THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS, GLASGOW, 
 rs to ihe 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON. 
 New York, - The Mactnillan Co. 
 London, Simpkin, Hamilton and Co. 
 Cambridge, Macmillan and Bowes. 
 Edinburgh Douglas and Foulis. 
 
 MCMIV.
 
 SCOTTISH REMINIS- 
 CENCES * - - BY 
 SIR ARCHIBALD GEIKIE 
 
 GLASGOW - JAMES MACLEHOSE 
 AND SONS PUBLISHERS TO 
 THE UNIVERSITY 1904 rf >
 
 
 GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 BY ROBERT MACLEHOSB AND CO., LTD.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 ONE who has sojourned in every part of a 
 country and for sixty years has mingled with 
 all classes of its inhabitants ; who has watched 
 the decay and disappearance of old, and the 
 uprise of new usages ; who has been ever on 
 the outlook for illustrations of native humour, 
 and who has been in the habit all along of 
 freely recounting his experiences to his friends, 
 may perhaps be forgiven if he ventures to 
 put forth some record of what he has seen 
 and heard, as a slight contribution to the 
 history of social changes. 
 
 Literature is rich in Scottish reminiscences 
 of this kind, so rich indeed that a writer 
 who adds another volume to the long list 
 runs great risk of repeating what has already 
 been told. I have done my best to avoid 
 this danger by turning over the pages of as 
 many books of this class as I have been able 
 
 524350 
 
 UBBAM
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 to lay hands upon. In the course of this 
 reading I have discovered that not a few of 
 the ' stories' which I picked up long ago 
 have found their way into print. These I 
 have generally excluded from the present 
 volume, save in cases where my version 
 seemed to me better than that which had 
 been published. But with all my care I 
 cannot hope to have wholly escaped from 
 pitfalls of this nature. 
 
 No one can have read much in this subject 
 without discovering the perennial vitality of 
 some anecdotes. With slight and generally 
 local modification, they are told by generation 
 after generation, and always as if they related 
 to events that had recently occurred and to 
 persons that were still familiarly known. Yet 
 the essential basis of their humour may 
 occasionally be traced back a long way. As 
 an example of this longevity I may cite the 
 incident of snoring in church, related at p. 86 
 of the following chapters, where an anecdote 
 which has been told to me as an event that 
 had recently happened among people now 
 living was in full vigour a hundred years ago, 
 and long before that time had formed the 
 foundation of a clever epigram in the reign of 
 Charles II. Another illustration of this per-
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 sistence and transformation may be found in 
 the anecdote of the wolfs den (p. 292). The 
 same recurring circumstances may sometimes 
 conceivably evoke, at long intervals, a similar 
 sally of humour ; but probably in most cases 
 the original story survives, undergoing a pro- 
 cess of gradual evolution and local adaptation 
 as it passes down from one generation to 
 another.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Social changes in Scotland consequent on the Union of the Crowns. 
 Impetus given to these changes after Culloden in the eighteenth 
 century, and after the introduction of steam as a motive power 
 in the nineteenth. Posting from Scotland to London. Stage 
 coach travelling to England. Canal travelling between Edinburgh 
 and Glasgow. Loch Katrine in 1843. Influence of Walter Scott. 
 Steamboats to London. Railroads in Scotland. Effects of steam- 
 boat development in the West Highlands, . . . pp. 1-37 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Traces of Paganism in Scotland. Relics of the Celtic Church ; 
 ' Deserts.' Survival of Roman Catholicism in West Highlands and 
 Islands. Influence of the Protestant clergy. Highland ministers. 
 Lowland ministers. Diets of catechising. Street preachers. 
 
 PP- 38-76 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The sermon in Scottish Kirks. Intruding animals in country churches. 
 The 'collection.' Church psalmody. Precentors and organs. 
 Small congregations in the Highlands. Parish visitation. Survival 
 of the influence of clerical teaching. Religious mania, pp. 77-106
 
 x CONTENTS 
 
 | 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Superstition in Scotland. Holy wells. Belief in the Devil. Growth 
 of the rigid observance of the Sabbath. Efforts of kirk-sessions and 
 presbyteries to enforce Jewish strictness in regard to the Sabbath. 
 Illustrations of the effects of these efforts, -- - pp. 107-141 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Litigiousness of the Scots. Sir Daniel Macnee and jury-trial. Scot- 
 tish judges, Patrick Robertson, Cullen, Neaves, Rutherford Clark. 
 
 pp. I42-IS5 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Medical Men. Sandy Wood. Knox. Nairn and Sir William Gull. 
 A broken leg in Canna. Changes in the professoriate and students 
 in the Scottish Universities. A St. Andrews Professor. A Glasgow 
 Professor. Some Edinburgh Professors Pillans, Blackie, Christison, 
 Maclagan, Playfair, Chalmers, Tait. Scottish Schoolmasters. 
 
 pp. 156-184 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Old and new type of landed proprietors in Scotland. Highland 
 Chiefs Second Marquess of Breadalbane ; late Duke of Argyll. 
 Ayrshire Lairds T. F. Kennedy of Dunure ; ' Sliddery Braes ' ; 
 Smith of Auchengree. Fingask and Charles Martin. New lairds 
 of wealth, pp. 185-204 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Lowland farmers ; Darlings of Priestlaw. Sheep-farmers. Hall 
 Pringle of Hatton. Farm-servants. Ayrshire milk-maids. The 
 consequences of salting. Poachers. ' Cauld sowens out o' a pewter 
 plate.' Farm life in the Highlands. A Skye eviction. Clearances 
 in Raasay. Summer Shielings of former times. Fat Boy of Soay. 
 A West Highlander's first visit to Glasgow. Crofters in Skye. 
 Highland ideas of women's work. Highland repugnance to handi- 
 crafts, pp. 205-238
 
 CONTENTS xi 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Highland ferries and coaches. The charms of lona. How to see 
 Staffa. The Outer Hebrides. Stones of Callemish. St. Kilda. 
 Sound of Harris. The Cave-massacre in Eigg. Skeleton from a 
 clan fight still unburied in Jura. The hermit of Jura. Peculiar 
 charms of the Western Isles. Influence of the clergy on the cheer- 
 fulness of the Highlanders. Disappearance of Highland customs. 
 Dispersing of clans from their original districts. Dying out of 
 Gaelic ; advantages of knowing some Gaelic ; difficulties of the 
 language, - - .' ' - : pp. 239-273 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Orkney Islands. The Shetlands Islands. Faroe Islands con- 
 trasted with Western Isles. ' Burning the water.' A fisher of men. 
 Salmon according to London taste. Trout and fishing- poles. A 
 wolfs den, pp. 274-293 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Scottish shepherds and their dogs. A snow-storm among the Southern 
 Uplands. Scottish inns of an old type. Reminiscences of some 
 Highland inns. Revival of roadside inns by cyclists. Scottish 
 drink. Drinking customs now obsolete, ... pp. 294-320 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Scottish humour in relation to death and the grave. Resurrectionists. 
 Tombstone inscriptions. ' Naturals ' in Scotland. Confused thoughts 
 of second childhood. Belief in witchcraft. Miners and their super- 
 stitions. Colliers and Salters in Scotland were slaves until the 
 end of the eighteenth century. Metal-mining in Scotland. 
 
 pp. 321-346 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Town-life in old times. Dirtiness of the streets. Clubs. Hutton and 
 Black in Edinburgh. A feast of snails. Royal Society Club. 
 Bailies 'gang lowse.' Rothesay fifty years ago. James Smith of 
 Jordanhill. Fisher-folk of the Forth. Decay of the Scots language. 
 Receipt for pronouncing English, - - - - pp. 347-369
 
 xii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Scottish School of Geology. Neptunist and Vulcanist Contro- 
 rersy. J. D. Forbes. Charles Maclaren. Hugh Miller. Robert 
 Chambers. W. Haidinger. H. von Dechen. Ami Boue. The 
 life of a field-geologist. Experiences of a geologist in the West 
 Highlands. A crofter home in Skye. The Spar Cave and Coruisk. 
 Night in Loch Scavaig, pp. 370-409 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Influence of Topography on the people of Scotland. Distribution and 
 ancient antagonism of Celt and Saxon. Caithness and its grin. 
 Legends and place-names. Popular explanation of boulders. Cliff- 
 portraits. Fairy-stones and supposed human footprints. Imitative 
 forms of flint. Scottish climate and its influence on the people. 
 Indifference of the Highlander to rain. 'Dry rain.' Wind in 
 Scotland. Salutations on the weather. Shakespeare on the climate 
 of Morayland. Influence of environment on the Highlander. 
 
 pp. 410-439 
 
 INDEX, -,M -,# ' pp. 440-447 

 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SOCIAL changes in Scotland consequent on the Union of the 
 Crowns. Impetus given to these changes after Culloden 
 in the eighteenth century, and after the introduction of 
 steam as a motive power in the nineteenth. Posting from 
 Scotland to London. Stage coach travelling to England. 
 Canal travelling between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Loch 
 Katrine in 1843. Influence of Walter Scott. Steamboats 
 to London. Railroads in Scotland. Effects of steamboat 
 development in the West Highlands. 
 
 WHEN on the 5th of April, 1603, James VI. 
 left Edinburgh with a great cavalcade of 
 attendants, to ascend the throne of England, 
 a series of social changes was set in motion 
 in Scotland which has been uninterruptedly 
 advancing ever since. Its progress has not 
 been uniform, seeing that it has fluctuated 
 with the access or diminution of national 
 animosities on the two sides of the Tweed, 
 until, as these sources of irritation died away, 
 the two nations were welded into one by 
 the arts of peace. Looking back across the
 
 2 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 three centuries, we can recognise two epochs 
 when the progress of change received a 
 marked impetus. 
 
 The first of these dates from the failure 
 of the Jacobite cause in 1746. At Culloden, 
 not only were the hopes of the Stuarts finally 
 extinguished, but a new period was ushered 
 in for the development of Scotland. The 
 abolition of the heritable jurisdictions, the 
 extension of the same organised legal system 
 over every part of the kingdom, the sup- 
 pression of cattle-raids and other offences 
 by the Highlanders against their lowland 
 neighbours, the building of good roads, and 
 the improvement of the old tracks, whereby 
 easy communication was provided across the 
 country, and especially through the Highlands 
 between the northern and southern districts 
 these and other connected reforms led to 
 the gradual breaking down of the barrier of 
 animosity that had long kept Highlander 
 and Lowlander apart, and by thus producing 
 a freer intercourse of the two races, greatly 
 strengthened the community as a whole, 
 whether for peace or for war. On the other 
 hand, the landing of Prince Charles Edward, 
 the uprise of the clans, the victory of Preston- 
 pans, and the invasion of England could not
 
 NATIONAL ANIMOSITIES 3 
 
 fail to revive and intensify the ancient enmity 
 of the English against their northern neigh- 
 bours. This animosity blazed out anew under 
 the Bute administration, when fresh fuel was 
 added to it from the literary side by Wilkes 
 and Churchill. Nevertheless the leaven of 
 union was quietly at work all the time. Not 
 only did Scot commingle more freely with 
 Scot, but increasing facilities of communica- 
 tion allowed the southward tide of migration to 
 flow more freely across the Border. English 
 travellers also found their way in growing 
 numbers into that land north of the Tweed 
 which for centuries had been at once scorned 
 and feared, but which could now be every- 
 where safely visited. What had been satirised 
 
 as 
 
 The wretched lot 
 
 Of the poor, mean, despised, insulted Scot, 
 
 came to be the subject of banter, more or 
 less good humoured. The Englishman, while 
 retaining a due sense of his own superiority, 
 learnt to acknowledge that his northern neigh- 
 bour did really possess some good qualities 
 which made him not unworthy of a place in 
 the commonwealth, while the Scot, on his 
 side, discovered that his ' auld enemies ' of 
 England were far from being all mere 'pock-
 
 4 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 puddings.' As the result of this greater inti- 
 macy of association, the smaller nation was 
 necessarily drawn more and more to assimilate 
 itself to the speech and ways of its larger, 
 wealthier, and more advanced partner. 
 
 But the decline in Scottish national peculi- 
 arities during the hundred years that followed 
 Culloden was slow compared with that of the 
 second epoch, which dates from the first half 
 of last century, when steam as a motive power 
 came into use, rapidly transforming our manu- 
 facturing industries, and revolutionising the 
 means of locomotion, alike on land and sea. 
 Scott in his youth saw the relics of the older 
 time while they were still fairly fresh and 
 numerous, and he has left an imperishable 
 memorial of them in his vivid descriptions. 
 Cockburn beheld the last of these relics 
 disappear, and as he lived well on into the 
 second of the two periods, he could mark 
 and has graphically chronicled the accelerated 
 rate of change. 
 
 Those of us who, like myself, can look 
 back across a vista of more than three score 
 years, and will compare what they see and 
 hear around them now with what they saw 
 and heard in their childhood, will not only 
 realise that the social revolution has been
 
 SOCIAL TRANSFORMATIONS $ 
 
 marching along, but will be constrained to 
 admit that its advance has been growing 
 perceptibly more rapid. They must feel that 
 the old order has indeed changed, and though 
 they may wish that the modern could establish 
 itself with less effacement of the antique, and 
 may be disposed with Byron to cry, 
 
 Out upon Time ! who for ever will leave 
 
 But enough of the past for the future to grieve, 
 
 they have, at least, the consolation of re- 
 flecting that the changes have been, on the 
 whole, for the better. Happily much of the 
 transformation is, after all, external. The 
 fundamental groundwork of national character 
 and temperament continues to be but little 
 affected. The surface features and climate of 
 the country, with all their profound, if unper- 
 ceived, influences on the people, remain with 
 no appreciable change. Even the inevitable 
 wave of evolution does not everywhere roll 
 on with the same speed, but leaves outlying 
 corners and remote parishes unsubmerged, 
 where we may still light upon survivals of an 
 older day, in men and women whose ways 
 and language seem to carry us back a century 
 or more, and in customs that link us with an 
 even remoter past.
 
 6 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 It would be far beyond my purpose to enter 
 into any discussion of the connection between 
 the causes that have given rise to these social 
 changes and the effects that have flowed from 
 them. The far-reaching results of the intro- 
 duction of steam-machinery in aggregating 
 communities around a few centres, in depopu- 
 lating the country districts, and in altering the 
 habits and physique of the artizans, open up 
 a wide subject on which I do not propose to 
 touch. My life has been largely passed in the 
 rural and mountainous parts of the country, 
 where increased facilities for locomotion have 
 certainly been the most obvious direct source 
 of change to the inhabitants, though other 
 causes have undoubtedly contributed less di- 
 rectly to bring about the general result. It has 
 been my good fortune to become acquainted 
 with every district of Scotland. There is 
 not a county, hardly a parish, which I have 
 not wandered over again and again. In many 
 of them I have spent months at a time, finding 
 quarters in county towns, in quiet villages, 
 in wayside inns, in country houses, in remote 
 manses, in shepherds' shielings, and in crofters' 
 huts. Thrown thus among all classes of 
 society, I have been brought in contact with 
 each varying phase of life of the people. Dur- 

 
 MODES OF TRAVEL 7 
 
 ing the last twenty years, though no longer 
 permanently resident in Scotland, I have been 
 led by my official duties to revisit the country 
 every year, even to its remotest bounds. I 
 have also been enabled, through the kindness 
 of a yachting friend, to cruise all through the 
 Inner and Outer Hebrides. These favourable 
 opportunities have allowed me to mark the 
 gradual decline of national peculiarities per- 
 haps more distinctly than would have been 
 possible to one continuously resident. As 
 a slight contribution to the history of the 
 social evolution in Scotland, I propose in the 
 following chapters to gather together such 
 reminiscences as may serve to indicate the 
 nature and extent of the changes of which I 
 have been a witness, and to record a few 
 illustrations of the manners and customs, the 
 habits and humour of the people with whom 
 I have mingled. 
 
 My memory goes back to a time before 
 railways had been established in Scotland, 
 when Edinburgh and Glasgow were connected 
 only by a coach-road and a canal, and when 
 stage-coaches still ran from the two cities 
 into England. I may therefore begin these 
 reminiscences with some reference to modes 
 of travel.
 
 8 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 Probably few readers are aware how recently 
 roads practicable for wheeled carriages have 
 become general over the whole country. In 
 the seventeenth century various attempts were 
 made to run stage-coaches between Edinburgh 
 and Leith, between Edinburgh and Had- 
 dington, and between Edinburgh and Glasgow. 
 But these efforts to open up communication, 
 even with the chief towns, appear to have 
 met with such scant support as to be soon 
 abandoned. The usual mode of conveyance, 
 for ladies as well as gentlemen, was on horse- 
 back. A traveller writing in 1688 states that 
 there were then no stage-coaches, for the 
 roads would hardly allow of them, and that 
 although some of the magnates of the land 
 made use of a coach and six horses, they 
 did so ' with so much caution that, besides 
 their other attendance, they have a lusty run- 
 ning footman on each side of the coach, to 
 manage and keep it up in rough places.' It 
 was probably not until after the suppression 
 of the Jacobite rising in 1715 that road- 
 making and road-repair were begun in earnest. 
 For strategic purposes, military roads were 
 driven through the Highlands, and this im- 
 portant work, which continued until far on in 
 the century, not only opened up the High-
 
 LOCOMOTION TO ENGLAND 9 
 
 lands to wheeled traffic, but reacted on the 
 general lines of communication throughout the 
 country. 1 By the time that railways came 
 into operation the main roads had been well 
 engineered and constructed, and were fitted 
 for all kinds of vehicles. 
 
 Before the beginning of the railroad period, 
 the inhabitants of Scotland had three means 
 of locomotion into England. Those who 
 were wealthy took their own carriages and 
 horses, or hired post-horses from stage to 
 stage. For the ordinary traveller, there were 
 stage-coaches on land and steamboats on the 
 sea. 
 
 With a comfortable carriage, and the per- 
 sonal effects of the occupants strapped on 
 behind it, posting to London was one of the 
 pleasant incidents of the year to those who 
 had leisure and money at command. Repeated 
 season after season, the journey brought the 
 travellers into close acquaintance with every 
 district through which the public road passed. 
 
 1 In 1773, when Mrs. Grant of Laggan, as a girl, had to 
 make the journey from Inveraray to Oban there was 'no road 
 but the path of cattle,' 'an endless moor, without any road, 
 except a small footpath, through which our guide conducted 
 the horses with difficulty.' Letters from the Mountains, 5th 
 edit., vol. i., p. 4. Half a century later the conditions do not 
 seem to have altered much in that region, as shown in Dr. 
 Norman Macleod's Reminiscences of a Highland Parish.
 
 io SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 They had a far greater familiarity with the 
 details of these districts than can now be 
 formed in railway journeys. They knew every 
 village, church, and country-house to be seen 
 along the route, and could mark the changes 
 made in them from year to year. At the 
 inns, where they halted for the night, they 
 were welcomed as old friends, and made to 
 feel themselves at home. This pleasant mode 
 of travelling, so graphically described in 
 Humphry Clinker, continued in use among 
 some county families long after the stage- 
 coaches had reached the culmination of their 
 speed and comfort. My old friend, T. F. 
 Kennedy of Dunure, used to describe to me 
 the delights of these yearly journeys in his 
 youth. Posting into England did not die 
 out until after the completion of the con- 
 tinuous railway routes, when the failure of 
 travellers on the road led to the giving up 
 of post-horses at the inns. 
 
 One of my early recollections is to have 
 seen the London coaches start from Princes 
 Street, Edinburgh. Though railways were 
 beginning to extend rapidly over England, no 
 line had yet entered Scotland, so that the 
 first part of the journey to London was made 
 by stage-coach. There was at that time no
 
 STAGE-COACHES TO LONDON 11 
 
 line of railway, with steam locomotives, lead- 
 ing out of Edinburgh. Stage-coaches appear 
 to have been tried between London and 
 Edinburgh as far back as 1658, for an ad- 
 vertisement published in May of that year an- 
 nounces that they would 'go from the George 
 Inn without Aldersgate to Edinburgh in Scot- 
 land, once in three weeks for <\ ios., with 
 good coaches and fresh horses on the roads.' 
 In May, 1734, a coach was advertised to 
 perform the journey between Edinburgh and 
 London ' in nine days, or three days sooner 
 than any other coach that travels the road.' 
 An improvement in the service, made twenty 
 years later, was thus described in an adver- 
 tisement which appeared in the Edinburgh 
 Evening Courant for July ist, 1754: 
 
 'The Edinburgh Stage-Coach, for the better accommo- 
 dation of Passengers, will be altered to a new genteel 
 two-end Glass Machine, hung on Steel Springs, exceeding 
 light and easy, to go in ten days in summer and twelve 
 in winter; to set out the first Tuesday in March, and 
 continue it from Hosea Eastgate's, the Coach and Horses 
 in Dean Street, Soho, London, and from John Somerville's 
 in the Canongate, Edinburgh, every other Tuesday, and 
 meet at Burrow-bridge on Saturday night, and set out from 
 thence on Monday morning, and get to London and 
 Edinburgh on Friday. In the winter to set out from 
 London and Edinburgh every other Monday morning and 
 to go to Burrow-bridge on Saturday night ; and to set out
 
 12 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 thence on Monday morning and get to London and 
 Edinburgh on Saturday night. Passengers to pay as usual. 
 Performed, if God permits, by your dutiful servant, 
 
 ' HOSEA EASTGATE. 
 
 'Care is taken of small parcels according to their 
 value.' 
 
 Before the end of the century the frequency, 
 comfort, and speed of the coaches had been 
 considerably increased. Palmer, of the Bath 
 Theatre, led the way in this reform, and in 
 the year 1788 organised a service from London 
 to Glasgow, which accomplished the distance 
 of rather more than 400 miles in sixty-five 
 hours. Ten years later, Lord Chancellor 
 Campbell travelled by the same system of 
 coaches between Edinburgh and London, and 
 he states that in 1 798 he ' performed the 
 journey in three nights and two days, Mr. 
 Palmer's mail-coaches being then established ; 
 but this swift travelling was considered danger- 
 ous as well as wonderful, and I was gravely 
 advised to stop a day at York, " as several 
 passengers who had gone through without 
 stopping had died of apoplexy from the 
 rapidity of the motion." The whole distance 
 may now (1847) be accomplished with ease 
 and safety in fourteen hours.' l 
 
 1 Lives of the Lord Chancellors, vol. vi., p. 50. This was 
 written in the early years of railway enterprise. The journey
 
 EDINBURGH AND GLASGOW COACHES 13 
 
 Passengers between Edinburgh and Glasgow 
 before the days of railways had a choice of 
 two routes, either by road or by canal. As 
 far back as the summer of 1678, an Edinburgh 
 merchant set up a stage-coach between the 
 two cities to carry six passengers, but it 
 appears to have had no success. In 1743, 
 another Edinburgh merchant offered to start 
 a stage-coach on the same route with six 
 horses, to hold six passengers, to go twice a 
 week in summer and once in winter. But 
 his proposal does not appear to have met 
 with adequate support. At last, in 1 749, a kind 
 of covered spring-cart, known as the ' Edin- 
 burgh and Glasgow Caravan,' was put upon 
 the road and performed the journey of forty- 
 four miles in two days. Nine years later, 
 in 1758, the 'Fly,' so called on account of 
 its remarkable speed, actually accomplished 
 the distance in twelve hours. The establish- 
 ment of Palmer's improved stage-coaches led 
 to a further advance in the communica- 
 tions between Edinburgh and Glasgow, but 
 it was not until 1799 that the time taken in 
 the journey was reduced to six hours. In my 
 
 is now performed every day in seven hours and three quar- 
 ters, and the time will probably be further shortened in the 
 not distant future,
 
 14 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 boyhood, before the stage-coaches were driven 
 off by the railway, various improvements on 
 the roads, the carriages, and the arrangements 
 connected with the horses, had brought down 
 the time to no more than four hours and a 
 half. 1 
 
 Much more leisurely was the transit on the 
 Union Canal. The boats were comfortably 
 fitted up and were drawn by a cavalcade of 
 horses, urged forward by postboys. It was 
 a novel and delightful sensation, which I can 
 still recall, to see fields, trees, cottages, and 
 hamlets flit past, as if they formed a vast 
 moving panorama, while one seemed to be 
 sitting absolutely still. For mere luxury of 
 transportation, such canal-travel stands quite 
 unrivalled. Among its drawbacks, however, 
 are the long detentions at the locks. But as 
 everything was new to me in my first ex- 
 pedition to the west, I remember enjoying 
 these locks with the keenest pleasure, some- 
 times remaining in the boat, and feeling it 
 slowly floated up or let down, sometimes 
 walking along the margin and watching the 
 rush of the water through the gradually 
 opening sluices. 
 
 Both the stage-coaches and the passenger 
 
 1 Chambers' Domestic Annals of Scotland, vols. ii. and iij.
 
 LOCH KATRINE IN 1843 15 
 
 boats on the canal were disused after the 
 opening of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway 
 in the spring of 1842. A few weeks sub- 
 sequent to the running of the first trains, 
 the Glasgow Courier announced that ' the 
 whole of the stage-coaches from Glasgow and 
 Edinburgh are now off the road, with the 
 exception of the six o'clock morning coach, 
 which is kept running in consequence of its 
 carrying the mail bags.' 
 
 Steamboats had not yet been introduced 
 upon the large freshwater lakes of Scotland, 
 except upon Loch Lomond, when I visited 
 the Trossachs region for the first time in 1843. 
 I was rowed the whole length of Loch Katrine 
 in a boat by four stout Highlanders, who 
 sang Gaelic songs, to the cadence of which 
 they kept time with their oars. It was my 
 first entry into the Highlands, and could not 
 have been more impressive. The sun was 
 almost setting as the boat pushed off from 
 Stronachlachar and all the glories of the 
 western sky were cast upon the surrounding 
 girdle of mountains, the reflections of which 
 fell unbroken on the mirror-like surface of 
 the water. As we advanced and the sunset 
 tints died away, the full autumn moon rose 
 above the crest of Ben Venue, and touched
 
 16 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 off the higher crags with light, while the 
 shadows gathered in deepening black along 
 the lower slopes and the margin of the water. 
 Before we reached the lower end of the lake 
 the silvery sheen filled all the pass of the 
 Trossachs above the sombre forest. The 
 forms of the hills, the changing lights in the 
 sky, and the weird tunes of the boatmen 
 combined to leave on my memory a picture 
 as vivid now as when it was impressed 
 sixty years ago. 
 
 No more remarkable contrast between the 
 present tourist traffic in this lake region and 
 that of the early part of last century could be 
 supplied than that which is revealed by an 
 incident recorded as having occurred about 
 the year 1814, four years after the publica- 
 tion of Scott's Lady of the Lake. An old 
 Highlander, who was met on the top of Ben 
 Lomond, said he had been a guide from the 
 north side of the mountain for upwards of 
 
 forty years ; ' but that d d Walter Scott, 
 
 that everybody makes such a work about ! ' 
 exclaimed he with vehemence ' I wish I 
 had him to ferry over Loch Lomond : I 
 should be after sinking the boat, if I drowned 
 myself into the bargain ; for ever since he 
 wrote his Lady of the Lake, as they call it,
 
 SCOTT AND THE HIGHLANDS 17 
 
 everybody goes to see that filthy hole Loch 
 Katrine, then comes round by Luss, and I 
 have had only two gentlemen to guide all 
 this blessed season, which is now at an end. 
 I shall never see the top of Ben Lomond 
 again ! The devil confound his ladies and 
 his lakes, say I ! ' l 
 
 If this indignant mountaineer could re- 
 visit his early haunts, his grandchildren would 
 have a very different story to tell him of the 
 poet's influence. For one visitor to his be- 
 loved mountain in his day there must now 
 be at least a hundred, almost all of whom 
 have had their first longing to see that re- 
 gion kindled by the poems and tales of Scott. 
 No man ever did so much to make his 
 country known and attractive as the Author 
 of Waver ley has done for Scotland. His 
 fictitious characters have become historical 
 personages in the eyes of the thousands of 
 pilgrims who every year visit the scenes he 
 has described. In threading the pass of the 
 Trossachs, they try to see where Fitz James 
 must have lost his 'gallant grey.' In passing 
 Ellen's Isle, they scrutinise it, if haply any 
 
 1 Letters from a Gentleman in the North of Scotland 
 [Captain Burt], 5th edit., vol. i., p. 203, footnote by Editor 
 R. Jamieson. 
 
 P
 
 1 8 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 relics of her home have survived. At Coilan- 
 togle Ford they want to know the exact spot 
 where the duel was fought between the King 
 and Roderick Dhu. At Aberfoyle they look 
 out for the Clachan, or some building that 
 must stand on its site, and their hearts are 
 comforted by finding suspended to a tree on 
 the village green the veritable coulter with 
 which Bailie Nicol Jarvie burnt the big 
 Highlander's plaid. So delighted indeed 
 have the tourists been with this relic of the 
 past that they have surreptitiously carried it 
 off more than once, and have thus compelled 
 the village smith each time to manufacture 
 a new antique. 
 
 Before steam navigation was introduced, 
 packet ships sailed between Leith and London 
 carrying both passengers and goods. But as 
 the time taken on the journey depended on 
 winds and waves, these vessels supplied a 
 somewhat uncertain and even risky mode 
 of transit. Thus in November, 1743, an 
 Edinburgh newspaper announced that the 
 Edinburgh and Glasgow packet from London, 
 1 after having great stress of weather for twenty 
 days, has lately arrived safe at Holy Island 
 and is soon expected in Leith harbour.' 
 
 The first steamboats that plied between
 
 STEAMBOATS TO LONDON 19 
 
 Leith and London were much smaller in size 
 and more primitive in their appointments than 
 their successors of to-day. Mineral oil had 
 not come into use, and animal and vegetable 
 oils were dear. Hence the saloons and cabins 
 were lighted with candles, and, as wicks that 
 require no snuffing were not then in vogue, 
 it may be imagined that the illumination could 
 not be brilliant, and that candle grease was 
 apt to descend in frequent drops upon what- 
 ever happened to lie below. The Rev. Dr. 
 Lindsay Alexander used to tell that when he 
 once accompanied a brother clergyman in the 
 steamboat to London, they were unable to 
 obtain berths in any of the state-rooms, and 
 had to content themselves each with a sofa 
 in the saloon. In the middle of the night 
 he was awakened by a groaning which seemed 
 to come from the sofa of his elderly friend. 
 Starting up, he enquired if the doctor was in 
 pain. The answer came in a shaky voice : 
 'I'm afraid I've had a stroke of paralysis.' 
 In an instant the younger man was out of 
 bed, calling for a light, as the candles had 
 all burnt themselves into their sockets. When 
 the light came, the reverend gentleman was 
 seen to have been lying immediately below 
 the drip of a guttering candle, and the drops
 
 20 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 of tallow, falling on his cheek, had congealed 
 there into a cake that had gradually spread 
 up to his eye. As he could not move the 
 muscles of his face, the poor man's imagination 
 had transferred the powerlessness to the rest 
 of his side. With the help of the steward, 
 however, the hardened grease was scraped off, 
 and the doctor, recovering the use of his facial 
 muscles, was able once more to drop off to 
 sleep. 
 
 Railroads have been unquestionably the most 
 powerful agents of social change in Scotland. 
 From the opening of the first line down to 
 the present time, I have watched the yearly 
 multiplication of lines, until the existing net- 
 work of them has been constructed. Had it 
 been possible, at the beginning, to anticipate 
 this rapid development, and to foresee the 
 actual requirements of the various districts 
 through which branch-lines have been formed, 
 probably the railway-map would have been 
 rather different from what it now is. Some 
 local lines would never have been built, or 
 would have followed different routes from those 
 actually chosen. The competition of the rival 
 companies has led to a wasteful expenditure 
 of their capital, and to the construction of 
 lines which either do not pay their expenses,
 
 RAILWAY RIVALRY 21 
 
 or yield only a meagre return for the outlay 
 disbursed upon them. A notable instance 
 of the effects of this rivalry was seen in 
 the competition of two great companies for the 
 construction of a line between Carnwath on 
 the Caledonian system and Leadburn on the 
 North British. The country through which 
 the route was to be taken was sparsely peopled, 
 being partly pastoral, partly agricultural, but 
 without any considerable village. When the 
 contest was in progress, a farmer from the 
 district was asked to state what he knew of 
 traffic between Carnwath and Dolphinton, a 
 small hamlet in Lanarkshire. His answer 
 was, ' Od, there's an auld wife that comes 
 across the hills ance in a fortnicht wi' a 
 basket o' ribbons, but that's a' the traffic I 
 ken o'.' The minister of Dolphinton, being 
 eager to have a railway through his parish, 
 set himself to ascertain the number of cattle 
 that passed along the road daily in front of 
 his manse. He was said to have counted the 
 same cow many times in the same day. The 
 result of the competition was a compromise. 
 Each railway company obtained powers to 
 construct a new line which was to run to 
 Dolphinton and there terminate. And these 
 two lines to this hamlet of a few cottages,
 
 22 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 and not as many as 300 people, were actually 
 constructed and have been in operation for 
 many years. Each of them has its terminal 
 station at Dolphinton, with station-master and 
 porters. But there were not, and so far as I 
 know, there are not now, any rails connecting 
 the two lines across the road. This diminu- 
 tive village thus enjoys the proud preemin- 
 ence of being perhaps the smallest place in the 
 three kingdoms which has two distinct terminal 
 stations on each side of its road, worked by 
 two independent and rival companies. 
 
 Not long after the opening of the North 
 British line to Dolphinton, I spent a day at 
 the southern end of the Pentland Hills, and 
 in the evening, making my way to the village, 
 found the train with its engine attached. The 
 station was as solitary as a churchyard. After 
 I had taken my seat in one of the carriages, 
 the guard appeared from some doorway in 
 the station, and I heard the engine-driver shout 
 out to him, ' Weel, Jock, hae ye got your 
 passenger in ? ' 
 
 The opening of a railway through some of 
 these lonely upland regions was a momentous 
 event in their history. Up till then many 
 districts which possessed roads were not tra- 
 versed by any public coach nor by many
 
 EARLY DAYS OF RAILWAYS 23 
 
 private carriages, while in other parishes, 
 where roads either did not exist or were 
 extremely bad and unfit for wheeled traffic, 
 the sight of a swiftly-moving train was one 
 that drew the people from far and near. 
 Some time, however, had to elapse before 
 the country-folk could accustom themselves 
 to the rapidity and (comparative) punctuality 
 of railroad travelling. When the old horse- 
 tramways ran, it was a common occurrence 
 for a train to be stopped in order to pick up 
 a passenger, or to let one down by the road- 
 side, and it is said that this easy-going prac- 
 tice used to be repeated now and then in the 
 early days of branch-railways. An old lady 
 from Culter parish, who came down to the 
 railway not long after it was opened, arrived 
 at the station just as the train had started. 
 When told that she was too late, for the train 
 had already gone beyond the station, she ex- 
 claimed, ' Dod, I maun rin then,' and pro- 
 ceeded at her highest speed along the plat- 
 form, while the station-master shouted after 
 her to stop. She was indignant that he 
 would not whistle for the train to halt or 
 come back for her. 
 
 Railway construction in the Highlands came 
 later than it did in the Lowlands, and entered
 
 24 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 among another race of people with different 
 habits from those of their southern fellow- 
 countrymen. The natural disposition of an 
 ordinary Highlander would not often lead 
 him to choose the hard life of a navvy, and 
 volunteer to aid in the heavy work of railway 
 construction. The following anecdote illus- 
 trates a racial characteristic which probably 
 could not have been met with in the Lowlands. 
 During the formation of one of the lines of 
 railway through the Highlands a man came 
 to the contractor and asked for a job at the 
 works, when the following conversation took 
 place : 
 
 ' Well, Donald, you've come for work, have 
 you ? and what can you do ? ' 
 
 ''Deed, I can do onything.' 
 
 ' Well, there's some spade and barrow work 
 going on ; you can begin on that.' 
 
 ' Ach, but I wadna just like to be workin' 
 wi' a spade and a wheelbarrow.' 
 
 ' O, would you not ? Then yonder's some 
 rock that needs to be broken away. Can 
 you wield a pick ? ' 
 
 ' I wass never usin' a pick, whatefer.' 
 
 ' Well, my man, I don't know anything I can 
 give you to do.' 
 
 So Donald went away crestfallen. But
 
 LIGHT LABOUR 25 
 
 being of an observing turn of mind, he walked 
 along the rails, noting the work of each gang 
 of labourers, until he came to a signal-box, 
 wherein he saw a man seated, who came out 
 now and then, waved a flag, and then resumed 
 his seat. This appeared to Donald to be an 
 occupation entirely after his own heart. He 
 made enquiry of the man, ascertained his 
 hours and his rate of pay, and returned 
 to the contractor, who, when he saw him, 
 good-naturedly asked : 
 
 ' What, back again, Donald ? Have you 
 found out what you can do ? ' 
 
 ''Deed, I have, sir. I would just like to 
 get auchteen shullins a week, and to do that ' 
 holding out his arm and gently waving the 
 stick he had in his hand. 
 
 A desire to select the lightest part of the 
 work, however, is not peculiar to the Celtic 
 nature, but comes out, strongly enough, some- 
 times, in the Lowlands, as was illustrated by 
 the proposal of a quarryman to share the 
 labour with a comrade. 'If ye ram, Jamie,' 
 said he, 'I'll pech ' ; that is, if his friend 
 would work the heavy iron sledge-hammer, 
 he himself would give the puff or pant with 
 which the workmen accompany each stroke 
 they make.
 
 26 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 The unpunctuality of the railways, the 
 dirtiness of the carriages on branch lines, 
 and the frequent incivility of the officials are 
 only too familiar to all who have to travel 
 much upon the system of at least one of 
 the Scottish companies. A worthy country- 
 man who had come from the north-east side 
 of the kingdom by train to Cowlairs, was told 
 that the next stoppage would be Glasgow. 
 He at once began to get all his little packages 
 ready, and remarked to a fellow-passenger, 
 ' I'm sailin' for China this week, but I'm 
 thinkin' I'm by the warst o' the journey noo.' 
 
 It must be confessed, however, that the 
 railway officials often have their forbearance 
 sorely tested, especially in the large mining 
 districts, where the roughness and violence of 
 the mob of passengers can sometimes hardly 
 be held in check, and where the temptation 
 to retaliate after the same fashion may be 
 difficult to resist. Having also to be on 
 the watch for dishonesty, they are apt to 
 develop a suspiciousness which sometimes, 
 though perhaps needlessly, exasperates the 
 honest traveller. Occasionally their sagacity 
 is scarcely a match for the knavery of a 
 dishonest Scot. Thus, a man, when the 
 ticket collector came round, was fumbling in
 
 STEAMBOATS ON WEST COAST 27 
 
 all his pockets for his ticket, until the official, 
 losing patience, said he would come back for 
 it. When he returned, noticing that the 
 man had the ticket between his lips, he in- 
 dignantly snatched it away. Whereupon a 
 fellow-passenger remarked, ' You must be 
 singularly absent-minded not to remember 
 that you had put your ticket in your mouth.' 
 No sae absent-minded as ye wad think,' 
 was the answer ; ' I was jist rubbin' oot the 
 auld date wi' my tongue.' 
 
 Perhaps the most striking evidence of the 
 effect of increased facilities for locomotion and 
 traffic upon the habits of the population is pre- 
 sented by the western coast of the country, 
 or the region usually spoken of as the West 
 Highlands and Islands. Few parts of Britain 
 are now more familiar to the summer tourist 
 than the steamboat tracks through that region. 
 Every year thousands of holiday-makers are 
 carried rapidly and comfortably in swift and 
 capacious vessels through that archipelago of 
 mountainous land and blue sea. They have, 
 as it were, a vast panorama unrolled before 
 them, which changes in aspect and interest at 
 every mile of their progress. For the most 
 part, however, they obtain and carry away 
 with them merely a kind of general and
 
 28 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 superficial impression of the scenery, though 
 the memory of it may remain indelibly fixed 
 among their most delightful experiences of 
 travel. They can have little or no concep- 
 tion of the interior of those islands or of 
 the glens and straths of the mainland, still 
 less of the inhabitants and their ways and 
 customs. Nor, as they are borne pleasantly 
 along past headland and cliff, can they 
 adequately realise what the conditions of 
 travel were before the days of commodious 
 passenger-steamers. 
 
 When Johnson and Boswell landed in Skye 
 in the year 1773, there was not a road in the 
 whole island practicable for a wheeled carri- 
 age. Locomotion, when not afoot, was either 
 on horseback or by boat. The inland bridle- 
 tracks lay among loose boulders, over rough, 
 bare rock, or across stretches of soft and some- 
 times treacherous bog. The boats were often 
 leaky, the oars and rowlocks unsound, the 
 boatmen unskilful ; while the weather, even in 
 summer, is often boisterous enough to make 
 the navigation of the sea-lochs and sounds 
 difficult or impossible for small craft. And 
 such continued to be the conditions in which 
 the social life of the West Highlands was 
 carried on long after Johnson's time. During
 
 DAVID HUTCHESON'S SERVICES 29 
 
 the first thirty or more years of last century 
 the voyage from the Clyde to Skye was 
 made in sailing packets, and generally took 
 from ten to fifteen days. It was not until 
 steamboats began to ply along the coast that 
 the scattered islands were brought into closer 
 touch with each other and with the Lowlands. 
 To the memory of David Hutcheson, who 
 organised the steamboat service among the 
 Western Highlands and Islands, Scotland 
 owes a debt of gratitude. The development 
 of this service has been the gradual evolution 
 of some seventy years. Half a century ago 
 it was far from having reached its present 
 state of advancement. There were then no 
 steamers up the West Coast to Skye and the 
 Outer Hebrides, save those which carried 
 cargo and came round the Mull of Cantyre. 
 During the herring season, and about the 
 times of the cattle-markets, the irregularities 
 and discomfort of these vessels can hardly be 
 exaggerated. When the decks were already 
 loaded perhaps with odoriferous barrels of 
 herring, and when it seemed impossible that 
 they could hold anything more, the vessel 
 might have to make a long detour to the 
 head of some mountain-girdled sea-loch to 
 fetch away a flock of sheep, or a herd of
 
 30 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 Highland cattle. At most of the places of 
 call there were no piers. Passengers had ac- 
 cordingly to disembark in small boats, some- 
 times at a considerable distance from high- 
 water mark, to which, perhaps in the middle 
 of the night, they scrambled across sea-weed 
 and slippery shingle. 
 
 As a steamboat called at each place in 
 summer only once, in later years twice, in a 
 week, and in winter only once in a fortnight, 
 the day of its arrival was eagerly looked for- 
 ward to by the population, in expectation of 
 the supplies of all kinds, as well as the letters 
 and newspapers, which it brought from the 
 south. You never could be sure at what hour 
 of the day or night it might make its appear- 
 ance, and if you expected friends to arrive 
 by it, or if you proposed yourself to take a 
 passage in it, you needed to be on the 
 watch, perhaps for many weary hours. In 
 fine weather, this detention was endurable 
 enough ; but in the frequent storms of wind 
 and rain, much patience and some strength 
 of constitution were needed to withstand the 
 effects of the exposure. The desirability of 
 having waiting-rooms or places of shelter of 
 any kind is even yet not fully realised by 
 the Celtic mind.
 
 'SOMETIMES SOONER, WHILES EARLIER' 31 
 
 The native islander, however, seemed never 
 to feel, or at least would never acknowledge 
 these various inconveniences. It was so great 
 a boon to have the steamers at all, and he had 
 now got so used to them that he could not 
 imagine a state of things different from that 
 to which he had grown accustomed. Nor 
 would he willingly allow any imperfections in 
 David Hutcheson's arrangements, on which 
 he depended for all his connection with the 
 outer world. I remember a crofter in the 
 island of Eigg, who, when asked when the 
 steamer would arrive, replied at once, ' Weel, 
 she'll be com in' sometimes sooner, and whiles 
 earlier, and sometimes before that again.' 
 The idea of lateness was a reproach which 
 he would not acknowledge. 
 
 William Black, the novelist, used to tell of 
 an English clergyman who, having break- 
 fasted and paid his bill at Tobermory, was 
 anxious for the arrival of the steamboat that 
 was to take him north. He made his way 
 to the pier, and walked up and down there 
 for a time, but could see no sign of the vessel. 
 At last, accosting a Highlander, who, leaning 
 against a wall, was smoking a cutty-pipe, he 
 asked him when the Skye steamer would call. 
 Out came the pipe, followed by the laconic
 
 32 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 answer, ' That's her smoke,' and the speaker 
 pointed in the direction of the Sound of Mull. 
 The traveller for a time could observe nothing 
 to indicate the expected vessel, but at last 
 noticed a streak of dark smoke rising against 
 the Morven Hills on the far side of the 
 island that guards the front of the little bay 
 of Tobermory. When at last the steamer itself 
 rounded the point and came fully into sight, 
 it seemed to the clergyman a much smaller 
 vessel than he had supposed it would be, 
 and he remarked to the Highlander, 'That 
 the Skye steamer ! that boat will surely 
 never get to Skye.' The pipe was whisked 
 out again to make way for the indignant 
 reply, ' She'll be in Skye this afternoon, if 
 nothin' happens to Skye.' The order of 
 nature might conceivably go wrong, but 
 Hutcheson's arrangements could be absolutely 
 depended upon. 
 
 The captains of these steamers were person- 
 ages of some consequence on the west coast. 
 Usually skilful pilots and agreeable men, they 
 came to be on familiar terms with the lairds and 
 farmers all along their route, whom they were 
 always glad to oblige and from whom they 
 received in return many tangible proofs of 
 recognition and good-will At the end of a
 
 WEST-COAST STEAMBOATS 33 
 
 visit which I had been paying to friends on 
 the south coast of Mull, the captain, to whom 
 my kind host had previously written, brought 
 his vessel a little out of his way in order to 
 pick me up. The shore being full of rocks 
 and reefs, my boat had to pull some distance 
 out to the steamer, so that the tourist passengers 
 had time to gratify their curiosity by crowding 
 to one side to see the cause of this unusual 
 stoppage. When the boat came alongside its 
 cargo was transhipped in the following order : 
 first a letter for the captain, next a live sheep, 
 then a portmanteau, and lastly myself. There 
 were many inquisitive glances at the scantiness 
 of my flock, but the sheep had been sent as a 
 present from my host to the captain, in recog- 
 nition of some little services which he had 
 lately been rendering to the family. 
 
