this last that the native wild boar of the Caledonian Forest had become extinct or scarce in the valley of Strathmore, and that a supply was reared for sport?"* The wild hog seems to have long haunted the far Highland wastes * Scotland in the Middle Ages, p. 123. THE OLD SCOTTISH WILD CATTLE. 17 though its numbers were fast diminishing. In Scott's Highland Widoiv, Elspat of the Tree, recounting to her son reminiscences of her native Kintail, tells him that " the white-tusked boar, the chase of which the brave loved best, was yet to be roused in those western solitudes." Eventually the wild hog shared the fate of the brown bear. The ravages of the Wolf provoked Scottish Parliaments of the fifteenth century to pass decrees for its extirpation. But even the wolf was outlived by remnants of the white cattle which, from time immemorial had haunted the Scottish woods ; and, indeed, to this day, survivors of this race are preserved in several parts of our island. The indigenous wild ox of Britain was the Urus ; but whether the later breed of wild cattle, and, in particular, the Scottish Bison or White Bull, can be held as sprung of the aboriginal stock, we do not pretend to judge. It has been supposed that the Urus became extinct in England within the pre-historic period, but that it still subsisted in the regions north of the Tweed. At all events, the wild White Bull appears to have been in Scotland from very early days, and was contemporaneous with various beasts of prey, to which it must have proved a sturdy and dreaded opponent. Without troubling ourselves with vexed questions of breed and descent, let us say that there is abundant and indisputable evidence to show that, for many ages, herds of wild cattle were numerous on both sides of the Border. The " Celtic shorthorn " is under- stood to have been the domesticated British ox during the Roman occupation; but wild cattle in England are spoken of in records dating more than eight centuries ago. The "Forest Laws" of King Canute, who reigned from 1014 to 1036, state that " there are also a great number of cattle which, although they live within the limits of the forest, i8 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. and arc subject to the charge and care of the middle sort of men, or Regardors, nevertheless cannot at all be reputed beasts of the forest as wild horses, bubali [buffaloes, or wild bulls], wild cows," and so forth. An earlier reference occurs in Wales. The "Leges Walnc(r" or Welsh Laws of King Howell the Good, enacted about 942-3, mention white cattle with red ears, which were to be given in compensation for certain offences committed against the Welsh Princes. Matthew Paris, in his Lives of the Abbots of St. Albmis, relates how, in the days of Edward the Confessor, " there abounded throughout the whole of Ciltria [the Chiltrens] spacious woods, thick and large, the habitation of numerous and various beasts, wolves, boars, forest bulls \tauri sylvestyes\ and stags." The historian Fitz-Stephen, says, about 1174, that "close at hand" to London, " lies an immense forest, woody ranges, hiding places of wild beasts, of stags, of fallow deer, of boars, and of [^tanri sy/vestres] forest bulls." Subsequent records speak of wild cattle in other parts of England ; and tradition goes as far back as the oldest writing extant. The ballad of " Sir Guy of Warwick," dating at least in the sixteenth century, tells how the hero slew a great wild cow (called " the Dun-cow of Dunsmore heath ") in the time of King Athelstan, who reigned from 925 to 940: and although the ballad as such cannot be regarded as competent authority, yet it doubtless preserves a very ancient popular belief which coincides in the main with well-authenticated facts. We now pass to Scotland, where the wild white cattle have been well known. One or two references to the race appear in Ossian's Poems ; as, for example, in "l-lngal" (Macpherson's version): — "Long had they strove for the spotted [the original has spotless'] bull that lowed on Golbun's echoing heath. Each claimed him as THE OLD SCOTTISH WILD CATTLE. 19 his own. Death was often at the point of their steel. Side by side the heroes fought ; the strangers of ocean fled. Whose name was fairer on the hill than the name of Cairbar and Grudar ? But, ah ! why ever lowed the bull on Golbun's echoing heath ? They saw him leaping like snow^^ And, again — " I went and divided the herd. One snow-white bull remained. I gave that bull to Cairbar." But the most ample and distinct account of the wild white cattle is given by Hector Boece, in his Scotorum Histories^ which was first published in 1526; and his account has been repeated by succeeding writers. " In this wood " — the great Caledonian Forest, says he, " were some time white bulls, with crisp and curling manes, like fierce lions ; and though they seemed meek and tame in the remanent figure of their bodies, yet were more wild than any other beasts ; and had such hatred against the society and company of men, that they came never in the woods or lesuris [pastures] where they found any feet or hand thereof ; and many days after they eat not of the herbs that were touched or handled by men. Thir bulls were so wild that they were never taken but [without] sleight and crafty labour, and so impatient, that after their taking they died for importable [insupportable] dolour. As soon as any man invaded thir bulls, they rushed with so terrible press on him that they dang him to the earth, taking no fear of hounds, sharp lances, nor other most penetrative weapons." Boece then tells a story of the narrow escape of King Robert Bruce, while, with a small train, he was hunting the wild bull in the Forest, and how the King's deliverer received the name of Twnibull for his prowess at the critical moment. " For after the beast felt himself sore wounded by the hunters, he rushed upon the King, who having no weapon left in his hand wherewith to defend himself, he had sure!)' 20 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. perished, if rescue had not come. Howbeit in this distress one came running unto him, who overthrew the bull by plain force, and held him down till the hunters came that killed him outright. For this valiant act the King endowed the aforesaid party with great possessions, and his lineage is to this day called of the Turnbulls, because he overturned the beast, and saved the King's life, by such great prowess and manhood." Of course, the story, so far as relates to the origin of the surname, bears the same mint-mark as that of Forbes or Buccleugh ; although the incident of, the King's rescue has nothing improbable in it. This Turnbull, it is farther said, fell in a singular manner at Halidon Hill, in July, 1333. Immediately before the battle joined, he, accompanied by a large and ferocious mastiff, advanced towards the English army, and challenged any soldier to single combat. A Norfolk knight, Sir Richard Benhale, encountered the bold Scot, and being first assailed by the dog, killed it at a blow, and then engaging Turnbull, hewed off both his left hand and his head. With regard to the wild bulls, Bishop Lesley, in his History, published i" 1578, gives a description of the animals similar to that of Boece, and adds that in his day such cattle were preserved in the parks of Stirling, Cumbernauld, and Kincardine. At the baptism of James VI., in the Chapel of Stirling Castle, the Earl of Bedford attended, as representative of Queen Elizabeth: and on the following cay the English party were entertained with "the hunting of the wild bull," in Stirling park, at which Queen Mary was present. In 1570, certain retainers of the Regent Lennox were charged with "having slain and destroyed the deer in John Fleming's forest of Cumbernauld and the white kye and bulls of the said forest, to the great destruction of THE OLD SCOTTISH WILD CATTLE. 21 police and hinder of the commonweal; for" adds the document quoted (^Calendar, 1570, No 1418) "that kind of kye and bulls has been kept there many years in the said forest, and the like was not maintained in any other part of this isle of Albion, as is well known." The chief haunts of the wild white cattle of Scotland had been the old forests, which, however, were gradually destroyed, partly by the ravages of war, and partly by the extension of cultivation consequent on the increase and spread of population, so that the herds were deprived of their accustomed and necessary shelter. The breed would seem to have been extirpated generally in the Highlands sooner than in the low country, leaving only to after-days a hazy traditional recollection in which super- stition mingled its dreams and terrors, — the white bull merging into a mythical " water-bull," which, with malevolent powers akin to those of the "kelpie" or water- horse, was supposed to hover about small lochs amid heathy deserts and rocky solitudes and the remnants of ancient woods. " It is easy," say the brothers John Sobieski and Charles Edward Stuart (in their Lays of the Deer Forest, Vol II., p. 222) " to resolve this fable into the associations of the last animal of the district, exagger- ated by its mysterious seclusion and ferocious nature. The wild bull, like the stag, is fond of deep solitude, water, and marshy places, and in summer retires to re- mote lakes and rivers, loving to stand in the water, and wallow in the mire. When the wild cattle were reduced to here and there a single individual, his haunt would be often — in some seasons always — about the margins of the small marshy lakes in the depths of the woods, where, formidable to the hunter, and a terror to women and children, he would soon become the minotaur of the neighbourhood, and hence the superstitions associated 22 SPORTS AND PASTIMES." wiih all those little lakes in the Highlands called Bull- Lochs." In the Lowlands the few survivors of the race fared otherwise ; for at some places in the south of Scot- land, the enclosures — parks and policies — which came to be formed around baronial castles and mansions, pre- served what remained of the once numerous herds. Thus, a number of these cattle were confined in the park of Cadyow Castle, on the banks of the Avon, before its confluence with the Clyde. There the Hamiltons have ruled for centuries, but the castle went to ruin after the civil wars of Queen Mary's time. The Caledonian Forest had spread over this district, and scattered frag- ments of it still remain, in the shape of lofty, broad- topped oaks, darkening the course of the stream. The Cadyow domain was granted to the Hamilton family by King Robert Bruce, who used to hunt in its woods ; and probably it was there that Turnbull rescued him from the infuriated wild bull. Succeeding sovereigns occasionally enjoyed the same sport in the same locality, and it is known that James IV. did so about the year 1500. Un- varying tradition declares that a herd of the white cattle existed at Cadyow from the time of the Bruce's grant to the Hamiltons ; and there a herd remains to this day. In 1764, Mr. John Wilson, an ingenious schoolmaster in the west of Scotland, published at Glasgow his loco- descriptive poem of The Clyde, in which there is a passage devoted to these cattle as they then existed : — Where these high walls round wide inclosures run, Forbid the winter, and invite the sun, Wild strays the race of bison.s, white as snow, Hills, dales, and woods re-echo when they low. No houses lodge them, and no milk they yield, Save to their calves ; nor turn the furrowed llcld : At pleasure through the spacious pastures stray ; No keeper know, nor any guide obey ; THE OLD SCOTTISH WILD CATTLE. 23 Nor round the dairy with swelled udders stand, Or, lowing, court the milkmaid's rosy hand. But, mightiest of his race, the bull is bred ; High o'er the rest he rears his armed head, The monarch of the drove, his sullen roar, .Shakes Clyde with all his rocks from shore to shore. The murdered sounds in billowy surges come, Deep, dismal as the death-denouncing drum, When some dark traitor, 'mid an armed throng. His bier the sable sledge, is dragged along. Not prouder looked the Thunderer when he bore The fair Europa from the Tyrian shore : The beauteous females that his nod obey, Match the famed heifers of the god of day. The brothers Stuart described the animals in 1848, when they were about 60 in number. They were " of a pure white colour, their eyes dark blue, their noses black, the ears tipped and lined with the same colour, the horns white, tipped with black, and the feet generally speckled, according as the hair above the hoof is black or white. The bulls have now in a great measure lost their manes, and the cows are horned or 'humble' indifferently. The general size of the animal is a degree larger than the West Highland cattle, fat bulls of seven or eight years old weighing about 55 to 60 stones; cows full-grown from 28 to 35 stones. Although by long limit to the semi-detached state of an inclosed park, familiarised to the sight of man, the animals have lost their original ferocity, the bulls are fierce when pursued, and at all times shy."* An account of the habits of these animals has also been given by the Rev. W. Patrick, in the Quarterly Jotirnal of Agriculture : — I am inclined to believe that the Hamilton breed of cattle is the oldest in Scotland, or perhaps in Britain. Although Lord Tankerville has said they * Lays of the Deer Forest, Vol. II., p. 225. 24 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. have '"uo wild habits," I am convinced from personal observation, that this is one of their peculiar features. In browsing their extensive pasture, they always keep close together, never scattering or straggling over it, — a peculiarity which does not belong to the Kyloe, or any other breed, from the wildest or most inhospitable regions of the Highlands. The white cows are also remarkable for their systematic manner of feeding. At different periods of the year their tactics are different, but by those acquainted with their habits they are always found about the same part of the forest at the same hour of the day. In the height of summer, they always bivouac for the night towards the northern extremity of the forest ; from this point they start in the morning, and browse to the southern extremity, and return at sunset to their old rendezvous ; and during these perambulations they always feed en masse. The bulls are seldom ill-natured, but when they are so, they display a disposition more than ordinarily savage, cunning, pertinacious, and revenge- ful. A poor bird catcher, when exercising his vocation among the "Old Oaks," as the park is familiarly called, chanced to be attacked by a savage bull. By great exertion he gained a tree before his assailant made up to him. Here he had occasion to observe the habits of the animal. It did not roar or bellow, but merely grunted, the whole body quivered with passion and savage rage, and he frequently attacked the tree with his head and hoofs. Finding all to no purpose, he left off the vain attempt, began to browse, and removed to some distance from the tree. The bird-catcher, tried to descend, but his watchful Cerberus was again instantly at his post, and it was not until after six hours' imprisonment, and various bouts at " bo-peep '" as above, that the unfortunate man was relieved by some shepherds with their dogs. A writer's apprentice, who had been at the village of Quarter on business, and who returned by the " Oaks " as a " near-hand cut," was also attacked by one of these savage brutes, near the northern extremity of the forest. He was fortunate, however, in getting up a tree, but was watched by the bull, and kept there, during the whole of the night, and till near two o'clock next day. These animals are never taken and killed like other cattle, but are always shot in the field. I once went to see a bull and some cows destroyed in this manner, — not by any means for the sake of the sight, but to observe the manner and habits of the animal under peculiar circumstances. When the shooters approached, they, a? usual, scampered oft' in a body, then stood still, tossed their heads on high, and seemed to snuff the wind ; the manoeuvre was often repeated, till they got so hard pressed (and seemingly having a sort of half-idea of the tragedy which was to be performed), they at length ran furiously in a mass, always preferring the sides of the fence and sheltering situations, and dexterously taking advantage of any inequality in the grounil, or other circumstances, to conceal themselves from the THE OLD SCOTTISH WILD CATTLE. 25 assailing foe. lu their llight, the bulls, or stronger of the flock, always took the lead ; a smoke ascended from them which could be seen at a great distance ; and they were often so close together, like sheep, that a carpet would have covered them. The cows which had young, on the first "tug of war," all retreated to the thickets where their calves were concealed; from prudential motives, they are never, if possible, molested. These and other wild habits I can testily to being inherent in the race, and are well known to all who have an opportunity of acquainting themselves with them. The number of these cattle kept at Cadyow Castle, in October, 1874, was 45 ; of which 30 were in the park, and 15 bulls and steers were in an adjoining pasture field. In June, 1877, the numbers remained much the same. At Drumlanrig Castle, in Dumfriesshire, one of the seats of the Oueensberry family, a herd of wild white cattle was kept until about the year 1780, when, on account of their ferocity, they were sold to an English nobleman by the fourth and last Duke of Oueensberry, and removed across the Border. Mr. Pennant, when at Drumlanrig, in 1772, saw these cattle, and has described them in his Tour : — In my walks about the park, see the white breed of wild cattle, derived from the native race of the country ; and still retain the primeval savageness and ferocity of their ancestors ; were more shy than any deer ; ran away on the appearance of any of the human species, and even set off at full gallop on the least noise ; so that I was under the necessity of going very softly under the shelter of trees or bushes to get a near view of them ; during summer they keep apart from all other cattle, but in severe weather hunger will compel them to visit the outhouses in search of food. The keepers are obliged to shoot them, if any are wanted : if the beast is not killed on the spot, it runs at the person who gave the wound, and who is forced, in order to save himself, to fly for safety to the intervention of some tree. These cattle are of a middle size, have very long legs, and the cows are fine horned : the orbits of the eyes and the tips of the noses are black ; but the bulls have lost the manes attributed to them by Boethius. Upwards of half-a-century ago, a herd of wild white cattle, with black ears, muzzles, and hoofs, was kept in one 2 26 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. of the Parks attached to Blair Castle, Perthshire, the scat of the Duke of Atholc. How long they had been there we have not ascertained ; but in 1834 it was resolved to dispose of the herd, and accordingly it was sold, — part being purchased by the Marquis of Breadalbane, and part by the Duke of Buccleuch. But neither at Taymouth Castle nor Dalkeith Palace were the animals long pre- served. A sort of half-breed from this herd is still kept at Kilmory House, Argyleshire, belonging to Sir John Powlett Orde. At Ardrossan Castle, in Ayrshire, a herd of the white cattle was introduced, about 1750, by Alexander, tenth Earl of Eglinton. What their number was is uncertain ; but they were gradually diminished by shooting to about a dozen, when, in 1820 Hugh, the twelfth Earl, ordered them to be destroyed, which was accordingly done. In another part of the same county, — at Auchencruive, a herd of the white cattle was introduced by Lord Cathcart about the same time as they were brought to Ardrossan, namely, in the middle of the last century. In 1763, however, Auchencruive estate was sold to Mr. Oswald, and he previous to his death, in 1784, caused the wild cattle to be killed on account of their dangerous propensities. At Chillingham Castle, in Northumberland, the patrimony of the Earl of Tankcrville, a park with wild cattle is distinctly mentioned in records of the year 1292, while the " great wood " of Chillingham is spoken of as early as 1220. The park of 1292 comprised 1500 acres ; and at present, excluding woods, it contains iioo acres. There can be little doubt that from the end of the fifteenth century down to the present day, Chillingham has possessed a herd of the ancient white cattle of Britain " that has remained secluded in what still exists as a wild THE OLD SCOTTISH WILD CATTLE. 27 tract of country amongst the Cheviot hills on the bounds of Scotland, where they have scarcely been disturbed in their quiet possession until startled by the whistle of the railway engine." When Mr. Pennant visited the Castle in 1772, he noted that " in the park are between thirty and forty wild cattle, of the same kind with those described at Drumlanrig." After the publication of Castle Dangerous, Sir Walter Scott received an interesting letter on the subject of the Chillingham cattle, which he appended to the revised edition of the novel : — When it is wished to kill any of the cattle at Chillingham, the keeper goes into the herd on horseback, in which way they are quite accessible, and, singling out his victim, takes aim with a large rifle-gun, and seldom fails in bringing him down. If the poor animal makes much bellowing in his agony, and especially if the ground be stained with his blood, his companions become very furious, and are themselves, I believe, accessory to his death. After which they fly off to a distant part of the park, and he is drawn away on a sledge. Lord Tankerville is very tenacious of these singular animals ; he will on no account part with a living one, and hardly allows of a sufficient number being killed, to leave pasturage for those that remain. It happened on one occasion, three or four years ago, that a party visiting at the Castle, among whom were some men of war, who had hunted buffaloes in foreign parts, obtained permission to do the keeper's work, and shoot one of the wild cattle. They sallied out on horseback, and, duly equipped for the enterprise, attacked their object. The poor animal received several wounds, but none of them proving fatal, he retired before his pursuers, roar- ing with pain and rage, till, planting himself against a wall or tree, he stood at bay, offering a front of defiance. In this position the youthful heir of the Castle, Lord Ossulston, rode up to give him the fatal shot. Though warned of the danger of approaching near to the enraged animal, and especially of firing without first having turned his horse's head in a direction to be ready for flight, he discharged his piece ; but ere he could turn his horse round to make his retreat, the raging beast had plunged his immense horns into his flank. The horse staggered, and was near falling, but recovering by a violent effort he extricated himself from his infuriated pursuer, making off with all the speed his wasting strength supplied, his entrails meanwhile dragging on the ground, till at length he fell, and died at the same moment. The animal was now close upon his rear, and the young Lord would unques- tionably have shared the fate of his unhappy steed, had not the keeper, deeming it full time to conclude the day's diversion, fired at the instant. 28 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. His shot brought the beast to the ground, and running in with his large knife, he put a period to his existence. This scene of gentlemanly pastime was viewed from a turret of the Castle by Lady Tankerville and her female visitors. Such a situation for the mother of the young hero was anything but enviable. Particulars are known of the Chillingham herd at different periods, commencing with the year 1692. In that year the herd numbered 28 animals. In 1772, Mr. Pennant reckoned 30 or 40. In 1838, the number was 80 ; in 1861, it was 50 ; in 1873, it was 64 ; in 1874, it was 71 ; in 1875, it was 62 ; and in July, 1877, the herd had decreased to 59. An authority quoted in Maxwell's Border Tales describes the cattle as " invariably white ; muzzle black ; the whole of the inside of the ear, and about one-third of the outside from the tip downwards, red ; horns white, with black tips, very fine, and bent up- wards : some of the bulls have a thin upright mane, about an inch and a-half or two inches long ; the weight of the oxen is from 35 to 45 stone, and the cows from 25 to 35 stone." Formerly a portion of the cattle were black- eared. During the hard winter of 1746, many of the Chilling- ham cattle were slaughtered from motives of charity. The Middlezvick Journal, or Cheshire Advertiser of the 14th December that year had the following paragraph : — They write from Newcastle that on Friday se'nnight (being Lord Ossul- ston's birthday) the Earl of Tankerville, in regard to the inclemency of the present season and great scarcity of provisions, was pleased to order a great number of the wild cattle in Chillingham Park to be slaughtered, which with a proportionable quantity of bread was on that day distributed amongst up- wards of 600 poor people. Subsequently the herd had a narrow escape from extinc- tion. A letter from the late Lord Tankerville, in Annals of Natural History {\d> 2)9), states that "several years since, during the early part of the lifetime of my father, the THE OLD SCOTTISH WILD CATTLE. 