 I have known a number of these captains, 
 and have often been struck with their quiet 
 dignity and good nature in circumstances that 
 must have tried their temper and patience. 
 They had much responsibility, and must often 
 have had anxious moments in foggy or stormy 
 weather. Now and then a vessel met with 
 an accident, or was even shipwrecked, but the 
 rarity of such always possible mishaps afforded 
 good proof of the skilful seamanship with which
 
 34 
 
 the Hutcheson fleet was handled. There was 
 always a heavy traffic in goods. Scores of 
 cases, boxes, barrels, and parcels of all conceiv- 
 able shapes and sizes had to be taken on 
 board and distributed at the various places of 
 call. Live stock had to be adequately ac- 
 commodated, and the varying times and direc- 
 tion of the tides had to be allowed for. Then 
 there was the tourist-traffic, which, though 
 small in those days compared with what it has 
 now grown to, required constant care and 
 watchfulness. Not improbably the human part 
 of his cargo gave a captain more trouble than 
 the rest. The average tourist is apt to be 
 selfish and unreasonable, ready to find fault 
 if everything does not go precisely as he wished 
 and expected. He is usually inquisitive, too, 
 and doubtless asks the same questions that 
 are put to the captain and seamen of the ship 
 season after season. He has formed certain 
 anticipations in his own mind of what he is 
 to see, and when these are not quite realised 
 he wants to know why. A common hallucina- 
 tion among travellers south of the Tweed 
 clothes every Highlander in a kilt, and surprise 
 is often expressed that the ' garb of old Gaul ' 
 is so seldom seen. The answer of one of 
 David Hutcheson's officers should suffice for
 
 TOURISTS ON WEST COAST 35 
 
 all who give vent to this surprise : ' Oh no, 
 nobody wears the kilt here but fools and 
 Englishmen.' 
 
 Various anecdotes are in circulation about 
 the passengers and crew of these western 
 steamboats. One of these narratives, of which 
 different versions have been told, relates how 
 on a dull, drizzling, and misty evening, when 
 every attention had to be given to the 
 rather intricate navigation, a lady began to 
 ask questions of the man at the wheel. He 
 answered her as briefly as possible for a time ; 
 but, as she still plied him with queries, he at 
 last lost his temper and abruptly desired her 
 to go to the nether regions. She retired in 
 high dudgeon and sought out the captain, 
 insisting that the man should be discharged, 
 and that she would report the matter to Mr. 
 Hutcheson. The captain tried to soothe her, 
 expressing his own regret at the language that 
 had been used to her, and assuring her that 
 he would make the man apologise to her for 
 his conduct, She thereupon went down to the 
 saloon and poured out her indignation to some 
 of her fellow-passengers. In the midst of her 
 talk, a man in dripping oilskins and cap in 
 - hand appeared at the door, and, after some 
 hesitation and looking round the company,
 
 36 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 advanced to the irate lady and said, ' Are you 
 the leddy I tellt to gang to hell ? Weel, the 
 captain says ye needna gang yet.' Such was 
 the apology. 
 
 I well remember, when as a lad of eighteen 
 I first visited Skye, that the steamer carrying 
 the usual miscellaneous cargo in the hold and 
 on deck, after rounding the Mull had made 
 so many calls, and had so much luggage and 
 merchandise to discharge at each halt, that 
 it was past midnight of the second day before 
 we came into Broad ford Bay. The disembarka- 
 tion was by small-boat, and as we made our 
 way shorewards, the faces of the oarsmen 
 were at every stroke lit up with the pale, 
 ghostly light of a phosphorescent sea. The 
 night was dark, but with the aid of a dim 
 lantern one could mount the rough beach, 
 where I was met by a son of the Rev. John 
 Mackinnon of Kilbride, with whom I had 
 come to spend a few weeks. We had a 
 drive of some five miles inland, enlivened 
 with Gaelic songs which my young friend 
 and his cousin screamed at the pitch of their 
 voices. At a certain part of the road they 
 became suddenly silent, or only spoke to each 
 other in whispers. We were then passing 
 the old graveyard at Kilchrist ; but when we
 
 THE TELEGRAPH IN HIGHLANDS 37 
 
 had got to what was judged a safe distance 
 beyond it and its ghosts, the hilarity began 
 anew, and lasted until we came to our destina- 
 tion between two and three o'clock in the 
 
 morning. 
 
 The introduction of the electric telegraph 
 naturally aroused much curiosity in the rural 
 population as to how the wires could carry 
 messages. A West Highlander who had been 
 to Glasgow and was consequently supposed 
 to have got to the bottom of the mystery, 
 was asked to explain it. 'Weel,' said he, 
 ' it's no easy to explain what you will no be 
 understandin'. But I'll tell ye what it's like. 
 If you could stretch my collie dog frae Oban 
 to Tobermory, an' if you wass to clap its 
 head in Oban, an' it waggit its tail in Tober- 
 mory, or if I wass to tread on its tail in 
 Oban an' it squaked in Tobermory that's 
 what the telegraph is like.'
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 TRACES of Paganism in Scotland. Relics of the Celtic Church ; 
 'Deserts.' Survival of Roman Catholicism in West High- 
 lands and Islands. Influence of the Protestant clergy. 
 Highland ministers. Lowland ministers. Diets of cate- 
 chising. Street preachers. 
 
 THE social history of Scotland has been inti- 
 mately linked with the successive ecclesiastical 
 polities which have held sway in the country. 
 Nowhere can the external and visible records 
 of these polities be more clearly seen than 
 among the Western Isles, for there the politi- 
 cal revolutions have been less violent, though 
 not less complete, than in other parts of the 
 country, and the effacement of the memorials 
 of the past has been brought about, more 
 perhaps by the quiet influence of time, than 
 by the ruthless hand of man. First of all we 
 meet with various lingering relics of Paganism ; 
 then with abundant and often well-preserved 
 records of the primitive Celtic Church ; next
 
 RELICS OF PAGANISM 39 
 
 with evidence of the spread of the Roman 
 Catholic faith ; further with the establishment 
 of Protestantism, but without the complete 
 eradication of the older religion ; and lastly 
 with the doings of the various religious sects 
 into which the inhabitants are now unhappily 
 divided. 
 
 Various memorials of Paganism may be 
 recognised, to some of which further reference 
 will be made in a later chapter. Of these 
 memorials, the numerous standing stones are 
 the most conspicuous, whether as single mono- 
 liths, marking the grave of some forgotten 
 hero or dedicated to some unknown divinity, 
 or as groups erected doubtless for religious 
 purposes, like the great assemblage at Caller- 
 nish in the Lewis. Besides these stones, 
 many burial mounds, resting-places of the 
 pagan dead, have yielded relics of the Stone 
 and Bronze Ages. In some respects more 
 impressive even than these relics, are the 
 superstitious customs which still survive 
 amongst us, and have probably descended 
 uninterruptedly from pagan times ; such, for 
 instance, as the practice of walking around 
 wells and other places three times from east 
 to west, as the sun moves, and the practice 
 of leaving offerings at the springs which are
 
 40 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 resorted to for curative purposes. Some of 
 these customs were continued by the early 
 Celtic Church, persisted afterwards through 
 the Roman Catholic period, and even now, 
 in spite of all the efforts of Protestant zeal, 
 they have not been wholly extirpated. 
 
 The vestiges of the early Celtic Church, 
 by which Paganism was superseded, are speci- 
 ally abundant in the Highlands. Even where 
 all visible memorials have long since vanished, 
 the name of many a devoted saint and 
 missionary still clings to the place where he 
 or she had a chapel or hermitage, or where 
 some cell was dedicated to their memory. The 
 names of Columba, Bridget, Oran, Donan, 
 Fillan, Ronan, and others are as familiar on 
 the lips of modern Highlanders as they were 
 on those of their forefathers, although the 
 historical meaning and interest of these names 
 may be unknown to those who use them now. 
 When, besides the name attached to the place, 
 the actual building remains with which the 
 name was first associated in the sixth or some 
 later century, the interest deepens, especially 
 where the relic stands, as so many of them 
 do, on some small desolate islet, placed far amid 
 the melancholy main, and often for weeks 
 together difficult or impossible of approach,
 
 DESERTS OF THE CELTIC SAINTS 41 
 
 even now, with the stouter boats of the present 
 day. Such places, like those off the west 
 coast of Ireland, were sought for retirement 
 from the work and worry of the world, where 
 the missionary devoted himself to meditation 
 and prayer. The numerous Deserts, Diserts, 
 Dysarts, and Dyserts in Ireland and Scotland 
 are all forms of the Gaelic word Disert, de- 
 rived from the Latin Desertum, a desert 
 or sequestered place, and mark retreats of 
 the early propagandists of Christianity. It 
 fills one with amazement and admiration to 
 contemplate the heroism and self-devotion 
 which could lead these men in their frail 
 coracles to such sea-washed rocks, where there 
 is often no soil to produce any vegetation, and 
 where, except by impounding rain, there can 
 be no supply of fresh water. 
 
 Perhaps the most striking of these ' deserts ' 
 in Scotland is to be found on the uninhabited 
 rock known as Sula Sgeir, which rises out of 
 the Atlantic, about forty miles to the north 
 of the Butt of Lewis. Though much less 
 imposing in height and size than the Skellig 
 off the coast of Kerry, it is at least four times 
 further from the land, and must consequently 
 have been still more difficult to reach in primi- 
 tive times. I had a few years ago an oppor-
 
 4 2 
 
 tunity of landing on this rock, during a yachting 
 cruise to the Faroe Islands. With some little 
 difficulty, on account of the heavy swell, I 
 succeeded in scrambling ashore, and found the 
 rock to consist of gneiss, like that of the Long 
 Island. My arrival disturbed a numerous 
 colony of sea-fowl. The puffins emerged from 
 their holes, and sat gazing at me with their 
 whimsical wistful look. Flocks of razorbills 
 and guillemots circled overhead, filling the 
 air with their screams, while the gannets, angry 
 that their mates should be disturbed from their 
 nests, wheeled to and fro still higher, with 
 mocking shouts of ha ! ha ! ha ! A dank 
 grey sea-fog hung over the summit of the 
 islet. Everything was damp with mist and 
 clammy with birds' droppings, which in a dry 
 climate would gather as a deposit of guano. 
 Loathsome pools of rain-water and sea-spray, 
 putrid with excrement, filled the hollows of the 
 naked rock, while the air was heavy with the 
 odours of living and dead birds. The only 
 things of beauty in the place were the tufts of 
 sea-pink that grew luxuriantly in the crannies. 
 Some traces of recent human occupation could 
 be seen in the form of a few rude stone-huts 
 erected as shelters by the men who now and 
 then come to take off the gannets and their
 
 43 
 
 eggs, and who when there lately had left some 
 heaps of unused peat behind them. 
 
 Yet this desolate, bird-haunted rock, with 
 the heavy surf breaking all round it and re- 
 sounding from its chasms and caves, was the 
 place chosen by one of the Celtic saints as 
 his ' desert.' His little rude chapel yet remains, 
 built of rough stones and still retaining its 
 roof of large flags. It measures inside about 
 fourteen feet in length by from six to eight 
 in breadth, with an entrance doorway and 
 one small window-opening, beneath which the 
 altar-stone still lies in place. There could 
 hardly ever have been a community here ; one 
 is puzzled to understand how even the saint 
 himself succeeded in reaching this barren rock, 
 and how he supported himself on it during 
 his stay. He came, no doubt, in one of the 
 light skin-covered coracles, which could con- 
 tain but a slender stock of provisions. When 
 these were exhausted, if the weather forbade 
 his return to Lewis or to the mainland, he 
 had no fuel on the rock to fall back upon, 
 with which to cook any of the eggs or birds 
 of the islet, and there was no edible vegetation, 
 save the dulse or other sea-weeds growing 
 between tide-marks. 
 
 With the decay and dissolution of the Celtic
 
 44 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 Church, probably many of the chapels erected 
 by that community were forsaken and allowed 
 to fall into ruin. But some continued to be 
 used, and were even enlarged or rebuilt, when 
 the Church of Rome established its rule over 
 the whole country. Architecture had mean- 
 while made an onward step. The buildings 
 erected by the emissaries of Rome presented a 
 strong contrast to those which they replaced, 
 for they were solidly built with lime, in a 
 much more ornate style, with a freer use of 
 sculpture and on a much larger scale. The 
 old church of Rodil, in Harris, for example, 
 belonging perhaps to the thirteenth century, 
 is full of sculptured figures ; while the Cathe- 
 dral of lona would hold some dozens of the 
 primitive cells. 
 
 In various parts of the country evidence 
 may be seen that the Celtic sculptured stones 
 had ceased to be respected, either as religious 
 monuments or as works of art, when the 
 Roman Catholic churches were erected. At 
 St. Andrews, for example, the old chapel of 
 St. Regulus, probably built between the tenth 
 and twelfth centuries, was allowed to remain, 
 and it still stands, roofless indeed, but in 
 wonderful preservation as regards the masonry 
 of its walls. But of the crosses that rose
 
 ROMAN CATHOLICISM IN HEBRIDES 45 
 
 above the sward around it, many of them 
 delicately carved with interlaced work in the 
 true Celtic style, some were broken up and 
 actually used as building material for the 
 great Cathedral which was begun in the year 
 1160. Again, at St. Vigeans, in Forfarshire, 
 a large quantity of similar sculptured stones of 
 the Celtic period was built into the masonry 
 of the twelfth-century church erected there 
 under the Latin hierarchy. 
 
 The Roman Catholic faith, which once pre- 
 vailed universally over the country, still 
 maintains its place on some of the islands, 
 particularly Barra, Benbecula, and South Uist, 
 and in certain districts of the mainland. In 
 Eigg, about half of the population is still 
 Catholic, the other half being divided be- 
 tween the Established and Free Churches. 
 The three clergymen, Protestant and Roman 
 Catholic, when I first visited the island, were 
 excellent friends, and used to have pleasant 
 evenings together over their toddy and talk. 
 The Catholic memorial chapel to the memory 
 of Lord Howard of Glossop was determined 
 'to be erected in one of the Catholic islands,' 
 and Canna was chosen as its site. The 
 building has been placed there, and with its 
 high Norman tower now forms a conspicuous
 
 46 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 landmark for leagues to east and west. But 
 the crofter population is gone, and with it 
 Catholicism has disappeared from Canna, 
 though some five crofter families still live on 
 the contiguous island of Sanday. 
 
 In my peregrinations through the Catholic 
 districts of the west of Scotland I have often 
 been struck with some interesting contrasts 
 between them and similar regions in Ireland, 
 where Catholic and Protestant live together. 
 The Scottish priests have always seemed to 
 me a better educated class and more men 
 of the world than their brethren in Ireland. 
 Students who have been trained abroad 
 have their ideas widened and their manners 
 polished, as is hardly possible in the case 
 of those who leave their villages to be 
 trained at Maynooth, whence they are sent 
 to recommence village life as parish priests. 
 Again, there has always appeared to me to 
 be in the West Highlands far less of the 
 antagonism which in Ireland separates Catho- 
 lics and Protestants. They live together as 
 good neighbours, and, unless you actually 
 make enquiry, you cannot easily discriminate 
 between them. 
 
 No feature in the social changes which 
 Scotland has undergone stands out more
 
 SCOTTISH PROTESTANT CLERGY 47 
 
 conspicuously than the part played in these 
 changes by the clergy since the Reformation. 
 This clerical influence has been both benefi- 
 cial and baneful. On the one hand, the 
 clergy have unquestionably taken a large 
 share in the intellectual development of the 
 people, and in giving to the national char- 
 acter some of its most distinctive qualities. 
 For many generations, in face of a lukewarm 
 or even hostile nobility and government, they 
 bore the burden of the parish schools, ela- 
 borating and improving a system of instruc- 
 tion which made their country for a long 
 time the best educated community in Europe. 
 They have held up the example of a high 
 moral standard, and have laboured with the 
 most unremitting care to train their flocks in 
 the paths of righteousness. 
 
 On the other hand, the clergy, having from 
 the very beginning of Protestantism obtained 
 control over the minds and consciences of 
 the people, have naturally used this powerful 
 influence to make their theological tenets 
 prevail throughout the length and breadth 
 of the land. They early developed a spirit 
 of intolerance and fanaticism, and with this 
 same spirit they succeeded in imbuing their 
 people, repressing the natural and joyous
 
 48 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 impulses of humanity, and establishing an 
 artificial and exacting code of conduct, the 
 enforcement of which led to an altogether 
 hurtful clerical domination. While waging 
 war against older forms of superstition, they 
 introduced new forms which added to the 
 terrors and the gloom of life. These trans- 
 formations were longest in reaching their 
 climax among the Highlands and Islands, but 
 have there attained their most complete de- 
 velopment, as will be further pointed out in 
 a later chapter. Happily, in the Lowlands 
 for the last two hundred years, their effects 
 have been slowly passing away. The growth 
 of tolerance and enlightenment is increas- 
 ingly marked both among the clergy and the 
 laity. But the old leaven is not even yet 
 wholly eradicated, though it now works within 
 a comparatively narrow and continually con- 
 tracting sphere. 
 
 Nevertheless, even those who have least 
 sympathy with the theological tenets and eccle- 
 siastical system of the Scottish clergy must 
 needs acknowledge that, as earnest and inde- 
 fatigable workers for the spiritual and tem- 
 poral good of their flocks, as leaders in every 
 movement for the benefit of the community, 
 and as fathers of families, these men deserve
 
 SCOTTISH MINISTERS 49 
 
 the ample commendation which they have re- 
 ceived. Their limited stipends have allowed 
 them but a slender share of the material 
 comforts and luxuries of life, and compara- 
 tively few of them have enjoyed opportunities 
 to ' augment their small peculiar,' yet they 
 have, as a whole, set a noble example of 
 self-denial, thrift, and benevolence. Secure 
 at least of their manses, they have con- 
 trived ' to live on little with a cheerful heart,' 
 respected and esteemed of men. While sup- 
 plying the material wants of their people, as 
 far as their means would allow, they have 
 yet been able to provide a good education 
 for their families, and to 
 
 Put forth their sons to seek preferment out ; 
 Some to the wars, to try their fortune there; 
 Some to discover islands far away ; 
 Some to the studious universities. 
 
 The 'sons of the manse ' are found filling 
 positions of eminence in every walk of life. 
 
 With all this excellence of character and 
 achievement, the clergy of Scotland have 
 maintained an individuality which has strongly 
 marked them as a class among the other 
 professions of the country. This peculiarity 
 is well exemplified in the innumerable anec- 
 dotes which, either directly or indirectly con-
 
 50 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 nected with clergymen, form so large a 
 proportion of what are known as ' Scotch 
 Stories.' If we seek for the cause of the 
 prominence of the clerical element in the 
 accepted illustrations of Scottish humour, we 
 shall hardly find it in any exceptional exuber- 
 ance of that quality among the reverend 
 gentlemen themselves, taken as a body, though 
 many of their number have been among the 
 most humorous and witty of their countrymen. 
 As they were long drawn from almost every 
 grade in the social scale of the kingdom, 
 they have undoubtedly presented an admirable 
 average type of the national idiosyncrasies, 
 though they are now recruited in diminishing 
 measure from the landed and cultured ranks 
 of society. Their number, their general dis- 
 persion over the whole land, their prominence 
 in their parishes, the influence wielded by 
 many of them in the church-courts and on 
 public platforms, and the free intercourse be- 
 tween them and the people, have all helped to 
 draw attention to them and to their sayings 
 and doings. Moreover, since dissent from the 
 National Church began, the clergy have been 
 greatly multiplied. In each parish, where there 
 was once only one minister, there are now 
 two or even more.
 
 CLERICAL CHARACTERISTICS 51 
 
 A Scots proverb avers that ' A minister's 
 legs should never be seen,' meaning that he 
 should not be met with out of the pulpit. 
 So long as he remains there, he stands in- 
 vested with ' such divinity as doth hedge a 
 king ' : unassailable, uncontradictable, and 
 wielding the authority of a messenger from 
 God to man. The very isolation and emi- 
 nence of this position call attention to any 
 merely human qualities or frailties which he 
 may disclose in ordinary life. His parish- 
 ioners, though inwardly glad if he can shed 
 upon them ' the gracious dew of pulpit 
 eloquence,' at the same time delight to find 
 him, when divested of his gown and bands, 
 after all, one of themselves ; and while they 
 enjoy his humour, when he possesses that 
 saving grace, they are not unwilling some- 
 times to take his little peculiarities as subjects 
 for their own mirthful but not ill-natured 
 remarks. He may thus be like Falstaff, 'not 
 only witty himself, but the cause that wit is 
 in other men.' Hence the clerical stories 
 may be divided into two kinds : those in 
 which the humour is that of the ministers, 
 and those in which it is that of the people, 
 with the ministers as its object. In the first 
 series, there is perhaps no particular flavour
 
 52 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 different from that characteristic of the ordinary 
 middle-class Scot, though of course the many 
 anecdotes of a professional nature take their 
 colour from the calling of those to whom 
 they relate. In the second division, however, 
 a greater individuality may be recognised. 
 Whether it be from a sort of good-humoured 
 revenge for his incontestible superiority in the 
 pulpit, there seems to be a proneness to make 
 the most of any oddities in the minister's 
 manners or character. The contrast between 
 the preacher on Sunday and the same man 
 during the week it may be absent-minded, 
 or irascible, or making mistakes, or getting 
 into ludicrous situations appeals powerfully to 
 the Scotsman's sense of humour. He seizes 
 the oddity of this contrast, expresses it in some 
 pithy words, and thus, often unconsciously, 
 launches another 'story' into the world. His 
 humour, as in Swift's definition, 
 
 Is odd, grotesque, and wild, 
 Only by affectation spoiled ; 
 'Tis never by invention got ; 
 Men have it when they know it not. 
 
 It is in the country, and more particularly 
 in the remoter and less frequented parishes, 
 that the older type of minister has to 
 some extent survived. We meet with him
 
 A HIGHLAND MINISTER 53 
 
 rather in the Highlands than in the Lowlands. 
 He cultivates his glebe, and sometimes has 
 also a farm on his hands. He has thus 
 some practical knowledge of agriculture, is 
 often a good judge of cattle, and breeds his 
 own stock. 
 
 The best example of a Highland clergyman 
 I ever knew was the Rev. John Mackinnon, 
 minister of the parish of Strath, Skye, to 
 whose hospitable house of Kilbride I have 
 already referred as my first home in the 
 island. He succeeded to the parish after his 
 father, who had been its minister for fifty- 
 two years, and he was followed in turn by 
 his eldest son, the late Dr. Donald, so that 
 for three generations, or more than a 
 hundred years, the care of the parish re- 
 mained in the same family. Tall, erect, and 
 wiry, he might have been taken for a retired 
 military man. A gentleman by birth and 
 breeding, he mingled on easy terms with the 
 best society in the island, while at the same 
 time his active discharge of his ministerial 
 duties brought him into familiar relations 
 with the parishioners all over the district. 
 So entirely had he gained their respect and 
 affections that, when the great Disruption of 
 1843 rent the Establishment over so much of
 
 54 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 the Highlands, he kept his flock in the old 
 Church. He used to boast that Strath was 
 thus the Sebastopol of that Church in Skye. 
 
 The old manse at Kilchrist, having" become 
 ruinous, was abandoned ; and, as none was 
 built to replace it, Mr. Mackinnon rented the 
 farm and house of Kilbride. There had once 
 been a chapel there, dedicated to St. Bridget, 
 and her name still clings to the spot. Be- 
 hind rises the group of the Red Hills ; further 
 over, the black serrated crests of Blaven, the 
 most striking of all the Skye mountains, 
 tower up into the north-western sky, while 
 to the south the eye looks away down the 
 inlet of Loch Slapin to the open sea, out of 
 which rise the ridges of Rum and the Scuir 
 of Eigg. The farm lay around the house 
 and stretched into the low uplands on the 
 southern side of the valley. The farming 
 operations at Kilbride will be noticed in a 
 later chapter. 
 
 In the wide Highland parishes, where roads 
 are few and communications must largely be 
 kept up on foot, the minister's wife is sometimes 
 hardly less important a personage than her 
 husband, and it is to her that the social wants 
 of the people are generally made known. 
 Mrs. Mackinnon belonged to another family
 
 A HIGHLAND MINISTER'S WIFE 55 
 
 of the same clan as the minister, and was in 
 every way worthy of him. Tall and massive in 
 build, with strength of character traced on 
 every feature of her face, and a dignity of 
 manner like that of a Highland chieftainess, 
 she was born to rule in any sphere to which 
 she might be called. Her habitual look was 
 perhaps somewhat stern, with a touch of 
 sadness, as if she had deeply realised the 
 trials and transitoriness of life, and had braced 
 herself to do her duty through it all to the 
 end. But no Highland heart beat more 
 warmly than hers. She was the mother of 
 the whole parish, and seemed to have her 
 eye on every cottage and cabin throughout 
 its wide extent. To her every poor crofter 
 looked for sympathy and help, and neve 
 looked in vain. Her clear blue eyes would 
 at one moment fill with tears over the recital 
 of some tale of suffering in the district, at 
 another they would sparkle with glee as she 
 listened to some of the droll narratives of 
 her family or her visitors. She belonged to 
 the family of Corriehatachan, and among her 
 prized relics was the coverlet under which 
 Samuel Johnson slept when he stayed in her 
 grandfather's house. That house at the foot 
 of the huge Beinn na Cailleach has long
 
 56 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 ago disappeared ; some fields of brighter 
 green and some low walls mark where it 
 and its garden stood. 
 
 The younger generation at Kilbride con- 
 sisted of a large family of stalwart sons and 
 daughters, whose careers have furnished a 
 good illustration of the way in which the 
 children of the manses of Scotland have 
 succeeded in the world. The eldest son, as 
 above stated, followed his father as minister 
 of Strath ; another became proprietor of the 
 Melbourne Argus\ a third joined the army, 
 served in the Crimea, and in the later years 
 of his life was widely known and respected 
 as Sir William Mackinnon, Director-General 
 of the Army Medical Department, who left 
 his fortune to the Royal Society for the 
 furtherance of scientific research. 1 Most of 
 the family now lie with their parents under 
 the green turf of the old burial-ground of 
 Kilchrist. Miss Flora, the youngest daughter, 
 
 1 Dr. Norman Macleod, writing in 1867, stated that since 
 the beginning of the last wars of the French Revolution the 
 island of Skye alone had sent forth 21 lieutenant-generals 
 and major-generals ; 48 lieutenant-colonels ; 600 commissioned 
 officers ; 10,000 soldiers ; 4 governors of colonies ; I governor- 
 general ; I adjutant-general ; I chief baron of England ; and 
 I judge of the Supreme Court of Scotland. The martial tide 
 is now but feeble, though some additions could still be made 
 to the list.
 
 HIGHLAND MANSES 57 
 
 was gathered to her rest not many months 
 ago. The later years of her life had been 
 spent by her at her beautiful home of Duisdale 
 in Sleat, looking across the Kyle to the heights 
 of Ben Screel and the recesses of Loch Hourn. 
 She was a skilled gardener and had trans- 
 formed a bare hillside into a paradise of flowers 
 and fruit. She lent a helping hand to every 
 good work in the parish, managed the property 
 with skill and success, and knew the pedigree 
 and history of every family in the West High- 
 lands. When I paid her my last visit, feeling 
 sure it would be the last, it was sad to see her 
 once tall muscular frame bowed down with 
 illness and pain, and to find her alone, the 
 last of her family left in Skye. 
 
 In former days, before inns had multiplied 
 in the Highlands, and especially before the 
 advent of the crowds of tourists, and the 
 inevitable modern 'hotels,' the manses were 
 often the only houses, other than those of 
 the lairds, where travellers could find decent 
 accommodation. Their hospitality was often 
 sought, and it became in the end proverbial. 
 Kilbride was an excellent example of this 
 type of manse. Not only did it receive 
 every summer a succession of guests who 
 made it their home for weeks at a time,
 
 58 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 but every visitor of note was sure of a kindly 
 welcome, even if he were unexpected. Aston- 
 ishing is the capacity of these plain-looking 
 Highland houses. When the company as- 
 sembles at dinner it may seem impossible 
 that they can all find sleeping quarters under 
 the same roof. Yet they are all stowed away 
 not uncomfortably, sleep well, and come down 
 next morning with appetites prepared to do 
 full justice to a Highland breakfast. 
 
 In those Highland parishes where Gaelic 
 is still commonly spoken, two services are 
 held in the churches on Sunday, the first in 
 that language and the second, after a brief 
 interval, in English. This practice was followed 
 in Strath. In the days of the Celtic Church, a 
 chapel dedicated to Christ stood in the middle 
 of the parish and was known as Kilchrist. 
 On the same site, the Protestant Church was 
 afterwards erected, and continued to be used 
 until towards the middle of last century. But, 
 like the adjacent manse, it fell into disrepair 
 and was ultimately allowed to become the 
 roofless ruin which stands in the midst of 
 the old grave-yard of Kilchrist. Instead of 
 rebuilding it, the heritors, about the year 
 1840, resolved to erect a new church at 
 Broadford, nearer to the chief centre of popula-
 
 SUNDAY SERVICES IN SKYE 59 
 
 tion. For two Sundays in succession the 
 services are held at Broadford ; on the third 
 Sunday they take place at a little chapel in 
 Strathaird, on the western side of the parish, 
 for the benefit of a mixed crofter and fishing 
 community. 
 
 At the Gaelic service in the Broadford 
 church, a prominent feature used to be the 
 row of picturesque red-clocked or tartan- 
 shawled old women, who, sitting in front 
 immediately below the pulpit, followed the 
 prayers and the sermon with the deepest 
 attention, frequently uttering a running com- 
 mentary of sighs and groans, while now and 
 then one could even see tears coursing down 
 the wrinkles into which age and peat-reek 
 had shrivelled their cheeks. 
 
 The Sundays at Strathaird were peculiarly 
 impressive. The house party from the manse 
 family, guests and servants walked to the 
 shore of the sea-inlet of Loch Slapin, em- 
 barked there in rowing boats, and pulled across 
 the fjord and along the base of the cliffs on 
 the opposite side. No finer landscape could 
 be found even amidst the famous scenery of 
 Skye, the pink and russet-coloured cones 
 and domes of the Red Hills, and the dark 
 pinnacles and crags of Blaven behind us, and
 
 60 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 the blue islands that closed in the far distance 
 in front. 
 
 During the long incumbency of the minister's 
 father, no built place of worship existed in 
 Strathaird. The little chapel of the early 
 Celtic Church, of which the memory is pre- 
 served in the name Kilmaree, had long 
 disappeared, and the clergyman used to preach 
 from a recess in the basalt crags, with a grassy 
 slope in front on which his congregation sat 
 to hear him. My host, however, in the early 
 years of his tenancy of the parish, had 
 succeeded in getting a small church erected 
 wherein his people could be sheltered in bad 
 weather. I can recollect one of these Sundays 
 when the weather was absolutely perfect a 
 cloudless blue sky, the sea smooth as a mirror, 
 and the air suffused with the calm peacefulness 
 which seems so appropriate to a Sabbath. 
 We were a large but singularly quiet party, 
 as we steered for the little bay of Kilmaree, 
 each wrapped up in the thoughts which the 
 day or the scene suggested. As we approached 
 our landing place, we were startled by two 
 gun-shots in rapid succession on the hillside 
 above us. The sound would under any cir- 
 cumstances have intruded somewhat harshly 
 into the quiet of the landscape. But it was
 
 THE MINISTER OF GLENELG 61 
 
 Sunday, and such a thing as shooting on the 
 Lord's day had never been heard of in Strath. 
 An Englishman had rented the ground for 
 the season, and he and his wife were now 
 out with their guns. The surprise and horror 
 with which this conduct was viewed by the 
 minister and his family soon found an echo 
 through the length and breadth of the parish. 
 The sacramental season brought together 
 to Kilbride some of the other clergymen 
 of Skye, whom it was always a pleasure to 
 meet. They were a race of earnest, hard- 
 working, and intelligent men, 1 though, having 
 remained in the Establishment, they would 
 have been stigmatised by the seceding party 
 as ' Moderates ' who had clung to their loaves 
 and fishes, in spite of the example of the 
 Free Kirk. I remember being especially struck 
 by Mr. Macrae of Glenelg and Mr. Martin 
 of Snizort. With Mr. Macrae I had after- 
 wards more intercourse. Over and above 
 his ministerial duties, to which he conscien- 
 tiously devoted himself, his great delight in 
 life was to be on the sea. He had a little 
 
 1 It will be remembered what a high opinion Johnson formed 
 of the learning and breeding of the West Highland clergy. 
 There is no reason to think they have deteriorated since 
 his time, though possibly their learning would not now be 
 singled out for special eulogium.
 
 62 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 yacht or cutter, on which he lived as much 
 as he could, and which, as it passed up and 
 down the lochs and kyles, was as familiar as 
 Hutcheson's steamers. He was never happier 
 than when, with his two daughters, he could 
 entertain some friend on a cruise in these 
 waters, and tell what he knew about the ruins 
 and legends of the district the Pictish towers, 
 the mouldering Barracks, the traditions of 
 1715 and 1745, the Spanish invasion, the 
 battle of Glen Shiel, the naval pursuit and 
 the battering down of Eilean Donan Castle. 
 Once when I was staying at Inverinate, the 
 minister landed there from his little vessel, 
 and hearing that I wished to examine a piece 
 of the Skye shore south of Kyle Rhea, was 
 delighted to offer to convey me there and 
 back next day. My host jocularly remarked 
 that the visit would be sooner made by land 
 and crossing the Kyle at the ferry, than by 
 trusting to the minister. The little cruise, 
 however, was arranged, according to Mr. 
 Macrae's desire, and he duly dropped anchor 
 in front of Inverinate next morning. We 
 started early, and, with a gentle south-easterly 
 breeze and unclouded sky, made good progress 
 down Loch Duich. But the wind soon fell, 
 and we crept more and more slowly past the
 
 A NAUTICAL MINISTER 63 
 
 ruined Eilean Donan into Loch Alsh. There 
 could not have been a more glorious day for 
 a lazy excursion, or a nobler landscape to gaze 
 upon, as hour slipped after hour. Behind us 
 rose the great range of the Seven Sisters of 
 Kintail, in front were the hills of Sleat with 
 the Cuillins peering up behind them, all 
 suffused with the varying tints of the atmo- 
 sphere. It was a source of keen interest to 
 watch how the hues of peak and crag which 
 one had actually climbed, were transformed 
 in this aerial alembic, and one felt the truth 
 of Dyer's beautiful lines : 
 
 Mark yon summits, soft and fair, 
 Clad in colours of the air, 
 Which to those who journey near, 
 Barren, brown, and rough appear. 
 
 The worthy minister, in his capacity of 
 experienced yachtsman, playfully indulged in 
 the usual whistling incantations that are 
 supposed by the nautical imagination to pro- 
 pitiate yolus, but without success. The air 
 became so nearly motionless as to be able to 
 give only an occasional sleepy flap to the sail. 
 But we continued to move almost impercep- 
 tibly towards our destination, borne onward 
 by the last efforts of the ebbing tide. By 
 the time we had reached the open part of
 
 64 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 Loch Alsh, however, and had come well in 
 sight of the coast I intended to traverse, the 
 tide turned and began to flow. Gradually 
 the yacht was turned round with her prow 
 directed up the loch, and to our disgust we 
 saw ourselves being gradually carried back 
 again. Helpless on a perfectly smooth sea, 
 and without a breath of wind, we had to 
 resign ourselves to fate, and got back oppo- 
 site to Inverinate just in time for dinner. 
 
 Another Highland minister of a very diffe- 
 rent type lived on the shores of Loch Striven 
 a long inlet of the sea which runs far up 
 among the mountains of Cowal, and opens 
 out into the Firth of Clyde opposite to Rothe- 
 say. He was a bachelor and somewhat of a 
 recluse, with many eccentricities which formed 
 the basis of sundry anecdotes among his col- 
 leagues. One of these reverend brethren told 
 me that the erection of a volunteer battery 
 on the shore of Bute, where it looks up Loch 
 Striven, greatly perturbed the old minister, 
 for the reverberation of the firing rolled loud 
 and long among the mountains. One morning 
 before he was awake, the chimney-sweeps, 
 by arrangement with his housekeeper, came to 
 clean the chimneys. Part of their apparatus 
 consisted of a perforated iron ball through
 
 A BACHELOR MINISTER 65 
 
 which a rope was passed, and which by its 
 weight dragged the rope down to the fire- 
 place. By some mistake this ball was dropped 
 down the chimney of the minister's bedroom, 
 where, striking the grate with a loud noise, 
 it rebounded on the floor. The rattle awoke 
 the reverend gentleman, who, on opening his 
 eyes and seeing, as he thought, a cannon-ball 
 dancing across the room, exclaimed, ' Really, 
 this is beyond my patience ; it is bad enough 
 to be deaved with the firing, but to have the 
 shot actually sent into my house is more than 
 I can stand. I'll get up and write to the 
 commanding officer.' 
 
 As he had a comfortable manse and a fair 
 stipend, various efforts were made by the 
 matrons of the neighbourhood to induce the 
 minister to take a wife, and he used inno- 
 cently to recount these interviews to his co- 
 presbyters, who took care that they should 
 not lose anything by repetition to the world 
 outside. One of these interviews was thus 
 related to me. A lady in his parish called 
 on him, and after praising the manse and the 
 garden and the glebe, expressed a fear that 
 he must find it a great trouble to manage his 
 house as well as his parish. He explained 
 that he had an excellent housekeeper, who
 
 66 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 took great care of him, and managed the 
 household to his entire satisfaction. ' Ah, 
 yes,' said the visitor, ' I'm sure Mrs. Camp- 
 bell is very careful, but she canna be the 
 same as a wife to you. You must often be 
 very lonely here, all by yourself. But if you 
 had a wife she would keep you from weary- 
 ing, and would take all the management of 
 the house off your hands, besides helping you 
 
 with the work of the parish. Now Mr. 
 
 there's my Isabella, if you would but take 
 her for your wife, she would be a perfect 
 Abishag to you.' This direct and powerful 
 appeal, however, met with no better success 
 than others that had gone before it. The 
 incorrigible old divine lived, and, I believe, 
 died in single blessedness. 
 
 In the Lowlands the younger ministers, 
 educated in Edinburgh or Glasgow, and 
 accustomed to the modernised service of 
 the churches, and the more distinctive ecclesi- 
 astical garb of the officiating clergy, have 
 lost the angularity of manner which marked 
 older generations. I can remember, however, 
 a number of parish ministers who belonged 
 to an earlier and perhaps now extinct type. 
 Though thoroughly earnest and devoted men, 
 they would be regarded at the present day as
 
 AN AYRSHIRE MINISTER 67 
 
 at least irreverent, and their sayings and do- 
 ings would no doubt scandalise modern eyes 
 and ears. One of these clergymen had a 
 large Ayrshire parish. He was apt to forget 
 things, and on remembering them, to blurt 
 them out at the most inappropriate times. 
 On one occasion he had begun the benedic- 
 tion at the close of the service, when he sud- 
 denly stopped, exclaiming: 'We've forgot the 
 psalm,' which he thereupon proceeded to read 
 out. Another time, in the midst of one of 
 his extempore prayers, he was asking for a 
 blessing on the clergyman who was to ad- 
 dress the people in the afternoon, when he 
 interrupted himself to interject : 'It's in the 
 laigh Kirk, ye ken.' 
 
 One evening the same clergyman was dining 
 with a pleasant party at a laird's house about 
 a mile from the village, when it flashed across 
 his mind that he ought to have been at that 
 moment performing a baptism in the house of 
 one of the villagers. Hastily asking to be 
 excused for a little, as he had forgotten an 
 engagement, and with the assurance that he 
 would soon be back, he started off. It was 
 past nine o'clock before he reached the village 
 and knocked at the door of his parishioner. 
 There was no answer for a time, and after a
 
 68 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 second and more vigorous knock, the window 
 overhead was opened, and a voice demanded 
 who was there. 'It's me, Mrs. Maclellan. I'm 
 very sorry, indeed, to have forgotten about 
 the baptism. But it's not too late yet.' ' O 
 minister, we're in bed, and a' the fowk are 
 awa'. We canna hae the baptism noo.' 
 ' Never mind the folk, Mrs. Maclellan ; is the 
 bairn here ? ' ' Ow ay, the bairn's here, sure 
 eneuch.' ' Weel, that will do, and so you 
 maun let me in, and we'll hae the baptism 
 after all.' The husband had meanwhile pulled 
 some clothes on, and with his wife came down- 
 stairs to let in their minister. The ' tea- 
 things,' which the good woman had prepared 
 with great care for her little festival, had 
 been carried back to the kitchen, whither the 
 husband had gone for a lamp. The woman 
 appeared with the child, and begged that 
 they would come into her parlour. But the 
 minister, assuring her that the room made no 
 difference, proceeded with the ceremony in the 
 kitchen. When the moment came for sprink- 
 ling the baby, he dipped his hand into the 
 
 first basin he saw. ' O stop, stop Mr , 
 
 that's the water I washed up the tea-cups 
 and saucers in.' ' It will do as well as any 
 other/ he said, and continued his prayer to
 
 A RIVERSIDE BAPTISM 69 
 
 the end of the short service. As soon as it 
 was over, he started back to the laird's, and 
 rejoined the party after an absence of about 
 an hour. 
 
 To this baptismal experience another may be 
 added, where the rite was celebrated in the face 
 of great natural obstacles. Dr. Hanna relates 
 that a Highland minister once went to baptise a 
 child in the house of one of his parishioners, 
 near which ran a small burn or river. When 
 he came to the stream it was so swollen with 
 recent rains that he could not ford it in order 
 to reach the house. In these circumstances he 
 told the father, who was awaiting him on the 
 opposite bank, to bring the child down to the 
 burn-side. Furnished with a wooden scoop, 
 the clergyman stood on the one side of the 
 water, and the father, holding the infant as far 
 out in his arms as he could, placed himself on 
 the other. With the foaming torrent between 
 the participants, the service went on, until the 
 time came for sprinkling the babe, when the 
 minister, dipping the scoop into the water, 
 flung its contents across at the baby's face. 
 His aim, however, was not good, for he failed 
 more than once, calling out to the father after 
 each new trial : ' Weel, has't gotten ony yet ? ' 
 When he did succeed, the whole contents of
 
 70 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 the scoop fell on the child's face, whereupon 
 the disgusted parent ejaculated, ' Ach, Got 
 pless me, sir, but ye've trownt ta child.' Dr. 
 Chalmers, in telling this story, used to express 
 his wonder as to what the great sticklers for 
 form and ceremony in the sacraments would 
 think of such a baptism by a burn-side, per- 
 formed with a wooden scoop. 1 
 
 A certain parish church in Carrick, like 
 many ecclesiastical edifices of the time in 
 Scotland, was not kept with scrupulous care. 
 The windows seemed never to be cleaned, or 
 indeed opened, for cobwebs hung across them, 
 
 And half-starv'd spiders prey'd on half-starv'd flies. 
 
 There was an air of dusty neglect about the 
 interior, and likewise a musty smell. One 
 Sunday an elderly clergyman from another 
 part of the country was preaching. In the 
 midst of his sermon a spider, suspended from 
 the roof at the end of its long thread, swung 
 to and fro in front of his face. It came against 
 his lips and was blown vigorously away. 
 Again it swung back to his mouth, when, with 
 an indignant motion of his hands, he broke 
 the thread and exclaimed, ' My friends, this 
 
 1 Life of Chalmers, vol. iv., p. 450. The catastrophe of the 
 last ladleful is not given by Dr. Hanna.
 
 A DIET OF CATECHISING 71 
 
 is the dirtiest kirk I ever preached in. I'm 
 like to be pusioned wi' speeders.' 
 
 It is recorded of an old minister in the 
 west of Ross-shire that he prayed for Queen 
 Victoria, ' that God would bless her and that 
 as now she had grown to be an old woman, 
 He would be pleased to make her a new man.' 
 
 The same worthy divine is said to have 
 once prayed ' that we may be saved from 
 the horrors of war, as depicted in the pages 
 of the Illustrated London News and the 
 Graphic. ' 
 
 One of the most serious functions which 
 the Presbyterian clergymen of Scotland had 
 formerly to discharge was that of publicly 
 examining their congregation in their know- 
 ledge of the Christian faith. Provided with 
 a list of the congregation, the officiating 
 minister in the pulpit proceeded to call up 
 the members to answer questions out of the 
 Shorter Catechism, or such other interro- 
 gatories as it might seem desirable to ask. 
 Nobody knew when his turn would come, or 
 what questions would be put to him, so that 
 it was a time of trial and trepidation for old 
 and young. The custom appears to be now 
 obsolete, but reminiscences of its operation 
 are still preserved.
 
 72 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 An elderly minister was asked to take the 
 catechising of the congregation in a parish in 
 the pastoral uplands of the South of Scotland. 
 He was warned against the danger of putting 
 questions to a certain shepherd, who had made 
 himself master of more divinity than some of 
 his clerical contemporaries could boast, and 
 who enjoyed nothing better than, out of the 
 question put to him, to engage in an argument 
 with the minister on some of the deepest 
 problems of theology. The day of the ordeal 
 at last came, the old doctor ascended the pulpit, 
 and after the preliminary service put on his 
 spectacles and unfolded the roll of the congre- 
 gation. To the utter amazement of everybody, 
 he began with the theological shepherd, John 
 Scott. Up started the man, a tall, gaunt, sun- 
 burnt figure, with his maud over his shoulder, 
 his broad blue bonnet on the board in front 
 of him, and such a look of grim determination 
 on his face as showed how sure he felt of the 
 issue of the logical encounter to which he 
 believed he had been challenged from the 
 pulpit. The minister, who had clearly made 
 up his mind as to the line of examination to 
 be followed with this pugnacious theologian, 
 looked at him calmly for a few moments, and 
 then in a gentle voice asked, ' Wha made you,
 
 'WHAT IS A SACRAMENT?' 73 
 
 John ?' The shepherd, prepared for questions 
 on some of the most difficult points of our 
 faith, was taken aback by being asked what 
 every child in the parish could answer. He 
 replied in a loud and astonished tone, ' Wha 
 made met* 'It was the Lord God that made 
 you, John,' quietly interposed the minister. 
 ' Wha redeemed you, John ? ' Anger now 
 mingled with indignation as the man shouted, 
 ' Wha redeemed me ? ' The old divine, still 
 in the same mild way, reminded him ' It 
 was the Lord Jesus Christ that redeemed 
 you, John,' and then asked further, 'Wha 
 sanctified you, John ? Scott, now thoroughly 
 aroused, roared out, 'Wha sanctified ME?' 
 The clergyman paused, looked at him calmly, 
 and said, ' It was the Holy Ghost that 
 sanctified you, John Scott, if, indeed, ye be 
 sanctified. Sit ye doon, my man, and learn 
 your questions better the next time you come 
 to the catechising/ The shepherd was never 
 able to hold his head up in the parish there- 
 after. 
 
 An old woman who had got sadly rusty 
 in her Catechism was asked, ' What is a 
 sacrament ? ' to which she gave the following 
 rather mixed answer, ' A sacrament is an 
 act of saving grace, whereby a sinner out of
 
 74 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 a true knowledge of his sins doth rest in 
 his grave till the resurrection.' 
 
 Dr. Hanna used to tell of a shoemaker 
 who lamented to his minister that he was 
 spiritually in a bad way because he was not 
 very sure of his title to the kingdom of heaven, 
 and that he was physically bad because ' that 
 sweep, his landlord, had given him notice to 
 quit and he would have nowhere to lay his 
 head.' The minister could only advise him 
 to lay his case before the Lord. A week 
 later the minister returned and found the 
 shoemaker busy and merry. ' That was gran' 
 advice ye gied me, minister,' said the man, 
 ' I laid my case before the Lord, as ye tell't 
 me an' noo the sweep's deid.' 
 
 In connection with the regular clergy, refer- 
 ence may be made to the free-lances who, as 
 street-preachers, have long taken their place 
 among the influences at work for rousing the 
 lower classes in our large towns to a sense 
 of their duties. These men have often dis- 
 played a single-hearted devotion and persist- 
 ence, in spite of the most callous indifference 
 or even active hostility on the part of their 
 auditors. The very homeliness of their lan- 
 guage, which repels most educated people, 
 gives them a hold on those who come to listen
 
 BOBBIE FLOCKHART 75 
 
 to them, while now and then their vehement 
 enthusiasm rises into true eloquence. The 
 most remarkable of these men I have ever 
 listened to was a noted character in Edinburgh 
 during the later years of the first half of last 
 century, named Bobbie Flockhart. He was 
 diminutive in stature, but for this disadvantage 
 he endeavoured to compensate by taking care 
 
 that 
 
 The apparel on his back, 
 
 Though coarse, was reverend, and though bare, was black. 
 
 Eccentric in manner and speech, he long 
 continued to be an indefatigable worker for 
 the good of his fellow townsmen. He used 
 to spend the forenoon and afternoon of every 
 Sunday in flitting from church to church, 
 listening to the sermons, of each of which 
 he remained to hear only a small portion. 
 Then in the evening, not only of Sundays but 
 of week days, he would hold forth from a chair 
 or barrel outside the west gate of St. Giles, 
 and gather round him a crowd of loafers 
 from the High Street, who, it is to be feared, 
 were attracted to him rather by the expectation 
 of some new drollery of language, than from 
 any interest in the substance of his discourses. 
 They would interrupt him now and then with 
 ribald remarks, but they often met with such
 
 76 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 a rebuke as turned the laugh against them, 
 and increased the popularity of the preacher. 
 He was discoursing one evening on the 
 wickedness of the town, especially of the 
 district in which his audience lived, when in 
 his enthusiasm he pointed up in the direction 
 of the Castle, where stands the huge historic 
 cannon, and exclaimed : ' O that I could load 
 Mons Meg wi' Bibles, and fire it doon every 
 close in the High Street!' On another occa- 
 sion he was depicting to the people the terrors 
 of the day of judgment. ' Ay,' said he, 'some 
 of you that mock me the day will be comin' 
 up to me then and sayin', " Bobbie, ye'll mind 
 us, we aye cam' to hear ye." But I'll no' help 
 ye. Maybe ye'll think to cling on to my 
 coat-tails, but I'll cheat ye there, for I'll put 
 on a jacket.' He was fond of similes that 
 could bring home to the rough characters 
 around him the truths he sought to impress 
 on them. He was once denouncing the care- 
 less ingratitude of man for all the benefits 
 conferred on him by Providence. ' My friends,' 
 he said, ' look at the hens when they drink. 
 There's not ane o' them but lifts its heid in 
 thankfulness, even for the water that is sae 
 common. O that we were a' hens.'
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE sermon in Scottish Kirks. Intruding animals in country 
 churches. The ' collection.' Church psalmody. Precentors 
 and organs. Small congregations in the Highlands. Parish 
 visitation. Survival of the influence of clerical teaching. 
 Religious mania. 
 
 FROM the time of the Reformation onwards 
 the sermon has taken a foremost place in the 
 service of the Church of Scotland. There 
 was a time when a preacher would continue 
 his discourse for five or six hours, and when 
 sometimes a succession of preachers would give 
 sermon after sermon and keep the congrega- 
 tion continuously sitting for ten hours. These 
 days of perfervid oratory are past. But a 
 sermon of an hour's duration or even more 
 may still be heard, and, when the preacher 
 is eloquent, will be listened to with deep 
 interest. This part of the service maintains 
 its early prominence. It is from his capacity 
 to preach that a man's qualifications for the
 
 78 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 ministry are mainly judged, not merely by the 
 church which licences him, but by the con- 
 gregation which chooses him as its pastor. 
 The half-yearly celebration of the sacrament, 
 which included a fast-day, services on two or 
 three week days, and a long 'diet' on Sunday, 
 was appropriately known as 'The Preachings.' 
 The Fast- Day, when the shops were closed 
 and there were at least two services in the 
 churches, forenoon and afternoon, became in 
 the end a kind of public holiday in the large 
 towns. Attracted to the country, rather than 
 to the sermons, the people used to escape 
 from town, and railways carried an ever- 
 increasing number of excursionists away from 
 the services of the Church. The ecclesiastical 
 authorities at last, some years ago, put a stop 
 to this scandal, and the Fast- Day no longer 
 ranks as one of the public holidays of the 
 year. 
 
 Scottish sermons have always had a pre- 
 valent doctrinal character and a markedly 
 logical treatment of their subject. It has 
 never been the habit north of the Tweed to 
 think that ' dulness is sacred in a sound divine.' 
 The clergy have appealed as much to the 
 head as to the heart. In bygone generations 
 the doctrines evolved from the text were
 
 HEADS OF SERMONS 79 
 
 divided into numerous heads, and these into 
 subordinate sections and subsections, so that 
 the attention of those listeners who remained 
 awake was kept up as at a kind of intellectual 
 exercise. If anyone wishes to realise the 
 extent to which this practice of subdivision 
 could be carried by an eminent and successful 
 preacher, let him turn to the posthumous 
 sermons of Boston of Ettrick. 1 Thus, in a 
 sermon on ' Fear and Hope, objects of the 
 Divine Complacency,' from the text, Psalms 
 cxlvii. .11, this famous divine, after an intro- 
 duction in four sections, deduced six doc- 
 trines, each subdivided into from three to 
 eight heads ; but the last doctrine required 
 another sermon, which contained ' a practical 
 improvement of the whole,' arranged under 86 
 heads. A sermon on Matthew xi. 28 was 
 subdivided into 76 heads. If it is not quite 
 easy to follow the printed sermon through 
 this maze of sub-division, it must have been 
 much more difficult to do so in the spoken 
 discourse. All the enthusiasm and fire of the 
 preacher must have been needed to rivet the 
 
 1 Primitia et Ultima, or the Early Labours and Last Remains 
 that -will meet the public eye, etc., etc., of the late Rev, and 
 learned Mr. Thomas Boston, minister of the Gospel at Ettrick, 
 now first published from his MS S, In three volumes. Edin- 
 burgh, 1800.
 
 8o SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 attention and affect the hearts of his congre- 
 gation. It is still usual to treat the subject of 
 a text under different heads, but happily their 
 number has been reduced to more reasonable 
 proportions. 
 
 It was not given to every occupant of a 
 pulpit to rival the fecundity and ingenuity of 
 Boston of Ettrick in the elucidation of his 
 text. A subdivision of a simpler type was 
 made by the worthy old Highland divine who 
 preached from the verse, ' The devil, as a 
 roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he 
 may devour/ Following a Highland habit of 
 inserting an unnecessary pronoun after the 
 noun to which it refers, he began his dis- 
 course thus : ' Let us consider this passage, 
 my brethren, under four heads. Firstly, who 
 the Devil, he is ; secondly, what the Devil, 
 he is like ; thirdly, what the Devil, he doth ; 
 and fourthly, who the Devil, he devoureth.' 
 
 In many instances the sermons prepared 
 during the first few years of a ministry served 
 for all its subsequent continuance, with perhaps 
 some modifications or additions suggested by 
 the altered circumstances of the time. It used 
 to be said of some clergymen that they kept 
 their sermons in a barrel, which when emptied 
 was refilled again with the old MSS, Dr.
 
 NEW TEXT TO OLD SERMON 81 
 
 Hanna, the biographer of Chalmers, used to 
 tell of one such minister who had preached 
 the same short round of sermons for so many 
 years that at last the beadle was deputed by 
 one or two members of the congregation to 
 ask whether, if he could not prepare a new 
 sermon, he would at least give them a fresh 
 text. Next Sunday, to the astonishment of 
 the audience, the minister gave out a text 
 from which he had never before preached : 
 ' Genesis, first chapter, first verse, and first 
 clause of the verse.' Every Bible was opened 
 at the place, and the listeners, nearly all of 
 whom were ignorant of the suggested ar- 
 rangement, leant back in their pews in eager 
 anticipation of the new sermon. With great 
 deliberation the preacher began : ' " In the be- 
 ginning God created the heavens and the 
 earth." Who this Nicodemus was, my breth- 
 ren, commentators are not agreed.' And the 
 old story of Nicodemus was repeated, as it 
 had been so often before. 
 
 Sometimes the manuscript of a sermon was 
 by mistake left behind at the manse, and the 
 minister or the beadle had to set off to procure 
 it. On one of these occasions, the manse 
 being at some little distance from the church, 
 the minister, who had to go and find the
 
 82 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 document himself, gave out the rigth Psalm, 
 that the congregation might engage in singing 
 during his absence. When he returned with 
 his MS. he asked his man, who was waiting 
 for him anxiously at the door, how the congre- 
 gation was getting on. ' O sir,' said he, 
 ' they've got to the end of the 84th verse, and 
 they're jist cheepin' like mice.' 
 
 To interrupt the service by requesting the 
 congregation to sing a psalm or hymn is an 
 expedient which sometimes relieves a clergy- 
 man when, from faintness or other cause, he 
 finds a difficulty in performing his duty in 
 the pulpit. Some years ago a young minister 
 had recourse to this mode of extrication. On 
 the conclusion of the service, one or two of 
 his friends came to him in the vestry to ascer- 
 tain what had ailed him. He told them that 
 he could with difficulty refrain from laughing, 
 and his only resource was to leave the pulpit. 
 'Did you see,' he asked, 'a man with an 
 extraordinarily red head sitting in the front 
 of the gallery ? ' ' Yes, we noticed him, but he 
 appeared to be a quiet attentive listener.' ' So 
 he was, so he was ; but did you see a small 
 boy sitting behind him ? That young rascal 
 so fascinated me that, though I tried hard to 
 look elsewhere, I could not keep my eyes
 
 A SERMON BELOW BEN NEVIS 83 
 
 from sometimes turning to watch him. He 
 was holding up the forefinger of his left hand 
 behind the red head, as if he were heating 
 an iron bolt in a furnace, and he would then 
 thump it on the desk in front of him, as if he 
 were hammering the iron into shape. This 
 went on until I had to leave the pulpit, and 
 send the beadle up to the gallery to have the 
 young sinner cautioned or removed.' 
 
 The English sermon in Highland churches 
 was often a curious performance. As already 
 mentioned, there were, and still generally 
 are, two sermons one in Gaelic as part of 
 the earlier service, and one in English in 
 the second part. Those of the congregation 
 who thought they understood both languages 
 might stay from the beginning to the end, 
 but the purely Gaelic-speaking population 
 generally thinned away after the Gaelic ser- 
 vice. In some cases, the preacher's command 
 of English being rather limited, his evident 
 earnestness could hardly prevent a smile at 
 his solecisms in grammar and the oddity 
 of his expressions. Many years ago an 
 acquaintance told me he had been yachting 
 in Loch Eil, and on a Sunday of dreary 
 rain and storm went ashore not far from the 
 roots of Ben Nevis to attend the English
 
 84 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 service, when he heard the following passage 
 from the lips of the preacher : 
 
 ' Ah, my friends, what causes have we for 
 gratitude ; O yes, for the deepest gratitude ! 
 Look at the place of our habitation. How 
 grateful should we be that we do not leeve 
 in the far north ! O no ; amid the frost and the 
 snaw, and the cauld and the weet, O no ; where 
 there's a lang day tae half o' the year, O yes ; 
 and a lang, lang nicht the tither, ah yes ; that 
 we do not depend upon the auroary boreawlis, 
 O no ; that we do not gang shivering about 
 in skins, O no ; snoking amang the snaw like 
 mowdiwarts, O no, no ! 
 
 'And how grateful should we be too that 
 we do not leeve in the far south, beneath the 
 equawtor and a sun aye burnin', burnin'; where 
 the sky's het, ah yes ; and the earth's het, 
 and the water's het, and ye're burnt black as 
 a smiddy, ah yes ! where there's teegers, O 
 yes ; and lions, O yes ; and crocodiles, O yes ; 
 and fearsome beasts growlin' and girnin' at 
 ye amang the woods ; where the very air is 
 a fever, like the burnin' breath o' a fiery 
 draigon. That we do not leeve in these places, 
 O no\ NO!! NO!!! 
 
 ' But that we leeve in this blessed island o' 
 ours, called Great Britain, O yes ! yes ! and in
 
 SLEEPING IN THE KIRK 85 
 
 that pairt o' it named Scotland, and in that 
 bit o' auld Scotland that looks up at Ben 
 Naivis, O yes \ YES ! ! YES ! ! ! where there's 
 neither frost nor cauld, nor wind nor weet, 
 nor hail, nor rain, nor teegers, nor lions, nor 
 
 burnin' suns, nor hurricanes, nor' At this 
 
 part of the discourse a fearful gust from Ben 
 Nevis aforesaid drove in the upper sash of the 
 window at the right hand of the pulpit, and 
 rudely interrupted the torrent of eloquence. 1 
 
 When we remember the length and techni- 
 cality of the sermons, the bad ventilation of 
 the kirks, and the effects of six days of toil 
 on a large number of each congregation, we 
 can hardly wonder that somnolence should be 
 prevalent in Scotland. Many anecdotes on this 
 subject have long been in circulation. The 
 same tale may be recognized under various 
 guises, the preacher or sleeper being altered 
 
 1 Many years ago I told this story to my friend Mr. Thomas 
 Constable (son of Scott's publisher), and a few days thereafter 
 received a note from him asking if I would write it down. 
 This I did, and he told me afterwards that for a time he carried 
 my MS. in his pocket and read from it to his friends, but that 
 the paper becoming tender with frequent use, he had the 
 manuscript thrown into type, struck off a number of copies, 
 and circulated them among his acquaintance. One of these 
 copies must have fallen into the hands of Mr. Mark Boyd, 
 who, in his Social Gleanings, London, 1875, P- 57 printed the 
 story as here given.
 
 86 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 according to local circumstances. Perhaps no 
 series illustrates better how such stories con- 
 tinue to float down through generation after 
 generation, and are always reappearing as 
 new, when they receive a fresh personal ap- 
 plication. Sleeping in church is such a nat- 
 ural failing, and the reproof of it from the 
 pulpit is so obvious a consequence, that even 
 if no memory of the old incidents should sur- 
 vive, the recurrence of similar circumstances 
 could hardly fail to give birth to similar anec- 
 dotes. For example, a story is at present 
 in circulation to the effect that in a country 
 church one Sunday the preacher after service 
 walked through the kirkyard with one of the 
 neighbouring farmers, and took occasion to 
 remark to him, ' Wasn't it dreadful to hear 
 the Laird of Todholes snoring so loud through 
 the sermon?' 'Perfectly fearful,' was the 
 answer, 'he waukened us a'.' Two or three 
 generations ago a similar incident was said to 
 have occurred at Govan, under the ministra- 
 tion of the well-known Mr. Thorn, who in 
 the midst of his sermon stopped and called 
 out, 'Bailie Brown, ye mauna snore sae loud, 
 for ye'll wauken the Provost.' But more than 
 two centuries ago the following epigram ap- 
 peared :
 
 SABBATH SOMNOLENCE 87 
 
 Old South, a witty Churchman reckoned, 
 Was preaching once to Charles the Second, 
 But much too serious for a court, 
 Who at all preaching made a sport : 
 He soon perceived his audience nod, 
 Deaf to the zealous man of God. 
 The Doctor stopp'd ; began to call, 
 ' Pray wake the Earl of Lauderdale : 
 My Lord ! why, 'tis a monstrous thing, 
 You snore so loud you'll wake the King.' 
 
 Though this scene took place in the south of 
 England, it is interesting to note that the 
 snorer specially singled out for rebuke was a 
 Scottish nobleman. 
 
 Now and then a reproof from the pulpit 
 has drawn down on the minister a sarcastic 
 reply from the unfortunate sleeper, as in the 
 case of the somnolent farmer who was awak- 
 ened by the minister calling on him to rouse 
 himself by taking a pinch of snuff, and who 
 blurted out ' Put the snuff in the sermon, 
 sir,' an advice which found not a little sym- 
 pathy in the congregation. 
 
 In a parish church about the middle of 
 Ayrshire the central passage leading from the 
 entrance to the pulpit is paved with large 
 stone-flags. On the right side a worthy mat- 
 ron had her family pew, wherein, overcome 
 with drowsiness, she used to fall asleep, with
 
 88 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 her head resting on her large brass-clasped 
 Bible. She was an admirable housekeeper and 
 farmer, looking after all the details of man- 
 agement herself. In her dreams in church her 
 thoughts would sometimes wander back to her 
 domestic concerns and show that she was not 
 'mistress of herself, though china falls.' One 
 Sunday, in the course of her slumbers, she 
 succeeded in pushing her massive Bible over 
 the edge of the pew. As it fell on the stone- 
 floor, its brass mountings made a loud noise, 
 at which she started up. with the exclamation, 
 ' Hoot, ye stupid jaud, there's anither bowl 
 broken.' 
 
 The genial Principal of Glasgow University, 
 in the course of a public speech a year or 
 two ago, told a story of an opposite kind. 
 An old couple in his country parish had taken 
 with them to church their stirring little grand- 
 son, who behaved all through the service 
 with preternatural gravity. So much was the 
 preacher struck with the good conduct of so 
 young a listener, that, meeting the grand- 
 father at the close of the service, he congratu- 
 lated him upon the remarkably quiet composure 
 of the boy. ' Ay,' said the old man with a 
 twinkle in his eye, ' Duncan's weel threetened 
 afore he gangs in.'
 
 ANIMAL VISITORS TO THE KIRK 89 
 
 When an afternoon service is held, the at- 
 tendance is sometimes apt to be scanty. A 
 minister who was annoyed at a lukewarmness 
 of this kind on the part of his congregation, 
 remonstrated with them on the subject. ' I 
 canna tell,' he said, 'how it may look to the 
 Almichtie that sae few o' ye come to the 
 second diet o' worship, but I maun say that 
 it's showin' unco little respect to mysel'.' 
 
 In summer weather, when the doors and 
 windows of churches are sometimes kept open 
 for air, occasional unwelcome intruders distract 
 the people and disturb the preacher. Butter- 
 flies and small birds are the most frequent ; 
 dogs are not uncommon, and in some districts 
 these calls are varied by the occasional appear- 
 ance of a goat. A dog is amenable to the 
 sight of the minister's man approaching with 
 a stick, and bolts off without needing any 
 audible word of command, but a goat is a 
 much more refractory visitor. One of these 
 creatures entered a country church one Sun- 
 day in the midst of the service and deliber- 
 ately marched down the central passage. Of 
 course every eye in the congregation was 
 turned upon it, and the luckless preacher found 
 much difficulty in proceeding with his dis- 
 course. The beadle at last sprang from his
 
 90 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 seat and proceeded to meet the intruder. He 
 had no stick, however, and the goat showed 
 fight by charging him with its horns and mak- 
 ing him beat a retreat. A friendly umbrella 
 was thereupon passed out to him from one of 
 the pews, and he returned to the combat. By 
 spreading his arms and wielding the umbrella, 
 he prevented the animal from reaching the 
 pulpit stairs and succeeded in turning it. But 
 once or twice it wheeled round again, as if 
 to renew the fight. He contrived, however, 
 to press it onwards as far as the church 
 porch, when, lifting up his foot and dealing 
 the goat a kick which considerably quickened 
 its retreat, he gave vent to his feelings of 
 anger and indignation in an imprecation, dis- 
 tinctly audible through half the church, ' Out 
 o' the house o' God, ye brute.' 
 
 A characteristic feature of many churches in 
 Scotland is the 'collection,' that is, the gather- 
 ing of the contributions of the congregation 
 for the poor of the parish or other purpose. 
 In the Highlands where there are services 
 both in Gaelic and English, the performance 
 is repeated at the end of each. One or more 
 of the elders, attired in Sunday garb, and 
 looking as sad and solemn as if they were 
 at a funeral, take the ' ladle ' or wooden box
 
 CHURCH COLLECTIONS 91 
 
 at the end of a pole, and push it into each 
 pew. The alms as they are dropped into the 
 receptacle make a noise so distinctly audible 
 over the building that a practised ear can 
 make a shrewd guess as to the value of the 
 coin deposited. Nearly the whole contribution 
 is in coppers, only the larger farmers and 
 the laird's families furnishing anything of 
 higher value. Hence such congregations have 
 been profanely valued at threepence a dozen. 
 An amusing incident in one of these collections 
 took place at a parish church in the west of 
 Cowal. A family whom I used to visit there 
 had come to their seat in the gallery while 
 the earlier service was still going on, and 
 when the Gaelic ladle came round they put 
 into it their contributions. After the ladle had 
 traversed the church at the end of the second 
 service and was being brought back to the 
 foot of the pulpit, the minister, who noticed 
 that it had not been taken up to the laird's 
 seat, beckoned vigorously to the man who 
 was approaching with the money and pointed 
 to the gallery. In response he received only 
 a knowing shake of the head from the col- 
 lector, who at last, impatient at the ministerial 
 gesticulations, exclaimed aloud, ' Na, na, sir, 
 its a' richt, I wass takin' the laird's money at
 
 92 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 the Gaelic.' In this same kirk on another 
 occasion, after the whole contributions of the 
 congregation had been collected, the box came 
 up to the gallery, but unluckily was carried 
 violently against the corner of a pew, the 
 bottom came out, and the accumulated coppers 
 rattled noisily to the floor. 
 
 Another part of the church service which 
 cannot but strike a stranger, especially in the 
 Highlands, is the singing. In the more remote 
 and primitive parishes the precentor, standing 
 in a lower desk directly under the minister, 
 reads out one, now more usually two lines of 
 the psalm, and then strikes up the tune. At 
 the end of the first two lines, he reads out 
 the second two, which he proceeds to sing 
 as before. The congregation usually joins 
 heartily in the music, which is the only 
 part of the service wherein it can actively 
 participate. 
 
 It is not always easy to secure a precentor. 
 He must, in the first place, be a man of tried 
 good character, and in the second place, he 
 must of course be able to distinguish the 
 metres of the psalms, and have voice and 
 ear enough to raise at least three or four 
 psalm-tunes. His repertoire is seldom much 
 more extensive. Occasionally he begins a
 
 HIGHLAND PRECENTORS 93 
 
 tune that will not suit the metre of the psalm, 
 or he loses himself altogether. A precentor 
 in the north Highlands to whom this happened, 
 suddenly stopped and exclaimed, * Och, bless 
 me, I'm aff the tune again.' Another more 
 sedate worthy struck up the tune three times, 
 but always lost it at the second line. He 
 paused, looked round the congregation, and 
 after solemnly saying ' Hoots, toots, toots/ 
 went at it the fourth time successfully. When 
 the precentor at Peebles had failed twice in 
 his efforts, the old minister looked over the 
 pulpit and said aloud to him, ' Archie, try it 
 again, and if ye canna manage it, tak' anither 
 tune.' 
 
 A precentor is naturally jealous of any 
 more practised and clearer voice than his 
 own, which, he rightly thinks, ought to pre- 
 dominate. In the little Free Church of 
 Raasay Island, the precentor had it all his 
 own way until the minister's sister came. 
 She sat at the far end of the church, and, 
 having some knowledge of music and a good 
 voice, she made herself well heard as she 
 sang in much quicker time than the slow 
 drawl to which the people had been accus- 
 tomed. Before the precentor had done a line 
 she was ready to begin the next, and the half
 
 94 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 of the congregation nearest to her followed 
 her excellent lead. This was too much for the 
 precentor. He raised his voice till it almost 
 cracked with the strain, and for a few notes 
 drowned the rival performer at the other end. 
 But he could not keep it up, and as his notes 
 dropped, the clear sweet voice of the lady 
 came out as before. Sitting about the middle 
 of the church, I was able to appreciate the 
 strange see-saw in the psalmody. 
 
 The most remarkable change which has 
 taken place within living memory in the ser- 
 vices of the .Scottish Church is unquestion- 
 ably the introduction of instrumental music. 
 In most of the large congregations of the 
 chief towns, the precentor has given way to 
 an organ, which leads the choir, as the choir 
 leads the congregation. Had any one in the 
 earlier half of last century been audacious 
 enough to predict that in a couple of gener- 
 ations the ' kist o' whistles,' which had been 
 long banished as a sign and symbol of black 
 popery, would be reintroduced and welcomed 
 before the end of the century, he would have 
 been laughed to scorn, or branded as himself 
 a limb of the prelatic Satan. Of course, there 
 has been much searching of heart over this 
 innovation, and many have been the head-
 
 A CHURCH-STOVE AND POPERY 95 
 
 shakings and even open denunciations of such 
 manifest backsliding. But the cause of en- 
 lightenment has steadily gained ground in the 
 Lowlands, and a few generations hence it may 
 not improbably prevail even over the High- 
 lands. Meanwhile in most Highland parishes, 
 the first notes of an organ in the church would 
 probably drive the majority of the congrega- 
 tion out of doors, and lead to years of angry 
 controversy. 
 
 The horror of anything savouring of what 
 is thought to be popery shows itself sometimes 
 in determined opposition to even the most 
 innocent and useful changes. Sir Lauder 
 Brunton has told me that in a Roxburgh- 
 shire parish with which he is well acquainted, 
 the church being excessively cold in winter, 
 a proposal was mooted to introduce a stove 
 for the purpose of heating it. This innova- 
 tion, however, met with a strong resistance, 
 especially from one member of the congre- 
 gation, who said that a stove had a pipe 
 like an organ, and he would have nothing 
 savouring of popery in the Kirk of Scotland. 
 He actually delayed the reform for a time. 
 
 In the same county, where it had been the 
 custom from time immemorial to winnow the 
 corn with the help of the wind, a farmer, alive
 
 96 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 to the value of modern improvements, pro- 
 cured and began to use a machine which 
 created an artificial and always available cur- 
 rent of air. He was at once rebuked for an 
 impious defiance of the ways of Providence. 
 
 A proposal to put a stove into a Fifeshire 
 parish met with the opposition of one of the 
 heritors, who, when the minister came to him 
 for a subscription towards the warming of 
 the kirk, indignantly refused, asking, ' D'ye 
 think John Knox asked for a stove, even for 
 the cauldest kirk he ever preached in ? Na, 
 na, sir, warm the folk wi' your preachin', and 
 they'll never think about the cauld.' 
 
 At the time of the Disruption of the 
 Church of Scotland in 1843 the congregations 
 were apt to side with their minister, if he 
 were an able and efficient pastor to whom 
 they were attached. Thus in Skye, as I have 
 above mentioned, so powerful was the in- 
 fluence of John Mackinnon among his people 
 that he kept them with him in the pale of 
 the Establishment. But in most Highland 
 parishes the Free Church early took ground, 
 and in a large number it has been so pre- 
 dominant that the congregation of the Parish 
 Church sometimes consists of little more than 
 the clergyman and his family. In such cases
 
 A MINISTER'S MAN 97 
 
 the position of the adherents of the ' Auld 
 Kirk' may sometimes be rather trying. More 
 especially is it felt by the ' minister's man,' 
 who is sometimes placed in sad straits in 
 his endeavour to put the best face on the 
 situation and conceal the feebleness of his 
 flock. Without knowing his official position, 
 or to which of the churches he belonged, I 
 once met one of these worthies in the west 
 of Ross-shire, and, with a friend who accom- 
 panied me, had some talk with him about 
 the parish. 
 
 * How does the Established Church get on 
 here ? ' we asked. 
 
 'O fine, fine, sirs.' 
 
 ' Has the minister been here a long time ? ' 
 
 ' Ow ay, it'll be a long time noo, I'm 
 sure.' 
 
 1 And has he a large congregation ? ' 
 
 ' Ow ay, it's a fery goot congregation, what- 
 efer.' 
 
 'Is it as big as the Free Kirk ? ' 
 
 ' Weel, I'll no say that it will be just as big 
 as the Free Kirk.' 
 
 ' How many do you think there may be in 
 church on Sunday ? ' 
 
 ' Weel, ye see, there'll be sometimes more 
 
 and sometimes fewer.' 
 
 G
 
 98 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 ' But have you no idea how many they 
 may be ? ' 
 
 ' Weel, sir, I dinna think I wass ever count- 
 ing them.' 
 
 ' You go to the parish church yourself, I 
 think?' 
 
 ' O, to be sure, I do : where wad ye think 
 I wad be goin' else ? ' 
 
 It was quite clear that our interlocutor 
 must be a staunch adherent of the Auld 
 Kirk, and probably had some scantiness of 
 the congregation to conceal ; but we had no 
 idea then of what we learnt soon afterwards, 
 that he was no less a personage than the 
 ' minister's man,' and that, saving the family 
 from the manse and an occasional stranger, 
 he was himself the whole congregation. 
 
 It has been made a matter of reproach 
 to the clergy of the Scottish Church that, 
 though they spend more time over the pre- 
 paration of their sermons and place these on 
 a higher intellectual level than is common 
 in the English communion, they fall short 
 of their brethren south of the Tweed in the 
 assiduity of their visitation of their people. 
 Where a parish extends over an area of 
 many square miles, it must obviously be 
 difficult for the minister to move freely and
 
 PARISH VISITING 99 
 
 constantly among his parishioners, so as to 
 be in close touch with all of them in their 
 mundane as well as their spiritual affairs. In 
 such cases, he finds it necessary to arrange 
 the times of his visits, which are thus apt to 
 become somewhat formal ceremonies, an- 
 nounced beforehand, and prepared for by 
 those to whom notice is given. An example 
 of this kind is related of a minister who had 
 recently been appointed to the parish of 
 Lesmahagow, and who made known from 
 the pulpit one Sunday that he would visit 
 next day a certain hilly district of the parish. 
 Accordingly, on Monday morning he set out, 
 and, after a walk of some seven or eight 
 miles, arrived at a farm-house, where he 
 meant to begin. After knocking for some 
 time and getting no reply, he hailed a boy 
 outside, when the following conversation 
 ensued : 
 
 1 Is Mr. Smith at home ? ' 
 
 <Na.' 
 
 ' Is Mrs. Smith here ? ' 
 
 'Na.' 
 
 ' Are you their son ? ' 
 
 'Ay.' 
 
 ' Weil, I have walked a long way, and I 
 would like to sit and rest for a little. May
 
 ioo SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 I go in ? ' (answering the question by enter- 
 ing). ' And did your father and mother not 
 expect me ? ' 
 
 ' Na, they didna think ye wad begin up 
 here ; sae they're awa' doon to the roup o' 
 Ritchie's farm.' 
 
 1 Well, now, my man, are these all the 
 books that your father has in the house ? ' 
 
 'Ay.' 
 
 ' Now tell me which of them does he use 
 oftenest ? ' 
 
 'That ane,' pointing to a large leather- 
 covered family Bible. 
 
 ' O, the Bible ; that's right : I am pleased 
 to know that ; and when does he use it ? ' 
 
 ' On Sabbath mornin's.' 
 
 ' Only once a week ! Well, how does he 
 do ? Does he read it aloud to you all ? ' 
 
 ' Na, he shairps his raazors on't.' 
 
 I once had quarters at South Queensferry 
 in a house through the centre of which ran 
 the boundary between that burgh and the 
 adjacent parish of Dalmeny. I asked my 
 landlady how she arranged about the claims 
 of the clergy. ' Well, ye see, I go to the 
 Burgh Kirk, and my minister comes to see 
 me frae time to time. And Mr Muir of 
 Dalmeny, he visits me too, but I try to be
 
 MORAL INFLUENCE OF THE CLERGY 101 
 
 quite fair to them both. The parlour here 
 is in the burgh, so I take my ain minister 
 in there, and, as the other half of the house 
 is in Dalmeny, I put the other minister in 
 the kitchen, which belongs to his parish.' 
 
 In the striking delineation which Words- 
 worth has given of the early surroundings of 
 his 'Wanderer,' and the circumstances that 
 moulded his character, special stress is laid on 
 the clerical influence which from infancy had 
 guarded this son of the Braes of Athol. 
 
 The Scottish Church, both on himself and those 
 With whom from childhood he grew up, had held 
 The strong hand of her purity; and still 
 Had watched him with an unrelenting eye. 
 
 It is to be feared, however, that the result of 
 such continual guardianship is to be recognised 
 rather in the theological bent of the people 
 than in their moral behaviour. The high stan- 
 dard of conduct held up in the pulpit, and 
 generally followed by the clergy themselves, 
 has not prevented the statistics of drunkenness 
 and illegitimacy from attaining an unenviable 
 notoriety. Yet no one can turn over the pages 
 of the records of kirk-sessions and presby- 
 teries without obtaining a deep impression of 
 the untiring earnestness and devotion with 
 which the Church has struggled against these
 
 102 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 two great national sins. If in the heyday of 
 her power she could not eradicate the evils, 
 her task must now be tenfold more onerous, 
 when the ' strong hand ' can no longer reach 
 large masses of the population, and when the 
 'unrelenting eye,' though as keenly watchful as 
 ever, can only note the decadence which the 
 hand is powerless to reclaim. Unhappily a 
 spirit of heathen ignorance, or of pagan indiffer- 
 ence, has largely replaced the unquestioning 
 faith of an older time, especially among the 
 artisans of the large towns and the miners 
 in the great coal-fields. It is mainly in the 
 country districts, where social changes advance 
 more slowly, that the religious instruction given 
 at school and in church still continues to colour 
 the outlook of the people on life here and here- 
 after. 
 
 If indeed we could judge from expressions 
 that have survived from older generations, 
 we might infer that many of the articles of 
 the Christian faith retain a firm hold on minds 
 which, if questioned on the subject, would 
 probably express doubt or denial of them, such 
 as the doctrine of a material heaven and hell, 
 of a system of future rewards and punishments, 
 of a personal devil intent on man's ruin, and of 
 the sinfulness of Sunday work.
 
 FORECASTING OF THE FUTURE 103 
 
 The way in which the acceptance of a mate- 
 rial heaven and hell shows itself in ordinary 
 conversation, might be illustrated by many 
 anecdotes. One or two examples may here 
 suffice. About forty years ago a well-known 
 wealthy iron-master gave a dinner-party at his 
 country house. Among his guests was an old 
 friend of mine, from whom he had purchased a 
 portion of his estate. The conversation turned 
 on the great changes that had taken place in 
 the district within the memory of those present, 
 the dying out of old families and the incoming 
 of new, the making of railways, the laying out 
 of roads, the growth of villages, and so forth, 
 when my friend remarked, ' Ah, me ! I dare say 
 I would see just as much change again if I were 
 to come down sixty years hence.' Whereupon 
 the host instantly ejaculated from the other end 
 of the room, ' What's that ye say ? Come 
 down! Tak' care ye haena to come up.' 
 
 Of similar character is another Ayrshire 
 story which has been told of a man who built 
 a large and ostentatious tomb for himself and 
 family, of which he was so proud that he 
 boasted to the gravedigger that it would last 
 till the day of judgment, when they might 
 have some trouble to get up out of it. As the 
 man's reputation was none of the highest, the
 
 104 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 gravedigger replied, ' I'm thinkin' ye needna 
 be wonderin' how ye're to come up, for if they 
 knock the bottom out o't ye'll aiblins gang 
 doun.' 
 
 A country doctor, who was attending a 
 laird, had instructed the butler of the house in 
 the art of taking and recording his master's 
 temperature with a thermometer. On repair- 
 ing to the house one morning he was met by 
 the butler, to whom he said : ' Well, John, 
 I hope the laird's temperature is not any higher 
 to-day ? ' The man looked puzzled for a 
 moment, and then replied : ' Weel, I was just 
 wonderin' that mysell. Ye see he deed at 
 twal' o'clock.' 
 
 A clergyman's son had taken to drink, and 
 had given great trouble and pain to his worthy 
 father. On one occasion, after a debauch of 
 several days, he returned to the manse in the 
 evening, and found that there had been a 
 presbytery dinner in the house, and that the 
 reverend fathers who had dined were now 
 engaged over their toddy and talk in the study. 
 He made for the room, and was immediately 
 welcomed by his father, who tried to put the 
 best face he could on the situation. He asked 
 the young man where he had been. ' In hell,' 
 was the answer. ' Ah, and what did you find
 
 'IT MIGHT HAE BEEN WAUR' 105 
 
 there?' 'Much the same as I find here: I 
 couldna see the fire for ministers.' 
 
 In a country parish in the West of Scotland 
 the minister's man was a noted pessimist, 
 whose only consolation to his friends in any 
 calamity consisted in the remark, ' It micht 
 hae been waur.' One morning he was met by 
 the minister, who told him he had had such a 
 terrible dream that he had not yet been able 
 to shake off the effects of it. ' I dreamt I was 
 in hell, and experienced the torments of the 
 lost. I never suffered such agony in my life, 
 and even now I shudder when I think of it.' 
 The beadle's usual consolatory remark came 
 out, ' It micht hae been waur.' ' O John, 
 John, I tell you it was the greatest mental dis- 
 tress I ever suffered in my life. How could it 
 have been worse?' 'It micht hae been true,' 
 was the reply. 
 
 Cases of religious mania have been common 
 enough in Scotland, where questions of theo- 
 logy have for centuries been keenly debated 
 among all classes of the community. It has 
 been said that ' the worst of madmen is a saint 
 run mad.' Whether this dictum be true or not 
 there would appear to have been always cases 
 where brooding upon some one doctrine of 
 the Christian faith has led to mental aberration
 
 io6 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 more or less serious. An instance of this kind 
 occurred in the north of Ayrshire, where a man, 
 who had lost his wits over theological specula- 
 tion, would sometimes accost a stranger on a 
 quiet country road, and taking him by the 
 button-hole would abruptly ask him, ' What 
 do you think of effectual calling? Isn't it a 
 damned shame ? Good day to you.' And off 
 the poor fellow marched, ready to propound 
 the same or some similar problem to the next 
 passenger he would meet. 
 
 A less pronounced case of the same tendency 
 was that of a countryman who felt much 
 aggrieved by the story of the fall of man as 
 told in the Book of Genesis. ' And it comes 
 specially hard on me,' he would complain, ' for 
 I never could byde apples raw or cooked a' my 
 days.'
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SUPERSTITION in Scotland. Holy wells. Belief in the Devil. 
 Growth of the rigid observance of the Sabbath. Efforts of 
 kirk-sessions and presbyteries to enforce Jewish strictness 
 in regard to the Sabbath. Illustrations of the effects of 
 these efforts. 
 
 ALTHOUGH ever since the Reformation the 
 clergy have done their best to eradicate the 
 pagan superstitions, which were alluded to in 
 a previous chapter, traces of these superstitions 
 have survived down to the present day in the 
 Highlands. Even so late as the beginning of 
 last century, people in the Lewis continued to 
 make offerings of mead, ale, or gruel, to the 
 God of the Sea. A man at midnight between 
 Wednesday and Thursday walked waist-deep 
 into the sea, poured out the offering and chanted 
 the following prayer : 
 
 O god of the sea 
 
 Put weed in the drawing-wave 
 
 To enrich the ground 
 
 To shower on us food.
 
 io8 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 Those behind the offerer took up the chant and 
 wafted it along the midnight air. 1 
 
 An interesting account of the surviving 
 Highland superstitions will be found in two 
 recently published volumes by the late Rev. 
 John Gregorson Campbell, parish minister in 
 the island of Tiree, who devoted himself with 
 unwearied enthusiasm to collect the fading 
 customs and traditions of the Hebrides and 
 the Western Highlands. 2 In my early wan- 
 derings over Skye I came upon many relics 
 of the pagan period. At Kilbride, for ex- 
 ample, one is reminded of a pre- Protestant 
 or even a pre-Christian past by the tall rude 
 standing stone known as the Clach na h-An- 
 nait, or stone of Annat, a name which, by 
 some Gaelic scholars, is thought to be that of 
 a pagan goddess, though by others it is re- 
 garded as a term of the early Celtic Church, 
 applied to a chapel where the patron-saint 
 was educated, or where his relics were kept. 
 Near the obelisk is the Tobar na h-Annait, 
 or Annat's well. 
 
 The fairies once formed an active and 
 
 1 A. Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica (1900), vol. i. p. 163. 
 
 2 Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, 
 collected entirely from oral sources, 1900, and Witchcraft and 
 Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, 1902.
 
 FAIRIES IN SKYE 109 
 
 important community among the population 
 of Strath. One of their chief abodes was 
 underneath a large green mound in the 
 middle of the valley, called after them Sithein 
 (Sheean). Such fairy dwellings were looked 
 upon with veneration ; and it was a popular 
 belief that the ' people of peace ' who lived in 
 them liked to have them kept scrupulously 
 clean. Hence to remove the droppings of 
 any horses or cattle that had strayed upon 
 the rich green sward was believed to be a 
 grateful deed to these beings, who would 
 manifest their thankfulness by some significant 
 reward to the thoughtful cotter who took the 
 pains to do it. With the acknowledged ex- 
 ample of the fairies before them, I never could 
 quite understand how the West Highlanders 
 could themselves live in such conditions of dirt 
 and untidiness as have been so long prevalent 
 among them. 
 
 The top of the Sithein of Strath is crowned 
 with a few gnarled, stunted, storm-blasted 
 black-thorns, like a group of shrivelled carlines 
 stretching out their arms towards the east. 
 These trees, or rather bushes, have undergone 
 no appreciable change since I first saw them 
 half a century ago, and I was told by the 
 minister that they had not altered at all in
 
 no SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 his time, so that they must have stood, much 
 as they are now, for more than a hundred 
 years. If one first comes upon these weird 
 forms in the mist of a stormy evening, when 
 they seem to remain motionless, though the 
 wind howls down the valley of Strath Suardil, 
 one can easily realise how they might be con- 
 nected in popular belief with the mysterious 
 beings of another world. The fairy cattle, 
 or red deer, live up in the corries of the Red 
 Hills. On the top of one of these eminences 
 a carline lies buried under a cairn and the 
 hill is named after her, Beinn na Cailleach. 
 
 Near the house of Kilbride, a spring or 
 well has been said, for more than two hundred 
 years, to contain a single live trout. It is 
 mentioned by Martin in his Description of 
 the Western Islands of Scotland, written at 
 the end of the seventeenth century, where he 
 states that the fish had been seen for many 
 years, and the natives, though they often caught 
 it in their wooden pails, were careful to preserve 
 it from being destroyed. The minister assured 
 me that there was still a trout in the well, 
 whether the same as that spoken of by Martin, 
 he could not affirm. I must confess that I 
 was never able to catch a sight of this 
 legendary fish.
 
 HOLY WELLS IN THE HIGHLANDS in 
 
 As in Ireland, springs or wells in the 
 Highlands, not improbably famous even in 
 pagan times, have often been subsequently 
 dedicated to Celtic saints, and have long been 
 credited with medicinal or miraculous healing 
 powers. There used to be a number of such 
 wells in Skye, which were visited by the sick 
 and the maimed, who went round them three 
 times deiseal, that is, with the sun, or from 
 east to west, and drank of the water or bathed 
 the injured limb with it. On retiring they 
 always left by the side of the spring, or on its 
 overhanging tree, some little offering, were it 
 only a torn bit of rag. On the mainland some 
 of the holy wells, or saints' wells, are still 
 objects of pilgrimage from a distance. Thus 
 the well of St. Maree, or the Red Priest, on 
 a little islet in Loch Maree, still attracts its 
 patients, and the trees that overshadow it are 
 hung with tags of rag and ribbon which they 
 have placed there as votive offerings. This 
 tribute of recognition doubtless dates back to 
 pagan times. It was adopted by the Celtic 
 and then by the Roman Catholic Church, and 
 in spite of the denunciations of the reformers 
 and their successors, it is rendered still by 
 presbyterians, who give it from the mere force 
 of custom. Some years ago, while boating
 
 ii2 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 along the coast south of the Sutors of 
 Cromarty, I was struck with the strange 
 appearance of a tree that overhung the upper 
 part of the beach. From a distance it seemed 
 to be decked with blossoms or leaves of black, 
 white, red, and other colours. On landing I 
 found that these were bits of rag hung up 
 by the pilgrims who had come to drink of 
 the saint's well that gushed forth under the 
 shadow of the tree. In the same region 
 the well of Craiguck, parish of Avoch, has 
 long been a place of annual resort on the 
 first Sunday of May, old style. The water 
 used to be taken in a cup and spilt three 
 times on the ground before being tasted, and 
 thereafter a rag or ribbon was hung on the 
 bramble-bush above the spring. 
 
 In connection with this subject, it may 
 be mentioned here that some years before 
 his death, the late Mr. Patrick Dudgeon, of 
 Cargen in Kirkcudbright, told me that he had 
 cleared out one of these holy or pilgrim wells 
 on his property, which had fallen into disuse, 
 though still occasionally visited for curative 
 purposes. Among the stuff which had gathered 
 on the bottom of the pool, a large number of 
 copper coins was found, extending in date from 
 the reign of Victoria back to the times of the,
 
 HIGHLAND SUPERSTITIONS 113 
 
 Stuarts. The surfaces of the coins had in 
 many cases been dissolved to such an extent 
 as to reduce the metal to little more than the 
 thinness of writing paper. Yet so persistent 
 was the internal structure superinduced by 
 the act of minting that, even in this attenuated 
 condition, the obverse and reverse could still 
 be deciphered. 
 