29 bulls in the herd had been reduced to three ; two of them fought and killed each other, and the third was discovered to be impotent ; so that the means of preserving the breed depended on the accident of some of the cows pro- ducing a bull calf," which turned out to be the case. Chartley Park, in Staffordshire, belonging to the Earl Ferrers, has also been long celebrated for a herd of the wild white cattle with black ears. The park was formed, about 1248, out of Part of Need wood Forest ; and we are told that " some of the wild cattle of the country which had formerly roamed at large in the Forest of Needwood were driven into the park at this place (Chartley), where their breed is still preserved." The herd is occasionally mentioned in records ; but its number seems never to have averaged beyond 30. The animals are not so wild as those at Chillingham. In 1874 they numbered 25 ; and in 1877, only 20. An old tradition connects the Chartley cattle with the singular superstition that the occurrence of a white calf in the herd is an invariable omen of death in the Chartley family. " In the year the Battle of Burton Bridge was fought, a black calf was born in this unique race ; and the downfall of the grand house of Ferrers happening about the same time, gave rise to the tradition, still current, that the birth of a dark-hued, or parti-coloured calf from the wild breed in Chartley Park, is a sure ovien of death with- in the same year to a member of the Ferrers family. It is a noticeable coincidence, say the Staffordshire Chj'onicle of July, 1835, that a calf of this description has been born whenever a death has happened in the family of late years. The decease of the seventh Earl Ferrers, and of his countess, and of his son. Viscount Tamworth, and of his daughter, Mrs. William Jolliffe, as well as the deaths of the son and heir of the eighth earl, and of his daughter, 30 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. Lady Frances Shirley, were each preceded by the ominous birth of the fatal-hued calf. In the spring of 1835, an animal perfectly black was calved by one of this mysterious tribe, in the Park of Chartley, and the portentous event was speedily followed by the death of the Countess, the second wife of the eighth Earl Ferrers."* " In Lyme Park," Cheshire, " which contains about one thousand Cheshire acres," says Hansall's History of that county, published in 18 17, " is a herd of upwards of twenty wild cattle, similar to those in Lord Tankerville's park at Chillingham, — chiefly white with red ears. They have been in the park from time immemorial, and tradi- tion says they are indigenous." The park was enclosed out of Macclesfield Forest, and was acquired by Sir Piers Legh from Richard II. It still remains in the possession of the Leghs, and probably the herd of cattle was intro- duced at the time of the grant. About 1850, the herd numbered 34; in 1875, only 4; and in 1877, there was an increase to 6. Both red and black ears have occurred in the herd. Generally the Lyme cattle have been larger than any others of the species. Thus, as we have enumerated, herds of the white wild cattle are still preserved at two places in Scotland — Cadyow Castle and Kilmory House ; and at three places in England — Chillingham Castle, Chartley Park, and Lyme Park, But formerly, for different periods, some extending down to recent years, herds of these animals were preserved at Nevvorth Castle, in Cumberland ; Gisburne Park, Yorkshire ; Whalley Abbey, Lancashire ; Middlcton Park, Lancashire ; Hoghton Tower, Lanca- shire ; Wollaton Park, Nottinghamshire; Somerford Park, • Ingram's Haunted Homes ami Family Traditions of Great Britain, p. 401. THE OLD SCOTTISH WILD CATTLE. 31 Cheshire ; Woldenby Park, Northamptonshire ; Leigh Court, Somersetshire ; Barnard Castle, Durham ; Bishop Auckland, Durham ; Burton Constable, Yorkshire ; and Ewelme Park, Oxfordshire.* Although the wild white cattle were once so numerous in the Scottish Highlands, yet it seems ultimately to have become a wonder to find a white ox of the domesticated species in the north. Mrs. Grant of Laggan relates a story which illustrates the point : — A gentleman of no small note in Strathspey had a very remarkable animal stolen from him. It was a white ox ; a colour rare in those northern countries. Mungo was not accounted a man of desperate courage ; but the white ox being a great favourite, there was in this case no common stimulus. Mungo, as may be supposed, had no numerous linne na chris [bodyguard of friends]. He took, however, his servant with him, and went to the shealing of Dry- men, at the foot of Corryarich, where he was credibly informed his white favourite might be found. He saw this conspicuous animal quietly grazing, unguarded and alone ; but having thought better of the matter, or supposing the creature looked very happy where he was, he quietly returned without him. Being as deficient in true Highland caution as in courage, he very innocently told when he came home, that he had seen his ox, and left it there. The disgrace attending this failure was beyond the power of a Lowland heart to conceive. He was all his life after, called Mungo of the White Ox; and to this day [181 1] it is accounted very ill-bred to mention an ox of that colour before any of his descendants, t After the extirpation of the wild cattle and wild beasts, we hear not only of water-bulls, but of other strange animals in the Highlands, equally, as would appear, the creations of imagination. What shall we say of the one * For portions of information regarding the extinct and existing herds of the white cattle, particularly in England, we are indebted to Mr. James Edmund Harting's British Animals Extinct within Historic Tifftes ; and also to his letter in The Field of 6th September, 1890, in illustration of the Earl of Tankerville's communications to that paper of i6th and 30th August previous. t Essays on the Superstitions of the Highlands, Vol. II., p. 49. 32 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. which is described by the Rev. John Grant, minister of Kirkmichael, Banffshire, in the Old Statistical Account of that parish ? Among the Grampian mountains, " it is asserted by the country people that there is a small quad- ruped which they call fanili. In summer mornings it issues from its lurking-places, emitting a kind of glutinous matter fatal to horses, if they happen to eat of the grass upon which it has been deposited. It is somewhat larger than a mole, of a brownish colour, with a large head dis- proportionate to its body. From this deformed appear- ance, and its noxious quality, the word seems to have been transferred to denote a monster, a cruel, mischievous person, who, in the Gaelic language, is usually called a famJi-fhearr The same venomous creature, or one very much akin to it, is mentioned by the author of TJie Scottish Crt;^/ (1831) : — "A species of amphibious animal, apparently of the rat kind, called BeothacJi an' fheoir, is found in the eddies of the upper regions, always in- habiting the vicinity of the green patches around springs. When a horse feeds upon the grass that has been recently cropped by this animal, it swells, and in a short time dies, and the flesh is found blue, as if it had been bruised or beaten. I believe this creature has not been hitherto described by naturalists."* Has any naturalist noticed it to this day ? But it concerns us not to press the enquiry. Let us not forget how Virgil fables that the water of the Campanian river, Clitumnus, rendered oxen white, preparing them as victims " for triumphs after prosperous wars." The elegiac Propertius and the naturalist Pliny also mention the same supposititious wonder. It would seem that Bull-baiting wa.^ once a popular sport * Sinclair's Slatistical Account of Scotland, Vol. XII., p. 449; Logan's Scottish Gael, Vol. II., p. 36. THE OLD SCOTTISH WILD CATTLE. 33 in Scotland, as it was in the sister kingdom. Here is an old example : — " It happened that, in the year 1164, Ail- red, the Abbot of Rievaux, was on a journey in Galloway, and was at Kirkcudbright on the festival of the saint (St. Cuthbert) from whom the place is called. On this occasion a bull of a fierce temper was brought to the church as an oblation, and was baited in the churchyard by the young clerics, notwithstanding the remonstrances of their more aged brethren, who warned the others of the danger of violating the ' peace ' of the Saint within the limits of his sanctuary. The younger men persisted in their frolic, and one of them ridiculed the idea of St. Cuthbert's presence, and the consequent sanctity of the place, even though his church was one of stone — a great distinction when so many churches and chapels were still of timber. The bull, after being baited for a time, broke loose from its tormentors, and, rushing through the crowd, he attacked the young cleric who had just spoken, and gored him, without attempting to hurt any other person."* Nearly four hundred years later — in 1529 — "the Provost and Bailies " of Stirling, " licensed the Deacon and Crafts- men of the Fleshers to bait ane bull on St. Cuthbert's Day, or on the Sunday next thereafter." f Such rude sports probably ceased at the Reformation. * Fourth Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, p. 288. + Extracts from the Records of the Royal Burgh of Stirling, A.D. 1519- 1666. CHAPTER II. THE WOLVES. Our fore-sires, peaceful, then a shepherd-race, Did tend their flocks — or rous'd the cheering chace, These hills and glens and wooded wilds can tell, How many wolves, and boars, and deer then fell. Campbclts " Grampians Desolate." GOTLAND has seen "good old times "—(those " ages, which," as Sismondi remarks, " can only teach us one lesson — to avert at all price their return ") — when the country people were called out periodically en masse, by public statute, to pursue the pleasures of the chase in its most exciting form, under pains and penalties for neglect of the summons. Many parts of Caledonia were overrun with wolves, the last surviving species of savage animals which had infested the land from the pre-historic ages. Their depredations were not always confined to the flocks and herds : frequently the sparse population of the glens had to mourn over more afflicting losses ; so that evcntuall}- the Government was forced to grapple with the evil the best way it could. The same thing had occurred both in England and Wales. According to the old chroniclers, the Principality was cleared by the annual tribute of wolves' skins, heads, or tongues imposed by King Edgar — THE WOLVES. Wise, potent, gracious prince ! His subjects from their cruel foes he sav'd, And from rapacious savages their flocks : Cambria's proud kings (though with reluctance) paid Their tributary wolves ; head after head. In full account, till the woods yield no more, And all the ravenous race extinct is lost. But, in fact, no such result was attained. The tribute may have thinned the numbers of the "rapacious savages"; but it did not lead to their extirpation. Long after Edgar's days Harold claimed the tribute. After the Conqueror clove his way to Harold's throne, through the carnage of Hastings, he granted the Northumbrian family of Umphraville the lands of Redesdale, to be held by the tenure of defending that part of the country from wolves and the King's foes. Other lands Vv'ere held by the like tenure. Edward I. saw England suffering from the vul- pine plague, and instituted vigorous repressive measures ; but a lengthened period elapsed before " the ravenous race" disappeared from the southern portion of our island. If Hector Boece can be believed, Dornadilla, a Scottish king, who flourished two centuries before the Christian era, enacted hunting-laws, and ordained that " he that killed a wolf should have an ox for his pains ! This beast, indeed, the Scottish men, even from the beginning, used to pursue in all they might devise, because the same is such an enemy to cattle, wherein consisted the chief portion of all their wealth and substance." One of this monarch's successors, Ederus, who was contemporary with Julius Csesar, had his " chief delight," we are told, " alto- gether in hunting, and keeping of hounds and greyhounds, to chase and pursue wild beasts, and namely the wolf, the herdman's foe." Another king of the same shadowy line was the debauched tyrant, Ferquhard H., who died a miserable death, in A.D. 664, from the bite of a wolf which 36 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. he was hunting. Another tradition states that in loio, when Malcolm II. was returning from Mortlach, in Moray, where he had gained a signal victory over the Danish invaders, he was attacked and chased by an immense wolf in Stochet forest. He might have fallen a prey had not a son of Donald of the Isles flown to his assistance. The young Islesman wrapping his plaid around his left arm and hand, thrust the muffled hand into the " gaunt grey " brute's gaping mouth, while at the same time he stabbed it to death with his dirk ; for which good service he was awarded with the Aberdeenshire lands of Skene. But leaving fabulous history, we shall descend to times which supply authentic, albeit scattered and fragmentary, records of the prevalence of wolves throughout Scotland, and especially where the ancient forests afforded them shelter. On the Border, in the twelfth century, the monks of Melrose were accustomed to trap the wolves on their Eskdale lands, but were prohibited from hunting the hart and hind, the boar and the roe, and also from hawking, which rights were reserved by the feudal baron who granted the Abbey the pasturage of Eskdale. But in a following age the monks acquired the whole game-rights which had been so reserved. In 1263 the royal park at Stirling was repaired, and a new one formed ; and twenty years afterwards, in addition to two park-keepers, there was a " hunter of wolves " at Stirling.