 Another superstitious belief of which I found 
 lingering traces in Skye was that of the water- 
 horse (Each Uisge] and the water-bull ( Tarbh 
 Uisge]. These fabulous creatures were be- 
 lieved to inhabit some of the lakes in the 
 lonely moorland of the south of Strath. I 
 could not find anybody who had actually seen 
 one, but the belief in their existence was by 
 no means confined to ' the superstitious, idle- 
 headed eld.' I was told that the water-horse 
 had a special fondness for young women, and 
 would seize them and carry them off into the 
 lake, whence they were never more seen. 
 No young woman in the parish would venture 
 near one of these sheets of water, except in 
 daylight, and not without fear and trembling 
 even then. 
 
 Relics of old superstitions could be noticed, 
 sometimes even among the details of domestic 
 management in the houses of intelligent people. 
 
 H
 
 ii4 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 At Kilbride they would not make butter at 
 a certain state of the moon. In like manner 
 they took care that the peats should only be 
 cut when the moon was on the wane. Though 
 the reason alleged was that the moon must 
 influence the milk, just as much as it did the 
 tides, there could be little doubt that the habit 
 was a relic of the same pagan belief which 
 survives in bowing to the new moon and 
 turning a coin in her honour. The prejudice 
 against the sow as an unclean animal survived 
 in full vigour. Not only were no pigs kept 
 at Kilbride, but, so far as I was aware, no 
 ham, pork, or bacon ever formed part of the 
 commissariat of the house. 
 
 While the reformed clergy endeavoured to 
 uproot the ancient superstitions, they at the 
 same time were engaged in rivetting upon the 
 people other forms of superstition destined to 
 exercise much more pernicious effects than 
 those they replaced. One of these was their 
 doctrine of the Devil and his doings, and 
 another the enforcement of the views which 
 they gradually adopted as to Sabbath ob- 
 servance. 
 
 Much has been written on the subject of the 
 Devil and his influence in religion,, mythology, 
 superstition, and literature, as well as on topo-
 
 THE SCOTTISH DEIL 115 
 
 graphical features. The subject is discussed 
 from a historical point of view in the learned 
 volumes of Professor Roskoff of Vienna ; but 
 there is probably still room for a dissertation 
 on the part which the Devil has played in 
 colouring the national imagination of Scotland. 
 As is well known, all over the country in- 
 stances may be found where remarkable natural 
 features are assigned to his handiwork. Thus 
 we have ' Devil's punchbowls ' among the hills 
 and ' Devil's cauldrons ' in the river-channels. 
 Perched boulders are known as 'Deil's putting 
 stanes,' and natural heaps and hummocks of 
 sand or gravel have been regarded as ' Deil's 
 spadefuls.' Even among the smaller objects 
 of nature a connection with the enemy of man- 
 kind has suggested itself to the popular mind. 
 The common puff-ball is known as the ' Deil's 
 snuff-box' ; some of the broad-leaved water- 
 plants have been named ' Deil's spoons ' ; 
 the dragonfly is the ' Deil's darning-needle.' 
 Then the unlucky number thirteen has been 
 stigmatised as the ' Deil's dozen,' and a per- 
 verse unmanageable person as a ' Deil's 
 buckie.' 
 
 In association with witches and warlocks 
 Satan plays a leading part in the legends, 
 myths, and superstitions of the country. The
 
 u6 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 general popular estimation of him in Scotland 
 has never been so admirably expressed in words 
 as by Burns, more particularly in his Address 
 to the DeiL But even in his day ocular proofs 
 of the evil spirit's presence and activity were 
 becoming scanty, and the poet had to rely 
 partly on the testimony of his ' rev'rend 
 grannie.' In the interval since that poem was 
 written, now nearly a century and a quarter ago, 
 the belief in a personal devil, ready to present 
 himself as a hairy monster with a tail, cloven 
 feet, and horns ' Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or 
 Clootie ' has still further faded. The late 
 Dr. Sloan of Ayr, however, told me that in 
 the year 1835, after he came out from making 
 the post-mortem examination of a poor miner 
 who was taken out alive from a coal-pit near the 
 village of Dailly, after having been shut up for 
 three weeks without food, but who died three 
 days after his rescue, he was accosted by some 
 of the older miners with the question, ' Did ye 
 fin' his feet ? ' The doctor had to confess that 
 he had not specially looked at the man's feet, 
 whereat the miners went off with a knowing 
 expression on their faces, as much as to say, 
 ' We thought you had not, for if you had, you 
 would have found them to be cloven hoofs. 
 We believe that the body was not that of our
 
 BELIEF IN THE DEIL 117 
 
 John Brown, but the Devil himself, who had 
 come for some bad purpose of his own.' 
 
 Although even the most superstitious cotter 
 in the loneliest uplands of the country would 
 hardly expect it to be possible now that the 
 Devil should waylay him at night, relics of this 
 belief may be found in the language of to-day, 
 especially in the imprecations prompted by 
 anger or revenge. Various versions have been 
 given of an illustrative incident which I have 
 been told really occurred at a slim wooden 
 foot-bridge over the river Irvine in Ayrshire. 
 An ill-tempered man was crossing the bridge, 
 when a dog, coming the opposite way, brushed 
 against his leg. ' Deil burst ye,' exclaimed he. 
 Immediately behind him came a woman, and 
 as they were nearly across the bridge a small 
 boy, trying to press past the man on the narrow 
 pathway, was greeted with the same angry im- 
 precation. The little fellow drew back, but 
 was encouraged by the voice of the woman 
 behind, who called out to him, ' Never fear, my 
 wee man, come on here outowre. The Deil 
 canna harm ye eenoo, for he's thrang on the 
 ither side o' the brig burstin' a dog.' 
 
 Occasionally the apparition of a dark hairy 
 body crowned with a pair of horns has received 
 a natural explanation, but not before revealing
 
 ii8 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 the innate belief in the designs and power of 
 the Prince of Darkness. There used to be a 
 goat in Greenock which occasionally escaped 
 from its enclosure, and prowled about the 
 streets in the dark. On one of these occasions, 
 in the midst of its perambulations, it came to 
 an outside stair, which it thereupon ascended. 
 At the top of the short flight of steps stood 
 the closed door of a room wherein an elderly 
 couple were asleep in bed. Nannie, being of 
 an inquisitive turn, and having some experience 
 of gate-fastenings, easily succeeded in opening 
 the door and entering the room. The fire still 
 gave a low ruddy light, and the goat at once 
 descried a tin pitcher, at the bottom of which 
 there remained some milk over from the frugal 
 supper of the little household. The animal 
 had forced its nose so well down in order to 
 lap the last drops, that when it raised its head 
 it brought up the pitcher firmly clasped round 
 it, and the handle fell with a thump against 
 the metal. The crash awoke the old woman, 
 who in the dim light could see a pair of horns 
 and a hairy body. Thinking it was the arch 
 enemy that had come for her, she called out 
 imploringly, ' O tak' John, tak' John ; I'm no 
 ready yet.' 
 
 The adjective ' devilish ' has in recent times
 
 HISTORY OF SABBATH OBSERVANCE 119 
 
 come to be used by many in the humbler walks 
 of life as almost synonymous with wonderful, 
 extraordinary, supernatural ; as may be illus- 
 trated by 'the ejaculation of a Paisley workman, 
 who with a companion ascended to the top of 
 Goatfell in Arran. He had never conceived 
 anything so impressive as the panorama seen 
 from that summit, with its foreground of ser- 
 rated crests and deep glens. After the first 
 silence of amazement, he exclaimed to his friend, 
 ' Man, Tarn, the works o' God's deevilish.' 
 
 It is an interesting study to trace among 
 the records of kirk-sessions and presbyteries 
 the gradual growth of strict Sabbath obser- 
 vance until it became a kind of fetish. The 
 first reformers enjoyed their relaxation on 
 Sunday, and for many years after the old 
 system had been displaced by the new, the 
 youth of the country continued to play their 
 pastimes after church hours. Markets were still 
 held on Sunday, and in many places plays 
 were performed, especially that of Robin Hood. 
 But after the establishment of the reformed 
 religion in 1560 these amusements and employ- 
 ments came to be frowned upon more and 
 more by the clergy, who by persistent efforts 
 succeeded in securing a succession of Acts 
 of Parliament which made Sabbath-breaking
 
 120 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 an offence punishable by a civil magistrate. 
 Delinquents were everywhere brought up 
 before kirk-sessions and subjected to church 
 discipline, while, if they proved impenitent 
 sinners, they might be handed over to the civil 
 power for more condign treatment. Never- 
 theless, in spite of the stringency of these 
 regulations, the ecclesiastical authorities had to 
 undertake a long struggle before they finally 
 uprooted the effects of the usage of many 
 centuries, and succeeded in impressing on the 
 mind of the general community the belief that 
 what they called ' violating the Sabbath-day ' 
 was an act of moral turpitude that could only 
 be expiated by exemplary punishment and 
 public confession of penitence. Under the 
 head of this violation were included some of 
 the most natural and innocent habits. Men 
 were warned that not only must they refrain 
 from all ordinary week-day work, but that they 
 must not take a walk on Sunday, either in 
 town or country, save to and from church. 
 They must not sit at their doors, but remain 
 within. They were expected to maintain a 
 solemn demeanour ; laughing, whistling, or any 
 other sign of gaiety or frivolity being rigidly 
 proscribed. They might not bathe, or swim, 
 or shave. They were forbidden to visit
 
 SABBATH-BREAKING AS A CRIME 121 
 
 each other, to water their gardens, to ride on 
 horseback, or to travel in any other fashion. 
 They must attend each church service ; if they 
 failed to appear, they were searched out by 
 church officers deputed for the purpose, and 
 were subject to ecclesiastical censure. In 
 short, the first day of the week was one 
 on which all mirth was expelled from the 
 face and all joy from the heart, and when 
 a funereal gloom settled down upon every- 
 body. 
 
 Sabbath-breaking, as defined by this in- 
 quisitorial code of observance, was exalted 
 into a crime more heinous even than theft. 
 Thus, an entry in the Register of the Presby- 
 tery of Dingwall, of date 3Oth July, 1650, 
 records that the case of Alexander M'Gorrie 
 and his wife, within the parish of Kilmorack, 
 had been referred to the Presbytery for cen- 
 sure, the charge being 'profanation of the 
 Sabbath by stealling imediatelie efter the 
 receaueing of the sacrament.' 
 
 The diligence with which the ecclesiastical 
 authorities pursued their quest after Sabbath- 
 breakers is well illustrated by the Register 
 of the Kirk-Session of St. Andrews. During 
 the latter half of the sixteenth century infinite 
 trouble appears to have been taken to
 
 122 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 establish what the Session was pleased to 
 term 'the cumlye ordour of this citie.' The 
 fleshers (butchers) proved especially incorri- 
 gible. Though they had been often cited and 
 admonished, they had ' nocht obeyit the sam, 
 bot contemptuusly refusit to obey.' At last 
 these recalcitrant parishioners were made the 
 subject of a stringent decree whereby, if they 
 did not thereafter keep holy the Sabbath day, 
 they, their wives, children, and servants would 
 be debarred from all benefit of the Kirk, and 
 might further be excommunicated. Never- 
 theless, even the vision of these dire pains and 
 penalties did not prevent an occasional trans- 
 gression. Some years later one of the fleshers 
 was summoned for putting out skins upon 
 the causeway on Sunday a practice which 
 had formerly been general in his craft. He 
 admitted the accusation, but stated that the 
 fault had been committed, without his know- 
 ledge, by his servant. He was required to 
 dismiss that servant, and to undertake that 
 none of his servants in future should do the 
 same, otherwise he would have to pay the 
 penalty himself. There is an interesting entry 
 in the Register, showing how far back the 
 attractions of golf can be seen to have led 
 men to neglect their duties. On the
 
 GROWTH OF SABBATARIANISM 123 
 
 December, 1599, it is recorded that the 
 brethren ' understanding perfytlie that divers 
 personis of thair number the tyme of sessioun 
 passis to the fieldis, to the goufe and uthir 
 exercise, and hes no regard for keiping of 
 the sessioun, for remeid quhairof it is ordinit 
 that quhatsumevir person or personis of the 
 session that heireftir beis fund playand, or 
 passis to play at the goufe or uthir pastymes 
 the tyme,, of sessioun, sail pay ten s. for the first 
 fault, for the secund fault xxs., for the third 
 fault public repentance, and the fourt fault 
 deprivation fra their offices.' 
 
 It is curious to note that rigid enforcement 
 of Sabbath observance was not effected on 
 the north side of the Highlands for somewhere 
 about a century and a half after it had been 
 secured in the Lowlands on the south side. 
 The proximity of the wilder Celtic population, 
 on the one hand, and the existence of a con- 
 siderable leaven of Episcopalian Protestantism 
 in the community, on the other, probably had 
 a large share in retarding the progress of the 
 movement. The northern clergy themselves 
 were not averse to sharing in the innocent 
 amusements of their people. Marriages and 
 funerals continued to be performed on -Sunday, 
 and to be accompanied, even in the case of
 
 124 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 the lyke-wakes, with festivities that sometimes 
 reached a scandalous excess. Against these 
 customs, which had come down from Catholic 
 times, the kirk-sessions and presbyteries waged 
 incessant war, but probably not until the 
 extinction of the rebellion of 1745 and the 
 abolition of the heritable jurisdictions, with 
 the consequent freer commingling of the north 
 with the south of Scotland, did the Sabbatarian 
 spirit which had become rampant in the Low- 
 lands reach the intensity with which it has 
 maintained its sway in the north for the last 
 three or four generations. 
 
 It has been suggested that this increasing 
 strictness of observance arose from the desire 
 of the clergy to obtain a greater hold on the 
 minds and consciences of the people. Accord- 
 ing to this view they are believed to have 
 found that the restoration of the Jewish 
 Sabbath, with its prohibitions and injunctions, 
 would serve their purpose, and ' being pre- 
 cluded by various circumstances of their 
 situation from having recourse to the ex- 
 pedients of the Catholic priests to gain 
 possession of the minds of the votaries, they 
 have exerted all their power by its means to 
 attain this object.' It has been further asserted 
 that ' these are the reasons why we hear
 
 GROWTH OF SABBATARIANISM 125 
 
 more of the heinous crime of Sabbath-breaking 
 than of all other vices together.' l 
 
 Obviously it was not in human nature to 
 keep always within the strict letter of such 
 an artificial code of conduct. Joyousness of 
 heart, so long as it was unquenched, could 
 not be restrained from smiles and laughter, 
 or from showing itself in song. The tempta- 
 tion to the young and happy to escape from 
 imprisonment within the four walls of a house 
 into the country, amongst birds and flowers 
 and trees, must have been often wholly irre- 
 sistible. Lapses from the strict rules of 
 conduct laid down for observance were inevi- 
 table ; and since, as Butler observed nearly 
 two centuries and a half ago, 
 
 In Gospel-walking times 
 The slightest sins are greatest crimes, 
 
 such lapses, when repeated, tended to harden 
 the mind in transgression. Sabbath-breaking 
 being held up as so heinous a sin, the transition 
 came to be imperceptibly made to the breaking 
 of the moral laws, which according to the 
 current dogmatic teaching did not seem to 
 be more imperatively binding. ' Hence it 
 is,' as has been pointed out, ' we continually 
 find culprits at the gallows charging the sin 
 
 1 Horae Sabbaticae by Godfrey Higgins 1833, p. 2.
 
 126 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 of Sabbath-breaking, as they call it, with the 
 origin of their abandoned course of life ; and 
 there can be no doubt that they are correct 
 in so doing.' 1 
 
 This excessive zeal for a strict observance 
 of Sunday has been regarded as a special 
 characteristic of Calvinistic communities. But 
 it does not seem to have reached anywhere 
 else the height of intolerance which it main- 
 tained, and to a great extent still maintains, 
 in Scotland. Doubtless the prevalent Sabba- 
 tarianism was in Sidney Smith's mind when 
 he called Scotland ' that garret of the earth 
 that knuckle-end of England that land of 
 Calvin, oat-cakes, and sulphur.' And it may 
 have been Byron's recollections of sancti- 
 monious Sundays in Scotland, as well as in 
 England, that inspired his exclamation : 
 
 ' Whet not your scythe, Suppressors of our vice ! 
 Reforming Saints ! too delicately nice ! 
 By whose decrees, our sinful souls to save, 
 No Sunday tankards foam, no barbers shave ; 
 And beer undrawn, and beards unmown, display 
 Your holy reverence for the Sabbath-day.' 2 
 
 An octogenarian friend has told me that he 
 believes he was the first man in Edinburgh to 
 
 1 Higgins, Horae Sabbaticae, p. 53. 
 
 3 English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, 1. 632.
 
 SABBATARIAN CODE 127 
 
 make a practice of taking a Sunday walk. He 
 remembers that on some of these occasions he 
 was accompanied by a well-known professor 
 in the University, who besought him not to 
 get back to the town until the church-goers 
 had safely returned to their houses from 
 afternoon service, as he was afraid of the 
 public odium he might draw down not only 
 on himself, but on the University. I myself 
 recollect when it was a common practice to 
 pull down the window blinds on Sunday, in 
 order that the eyes of the inmates might be 
 hindered from beholding vanity, and that 
 their minds might be kept from wandering 
 away from the solemn thoughts that should 
 engage them. There was one lady who 
 carried her sanctimonious scruples so far 
 that she always rose a little earlier than 
 usual on Sunday morning, and took care, as 
 her first duty, to carry a merry-hearted and 
 loud-throated canary down to the cellar that 
 its carol might not disturb the quiet and 
 solemnity of the day. It was considered sin- 
 ful to use any implement of ordinary week- 
 day work. Hence though a servant might 
 perhaps scrape away with her fingers the earth 
 from the roots of potatoes in the garden, if 
 these were unexpectedly wanted for the
 
 128 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 Sunday dinner, on no account could a spade 
 or graip be used to dig them up expeditiously. 
 In the same spirit, a lad might be employed for 
 half an hour on a Sunday morning in laboriously 
 carrying armfuls of turnips or other vegetables 
 for feeding the cattle, but he could not be 
 allowed to use a wheelbarrow with which he 
 could have done the whole work in a few 
 minutes. As it was a heinous offence to write 
 letters on Sunday, people used to sit up till 
 midnight ; what would have been a sin before 
 the clock struck twelve, became quite legiti- 
 mate thereafter. 1 
 
 Happily this rigidity is gradually being 
 relaxed, except perhaps in parts of the High- 
 lands. How it looks to an observer from 
 outside may be illustrated from some of my 
 own personal experiences. 
 
 In the summer of the year 1860, I 
 found that the strict maintenance of the 
 Highland view of Sabbath observance might 
 have had serious consequences for myself. In 
 company with my old chief, Sir Roderick 
 Murchison, I had walked on a Saturday from 
 the head of Loch Torridon, through the 
 
 J Thus Mrs. Grant of Laggan tells us that she sat up on 
 Sunday night, iyth October, 1794, that she might write a letter 
 to a friend ' without infringing on a better day.' Letters from 
 the Mountains, 5th edit., vol. iii. p. 14.
 
 A ROSS-SHIRE SABBATH 129 
 
 wild defile of Glen Torridon, to Loch Maree. 
 Along the mountain slopes that sweep upwards 
 from the southern side of that valley, I 
 noticed so many features of interest, some of 
 which, if further and more closely examined, 
 might help to clear up problems of Highland 
 geology for the solution of which we were 
 seeking, that I felt I must ascend these 
 mountains and look at their crests and corries. 
 But we were pressed for time, and although 
 next day was Sunday I determined to devote 
 it to the quest. The morning broke auspi- 
 ciously, and ushered in one of the most superb 
 days which I have ever been fortunate enough 
 to meet with in the West Highlands. As it 
 was desirable to save time and fatigue by 
 driving some six miles to the point of the 
 road nearest to the ground to be traversed, 
 a request was made for a dog-cart. But the 
 answer came, that it was the Sabbath, and 
 nobody would drive a ' machine ' on the Lord's 
 Day. There was no objection, however, to 
 allow the use of a dog-cart, nor to charge for the 
 same in the bill (for Highland innkeepers, like 
 Dryden's Shimei, ' never break the Sabbath 
 but for gain ') ; we must, however, do the driv- 
 ing ourselves. It was accordingly arranged 
 
 that Sir Roderick's valet should drive me to 
 
 i
 
 130 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 the place and return with the vehicle, leaving 
 
 me to make my tramp and find my way back 
 
 to the inn on foot. The fresh buoyant air of 
 
 the mountains ; the depth of the glens with 
 
 their piles of old moraines; the ruggedness and 
 
 dislocation of the cliffs and slopes ; the utter 
 
 solitude of the scene, broken only now and 
 
 then by the bound of a group of red deer, 
 
 startled from a favourite corrie, or by the whirr 
 
 of the snowy ptarmigan ; the ever-widening 
 
 panorama of mountain-summit, gorge, glen, and 
 
 lake, as each peak was gained in succession ; 
 
 and then from the highest crest of all, the 
 
 vista of the blue Atlantic, with the faint far 
 
 hills of the Outer Hebrides and the nearer 
 
 and darker spires of Skye all this, added to 
 
 the absorbing interest of the geology, filled 
 
 up a day to the brim with that deep pleasure 
 
 of which the memory becomes a life-long 
 
 possession. The sun had sunk beneath the 
 
 western hills before I began to retrace my 
 
 steps, and night came down when there still 
 
 lay some miles of trackless mountain, glen, 
 
 river, and bog between me and the inn where 
 
 my old chief was expecting me at dinner. 
 
 Fortunately, in the end the moon rose, and I 
 
 arrived at the end of the journey somewhere 
 
 near midnight.
 
 A SUTHERLAND SABBATH 131 
 
 The delay in my return gave Murchison 
 not a little uneasiness. As hour after hour 
 passed, he grew so impatient that he began 
 to insist on some of the people of the inn 
 turning out with lanterns as a search party. 
 His remonstrances, however, were met with a 
 sullen indifference, very unlike the usual atten- 
 tiveness of the household. 'It was the Sabbath 
 day,' they said, 'the gentleman shouldn't have 
 gone out to walk on the Lord's Day.' In 
 short, the gentleman, had he been lost, would 
 have deserved his fate, and would have fur- 
 nished to the pulpits of the district a new and 
 pregnant illustration of the danger of Sabbath- 
 breaking ! 
 
 Some fifteen years later, being in the east 
 of Sutherland, I greatly desired to visit the 
 two remarkable cones of Ben Griam, which, 
 rising far over out of the desolate moorland, 
 form such a prominent feature in the landscape 
 of that region. Had they stood within easy 
 reach of the little inn where I was staying, I 
 would have walked over to them in order to 
 spend a quiet Sunday in examining them and 
 in meditation over the marvellous story of 
 past time which they reveal. But the dis- 
 tance being much more than a Sabbath day's 
 journey, I applied to my host for a dog-cart
 
 132 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 to take me by road to the nearest point from 
 which I could strike across the moor on foot. 
 He confessed that none of his servants would 
 drive me, and that he did not wish to shock 
 the prejudices of his neighbours in the parish, 
 but that if I would wait until the people were 
 in the kirk, he would drive me himself. As 
 we passed along the lonely road he gave me 
 his history, which had no ordinary interest. 
 Born in the district, he had gone south early 
 in life, and eventually became an engine-driver 
 on one of the main railways. He was next 
 attracted, by the offer of better pay and 
 prospects, to enter the service of the Chemin 
 de Fer du Nord and drove the first train 
 between Paris and Calais. He continued in 
 the service of that railway for many years, 
 made his home in France, and finally retired 
 with a pension from the French Government. 
 As he had no longer any daily occupation, a 
 longing for the old country came on him and 
 grew so strong that he in the end broke up 
 his home in France and took the inn where 
 I found him. But he soon discovered that 
 his long stay in a freer theological atmosphere 
 than that of Calvinistic Sutherland had taught 
 him to look on life from a very different point 
 of view from that still maintained by his fellow-
 
 HIGHLAND BIGOTRY 133 
 
 countrymen. He found them, he said, narrow- 
 minded, prejudiced, and bigoted, disposed to 
 look askance on him and what they thought 
 his laxity of belief, and to show in many 
 little spiteful ways the antagonism between 
 them. The old home was no longer the place 
 that had dwelt all these long years treasured 
 in his memory, and he seemed disposed to 
 regret that he had ever come back to it. 
 That Sunday was a day of sunshine, of white 
 floating clouds, and of blue distances stretching 
 away from the purple moors to the sea on 
 the one side and to the inland mountains on 
 the other a day to be alone with Nature 
 and one's own thoughts. My reverie on Ben 
 Griam, which led me far into the backward of 
 time, was touched now and then with thoughts 
 of the strange fetichism of to-day that has 
 turned the Sunday from a day of joyfulness 
 to one of gloom. 
 
 That this relentless intolerance of any inno- 
 cent and instructive employments, other than 
 that of church-going, still persists in certain 
 quarters with undiminished rigour was brought 
 painfully to my notice only six years ago in 
 Skye. A reading party of bright young men 
 from one of the English Universities had settled 
 down for steady work and recreation at a
 
 134 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 well-known hotel, and the landlady, anxious 
 to obtain for them more space and quiet than 
 they could find under her own roof, arranged 
 for the use of a large room in a house which 
 had been temporarily taken by a Free Church 
 clergyman who had been displaced during 
 the progress of the controversy respecting 
 the union of his church with the United 
 Presbyterians. On the first Sunday, the young 
 men spent the morning partly in reading and 
 partly in examining under the microscope 
 some of the natural history specimens they 
 had been collecting during the week. The 
 sight of these instruments, opened on the 
 Lord's Day, was too much for the minister's 
 wife. Next morning my hostess received a 
 letter from her requesting that the young men 
 might be removed, bag and baggage, as she 
 could not submit to such profanation under 
 her roof. She concluded by beseeching that 
 the innkeeper's children might be sent to her 
 as a consolation, ' that she might hear their 
 innocent prattle.' The landlady showed me 
 this letter, but was anxious that, at least 
 while they were her guests, the students should 
 know nothing about it, as she would not like 
 them to think that this intolerance was a fair 
 sample of Highland opinion.
 
 SABBATARIAN INCONSISTENCY 135 
 
 I have sometimes been astonished to see 
 how this superstitious veneration for the 
 Sabbath has blinded intelligent men and 
 women, otherwise liberal and enlightened in 
 their views, to the real meaning and use of 
 the day. Having been taught from their 
 youth to deem certain things unlawful and 
 reprehensible if done on that day, they studi- 
 ously refrain from these, but at the same time 
 they unconsciously allow themselves to say and 
 do other things which on due reflection they 
 would admit to be no better than those which 
 they condemn, if not indeed much worse. I 
 once spent a Sunday in a Highland Free 
 Kirk manse, and in the afternoon was enter- 
 tained by the minister's wife, who was as 
 kindly in disposition as she was narrow in 
 her views. We discussed the whole parish. 
 Some Roman Catholics had come to the 
 district, which filled her mind with dismay. 
 She was grieved, too, that a well-known 
 dignitary of the Church of England had called 
 the day before on her husband, a broad-minded 
 and accomplished scholar, and had carried him 
 off to examine some ecclesiastical ruins in the 
 neighbourhood. She gave me an account 
 of various marriages which were in contem- 
 plation, and of the changes that were imminent
 
 136 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 in the tenancy of the farms. At last I asked 
 her to excuse me as I had some letters to 
 write which I was anxious should go by the 
 early post in the morning. ' What ? ' she 
 exclaimed in surprise, ' Do you mean to say 
 that you write letters on the Sabbath ? ' I could 
 not resist the temptation to assure her that 
 I thought writing to my friends and relatives 
 on that day was at least as allowable as to 
 spend the afternoon over parish gossip. 
 
 A story is told of a young clergyman on 
 the mainland who had not been long placed 
 in his charge when rumours began to circulate 
 about his orthodoxy. Some of his friends 
 hearing these reports set themselves to enquire 
 into the grounds for them. But they could 
 only elicit vague hints and suggestions. At 
 last they came upon an old woman who de- 
 clared roundly that the minister was ' no sounV 
 ' Not sound ! what makes you think that ? ' 
 ' Weel then,' she answered, 'I maun tell ye. 
 I wass seem' him wi' my ain een, standin' at 
 his window on the Lord's Day, dandlin' his 
 bairn.' 
 
 An incident which illustrates the strictness 
 of Sabbath observance in the North Highlands 
 has been told me by a friend. During one of 
 her tours in the Highlands Queen Victoria
 
 QUEEN VICTORIA AND SABBATARIANISM 137 
 
 visited Ross-shire. When spending a Sunday 
 at Loch Maree, the Royal party, tempted by 
 the beauty of the day, made an expedition by 
 boat to one of the islands of the loch. This 
 ' worldly acting ' upon the Lord's day caused 
 a great scandal in the neighbourhood, and 
 eventually the Free Church Presbytery took 
 up the matter and addressed a letter to the 
 Queen ' dealing with ' her for her conduct. 
 Our good Queen was naturally much disquieted 
 that she had unwittingly offended any section 
 of her faithful subjects, and consulted one of 
 her chaplains, a distinguished minister of the 
 Church of Scotland, who was then at Balmoral, 
 as to what she ought to do. He counselled her 
 not to take any notice of the letter, and allayed 
 her anxiety by recounting to her the following 
 incident illustrative of the attitude of mind of 
 the Highlanders towards all departures, how- 
 ever trivial, from their notions of strict Sab- 
 bath observance. The story greatly amused 
 the Queen, and at her request it had to be re- 
 peated to other members of the royal household. 
 A Highland minister, after the services of 
 the Sunday were over, was noticed saunter- 
 ing by himself in meditative mood along the 
 hillside above the manse. Next day he was 
 waited on by one of the ruling elders, who
 
 138 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 came to point out the sin of which he had 
 been guilty, and the evil effect which his 
 lapse from right ways could not fail to have 
 in the parish. The clergyman took the rebuke 
 in good part, but tried to show the remon- 
 strant that the action of which he complained 
 was innocent and lawful, and he was about 
 to cite the famous example of a Sabbath walk, 
 with the plucking of the ears of corn, as set 
 forth in the Gospels, when he was interrupted 
 with the remark : ' Ou ay, sir, I ken weel 
 what you mean to say ; but, for my pairt, I 
 hae nefer thocht the better o' them for breakin' 
 the Sawbbath.' 
 
 A member of the Geological Survey was, 
 not many years ago, storm-stayed in a muir- 
 land tract of South Ayrshire upon a Saturday, 
 and gladly accepted the hospitality of a farmer 
 for the night. Next morning he asked the 
 servant if she thought her master could oblige 
 him with the loan of a razor. In due time 
 the razor arrived, but was found to be so 
 wofully blunt that the maid had to be sum- 
 moned again to see if a strop was available. 
 She soon came back with this message, 
 ' Please, the maister says this is the Sawb- 
 bath, and ye're jist to put pith to the razor. 
 Ye canna get the strop.'
 
 FAST-DAY SUPERSTITION 139 
 
 The late Lord Playfair, when he was Pro- 
 fessor of Chemistry in the University of Edin- 
 burgh, told me that, passing his nursery-door 
 one Sunday, he overheard the nurse stilling a 
 child in this fashion: 'Whisht, whisht, my bonnie 
 lamb ; it's the Sawbbath, or I wud whustle 
 ye a sang, but I'll sing ye a paraphrase.' 
 
 The sacredness of the Sabbath, by a 
 natural transition, came to be also attributed 
 to the Fast Day, which heralded the half- 
 yearly Communion-Sunday. A Fife shepherd, 
 who was in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh on 
 a week-day, found that his dog had strayed 
 to some distance, and was making off in a 
 wrong direction. He begged an acquaintance 
 whom he had met to whistle for the animal. 
 ' Whustle on your ain dowg,' was the indig- 
 nant reply. ' Na, na, man,' said the per- 
 turbed drover. ' I canna dae that, for you 
 see it's our Fast Day in Kirkcaldy.' 
 
 Nobody has satirised the Scottish perver- 
 sion of the day of rest with more effective 
 sarcasm than Lord N eaves in his Lyric for 
 Saturday Night : 
 
 We zealots made up of stiff clay, 
 The sour-looking children of sorrow, 
 
 While not over-jolly to-day, 
 
 Resolve to be wretched to-morrow.
 
 140 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 We can't for a certainty tell 
 
 What mirth may molest us on Monday ; 
 But at least to begin the week well, 
 
 Let us all be unhappy on Sunday. 
 
 What though a good precept we strain 
 
 Till hateful and hurtful we make it ! 
 What though, in thus pulling the rein, 
 
 We may draw it so tight as to break it ! 
 Abroad we forbid folks to roam, 
 
 For fear they get social or frisky ; 
 But of course they can sit still at home, 
 
 And get dismally drunk upon whisky. 
 
 A habit which has been followed for 
 generations to the sound of the ' drum 
 ecclesiastic ' is not easily thrown off. The 
 Sabbath look of funereal sadness may still be 
 seen on many a sturdy Presbyterian face. 
 But happily the gloomy intolerance is pass- 
 ing away. In no respect is the freer air 
 of the modern spirit more marked than in 
 the relaxation of the old discipline in regard 
 to the keeping of the Sabbath in lowland 
 Scotland. A country walk on that day is no 
 longer always proclaimed to be a violation 
 of one of the ten commandments, innocent 
 laughter is not everywhere denounced as 
 a sin, nor does it appear that the growth of 
 Sunday cheerfulness leads to any depravation 
 of character, or to a less keen feeling for
 
 SINFULNESS OF DANCING 141 
 
 whatsoever is of good report. There is now, 
 however, a tendency for the pendulum to 
 swing perhaps too far on the other side. 
 Welcome though the disappearance of the 
 old gloom may be, there would be a question- 
 able gain if what should be a day of quiet 
 rest and refreshment were turned into one of 
 frivolous gaiety and dissipation. 
 
 In other directions a relaxation of the old 
 rigour in regard to the innocent enjoyments 
 of life is to be welcomed. But these various 
 signs of greater charity and enlightenment 
 have made much less rapid progress in the 
 Highlands and Islands. In these regions the 
 influence of the protestant clergy, as it was 
 longer in bringing the people into subjection, 
 still maintains much of the vehemence which 
 has elsewhere died down. The intolerance 
 appears to be decidedly more marked in the 
 Free Church communion than in that of the 
 Establishment. One of the latest examples 
 of it which has come under my own observa- 
 tion was that of a lady who went to a dance. 
 For this enormity she was reprimanded by the 
 Free Church minister to whose congregation 
 she belonged. Things at last became so un- 
 pleasant that she left his ministrations and 
 went to the parish kirk.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 LITIGIOUSNESS of the Scots. Sir Daniel Macnee and jury-trial. 
 Scottish judges, Patrick Robertson, Cullen, Neaves, Ruther- 
 ford Clark. 
 
 THE natural unreclaimed Scot is apt to be 
 litigious. He likes to have a ' ganging plea,' 
 although the matter in dispute may not be 
 worth contention. He does not care to be 
 beaten by a neighbour, even in a trifle, and 
 will willingly spend and be spent to secure 
 what in the end is but a barren victory. 
 This liking for law can be traced far back in 
 history. We see it in full force during the 
 lifetime of Sir David Lyndsay, who satirised it 
 and the ecclesiastical courts that encouraged it. 
 He recounts how when the pauper's mare 
 was drowned by his neighbour, the poor man 
 at once ran off to the consistory to lodge 
 his complaint, and there he 'happinit amang 
 a greidie menzie ' : 
 
 Thay gave me first ane thing thay call citandum ; 
 Within aucht days, I gat hot lybellandum
 
 THE LITIGIOUS SCOT 143 
 
 Within ane moneth, I gat ad opponendum ; 
 
 In half ane yeir, I gat interloquendum. 
 
 But, or thay cam half gate to concludendum, 
 
 The fiend ane plack was left for to defend him. 
 
 For sentence silver, thay cryit at the last. 
 
 Of pronunciandum, thay made me wonder faine ; 
 
 But, I gat never my gude gray mear againe. 1 
 
 The same national tendency has survived 
 down to our own times. It is excellently 
 pourtrayed by Scott in several of the Waver- 
 ley Novels. Dandie Dinmont, for instance, 
 having won the ' grand plea about the 
 grazing of the Langtae-head,' was keen to 
 have another legal tussle with his neighbour, 
 Jock o' Dawston Cleuch, about a wretched 
 bit of land that might 'feed a hog or aiblins 
 twa in a good year ' ; not that he valued 
 the land, but he wanted 'justice,' and could 
 ill bear to be overridden, even in regard to 
 what was in itself quite worthless. The 
 phraseology of the law courts came glibly to 
 the tongues of men who, like Bartoline 
 Saddletree, picked it up from attendance in 
 the Parliament House, but had only an im- 
 perfect notion of what it meant. In some 
 cases, such as that of Poor Peter Peebles, 
 loss of wits and fortune, together with a 
 
 1 Satyre of the Three Estaitis, Part ii.
 
 144 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 parrot-like facility in repeating law terms, was 
 all the outcome of years of litigation. 
 
 Burns, too, has admirably indicated the 
 litigious quarrels of his countrymen and a 
 thoroughly national mode of composing them 
 when the disputants can be induced to 
 adopt it. 
 
 When neebors anger at a plea, 
 An' just as wud as wud can be, 
 How easy can the barley-brie 
 
 Cement the quarrel ! 
 It's aye the cheapest lawyer's fee, 
 
 To taste the barrel. 
 
 From the number of writers, solicitors, and 
 advocates who still every year enter the legal 
 profession, one may infer that this national 
 peculiarity shows no marked sign of abate- 
 ment. The institution of local courts of first 
 instance, all over the country, has enabled the 
 Scot to indulge in the luxury of law, without 
 the trouble and expense of going up to 
 Edinburgh. He can bring his case before 
 the Sheriff-Substitute, and appeal from his 
 decision to that of the Sheriff- Principal. If 
 an adverse judgment from both of these 
 officials has not damped his enthusiasm or 
 emptied his pocket, he has still the Court of 
 Session in the Scottish capital to fall back on,
 
 LAW AND LAW-COURTS 145 
 
 and can there appeal to the Inner House ; 
 and, finally, if any fighting power should still 
 be left in him, he may carry his case to the 
 House of Lords. It is obvious that the legal 
 system of the country has been admirably 
 arranged for the gratification of his litigious 
 propensities. 
 
 That admirable story-teller, Sir Daniel Mac- 
 nee, President of the Royal Scottish Academy, 
 used to delight his friends with dramatic 
 pictures of his experiences of law-courts and 
 other scenes of Scottish life. It is matter for 
 infinite regret that his stories were never 
 written down. I used frequently to be privi- 
 leged to hear him, and may try to give from 
 recollection a mere outline of one of his 
 favourite narratives which had reference to 
 legal matters. He had been engaged as a 
 juryman in a trial, and after a long day in 
 court had finished his duties and come back 
 rather tired to his hotel. He there met an 
 old acquaintance, a Western laird, who spoke 
 with a strong Highland accent, and with 
 whom he had the following conversation : 
 
 ' Ah, Mr. Macnee (it was before the painter 
 received his knighthood), I'm glad to see you 
 again. But you look very weary ; are you 
 well enough ? '
 
 146 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 ' Oh yes, thank you, I am quite well, but 
 somewhat tired after a long day in the jury- 
 court.' 
 
 ' A juryman ! Mr. Macnee, were you a 
 juryman ? Well now, I hope you had some 
 personal satisfaction out of the case.' 
 
 ' I really don't know what you mean. I 
 had the satisfaction of serving my turn 
 and doing my duty ; and I hope I am not 
 likely to be called again for some time to 
 come. ' 
 
 ' Of course, of course, you would be doing 
 your duty, whatever. But did you have no 
 personal satisfaction in your verdict ? ' 
 
 ' I am entirely at a loss to understand what 
 you can mean. I gave the verdict which 
 seemed to me just, and according to the 
 evidence.' 
 
 ' No doubt, no doubt, Mr. Macnee, you 
 would indeed do that. But I'll explain by 
 giving you an account of a case that once 
 happened to myself/ and he proceeded to 
 recount a narrative worthy of the days ' when 
 wretches hung that jurymen might dine.' 
 ' Well, you see, there was a man in the village 
 near my place and his house was broken into 
 and a lot of valuable things were stolen from 
 it. The police were on the spot next morn-
 
 A JURY-TRIAL 147 
 
 ing, but for a time they could get no clue at 
 all. They found in the end that the last man 
 seen at the house was a baker in the village, 
 and their suspicions began to fall on him. 
 Well this baker was a notorious radical, and 
 he was corrupting the village with his radical 
 notions and theories. And I had determined, 
 if I could manage it anyhow, to get him away. 
 So I was not sorry to hear that the police 
 were looking up the baker and his doings. 
 At last, as they could get nobody else to 
 suspect, they arrested him, and after a while 
 a day was appointed for his trial. A jury was 
 summoned, and I was one of the jury ; and 
 being the chief man in the place, I was chosen 
 as foreman. Well, the case went to trial, and 
 we heard all the evidence the police could 
 scrape together, and the jury retired to consider 
 their verdict. When we were all met, I said 
 to them, " Well, gentlemen, what do you think 
 of the case ? " And they answered to a man, 
 " O the baker's as innocent as any of us." So 
 I looked amazed and said, " What's that you 
 say, gentlemen? Innocent! I really am 
 astonished to hear you say that. Just let us 
 go over the evidence." So I went over all 
 the facts and inferences, bit by bit, and showed 
 how they all made for the prisoner's guilt.
 
 148 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 I argued down every objection, and when they 
 were all silenced and convinced, we marched 
 back into the court with a unanimous verdict 
 of "guilty as libelled." You should have seen 
 the face of the judge, but still more, you should 
 have seen the face of the baker. But there 
 was the verdict, and so the judge passed 
 sentence of imprisonment on the baker, and 
 we have never seen him more in the village. 
 Now, Mr. Macnee, that's what I mean by 
 personal satisfaction \ '-| 
 
 The Scottish judges of the type of Her- 
 mand, Braxfield, Eskgrove and -others, so 
 vividly pictured by Lord Cockburn, and of 
 whom so many anecdotes have been recorded, 
 have long passed away. One of the latest of 
 them was Patrick (or as he was familiarly 
 called, Peter) Robertson, of whose wit and 
 humour many reminiscences have been pre- 
 served. He was noted for his obesity which 
 occasioned the soubriquet applied to him by 
 Scott. According to the well-known story, 
 Robertson, while still an advocate, was one 
 day the centre of a group in the Parliament 
 House which he was amusing with his drollery 
 when Scott was seen approaching. ' Hush, 
 boys/ said he, ' here comes old Peveril I see 
 his peak,' alluding to the novelist's remarkably
 
 PATRICK ROBERTSON 149 
 
 high skull. Scott, coming up in the midst of 
 the general laugh which followed, asked Lock- 
 hart what was the joke. When Robertson's 
 personal remark was repeated to him, Scott, 
 with a look at the advocate's rotund figure, 
 retorted with another personality, quietly 
 remarking, ' Ay, ay, my man, as weel Peveril 
 o' the Peak ony day as Peter o' the Paunch.' 
 In his younger days Robertson was travel- 
 ling for a stage or two on the coach from 
 Inverness to Perth, when a number of ministers 
 were his fellow-passengers, bound for the 
 General Assembly at Edinburgh. He engaged 
 in conversation with them, and led them to 
 believe that he was also a clergyman from 
 the extreme north of Scotland. When they 
 reached the point at which he meant to quit 
 the coach there was a halt for breakfast, and 
 Robertson was asked to say grace. He began 
 with a word or two of Gaelic, but as his 
 acquaintance with that language was but 
 slender, he poured forth a torrent of gibberish 
 pronounced through his nose with an occa- 
 sional Gaelic word interjected. The ministers 
 listened with praiseworthy decorum, uncertain 
 what particular dialect of Gaelic it might be, 
 for it was one with which none of them had 
 any acquaintance. But while Robertson still
 
 ISO SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 continued his nasal monologue the coachman's 
 horn blew, and the clerical guests had to 
 hurry breakfastless back to their seats. 
 
 In the early years of last century Gaelic 
 was frequently heard in the Court of Session, 
 as Highland witnesses were often ignorant 
 of English, and their evidence had to be 
 translated by interpreters kept for the purpose. 
 Sometimes the ignorance of English was more 
 assumed than real. There is a story told of 
 Lord Cullen, long remembered for his brilliant 
 feats of mimicry, who had a case in court 
 where a Highland witness was evidently 
 ' hedging ' and prevaricating. The judge at 
 last lost his patience and asked the Gaelic 
 expert, ' Mr. Interpreter, will you inquire of 
 the witness whether he saw the thing or did 
 not see it, if his language is capable of so 
 fine a distinction.' 
 
 Another witness got the better of his cross- 
 questioner in a simple way. The question 
 in dispute turned upon the identity of a 
 particular box, and this witness was called 
 to prove that the nails in the box had been 
 made by him. The advocate for the other 
 side ridiculed the idea that any man could 
 recognise his own made nails, and badgered 
 the man into desperation. The poor fellow
 
 LORD NEAVES 151 
 
 at last leant across the witness-box and asked 
 his tormentor if he would allow him to look 
 at a sheet of paper lying in front of the counsel, 
 who had been making some jottings on it. 
 Having got the paper into his hands, the man 
 turned to the advocate and asked, ' Is that 
 your hand o' vrite?' 'Yes, it is,' was the 
 reply. ' But hoo can you prove it's yours ? 
 Could you swear to it anywhere ? ' ' Of 
 course I could.' ' Weel, then, if you can 
 swear to your hand o' vrite, hoo the deevil 
 should I no' swear to my ain nails ? ' 
 
 One of the last of the old race of Scottish 
 judges was Lord N eaves, an excellent lawyer 
 and accomplished scholar, with so much 
 humour, wit and bonhommie that he generally 
 became the centre of any company where 
 he might be. One of his favourite diver- 
 sions was to write songs, which he sang 
 at convivial gatherings, such as the Royal 
 Society Club in Edinburgh. Many of these 
 appeared first in print among the pages of 
 Blackwoods Magazine, to which he was for 
 many years a valued contributor, and he col- 
 lected them into a little volume entitled 
 Songs and Verses, Social and Scientific, by 
 an Old Contributor to ' Maga* Some of 
 these were inimitably clever, and as sung
 
 152 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 or chanted by him in his cracked, unmusical 
 voice, with appropriate gesticulations and 
 modulations, they were irresistibly droll. Some 
 of the scientific ditties, dashed off in the in- 
 tervals of work in court, and sung the same 
 evening at the club, were brimful of fun and 
 wit, hitting off points in theory or in dispute 
 with great acumen. Among these may be 
 mentioned ' The Origin of Species/ a versified 
 account of Darwin's views; 'Stuart Mill on 
 Mind and Matter'; and 'The Origin of 
 Language.' Some of the social ditties were 
 likewise delightful, such as 'I'm very fond 
 of water,' ' The Permissive Bill,' ' Let us all 
 be unhappy on Sunday ' (which has already 
 been cited), and the ' Sheriffs life at sea.' 
 A verse of one or two of these may be quoted 
 
 here. 
 