* In 1427 the Scottish legislature saw urgent cause to take steps for the repression of the wolf-plague. In doing so they had precedents in the English usages of old. There was also the Capitular o{ Charlemagne, promulgated in the year 812, and one of the ordinances in which was * Innes' Sketches of Early Scotch History, p. 103 ; and Scotland in the Middle Ages, p. 125. THE WOLVES. 37 to the effect that the "Judices" or stewards of the villas should report regularly " how many wolves each has caught, and send us their skins. And in the month of May to search and take the cubs with poison and hooks, as well as with pits and dogs." Similar action was needed in Scotland. Accordingly, the seventh Parliament of James I., which met at Perth on ist March, 1427, commanded that " Ilk Baron, within his barony, in gangand time of the year, chase and seek the whelps of the wolves, and gar slay them. And the Baron shall give to the man that slays the wolf in his barony, and brings the Baron the head, two shillings. And when the Barons ordain to hunt and chase the wolf, the tenants shall rise with the Baron, under the pain of a wedder ilk man not rising with the Baron. And that the Barons hunt in their baronies and chase four times in the year, and as oft as any wolf be seen within the barony. And that no man seek the wolf with shot, but only in the times of hunting of them ; " the last clause being evidently intended to prevent poaching of game. The edict, however, seems to have been a failure from the backwardness of the Barons to obey it. In the next reign the fourteenth Parliament of James II., in 1457, enacted "for the destruction of wolves, that in ilk country where any is, the Sheriff or the Bailie of that country shall gather the country-folk three times in the year betwixt St. Mark's Day and Lammas [25th April and ist August], for that is the time of the whelps. And whatever he be that rises not with the Sheriff, Bailie, or Baron, within himself, shall pay unforgiven a wedder, as is contained in the auld Act made thereupon. And he that slays a wolf at any time, he shall have of ilk householder of that parish that the wolf is slain within, a penny. And if any wolf happens to come in the country that wit [intelligence] be got of, the country 38 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. shall be ready, and ilk householder to hunt them, under the pain foresaid. And they that slays a wolf shall bring the head to the Sheriff, Bailie, or Baron, and he shall be debtor to the slayer for the sum foresaid. And whatsoever he be that slays a wolf, and brings the head to the Sheriff, Lord, Bailie, or Baron, he shall have six pennies.'' It has been conjectured that the passing of this law originated the keeping of county kennels or packs of hounds.* The Sheriff and Bailies, for a time, would appear to have executed their commission better than the Barons, though generally in perfunctory style. " In some active instances," say the brothers Stuart, "the exertion of these statutes might have cleared local districts, and a remarkable example of success was given by a woman — Lady Margaret Lyon, Baroness to Hugh, third Lord Lovat. This lady, having been brought up in the low country, at a distance from the wolves, was probably the more affected by their neighbourhood, and caused them to be so vigorously pursued in the Aird that they were exterminated out of their principal hold in that range. According to the Wardlaw MS., ' she was a stout, bold woman, a great huntress ; she would have travelled in our hills a-foot, and perhaps out-wearied good footmen. She purged Mount Caplach of the wolves. There is a seat there called Ellig-ne-Banitearn. She lived in Phoppachy, near the sea, in a stanck-house [a house surrounded by a moat or fosse], the vestige whereof remains to this very day.' Mount Caplach is the highest range of the Aird, running parallel to the Beauly Firth, behind IMoniach and Lcntron. Though the place of the lady's seat is now for- gotten, its existence is still remembered, and said to have been at a pass where she sat when the woods were driven * Miller's Arbroath and its Abbcyi, p. 65. THE WOLVES. 39 for the wolves, not only to see them killed, but to shoot at them with her own arrows. The period of her repression of the wolves is indicated by the succession of her husband to the Lordship of Lovat, which was in 1450, and it is therefore probable that the 'purging' of 'Mount Cap- lach ' was begun soon after that date. Such partial expulsions, however, had little effect upon the general head of wolves, which, fostered by the great Highland forests, increased at intervals to an alarming extent."* During the reigns of Jameses III. and IV., notices of the wolves are exceedingly scanty. Abbots of Abbeys being reckoned as barons, came under the law providing for the periodical chase of the wolf, and seem therefore to have kept dogs. Such, for example, was the case with the Abbot of Arbroath, who had a kennel near the Abbey.j The monks of Coupar-Angus Abbey inserted a clause in the tacks or leases of their principal tenants that they should rise to the wolf-hunt when cited so to do. Thus, in a lease of part of the lands of Innerarity, dated 24th April 1483, the tenant was taken bound to " obey the officers rising in the defence of the country to wolf, thief, and sorners." The conjunction of wolves and thieves also occurs in the old Litany of Dunkeld, which contains this prayer — " From caterans and robbers, from wolves and all wild beasts. Lord deliver us." In the Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, under date of 24th October, 1491, the sum of 5s. is entered as paid "to a fellow that brought the King [James IV.] two wolves, in Linlithgow " : which animals were presumably alive and intended to fight with dogs for the sport of the Court, as had they been dead, their heads only would have sufficed * Lays of the Deer Forest, Vol. II., p. 230, t Miller's Arbroath and its Abbey, p. 65. 40 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. to ensure reward. But " in the time of James V.," say the brothers Stuart, " the wolves' numbers and ravages were formidable," owing to the "clouds of forests" in various districts of the Hicrhlands. Boece declares in his History, which was published in 1526, that " the wolves are right noisome to the tame bestial in all parts of Scot- land, except a part thereof named Glenmore, in which the tame bestial gets little damage of wild bestial, especially of foxes." In the year 1528, King James was present at the great hunting in Athole (which is afterwards des- cribed), and among the scores of animals slain were wolves. It was in the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots, however, that the wolf-plague, which had been gradually coming to a crisis, spread unexampled devastation. The wolves, when pinched with hunger, ransacked churchyards, like the ghouls of Arabian romance, feasting on the newly- buried corpses which they unearthed. Along the tract of Ederachillis, on the north-west coast of Sutherlandshire, the inhabitants were constrained to transfer the burial of their dead to the adjacent rocky islet of Handa, in the sea, where the restless surge, breaking against the precipitous cliffs, preserved the inviolability of the humble sclpulchres. " To Handa's. isle we go, Our graveyard in the deep, Where the tombs stand all a-row, Safe in that rocky keep ; And never a foot of man or brute Disturbs our kinsmen's sleep. " On Ederachillis' shore The grey wolf lies in wait, — Woe to the broken door, Woe to the loosened gate, And the groping vvrclch whom sleety fogs On the trackless moor belate. THE WOLVES. 41 " The lean and hungry wolf, With his fangs so sharp and white, His starveling body pinched By the frost of a northern night, And his pitiless eyes that scare the dark With their green and threatening light. " He climbeth the guarding dyke, He leapeth the hurdle bars, He steals the sheep from the pen, And the fish from the boat-house spars ; And he digs the dead from out the sod, And gnaws them under the stars. " Thus every grave we dug The hungry wolf uptore, And every morn the sod Was strewn with bones and gore ; Our mother earth had denied us rest On Ederachillis' shore. " To Handa's isle we go, Encircled by the sea ; A swimmer stout and strong The grey wolf need to be, And a cragsman bold to scale the rocks If he follow where we flee. " To Handa's isle we sail, Whose blood-red cliffs arise Six hundred feet above the deep. And stain the lurid skies ; Where the mainland foliage never blooms, And the sea-mist never dries. " Push off for the sea-dashed grave. The wolf may lurk at home, May prowl in the Diri Moir Till nightfall bids him roam ; But the grave is void in the mountain kirk, And the dead hath crossed the foam."* *Mrs. D. OgiUy's Book of Highland Minstrelsy, p. 251. 3 42 SPORTS AND TASTIMES. Moreover, in different quarters of the countr}-, houses of refuge or " hospitals," {spittals, as they were called) had to be erected, to which benighted travellers might resort for protection against the prowling rout : hence the origin of the " Spittal of Glenshee," and similar appellations in other places. To this period may be assigned the following two traditions which we quote from a curious source, namely, A Description of the Beauties of Edinaiiiple and Locheam- head (in western Perthshire) — a tract, bearing upon the title-page to have been written by a native of that district, Angus M'Diarmid by name, and which appeared in 1815, with a dedication to the Eail of Breadalbane. Angus was a thorough Child of the Mist — a trusty gillie on the moors, and a genius to boot. Pie appears to have acquired just sufficient knowledge of the English language to enable him to use an English dictionary, from the study of which his untutored mind formed an extraordinary style of composition. The Description was reprinted at Aberfeldy in 1841, and again in 1876, and is altogether unique as the production of an untaught Highlander striving to express his thoughts in literary English. A copy of the first edition apparently fell into the hands of Robert Southcy, who quoted and laughed over one of its queer phrases — " men of incoherent transactions " — In the ancient time, when the woods was more copious repletion both on the hills and on the level than it is at present, particular the oaks, which woods was a habitation to voracious wild animals, such as wolfs, whicli animals would slipped imperceptibly to houses, eluding observation, when the people at the field, acting in their domestic management. A certain man, after being disengaged of his dies employment, upon his return to his house, he directed his eyes through the window to meet hypochondrical dis- covery of his youngest child on one side of the fire, and the wolf on the other side. Upon the child to have an idea of being one of his father's dogs, he uttered some merriment exiiression to him, as gaiety laughter, at which his father's bowels did yearn over him observing his endearment amorous child THE WOLVES. 43 at the hazard of being swallowed up or tear in pieces by that voracious animal ; but as Providence meant otherwise for him, he drew his bow ad- venture, pointing to the said animal, with much anxiety how to screen his child from being injured or molested by the arrow : at which point he finished the above animal. About the same time, the cattle of Glendochard inhabitants has been taken away by violence or pillage, by barbarous men of incoherent trans- actions. At that depredation, a most excellent bull break out from the force of the ravisher ; which bull shelter himself in a vacant hovel, laying a distant from the rest of the houses ; he was much troubled by one of the wolfs already mentioned, for which he was laying between the doorposts holding his head out to fence with that animal, — the said combat has been observed by two men going that way. Upon some emergent occasion, the said men came on the day following with bows and arrows, and placed themselves on the housetop where the said bull sheltered himself, waiting on the animal's coming. Upon his first discovery, the men persuaded that he was of greater stature or size than his usual circumference, they remarked two of the wolfs close together with a cross stick in their mouth. When they arrive to the bull, they yoked together on him ; the men drew their bows, and killed them on the spot. When they descended off the housetop to look at them, they found one of them blind. It was the purpose of the other to lead the blind one by the stick, to acquire his assistance to finish the said bull, being the one had practical accustomed of assaying to kill him himself. * Up to the outbreak of the Reformation the tacks granted to tenants by the monks of Coupar-Angus Abbey embodied clauses relating to the destruction of the wolfish breed. Thus, in a lease, dated loth September, 155 — , of the lands of Mekle Forther, in Glenisla, to the Countess of Crawford and Lord Ogilvy of Airlie, her son, they are bound to " sustain and feed ane leash of hounds for tod (fox) and wolf." In another, of date 17th September, 1552, the tenants of Nether Illrik are to maintain one hound for tod and wolf. In a third, dated i6th November, same year, tenants of the Newtoun of Bellite, etc., in Glenisla, are to "maintain ane leash of good hounds, with * Another version of the second tradition will be found in the Lays of the Deer Forest, Vol. II., pp. 232-239. 