 Pray what is this Permissive Bill 
 
 That some folks rave about ? 
 I can't with all my pains and skill 
 Its meaning quite make out. 
 
 ' O ! it's a little simple Bill 
 
 That seeks to pass incog. 
 To permit ME to prevent YOU 
 From having a glass of grog ! ' 
 
 When appointed Sheriff of Orkney and 
 Shetland, N eaves had at stated times to pro-
 
 LORD RUTHERFORD CLARK 153 
 
 ceed by steamboat from Granton to these 
 northern isles, and in one of the songs above 
 enumerated he gives a humorous account of 
 his experiences, which shows that he was 
 not always a good sailor. 
 
 The zephyr soon becomes a gale, 
 
 And the straining vessel groans, boys; 
 And the Sheriff's face grows deadly pale 
 As he thinks of Davy Jones, boys. 
 Thinking here, 
 Sinking there, 
 Wearily, drearily, 
 Shakingly, quakingly; 
 Not from fear or sickness free 
 Is the Sheriff now at sea, my boys. 
 
 The late Lord Rutherford Clark was an 
 admirable example of the cultured lawyer, 
 quiet and restrained in manner, with a keen 
 sense of humour, and a singular power of witty 
 criticism. One evening at the house of the 
 late Professor Sellar, he came up to me before 
 dinner with a grave face, and remarked : 
 ' There is a geological problem that puzzles me 
 a good deal ; perhaps you can throw some 
 light on it. How does it come about that all 
 the Scottish hills with which I am acquainted 
 are so much higher and steeper than they 
 used to be thirty years ago ? ' Towards the end 
 of his life I met him on the shore at Cannes.
 
 154 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 Being a keen golfer he had brought his clubs 
 with him to the Mediterranean, and enjoyed 
 a daily game there. But the disease which 
 carried him off had already fastened its grip 
 upon him, and I saw him no more. 
 
 An advocate at the Scottish bar whom I 
 remember was a somewhat pompous orator, 
 and went by the name of Demosthenes. He 
 had written a book on Bills, and in the course 
 of pleading one day in Court he had occasion 
 to refer to his work. In a loud voice he called 
 out to the attendant ; ' Bring me myself on 
 Bills.' 
 
 Some of the Writers to the Signet and 
 Solicitors of the old school still survived in my 
 younger days. One of these characters had 
 some odd peculiarities. He paid his clerks 
 more liberal salaries than were common with 
 other lawyers, but he insisted on unremitting 
 attention to duty. He used to carry a ther- 
 mometer in his pocket, and from time to time 
 would go downstairs to the room in which the 
 clerks worked. If he found one of them off 
 his stool, he would clap the thermometer upon 
 it, and should the mercury not rise a certain 
 number of degrees, he inflicted a money fine on 
 the unfortunate occupant. But for the large 
 salaries, he could not have retained the men
 
 EDINBURGH LAWYERS 155 
 
 in his service, or gratified his propensity for 
 fines. Another venerable Writer to the Signet 
 had a good library, and on his shelves a fine 
 series of the Scottish philosophers. He 
 insisted that if at any time a clerk should finish 
 his task before another piece of work was ready 
 for him, he must come into the library and take 
 a book, so as not to be a moment idle. One 
 of the staff selected Hume's Essays, but every 
 time he put the book away in his desk for 
 further perusal, he found next morning that 
 it had been removed and replaced on the 
 shelves. The old gentleman was an ardent 
 Free Churchman, and excluded Hume from 
 the authors that his clerks might read.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MEDICAL Men. Sandy Wood. Knox. Nairn and Sir Wil- 
 liam Gull. A broken leg in Canna. Changes in the pro- 
 fessoriate and students in the Scottish Universities. A St. 
 Andrews Professor. A Glasgow Professor. Some Edin- 
 burgh Professors Pillans, Blackie, Christison, Maclagan, 
 Playfair, Chalmers, Tait. Scottish Schoolmasters. 
 
 AMONG the professions that of medicine has 
 long held a high place in Scotland. Its reputa- 
 tion at home and abroad has been maintained 
 for a century and a half by a brilliant succession 
 of teachers and practitioners. The schools of 
 medicine in Edinburgh and Glasgow continue 
 to attract students from all quarters of the 
 British Islands, and from our colonies. Every 
 year hundreds of medical graduates are sent 
 out from the Universities, and they are now to 
 be found at work in almost every corner of the 
 wide globe. 
 
 At the beginning of the eighteenth century 
 one of the noted medical characters in Edin-
 
 LANG SANDY WOOD 157 
 
 burgh was the surgeon eulogised by Byron 
 in the couplet : 
 
 Oh ! for an hour of him who knew no feud, 
 
 The octogenarian chief, the kind old Sandy Wood. 
 
 He was greatly admired for his medical skill, 
 and beloved for his kindly nature. His popu- 
 larity saved him once from instant death. 
 During a riot, the mob, mistaking him for 
 the provost, were preparing to pitch him over 
 the North Bridge, when he shouted out to 
 them, ' I'm lang Sandy Wood ; tak' me to a 
 lamp and ye'll see.' He used to take a 
 constitutional walk to Restalrig in the even- 
 ings, and frequently met a tailor carrying a 
 bundle, whom he invariably saluted with, 
 ' Weel, Tarn, are ye gaun hame wi' your 
 wark ? ' The tailor rather resented this mono- 
 tonous enquiry, and one day he had his 
 revenge. Noticing the tall figure of the well- 
 known surgeon walking at the end of a funeral 
 procession, he instantly made up to him to 
 ask, ' Weel, doctor, are ye gaun hame wi' 
 your wark ? ' 
 
 Rather later came the times of Burke and 
 Hare, with the terrors of the resurrectionists. 
 A prominent individual in Edinburgh at that 
 time was Robert Knox the anatomist, to whose 
 dissecting room the bodies of the victims
 
 158 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 murdered in the West Port were sold. He 
 was for many years a successful lecturer, but 
 afterwards got into difficulties, when he tried 
 to retrieve his position by announcing courses 
 of lectures, or a single lecture on a sen- 
 sational subject. When one of the teachers 
 in the medical school, who had introduced 
 the practice of illustrating his lectures with 
 models, was discoursing on the anatomy of 
 the ear, Knox posted up a notice that on 
 a certain day he too would give a lecture 
 on the human ear, illustrated with the modern 
 methods of demonstration. When the day 
 came, the lecture-room was crowded with stu- 
 dents on the outlook for amusement. The 
 lecturer began his demonstration by holding 
 up an ear, which he had obtained from a 
 human subject, and pointing out the leading 
 features in its structure. At a particular part 
 of his lecture he gave a signal, and the door 
 behind him was opened by two men who carried 
 in a monstrous and grotesquely shaped model 
 of an ear. It was set down on the table, and 
 in a little while Knox, holding up the ear he 
 had already exhibited, said, ' This, gentlemen, 
 is the human ear according to God Almighty, 
 and that (pointing to the huge model), and that 
 is the human ear according to Dr. .'
 
 EXTRA MURAL MEDICAL SCHOOLS 159 
 
 There was once a good deal of rivalry be- 
 tween the medical staff of the Universities 
 and the extra-mural schools of medicine. On 
 one occasion, a University professor, wishing 
 to make fun at the expense of a distinguished 
 member of the non-university school, told a 
 story of a man who consulted a famous sur- 
 geon as to constant pains in the head. The 
 surgeon pronounced that the complaint could 
 be completely cured by the removal of the 
 brain and the excision of some diseased parts. 
 The man consented to the operation, and was 
 told to come back in ten days, when the reno- 
 vated brain would be ready for him. The ten 
 days elapsed, however, and gradually grew 
 into three weeks without the patient having 
 returned. At the end of that time the sur- 
 geon met him on the street, and anxiously 
 enquired why he had never re-appeared. The 
 man answered that, since the operation, he 
 had obtained a government appointment, and 
 thought that as he was getting on very well 
 without the brain, he had better remain as 
 he was. A titter of course went through the 
 audience, in the midst of which the extra- 
 mural lecturer, against whom the tale was 
 pointed, rose and calmly said, ' May I enquire 
 of the speaker whether the crown appoint-
 
 160 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 ment in question was a University professor- 
 ship ? ' The laugh was thus most effectively 
 turned the other way. 
 
 A medical professor having been appointed 
 Physician to Queen Victoria, the announcement 
 of this honour was written up on the black- 
 board of his class-room just before the hour 
 of lecture. A wag among the students, seeing 
 this notice, wrote in large letters underneath 
 it ' God save the Queen ! ' 
 
 It is not unusual for medical men to have 
 two practices, one in this country, and one 
 abroad. A man may attend a circle of patients 
 during the summer in London, at Harrogate 
 or in the north of Scotland, and another 
 circle during the winter on the Riviera, in 
 Italy or in Egypt. One able physician, for 
 example, had an excellent practice for half 
 of the year at Nairn and for the other half 
 in Rome. He was on a friendly footing with 
 Sir William Gull, whose patients, worn out with 
 the distractions of London, were sent up to 
 him to be looked after in the salubrious 
 climate of the Moray Firth. A lady resident 
 of Nairn, who believed herself to be far from 
 well, and to be suffering from some complaint 
 which the local doctor did not understand, 
 insisted upon going to London and consulting
 
 DOCTORING IN THE HEBRIDES 161 
 
 Sir William Gull. That eminent physician 
 diagnosed her case and prescribed ; ' What 
 you chiefly require, madam,' he said, ' is to 
 live for a time in a dry bracing climate. 
 There is one place which I am sure would 
 suit you admirably, and that is Nairn in the 
 north of Scotland.' 
 
 One of the difficulties of life among the 
 smaller islands of the Hebrides has long 
 been the inadequacy of medical attendance. 
 A stranger who first enters the region, and 
 realises from some painful experience what 
 are the conditions of the people in this respect, 
 may be forgiven if at first he may be inclined 
 to think that the authorities, whose duty it 
 should be to provide such attendance, share 
 the opinion of Churchill that 
 
 The surest road to health, say what they will, 
 Is never to suppose we shall be ill. 
 Most of those evils we poor mortals know 
 From doctors and imagination flow. 
 
 It must be remembered, however, that many 
 of the islands are too small, and many of the 
 districts too thinly inhabited to provide work 
 for a resident practitioner, even if the funds 
 for his salary were readily procurable. All 
 that has hitherto been attempted is to place 
 a doctor in some central position whence,
 
 1 62 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 commanding as wide an area as he can be 
 supposed able to undertake, he may be ready 
 to proceed to any case where his services may 
 be required. But the distances are sometimes 
 considerable, and the weather often stormy, 
 so that for days at a time no boat can 
 pass from one island to another. Even under 
 the most favourable skies, it often happens 
 that when a message arrives, urgently re- 
 questing the attendance of the medical man, 
 he is found to be engaged with another serious 
 case in an island some leagues distant, from 
 which he may not be expected to return for 
 some days. An instance which happened a 
 few years ago in the little island of Canna 
 will illustrate this feature of social life in the 
 Inner Hebrides. 
 
 One of the workmen engaged in building 
 a dry-stone dyke met with a serious accident. 
 The materials he had to use consisted of large 
 rounded boulders and blocks of basalt, which 
 required some little care to adjust in order 
 that the structure might remain firm. When 
 the wall had been raised to its full height, a 
 portion of it gave way, and some large masses 
 of heavy basalt fell on the workman, smashing 
 one of his legs. His companions on extri- 
 cating him from the ruins, saw the serious
 
 A BROKEN LEG IN CANNA 163 
 
 nature of the injuries. But there was no 
 doctor on the island, nor anywhere nearer 
 than at Arisaig, a distance of some twenty-five 
 miles across an open sea. No time was lost 
 in getting the poor man carried into a boat, 
 which two of his comrades navigated to the 
 mainland. On arriving there, however, they 
 found that the doctor had gone away inland 
 and would not be back for a day or two. As 
 there was no time to lose, the boatmen at 
 once set out for Tobermory in Mull, where 
 the next medical man was to be obtained. 
 They had to traverse a tract of sea which 
 is often rough. Even in calm weather more 
 or less commotion may always be looked for in 
 the water round the Point of Ardnamurchan 
 the 'headland of great waves.' It was some 
 thirty-six hours after the accident before the 
 poor sufferer was at last placed in medical 
 hands. The first thing to be done was, of 
 course, to amputate the mangled leg. The 
 patient stood the operation well, and in two 
 or three weeks was sufficiently recovered to 
 be able to be taken back to Canna. His 
 two faithful comrades, who had waited on 
 with him at Tobermory, had him carried 
 down to the pier, where their boat was ready 
 for him. When he came there he looked all
 
 164 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 round him with some anxiety, and at last 
 exclaimed, ' But where's my leg ? ' ' Your 
 leg! in the kirkyard, to be sure.' 'But I 
 maun hae my leg.' ' But I tell ye, ye canna 
 hae your leg, its been buryit this fortnicht in 
 the graveyard.' ' Weel' said the lameter, 
 steadying his back against a wall, ' I'll no stir 
 a fit till I get my leg. D'ye think I'm to 
 gang tramp-tramping aboot at the Last Day 
 lookin' for my leg.' Finding persuasion use- 
 less, the unhappy boatmen had to interview 
 the minister and the procurator-fiscal, and ob- 
 tain authority to dig up the leg. When the 
 lost limb came up once more to the light of 
 day, it was in such a state of decomposition 
 that the men refused to have it in the boat 
 with them. Eventually a compromise was 
 effected. A second boat was hired to convey 
 the leg, and with a length of ten yards of 
 rope between them, was towed at the stern of 
 the first. In this way the procession reached 
 Canna. 
 
 Throughout the Highlands the desire to 
 be buried among one's own kith and kin re- 
 mains wide-spread and deep-seated. And it 
 would also appear that a Highlander cannot 
 bear that the parts of his body should be in- 
 terred in different places. The Canna dyke-
 
 PROGRESS OF THE UNIVERSITIES 165 
 
 builder only gave expression to the general 
 feeling. 1 
 
 In due time the natives felt it necessary 
 to celebrate in an appropriate way the recovery 
 and return of their fellow-islander, and the 
 re-interment of the leg in its native soil. 
 With an ample provision of whisky, a banquet 
 was held, and continued till a late hour. On 
 the way back from this orgy, the hero of the 
 accident stumbled across a heap of stones, and 
 broke the wooden leg that had replaced his own. 
 Partly from this fresh accident, but largely, no 
 doubt, from the effects of the debauch, the 
 man could not regain his cottage, but lay 
 where he fell until, in the morning light, he 
 was picked up and helped home. 
 
 That gradual modification of the national 
 characteristics which is observable in all parts 
 of the social scale, has not allowed the Uni- 
 versities to escape. On the one hand, the 
 professoriate is now constantly recruited from 
 the south side of the Tweed, by the selection 
 
 1 More ludicrous still was the desire of the Highland porter 
 in Glasgow who, as Dr. Norman Macleod relates, 'sent his 
 amputated finger to be buried in the graveyard of the parish 
 beside the remains of his kindred. It is said also that a bottle 
 of whisky was sent along with the finger, that it might be 
 entombed with all honour.'
 
 166 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 either of Englishmen or of Scotsmen who 
 have been trained at the English universities. 
 On the other hand, a considerable proportion 
 of the students, more particularly in medicine, 
 come from England, Wales, Ireland, and the 
 colonies ; some of them even hail from the 
 Continent and from India. 1 As the non- 
 Scottish leaven thus introduced has no doubt 
 tended to enlarge the culture of the teachers 
 and perhaps to soften the asperities of manner 
 in the taught, the change has been welcomed. 
 The reproach that used to be levelled at the 
 nation that it was too clannish and acted too 
 much on the principle of its own unsavoury 
 proverb of ' keeping its ain fish-guts for its 
 ain sea-maws,' certainly cannot justly be 
 brought against its educational institutions. 
 For many years the obvious and earnest en- 
 deavour has been to secure the best men, no 
 matter from what part of the globe they 
 may come. The gradual obliteration of the 
 peculiarly Scottish characteristics of the Pro- 
 fessors and students is part of the price to 
 
 J The statistics for Edinburgh University during 1903 show 
 that of the 1451 students of medicine 677 or over 46 per cent, 
 belonged to Scotland ; 333, or nearly 23 per cent., were from 
 England and Wales; 118 from Ireland; 72 from India; 232, 
 or about 16 per cent., from British Colonies ; and 19 from 
 foreign countries.
 
 A ST. ANDREWS PROFESSOR 167 
 
 be paid for the general advancement. Yet 
 we pay it with a certain measure of regret. 
 There was a marked originality and individu- 
 ality among the Professors of the older type, 
 which gave a distinctive character to the 
 colleges where they taught, and in some 
 degree also to their teaching. 
 
 About the middle of last century the Pro- 
 fessor of Mathematics in the University of 
 St. Andrews was an able mathematician and 
 a singularly picturesque teacher. He spoke 
 not only with a Scottish accent, but used many 
 old Scottish words, if they were effective in 
 making his meaning clear. If, for instance, 
 he noticed an inattentive student, looking any- 
 where but at the black-board on which he was 
 demonstrating some proposition, he would stop 
 and request the lad to ' e'e the buird ' (look 
 at the board). He lectured in a dress suit, 
 and as he always wiped his chalky fingers on 
 his waistcoat, his appearance was somewhat 
 brindled by the end of the hour. One of his 
 old students gave me the following recollection 
 of an incident that took place in the class- 
 room. A certain student named Lumsden was 
 one day conspicuous for his inattention. The 
 professor at last stopped his lecture, and 
 addressed the delinquent thus : ' Mr.
 
 168 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 will you come forrit here and sit down on that 
 bench there in front o' me. I have three 
 reasons for moving you. In the first place, 
 you'll be nearer my een ; in the second place, 
 you'll be nearer my foot ; and in the third 
 place, you'll be nearer the door.' 
 
 Among the Glasgow professors towards the 
 middle of the century, one with a marked 
 individuality was Allan Maconochie, afterwards 
 Maconochie Welwood. Coming of a race of 
 lawyers, for he was the son of one Scottish 
 judge and the grandson of another, he took 
 naturally to the bar, and became Professor of 
 Law in 1842. Being prompt and decisive in 
 his business habits, he soon acquired a con- 
 siderable practice as referee and arbiter in 
 disputed cases among the mercantile com- 
 munity of Glasgow, and thus saved the 
 disputants the long delays and heavy expenses 
 of the Court of Session. He gave himself 
 up with much energy to the work of his chair, 
 and to college business during the session, 
 but as soon as the winter term was over, 
 he used to depart at once for the Pyrenees, 
 where he possessed a chateau, and where he 
 would spend most of his time until he had to 
 resume his professional labours in this country. 
 During these years of residence abroad, he
 
 A GLASGOW PROFESSOR IN SPAIN 169 
 
 acquired facility in speaking Spanish, and 
 he would make long solitary excursions, ming- 
 ling freely among the people. 
 
 In the year 1854 his father, Lord Meadow- 
 bank, succeeded to the Fife estates of Garvock 
 and Pitliver, and then took the surname of 
 Wei wood. About the same time the reform 
 of the Scottish universities began to be mooted, 
 and as the professor looked forward with much 
 dislike to some of the proposed innovations in 
 the constitution and arrangements of these 
 institutions, he resigned his chair and estab- 
 lished himself as a country gentleman at 
 Pitliver, near Dunfermline. Having lost his 
 first wife, he had lately married Lady Margaret 
 Dalrymple, daughter of the Earl of Stair. I 
 was a frequent guest at Pitliver, and much en- 
 joyed his racy reminiscences of Glasgow and 
 of his experiences in Spain. One of these last 
 which he told me seems worthy of now being 
 put on record as an instance of the courage 
 and boldness of a peaceable Scottish professor. 
 
 During the ' forties ' of last century, Spain 
 was convulsed with revolution. Maconochie 
 had a strong desire to travel through some 
 of the disturbed districts and see the state 
 of the country for himself. He accordingly 
 arranged to make a long detour and cross
 
 I/O SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 the frontier to a French town, where his wife 
 was to await his coming. Disguising himself 
 as a miner, he procured a bag, a pick, and 
 a few pieces of rough stone. His money he 
 carried with him in gold, which he enclosed 
 in lumps of plaster of Paris, coloured and 
 dirtied to look like bits of natural rock. Thus 
 accoutred he set out on his journey, and passed 
 through the districts where the insurrection 
 was hottest. At night he would come into 
 a village inn, filled with insurgents, and throw- 
 ing his bag into a corner would retire to see 
 after his horse. Coming back to the chamber 
 where the warriors were assembled, he some- 
 times found them examining the contents of 
 his bag and holding some of his specimens 
 in their hands, with an exclamation about their 
 weight ' Plomo, plomo ' ; they were sure the 
 stones must be bits of lead-ore. He would 
 then join in the talk, and so disarm all 
 suspicion of his nationality that he had no 
 difficulty in gathering from them all the in- 
 formation he wanted, while they on their side 
 took him for a Castilian miner prospecting 
 through the country for metals. 
 
 In this way he travelled through all the 
 tract he wished to see, and had come at last 
 to the Spanish town nearest to the frontier
 
 SPANISH INSURGENTS 171 
 
 place where he was to meet his wife. He 
 now discarded his disguise, and attired himself 
 in ordinary costume. The horse that had 
 carried him was a sorry nag which he had 
 chosen to be in harmony with the general 
 outfit of his supposed occupation. He now 
 made himself known to the mayor of the town 
 and asked his assistance to procure a good 
 horse. It so happened that a fine animal, 
 which had belonged to a government official 
 recently deceased, was for sale, but the price 
 asked for it was beyond the means of those 
 who would fain have bought it. The professor, 
 however, had money enough with him to 
 acquire the horse, and to fit himself for the 
 rest of his journey. A guide was procured 
 to conduct him through the mountains, and 
 he was advised to go armed and to be 
 constantly on his guard. In particular, he 
 was warned on no account to stop at the 
 top of the last pass, whence the road descended 
 in sharp zig-zags into the plain of France. All 
 went well until he came to that very place, 
 when his guide said they must halt a little. 
 This he refused to do, but insisted on his 
 companion riding on in front of him. They 
 had not gone far down when voices from 
 above called on them loudly to stop. The
 
 172 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 guide turned round, put his horse across the 
 narrow road, and on Maconochie trying to 
 brush past him drew out a pistol from his belt. 
 The professor, suspecting some action of this 
 kind, was on the alert, with his hand already 
 on his own pistol, which he at once discharged 
 at the breast of the guide, who rolled off his 
 horse into the bushes below. Realising now 
 the plot against him, and that there were 
 accomplices above, he put spurs to his horse, 
 and dashed down the road. So steep was the 
 descent, and so shaded with trees and bushes, 
 that he could only be seen at the bends, at 
 each of which a shower of bullets whizzed 
 past him. He succeeded in keeping ahead 
 of his assailants, who continued to pursue and 
 fire at him until they were almost within gun- 
 shot of the French sentries. 
 
 As soon as he arrived at the town, he 
 sought the commandant and told his story. 
 The officer, on learning where he had got 
 his horse, told him that he owed his life to 
 the animal, not merely for its speed. It 
 appeared that the insurgents knew the horse 
 well, and desired to procure it for one of 
 their leaders. When they heard that it had 
 been sold, they had evidently planned to possess 
 themselves of it, and had arranged the ambush
 
 PROFESSOR PILLANS 173 
 
 to which the professor of law had nearly fallen 
 a victim. But it was the horse they wanted, 
 not its rider. Had mere robbery been their 
 object, they could easily have shot the horse, 
 and whether or not they put a bullet through 
 him also, they would have stripped him of 
 all his possessions. But they purposely fired 
 high for fear of wounding or killing the animal, 
 which they had expected to be able to present 
 to their leader. 
 
 Robert Chambers used wittily to classify 
 mankind in two divisions those who had 
 been 'under Pillans,' and those who had not. 
 I am glad to be able to range myself in the 
 first class. Pillans was Professor of Latin (or 
 Humanity as the subject used to be termed 
 in Scotland) in the University of Edinburgh. 
 Perhaps his name was most widely known 
 from its having been unwarrantably pilloried 
 by Byron in his English Bards and Scotch 
 Reviewers. He was a born educationist, far 
 in advance of his time in certain departments 
 of teaching, more particularly in his recognition 
 of the place that should be assigned to geo- 
 graphy in the educational system of the country. 
 When I sat in his class-room he had reached 
 his seventy-seventh year, and was no longer as 
 able as he had once been to control a large
 
 174 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 gathering of lads fresh from school. But even 
 then no one who was willing to learn could 
 fail to find much that was suggestive in his 
 prelections. As he sat in his chair behind his 
 desk, his small stature was not observable. One 
 only saw the round bald head, the rubicund 
 cheeks, the mild blue eyes, the hands wielding 
 a huge reading glass (for he would never con- 
 sent to wear spectacles) and the shoulders 
 wrapped round in his velvet-collared black 
 gown. He was a scholar of the antique type, 
 more intent on the subject, spirit, and style of 
 his Latin favourites, than on grammatical nice- 
 ties or various readings. How he loved his 
 Horace, and how he took to his heart any 
 student in whom he could detect the rudiments 
 of the same affection ! Having gained his 
 friendship in this way, I saw a good deal of him 
 in later years. He kept up the pleasant old 
 custom of asking his students to breakfast with 
 him. In later years I met some of his early 
 friends at that meal, among them, Leonard 
 Horner. I remember one morning having a 
 talk with him about English literature, when he 
 said, ' I have been all my life fond of poetry, 
 and I find great solace in it still. But I must 
 go back several generations for what really 
 interests and pleases me. There is Tenny-
 
 PROFESSOR BLACKIE 175 
 
 son, and another writer, Browning, that I hear 
 people raving about. I have tried to read them, 
 but I confess that I cannot understand much 
 of them, and they give me no real pleasure. 
 When I want to enjoy English verse, I go 
 back to the masterpieces of Dryden and Pope.' 
 Pillans was one of the early pioneers in 
 the organisation of infant-schools. He ener- 
 getically combated the system of teaching by 
 rote, and of compelling young children to 
 burden their memories with genealogies and 
 dates. He once remarked to me, ' I was 
 in an infant-school lately, and you won't guess 
 what question I heard put to a class of little 
 tots, not more than four or five years old 
 " How long did Jeroboam reign over Israel?" 
 
 The most perfervidly Scottish professor of 
 my time was undoubtedly John Stuart Blackie, 
 who taught a multifarious range of subjects, in- 
 cluding some Greek, of which he was Professor. 
 Although those of his students who really 
 wanted to increase their knowledge of Greek 
 would fain have been spared some of his dis- 
 quisitions on the current politics or problems 
 of the day, they could not but recognise his 
 boundless enthusiasm, his cheery good nature, 
 and his high ideals of life and conduct In 
 my time he wore a brown wig, which was
 
 1 76 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 so manifestly artificial that we used sometimes 
 to imagine that it was coming off, and specu- 
 lated on what the professor would be like 
 without it. But in later years he allowed his 
 own white hair to grow long, and with his 
 clean-shaven face, his broad soft felt hat, and 
 his brown plaid over his shoulders, he became 
 by far the most picturesque figure in the 
 Edinburgh of his time. He had been so 
 much in Germany, and was so well versed in 
 German life and literature, that he seemed 
 naturally to assume the manner of a Ger- 
 man professor. There was, indeed, a good 
 deal of external resemblance between him and 
 the late venerable historian Mommsen. But 
 Blackie was distinguished from his more 
 typical continental brethren by the boisterous 
 exuberance of his spirits. Even in the class- 
 room this feature could not be wholly re- 
 pressed, but it reached its climax among 
 friends at a dinner table, more especially at 
 such gatherings as those of the Royal Society 
 Club. After eloquent talk he would eventu- 
 ally be unable to remain seated, but would 
 start up and march round the room, gesticu- 
 lating and singing a verse of some Scottish 
 song, or one of his own patriotic ditties. 
 Besides the genial Blackie, the Senate of
 
 SIR DOUGLAS MACLAGAN 177 
 
 Edinburgh University, when I was a member 
 of it, contained some other less vociferous but 
 extremely clubbable professors. Two of them 
 deserve special mention here Christison and 
 Maclagan. Sir Robert Christison was excel- 
 lent company, with his ample fund of reminis- 
 cence and anecdote. At the club-dinners Sir 
 Douglas Maclagan never failed to regale us 
 with one of his inimitable songs. He had a 
 good voice, and sang with much expression 
 and humour. His ' Battle of Glen Tilt' was a 
 source of endless pleasure to his friends, and 
 he entered so thoroughly into the spirit of it 
 that one could almost see the scene between 
 the duke and his gillies on the one side, and 
 the botany professor and his students on the 
 other. Some of the touches in that ditty are 
 full of sly fun, such, for example, as the de- 
 scription of the botanising : 
 
 Some folk '11 talc' a heap o' fash 
 
 For unco little en', man; 
 An' meikle time an' meikle cash 
 
 For nocht ava' they'll spen', man. 
 Thae chaps had come a hunder' mile 
 For what was hardly worth their while ; 
 
 Twas a' to poo 
 
 Some gerse that grew 
 
 On Ben M'Dhu 
 
 That ne'er a coo 
 Would care to pit her mouth till, 
 
 M
 
 i/8 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 On rare occasions Christison and Maclagan 
 sang a humorous duet in the most dolorous 
 tones, acting the character of two distressed 
 seamen begging on the street. It was comical 
 beyond description. 
 
 Another of the luminaries in the Edinburgh 
 University was Lyon Playfair, professor of 
 chemistry, who, after quitting his chair and 
 entering parliament, devoted himself mainly to 
 politics, and was finally raised to the peerage. 
 He too was a true Scot, though most of his 
 life was passed in England. He enjoyed and 
 could tell a good story, and relished it none 
 the less if it bore against himself. In his later 
 years he used to pay a yearly visit to America, 
 and from one of these journeys he brought 
 back the account of an experience he had 
 met with among the Rocky Mountains of 
 Canada, and which he would tell with great 
 vivacity. He had halted at some station 
 on the Canadian Pacific Railway, and in the 
 course of a stroll had made his way to the 
 foot of a heap of material that had been 
 tumbled down from the mouth of a mine. He 
 was poking out some of the pieces of stone 
 with his stick, when a voice saluted him from 
 the top of the bank, and the following con- 
 versation ensued :
 
 CHALMERS AND THE DENTIST 179 
 
 'Hey! what are ye daein' there?' 
 
 ' I am looking at some of these bits of 
 stone.' 
 
 4 But there's nae allooance here.' 
 
 1 Is there not ? I think you must be a 
 Scotsman like me.' 
 
 ' Ay ! man, and are ye frae Scotland ? And 
 what's your name ? ' 
 
 ' My name is Play fair.' 
 
 ' Maybe ye'll be Lyon.' 
 
 ' Yes, that's my name. How do you come 
 to know it ? ' 
 
 ' Od, man, your name has travelt far faurer 
 nor thae wee legs '11 ever carry yoursell/ 
 
 When at the time of the Disruption the 
 theological chairs were resigned by the pro- 
 fessors who seceded to the Free Church, the 
 classes of the new College which that church 
 established in Edinburgh were held in a house 
 next door to a well-known dentist. Dr. 
 Chalmers was one of those who had left the 
 University, and he had an enthusiastic body 
 of students in the new rooms. The applause 
 with which they greeted the Professor's bursts 
 of eloquence proved, however, rather trying to 
 the dentist and his patients, for the house 
 partitions were none of the thickest. The 
 story is told that a polite note was sent to
 
 i8o SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 Dr. Chalmers, asking whether it would be 
 possible for him to moderate the noise made 
 by his pupils. Next day the doctor, before 
 beginning his lecture, explained the circum- 
 stances to his class, and begged them to 
 remain quiet, 'for,' he added, 'you must bear 
 in mind that our neighbour is very much 
 in the mouth of the public.' 
 
 The late Professor Tait, so widely known 
 and so affectionately remembered, used to cite 
 one of the answers he received in a class- 
 examination. The question asked was, ' Define 
 transparency, translucency and opacity,' and 
 the following was the answer. ' I am sorry 
 that I cannot give the precise definition of 
 these terms. But I think I understand their 
 meaning, and I will illustrate it by an example. 
 The windows of this class-room were originally 
 transparent ; they are at present translucent, 
 but if not soon cleaned, they will become 
 opaque.' The professor, in repeating this reply, 
 laughingly said that he had allowed the man 
 full marks for it. 
 
 The Scottish schoolmaster of the old type 
 is probably as extinct as the parish school 
 system under which he flourished. What 
 with revised codes, inspectors, examinations, 
 grants in aid, Board of Education and other
 
 OLD TYPE OF DOMINIE 181 
 
 machinery, the educational arrangements of 
 Scotland have during the last half-century 
 been transformed to a remarkable degree. 
 There can be no doubt that on the whole, 
 and especially in recent years, the changes 
 have been in the right direction. Neverthe- 
 less, we may regret the disappearance of some 
 of the characteristic features of the old regime. 
 The parish schools served to commingle the 
 different classes of the community, and there 
 was a freedom left to the teachers which gave 
 them scope in their methods and range of 
 subjects, and enabled them to send up to the 
 university numbers of clever and well-trained 
 scholars. Untrammelled by the fear of any 
 school-board or Education Department, the 
 ' dominie ' was left to develop his own indi- 
 viduality, which, though it sometimes took 
 the form of eccentricity, was in most cases 
 the natural outgrowth of a cultivated mind, 
 and was a distinct benefit to his pupils. In 
 the delightful Memories Grave and Gay of 
 Dr. Kerr, who has spent his active life in 
 practically furthering the cause of education 
 in the country, an interesting account is 
 given of the process of transformation, to- 
 gether with many, anecdotes of his experience 
 of country schools and country schoolmasters.
 
 1 82 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 To his ample stores those interested in the 
 subject should turn. 
 
 In the early days of examinations an in- 
 spector came to a school, and in the course of 
 the reading stopped to ask the class the mean- 
 ing of the word curfew in Gray's line : 
 
 The curfew tolls the knell of parting day. 
 
 There was complete silence in the room. He 
 tried to coax the boys on to an answer, but 
 without effect ; until the teacher, losing patience 
 with them, exclaimed in vexation, ' Stupit fules! 
 d'ye no ken what's a whaup ? ' whaup being 
 Scottice for curlew. 
 
 A clerical friend of mine was, many years 
 ago, visiting a parish school in Argyleshire 
 where Gaelic was taught as well as English. 
 He spoke to them in Gaelic, and asked them 
 to spell one of the words he had used. They 
 looked in blank amazement at him, and gave 
 no reply. At last the master, turning round 
 deprecatingly to the clergyman, said, ' Oich, 
 sir, there's surely no spellin' in Gaelic.' 
 
 A story is told in the north of Scotland 
 of a certain school in which a boy was reading 
 in presence of an examiner, and on pronounc- 
 ing the word bull as it is ordinarily sounded, 
 was abruptly corrected by the schoolmaster.
 
 A DOMINIE'S PRONUNCIATION 183 
 
 'John, I've told you before, that word is 
 called bull' (pronouncing it like skull]. 
 
 1 Excuse me, sir,' said the examiner, ' I think 
 you will find that the boy has pronounced it 
 correctly.' 
 
 ' O no, sir, we always call it bull in this 
 parish.' 
 
 1 But you must pardon me if I say that the 
 boy's pronunciation is the usual one. Have 
 you a pronouncing dictionary ? ' 
 
 ' Dictionary ! O yes. Charlie, rin round to 
 the house and fetch me the big dictionary. 
 Meantime, John, go on wi' the reading.' So 
 John went on with ' bull,' and Charlie brought 
 the dictionary, which the master turned up in 
 triumph, ' There, sir, is the word with the 
 mark above the u, and there are the words 
 that it's to be sounded like put, push, pull 
 (pronouncing these all like but, brush, dull). 
 And now, John, you will go on wi' bull' 
 
 The questions put by the examiners are not 
 always judicious. The man who asked ' If 
 Alfred the Great were alive now, what part 
 of our political system would he be likely to 
 take most interest in ? ' need not have been 
 surprised to receive the answer, ' Please sir, if 
 Alfred the Great were alive now, I think he'd 
 be so old he wouldn't take interest in anything.'
 
 1 84 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 The difference between the pronunciation of 
 Latin on the two sides of the Tweed used to 
 give rise to curious confusion, whether we 
 'gave up Cicero to C or K.' I remember a 
 boy who had previously attended a grammar 
 school in Yorkshire and had come to the 
 Edinburgh High School, being called on to 
 read the introductory lines of the first book 
 of Ovid's Metamorphoses. He began pro- 
 nouncing in the English way, ' Ante mare et 
 tellus.' ' What, what do you say ? ' interrupted 
 Dr. Boyd, 'Aunty Mary,' forsooth! 'I suppose 
 we shall have Uncle Robert next.'
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OLD and new type of landed proprietors in Scotland. Highland 
 Chiefs Second Marquess of Breadalbane ; late Duke of 
 Argyll. Ayrshire Lairds T. F. Kennedy of Dunure: 'Sliddery 
 Braes ' ; Smith of Auchengree. Fingask and Charles Martin. 
 New lairds of wealth. 
 
 THE most outstanding change in regard to 
 landed proprietorship during the last half cen- 
 tury has been in Scotland, as elsewhere in 
 Britain, the successive extinction or displace- 
 ment of families that long held their estates, 
 and ' proud of pedigree, but poor of purse,' have 
 had to make way for rich merchants, bankers, 
 brewers, iron-masters, and manufacturers. Of 
 the great landowners the most striking per- 
 sonality in my time was undoubtedly the 
 second Marquess of Breadalbane. Tall and 
 broad, with a head like that of Jupiter Tonans, 
 having the most commanding presence com- 
 bined with the most winning graciousness of 
 manner, he was the incarnation of what one
 
 1 86 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 imagined that a great Highland chief should 
 be. When in 1860 at the head of his Highland 
 Volunteers, all in kilts of the clan tartan, he 
 marched to the great review held by Queen 
 Victoria in Edinburgh, one's thoughts travelled 
 back to the days of Prince Charlie, for since 
 that time there had been no such mustering of 
 warlike men straight from the Highland glens, 
 and no such chieftain in command of them. 
 When in the autumn he established himself at 
 the Black Mount, and filled his hospitable 
 house with guests, he would start off for a day's 
 deer-stalking, mounted on the box of a large 
 drag, with the reins and whip in his hands, 
 his friends seated around him and his gillies 
 behind. No one of the party was a keener 
 or more successful sportsman than he. A 
 liberal and enlightened landlord, he had done 
 much to improve his vast estates, and was 
 beloved by his tenantry and people. He never 
 could understand why the Scottish mountains 
 should not supply abundance of metallic ores, 
 and afford a source of wealth to the country. 
 For years he employed a German expert to 
 prospect all over his property, and he continued 
 to work his mines at Tyndrum even at a loss. 
 Among his acquirements he had gained some 
 knowledge of mineralogy. Sir Roderick Mur-
 
 THE LATE DUKE OF ARGYLL 187 
 
 chison, when visiting him in 1 860, after a tour 
 through the western Highlands, remarked to 
 him at dinner that one great difference between 
 the oldest rocks of the north-western and those 
 of the Central Highlands lay in the presence 
 of abundant hornblende in the former and its 
 absence from the latter. ' Stop a bit, Sir 
 Roderick,' interrupted the Marquess, 'You come 
 with me to-morrow, and I'll show you plenty 
 of hornblende.' Next day a walk was taken 
 across a tract of moor near the Black Mount, 
 Sir Roderick accompanying some ladies, while 
 the chief marched on in front. At last when 
 the rock in question was reached, the Marquess 
 shouted out in triumph, ' Here's hornblende 
 for you.' And he was right, as Murchison, with 
 a queer non-plussed look on his face, had to 
 admit. Nevertheless the geologist's generalisa- 
 tion, though not universally applicable, had in 
 it a certain element of truth. 
 
 Another distinguished Highland chief of last 
 century was the late Duke of Argyll. Gifted 
 with great acuteness and versatility of intellect, 
 he directed his thoughts to a wide range of 
 subjects, and having a remarkable command of 
 forcible language, he was able to present these 
 thoughts in such a form as to compel attention 
 to his reasonings and conclusions. As orator,
 
 1 88 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 statesman, historian, poet, naturalist, geologist, 
 agriculturist, chief of a great Highland clan, 
 and landed proprietor, he was undoubtedly 
 one of the living forces of his country dur- 
 ing his active career, Moreover, he never 
 failed to show that, like the long line of his 
 illustrious ancestors, he was an ardent and 
 patriotic Scot. In the midst of his conver- 
 sation he would every now and then throw 
 in a Scottish word or phrase, as more tersely 
 expressive of his meaning than anything he 
 could find in English. He knew the West 
 of Scotland better than most of his country- 
 men, for not only was he born and bred there, 
 and passed most of his life in the midst of his 
 ancestral possessions, but for many years he 
 kept a yacht on which he peered into every 
 bay and creek among the Western Isles. He 
 had considerable artistic power, and was never 
 happier than when sketching some scene that 
 delighted him. After a great speech, or during 
 the intervals in the preparation of one of his 
 published volumes, he found rest and solace 
 in working up his sketches, of which he left 
 a large collection. 
 
 Though cast in a smaller bodily mould than 
 his burly kinsman of Breadalbane, he carried 
 himself with a singular dignity of bearing. His
 
 INVERARAY CASTLE 189 
 
 finely formed, expressive face and his abundant 
 golden hair made him a conspicuous figure in 
 any assembly. But he was perhaps best 
 seen under his own roof at Inveraray enter- 
 taining the landed gentry of Argyleshire, when 
 met for the transaction of county business 
 including many of the Campbell clan who 
 counted the Mac Callum More as their chief, 
 and from some of whom he could claim feudal 
 service. One of them in particular used to 
 be prominent from the massive silver chain 
 which he wore with a key hung at the end 
 of it. His castle was now a ruin, but, in 
 accordance with ancient usage, he was bound 
 to present the key of it when he came to see 
 his chief. The Duke moved about among the 
 guests as the grand seigneur, entering into ani- 
 mated talk, now about land and rent, or improve- 
 ments in the county, or some recently opened 
 tumulus, dredgings in Loch Fyne, the political 
 situation of the country, or the probability of 
 getting fossils out of his schists and limestones. 
 He was keenly desirous to preserve every 
 relic of antiquity on his property, and had 
 made a kind of museum in the central hall 
 of the castle in which he kept the smaller 
 objects that had been picked up. Among 
 these he was especially proud of an old knife
 
 190 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 with what he believed to be Rob Roy's initials 
 on it that had been found near the place 
 where that Highland freebooter lived, when 
 he placed himself for a time under the shelter 
 of the Argyll of his day. 
 
 Perhaps no county in Scotland could fur- 
 nish an ampler list of landed proprietors than 
 Ayrshire, both of the old stock and of the new 
 comers. The former included both titled pos- 
 sessors of large estates and smaller lairds who 
 could trace their genealogy back to a remote 
 ancestry. One of the best examples of these 
 landed gentry whom I have known was the 
 Right Honourable Thomas Francis Kennedy 
 of Dunure. Educated in Edinburgh under 
 Pillans and Dugald Stewart, he was associated 
 from his youth with the brilliant literary 
 coterie which then flourished in that city, and 
 delighted to recount his reminiscences of the 
 men and the clubs of the time. As he was 
 born near Ayr, and had passed much of his 
 life in Ayrshire, where he possessed consider- 
 able estates, he retained a lively recollection of 
 the state of the south-west of Scotland in the 
 closing years of the eighteenth and the early 
 part of the nineteenth century. I have heard 
 him tell of the hardships of the peasantry and 
 small farmers in his boyhood, how in severe
 
 KENNEDY OF DUNURE 191 
 
 winters they were compelled to bleed their 
 cattle and mix the blood with oatmeal to keep 
 themselves in life. He used to describe the 
 cuisine of his early days, and the contrast 
 between it and modern cookery. One of the 
 dishes, rather a favourite in Carrick, was roast 
 Solan goose from Ailsa Craig. But his account 
 of it was not itself appetising, for he told how 
 they had to bury the bird for some time in the 
 garden, and when it came to be cooked, all the 
 windows in the house had to be kept open, to 
 let out the 'ancient and fish-like smell.' White 
 and black puddings, now almost entirely 
 banished, still maintained their place, together 
 with * crappit heads,' 'singed sheep's head,' 
 and sundry other national dishes which have 
 long been banished from the tables of polite 
 society. He used sometimes to revive a few 
 of these dishes, and I thought them excellent, 
 but he never, so far as I experienced, tried the 
 Solan goose again. 
 
 He was a gentleman of the antique cast, 
 courteous and stately in his manners, proud of 
 his descent and of his ancestral possessions, 
 and tenacious of his rights, which he was some- 
 times thought to insist upon rather more than 
 he need have done. When I came to know 
 him about the year 1863 he had retired from
 
 192 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 public life, and devoted himself to the care of 
 his property. He looked carefully after his 
 breeds of cattle, and was keenly alive to new 
 inventions for the improvement of agriculture, 
 which he was always ready to test on his own 
 land. Part of one of the smallest coalfields in 
 Scotland underlay his estate of Dalquharran, 
 and he worked the mineral according to the 
 best known methods. 
 
 Yet he had been an active politician in his 
 time. He was for sixteen years in Parliament, 
 as member for the Ayr Burghs. In associa- 
 tion with Cockburn, Jeffrey, Horner, Murray, 
 Graham, and others, he took a leading part 
 in the preparations for the Scottish Reform 
 Bill. On retiring from Parliament, he obtained 
 an official appointment in Ireland, where he 
 spent some years, until in 1850 he received 
 a commissionership in the Office of Woods 
 and Forests. Owing to some dispute in the 
 staff, he retired from this appointment in 1854, 
 and thereafter lived entirely at his Ayrshire 
 home, save that for some twenty years he 
 continued to come up for the season to 
 London. The Government of the day would 
 not grant him a pension, a decision for which 
 he believed that Gladstone was mainly re- 
 sponsible. His friend Lord Murray thought
 
 KENNEDY OF DUNURE 193 
 
 him so badly used that he settled a pension 
 of ,1200 a year upon him, which he enjoyed 
 up to the time of his death. Though no 
 longer actively interfering in politics, he con- 
 tinued to take the keenest interest in the 
 events of the time, kept himself in touch with 
 his old Whig friends in and out of Parliament, 
 and gave free vent to his disapproval when 
 he had to criticise their policy. 
 
 His wife, a daughter of Sir Samuel Romilly, 
 was a singularly gentle and gracious old lady. 
 They had been married twenty years before 
 a son, their only child, was born to them. 
 Kennedy used to remark on the curious co- 
 incidence that he himself was also an only 
 child, born after twenty years of wedlock. The 
 inhabited Dalquharran Castle is a large mod- 
 ern mansion, built in a massive but rather 
 tasteless style, a strange contrast to the older 
 castle which it replaced, and which now stands 
 as a picturesque ivy-clad ruin a short distance 
 off, near the river. The laird remembered 
 when this ruin still had its roof on, and was 
 partly habitable. 
 
 Another Ayrshire laird had a row of fine 
 silver firs in the avenue to his romantically- 
 placed old castle. As several of these trees 
 had been struck by lightning during a series of 
 
 N
 
 194 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 years, his wife asked me one day if I thought 
 it possible that the lightning was attracted 
 by a seam of ironstone in the ground beneath. 
 She hoped it was not, for if her husband sus- 
 pected such a thing, she knew he would have 
 lawn, avenue, trees, and everything else dug 
 up in order to get at it. I was able to assure 
 her that there was no ironstone there, and 
 that the attraction was in the trees them- 
 selves. 
 
 In the same county I was acquainted about 
 forty years ago with a bachelor laird who 
 possessed a fine estate, on which he lived with 
 two maiden sisters. He had a large collection 
 of minerals, and more particularly of gems, 
 many of which were mounted as rings. When 
 low-spirited, he would array himself in his 
 dressing-gown, retire to his library, cover his 
 fingers with rings, and lay himself out on a 
 sofa to gaze at and admire them. He dabbled 
 a little also in water-colours, and it used to 
 be said of him that ' he painted a picture 
 every day, and on Sundays he painted a 
 church.' 
 
 One of the oddest specimens of a laird I 
 ever personally knew was the owner of a 
 small estate to the north of Kilmarnock, where 
 he lived with two unmarried sisters. He had
 
 'SLIDDERY BRAES' 195 
 
 nicknames for everybody and everything. His 
 mansion-house, owing to the steepness of the 
 approach to it, he always called ' Sliddery 
 Braes.' His sisters, he used to speak of, the 
 one as the ' Mutiny at the More,' the other 
 as the ' Battle of the Baltic,' because they were 
 born in the years when these two events 
 occurred. He used to take whims, pursue 
 them with great earnestness for a time, and 
 then change to something else. Many of 
 these occupations had a theological cast. At 
 one time he devoted himself to a serious 
 study of the Book of Revelations, and in order 
 to get the better at its meaning, he took to 
 the Greek original. He found that Dr. Sloan 
 of Ayr had a more modern lexicon than that 
 at Sliddery Braes, so he would come down 
 day after day, and work with this volume in 
 the doctor's consulting room. His presence 
 there, however, becoming troublesome, the 
 book was sent upstairs to the drawing-room, 
 and instructions were given to the servant 
 to take the laird there the next time he came. 
 On entering that room one day, he found the 
 doctor's sister sitting at the window, engaged 
 in some needle-work. With apologies for his 
 interruption, he begged her not to allow him 
 to disturb her, for he would be engrossed in
 
 196 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 his study of the chapter on which he was 
 then engaged. After some time he turned to 
 Miss Sloan and said, ' I've been investigating 
 the account given in Revelation of the White 
 Horse, and I think I now understand about 
 it. The animal must have been a large beast, 
 for standing in the street there, its back would 
 be up on a level with the window you're 
 sitting at.' And he proceeded to describe in 
 the most whimsical way the look and qualities 
 of this wonderful horse. His narrative was 
 so comical, that the poor lady could hardly 
 repress her laughter. At last he noticed that 
 his discourse had not in the least solemnised 
 her, and he thereupon started up remarking, 
 'Ah, Miss Sloan, you may laugh, but it's no 
 laughing to some of them; good day.' So 
 ended his Greek studies. 
 
 His eccentricities at last became so great, 
 that Dr. Sloan thought it right to send a 
 letter to the elder sister, pointing out the 
 desirability of having her brother watched, 
 and provided with an attendant, for his own 
 sake as well as for that of others, since the 
 doctor did not think it was safe to allow him 
 to go about alone. The lady thoughtlessly 
 left this letter inside her blotting-book, where 
 it was soon afterwards found by the laird
 
 AN ECCENTRIC LAIRD 197 
 
 himself. He immediately sat down and wrote 
 a long letter to Dr. Sloan, beginning, ' I am 
 not mad, most noble Festus,' and maintaining 
 that he knew what he was about, and could 
 manage himself and his affairs without the 
 help or interference of anybody. The doctor 
 told me that for a long time afterwards he 
 himself went about in some fear of his life, 
 for he never could be sure what revenge 
 ' Sliddery Braes ' might be prompted to take. 
 But the laird had really no homicidal mania. 
 He grew, however, queerer every year. One 
 of his last crazes was to hunt up all the graves 
 of the persecuting lairds of covenanting times. 
 On one occasion he set out on horseback for 
 Dunscore, to see where the notorious Grierson 
 of Lag, ' damned to everlasting fame,' was 
 buried. As he made his way through the 
 lonely uplands of Dumfriesshire, and was 
 nearing his destination, he overtook a pedlar 
 with his pack, and asked him to mount on the 
 horse behind him. When at last he reached 
 the grave-yard, tying the horse to the gate, 
 he insisted on his companion accompanying 
 him to look for the tombstone of the perse- 
 cutor, and on finding it, proceeded to read out 
 and sing a Psalm, in which his companion 
 was also instructed to join. At the end of
 
 ip8 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 this performance, the laird turned suddenly 
 round, looked the pedlar sternly in the face 
 and exclaimed, 'Now, sir, d'ye ken whaur ye 
 are ? Ye' re sitting on the grave o' a man 
 that's been in hell mair than a hundred years. 
 It's a long time, sir, a long time.' The poor 
 pedlar, now convinced that he was in the 
 hands of a madman, made his escape from 
 the place, and left the laird to complete his 
 devotions and execrations. 
 
 About the same time that this whim 
 possessed him, he determined to see the por- 
 trait of a certain member of the Cassilis family 
 who had likewise distinguished himself for his 
 zeal against the Covenanters. But the diffi- 
 culty was how to get access to the picture, 
 which formed part of the collection at Culzean 
 Castle, the seat of the Marquess of Ailsa, 
 and was hung in a room reserved for private 
 use. Watching for an opportunity when the 
 family was from home, he succeeded in pre- 
 vailing upon the housekeeper to open this 
 room for him and let him see the portrait 
 in question. He used to describe his experi- 
 ence thus : ' I stood looking at the picture for 
 a while ; it was really a good-looking face, 
 not what I thought a persecuting laird would 
 be like. But at last I saw the truth in his
 
 ECCENTRIC AYRSHIRE LAIRDS 199 
 
 eyes, for as I watched them, I could see that 
 they had the true twinkle of damnation.' 
 
 Another crack-brained laird in the same 
 county has left inscribed on a stone monument 
 upon his property a record of his eccentricity. 
 I came upon it standing by itself near an oak 
 tree at Todhills in the parish of Dairy. On 
 the west side of the stone the following 
 inscription has been cut ; 
 
 ' There is an oak tree a little from this, planted in the 
 year 1761, it has 20 feet of ground round it for to grow 
 upon, and all within that ground reserved from all suc- 
 ceeding proprietors for the space of 500 years from the 
 above date by me, ANDREW SMITH, who is the ofspring of 
 many Andrew Smiths who lived in Auchengree for unknown 
 generations.' 
 
 On the south side the stone bears the sub- 
 joined lines : 
 
 My Trustees 
 ROBERT GLASGOW 
 
 Esq of 
 
 Montgreenan 
 
 WILLIAM COCHRAN 
 
 Esq of 
 
 Ladyland 
 
 I stand here to herd this tree 
 And if you please to read a wee 
 In seventeen hundred and sixty one 
 It was planted then at three feet long 
 I'll tell more if you would ken
 
 200 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 It was planted at the byre end 
 I'll tell you more you'll think a wonder 
 It's alloud to stand for years five hundred 
 It has twelve yards a cross and round about 
 It belongs to no man till that time is out 
 But to ANDREW SMITH tho he were dead 
 He raised it out of the seed 
 So cut it neither Top nor Tail 
 Least that the same you do bewail 
 Cut it neither Tail nor Top 
 Least that some evil you oertak 
 Erected 
 
 By 
 
 ANDREW SMITH 
 of Todhills Octr 1817 
 
 When in the year 1867 the British Associa- 
 tion met in Dundee, some of the members were 
 entertained at Fingask that charming old 
 Scottish chateau, with its treasures of family 
 and Jacobite antiquities. Among the visitors 
 was Professor Charles Martin of Montpellier, 
 who so delighted the Misses Murray Thriep- 
 land with his enthusiasm for Scotland and 
 everything Scottish, that they bade him kneel, 
 and taking a sword that had belonged to 
 Prince Charlie, laid it on his shoulder and, 
 as if the blade still possessed a royal virtue, 
 dubbed him knight. Some years afterwards 
 I chanced to meet him on a river steamer 
 upon the Tiber, bound for Ostia with a party
 
 NEW LAIRDS 201 
 
 from the University of Rome. He was de- 
 lighted to be addressed as 'Sir Charles Martin,' 
 and recalled with evident enthusiasm the 
 charms of Fingask and of the distinguished 
 ladies who so hospitably entertained him there. 
 
 The new lairds include many excellent and 
 cultivated men well worthy to take their place 
 among the older families. Their command of 
 wealth enables them to improve their estates, 
 and to beautify their houses in a way which 
 was impossible for the impoverished owners 
 whom they have replaced ; their taste has 
 created centres of art and culture, and their 
 public spirit and philanthropy are to be seen 
 in the churches, schools, and village-reading 
 rooms which they have erected, and in the 
 good roads which they have made where none 
 existed before. On the other hand, among 
 their number are some of whom the less said 
 the better, and who make their way chiefly 
 in those circles of society wherein 'a man of 
 wealth is dubbed a man of worth.' 
 
 Many incidents have been put in circulation 
 regarding the race of coal and iron-masters 
 who, starting as working miners, have made 
 large fortunes in the west of Scotland. A 
 good number of these tales are probably 
 entirely mythical, others, though founded on
 
 202 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 some original basis of fact, have been so 
 improved in the course of narration, that they 
 must be looked upon as mainly fabulous. Yet 
 the alterations have generally kept to the spirit 
 of the story, and represent the current estimate 
 of the character and habits of the individual 
 round whom the legend has gathered. Accord- 
 ing to one of these tales a wealthy iron-master 
 called on a country squire and was ushered 
 into the library. He had never seen such a 
 room before, and was much impressed with 
 the handsome cases and the array of well- 
 bound volumes that filled their shelves. The 
 next time he went to Glasgow he made a point 
 of calling at a well-known bookseller's, when 
 the following conversation is reported to have 
 taken place. 
 
 ' I want you to get me a leebrary.' 
 
 'Very well, Mr. I'll be very pleased to 
 
 supply you with books. Can you give me 
 any list of such books as you would like?' 
 
 ' Ye ken mair aboot buiks than I do, so you 
 can choose them yoursell.' 
 
 ' Then you leave the selection entirely to 
 me. Would you like them bound in Russia 
 or Morocco ? ' 
 
 ' Russia or Morocco ! can ye no get them 
 bund in Glasco'.'
 
 A WEALTHY IRON-MASTER 203 
 
 One of these men went to see Egypt, and 
 took with him as a kind of guide and com- 
 panion, an artist of some note. When they 
 came to the Great Pyramid, the magnate stood 
 looking at it for a time, and in turning away 
 remarked to his friend, ' Man, whatna rowth o' 
 mason-wark not to be fetchin' in ony rent!' 
 
 On the same occasion the iron-master, now 
 getting tired of sight-seeing, was with some 
 difficulty persuaded to cross over and see the 
 Red Sea. He made no observation at the 
 time, nor on the way back, but after getting 
 to bed he found vent for his ill humour. 
 Opening the mosquito curtains, he blurted out 
 to the artist, who occupied another bed in the 
 same room, ' D'ye ca' yon the Red Sea ? It's 
 as blue as ony sea I ever saw in my life. 
 Gude nicht.' 
 
 It is told of a Paisley manufacturer that at 
 the time of one of the meetings of the British 
 Association at Glasgow, he entertained a large 
 company of the members, a number of whom 
 invited him to visit them when he came to 
 London. He had noticed that his guests had 
 various initials printed after their names on 
 the programmes of the association F.R.S., 
 F.C.S., D.C. L., LL.D., etc., and, thinking 
 that this was customary in good society, he
 
 204 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 selected three letters to affix to his own name 
 on his visiting cards. In due time he made 
 his appearance in the south ; and presented 
 his cards. Some of his southern acquaintances 
 ventured to ask what the letters after his 
 name were intended to signify. ' O,' said he, 
 ' I saw it was the richt thing to hae the let- 
 ters, and as I didna very weel ken what a' 
 you fowk's letters mean, I thocht I wud put 
 just L.F.P. ; that means, Lately frae Paisley.'
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LOWLAND farmers ; Darlings of Priestlaw. Sheep-farmers. Hall 
 Pringle of Hatton. Farm-servants. Ayrshire milk-maids. 
 The consequences of salting. Poachers. ' Cauld sowens 
 out o' a pewter plate.' Farm life in the Highlands. A 
 Skye eviction. Clearances in Raasay. Summer Shielings 
 of former times. Fat Boy of Soay. A West Highlander's 
 first visit to Glasgow. Crofters in Skye. Highland ideas 
 of women's work. Highland repugnance to handicrafts. 
 
 THE vicissitudes of agriculture have told on 
 the farmers and farm -labourers of Scotland, 
 as they have done everywhere else in the 
 British Islands. To a large extent the small 
 farms have been swallowed up in enlarged 
 holdings. It is much less common now than 
 it used to be to find one of them worked by 
 a single family, where the husband, wife, sons 
 and daughters all take their respective shares 
 of the labour. The extensive adoption of 
 agricultural machinery, and the replacement 
 of corn crops by pasture have reduced the
 
 206 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 number of labourers needed in a farm, while 
 the attractions of town life have still further 
 tended to deplete the rural population. These 
 important changes could not take place without 
 affecting the position and characteristics of the 
 farming class. It is for the most part only 
 in the remoter districts of the country that 
 one can now meet here and there with a 
 specimen of the type that was prevalent a 
 generation or two ago. 
 
 Forty years since there lived at Priestlaw, 
 in the heart of the Lammermuir Hills, a 
 family of farmers, Darling by name, who 
 were perhaps the most excellent examples of 
 that type I have ever encountered. The farm 
 had been tenanted by their forebears for several 
 generations, and the occupants were now two 
 brothers and a sister, all unmarried. Active, 
 intelligent, kindly and honourable, they were 
 universally respected and esteemed throughout 
 Lammermuir far and near. One of the brothers 
 was once riding home from a fair when he 
 was attacked by one of the navvies who were 
 engaged in draining a neighbouring farm. 
 The ruffian had pinned the old man to the 
 grassy bank by the side of the road, and was 
 dealing him some heavy blows, when a group 
 of farmers returning from the same fair came
 
 DARLINGS OF PRIESTLAW 207 
 
 in sight and rushed forward to save life. 
 When they saw who the victim proved to be, 
 their indignation rose to such a height that, 
 but for the intervention of the policeman who 
 happened to come up with another large 
 contingent of pedestrians, they would have 
 executed summary justice themselves. Some 
 of the party conveyed the injured farmer to 
 Priestlaw, while the great majority of the 
 company marched their prisoner off to Had- 
 dington, a distance of some twelve miles, and 
 never relaxed their hold of him until they 
 saw him locked up within the police-cell. 
 
 The brothers were delightful men to con- 
 verse with. The sister, besides the family 
 charm, had a keen interest in natural history, 
 and in all the legends and traditions of the 
 hills. 1 had come to the district to carry 
 on the Geological Survey there, and on making 
 Miss Darling's acquaintance, found from her 
 that when a girl she had accompanied Sir 
 James Hall and Professor Playfair in their 
 excursions up the Fassney Water. She had 
 seen no geologist since then, she said, some 
 sixty years before, and she would fain hear 
 something of what was thought and said about 
 the history of the earth now. We exchanged 
 wallets, I giving her such information as I
 
 208 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 had been able to gather regarding the rocks 
 around her home, and she, on the other 
 hand, retailing to me a most interesting 
 series of traditions that clung to particular 
 spots visible to us as we sat in her garden, 
 looking over to the Whitadder and across 
 into the heathy uplands. One of her tales 
 has always seemed to me to carry a strong 
 appeal in favour of the trustworthiness of 
 persistent local tradition. Ever since the time 
 of the Battle of Dunbar, she said, it had 
 been handed down that Cromwell, finding his 
 way barred by Leslie and the Covenanters, 
 sought to discover some route through the 
 hills practicable for his army, and sent out 
 scouts for that purpose. Two of these men, 
 disguised as peasants, had made their way 
 down the valley of the Whitadder, as far as 
 the mouth of a little dell or cleugh, when a 
 gust of wind from the hollow blew their cloaks 
 aside, and showed their military garb to some 
 of Leslie's emissaries who were on the outlook. 
 They were promptly shot and buried, and 
 tradition had always pointed to a low mound 
 with some gorse bushes, as marking the site of 
 their grave. Miss Darling sought and received 
 permission from the proprietor who, I think, 
 was the Marquess of Tweeddale, to open a trench
 
 LAMMERMUIR TRADITIONS 209 
 
 at the place with the view of seeing whether 
 any corroboration of the tradition could be 
 obtained. To her great delight she found, 
 among some decayed bones, a few buttons 
 and a coin or two of the reign of Charles I. 
 It was arranged that after I had taken a 
 few weeks of holiday, I should return to 
 Priestlaw, where she was to have a collection 
 of stones brought up from the river, that I 
 might discourse to her from them, while she 
 on her part promised to continue her stories 
 and legends. But when I came back to the 
 Lammermuirs, Miss Darling and one of her 
 brothers had been already laid in their graves. 
 The farm-house of Priestlaw stands not far 
 from one of the old tracks or drove-roads 
 through the hills, which, though now com- 
 paratively little used, serves as the chief 
 thoroughfare for pedestrians from East Lothian 
 into the Merse of Berwickshire. It appeared 
 that one day a tramp had halted at the door 
 of Priestlaw, from which, as was widely known, 
 no needy beggar was ever turned away empty. 
 The man looked ill, and when Miss Darling 
 saw him she would not let him trudge any 
 further on his way, but had a shake-down of 
 straw made for him in one of the outhouses. 
 She would not allow any of her servants to
 
 210 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 attend on him, lest he should have some 
 infectious complaint, but took charge of him 
 herself. It proved to be a case of scarlet- 
 fever. The man ultimately recovered, but she 
 and one of her brothers caught the infection 
 and died. With this most excellent woman, 
 I fear, much of the unwritten history of 
 Lammermuir perished. She had from girl- 
 hood collected and treasured in a tenacious 
 memory every tradition of the district. She had 
 watched every excavation, whether for drain- 
 ing or building, and had gathered every relic 
 of antiquity on which she could lay hands. 
 The past was a living reality to her, and she 
 found a keen pleasure in recounting it to any 
 one of like tastes and sympathies. Of her, 
 unhappily, it may be truly said that she is 
 among those 'which have no memorial, who 
 are perished as though they had never been, 
 and are become as though they had never 
 been born. But these were merciful men, 
 whose righteousness hath not been forgotten.' 
 Among the Scottish farmers, though the 
 general type is actively intelligent and pro- 
 gressive, examples may be found, in the re- 
 moter upland districts, of men 
 
 Who scorn a lad should teach his father skill, 
 And having once been wrong, will be so still,
 
 SHEEP-FARMERS 2 1 1 
 
 Thus a small farmer in Cunningham in 
 descanting upon the changes he had himself 
 witnessed in the agriculture and general con- 
 ditions of his own neighbourhood had ruefully 
 to make the confession ' When I was young 
 I used to think my faither hadna muckle 
 sense, but my sons look on mysel' as a born 
 eediot.' 1 
 
 A sheep farmer in the Cheviot hills had 
 been told that it was useful to have a baro- 
 meter in the house, for it would let him know 
 when the weather would be good or bad. He 
 was accordingly persuaded to procure a mer- 
 curial instrument with a large round dial, 
 which he hung up in his lobby, and duly con- 
 sulted every day without much edification. At 
 last there came a spell of rainy weather, while 
 the barometer marked 'set fair.' The rain con- 
 tinued to fall heavily, and still the hand on the 
 dial made no sign of truth. At last he took 
 the instrument from its nail, and marched with 
 it to the bottom of the garden where a burn, 
 
 1 This story is sometimes said to have been told by the Rev. 
 Dr. Guthrie. It is also reported as having had its origin in a 
 smiddy at Auchtermuchty, in Fife. The idea is probably as 
 old as the human race. The Ayrshire farmer's expression of 
 it however was a good deal more graphic than Pope's 
 We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow, 
 Our wiser sons, no doubt, will think us so.
 
 212 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 swollen with the drainage of the higher slopes, 
 was rushing along, brown and muddy. He 
 then thrust the glass into the water, exclaiming, 
 ' Will you believe your ain een noo, then ? ' 
 
 Another farmer who had also procured a 
 barometer had greater faith in its predictions. 
 The ploughing on his farm had been stopped 
 on account of the rain, but he noticed at last 
 that the glass had begun to rise, whereupon 
 he sent his daughter to get the ploughing 
 begun again. ' Ye're to gang on wi' the 
 plooin' noo, John, for faither says the glass is 
 risinV ' Deil may care, the rain's aye fa'in,' 
 was the gruff response. 
 
 The hill farmer has been the subject of a 
 good many stories not much to the credit of 
 his intelligence. One of these men, whose 
 holding was on the hills to the north of 
 Strathmore, had laid in at Perth his stock of 
 matches for the winter. On his wife opening 
 the first box she found that she could not 
 get the matches to strike upon it. The 
 husband also tried unsuccessfully. The next 
 time he had to revisit Perth he took the pile 
 of match-boxes with him, and going to the 
 shopkeeper from whom he had bought them, 
 threw them indignantly down on the counter, 
 with the ejaculation, 'They wunna licht.'
 
 A FIFE FARMER 213 
 
 4 Wunna licht,' exclaimed the shopkeeper in 
 amazement, as he opened a box. Taking out 
 a match, he drew it smartly across the side of 
 his trousers and brought it up, alight. He 
 repeated the same action with a second, and 
 a third, each of which burst into flame as before. 
 1 What do you mean,' asked the aggrieved 
 shopkeeper, 'by sayin' that thae matches wunna 
 licht?' 
 
 'Ay/ answered the farmer, 'and div you 
 think I can come doon a' the way to Perth, 
 to hae a rub o' your breeks every time I want 
 a licht?' 
 
 Hall Pringle was in my boyhood the tenant 
 of a farm near Largo in Fife, and belonged 
 to an antique type of farmer. He still wore 
 knee-breeches, and when dressed for church, 
 or for a visit to Edinburgh, used to mount 
 a blue tail-coat with brass or gilt buttons, 
 a broad-brimmed beaver-hat and a formid- 
 able walking-stick. He was tall and broad- 
 shouldered, walked with a swinging pace, and 
 when he appeared on the pavement of Princes 
 Street, he cleared a way for himself and 
 attracted universal attention. He was a great 
 friend of John Goodsir, the anatomist, for they 
 were both Largo men, and when in Edinburgh 
 he usually stayed with the professor, who in
 
 214 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 return used from time to time to pay him 
 visits at Hatton. On the occasion of one of 
 these visits, Pringle was full of indignation 
 over the post-mistress of the village, who he 
 maintained was in the habit of opening his 
 letters. He declared to Goodsir that he would 
 not rest until he got her removed from her 
 situation. The professor wagered him a new 
 coat that he would fail in his endeavour. The 
 task proved more difficult than he supposed, 
 but in the end, with the assistance of the post- 
 office officials at head quarters, he succeeded 
 in gathering such unquestionable proofs of the 
 delinquencies of the post-mistress, that she 
 was dismissed. In due time the bet, with 
 the existence of which the village was well 
 acquainted, was paid, and the new coat duly 
 arrived at Hatton. On the first Sunday there- 
 after Hall came to church wearing the gar- 
 ment, and as he passed the pew of the post- 
 mistress, he was observed to give the tails of 
 his coat a triumphant flourish. 
 
 I was once seated on the top of a stage- 
 coach in the Lothians with a Peeblesshire 
 farmer next to me, who had a sarcastic remark 
 to make upon most of the farms as we passed 
 along. I remember one place in particular 
 where the owner had built a new house, and
 
 AN AYRSHIRE MILKMAID 215 
 
 had taken infinite pains to lay out his garden, 
 which he had stocked well with fruit-trees, 
 herbaceous plants, and annuals. I had often 
 admired the taste with which the whole had 
 been planned and carried out, and turned to my 
 neighbour to ask if he had not a good word to 
 say for at least that little property. ' Ou ay,' 
 was his remark, ' its a bonny bit place. The 
 only thing it wants is soil.' 
 
 The farm-servant changes more slowly than 
 his master. When resident in Ayrshire I fre- 
 quently entered into talk with the 'hinds,' as 
 they are called, and found among them some 
 intelligent men. The young women who 
 attend to the cows are often admirable speci- 
 mens of their sex, comely, well-grown, and 
 strong, with a frankness and good humour 
 delightful to meet with. I was once walking 
 up a hilly road on the south side of the valley 
 of the Girvan water, and overtook one of these 
 girls, who was trundling a heavy wheelbarrow 
 in which lay a large cheese and other supplies 
 for the farm. She had already come a distance 
 of some miles, and was evidently a little tired 
 with her exertions. I volunteered to take 
 the wheelbarrow for a little an offer which she 
 willingly accepted, and she walked alongside, 
 giving me an account of her farm, her master,
 
 216 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 his family, the farm-servants, the cows, the dairy, 
 and so forth. I soon found that to arms un- 
 accustomed to the task it was much harder to 
 push a heavy wheelbarrow up a hill than might 
 have been supposed. The girl's bare arms 
 were muscular, and seemed fit for any amount 
 of hard work. As we drew near her farm we 
 could see the master and some of the servants 
 at work in the field below the road, which now 
 wound round the side of the hill. She named 
 each of them, and laughed aloud when she 
 saw them looking up at our little cavalcade, 
 evidently puzzled to make out who the stranger 
 could be that Jean had got hold of. ' O, look 
 at Tarn Glen,' she burst forth. ' See how 
 he's glowerin' ! ' I presumed that Tarn had a 
 special interest in her, so not to give him 
 cause for jealousy, I dropped the wheelbarrow 
 at the corner of the steading and went on 
 my way, with the good wishes of the milk- 
 maid, who assured me that if ever I passed 
 that way she would see that I got a good big 
 glass of milk. 
 
 It is interesting to hear these young women 
 calling to their cows 'proo, proo, proochiemoo,' 
 a cry which the animals understand and obey. 
 The words are said to be a corruption of 
 approchez moi, and to date from the time, three
 
 SALTED FOOD 217 
 
 hundred years ago, when French ways and 
 French servants were widely in vogue through- 
 out Scotland. 
 
 A farm-servant, in service among the hills 
 above Dingwall changed to another farm a 
 long distance off. He was found there by some 
 acquaintances, who enquired why he left his 
 former situation. 
 
 'Well, you see,' said he, 'I wass not very 
 fond of saalt.' 
 
 ' Saalt ! But what had saalt to do wi' your 
 shifting ? ' 
 
 1 Well, I'll tell you all aboot it. The maister 
 wass a very prudent man, and when a cow died 
 he wad be saaltin' the beast, and we wad be 
 eatin' her. Then by and by there wass a great 
 mortaality among the cocks and hens, and they 
 died faster than we could be eatin' them ; and 
 the master, he saalted the cocks and the hens, 
 and we wad be eatin' them too. Well, ye see, 
 it wass comin' on for Martinmas, and the 
 weather wass mortial cowld, and at last the 
 ould man, the maister's faither, he died. The 
 maister, he cam' to me the next mornin', and 
 said he, " Donald, I see we're rinnin short o' 
 saalt, so I'm thinkin' you'll need to be goin' 
 doon to Dingwall for some more." Well, you 
 see, I went down to Dingwall, whatefer, but I
 
 2i8 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 wass never going back to Auchengreean at all, 
 at all.' 1 
 
 Occasionally a farm labourer becomes a 
 dexterous poacher, and shows by the ingenuity 
 of his methods how well he would have suc- 
 ceeded had fortune opened a way for him in 
 an honest calling that would have given scope 
 for his abilities. The experienced poacher is 
 not infrequently a successful competitor in 
 games where skill as well as strength is re- 
 quired. In curling, for instance, which, even 
 more than golf, brings together men of all 
 ranks in the social scale, the Sheriff may 
 sometimes be seen playing in the same game 
 with men on whom he has had to pass sen- 
 tence. There is a story of one of these 
 associations, wherein a notorious poacher, who 
 had often been imprisoned, shouted out to 
 the Sheriff who had tried him, ' Now, Shirra, 
 drive the stane in ; gie her sax months ' ; six 
 months' imprisonment being an extreme dis- 
 play of the Sheriffs legal power with which 
 the speaker had made practical acquaintance. 
 
 A former minister of the parish of Kirk- 
 michael, in Ayrshire, was resting in his study 
 one Saturday afternoon after having finished 
 
 1 Another version of this story changes the father into the 
 grandmother !
 
 CAULD SOWENS 219 
 
 the preparation of his sermon for next day, 
 when he was startled with sounds of violent 
 quarrelling in his own house. He jumped up 
 from his easy chair, opened the door, and 
 heard the angry voice of his own ' man ' 
 shouting in the kitchen, ' Na, noo ye limmer, 
 tho' I chase ye to Jericho I'll catch ye.' 
 The minister rushed off to save life, burst 
 into the kitchen, and found there, to his great 
 surprise, nobody but the man himself who 
 worked on the glebe, and who was now 
 seated at a table taking his supper. ' John, 
 John, what's the meaning o' this? What 
 were ye swearing at ? Wha were ye fechtin' 
 wi'?' 'Me, minister,' said the astonished 
 John, 'I'm no fechtin', I'm no swearin' at 
 onybody, I'm only suppin' thae cauld sowens 
 oot o' a pewter plate wi' this thick horn- 
 spoon, and they're gey an' fickle to catch.' 
 
 Let me now turn to some recollections of 
 farm and crofter-life in the Highlands, as they 
 presented themselves to me in the year 1854 
 and thence onwards. The house which for 
 some happy weeks in that year, and at intervals 
 for forty years afterwards, became my home in 
 Skye, was Kilbride, to which I have already 
 made reference as the residence of my friend 
 the minister of Strath. Besides his ministerial
 
 220 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 duties, Mr. Mackinnon had a large farm, 
 most of which was rough pasture for sheep 
 and cattle, but with some arable land in the 
 valley bottom, where crops of oats and pota- 
 toes were grown. 
 
 Farming in the neighbourhood of a deer 
 forest entailed in those days some serious trials, 
 besides what arose from scanty soil, tempestu- 
 ous seasons, uncertain crops, and late harvests. 
 And with these trials I soon came actively to 
 sympathise at Kilbride. The farm lay at the 
 west end of the valley of Strath, immediately 
 at the foot of the range of the Red Hills. 
 These heights formed part of Lord Mac- 
 donald's deer-forest, and though the deer 
 were not numerous, the fields of oats or 
 green crops at Kilbride and the neighbour- 
 ing hamlet of Torrin offered a tempting pas- 
 turage to them, as a change from their sterile 
 granite corries above. Barbed wire, or indeed 
 wire of any kind, had not made its way to 
 these parts, as a help towards the enclosing 
 of land. The fields were only fenced in with 
 low dry-stone dykes, which offered no pro- 
 tection against inroads even from stray sheep. 
 Hence it was needful to watch all night and 
 to make noise enough to frighten away the 
 deer. I can remember sometimes awaking
 
 FARMING IN SKYE 221 
 
 before daylight, and hearing the thumping of 
 trays, blowing of horns, and shouting of the 
 watchmen. And yet with all this labour and 
 some occasional depredation and loss, when 
 the deer contrived to elude detection, one 
 seldom heard any complaints, and I never in 
 those days knew of a deer being shot or 
 injured either by the farm-servants or by the 
 crofters around. 
 
 Another source of vexation in the farming 
 operations at Kilbride arose from a very 
 different cause. Although the arable fields 
 were more or less enclosed, it had not been 
 found possible to enclose the farm as a whole, 
 much of the ground being rough hill-pasture. 
 Sheep and cattle were thus liable to stray 
 elsewhere unless watched. Through the lower 
 ground, where, the herbage being best, the 
 animals chiefly grazed, ran the only road from 
 Strathaird to the east coast. To prevent the 
 flocks from escaping along this thoroughfare 
 into other pastures, a rude fence had been 
 constructed there for some distance on either 
 side of the road, across which a gate had 
 been placed. Except the scattered crofters, 
 who gave no trouble, as they performed their 
 journey on foot and willingly closed the gate 
 when they had passed through, Kilbride had
 
 222 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 no near neighbours. On the west side, how- 
 ever, some six miles off, there lived an 
 eccentric and somewhat quarrelsome laird. 
 He received inebriates in his remote dwelling 
 with a view to their cure by distance from 
 temptation. If all tales we heard were true, 
 he was by no means a teetotaller himself. It 
 was even reported that he allowed strong 
 drink to be placed on the dinner-table, and 
 partook of it himself, but required his patients 
 to pass the bottle round without helping 
 themselves. We did not wonder that under 
 such a regime some of them, like Lucio, 
 ' had as lief have the foppery of freedom as 
 the morality of imprisonment,' and that we 
 now and then met those who had escaped, 
 and who were walking all the way to Broad- 
 ford, some nine miles off, and back again in 
 order that they might once more have a glass 
 or two of whisky. 
 
 Between the laird and the Kilbride family 
 there was no love lost. As the public road 
 passed through the heart of the minister's 
 farm, it was necessary to have a gate across 
 it at the farm boundary-wall, otherwise the 
 cattle and sheep would have escaped. But 
 this gate was a dire offence to the laird. 
 For a while, every time he drove that way,
 
 SUMMARY JUSTICE IN SKYE 223 
 
 he would lift the gate off its hinges and 
 fling it into the loch at Kilchrist. At last 
 the consequences of this conduct became too 
 serious to be tolerated, and the minister was 
 preparing to take legal steps to protect him- 
 self, when two of his giant sons quietly 
 resolved to take the law into their own 
 hands. Ascertaining when the laird would 
 pass along the road, they concealed them- 
 selves among some copse on the hillside 
 immediately above the gate, and waited for 
 their man. In due time he arrived, and 
 finding the gate closed as usual, he jumped 
 from his dogcart, wrenched it off its fasten- 
 ings, and threw it, with an angry imprecation, 
 into the lake. In an instant he was seized 
 by the two young men, and, after receiving a 
 sound horse- whipping, was sent on his journey. 
 As the result of this escapade, the assaulters 
 were summoned before the Sheriff and fined, 
 but they let it be widely known that they would 
 willingly pay the fine ten times over for the 
 pleasure of thrashing the laird once more, if 
 he ever ventured to remove the gate again. 
 He never did remove it, but he always left 
 it wide open thereafter, and some lad had to 
 be employed to see that it was duly shut 
 after he had passed,
 
 224 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 At the head of the sea-inlet of Loch Slapin 
 lies an alluvial plain, through which a broad 
 stream brings down the drainage of the 
 valley of Strath More. On this plain the 
 water has gathered into a lake a favourite 
 haunt of sea-trout, which the minister had the 
 right of dragging with the net. The days 
 set apart for this employment were red-letter 
 days at Kilbride. We sometimes hauled ashore 
 large numbers of fine fish, which in various 
 forms fresh, dried, and pickled supplied the 
 commissariat for some time thereafter. 
 
 During my earlier visits to Skye I saw 
 much of the crofters. On distant excursions 
 I used to find quarters for the night in their 
 cottages, being franked on to them by some 
 minister or other friend who knew them well. 
 In those days the political agitator had not 
 appeared on the scene, and though the 
 people had grievances, they had never taken 
 steps to agitate or to oppose themselves to 
 their landlords or the law. On the whole, 
 they seemed to me a peaceable and contented 
 population, where they had no factors or 
 trustees to raise their rents or to turn them 
 out of their holdings. In a later chapter, 
 which will contain some reminiscences of my 
 wanderings as a geologist among the Western
 
 A SKYE EVICTION 225 
 
 Isles, I shall give some particulars of my 
 intercourse with the crofters of Skye. 
 
 One of the most vivid recollections which 
 I retain of Kilbride is that of the eviction 
 or clearance of the crofts of Suishnish. The 
 corner of Strath between the two sea-inlets of 
 Loch Slapin and Loch Eishort had been for 
 ages occupied by a community that cultivated 
 the lower ground where their huts formed a 
 kind of scattered village. The land belonged 
 to the wide domain of Lord Macdonald, whose 
 affairs were in such a state that he had to 
 place himself in the hands of trustees. These 
 men had little local knowledge of the estate, 
 and though they doubtless administered it to 
 the best of their ability, their main object was 
 to make as much money as possible out of 
 the rents, so as on the one hand, to satisfy 
 the creditors, and on the other, to hasten the 
 time when the proprietor might be able to 
 resume possession. The interests of the 
 crofters formed a very secondary considera- 
 tion. With these aims, the trustees deter- 
 mined to clear out the whole population of 
 Suishnish and convert the ground into one 
 large sheep^farm, to be placed in the hands 
 of a responsible grazier, if possible, from the 
 south country.
 
 226 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 I had heard some rumours of these intentions, 
 but did not realise that they were in process 
 of being carried into effect, until one afternoon, 
 as I was returning from my ramble, a strange 
 wailing sound reached my ears at intervals on 
 the breeze from the west. On gaining the top 
 of one of the hills on the south side of the 
 valley, I could see a long and motley procession 
 winding along the road that led north from 
 Suishnish. It halted at the point of the road 
 opposite Kilbride, and there the lamentation 
 became loud and long. As I drew nearer, 
 I could see that the minister with his wife 
 and daughters had come out to meet the 
 people and bid them all farewell. It was 
 a miscellaneous gathering of at least three 
 generations of crofters. There were old men 
 and women, too feeble to walk, who were 
 placed in carts ; the younger members of the 
 community on foot were carrying their bundles 
 of clothes and household effects, while the 
 children, with looks of alarm, walked alongside. 
 There was a pause in the notes of woe as the 
 last words were exchanged with the family of 
 Kilbride. Everyone was in tears ; each wished 
 to clasp the hands that had so often befriended 
 them, and it seemed as if they could not tear 
 themselves away. When they set forth once
 
 RAASAY CLEARANCES 227 
 
 more, a cry of grief went up to heaven, the 
 long plaintive wail, like a funeral coronach, 
 was resumed, and after the last of the emi- 
 grants had disappeared behind the hill, the 
 sound seemed to re-echo through the whole 
 wide valley of Strath in one prolonged note 
 of desolation. The people were on their way 
 to be shipped to Canada. I have often 
 wandered since then over the solitary ground 
 of Suishnish. Not a soul is to be seen there 
 now, but the greener patches of field and the 
 crumbling walls mark where an active and 
 happy community once lived. 
 
 Another island that formerly possessed a con- 
 siderable crofter population is Raasay. When 
 I paid it my first visit from Kilbride, the 
 crofters had only recently been removed; many 
 of their cottages still retained their roofs, and 
 in one of these deserted homes I found on 
 a shelf a copy of the Bible wanting the boards 
 and some of the outer pages. When I revisited 
 the place a few years ago, only ruined walls 
 and stripes of brighter herbage showed where 
 the crofts had been. In diminution of popula- 
 tion, the island has changed much from what 
 it was when Johnson was charmed with the 
 society and hospitality of the Macleods. The 
 old house, indeed, in which he was entertained
 
 228 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 still stands, but so built round with ampler 
 additions as to be almost concealed behind the 
 wings and frontage of a large modern mansion. 
 The natural features of the island, however, 
 must be pretty much as he saw them. 
 The Dun Can, one of the most wonderful 
 monuments of geological denudation in the 
 Inner Hebrides, rises as a truncated cone, 
 the flat top of which forms the summit of the 
 island. This conspicuous landmark is the last 
 fragment left of the sheets of lava which 
 stretched eastwards from Skye across Raasay 
 towards the mainland. Besides its geological 
 importance, it has long had for me a senti- 
 mental interest, for at a picnic on the top my 
 old friends, John Mackinnon of Kilbride and 
 his future wife, became engaged to each other. 
 One of the characteristics of this island is 
 to be found in the holes, tunnels, and per- 
 forations which in the course of ages have 
 been made by rain-water descending through 
 the calcareous sandstone that forms the higher 
 part of the eastern cliffs. These holes open 
 on the moor above, and as they are apt to 
 be concealed by bracken and heather, they 
 form dangerous pitfalls for sheep. In former 
 days, when numerous crofts stretched along 
 the eastern slopes and there was some traffic
 
 LIFE IN RAASAY 229 
 
 across the middle of the island, even an 
 occasional crofter would be lost if benighted, 
 or during the thick fog that sometimes settles 
 on these heights. It is told that a woman, 
 on her way back from the store on the west 
 side of the island, fell into one of these 
 chasms in the dark. Bruised, but not seri- 
 ously injured, she succeeded in slowly de- 
 scending between the rough walls, and was 
 found late on the second day crawling along 
 the track below the cliff, not far from her 
 own cottage, with her clothes torn into tatters. 
 All over the west Highlands the tradition is 
 current that such subterranean tunnels have 
 been traversed by dogs, which on emerging 
 at the further end have appeared without any 
 hair, their exertions in squeezing themselves 
 through the long narrow passages having 
 rubbed them bare. 
 
 One of the hamlets on the east side of 
 Raasay, built beneath the cliff and at the top 
 of the steep declivity that descends from the 
 base of the precipice to the edge of the sea, 
 was known by a Gaelic name meaning 'Tether- 
 town,' because to prevent them rolling down 
 the slope into the sea, the small children had 
 ropes tied round their waists and were tethered 
 to pegs firmly driven into the ground.
 
 230 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 Up till towards the close of the eighteenth 
 century it was the general practice in the 
 Highlands to move the cattle and sheep in 
 the summer up to the hills, where the pasture 
 was held in common. One of the great 
 events of the year was this migration to the 
 'shielings,' where for some happy and busy 
 weeks the women and children made butter 
 and cheese, and their flocks gained strength 
 and flesh in the fresh open air and on the 
 sweet young herbage, But the rapid develop- 
 ment of sheep-rearing in large farms drove 
 the communities away from their summer 
 retreats, and began that impoverishment of the 
 Highlanders which has continued ever since. 
 Many a time, in my wanderings among the 
 mountains, have I come upon the traces of 
 these shielings patches of greener verdure, 
 with ruined walls or heaps of stones, over- 
 grown with nettles and other plants indicative 
 of human occupation, but all now solitary and 
 silent. 
 
 At the mouth of Loch Scavaig lies a small 
 flat island of red sandstone named Soay, which 
 when I first came to the district was chiefly 
 noted for possessing the fattest boy in the 
 West Highlands. The soil of this island is 
 thin and poor, the climate rather moist, and
 
 THE FAT BOY OF SO AY 231 
 
 the situation, facing the Atlantic, cuts the 
 island off from constant communication with 
 Skye. The crofters had their little bits of 
 land, and some of them possessed also frail 
 boats, with which they ferried themselves over 
 the sound to the Skye shore, and added to 
 their slender fare by a little fishing. But one 
 family owned the fat boy, and the brilliant 
 idea occurred to his parents to take him to 
 Glasgow, and earn an honest penny by ex- 
 hibiting him to the public. They left the 
 island for this purpose, with bright visions of 
 success. But they had no Barnum to take 
 charge of them, nor do they seem to have 
 fallen into the hands of any other showman 
 experienced in 
 
 All our antic sights and pageantry, 
 
 Which English idiots run in crowds to see. 
 
 Had large posters been widely placarded an- 
 nouncing that the veritable fat boy of Pick- 
 wickian fame could be seen in all his rotundity 
 for the modest charge of sixpence, enough 
 money might have been made, not only to 
 keep the family for the rest of their lives, 
 but perhaps to buy up the whole island, and 
 establish a dynasty of Kings of Soay. But 
 the young prodigy and his disappointed
 
 232 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 parents had sorrowfully to return wiser and 
 poorer to their northern home. 
 