44 SrORTS AND PASTIMES. ane couple of raches (sleuth-dogs or blood-hounds), fur tod and wolf, and shall be ready at all times when we charge them to pass with us or our bailies to the hunts, as we charge." A fourth lease, dated 9th March, 1557, of the Mill of Freuchy, binds the tenants to keep a leash of hounds for fox and wolf; and a fifth, dated 14th June following, of Wester Innerarity, contains a similar clause that the tenants " shall maintain and have in readiness ane leash of hounds for wolf and fox, with hunting when we or our servants please."* But the intolerable pest eventually caused the general adoption of the most vigorous measures of repression. Extensive forests in Rannoch and Lochaber, and other quarters, were burned down to prevent harbourage of the ravagers ; and so heavy was the slaughter of the latter that only a comparatively few stragglers were left skulking in the Highland wastes — the breed, however, not be- coming extinct for nearly the next two centuries. As fully related in the sequel, Queen Mary visited Atholc, in the month of August, 1564, and witnessed the Highland hunting on a grand scale, when five wolves were among the animals killed. That there were wolves in the wilds of Braemar, in the early part of the seventeenth century, is attested by John Taylor, the Water Poet, who says he saw them during his memorable visit to that region in 1618. "I was the space of twelve days," he writes, " before I saw either house, corn-field, or habitation for any creature, but deer, wild horses, wolves, and such like creatures, which made me doubt that I should never have seen a house again." t * Rental Book of the Cistercian Abbey of Cupar-Angus, Vol. II., pp. 107, 141, 176, 251, 262. t The Pcnnyles Pilgrimage (Old Book Collector's Miscellany), p. 50. THE WOLVES. 45 In the year 1609, a case was before the Privy Council, in which mention was made of the pursuit of a wolf in Assynt. The Inventories of the wardrobe in Balloch (Taymouth) Castle, dating from 1598, enumerate four wolf-skins, each being probably the souvenir of a desperate chase. By the Acts of the Breadalbane Baron Courts, which were collected in 1621, each tenant was obliged to make yearly four spears for killing of the wolf ; and in 1622, a case came up, concerning three cows killed by the wolf* One of the Sutherland account-books contains an entry, in 162 1, of £t 13s. 4d. being " given this year to Thomas Gordon for the killing of ane wolf, and that according to the Acts of the country."! Various districts far apart retain each its tradition of the death of the " last wolf." In the Banffshire parish of Kirkmichael, the last wolf was said to have been slain about 1644; "yet," adds the parish minister, who gives the story, " it is probable that wolves were in Scotland for some time after that period." § Sir Ewen Cameron, the valorous chief of Lochiel, who defied Cromwell's power, and fought on Dundee's side at Killiecrankie, killed the last wolf in his country in 1680. Another was slain about the same time, in Forfarshire, by a scion of the house of Ogilvy. It is stated that about the middle of this century " two wolves, the last seen in Scotland, were chased from the wood of Trowan," near Glenturret, in western Perthshire, " and followed by their pursuers into the Highlands, where they were killed.^ But there is a respectable tradition which goes to prove that the last * Black Book of Taymouth \ Second Report of the Royal Commission 011 Historical Ulaniiscri/ts, p. 179. XSinclMts Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. xii., p. 447. § Statistical Accowtt of Perthshire, p. 731. 46 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. wolf in Scotland existed so late as 1743, in which year it was shot on the banks of the Findhoin by a famous Highland hunter, Macqueen of Pall-a'-chrocain, not many hours after it had throttled two children on the hills ; and the story of its death, as told by the brothers Stuart, is worth rehearsing here. Macqueen was " of a gigantic stature, six feet seven inches in height," and " was equally remarkable for his strength, courage, and celebrity as a deer-stalker. It will not be doubted that he had the best ' long-dogs ' or deer greyhounds in the country ; and for their service and his own, one winter's day, about the year before-mentioned, he received a message from the Laird of Mackintosh that a large ' black beast,' supposed to be a wolf, had appeared in the glens, and the day before killed two children who, with their mother, were crossing the hills from Calder, in consequence of which a ' Tainchel,' or gathering, to drive the country was called to meet at a tryst above Fi-Giuthas, where Macqueen was invited to attend with his dogs. Pall-a'-chrocain informed himself of the place where the children had been killed, the last tracks of the wolf, and the conjectures of his haunt, and promised his assistance. In the morning the Tainchel had long assembled, and Macintosh waited with impatience, but Macqueen did not arrive ; his dogs and himself were, however, auxiliaries too important to be left behind, and they continued to wait until the best of a hunter's morning was gone, when at last he appeared, and Macintosh received him with an irritable expression of disappointment. ' What was the hurry?' said Pall-a'- chrocain. Macintosh gave an indignant retort, and all , present made some impatient reply. Macqueen lifted his plaid, and drew the black, bloody head of the wolf from under his arm. 'There it is for you!' said he, and tossed it on the grass in the midst of the surprised circle. THE WOLVES. 47 Macintosh expressed great joy and admiration, 'and gave him the land called Sean-achan for meat to his do. 55. THE HIGHLAND GAMES. 185 and professional Highland harpers, visited Lude in com- pany with the Marquis of Huntly, about the year 1650, the Queen's harp was put into his hands, and he composed 2, port or air in honour of the occasion, which was called Suipar CJmirn na Leod, or The Supper of Lude. In the time of the rebellion of 1745 this instrument was despoiled of its precious stones, either by the persons to whose care it had been confided for concealment, or, as they asserted, by the Duke of Cumberland's soldiers. It was recently in the possession of the Stewarts of Dalguise ; and the other old harp seems to have been ultimately deposited with the Highland Society of Scotland. The last appearance of the Highland harp on the field of battle was at Glenlivat, 3rd October, 1594, when the Earl of Argyll, as the royal lieutenant, encountered the rebel Roman Catholic lords, Huntly and Errol. To encourage the clansmen, of whom his army was mainly composed, Argyll brought his harper with him, and also a sorceress, who predicted that, on the following Friday, his harp should sound in Buchan and his pibroch in Strathbogie — the provinces of his enemies. But the battle took place on Thursday, the royal troops were routed, and the Pythoness herself perished in the slaughter. A writer of the end of the sixteenth century states that the Highlanders "delight much in musick, but chiefly in harpes," which " they take great pleasure to deck with silver and precious stones ; and the poore ones that cannot attain heereunto deck them with cristall." * The harp-keys or wrests were also richly adorned : one, which had belonged to Rory Dall, and was kept at Armidale in 1772, when Dr. Johnson and Boswell were in *" Description of Scotland," appended to 'inlom^enme's Abridgement of the Scots Chronicles, 12 l86 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. the Hebrides, was " finely ornamented with silver and gold, and a precious stone, and valued at more than eighty guineas." Every chieftain kept his hereditary bard, who celebrated the honour and renown of the sept ; but this fashion, together with the use of the harp, gradually declined — that instrument being apparently superseded by the violin, which became fashionable in the seventeenth century ; though, we must remember that the violin's precursor, the viol or emit, was known in the north perhaps as early as the harp itself The harp was finally discontinued in the Scottish Highlands about 1734, leaving the bagpipe master of the field. The high antiquity of the Highland bagpipe is indispu- table ; and the pipe-music is endeared to the people by " the stirring memory of a thousand years." Many of the airs, though seeming rude to a polished ear, are peculiarly plaintive, and exert an influence over the unsophisticated feelings of a Celt similar to that of the Ranz de Vaches on a Swiss mountaineer. How often have the salt tears hailed down the cheeks of the expatriated Gael when " Lochaber no more " brought back to his mind's eye the never-to-be-forgotten mountains and vales, the rolling rivers and the dashing cataracts, the rocks of the eagles, and the forests of the deer ! Each clan had its own Piobrachd — a war tune, "savage and shrill," which incited to the fray or celebrated a victory : and each clan had likewise its own Cuin-hadh or lament for the dead. One piece of pipe-music is said to date from 13 14, and was played before the Clan Donnachy or Robertsons of Atholc when they marched to Bannockburn. It is named Theachd Claim DonnacJiaidJi — The Coming of the Robert- sons. But the most ancient tunc kncnvn is Coinha Sojh- Jiairle — Somcrlcd's Lament — which was composed on the assassination of that leader at Renfrew, in his own camp, THE HIGHLAND GAMES. 187 in 1 164. " The bagpipe is sacred to Scotland, and speaks a language which Scotsmen only feel. There is not a battle that is honourable to Britain in which its war-blast has not sounded. When every other instrument has been hushed by the confusion and carnage of the scene, it has been borne into the thick of the battle, and, far in the advance, its bleeding but devoted bearer, sinking on the earth, has sounded at once encouragement to his country- men and his own coronach."* Highland music, more- over, is widely diversified, giving expression to all the varied moods. Look at the festive gatherings where Native music wakes in sprightly strains, Which gay according motion best explains : P'astidious Elegance, in scornful guise, Perhaps the unpolished measure may despise ; But here, where infant lips in tuneful lays, And Melody her untaught charms displays ; The dancers bound with wild peculiar grace, And Sound thro' all its raptur'd mazes trace ; Nor awkward step, nor rude ungainly mien, Through all the glad assemblage can be seen. What can be more spirit-stirring and mirth-inspiring than the " strathspeys and reels," which " put life and mettle in the heels " of a population exceedingly fond of saltatory diversion ? It is on such an occasion as a Gathering for competition in Highland games, that Donald Macdonald is seen in all his pride and glory. He then struts forth in holiday spirits as well as in holiday attire, resolved to do his utmost to impress favourably the minds of those Sassenach strangers, who throng northwards in autumn with the same regularity as the Highland reapers used to descend in bands to the golden-waving plains of the Lowlands. * M 'Donald's Ancient Martial Music of Caledonia, iSS SPORTS AND PASTIMES. " idstone," an English sporting uriler, who was prescnl, at a meeting among the Grampians, about a dozen of years since, paid a generous compliment (in the columns of TJie Field) to the Highland character : — On two sides ran a rapid winding hill-stream ; on the third side was a hig mountain — according to my Lowland views ; and on the fourth were the marquees, the refreshment-stalls and the judges' tent. The mountain-side was occupied by a motley assemblage of gay colours — kilts, pipers, and com- petitors. In the circle where the games were to take place a chosen circle chatted together beneath a large flag, bearing an inscription which " no fellow could understand." The benches for the ladies were gradually filling, for it was just twelve o'clock, and the assistants were fast bringing in the various implements necessary for the games. One could not help contrasting this scene with English ideas of athleticism as they did exist — the "stakes," the "referee," the "cinder-path," the "beer," the impudent landlord and his gate-money, the long pipes and pot- stained tables of the past, the sham Indian runners, the professional ped.," or (save the mark !) the pigeons, and the professional pigeon shots wrangling over guns and charges, sweepstakes and distances. The scenery, the picturesque effective northern garb, and the national character of the gathering, had much to do with the general effect of the meeting ; and the superior education of the Scotch peasant decidedly influenced the proceedings. You heard no coarse language — least of all pro- fane oaths — from the competitors. There was no " dog trial " wrangling as to the awards. The defeated piper appeared equally pleased when he was adjudged second or third rate as a player of reels ; the marksmen at the rifle- butts were polite and self-possessed whether they lost or won. Long may Donald retain the simple, decorous, manly manners, and the independent self-respect, which merit such encomiums ! CHAPTER XI. CURLING. When chittering birds, on flicht'ring wing, About the barn doors mingle, And biting frost, and cranreuch cauld, Drive coofs around the ingle ; Then to the loch the curlers hie, Their hearts as light's a feather, And mark the tee wi' mirth and glee. In cauld, cauld frosty weather. Rev. James Muir, MONG the popular sports and pastimes of the " Land of Cakes," there is one which is vaunted as being exclusively national — "Scotland's ain game o' Curling." Well-merited are the ardent panegyrics which have been lavished upon it ! What winter recrea- tion can rival the Bonspiel ? The " keen, keen curler " exults when Boreas and John Frost are in their bitterest moods, muffling Mother Earth in her winding-sheet and congealing the waters to the consistency of stone. Look at the thronged and resounding rink on a clear, hard, nip- ping day, when The ice is here, the ice is there, The ice is all around : igo SPORTS AND PASTIMES. and your heart will warm and leap in unison with the geniality and good fellowship pervading the busy assem- blage ! As admirably conducive to the promotion of genuine fraternity between all classes of men, curling must be pronounced unequalled among games. For on the water's face are met, Wi' mony a merry joke man, The tenant and his jolly laird, The pastor and his flock, man. Need we strive to depict the deepening contest that animates the snowy scene ? This has been done to our hand by the amiable poet of the Sabbath, in his British Georgics : Now rival parishes, and shrievedoms, keep, On upland lochs, the long-expected tryst To play their yearly bonspiel. Aged men, Smit with the eagerness of youth, are there. While love of conquest lights their beamless eyes. New-nerves their arms, and makes them young once more. The sides when ranged, the distance meted out, And duly traced the tees, some younger hand Begins, with throbbing heart, and far o'ershoots, Or sideward leaves, the mark : in vain he bends His waist, and winds his hand, as if it still Retained the power to guide the devious stone. Which, onward hurling, makes the circling group Quick start aside, to shun its reckless force. But more and still more skilful amis succeed, And near and nearer still around the tee This side, now that, approaches ; till at last. Two seeming equidistant, straws or twigs Decide as umpires 'tween contending coits. Keen, keener still, as life itself were staked, Kindles the friendly strife : one points the line To him who, poising, aims and aims again ; Another runs and sweeps where nothing lies. Success alternately, from side to side, Changes ; and quick the hours un-noted fly, Till light begins to fail, and deep below, CURLING. 191 The player, as he stoops to lift his coit, Sees, half-incredulous, the rising moon, But now the final, the decisive spell, Begins ; near and more near the sounding stones, Some winding in, some bearing straight along, Crowd jostling all around the mark, while one, Just slightly touching, victory depends Upon the final aim : long swings the stone, Then with full force, careering furious on, Rattling it strikes aside both friend and foe. Maintains its course, and takes the victor's place. The social meal succeeds, and social glass ; In words the fight renewed is fought again. While festive mirth forgets the winged hours. No trace of curling can be found among the out-door amusements of the EngHsh in former days. On the other hand, the claim that it is indigenous to Scotland — seems at the best somewhat problematical. The scanty and fragmentary history of curling in Scotland points to the theory that the "roaring play" was an importation from the Low Countries. Some of the chief technical terms of the game appear to owe their derivation to the Dutch or Ger- man. Cui'l may have come from the German word Kurz- tveil — a game, and Curling- from Kuraiueillen — to play for amusement. The old name for curling in some parts of Scotland was Kuting or Cooting, and the stones were called Cooting or Coiting-stones — evidently from the Teu- tonic Kluytoi — to play with round pieces of ice, in the manner of quoits, on a sheet of ice ; or, the denomination may have come from the Dutch coete — a quoit ; as if, in- deed, the game of quoits, and not that of bowls, originated curling. The word Bonspiel, as understood in Scotland, signifies a match at any game — curling, golf, football, archery, etc., and it has even been applied in some quar- ters to a prize-fight ! Perhaps it comes from the French bon and the German speilen ; but the more likely deriva- 192 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. tion is from the Belgic bonne, a village or district, and spel, play — thus expressing a friendly competition between people of different townships or parishes. Tee is the win- ning point : Icelandic tia, to point out ; and witter is another name for the tee : Suio-Gothic wittra, to point out. Wick — Suio-Gothic ivik, a corner; and only a corner of the stone is hit in the operation of what is called wick- ing. Skip — a director of the play : Suio-Gothic, skeppare ; whence skipper of a ship. Hack, or hatch, a cut on the ICQ, to save the foot of the player from slipping when de- livering the stone : Icelandic Jiiacka, or Suio-Gothic hack, a crack. From which etymological coincidences, taken in conjunction with the period when curling is first mentioned as being played in Scotland, the inference has been drawn that the game was introduced by the numerous companies of Flemings who emigrated from Flanders to Scotland about the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the six- teenth centuries. Now, let any stickler for the indigenousness of Curling in Scotland explain how it comes to pass that the earliest notices of the game crop up only in the seventeenth cen- tury. Look at the sports and pastimes which our James IV. patronized, as set out in full detail in the Lord High Treasurer's Accounts. Is Curling, or the remotest trace of it, there ? Does Dunbar mention it ? Does Sir David Lyndsay, or any other poet of the sixteenth century ? At the same time, we do not forget that the game seemed un- known in Germany and the Low Countries until of late years, and no mention of its former existence there has been discovered in any record. But the signification of klnyten shows that the Germans had once a game similar to curling — namely, throwing or sliding lumps of ice upon the frozen surface of water, apparently in imitation of the game of quoits. Besides, the utter extinction of curling CURLING. 193 on the Continent is not so very improbable a supposition, when we know that, although curling was introduced into Ireland by the Scottish colonists of the time of James I. of England, it soon fell into oblivion there, and has only been recently revived. Unquestionably the Teutonic tongue still lingers in the game, and no conjecture has the plausibility of that which assigns the origin of curling to the people whose language is connected with it. Until within the early part of the present century, curl- ing was neither practised nor even known universally in Scotland. Some provinces knew nothing about it. Among the ancient sports of the Highland population, it had no place. It was entirely a Lowland pastime. The earliest notices of curling in Scotland appear in the Perth poet, Henry Adamson's Muses Threnodie, published in 1638, and reprinted in 1774. The author makes his aged friend, Mr. George Ruthven, a Perth physician and antiquary, speak thus — And ye my loadstones of Lednochian lakes, Collected from the loughs, where watery snakes Do much abound, take unto you a part. And mourn for Gall, who lov'd you with his heart. In this sad dump and melancholic mood, The burdown ye must bear, not on the flood Or frozen watery plains, but let your tuning Come help me for to weep by mournful cruning. The " loadstones " were curling stones brought from Led- noch or Lynedoch (the scene of Bessy Bell and Mary Gray's story) on the banks of the Almond ; and a note in the edition of 1774 explains that " the gentlemen of Perth, fond of this athletic winter-diversion on the frozen river, sent and brought from Lednoch their curling stones." Farther, " The Inventory of the Gabions (curiosities, etc.), in Mr. George Ruthven's Closet or Cabinet," which prefaces the poem, enumerates — 194 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. His alley bowls, his curling- stones. The sacred games to celebrate, Which to the gods are consecrate.* In the same year which saw Adamson's work "touch the press " and " come to light," the Bishop of Orkney, who, along with the rest of the Scottish Prelates, suffered de- position by the General Assembly of the Kirk which met at Glasgow, was stigmatized by his Covenanting enemies as a " Curler on the Lord's Day." Other notices of the game in the subsequent portion of the century are equally meagre and incidental. In Bishop Gibson's edition of Camden's Britannia, 1695, a reference to curling is added in connection with the isle of Copinsha, one of the Orkneys, " in which," it is said, " and in several other places of this country, are to be found in great plenty excellent stones for the game called Curling." Lord Fountainhall, in his Decisiotis, under date 1684, states : — " A party of the forces having been sent out to apprehend Sir \\'illiam Scott of Harden, }-ounger, one William Scott in Langhope, getting notice of their coming, went and acquainted Harden with it as he was playing at the Curling with Riddel of liaining and others." Passing to the next centui)-, we hear of another clergy- man charged with the crime of cm-ling out of season. A letter from Mr. Charles Cokburne, son of the Lord Justice- Clerk of Scotland, addressed to the Duke of Montrose, and dated at Edinburgh, 2nd June, 17 15, intimates the trial at Perth of an I'^piscopal clergyman, named Mr. Guthrie, who intruded into a church, not praying for King George, nor keeping the Thanksgiving for his * 'J'hc Muses Thrcnodic (1774), Vol. I., pp. 5, iS. CURLING. 195 Majesty's accession, but "going to the curling that day," and drinking the Pretender's health on his birthday.* In 1715, likewise, Dr. Alexander Pennecuik of Newhall gave his poems to the world, and in one of his effusions makes a very complimentary allusion to curling, shewing that the game was popular in his day and neighbourhood : — To curl on the ice does greatly please, Being a manly Scottish exercise ; It clears the brains, stirs up the native heat, And gives a gallant appetite for meat. While the rebellion of 1745 was at its height, a curling match took place at Blairgowrie, and the usual " beef and greens " having been provided, a party of Prince Charlie's Highlanders made a foray on the tempting dinner, and effectually disposed of it, to the great disappointment and dismay of the hungry competitors. An anecdote is also related of the Rev. Mr. Lyon, who was minister of Blair- gowrie parish from 1723 to 1768. The worthy incumbent was so fond of curling that he continued to pursue it, with unabated ardour, even after old age had left him scarce strength enough to send a stone beyond the hog-score ; and on one occasion, having over-exerted himself in the act of delivering his stone, he lost his balance and fell on his back. Some of the bystanders hastened to his assis- tance ; and, in the meantime, one of the party placed the stone he had just thrown off on the centre of the tee. While still on his back the minister eagerly inquired where his stone was, and being informed that it was on the tee, exclaimed, " Oh, then, I'm no a bit waur ! " t Mr. Pennant first visited Scotland in 1769, crossing the Border at Berwick ; but his volume, describing the tour, * Third Report OJt Historical Mantiscrifts, p. 373. t Ammal of the Grand Caledonian Curling Club for 1842. 196 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. has no mention of curling, for evidently, throughout his peregrinations, he had never heard of the game. In the summer of 1772 he came back, this time crossing by the west marches, and as soon as he got within the country of " Blinkin' Bess o' Annandale " and " Maggy by the banks o' Nith," he became aware of what recreation they pursued in winter. " Of the sports of these parts," he says, " that of curling is a favourite, and one unknown in England : it is an amusement of the winter and played on the ice, by sliding from one mark to another great stones of forty to seventy pounds weight, of a hemispheri- cal form, with an iron or wooden handle at top. The object of the player is to lay his stone as near to the mark as possible to guard that of his partner, which had been well laid before, or to strike off that of his antagonist." * A good and clear description of the game by a Southron. Recurring to the question of the origin and antiquity of the game in Scotland, it must be noted that no old curling-stones are extant of unquestioned dates earlier than the seventeenth century at the farthest. The author of the Memorabilia Ciirliana Mabe)ictisia, himself an enthusiastic curler, and to whose book we owe many obligations, has observed — " Another circumstance leads to the supposition that the origin of the game, in this country at least, is not very remote, — the specimens that still remain of the unhandlcd, unpolished blocks which were used by the curlers of, comparatively, even modern times. The improvements since adopted are so obvious that they must have suggested themselves long before the time when they actually were made, had the practice of the game been very ancient. Though no evidence exists * A Tour in Scotland, and Voyage to the Jlehridcs, 1772. Chester, 1774 ; p. 81. CURLING. 