 The first visit to Glasgow is a memorable 
 event in the lives of those West Highlanders 
 who have never seen more people together 
 than at a fair or a sacrament, or more houses 
 than make one of their little clachans. Donald's 
 astonishment at the crowded streets, the inter- 
 minable array of high houses, and the bustle 
 and swirl of city-life, has been chronicled in 
 many ludicrous anecdotes. One of these may 
 be quoted as illustrative of one aspect of com- 
 mercial dealing. Many years ago a newly- 
 arrived Highlander was being shown the 
 sights of Glasgow by a fellow-countryman 
 who had now got used to them. As they 
 crossed a street, they saw in the distance a 
 dense crowd of people, and the newcomer 
 naturally asked what it meant. He was told 
 that there was a man being hanged. He then 
 enquired what they were hanging him for, 
 and was told it was for sheep-stealing. He 
 looked aghast at this news, and at last ex- 
 claimed : ' Ochan, ochan ; hanging a man 
 for stealing sheeps ! Could he no' ha' bocht 
 them and no' peyed for them ? ' 
 
 The best opportunity of seeing the whole 
 crofter population of a district is furnished by
 
 A HIGHLAND FAIR 233 
 
 the summer fairs or markets. In Strath, this 
 important gathering is held on an open moor 
 not far from Broadford. Everybody who has 
 anything to sell or to buy makes a point of 
 attending it, from far and near, accompanied 
 by a still larger number of idlers, intent only 
 on fun and whisky. Old and young, men, 
 women, and children, horses and cattle, sheep 
 and dogs, find their way to the 'stance.' 
 Whether or not much business profitable to 
 the crofters was done, the fair to the outside 
 spectator used always to be eminently amusing 
 and picturesque. 
 
 The quantity of whisky consumed on these 
 occasions must have been enormous. There 
 was likewise a kind of epidemic of bargaining. 
 I remember the case of a woman who brought 
 a small terrier dog for sale, which she had 
 named Idir a Gaelic word, equivalent to our 
 expression ' At all.' Having sold her dog, 
 she passed on complaining, 'Cha 'n 'eil margadh 
 IDIR, IDIR' (This is no market, at all, at all), 
 sounding out the last word so loudly as to 
 reach the ears of the dog, which, when it 
 came to her, she caught up in her arms and 
 sold again in a more distant part of the fair. 
 Another occasion which brought the scat- 
 tered crofter communities of Strath together
 
 234 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 was the half-yearly celebration of the com- 
 munion in Broadford Church. Not only the 
 people of the parish, but numbers of others 
 from adjacent parishes, tramped many a long 
 mile to attend the services. 
 
 One cannot live much in the Highlands 
 without meeting with instances of that in- 
 veterate laziness already alluded to, more 
 especially on the part of the men. They have 
 a certain code of work for women, and another 
 for themselves, and that of the women is gene- 
 rally the heavier of the two. This national 
 characteristic has been often noticed. Writing 
 as far back as 1787, Mrs. Grant, of Laggan, 
 gave what is not improbably its true explana- 
 tion. After alluding to the Highlanders as 
 formerly fighters, hunters, loungers in the 
 sun, fond of music and poetry, she continues 
 thus : ' Haughtily indolent, they thought no 
 rural employment compatible with their dignity, 
 unless, indeed, the plough.' Hence they left 
 all the domestic and family concerns to their 
 women, who worked the farms, attended to 
 the cattle and other cognate labours. ' The 
 men are now civilised in comparison to what 
 they were, yet the custom of leaving the 
 weight of everything on the more helpless 
 sex still continues. The men think they pre-
 
 "WOMEN'S WORK" IN HIGHLANDS 235 
 
 serve dignity by this mode of management ; 
 the women find a degree of power or conse- 
 quence in having such an extensive department, 
 which they would not willingly exchange for 
 inglorious ease.' l 
 
 More than a hundred years have passed 
 since these words were written, yet the usages 
 Mrs. Grant described may still be seen in 
 operation. A few years ago, in boating 
 along the north shore of Loch Carron, on a 
 warm day, I passed a field where the women 
 were hard at harvesting work, while the men 
 were leaning against a wall, with tobacco- 
 pipes in their mouths and their hands in their 
 pockets. I remarked to my two boatmen that 
 these hulking fellows should be ashamed of 
 themselves, to let the women do that heavy 
 work under the hot sun, while they looked on 
 in idleness. The answer was characteristic 
 and not unexpected : ' Ye surely wadna hae 
 men doin' women's wark, wad ye, sir ? ' 
 
 This habit of allowing the women to do 
 menial drudgery, so characteristic of uncivilised 
 races, seems hard to throw off, though pro- 
 bably it is now undergoing amelioration. Burt, 
 writing in the earlier part of the eighteenth 
 century, gives an amusing instance of how 
 
 1 Letters from the Mountains, 5th edition, vol. ii., p. 124.
 
 236 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 the treatment of women in the Highlands 
 appeared to a foreigner. ' A French officer 
 coming hither to raise some recruits for the 
 Dutch service, met a Highlandman with a 
 good pair of brogues on his feet, and his wife 
 marching bare-foot after him. This indignity 
 to the sex raised the Frenchman's anger to 
 such a degree, that he leaped from his horse 
 and obliged the fellow to take off the shoes, 
 and the woman to put them on.' In com- 
 menting on this incident, the editor of the 
 fifth edition of Burt's volumes records an 
 instance in which 'a stout fellow of the very 
 lowest class in Ardgour, took his wife and 
 daughter, with wicker baskets on their backs, 
 to a dunghill, filled their baskets with manure, 
 and sent them to spread it with their hands 
 on the croft ; then, with his greatcoat on, 
 he laid himself down on the lee side of the 
 heap, to bask and chew tobacco till they 
 returned for another load. A stranger, who 
 merely looked at the outside of things, would 
 hardly believe that this man was a kind and 
 tender husband and father, as he really was. 
 The maxim that such work (which must be 
 done by some one) spoils the -men, has been so 
 long received as unquestionable by the women, 
 that it makes a part of their nature ; and a
 
 MANUFACTURES IN HIGHLANDS 237 
 
 wife would despise her husband, and expect the 
 contempt of her neighbours on her husband's 
 account, if he were so forgetful of himself, as 
 to attempt to do such a thing, unless her situa- 
 tion at the time did not admit of her doing it.' 1 
 Manufactures have never flourished in the 
 Highlands. Yet the region has many advan- 
 tages for the establishment of industries, espe- 
 cially abundant water-power and the existence 
 of numerous inlets and natural harbours to 
 and from which commodities could easily be 
 shipped. Whisky-making, indeed, has long 
 flourished, the traditions of the ' sma' still ' no 
 doubt making it natural to take service in a 
 large distillery. Mrs. Grant of Laggan main- 
 tained that ' nature never meant Donald for 
 a manufacturer ; born to cultivate or defend 
 his native soil, he droops and degenerates in 
 any mechanical calling. He feels it as losing 
 his caste ; and when he begins to be a weaver, 
 he ceases to be a Highlander. Fixing a moun- 
 taineer on a loom too much resembles yoking 
 a deer in a plough, and will not in the end 
 suit much better.' 2 The indignant imprecation 
 
 Hurt's Letters, 5th edition (1818), vol. ii., pp. 46, 47. 
 
 * Essays on the Superstitions of the Highlanders of Scotland 
 (1811), vol. ii., p. 143. Writing some thirty years earlier she 
 expressed herself to the same effect in her Letters from the 
 Mountains, vol. ii., p. 103.
 
 238 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 which Scott puts into the mouth of Rob Roy, 
 when honest Bailie Nicol Jarvie proposes to 
 make the Highlander's sons weavers, repre- 
 sents the ingrained national repugnance to 
 mechanical crafts. In recent years a few in- 
 dustries have been introduced on a small scale 
 into some of the little Highland towns, such 
 as Inverness, Oban, and Campbeltown. These 
 innovations, however, make slow progress. 
 Possibly the utilisation of the Falls of Foyers 
 by a Sassenach company of manufacturers 
 may prove to be the forerunner of other 
 similar invasions. But if the future of the 
 Highlands be left to Donald himself, the 
 lovers of the unspoilt charms of the mountains 
 may console themselves with the belief that 
 these charms will remain much as they still 
 are for many a long day to come.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HIGHLAND ferries and coaches. The charms of lona. How 
 to see Staffa. The Outer Hebrides. Stones of Callernish. 
 St. Kilda. Sound of Harris. The Cave-massacre in Eigg. 
 Skeleton from a clan fight still unburied in Jura. The hermit 
 of Jura. Peculiar charms of the Western Isles. Influence 
 of the clergy on the cheerfulness of the Highlanders. Dis- 
 appearance of Highland customs. Dispersing of clans from 
 their original districts. Dying out of Gaelic ; advantages of 
 knowing some Gaelic ; difficulties of the language. 
 
 IN continuation of the Highland reminiscences 
 contained in the last chapter, reference may 
 here be made to some further characteristics 
 of the Western Isles, and to a few of the 
 more marked changes which, during the last 
 half century, have affected the Highlands as a 
 whole. 
 
 Fifty years ago Highland ferries were much 
 more used than at the present day, when 
 railways and steamers have so greatly reduced 
 the number of stage-coaches and post-horses. 
 These little pieces of navigation across rivers,
 
 240 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 estuaries, and sea-lochs, afforded ample scope 
 for certain Celtic idiosyncrasies. The ferryman 
 could, as occasion served, contract his know- 
 ledge of English, and on one pretext or another 
 contrive to exact more than the legal or reason- 
 able fare, remaining imperturbably insensible 
 to the complaints and remonstrances of the 
 passengers. An illustrative story is told by 
 Dr. Norman Macleod in his charming Reminis- 
 cences of a Highland Parish. A Highland 
 friend of his who had been so long absent in 
 India that he had lost the accent, but not the 
 language of his native region, had reached 
 one of these ferries on his way home, and 
 asked one of the boatmen in English what 
 the charge was. The question being repeated 
 in Gaelic by the man to his elder comrade, 
 the answer came back at once in the same 
 language, ' Ask the Sassenach ten shillings.' 
 ' He says,' explained the interpreter to the 
 supposed Englishmen, ' he is sorry he cannot 
 do it under twenty shillings, and that's cheap.' 
 No reply was made to this extortion at the 
 moment, but as the boat sailed across, the 
 gentleman spoke to the men in good Gaelic. 
 Whereupon, instead of taking shame to him- 
 self for his attempted cheat, the spokesman 
 turned the tables on the traveller : ' I am
 
 HIGHLAND FERRYMEN 
 
 ashamed of you,' he said, ' I am, indeed, for 
 I see you are ashamed of your country ; och, 
 och, to pretend to me that you were an 
 Englishman ! You deserve to pay forty shil- 
 lings but the ferry, is only five ! ' 
 
 On another occasion, when a sea-loch had 
 to be crossed where strong currents swung the 
 ferry-boat round and some manoeuvring with 
 the oars was required, the chief ferryman kept 
 saying, ' Furich, Donald,' to the one assistant, 
 and ' Furich, Angus,' to the other. At the 
 other side of the loch the passenger paid the 
 fare and then said to the ferryman, 'Now, I'll 
 give you another shilling if you will tell me 
 what you mean by " Furich, furich," which I 
 have heard you say so often in the passage 
 across. It must surely have many different 
 meanings.' The coin was duly pocketed and 
 the Highlander thus deliberately explained : 
 ' Ah, it's ta English of ta Gaelic " furich" 'at 
 you wass wantin' to know. Well, I'll tell you ; 
 it's meanin' " Wait," "Stop" ; och ay, it means 
 " Howld on," " Niver do the day what you can 
 by any possibeelity put off till to-morrow." 
 
 I was once crossing in an open rowing boat 
 from Skye to Raasay, propelled by two men, 
 a younger Highlander, who sat nearest to me, 
 and an elderly man on the bench beyond. 
 
 Q
 
 242 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 The latter was dressed in a kilt, and with his 
 unkempt locks and rugged features, made a 
 singularly picturesque figure. My neighbour 
 caught my eye now and then fixed on his 
 comrade, and at last he broke silence with a 
 question : 
 
 ' You're looking at Sandy, sir, I see ? ' 
 
 'Yes, he is well worth looking at. He must 
 be an old man, though he seems to pull his 
 oar well still.' 
 
 'Ay, I'm sure, he's an auld man noo. But 
 ye wass hearin' o' Sandy afore ? ' 
 
 ' No, I don't think I have ever seen or heard 
 of him before. What about him ? ' 
 
 ' D'ye mean, sir, railly noo, that you never 
 heard tell o' Sandy o' the Braes ? ' 
 
 ' No, really, I never did. What is he famous 
 for?' 
 
 ' Ochan ! Ochan ! wass ye never kennin' 
 aboot his medal ? ' 
 
 ' Medal ! no, so he is an old soldier is he ? 
 What battle was he at ? ' 
 
 'Sodger! He's never been at ony battles, 
 for he wass never oot o' Skye and the islands.' 
 
 1 But how did he come to get a medal, then?' 
 
 ' Just to think that ye wass never hearin' o' 
 that ! Weel, ye see, there's some Society in 
 Embro I wass thinkin' they call it the "Heeland
 
 HIGHLAND STAGE-COACHMEN 243 
 
 Society," and they gied Sandy a medal, for 
 he wass never wearin' onythin' but a kilt all 
 his days.' 
 
 Besides the ferrymen, the drivers of the old 
 Highland coaches included some quaint char- 
 acters, who have disappeared with the vehicles 
 which they drove, and occasionally capsized. 
 Haifa century ago the coach that ran between 
 Lochgoilhead and St. Catherine's through the 
 pass known as ' Hell's Glen ' was driven by 
 a facetious fellow, one of whose delights was 
 to make fun at the expense of his English 
 passengers. One day when he had brought 
 the coach to the top of the pass and halted 
 the horses, he got down, remarking to an 
 English lady who sat on the box seat beside 
 him, and on whom the brunt of his sarcasms 
 had fallen, that if now this place had been 
 in England, he would doubtless have to 
 search a long time before he could find a 
 bit of old leather to stick into the drag for 
 the run down hill. Looking under a stone 
 he pulled out an old shoe, which of course 
 he had placed there on a previous journey, 
 and which he now held up as a proof of 
 the great superiority of Scotland. Some 
 weeks afterwards, a barrel arrived addressed 
 to him. As he was not accustomed to such
 
 244 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 presents, he opened it with not a little excite- 
 ment. Pulling out some straw he saw a large 
 paper parcel inside, and after removing a 
 succession of coverings, came at last upon a 
 small packet carefully sealed. He felt sure it 
 must be something of great value from the 
 pains that had been taken to protect it. So 
 he opened it with trembling hands and found 
 that it contained a pair of old shoes, with 
 the compliments of the lady whom he had 
 made his butt. 
 
 Among the Western Isles two of small size 
 have attained a distinguished celebrity Staffa 
 and lona. Three times a week in the summer 
 season, a large and miscellaneous crowd is 
 disembarked upon each of them from Mac- 
 brayne's steamboat, which, starting from Oban 
 in the morning, makes the round of Mull, and 
 returns in the evening. If any one desires 
 that the spell of these two islets should fall 
 fully upon him, let him avoid that way of 
 seeing them. They should each be visited in 
 quietude, and with ample time to enjoy them. 
 There is a ferry from the Mull shore to lona, 
 and in the Sound a. stout boat or smack may 
 usually be obtained for the voyage to Staffa. 
 
 I once spent a delightful week in lona, 
 where a comfortable inn serves as excellent
 
 IONA 245 
 
 headquarters for the stay. There was a copy 
 there of Reeve's edition of Adamnan's Life 
 of Saint Columba. Reading the volume where 
 it was written, and amidst the very localities 
 which it describes, and where the saint lived 
 and died, one gets so thoroughly into the 
 spirit of the place, the present seems to fade 
 so far away, and the past to shine out again 
 so clearly, that as one traces the faint lines 
 of the old monastic enclosure, the mill-stream 
 and the tracks which the monks must have 
 followed in their errands over the island, one 
 would hardly be surprised to meet the famous 
 white cow and even the gentle Columba him- 
 self. But, apart from its overpowering historic 
 interest, lona has the charm of most exquisite 
 beauty and variety in its topography. Its 
 western coast, rugged and irregular, has been 
 cut into bays, clefts, and headlands by the 
 full surge of the open Atlantic. Its eastern 
 side is flanked by the broad, smooth, calm 
 Sound, which, where it catches the reflection 
 of a cloudless sky, rivals the Mediterranean 
 in the depth of its blue ; while towards the 
 north, where the water shallows over acres of 
 white shell-sand, it glistens with the green of 
 an emerald. Then, as if to form a fitting 
 background to this blaze of colour, the granite
 
 246 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 of the opposite shores of Mull glows with a 
 warm pink hue as if it were ever catching 
 the reflection of a gorgeous sunset. For 
 wealth and variety of tints, I know of no spot 
 of the same size to equal this isle of the 
 saints. 
 
 If lona seems to be profaned by a crowd 
 of gaping tourists (I always crossed to the 
 west side of the island on steamboat days), 
 Staffa, on other grounds, no less requires 
 solitude and leisure. The famous cave is 
 undoubtedly the most striking, but there are 
 other caverns well worthy of examination. 
 The whole coast of the island indeed is full of 
 interest, from the point of view both of scenery 
 and of geology. It combines on a small scale 
 the general type of the cliffs of Mull and 
 Skye, with this advantage that, as the rocks 
 shelve down into deep water, they can be 
 approached quite closely. My first visit was 
 made in a smack, which I found anchored at 
 Bunessan, in Mull, and from which I got a 
 boat and a couple of men, who pulled me 
 slowly round the whole of the shore, stopping 
 at every point which interested either myself 
 or my crew. My eyes were intent on the 
 forms and structure of the cliffs ; theirs were 
 directed to the ledges where they saw any
 
 STAFFA 247 
 
 young cormorants crowded. They scrambled 
 up the slippery faces of rock, and seizing 
 the birds, which were not yet able to fly, 
 pitched them into the bottom of the boat. 
 These captures, however, were not made 
 without some loss of blood to the huntsmen, 
 for the birds, though they had not gained 
 the use of their wings, knew how to wield 
 their beaks with good effect. I was told that 
 young cormorants make excellent hare-soup, 
 and for this use the men took them. A less 
 legitimate cause of stoppage was found in the 
 desire to pull up the lobster creels, of which 
 we saw the corks floating on the surface of 
 the water. Several pots were examined, and 
 I am sorry to say that, in spite of a mild 
 protest on my part against this act of piracy 
 on the open sea, some of the best of their 
 contents were abstracted. The boatmen could 
 not understand why I should decline to share 
 in the spoil. Two or three years ago I 
 landed on Staffa with the captain and officers 
 and a few of the crew of the Admiralty survey- 
 ing vessel, ' Research.' Some forty years had 
 intervened between the two landings. I found 
 the place to be no longer in its primitive 
 state of wild nature. Ropes and railings and 
 steps had been placed for the comfort and
 
 248 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 convenience of the summer crowd a laudable 
 object, no doubt, but I prefer to remember 
 these cliffs when they showed no trace of the 
 presence of the nineteenth century tourist. 
 
 From the west side of Skye the chain of the 
 Outer Hebrides can be seen in one long line of 
 blue hills rising out of the sea at a distance 
 of some five and twenty miles. The outlines 
 of these hills had long been familiar to me 
 before I had an opportunity of actually visiting 
 them. In later years, thanks to the hospitality 
 of my friend Mr. Henry Evans, of Ascog, I 
 have made many delightful cruises among 
 them in his steam yacht 'Aster,' of 250 tons, 
 and have been enabled to sail 
 
 Round the moist marge of each cold Hebrid isle. 
 
 One of his favourite anchorages has been 
 Loch Roag, on the west side of Lewis, where 
 the typical scenery of these islands is well dis- 
 played a hummocky surface of rounded rocky 
 knolls, separated by innumerable lakelets and 
 boggy or peaty hollows, or green crofter- 
 holdings, the land projecting seawards in many 
 little promontories, and the sea sprinkled with 
 islets. On one of the cruises, we landed and 
 examined with some care the famous stones of 
 Callernish the most numerous group of stand-
 
 STANDING STONES OF CALLERNISH 249 
 
 ing stones in the British Islands. Seen from the 
 sea on a grey misty day, they look like a com- 
 pany of stoled carlines met in council. On a 
 near view, they are found to be disposed in 
 the figure of a cross and circle, the longer 
 limb of the cross being directed about ten 
 degrees east of north. The monoliths consist 
 of between 40 and 50 slabs of flaggy gneiss, 
 the largest being 17 to 18 feet in height. 
 It was interesting to observe that after the 
 purpose for which they were erected had per- 
 haps been forgotten, boggy vegetation began to 
 spread over the ground and form a layer of 
 peat, which, in the course of centuries, increased 
 to a depth of six feet or more ; the lower por- 
 tions of the upright monoliths were thus buried 
 in the peat. The late proprietor had this vege- 
 table growth removed, so as to lay bare the 
 original surface of the ground ; but the upper 
 limit of the turbary could still be traced in 
 the bleached aspect of that lower part of the 
 stones which had been covered by the peat, 
 the organic acids of the decaying vegetation 
 having removed much of the colouring material 
 of the gneiss. How long this accumulation 
 of peat took to form must be matter for 
 conjecture. 
 
 Loch Roag makes a convenient starting point
 
 250 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 for St. Kilda, to which I have several times 
 crossed in the 'Aster.' From the higher em- 
 inences around this loch the top of St. Kilda 
 may be seen in clear weather, the distance 
 being not more than about 50 miles. But it is 
 the open Atlantic which lies between, and the 
 anchorage of St. Kilda is not good, there being 
 only one available bay, from which, however, a 
 vessel had better at once depart if the wind 
 should shift into the south-east. On one of our 
 visits we were fortunate in finding the weather 
 calm and sunny, so that it was possible to pull in 
 an open boat round the base of the cliffs. And 
 such cliffs and crests ! It is as if a part of the 
 mountain group of Skye had been set down in 
 mid-ocean the same purple-black rocks as in 
 the Cuillin Hills, split into similar clefts, and 
 shooting up into the same type of buttresses, 
 recesses, obelisks, and pinnacles, and in the lofty 
 hill of Conacher, the conical forms and pale 
 tints of the Red Hills. But it is the bird life 
 which most fascinates a visitor. In the nesting 
 season, the air is alive with wings and with all 
 the varied cries of northern sea-fowl, while 
 every ledge and cornice of the precipices has 
 its feathered occupants. Each species keeps to 
 its own part of the cliff. The puffins swarm in 
 the crannies below, while higher up come the
 
 ST. KILDA 251 
 
 guillemots, razor-bills, and kittiwakes. The 
 gannets breed on the smaller islets of the 
 group. We could watch the sure-footed na- 
 tives making their way along ledges which, 
 seen from below, seemed impracticable even 
 to goats. These men, however, from early 
 boyhood 
 
 Along th' Atlantic rock, undreading, climb, 
 And of its eggs despoil the solan's nest. 
 
 In ascending one of the crags on the west 
 side of St. Kilda I was fortunate enough to 
 come, unperceived, within a few yards of some 
 fulmars, and had a good look at these most 
 characteristic birds of this island. They yield 
 a strongly odoriferous musky oil, of which the 
 natives make much use, and of which every 
 one of them smells. In passing between 
 the main island and Boreray, we sailed 
 under a vast circle of those majestic birds, 
 the gannets, wheeling and diving into the 
 sea all around us. After swallowing their 
 catch they bent their wings upward to rejoin 
 the circle, and make a fresh swoop into the 
 deep. While watching this magnificent meteor- 
 like bird-play, we were surprised by the 
 appearance of three whales, parents and son, 
 which slowly made their way underneath the 
 swarm of gannets. It seemed as if the backs
 
 252 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 of these huge animals could hardly escape 
 being transfixed by some of the crowd of de- 
 scending bills, but we could trace their leisurely 
 and unmolested course by the columns of spray 
 which they blew out into the air every time 
 they came up to breathe. 
 
 One of the most curious sea-inlets in the 
 Outer Hebrides is the passage known as the 
 Sound of Harris a tortuous channel between 
 the Long Island and North Uist, strewn with 
 islets and rocks, and giving a passage to 
 powerful tides. The navigation of this Sound 
 is extremely intricate, and needs good weather 
 and daylight. On one of my cruises to St. 
 Kilda the open sea had been rather rough, but 
 once inside the archipelago, the water became 
 rapidly smooth, showing only the swirl and 
 foam of the tidal currents that sweep to and 
 fro between the Minch and the Atlantic. At 
 the eastern end of the Sound stands the nearly 
 perfect ancient church of Rodil an interesting- 
 relic of the ecclesiastical architecture which 
 followed that of the Celtic church. 
 
 As one moves about among the Western 
 Highlands and Isles, now so peaceful, and in 
 many places so sparsely peopled, it is difficult 
 to realise the conditions of life there two or 
 three centuries ago, when the population was
 
 WEST HIGHLAND CASTLES 253 
 
 not only more numerous, but was subdivided 
 into clans, often at feud with each other. Of 
 these unhappy times many strikingly pictur- 
 esque memorials remain in the castles perched 
 on crags and knolls all along the shores. Most 
 of these buildings were obviously meant mainly 
 for defence, but some suggest that the chiefs 
 who erected them sought convenient places 
 from which to attack their neighbours, or to 
 sally forth against passing vessels. Each of 
 them, strongly constructed of local stone, and 
 of lime which must often have been brought 
 from a distance, might have seemed designed 
 to be 
 
 A forted residence 'gainst the tooth of time 
 And razure of oblivion. 
 
 But almost without exception they are now in 
 ruins. The tourist who would try to picture to 
 himself what these fortalices meant, should sail 
 through the Sound of Mull and note the suc- 
 cession of them on either side, from Duart at 
 the one end to Mingarry at the other. Dun- 
 vegan, in Skye, the ancient stronghold of the 
 Macleods, which still remains in good preserva- 
 tion and inhabited, affords an idea of the aspect 
 of the more important of these strengths in old 
 times. But many of them were little more 
 than square keeps, strong enough, however, to
 
 254 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 withstand sudden assault, and even to endure a 
 siege, as long as provisions held out. 
 
 Other memorials of ancient strife and blood- 
 shed, less conspicuous than the castles, but 
 even more impressive, may here and there be 
 found, which bring the brutal realities of 
 savagedom vividly before the eyes. Within 
 my own recollection, Professor Macpherson, 
 then proprietor of Eigg, gathered together 
 the skulls and scattered bones in the cave on 
 that island where some 200 Macdonalds, men, 
 women, and children, were smothered alive by 
 an invading band of Macleods, who kindled 
 brushwood against the cave-mouth. For nearly 
 three hundred years these ghastly relics of 
 humanity had lain unburied where the victims 
 fell, and might be kicked and crushed by the 
 careless feet of any inquisitive visitor. Even 
 now, although every care has been taken to 
 remove them, stray vestiges of the massacre 
 may perchance still be found on the rough 
 dank floor of the dark cavern. From the 
 mouldering straw and heath I picked up, 
 many years ago, the finger-bone of a child. 
 
 The tragic fate of the Macdonalds of 
 Eigg is a well-known event. But here and 
 there one comes upon relics of unchronicled 
 slaughters. The most impressive of these
 
 AN UNBURIED SKELETON 255 
 
 which I have ever met with is to be found 
 on the west side of Jura. In a cruise round 
 this island in the ' Aster ' with Mr. Evans, 
 we were accompanied by Miss Campbell of 
 Jura, who, in the course of a talk about clan- 
 battles in the Highlands, referred to the last 
 raid that had been made on Jura, where, 
 according to tradition, a party of Macleans -had 
 landed and were opposed by Campbells. She 
 added that the skeleton of one of the Macleans 
 who was slain lies on the moor still. On my 
 expressing some incredulity as to this last 
 statement, she assured me that it was true, and 
 that I might verify it with my own eyes. So 
 the yacht was turned into a little indentation 
 of the coast, at the head of which stood a 
 shepherd's cottage. We landed from the long 
 boat, and the shepherd, recognising the party, 
 came down to meet us. Miss Campbell asked 
 him where the skeleton was, and he pointed 
 to an overhanging piece of rock about a 
 hundred yards from where we were standing. 
 On reaching this spot, we found a few rough 
 stones lying at the foot of the low crag. 
 These the man, stooping down, gently re- 
 moved, and below them lay the bleached 
 bones. We took up the skull, which was 
 well formed and must have belonged to a
 
 256 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 full-grown man. A piece of bone about the 
 size of half-a-crown had, evidently by the sweep 
 of a claymore, been sliced off the top of the 
 skull, leaving a clean, smooth cut. This 
 wound, however, had not been considered 
 enough, for the head had been cleft by a 
 subsequent stroke of the weapon, and there 
 was the gash in the bone, as sharply defined 
 as on the day the deed was done. We gently 
 replaced the bones, with the stones above 
 them, and there they remain as a memorial 
 of ' battles long ago.' l 
 
 The west side of Jura is pierced by many 
 caves, which were worn by the sea at a remote 
 period when the land stood somewhat lower 
 than it does now. At the far end of one of 
 these caves a human skull is said to lie. This 
 grim relic has more than once been removed 
 
 1 There were probably many descents and slaughters in these 
 islands of which no historic record remains. It is known, 
 however, that in 1585 a party of Macdonalds from Skye was 
 forced by stress of weather to take refuge in the part of Jura 
 belonging to Maclean of Dowart. Two gentlemen of the 
 Macdonald clan, independently driven at the same time into 
 a neighbouring inlet, remained concealed from their kinsmen 
 and secretly carried off by night a number of Maclean's cattle, 
 which they took with them to sea, intending that the blame 
 should fall on their chief. The Macleans, on discovering the 
 robbery, attacked the Macdonalds who remained, and slew sixty 
 of them, the chief escaping only because he had slept that night 
 on board his galley.
 
 LEGENDS IN JURA 257 
 
 and buried, but always in some mysterious 
 manner finds its way back again. Nothing 
 appears to be known of its history, and nobody 
 likes to say much about it. If it exists at 
 all, its return to its cavern may be due to a 
 superstitious feeling on the part of the natives, 
 some one of whom secretly transfers it back 
 to what is regarded as its rightful resting-place. 
 These Jura caves are the scenes of certain 
 weird legends where a black dog, a phantom 
 hand, and a company of ghostly women per- 
 form some wonderful feats. 1 
 
 When I first visited the island in 1860, the 
 proprietor of Jura was a keen deerstalker, and 
 used to live for a day or two at a time in one 
 of these caves, when his sport took him over 
 to that side of the island. On one occasion 
 a party of ladies from an English yacht, then 
 at anchor in the inlet, had landed, and in 
 passing the mouth of the cave had noticed the 
 laird inside, whom they took to be a hermit, 
 retired from the vanities of this world. Pitying 
 his forlorn condition and the necessarily scanty 
 supply of food which he could scrape together 
 in so wild a place, they, on their return to 
 the yacht, very kindly made up a basket of 
 
 1 See J. G. Campbell's Superstitions of the Highlands and 
 Islands of Scotland (1900), pp. 112, 114, 121. 
 
 R
 
 258 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 provisions and sent it ashore for his sustenance. 
 Next morning, before the anchor was weighed, 
 a boat came alongside with a gamekeeper, who 
 had brought a haunch of venison for the owners 
 of the yacht, with the thanks and compliments 
 of Campbell, of Jura. 
 
 I cannot pass from the subject of these 
 Western Isles and the adjacent part of the 
 mainland without a reference to their inde- 
 scribable charm, and an expression of my own 
 profound indebtedness to them for many of 
 the happiest hours of my life. To appreciate 
 that charm one must live for a while amidst 
 the scenery, and learn to know its infinite di- 
 versity of aspect under the changing moods of 
 the sky. The tourist who is conveyed through 
 this scenery in the swift steamer on a grey, 
 rainy day, naturally inveighs against the cli- 
 mate, and carries away with him only a recol- 
 lection of dank fog through which the blurred 
 bases of the nearer hills could now and then 
 be seen. Nor, even if he is favoured with the 
 finest weather when, under a cloudless heaven, 
 every island may stand out sharply in the 
 clear air, and every mountain, corrie, and glen 
 on the mainland may be traced from the edge 
 of the crisp blue sea up .to the far crests and 
 peaks, can he realise on such a day how differ-
 
 CHARM OF THE WEST HIGHLANDS 259 
 
 ent these same scenes appear when the atmo- 
 spheric vapour begins to show its kaleidoscopic 
 transformations. Having sailed along a good 
 part of the coast of Europe, including Norway 
 and the Aegean Sea, I am convinced, that for 
 variety of form, the west coast of Scotland is 
 unsurpassed on the Continent, while for mani- 
 fold range and brilliance of colour it has no 
 equal. One who has passed a long enough 
 time amidst this scenery, more especially if he 
 has made his home upon the water, sailing 
 across firth and sound, threading the narrows 
 of the kyles, and passing from island to island, 
 can watch how the very forms of the hills 
 seem to vary from hour to hour as the atmo- 
 spheric conditions change. Features that were 
 unobserved in the full blaze of sunlight come 
 out one by one, pencilled into prominence by 
 the radiant glow of their colour, as the cloud- 
 shadows fall behind them. In the early morn- 
 ing, when the sun climbs above the Inverness- 
 shire and Argyleshire mountains and the mists 
 ascend in white wreaths from the valleys, there 
 is presented to the eye a vast and varied 
 panorama, comprising the highest and most 
 broken ground in the British Isles, rising 
 straight out of the Atlantic. In the evening, 
 when the sun sets behind the islands, and
 
 260 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 the hills, transfigured by the mingled magic 
 of sunlight, vapour, rain and cloud, glow 
 with such luminous hues as almost to be lost 
 in the glories of the heaven, one feels that 
 surely ' earth has not anything to show more 
 fair.' 
 
 Wandering through these scenes, one's mind 
 comes to be filled with a succession of vivid 
 pictures printed so indelibly on the memory 
 that, even after long years, 
 
 In vacant or in pensive mood, 
 They flash upon that inward eye 
 Which is the bliss of solitude. 
 
 Among these mental impressions some stand 
 out with especial prominence in my own 
 memory. Such is a sunset seen from the top 
 of the lighthouse on Cape Wrath when, above 
 the far ocean-horizon, there rose a mass of 
 cloud, piled up into the semblance of mountains 
 and valleys, with sleeping lakes and bosky 
 woods, castle-crowned crags and one fair 
 city with its streets and stately buildings, 
 its steeples and spires. The late Professor 
 Renard of Ghent, had accompanied me to that 
 far north-western headland, and we amused 
 ourselves naming the various parts of the 
 topography of this gorgeous aerial Atlantis. 
 Another memorable sunset was seen from the
 
 ORIGIN OF HIGHLAND DEMURENESS 261 
 
 Observatory on the top of Ben Nevis, when 
 the chain of the Outer Hebrides, at a distance 
 of a hundred miles, stretched like a strip of 
 sapphire against a pale golden sky. Next 
 morning a white mist spread all over the lower 
 hills like a wide sea, with the higher peaks 
 rising like islets above its level surface. 
 Through all these memories of landscape there 
 runs, as a tender undertone, the recollection of 
 the human interest of the scenes. One's mind 
 recalls the fading relics of ancient paganism, 
 the devoted labours of the Celtic saints who 
 first brought the rudiments of civilisation to 
 these shores, the coming of the vikings from 
 the northern seas, the feuds and massacres of 
 the clans. The landscapes seem to be vocal 
 with the pathos of Celtic legend and song, 
 and with the romance of later literature, 
 
 In each low wind methinks a spirit calls, 
 And more than echoes talk along the walls. 
 
 The demureness of the Scottish Highlander 
 appears to have been in large measure de- 
 veloped during last century, and especially 
 since the Disruption of the National Church 
 and the domination of the Free Kirk. At 
 the time of the Reformation and for many 
 generations afterwards, he was wont on Sunday 
 to play games throwing the stone, tossing the
 
 262 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 caber, shinty, foot-races, horse-races, together 
 with music and dance. It was formerly usual 
 for him to be able to play on some musical 
 instrument ; in older times on the harp and in 
 later days on the pipes, the fiddle, or at least 
 the Jew's harp. Writing in 1773 Mrs. Grant 
 of Laggan averred that in the Great Glen 
 ' there is a musician in every house, and a 
 poet in every hamlet.' In 1811 she could 
 still say, 'there are few houses in the High- 
 lands where there is not a violin.' l Where- 
 ever there was a good story-teller, or one 
 who could recite the old poems, songs, tales, 
 legends, and histories of former times, the 
 neighbours would gather round him in the 
 evenings and listen for hours to his narratives. 
 These customs continued in practice until the 
 early part of last century, and some of them 
 still sparingly survive among the Catholic 
 islands of the Hebrides. But the Presby- 
 terian clergy in later times have waged cease- 
 less war against them. ' The good ministers 
 and the good elders preached against them 
 and went among the people and besought 
 them to forsake their follies and to return to 
 wisdom. They made the people break and 
 
 1 Letters from the Mountains, vol. i., p. 112 ; Essays on the 
 Superstitions of the Highlanders of Scotland, vol. ii., p. 202.
 
 CLERICAL RAIDS AGAINST FIDDLES 263 
 
 burn their pipes and fiddles. If there was a 
 foolish man here and there who demurred, the 
 good ministers and the good elders themselves 
 broke and burnt their instruments, saying 
 
 Better is the small fire that warms on the little day of 
 
 peace 
 Than the big fire that burns on the great day of wrath. 
 
 The people have forsaken their follies and 
 their Sabbath-breaking, and there is no pipe 
 and no fiddle here now.' 1 
 
 The same sympathetic observer from whose 
 pages these words are taken has given the 
 following illustrative example of the clerical 
 methods : ' A famous violin-player died in 
 the island of Eigg a few years ago. He was 
 known for his old-style playing and his old- 
 world airs, which died with him. A preacher 
 denounced him, saying, " Thou art down there 
 behind the door, thou miserable man with thy 
 grey hair, playing thine old fiddle, with the 
 cold hand without, and the devil's fire within." 
 His family pressed the man to burn his fiddle 
 
 1 A. Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica, 1900, Introduction, 
 p. xxvi. Dr. Norman Macleod, who had no sympathy with 
 this bigotry, relates ' A minister in a remote island parish 
 once informed me that "on religious grounds/' he had broken 
 the only fiddle on the island. His notion of religion, I fear, 
 is not rare among his brethren in the far west and north.' 
 Reminiscences of a Highland Parish, p. 35.
 
 264 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 and never to play again. A pedlar came 
 round and offered ten shillings for the violin. 
 The instrument had been made by a pupil 
 of Stradivarius, and was famed for its tone. 
 "It was not at all the thing that was got for 
 it," said the old man, "that grieved my heart 
 so sorely, but the parting with it ! the parting 
 with it ! and that I myself gave the best cow 
 in my father's fold for it when I was young." 
 The voice of the old man faltered, and the 
 tear fell. He was never seen to smile again.' 1 
 Taught to think their ancient tales foolish 
 and their music and dancing sinful, the people 
 have gradually lost much of the gaiety which 
 with other branches of the Celtic race they 
 once possessed. 
 
 One who was familiar with the Highlands in 
 the middle of last century will be struck with 
 the further decay or disappearance of various 
 customs which even then were evidently fading 
 out of use. Of these vanished characteristics, 
 one of the most distinctive, whose loss is 
 most regrettable, was the practice, once uni- 
 versal, of singing Gaelic songs during opera- 
 tions that required a number of men or women, 
 working together, to keep time in their move- 
 ments. This picturesque usage appears to 
 
 1 A. Carmichael, op. tit., p. xxviii.
 
 HIGHLAND SONGS 265 
 
 have died out on the mainland, though it 
 still survives among the Catholic islands of 
 the Outer Hebrides. There were many such 
 songs, each having a marked rhythm, to which 
 it was easy to adjust the motions of the limbs. 
 I have already referred to the boat-songs that 
 kept the rowers in time. Besides these, 
 there were songs for reaping and other labour 
 in the field. Indoors, too, each kind of work, 
 wherein two or more persons had to move in 
 unison, had its music. Thus when two women 
 grind corn with the quern or handmill, as they 
 still do in some of the Outer Isles, they move 
 to the rhythm of a monotonous chant. When 
 they thicken (wauk) homespun cloth, they 
 keep themselves in time by singing a prac- 
 tice which may also still be heard among the 
 Catholic parts of the Hebrides. I have only 
 once seen the quern in use, but when I first 
 visited Skye, the songs still continued to be 
 sung, though not as accompaniments to con- 
 certed movement. In some of the Outer 
 Hebrides milking-songs are still in use, and 
 the cows are said to be so fond of them that 
 in places they will not give their milk without 
 them, nor occasionally without their favourite 
 airs being sung to them. 1 There are likewise 
 
 1 A. Carmichael, op. '/., vol. i., pp. 258, 276.
 
 266 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 herding-songs sung when the flocks are sent 
 out to the pasture, which, unlike most of the 
 Gaelic music, are joyous ditties appropriate to 
 what was once, over all the Highlands, one of 
 the happiest times of the year. 
 
 A notable change among the cottages and 
 houses in the Highlands during the last fifty 
 years is to be seen in the disappearance of 
 some of the old forms of illumination, con- 
 sequent on the introduction of mineral oil. 
 Candles of course remain, but in former days 
 a common source of light was obtained from 
 the trunks of pine-trees dug out of the peat 
 mosses. The wood of these trunks, being 
 highly resinous, burnt with a bright though 
 smoky flame. Split into long rods it made 
 good torches, or if broken up into laths and 
 splinters, it furnished a ready light when kin- 
 dled among the embers of a peat-fire. If a 
 bright light was wanted, the piece of wood 
 was held upright with the lighted end at the 
 bottom, when the flame rapidly spread up- 
 ward. If, on the other hand, it was desired 
 to make a less vivid light last as long as 
 possible, the position of the wood was re- 
 versed. Metal stands were made to hold 
 these pine-splinters, the simplest form con- 
 sisting merely of a slim upright rod of iron
 
 DISPERSION OF THE CLANS 267 
 
 fastened below into a block of stone, and 
 furnished with a movable arm which slid up 
 and down, and was furnished at the end 
 with a clip that would hold the wood at any 
 angle desired. In Morayshire, these stands 
 were known as 'puir men.' A few years ago, 
 Mr. James Linn, of the Geological Survey, 
 secured from the farms and cots of that dis- 
 trict an interesting collection of these objects 
 which had been thrown aside and neglected, 
 after they were superseded by cheap oil- 
 lamps. This collection has since found a 
 place in the Museum of National Antiquities 
 at Edinburgh. 
 
 Another old Highland characteristic which 
 has been constantly waning since 1745 has 
 had its rate of diminution greatly accelerated 
 since railways and steamboats were multi- 
 plied, the localisation of clansmen in their 
 own original territories. It is true that the 
 clan name may still be found predominant 
 there. In Strathspey, for instance, most 
 families in the Grantown district are Grants ; 
 Mackays prevail in the Rae country, Campbells 
 in Argyleshire, Mackinnons in Strath, and 
 Macleods in the north of Skye. But in all 
 these old clan districts there is a yearly in- 
 creasing intermixture of other Highland
 
 268 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 names, together with many from the low- 
 lands. 
 
 The application of the clan name Macintosh 
 to a waterproof, has sometimes given rise to 
 odd mistakes, real or invented, as where an 
 Englishman, who had got out at one of the 
 stations on the Callander and Oban railway, 
 is reported to have come back to the carriage 
 from which he had descended, and into which 
 four or five stalwart natives had meanwhile 
 mounted, whom he asked, ' Did you see a 
 black Macintosh here ? ' ' Na,' was the answer, 
 'we're a' red Macgregors.' 
 
 But unquestionably the most momentous of 
 all the changes which have come upon the 
 people of the Highlands is the gradual, but 
 inevitable dwindling of their native spoken 
 language. Ever since the barriers against the 
 free intercourse of Celt and Saxon were broken 
 down, Gaelic has been undergoing a slow 
 process of corruption, more especially in those 
 districts where that intercourse is most active. 
 English words, phrases, and idioms are 
 gradually supplanting their Gaelic equivalents, 
 until the spoken tongue has become in some 
 districts a mongrel compound of the two lan- 
 guages. One may still meet with natives who 
 know, or at least say that they know, no
 
 GAELIC TOPOGRAPHICAL NAMES 269 
 
 English. ' Cha 'n-eil Beurla acom, I have 
 no English,' is sometimes a convenient cover 
 for escaping from troublesome questions. But, 
 unless among the more remote parishes and 
 outer islands, the younger generation can 
 generally speak English, at least sufficiently 
 well for cursory conversation. 
 
 It is much to be regretted that the Sassenach 
 hardly ever takes the trouble to learn even a 
 smattering of Gaelic. Apart from the pleasure 
 and usefulness of obtaining a firmer hold on 
 the good will of the natives, some little know- 
 ledge of the language provides the traveller 
 with an endless source of interest in the 
 meaning and origin of the place-names of the 
 Highlands, which are eminently descriptive, 
 and often point to conditions of landscape, of 
 human occupation, of vegetation and of animal 
 life very different from those that appear 
 to-day. The old Gaels were singularly felici- 
 tous and poetical, as well as wonderfully pro- 
 fuse, in their application of topographical 
 names. In my early wanderings over Skye, 
 I used to be astonished to find that every 
 little hummock and hollow had a recognised 
 name, not to be found on any map, yet well 
 known to the inhabitants, who by means of 
 these names could indicate precisely the route
 
 2/0 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 to be followed across a trackless moorland 
 or a rough mountain range. Even if no 
 attempt may be made to speak the lan- 
 guage, enough acquaintance with it may 
 easily be acquired for the purpose of inter- 
 preting a large number of place-names. The 
 same descriptive term will be found continu- 
 ally recurring, with endless varying suffixes 
 and affixes of local significance. 
 
 To speak Gaelic, however, without making 
 slips in the pronunciation is difficult. Some 
 of the sounds are hard for Saxon tongues to 
 accomplish, and unless they are accurately 
 given, the uneducated peasant has often 
 too little imagination to divine the word 
 that is intended. Thus, a lady whom I 
 knew on the west side of Cantyre, told 
 me that when she first came to live there, 
 being a stranger to Highland manners and 
 customs, she was desirous at every turn, 
 to increase her knowledge of them. One 
 day she asked her cook, a thorough High- 
 lander, ' Kate, what is a philabeg ? ' 'A 
 what, mam ! ' 'A philabeg ; I know it's a part 
 of a man's Highland dress.' ' Och, mam, I 
 wass never hearin' of it at all.' Some time 
 afterwards, having meanwhile ascertained what 
 the word signifies, she happened to come into
 
 DIFFICULTIES OF GAELIC 271 
 
 the kitchen when a Highlander in full cos- 
 tume was standing there. ' Oh Kate, I asked 
 you not long ago to tell me what is a phila- 
 beg, and you said you had never heard of 
 it. There's a philabeg,' said she, pointing to 
 the man's kilt. ' That, mam ! of course, I 
 know that very well, I'm sure. If you'll said 
 pheelabeg, I would be knowin' at once what 
 you wass askin' about. I've knew what is 
 a pheelabeg ever since I wass born.' 
 