197 to show that curhng is now practised, or that it ever was practised, on the Continent, further than what arises from the etymology of the art, as above noticed, yet we have evidence that something very like it was at one time in operation there. Kilian, in his dictionary, renders the Teutonic kluyien kallynten — ludere massis sive globis glaciatis, certare discis in aequore glaciato. Whatever those round masses of ice were, they seem to have been employed in a game on the ice after the manner of quoits. Indeed, it is highly probable that the game we now call curling was nothing else than the game of quoits prac- tised upon the ice. The old stones which yet remain, both from size and shape, favour the conjecture, having only a niche for the finger and thumb, as if they had been intended to be thrown."* Some old stones, how- ever, have been found both handled and dated. An unhammered curling - stone was found in an old curling pond near Dunblane, bearing the date 1551 ; but the age of the inscription has been much doubted. In the dry summer of 1826, an old stone was recovered from the bottom of the Shiels Loch, near Roslin, which had been dried up by the great drought, and which the Roslin people had used time out of mind for curling. The stone was found embedded in the mud, and was about to be consigned to the walls of the new chapel of Roslin, which were then being erected, when the mason, by the merest accident, discovered that the " chan- nel stane" bore the date 1613. The stone was a grey whin, 5^ inches thick, of triangular form, and quite rough as it came out of the bed of the river ; while the handle had been iron, which was entirely corroded away, but the lead remained. The triangular shape of this stone re- * Memorabilia Cwliana Mabenensia. Dumfries: 1S30, p. 10. 198 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. sembles that of the "goose" of otlier days, which was generally employed as the " prentice stone " given to young players to try their hands on. The "goose" served both as a " leader " and " wheeler" : in the first capacit}- it was a dangerous shot when well played, leading many a stone directed against it a wild-goose chase, by fairly turning round like a Jim Crow, as it never moved from the spot except when hit exactly in the centre. In the month of December, 1830, while the foundation of the old House of Loig, in Strathallan, was being dug out, a cur- ling-stone of peculiar shape was discovered. It was of an oblong form, and had been neatly finished with the ham- mer, and bore the date 161 1. One of the same date was got at Torphichen. About half-a-dozen old curling stones were unearthed in digging a drain to the east of Watson's Hospital, near Edinburgh. They were all roughly made, but had handles, though no dates. They were allowed to lie about the field for a fortnight, till they were all broken to pieces (perhaps for the sake of the iron of the handles), save one, a fair sample of the rest. It was a semi-sphero- idical block of coarse-grained whinstone, weighing 65 lb., — about six inches high, — and with an iron handle of the common kind fixed in the usual place. Not long ago, on the draining of a small loch at Ardoch, a considerable number of old curling stones were found at the bottom : all had handles, and one was marked 1700, with the letters M. W. H. Some other stones have been found in various quarters, but need not be particularized. The Grand (now Royal) Caledonian Curling Club was instituted in 1838, the year of the hard winter. The jubilee of the Club was celebrated by a dinner in the WatcrloD Hotel, Edinburgh, on the 28th November, 1888, presided over by the Marcjuis of Brcadalbane. In alluding to the institution of the Club, the noble chairman .said : — CURLING. 199 " Nothing was done in the way of forming a club until an anonymous advertisement appeared in the North British Advertiser in May, 1838. Only about a dozen curlers attended the meeting thus called, which was held in the very house in which they were now dining. It was obvious, from the smallness of the attendance, that no business could be done, and the meeting was adjourned. A second advertisement was inserted, calling a meeting of curlers on the 25th July, 1838, and stating that Mr. John Tierney would occupy the chair. He did occup}' the chair, deputations appeared from various clubs, and at that meeting the Grand Caledonian Curling Club sprang into existence." We have chosen thus to mark the institution of the Grand Club, rather than to occup)' space unnecessarily by referring to the various local clubs which were previously in existence. CHAPTER XII. MIS CELL A NE US . llealihful sports that graced the peaceful scene. GoldsmitlCs ''Deserted Village.'' I. — BOWLS. HE game of Bozvls has been traced in England back to the thirteenth century, and there it had the honour of being at last denounced b}- the legislature as prejudicial to archery. Bluff King Hal played at the bowls, and made bowling-alleys at White- hall, but had no scruple in preventing other people from playing when the archers complained. The Act which passed in his time against various pastimes, including bowls, remained on the Statute Book till 1845, when it was repealed. In Scotland the game was popular for ages, and never proscribed. Royalty patronized it. Bowling-greens be- came adjuncts of Scottish mansion-houses and castles. The old ballad of " The Bonnie House o' Airly " relates how the Lady Margaret's dowry or treasure was found by the Marquis of Argyll's men, hidden about the bowling-green. They sought it up, they sought it down, They sought it late and early, And found it in the bonnie balm-tree That shines on the bowling-green o' Airly. BOWLS. 201 But a weird tradition of the Second Sight, noted in Wodrow's Analecta, tells how Argyll afterwards got a fore-warning of his fate under the axe of the " Scottish Maiden," while he was engaged in a game of bowls with some gentlemen of his clan. " One of the players, when the Marquis stooped down to lift the bullet (bowl), fell pale, and said to them about him, ' Bless me ! what is that I see? My Lord with the head off, and all his shoulders full of blood.' " Dr. Thomas Somerville of Jedburgh, in his retrospect of the social state of Scotland during the earlier period of his lifetime, beginning with 1741, says: "Many of our national games, as handball, football, golf and curling, though not discontinued, are less generally practised than when I was a young man. Bowls were then a common amusement. Every country town was provided with a public bowling-green for the diversion of the inhabitants in the summer evenings. All classes were represented among the players, and it was usual for players of dif- ferent ranks to take part in the same game. A bowling- green usually formed part of the policy or pleasure grounds of country houses. At these private bowling-greens ladies also shared in the amusement, thus rendering it greatly more attractive."* Much interesting matter might be adduced respecting the public Bowling Greens of the Scottish cities and towns, beginning with the capital, many of whose douce folk were often seen (by Allan Ramsay) Wysing a-jee The byas bowls on Tamson's green. But our space is diminishing fast, and we shall content My Own Life and Times, p. 345. 13 202 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. ourselves with a few curious notices of the management of the old Bowling Green at Cowan's Hospital, in Stir- ling. The Town Council of Stirling, with the minister of the First Charge, are the patrons or managers of Cowan's Hospital, one of the charitable institutions of the town. On 1 6th January, 1738, "the patrons considering a peti- tion given in by several of the merchants, trades, and other inhabitants, showing the badness of the Bowling Green, and craving the same might be laid with salt faill, they therefore appoint the masters " of the hospital " to cause William Dawson, gardener, and keeper of the said Green, to lay the same with salt faill as soon as possible, the expense thereof not exceeding the sum of ;^io ster- ling." In March, next year, the expense of the improve- ments was found to be ^138 4s. Scots, or £11 i6s. 8d. Sterling; and the patrons ordered "the bowl meal (mail, or charge) to be augmented to one shilling Scots (a penny. Sterling) from each person playing." On March 22, 1740, "the patrons appoint the master to provide half-a-dozen pair of byass bowls to the Bowling Green, and to cause make a sufficient lodge for the bowls in a proper part of the garden." The bowls seem to have served for fourteen years, as on 6th April, 1754, "the patrons appoint the master to provide six pair of new bowls and an odd one for the use of the Hospital Bowling Green, a great many of those already there being almost useless." Again, on 5th February, 1763, eight pairs of good byass bowls and two jacks were ordered to be pur- chased for the use of the Green. The price was ^^"3 6s. lod. Sterling, paid to Robert Home, merchant in Edin- burgh. Improvements in the management of the Green became imperatively necessary in 1777. On i6th May, that year. BOWLS. 203 " the managers considering that of late great complaints have been made to them that the Hospital Green, flower garden, and back walk are not kept in the same good order and condition which they used to be in : that people are allowed without distinction not only to make a thoroughfare of the garden, but also to use the Bowling Green contrary to the original intention thereof; they therefore authorise the Hospital master to give orders to the keeper of the said Green with regard to the proper management and regulation thereof, so as that improper persons may be prevented from taking up the Green ; and appoint the said keeper to obey the orders that may be given him from time to time by the Hospital master thereanent, at his peril ; and authorize the Hospital master to cause build a small brick house for holding the bowls, in such convenient situation as may be pointed out by the managers." Still there was dissatisfaction, and on 5th July, 1779, the magistrates framed a set of Regula- tions for the Keeper of the Hospital Green, etc., the fol- lowing being the principal : — " Not to suffer boys and others to make a common thoroughfare of the garden and terraces, but to keep the garden doors lockt, and to give attendance to let decent people, as well strangers as town's folk, pass through them. To await regularly on the Bowling Green, to allow none but decent people to play at bowls, and no children or servant-maids, etc., to walk on the Green." As a quiet and healthful recreation, particularly for sedentary persons and those who cannot join in sports requiring a great exertion of physical strength, the game of bowls, we are glad to observe, has of late years been extending in many quarters. 204 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. II. — RIDING AT THE RING, AND RUNNING AT THE GLOVE. Riding or Tilting at the Ring, and Rutinifig at the Glove, were favourite pastimes of the days of chivalry. We read in the old Scottish ballad : He was a braw gallant, And he rid at the ring ; And the bonnie Earl of Murray, Oh ! he might ha'e been a king. He was a braw gallant, And he play'd at the ba' ; And the bonnie Earl of Murray Was the flower amang them a'. He was a braw gallant. And he play'd at the gluve ; And the bonnie Earl of Murray, Oh ! he was the Queen's luve. Tilting at the Ring consisted in mounted competitors galloping singly, spear in hand, towards a ring which was suspended by a spring in a sheath affixed to a transverse beam on a pole, at a slight elevation above their heads, and endeavouring to bring off the ring on the point of the spear — three courses in succession being allowed each competitor to accomplish the feat. James VI., in his Basilikon, bids his son " speciall}' use such games on horseback, as may teach you to handle your arms thereon ; such as the tilt, tJie ring, and low- riding for handling of your sword." Up to about the end of last century. Tilting at the Ring was a favourite sport of the different Societies of Scottish Chapmen, at their annual gatherings for the election of office-bearers. It is said that a right to engage in this game was granted by James I. to the Chapmen RIDING AT THE RING. 205 of Stirling ; and " a tilting lance used at the Chap- men's Sports during the reign of James V., is pre- served in the armoury of Stirling Castle."* The Minutes of the Guildry of Stirling show that in 1707 the Incorporation resolved to "cause make ane gold ring to be ridden for at the Ring," on the occasion of a local fair, " by the Dean of Guild, Treasurer, and twelve Guild brethren, whom the Dean of Guild and Magistrates shall name, and any strangers who shall think fit to ride thereat ; and recommends to the Dean of Guild and Trea- surer to put what motto shall be most proper on the said ring." Nearly fifty years afterwards, in 175 1, the Guildry ordered the ring, or an equivalent of 20s., to be given to the Chapmen, "and yearly thereafter during the Guildry's pleasure." This grant continued to be given till 1768, when the Guildry " instead of paying the Chapman 20s. sterling for a Ring for their Race, allow them to collect the Wax-meall (dues on Bees-wax) payable by the several Chapmen, etc., for having the benefit of the Market, and to apply the same for buying a Ring." Next year, however, the Guildry ordered the Treasurer to pay the Chapmen whatever was deficient of 20s. in the amount of the wax-duty. This arrangement lasted till 1778, when the Guildry reverted to the original " complement of 20s. for a Ring to the Chapmen," which appears in the Minutes up till 1784. The Chapmen themselves, in 1795, resolved to have a Horse Race instead of Ring-riding, and directed " an application for getting from the Guildry the 20s. which was formerly given for a Ring-race to be applied towards a Horse Race." But in 1800 the Stirling Chap- men changed themselves into a mere Friendly Society, having nothing more to do with Ring or Horse races. * Dr. Rogers' Scotland, Social and Domestic, p. 184. 2o6 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. In our own day, Tilting at the Ring has held place among popular games in some districts of Scotland, such as in the sports of the town of Lanark's festival called " Lanimer Day." A Lanarkshire gentleman, writing to a London paper in June 1874, states that every year at Carnwath, on the estate of the Lockharts of Lee (the ancient house possessing the Lee Penny), a foot-race is run for " a pair of red hose " given by the Lee family, and the legend is that they hold their lands under a Charter which enjoins this being done annually. At this meeting. Tilting at the Ring has been carried on for a very length- ened period, the prize being a gold ring, given by the Lady Lockhart of the day. A competition of the same kind took place, with stiff hurdles on both sides of the transverse beam and ring within the Hamilton Palace policy grounds. The public were admitted, and large crowds attended. In 1873 ^ public competition was held at Hamilton, several of the officers of the ist Ro}-al Dra- goons, quartered at Hamilton, competing along with a large number of other gentlemen. The writer adds — "As to private competitions among friends, I have witnessed hundreds of them ; and, while tilting on level ground with- out hurdles is sometimes practised, it is considered poor fun without a 'lep' on each side, the hurdles being gene- rally 3 ft. 3 in. to 3 ft. 6 in. high, at fifteen yards distance from the transverse beam on each side, and the ring has to be taken off and carried on the lance over the second hurdle." Another correspondent holds that this pastime " far excels in manly skill and horsemanship the now famous game of Polo." When a glove was substituted for the ring, the sport was called Rnnning at the Glove. The substitution was in this way : the glove, instead of being suspended in the air, was laid on the ground, and the art of the sport was RUNNING AT THE GLOVE. 207 for a cavalier riding past at the gallop to pick it up on the point of his lance. Dr. Magnus and Roger Ratcliffe, the English envoys at the Scottish Court during the minority of James V., wrote to Cardinal Wolsey on 15th November, 1524, when James was but a boy of thirteen : " The Queen's said grace hath had us furth to solace with the King's grace here, at Leith and in the fields, and to see his said grace stir his horses, and run ivith a spear, amongst other his lords and servants, at a glove!' * Robert Armin, in his Nest of Ninnies, 1608 (reprinted by the Shakespeare Society in 1842), has a jocular story about Jemmy Camber, a royal fool, riding at the glove, on a mule, in " an even plain grass meadow " betwixt Edinburgh and Leith. In the account of expenses of the festivities on the marriage of Francis, Earl of Buccleugh, and Lady Mar- garet Leslie, in July and October, 1646 (among the Rothes Papers), is an entry : " For 3 dozen of spears for running at the glove, ;^24." f in. — CAITCH-BALL. Caitcli-ball (a variety of tennis) is a very old Scottish game, consisting in the striking of a leather-covered ball against a high wall, with the hand, and after it rebounds, falls to the ground, and rises, striking it back again. That it was played with the hand is shown in a poetical bundle of impossibilities, called " Woman's Truth," preserved in the Bannatyne MS. : *TytIer's History of Scoi/and {1864), Vol. II., p. 332, note, t Fourth Report on Historical MSS. , p, 509. 2o8 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. Ane handless man I saw but dreid In caichpule fast playing.* The " caichpule " was the court or place in which the game was played. The game frequently appears in the Lord High Trea- surer's Accounts in the time of James IV. The following sums were paid to the King, " to play at the each," while he was in Stirling: 1496, May, ^6 los., and June, ^2 14s.; 1497, September, ;^2 14s.; 1498, April, £$, and May, £i2>. James VI., in his Basiliko?t, recommends " playing at the caitch or tennis." IV. — THE KILES. The Kiles were what are now called Skittles or Nine- pins. Strutt says: "Kayles, written also cayles and keiles^ derived from the French word quilles, was played with pins, and no doubt gave origin to the modern game of nine-pins ; though primitively the kayle-pins do not ap- pear to have been confined to any certain number ;" and he gives instances of six and eight pins being used. "The arrangement of the kayle-pins differs greatly from that of the nine-pins, the latter being placed upon a square frame in three rows, and the former in one row only." There was a variety of the game called club-kayles, in which a stick was thrown at them.t James IV. sometimes played at the Kiles. After the Reformation, the game was another cause of Sabbath desecration. In the minutes of the Kirk-Session of Perth, under date of 6th October, 1589, we read that "as at the playing of the Kylles in the North and South Inches, the * A Book of Scot lis h Pasquih, p. 4. t Sports and Pastimes, p. 270. CRICKET. 209 Sabbath is broken and God's holy name profaned," the Session "ordains the bailies to break them, and note their names that play at them, and give them in to the As- sembly ilk Monday, that they may be punished." V. — CRICKET. Cricket is of English origin, and was only introduced at a comparatively recent period into Scotland, where it has become thoroughly naturalized. In its origin, it was pro- bably an ofifshoot from the old pastime of club-ball, which was played in England as early as in the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries ; but when cricket first became a distinct game has not been decided. The scholars of the Free School at Guildford played cricket in the reign of Queen Elizabeth — this being the earliest mention of the game by its modern name, though it seems to have existed Ion? before under another name. 'fc> See where the school-boy, once again dismiss'd, Feels all the bliss of liberty, and drives The speedy hour away at the brisk games Of social cricket. It delights me much To see him run, and hear the cheerful shout Sent up for victory. I cannot tell What rare effect the mingled sound may yield Of huntsmen, hounds, and horns to firmer hearts' Which never feel a pain for flying puss ; To me it gives a pleasure far more sweet To hear the cry of infant jubilee Exulting thus. Here all is innocent, And free from pain. * Milton's nephew, Edward Phillips, notices cricket in 1685. One of the songs — "Of a noble race was Shenkin" * Rev. Dr. Hurdis' Village Curate, p. 50. 14 2IO SPORTS AND PASTIMES. — in Tom D'Urfey's Pills to Purge Alelancholy, com- mences thus — Her was the prettiest fellow At football or at cricket. Pope and Swift both allude to the game. It was played at Eton in Horace Walpole's younger days. The British CJiampioyi of 8th September, 1743, published an article on " Publick Cricket Matches," from which it appears that " noblemen, gentlemen, and clergymen " were then, as now, in the habit of joining with their social inferiors in playing the game; that notices of the matches were given by advertisement in the newspapers, and that large num- bers of people flocked to behold them. The game afforded an anonymous poet in the Gentleman s Magazine for October, 1756, occasion "to point a moral " : THE GAME OF CRICKET. An Exercise at Merchant Taylors' School. Peace and her arts we sing — her genial power Can give the breast to pant, the thought to tower, Tho' guiltless, not inglorious souls inspires, And boasts less savage, not less noble fires. .Such is her sway, when Cricket calls her train, The sons of labour, to the accustom'd plain, With all the hero's passion and desire, They swell, they glow, they envy, and admire ; Despair and resolution reign by turns ; Suspense torments, and emulation burns. See ! in due rank dispos'd, intent they stand. In act to start — the eye, the foot, the hand, Still active, eager, seem conjoin'd in one ; Tho' fixt, all moving, and while present gone. In ancient combat, from the Parthian steed. Not more unerring llcw the barbed reed 'I'han rolls the ball, with varied vigour phayed, Now levell'd, whizzing o'er the springing blade, Now toss'd to rise more fatal from the ground, CRICKET. 211 Exact and faithful to th' appointed bound, Yet vain its speed, yet vain its certain aim ; The wary batsman watches o'er the game ; Before his stroke the leathern circle flies, Now wheels oblique, now mounting threats the skies. Nor yet less vain the wary batsman's blow, If intercepted by the encircling foe. Too soon the nimble arm retorts the ball, Or ready fingers catch it in its fall : Thus various art with varied fortune strives, And with each changing chance the sport revives. Emblem of many-colour'd life — the State By Cricket-rules discriminates the great : The outward side, who place and profit want, Watch to surprise, and labour to supplant : While those who taste the sweets of present winnings Labour as heartily to keep their innings. On either side the whole great game is play'd. Untried no shift is left, unsought no aid : Skill vies with skill, and pow'r contends with pow'r, And squint-eyed prejudice computes the score. In private life, like single-handed players, We get less notches, but we meet less cares. Full many a lusty effort, which at court Would fix the doubtful issue of the sport, Wide of its mark, or impotent to rise, Ruins the rash, or disappoints the wise. Yet all in public and in private strive To keep the ball of action still alive, And just to all, when each his ground has run. Death tips the 'vickef, and the game is done. In 1774, cricket underwent some modifications, when a number of noblemen and gentlemen formed themselves into a Committee, of which the Duke of Dorset was the chairman, and drew up a code of laws for the regulation of the game, which only existed before in a loose and desultory form. From this cause, the year 1874 has been styled by some as the centenary of cricket."* Notes and Queries : 5th Series, Vol. II., p. 121. 212 SPORTS AND PASTIMES. The main point with which we have to deal is the pre- cise period when cricket was introduced into Scotland. Several towns claim the precedency. It is stated that the game was played on Glasgow Green in 1817 and 1818; and that a club was instituted at Greenock in 1823. The Grange Club of Edinburgh dates from 1832. Perth, however, can put in a prior claim. The Perth Cricket Club was formed in 1827 ; but cricket had been played on the North Inch fifteen years earlier. In 1812, the cavalry stationed in the Perth Bar- racks were in the habit of playing cricket on the Inch ; and at that time the boys of a public school formed them- selves into a club, and pursued the game on the same ground. It would thus appear that the " Fair City " has a good claim to be called the cradle of Scottish cricket, or, as the Cricketer's Annual (No. 2, p. 28) phrases it, "the birth- place of cricket in Scotland." * * Sievwright's Historical Sketch of the Perth Cricket Chib. THE END. ^ \\ RETURN TO' THIS BOOK IS D.'E ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED EELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS W.UU BE ASSESSED TOR FA.L.URE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY ;T1 Increase to so cents_onth^e^ fourth CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 9 i 4 / 202 Main Library LOAN PERIOD 1 HOME USE 2 3 4 5 ( b ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS Renewals and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date. Books may be Renewed by calling 642-3405. DUE AS STAMPED BELOW (VlAR 23 IQftP n o ""i^-ge '' on 2 2 2003 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY FORM NO. DD6, BERKELEY, CA 94720 PS <^. yO 06487 UC. 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