 It seems hardly possible for a lowlander, un- 
 less he begins early in life and has abundant 
 practice, to lose all ' taste of the English ' 
 in his Gaelic talk. Thus a pre- Disruption 
 minister with whom I was well acquainted in 
 Argyleshire, and who was not a native Celt, 
 but had learnt Gaelic in his youth, made 
 mistakes in the language up to the end of 
 his long life. One of his co-presbyters so 
 highly appreciated humour that some of the 
 stories he told of my old friend were suspected 
 to be more or less touched up by the narrator. 
 And many were the stories thus circulated 
 through the Synod of Argyle. One of them, 
 I remember, referred to a Gaelic sermon of 
 the minister's in which he meant to tell his 
 hearers that they were all peacach caillte, that 
 is, lost sinners ; but as pronounced by him
 
 272 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 the words sounded like pucach saillte, which 
 means ' salted cuddies ' or coal-fish. On 
 another occasion, being in a hurry to start 
 from a distant inn, he called the waiting- 
 maid, wishing to desire her to have the 
 saddle put to his horse. The Gaelic word 
 for a saddle is Diollaidich, and he got the 
 first half of it only, which makes a word with 
 a very different meaning, so that what he did 
 say was, 'put the devil (diabkol] on the horse.' 
 Professor Blackie, who threw himself with 
 all the ardour of his enthusiastic nature into 
 the study of Gaelic, laid the Highlands and 
 all Highlanders under a debt of gratitude 
 to him for his untiring labours on their 
 behalf. He gained an accurate grammatical 
 knowledge of the language, and a consider- 
 able acquaintance with its literature, but he 
 never properly acquired the pronunciation. 
 During a visit I once paid to him at his 
 picturesque home on the hillside near Oban, 
 we crossed over to Kerrera. After ramb- 
 ling along the western and southern shores 
 of that island, the Professor said he would 
 like to call on a farmer's wife who was 
 a friend of his. Accordingly we made our 
 way to the house, where he saluted her in 
 Gaelic. The conversation proceeded for a
 
 EXPERIENCES IN GAELIC 273 
 
 little while in that tongue, but at last the 
 good lady exclaimed, ' Oh, Professor, if you 
 would speak English I would understand you.' 
 In my early rambles over Skye, I found 
 that ' a little Gaelic is a dangerous thing.' 
 I had sufficient acquaintance with the language 
 to be able to ask my way, but had made no 
 attempt to ' drink deep ' at the Celtic spring. 
 On one occasion when passing a night in a 
 crofter's cottage, I could make out that the 
 conversation which the inmates were carrying 
 on, related to myself and my doings. In a 
 thoughtless moment I made a remark in 
 Gaelic. It had no reference to the subject 
 of their talk, but it had the effect of putting 
 an end to that talk, and of turning a battery 
 of Gaelic questions on me. In vain I pro- 
 tested that I had no Gaelic. This they good 
 humouredly refused to believe, repeating again 
 and again, ' Cha Gaelig gu leor, you have 
 Gaelic enough, but you don't like to speak it.'
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE Orkney Islands. The Shetland Islands. Faroe Islands 
 contrasted with Western Isles. ' Burning the water.' A 
 fisher of men. Salmon according to London taste. Trout 
 and fishing-poles. A wolf's den. 
 
 THE Orkney and Shetland Islands present 
 in many respects a strong contrast to the 
 Hebrides. Differing fundamentally in their 
 geological structure, and consequently also in 
 their scenery, they are inhabited by a totally 
 distinct race of people, and the topographical 
 names, instead of being Gaelic, are Norse or 
 English. The natives, descendants of the old 
 Norwegian stock that once ruled the north 
 and west of Scotland, still retain many marks 
 of their Scandinavian origin. Blue eyes and 
 fair hair are common among them. They are 
 strongly built and active, with an energy and 
 enterprise which strike with surprise one who 
 has long been familiar with the west High- 
 land indolence and procrastination. My first
 
 THE ORKNEY ISLANDS 275 
 
 descent upon the Orkneys was a brief but 
 interesting expedition, when after a ramble 
 along the north coast of Caithness, I had 
 reached, with my colleague, Mr. B. N. Peach, 
 the little inn of Huna, near John o' Groat's 
 House. For geological purposes we were 
 desirous of visiting the nearest of the Orkney 
 group, Stroma, ' the island of the stream,' a 
 name which graphically marks its position in 
 the midst of the broad tidal current of the 
 Pentland Firth that sweeps past it like a vast 
 river, and with a flow fully three times faster 
 than that of an ordinary navigable river. We 
 engaged the old ferryman, who used to run the 
 mail-boat from Caithness to Orkney, and were 
 warned by him that, as the weather looked 
 threatening and the tide in the evening would 
 be against us, he could not give us more than 
 an hour on the island, and he would not allow 
 the men to have any whisky on the voyage, 
 since they might need all their wits about them 
 before we got back. The sail across was easily 
 made. Obeying our captain's injunctions to 
 keep within the prescribed hour, we did 
 most of our work running, and succeeded in 
 ascertaining what we wanted to know. On 
 re-embarking, we soon perceived that his prog- 
 nostication as to the weather was likely to be
 
 276 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 fulfilled. The sky had become entirely over- 
 cast, and, though no rain fell, ominous meanings 
 of wind warned us not to linger. The tide 
 had turned and was beginning to flow west- 
 wards against the breeze. As it increased in 
 its rate of flow the surface of the firth began 
 to curl and boil, streaks of foam were whirled 
 round in yeasty eddies, while here and there 
 the water, as if in agony, would rear itself in 
 swirling columns that burst into spray, which 
 was swept along by the wind in clouds of 
 spindrift. Not far off we could see the 
 ' Merry men of Mey,' a tumultuous group 
 of breakers above a dangerous reef, surging 
 up into sheets of foam-crested water that 
 writhed and tossed themselves far up into 
 the misty air. Our pilot sat at the helm 
 watching every advancing billow and cleverly 
 bringing the boat round in time to meet it. 
 It was a difficult piece of navigation, skilfully 
 performed. We could then understand why 
 the men were to be prohibited from tasting 
 whisky till they got back to Huna. But 
 arrived in safety, we cheerfully ordered the 
 stipulated bottle for them. 
 
 Subsequently on crossing over into the 
 Orkney group, I had soon occasion to note 
 the difference between the boatmen there and
 
 ORKNEY BOATMEN 277 
 
 those with whom I was familiar in the west of 
 Scotland. More adventurous and skilful than 
 their Celtic fellow-countrymen, they generally 
 possess larger and stronger boats, which they 
 keep in better trim. Some of their smaller 
 boats are built with sharp sterns, and exactly 
 resemble the common type one sees in Nor- 
 way. In the eighteenth century, as Boswell 
 mentions, the people in the Inner Hebrides 
 sometimes obtained their boats from Norway. 
 The Orcadians, among other traces of their 
 Scandinavian descent, seem to take to the 
 water as naturally as the seals which they 
 shoot. On several occasions my Orkney boat- 
 men piloted me along the base of cliffs and 
 among rocks against which the heavy Atlantic 
 swell was breaking, where no Skye boatmen I 
 ever met with would have ventured. No one 
 can fully realize the grandeur of the great cliff 
 of Hoy unless he can look up at it from 
 below, as well as from the crest above. Its 
 warm tints of bright yellow and red make it 
 seem aglow with light even in dull weather, 
 and from a distance it looks as if it caught 
 sunbeams which are falling on no other part of 
 the scene. Viewed from its upper edge, this 
 cliff presents a wonderful picture of decay. The 
 horizontal beds of sandstone have been split
 
 278 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 by the weather into long deep vertical chasms, 
 and etched out into fantastic cusps and cupolas, 
 alcoves and recesses. From the edge of the 
 precipice, which rises a thousand feet above 
 the sea, one looks down on the long Atlantic 
 rollers, seemingly diminished to mere ripples, 
 and their heavy breakers to streaks of foam, 
 while the surge, though it thunders against the 
 rocks, ' cannot be heard so high.' The Old 
 Man of Hoy, which has been left standing 
 as an isolated column in front of this great 
 cliff, is the grandest natural obelisk in the 
 British Islands, for it rises to a height of 
 450 feet above the waves that beat against 
 its base. 
 
 Swept by the salt-laden blasts from the 
 ocean, Orkney and Shetland cannot boast 
 of trees. Hedges of elder grow well enough 
 when under the protection of stone walls, but 
 are shorn off obliquely when they rise above 
 them, as if a scythe or bill-hook had cut 
 them across. A group of low trees, shel- 
 tered by the houses at Strom ness, appears 
 to be the resort of all the birds within a 
 compass of many miles. There is a story 
 of an American traveller who landed at Kirk- 
 wall in the dark, and, after a stroll before 
 breakfast next morning, returned to the hotel
 
 THE SHETLAND ISLES 279 
 
 amazed at the ' completeness of the clearing ' 
 which he supposed the inhabitants had made 
 of their forests. To the geologist, the anti- 
 quary, and the lover of cliff scenery, the 
 Orkney islands offer much of great interest. 
 Though it was in the first of these capacities 
 that I was drawn to the islands, the stand- 
 ing stones, brochs, and mounds, as well as 
 the magnificent coast-precipices, were soon 
 found to have irresistible attractions. 
 
 Shetland, lying more remote from the rest 
 of Britain, has preserved, even more than 
 Orkney, traces of the Scandinavian occupa- 
 tion. One comes now and then upon an old 
 Norse word in the language of the people, 
 and so foreign are the topographical names 
 that, in hearing them pronounced, one might 
 imagine oneself to be among the fjords of 
 Norway. To this day we may hear a Shet- 
 lander, who is about to sail for the south, 
 say that he is going to Scotland, as if he 
 regarded his own islands as part of another 
 kingdom. On my first visit to Shetland I 
 spent some time on the mainland, chiefly on 
 geological errands bent, but not without a 
 glance at the scenic and antiquarian interests 
 of the islands. One of my excursions took 
 me to Papa Stour a small island lying to
 
 280 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 the west, and exposed to the full fury of the 
 Atlantic storms, which have tunnelled its 
 cliffs with caverns and gullies. Some of these 
 perforations have been continued until they 
 open upward in cauldron -like holes on the 
 surface of the moorland. During gales from 
 the west, the sea is driven into these clefts 
 with a noise like the firing of cannon, and 
 bursts out in sheets of spray from the 
 cauldrons on the moor. On this island, as 
 in so many other parts of Shetland, the 
 want of fuel is a serious evil. The inhabi- 
 tants have gradually cut away and burnt 
 much of the thin coating of turf which 
 covered the naked rock. Hence over con- 
 siderable areas there is now no soil, only 
 sheets of crumbling stone which supports no 
 vegetation and cannot be made to yield a 
 crop of any kind. 
 
 On the way back from Papa Stour to Ler- 
 wick, I availed myself of the kindly offered 
 hospitality of one of the proprietors on the 
 mainland. The lady of the house was un- 
 fortunately confined to bed, but her daughter 
 and the governess did the honours of the 
 house. This young lady was said to be de- 
 scended from one of the daughters of the 
 Shetland worthy whose likeness Scott drew
 
 IN THE SHETLAND ISLES 281 
 
 as Magnus Troil in the Pirate. At all 
 events she was a typical Shetlander, as 
 much at home on the water as on the land. 
 Mounted on a strong pony, she used to scour 
 the country far and near, picking her way 
 across bog and stream in a region where 
 roads were few. In her boat, she had made 
 acquaintance with every creek and cavern for 
 miles along the coast on either side. Some 
 time before my visit, a vessel with a cargo 
 of teak had been wrecked in the neighbour- 
 hood, and such part of the wood as could 
 be reached had been removed. But the 
 young lady, in the true spirit of the wrecker, 
 knew where every stray log was to be found, 
 in each little voe and creek into which the 
 waves had carried it. She had a huge dog 
 which accompanied her on her rambles, and, 
 as one of the family, was admitted into the 
 dining-room at meal-time. During dinner the 
 animal, instinctively divining that I was fond 
 of dogs and might be expected to be atten- 
 tive to him, placed himself at my side, with 
 his nose resting on the edge of the table 
 and his eyes directed towards my plate. 
 Interested beyond measure in the talk of my 
 young hostess, I forgot my four-footed friend 
 for a little, and, on turning to continue
 
 282 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 operations with knife and fork, found to my 
 astonishment that my plate was empty, and 
 that he was pleasantly looking at me and 
 licking his lips. 
 
 In the course of a cruise in the 'Aster' 
 round the Shetland Islands I enjoyed ample 
 opportunities of becoming acquainted with the 
 whole of the wonderful coast-scenery of this 
 archipelago. With a steam yacht it is possible 
 to keep close inshore, and to sail back and 
 forward along the more interesting parts. In 
 this way I was enabled to see the great cliffs of 
 Foula well, and to watch the movements of its 
 ' bonxies ' or Great Skuas. With the view of 
 protecting these now rare and almost exter- 
 minated birds, the proprietor of the island many 
 years ago gave strict orders to the natives not 
 to molest them nor take their eggs, and on no 
 account to let any birds'-egg collectors come 
 and help themselves. He was on the steamer 
 one day bound for Scotland, when one of the 
 passengers, entering into conversation with 
 him, began to talk of Foula, and to complain of 
 the incivility of the people of the island. The 
 laird inquired in what way they had been dis- 
 courteous to him. 'Well, you see,' said the 
 bird-man, ' I am a dealer in birds' eggs, and I 
 went to the island to obtain some eggs of the
 
 IN THE SHETLAND ISLES 283 
 
 Great Skua. The natives refused to get me 
 any, and when they saw me preparing to go 
 and hunt for them myself they gathered round 
 and threatened to pitch me over the cliff into 
 the sea.' 'And, by Jove,' exclaimed the laird, 
 ' they would have done it too. They have my 
 orders ; I am the proprietor of Foula.' 
 
 As the yacht steamed round St. Magnus 
 Bay and past the extraordinary group of fan- 
 tastic islets that rise out of its waters, we had 
 the good luck to see a white-tailed eagle 
 winging its way northward, and pursued by a 
 flock of large gulls. This bird is now almost 
 extinct along our coasts. A few pairs are still 
 left. One of these breeds near the top of a 
 cliff 500 feet high, in a group of islets which is 
 a favourite anchorage for the ' Aster.' Last 
 year (1903), besides the two old birds, a third 
 was seen. 
 
 Rounding the far headland of Unst, the most 
 northerly point of the British Islands, we ran up 
 a flag to salute the lighthouse on that lonely 
 spot. So seldom does any yacht pass there, 
 and, judging from our experience, so few vessels 
 of any kind come within saluting distance of 
 the place, that the keeper, taken aback appar- 
 ently at oui courtesy, and not wishing to delay 
 his return of it, seized a pair of white trousers
 
 284 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 that were drying on the parapet rail, and waved 
 them enthusiastically, while his comrade ran to 
 hoist the flag. 
 
 One of the greatest obstacles to yachting in 
 these northern seas during summer is the pre- 
 valence of fogs. In two cruises to the Faroe 
 Islands, the ' Aster ' had to be navigated for 
 most of the way in a dense white mist, with a 
 smooth sea below and blue sky above, but 
 when one end of the vessel was scarcely visible 
 from the other, and the foghorn had to be kept 
 constantly going. So excellently, however, 
 had the course been laid, that after soundings 
 had shown that land could not be far off, we 
 heard the barking of a dog and the firing of a 
 gun. In a few minutes the top of the Lille 
 Dimon could be seen above the fog, and we 
 entered the channel for which we had been 
 steering. 
 
 At the time of one of our trips to Faroe, 
 small-pox had been prevalent in Scotland, and 
 when we ran into the sheltered inlet of Tran- 
 gisvaag, the yellow quarantine flag was run up 
 on the wooden building ashore, and a boat 
 came off to warn us not to land until we had 
 been inspected by the medical man of the place. 
 In a little while he pulled alongside, and after 
 some preliminary conversation asked that the
 
 THE FAROE ISLES 285 
 
 whole human contents of the yacht should be 
 mustered on the deck before him. So we all 
 placed ourselves in a row, while he marched 
 along and inspected us. It was interesting to 
 notice the amused and half-contemptuous faces 
 of the crew at this performance, each man feel- 
 ing himself as strong and well as youth, sea- 
 air, and good food could make him My host 
 thought that the official should not be allowed 
 to leave without some refreshment, and called 
 on the steward to bring it. The Doctor 
 selected a glass of whisky, evidently without 
 knowing what it was, for before we could 
 make any explanation, he tossed it off as if it 
 had been so much water. But not until it 
 was well down his throat did he realise the 
 strength of the liquor. He gave a few gasps, 
 while his eyes filled with water, and he had 
 to make an effort to compose himself and go 
 on with the conversation as if nothing had 
 happened. If he had never tasted Talisker 
 whisky before, we believed he would not 
 forget his first experience of it. 
 
 So exactly do the Faroe Islands reproduce 
 the scenery of the Inner Hebrides that it is 
 difficult .at first to believe that we are not 
 somehow back again under the cliffs of Skye 
 or Mull. Green declivities descend from the
 
 286 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 interior of these islands to the edge of the 
 cliffs, which then plunge sheer down into the 
 sea. The precipices are built up of nearly 
 level sheets of brown basalt, edged with narrow 
 strips of grassy herbage, cleft into chasms, and 
 eaten out into tunnels and caves by the restless 
 surge. From the horizontal bars of the great 
 cliffs, the eye ranges upward to the brightly 
 verdant slopes above, and marks dark-brown 
 ribs of rock running parallel with these bars 
 in a series of terraces away up to the crests 
 of the ridges and hills. Only in the little bays, 
 which here and there indent the ranges of 
 formidable precipice, does one catch sight of 
 evidence of human occupation. 
 
 But, while the topography is so similar, the 
 population presents a singular contrast to that 
 of the Western Isles of Scotland. Everywhere 
 it gives proofs of energy, industry, comfort, 
 cleanliness, and civilisation. Each little com- 
 munity at the head of its cliff-girt inlet has 
 built a hamlet of neat wooden houses, which, 
 with their painted doors, trim windows, and 
 clean white curtains, show that the inhabitants 
 are well-to-do, and not without some of the 
 luxuries of life. Fishing is the main industry, 
 and all the inhabitants are more or less en- 
 gaged in it men, women, and children. The
 
 FAROES AND WESTERN ISLES 287 
 
 men go to sea and bring back the fish. The 
 women look after it as it lies drying in the 
 sun, cover it with tarpaulin if rain comes, 
 and stack it up ready for export. There is 
 usually a chief man or merchant who takes 
 general charge of the trade, and arranges for 
 the steamboats to come and carry off the 
 piles of fish. 
 
 To return from such a scene to the west 
 of Skye cannot but fill the heart with sadness 
 as one passes inlet after inlet, either with no 
 inhabitants or with only a handful of them, 
 housed in squalid, miserable, dirty huts, too 
 poor to provide themselves with good sea- 
 going boats, too timid or too lazy and unen- 
 terprising to gather the harvest of the sea, as 
 the men do in Faroe, but content to live as 
 their fathers have done, save that now they 
 have become possessed by a greed for more 
 land, which, when they get it, they will doubt- 
 less cultivate in the same unskilful and slovenly 
 fashion. In the herring fishing, which is the 
 chief industry among the Western Isles, the 
 boats come largely from the east side of Scot- 
 land, and are manned by the stalwart and 
 active seamen of the shores of the Moray 
 Firth and other parts of the coast. 
 
 The subject of fish and fishing recalls some
 
 288 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 recollections of angling experiences on the 
 mainland. In boyhood I used sometimes to 
 assist at a ' burning o' the water,' when all 
 the shepherds, poachers, and idlers of the 
 district assembled to take part in the fun and 
 excitement of spearing salmon or grilse. 
 The Gala Water on these nights presented a 
 singularly picturesque sight the lurid glare 
 and smoke of the torches, the cautious 
 movements of the men in the river, the shouts 
 of those on the bank as a successful ' leister,' 
 that had transfixed a fish, was handed over 
 to them, and the chorus of shepherds' dogs 
 that were among the most active and excited 
 of the spectators. The account of the night 
 exploits at Charlie's Hope in Guy Mannering 
 is as truthful as it is graphic. 
 
 Among the lakes of Sutherland there is 
 one not far from Beinn Griam which, an 
 enthusiastic angler assured me, consists of 
 ' three parts of fish and one water.' Another 
 sporting friend, not to be outdone, lauded the 
 extraordinary abundance of game in his native 
 island. 'There is a stream there,' he would 
 say, 'once so stocked with trout that I never 
 failed to fill a big basket. But now the 
 feathered game has become so abundant that 
 though the fish are as plentiful as ever, I can
 
 A FISHER OF MEN 289 
 
 hardly get any, for almost every time I cast 
 my line I hook a grouse in the air.' 
 
 A former well-known witty editor of an 
 Edinburgh newspaper was fond of escaping to 
 the banks of the Yarrow or the Ettrick for a 
 few days' fishing. One Monday morning he 
 was accosted by the clergyman who had been 
 preaching the day before, and who, though a 
 stranger to him, asked a number of questions 
 about his sport. The editor replied civilly to 
 the battery of queries, and at last began to 
 catechise in his turn. 
 
 ' And are you too a fisher ? ' he asked. 
 
 ' Oh no, I have no time for angling. You 
 see I am a fisher of men.' 
 
 ' And have you had much success in your 
 line ? ' 
 
 'Not nearly as much as I could wish.' 
 
 ' Ay, I can believe that. I looked into 
 your creel [the church] yesterday and there 
 were very few fish in it.' 1 
 
 There is a story told of an amateur angler 
 who with an attendant was fishing, from the 
 English side, the Carham Burn, which at one 
 part of the border separates the two kingdoms. 
 His hook had caught under the opposite bank, 
 
 1 This anecdote has been variously related ; but the version 
 given here is probably the true one. 
 
 T
 
 290 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 and he was under the impression that it had 
 been taken by a large fish which had run up 
 from the Tweed. His old companion, how- 
 ever, disabused him by drily remarking, ' Ay, 
 ye hae got a big fish, nae doot ; ye hae 
 heukit auld Scotland.' 
 
 Those who are accustomed to salmon which 
 has been carried in ice a long distance, and 
 kept for some days before being eaten, do not 
 always appreciate the newly-killed fish as it 
 is given in Scotland, with its firm, flaky con- 
 sistence and fresh curd. A Londoner, who 
 had taken a house for the summer in Forfar- 
 shire, had made the acquaintance of the lessee 
 of one of the salmon fisheries on the coast of 
 that county, and asked him one day to be 
 so good as allow him to have a fish for a 
 dinner party which he was about to give. A 
 fine fresh salmon was accordingly sent to the 
 house. A few weeks afterwards the English- 
 man came down to the coast again, and after 
 expressing his thanks for the fish, ventured to 
 remark that somehow it was harder and more 
 flaky than what he was accustomed to in 
 London. He was about to give another 
 dinner, he said, and would like another salmon. 
 The lessee, promising that he should have 
 one quite to his taste, went down to one of
 
 TROUT AND FISHING-RODS 291 
 
 his men and gave the following order : 
 ' Sandy, you'll take that fish and hang it up 
 in the sun all day. Then after breakfast to- 
 morrow you'll lay it on a stone and thump it 
 hard all over with a heavy stick, then hang 
 it up in the sun again till the afternoon, and 
 
 after that send it up to Mr. .' The 
 
 Londoner in a few days appeared to express 
 his thanks for the fish which he pronounced 
 to be exactly what he liked, and what he 
 was used to in the south. 
 
 Trouting streams in this country and in 
 Western America have distinct peculiarities. 
 Some years ago I was rambling up Glen 
 Spean, and along the heathery and rocky 
 banks of the River Treig with an American 
 friend, who had spent much of his life in sur- 
 veying the Western Territories of the United 
 States. 'What a fine stream,' he remarked, 
 ' not to have trout in it ! ' I assured him 
 there were plenty of trout in all the streams 
 of the district. ' But how can that be ? ' he 
 enquired, ' there are no poles growing along 
 the banks.' He explained that in the Far 
 West, Providence appeared to have so ar- 
 ranged that fish need not be sought for in 
 streams on the margins of which no wood 
 grew, such as would supply a fishing-rod.
 
 292 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 The mention of sport in the Highlands 
 brings to recollection another illustration of the 
 curious vitality of some stories, and the sin- 
 gular transformations which they may undergo 
 as they are passed on from mouth to mouth 
 through successive generations. An old legend 
 in the north-west Highlands tells how two 
 men set out to kill a wolf that was destroying 
 the sheep of the crofters of Kintail. One of 
 them entered the animal's den, while the other 
 stood on guard at the entrance. Soon after- 
 wards the wolf returned and made for its cave, 
 when the man at the entrance seized it by the 
 tail as it got inside, and held it fast. His 
 companion within then called out 
 
 One-eyed Gilchrist 
 Who closed the hole ? 
 
 The other answered 
 
 If the rump-tail should break 
 Thy skull shall know that. 1 
 
 Probably this tale was carried to Canada by 
 some of the Highland emigrants and became 
 naturalised and localised there, for it has come 
 back in the following guise : Two Scotsmen in 
 a mountainous part of the colony, climbed up 
 
 1 Translated from the Gaelic by A. Carmichael, Carmina 
 Gadelica, vol. ii., p. 235.
 
 A BEAR'S DEN 293 
 
 a rocky slope to the mouth of a narrow cave, 
 into which one of them crawled to discover 
 what might be inside. The other contented 
 himself by lighting his pipe and sitting down 
 outside, but had not been there above a 
 minute or two when a huge she-bear came 
 rushing up the declivity and made straight 
 for the cave. Seeing the danger to his friend 
 he had presence of mind enough to seize the 
 tail of the bear just as the animal had got 
 within the entrance, and to plant his feet 
 firmly against the rock on each side. Pre- 
 sently a voice from the inner recesses shouted 
 out, ' Donald, Donald, fat be darkenin' the 
 hole ? ' To which Donald replied, ' My faith, 
 Angus, gin the tail break ye'll fin' fat be 
 darkenin' the hole.' 1 
 
 1 In another version the predatory animal has become a 
 wild sow !
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 SCOTTISH shepherds and their dogs. A snow-storm among the 
 Southern Uplands. Scottish inns of an old type. Reminis- 
 cences of some Highland inns. Revival of roadside inns by 
 cyclists. Scottish drink. Drinking customs now obsolete. 
 
 !i 
 
 THE shepherds in the pastoral uplands of the 
 south of Scotland are a strong, active, and 
 intelligent race. I have spent many a happy 
 day among them, living in their little shiel- 
 ings, on the friendliest footing with them, their 
 families, and their dogs. The household at 
 Talla Linnfoot, in Peeblesshire, was a typical 
 sample of one of these families. Wattie Dal- 
 gleish, the shepherd there when I first went 
 into the district, was becoming an elderly man, 
 no longer able for the stiff climbs and long 
 walks that were needed to look after the whole 
 of his wide charge. His young and vigorous 
 son was able to relieve him of the more distant 
 ground, which was shared with another man, 
 not of the family, who slept in one of the
 
 PAPER-HANGING ON TWEEDSIDE 295 
 
 outhouses. Wattle's active wife and daughter 
 looked well after the domestic concerns of the 
 household. His laugh had the clear, hearty 
 ring of a frank, honest, and kindly nature. He 
 delighted to recount his experiences of field 
 and fell, and his Doric was pure and racy. 
 One evening I had come up from Tweedsmuir 
 and described to him a man whom I had seen 
 at work there, planing a shutter which he 
 had placed on tressels in the very middle of 
 the road. This worthy wore large round-eyed 
 spectacles, a tattered apron in front of him, 
 and a red-tasselled blue bonnet on his head. 
 The shepherd recognised the man from my 
 description, and at once asked, ' And did he 
 speir (enquire) the inside out o' ye?' He had 
 certainly put a good many questions. He 
 turned out to be a kind of factotum down the 
 valley of the Tweed ' barber, cook, uphol- 
 sterer, what you please ' of whom I afterwards 
 heard much. As among his avocations was 
 that of paper-hanging, he was once employed 
 by a proprietor in Broughton parish to paper a 
 bedroom. In the afternoon, when the master 
 of the house came to see how the work was 
 getting on, he found that the paper had been 
 stuck on the walls just as it came, without the 
 selvages being cut off. ' Tarn mas, Tammas,'
 
 296 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 exclaimed the laird, ' what is the meaning of 
 this ? Why have you not cut off these ugly 
 borders?' Tammas looked at the laird for a 
 moment through his great goggles, and then 
 with a toss of his head remarked, ' That 
 may be your taste, sir, but on Tweedside we 
 like it best this way,' and went on with his 
 pasting. 
 
 Wattie Dalgleish had a collie which, like 
 himself, was getting somewhat aged, and no 
 longer fit for the severer work of the hill. 
 The dog would accompany him in his short 
 rounds and return early in the afternoon to the 
 cottage. Some hours later I would come back 
 from my rambles, and as I descended the steep 
 slope opposite, and came within old 'Tweed's' 
 sight and 'hearing, he would signify his recog- 
 nition of me by a loud barking, which I could 
 always distinguish from other canine perform- 
 ances, for it showed neither surprise nor anger, 
 but had an element of kindly welcome in it. 
 As I drew nearer, the barking underwent a 
 curious change into a sort of short intermittent 
 howl of delight, and as I came up to the en- 
 closure, the dear old creature would burst into 
 a loud guffaw. He was the only dog I ever 
 knew that had what one might fairly call a 
 true honest laugh. And how his tail would 

 
 SHEPHERDS' DOGS 297 
 
 wag, as if it would surely be twisted off, while 
 he marched in front of me to announce in his 
 own way that the guest of the family had come 
 back. 
 
 There were so many dogs in the household 
 that one could study the idiosyncrasies of canine 
 nature on a basis of some breadth. It struck 
 me then that perhaps there might be more 
 truth than one had been inclined to suppose in 
 Butler's facetious remark : 
 
 As some philosophers 
 Have well observ'd, beasts that converse 
 With man, take after him. 
 
 Certainly there did appear to be in that shep- 
 herd's shieling a curious similarity of disposition 
 between the dogs and their respective masters. 
 My old friend * Tweed ' was a kind of four- 
 footed duplicate of the honest Wattie, down 
 even to the hearty laugh. On the other hand, 
 the stranger shepherd had a collie that closely 
 reproduced his own characteristics. The man 
 was sullen and taciturn, did not mingle with the 
 family, but sat apart, and retired soon to his 
 own quarters. The dog usually lay below his 
 master's chair, refused to fraternise with the 
 other dogs, receiving them with a snarl or growl 
 when they came too near, and marching off
 
 298 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 with the shepherd when he retired for the 
 night. I tried hard to be on cordial terms with 
 the man, and still harder to ingratiate myself 
 with the dog, but was equally unsuccessful in 
 both directions. 
 
 The Talla valley is narrow and deep, the 
 hills rising steeply from 1000 to 1400 feet above 
 the flat alluvial haugh at the bottom, which is 
 about 900 feet above the sea. It must be sadly 
 changed now, when it has become the site of 
 one of the great Edinburgh water-reservoirs. 
 But in the days of which I am speaking it was 
 a lonely sequestered glen, silent save for the 
 bleat of the sheep or the bark of the dogs. 
 In wet weather the wind drove up or down 
 the defile, separating the rain into long vertical 
 shafts, which chased each other like pale 
 spectres. In the narrower tributary gorge of 
 the Gameshope, these ghost-like forms are 
 even more marked, hence they are known in 
 the district as the ' White Men of Gameshope.' 
 Above Talla Linnfoot, the ground rises steeply 
 up into the heights around Loch Skene and 
 the weird hollows of the White Coomb. With 
 my early school-fellow and colleague in the 
 Geological Survey, the late Professor John 
 Young, of Glasgow University, I have wan- 
 dered into every recess and over every summit
 
 TIBBIE SHIELS 299 
 
 of that fascinating ground. On one occasion 
 we extended our ramble to the Yarrow valley, 
 with the intention of spending the night under 
 the hospitable roof of Tibbie Shiels, who was 
 then in still vigorous old age. Next morning 
 we found the ground buried under some six 
 inches of snow, which still continued to fall. 
 As a return over the trackless hills was then 
 impossible, we were shut up for several days, 
 during which we shared in various domestic 
 employments, among the rest in learning to 
 churn butter. Tibbie encouraged us in our 
 labours by various recollections of Wilson, 
 Hogg, and other personages of the Nodes 
 Ambrosianae. 
 
 When the storm ceased and the sun shone 
 out again, the whole landscape was white up to 
 the crests of the hills, save St. Mary's Loch 
 and the Loch of the Lowes, between which the 
 little hostelry stands. These waters were still 
 unfrozen, and wore a look of inky blackness by 
 contrast with the surrounding ground. One 
 unlooked-for effect of the wintry covering was 
 to reveal the surface features of the hills with a 
 clearness never before realised. These uplands 
 in their ordinary guise are so rich in colour, 
 and the distribution of the varying tints has 
 so little relation to the forms of the ground, that
 
 300 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 most of the minor details of the topography are 
 lost to the eye. But now that colour was 
 wholly eliminated, every little dimple and ridge 
 stood out marked by its delicate violet shadows 
 in the pure white snow. 
 
 One of the notabilities of this district was the 
 widow of another shepherd who occupied the 
 little cottage of Birkhill at the head of Moffat- 
 dale. She had not only lost her husband, but 
 her son had been smothered in a snow-drift not 
 many yards from her door. Yet she remained 
 cheerful and contented, with a kindly welcome 
 and a warm fireside for wayfarers who sought 
 her hospitality. Many a time have I slept in 
 the little box-bed in her ' ben,' and partaken of 
 her ' scones ' and other good cheer. One of 
 my colleagues in the Survey, who made her 
 house his station for weeks at a time, discovered 
 that grouse take some time to get accustomed 
 to the dangers of a wire-fence. Such a line of 
 division between two sheep-farms had been run 
 up the hillside near Birkhill, and the grouse 
 when flying low would strike against the wires 
 and be killed on the spot. Coming down in 
 the evening he used sometimes to bring with 
 him several brace of dead birds, decapitated or 
 otherwise mangled, but none the less a welcome 
 addition to his commissariat.
 
 THE SOUTHERN UPLANDS 301 
 
 After my marriage I had occasion to revisit 
 Birkhill, and brought my wife with me. Jenny 
 gave her a kindly greeting, and in parting 
 offered her this piece of friendly advice: ' Noo, 
 my leddy, ye'll mind never to anger him, and 
 ye'll see that he ay has a pair o' dry stockins to 
 put on when he comes hame at nicht.' Poor 
 old soul ! She had had some experience of 
 stormy scenes under her own roof, and life in 
 these uplands had taught her that wet boots 
 are the common lot of humanity and the be- 
 ginning of many ailments. 
 
 No one who has sojourned for weeks and 
 months among these pastoral hills can fail to 
 have come more or less under their spell. 
 They show none of the grandeur and rugged- 
 ness of the Highlands. The hills, on the 
 whole, have smooth, rounded outlines, save 
 here and there, where some crag of grey 
 rock protrudes from the pervading mantle 
 of green bent and purple heath. Yet the 
 topography is sufficiently varied not to be- 
 come monotonous, while the slopes in every 
 season of the year glow with colour, 
 spread over them like a delicate sheet of 
 enamel. There is beauty enough in the 
 landscape of itself to please, and even here 
 and there to fascinate. Its attractions, how-
 
 302 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 ever, are infinitely increased by the human 
 associations which cling to every part of 
 the surface, with a halo of legend, romance, 
 and poetry. 
 
 Meek loveliness is round it spread, 
 
 A softness still and holy ; 
 The grace of forest charms decayed 
 
 And pastoral melancholy. 
 
 The houses of Tibbie Shiels and Jenny of 
 Birkhill showed the simplest and most rudi- 
 mentary form of inns. They varied little from 
 the ordinary shepherds' cottages, the most 
 notable difference being that they sold excis- 
 able liquors. They were at least clean, with 
 homely comfort, and simple but wholesome 
 fare. 
 
 The want of cleanliness in the Scottish hos- 
 telries, even those of the chief towns, in the 
 previous century, is continually referred to by 
 English travellers in the country. Sydney 
 Smith, while praising Scotland and its na- 
 tives, among whom he made his home near 
 the close of the eighteenth century, confessed 
 that they ' certainly do not understand cleanli- 
 ness.' 
 
 The inns or change-houses in country dis- 
 tricts remained still in a state of grievous 
 untidiness and squalor. To many a village
 
 SCOTCH DRINK 303 
 
 and little town Scott's lines might have been 
 
 applied : 
 
 Baron o' Bucklyvie, 
 
 The muckle deevil drive ye, 
 
 And a' to pieces rive ye 
 
 For biggin' sic a town, 
 
 Where there's neither man's meat, nor 
 
 horse meat, 
 Nor a chair to sit down. 
 
 Nevertheless, already before railways had 
 spread their network across the kingdom, 
 when the country roads were more frequented 
 than now by stage-coaches, post-carriages, and 
 pedestrians, many modest and comfortable little 
 inns had come into existence, and were to 
 be met with by the roadside. These have 
 now unhappily in great measure disappeared, 
 or have sunk into mere public-houses, kept 
 open only for the sake of selling drink. My 
 impression is that proportionately much more 
 whisky is now consumed by the artizan and 
 labouring classes than in those days when 
 various kinds of light or heavy ale were in 
 demand. The ' tippeny ' of ^Burns' time, his 
 'reaming swats that drank divinely,' the ale 
 that ' richly brown, reams ower the brink in 
 glorious faem,' were still familiar forms of 
 'Scotch drink.' But nowadays the labourer 
 no longer ' sighs for cheerful ale ' ; when he
 
 304 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 enters the public-house, it is usually whisky 
 that he calls for. 
 
 In my boyhood a custom still prevailed, 
 which I think must now be obsolete that of 
 placing a 'spelding,' or dried salt haddock, 
 beside the glass of ale ordered by a caller at a 
 public-house or roadside inn. Bitter beer had 
 not yet come into vogue in Scotland. Instead 
 of it, all the liquors supplied were of native 
 brewing, from the light 'tippeny,' which was a 
 refreshing and innocent drink, up to the strong- 
 est Edinburgh ale -a. liquor which required to 
 be quaffed with great moderation. When a 
 few drops of it ran down the glass they glued 
 it so firmly to the table that some force was 
 needed to pull it off. The salt fish was, of 
 course, served that it might provoke thirst 
 enough to require more liquid. 
 
 Another recollection of these old days 
 brings back the excise-officers who used to 
 be on the watch at the English frontier to 
 examine the luggage of passengers from the 
 north. One of the surviving relics of Scottish 
 independence was to be found in the inland 
 revenue duties, which, as they differed on the 
 two sides of the border until they were equal- 
 ised in 1855, led to a good deal of smuggling. 
 Whisky was then contraband, and liable to
 
 WHISKY AND GOLF 305 
 
 extra duty when taken into England. At 
 that time, this liquor was hardly known south 
 of the Tweed, save to the Scots who imported 
 it from their native country. But now it has 
 made its way everywhere, and has almost 
 completely supplanted the gin that had pre- 
 viously filled its place. It is prescribed by 
 the medical faculty as, on the whole, a safer 
 drink than much of the wine that comes from 
 abroad. The quantity of it made every year 
 is enormously larger than it was fifty years 
 ago. Not only is it to be found everywhere 
 in this country, but on the continent, and in- 
 deed wherever English-speaking people travel. 
 If one were asked to name the two most con- 
 spicuous gifts which Scotland has made in 
 recent times to the United Kingdom, one 
 could hardly go wrong in answering Whisky 
 and Golf. 
 
 There used to be, and probably still are, 
 many quiet, unpretending, but remarkably com- 
 fortable little inns in Galloway. The inn- 
 keepers were also farmers, and probably in 
 many cases their farms formed the chief and 
 most profitable part of their avocations. Fresh 
 farm produce was supplied to their guests with 
 the amplest liberality excellent beef and mut- 
 ton, fowls, eggs, butter, milk, and such cream
 
 306 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 as one seldom met with in other parts of the 
 country. 
 
 A notable reform of the last half century in 
 the Highlands has been seen in the improve- 
 ment of the inns. I can remember the primitive 
 condition of some of them which have been 
 enlarged into what are now pompously called 
 hotels. Many years ago I had occasion to 
 spend a night or two in one of these antique 
 and uncomfortable houses in Skye. One Sun- 
 day morning I was in bed and awake, when the 
 bedroom door was quietly opened, and by 
 degrees a half-dressed female figure stealthily 
 entered. She looked at the bed to see if I 
 were still asleep, and as I kept my eyes half 
 closed, she thought herself unobserved. Step- 
 ping gently across to the dressing-table, she 
 opened my razor-case, and having possessed 
 herself of one of the razors, as quietly re- 
 treated. I lay conjecturing what use the land- 
 lady (for it was she) would make of the 
 implement. Visions of murder floated through 
 my mind, but after a time the door once more 
 opened, and my hostess, as quietly as before, 
 stalked across the room and replaced the razor 
 in the case. She seemed too calm for a mur- 
 deress, and there had been no noise in the 
 house, but the razor had evidently served some
 
 INNS IN SKYE 307 
 
 definite purpose. I got up, dressed, and came 
 down to breakfast. My host met me at the 
 foot of the staircase with a smile on his face, 
 which on the previous evening had been ' rough 
 and razorable,' but had now lost its stubbly 
 beard of a week's growth. I then saw one use 
 at least to which my razor had probably been 
 put Whether the old lady had any further 
 private manipulations of her own in which the 
 implement played a part, I never found out. 
 
 One of the defects of the old Skye inns was 
 the absence of any weights to the window- 
 sashes, and commonly also the want of any 
 means of keeping the windows open. The 
 glass was seldom cleaned, though the outside 
 surface was washed more or less clean by the 
 battering of the rain. The doors, too, could not 
 always be fastened, and the visitor who wished 
 to secure privacy might have to barricade the 
 entrance by getting some chairs and his port- 
 manteau piled up against the door. Even 
 these precautions, however, were sometimes of 
 no effect. I was once in an inn at Portree 
 where one of the guests, on awaking in the 
 morning, found another head reposing on the 
 pillow near him. His first impulse was to 
 kick out the intruder, who was sound asleep, 
 but on second thoughts he jumped out of
 
 308 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 bed and rapidly dressed. Before leaving the 
 room he recognised that the head in question 
 was that of the waiter, who had evidently 
 pushed the door open during the night and 
 got into bed. After taking a walk for an 
 hour the tourist returned to the inn, which 
 he found in great commotion. On enquiring 
 of the landlord, he was told that their waiter, 
 a most respectable and trustworthy man, 
 had disappeared ; he had left his clothes in his 
 own room, and must have gone out and 
 drowned himself in the loch, for they had 
 been searching for him everywhere, and he 
 could not be found either in the house or any- 
 where else ; if it were not the Sabbath they 
 would have the loch dragged for his body, but 
 they would do that next morning. The visitor, 
 after expressing due sympathy with the distress 
 of the household, asked whether they had 
 looked into his bedroom. ' Your bedroom ! ' 
 exclaimed the host somewhat angrily, as if he 
 thought fun were being made of him, on such 
 a solemn occasion, ' Your bedroom ! No, of 
 course we haven't. What should make us look 
 there?' 'Well,' said his guest, 'you might at 
 least try.' And there sure enough was the 
 somnolent waiter, still asleep, and happily un- 
 conscious of all the stir he had caused. It
 
 OLD HIGHLAND INNS 309 
 
 then turned out that, unknown to the family at 
 the inn, who had recently engaged him, he 
 was liable to occasional fits of sleep-walking. 
 All's well that ends well ; but the only con- 
 solation the injured visitor ever received from 
 the landlord was the remark, ' What a blessing 
 it was your room ; it might else have ruined 
 my business.' 
 
 There is a small inn on one of the north- 
 western sea-lochs, where in the year 1860 I 
 spent a night with my old chief, Sir Roderick 
 Murchison. It was in a shocking state of 
 neglect and dirt, with little more in the way of 
 provisions than oatcakes, potatoes, and whisky. 
 It boasted of only one bedroom, which had two 
 beds that did not appear to have been slept 
 in for many a day. Twenty years later I came 
 back to the same inn, hoping that the general 
 improvement would have reached that place 
 too, but I found that as nothing in the way 
 of repair had been done to it in the interval, 
 it was more dilapidated and untidy than ever. 
 I had as a travelling companion a well-known 
 man of science, who, never having been up in 
 that part of Scotland, was glad of the oppor- 
 tunity of seeing it. We occupied the same 
 double-bedded room as I had formerly known. 
 Awaking betimes in the morning, I lay for a
 
 310 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 while contemplating the ceiling and the undula- 
 tions and cracks in its plaster. There was a 
 large downward bulge, like a full-bellied sail, 
 right above my friend's head. As I was look- 
 ing at it, this piece of the plaster suddenly 
 gave way and fell in a mass upon him, with 
 a shower of dust all over the bed. Of course 
 he started up in great alarm, but fortunately he 
 had received no serious injury. It was his first 
 experience of a Highland inn of the old type. 
 
 A distinct revival of the roadside inn can 
 be traced to the wide spread of bicycle- 
 riding. Wheelmen appear to be 'drouthy 
 cronies,' who are not sorry to halt for a 
 few minutes at an inviting change -house ; 
 but many of them take up their quarters for 
 a night at such places, and this demand for 
 sleeping-room has led to the resuscitation of 
 little inns that had almost gone to decay. It 
 is to be hoped that this revival will continue 
 to spread, and that not only will the old inns 
 come to life again, but that new and better 
 houses of entertainment will be erected in 
 parts of the country where the attractions are 
 many, while the accommodation is but scant. 
 
 From inns one naturally turns to drink, 
 which forms the theme of so large a propor- 
 tion of Scottish stories. It must be admitted
 
 AN IRISH PUBLICAN IN SCOTLAND 311 
 
 that this prominence is a sad indication of the 
 extent to which for generations past alcoholic 
 liquors of all kinds have been consumed in the 
 country. I used to imagine that the ' trade,' 
 that is, the calling of publican, was in the hands 
 of Scotsmen, who were themselves entirely to 
 blame not only for the drinking, but for the 
 selling of whisky. On a visit to Antrim, how- 
 ever, I learned that others besides natives of 
 Scotland have a share in the traffic. In driving 
 out from Ballymena on an Irish car, my talka- 
 tive 'jarvie' noticed me looking at a new villa 
 that was in course of erection not far from the 
 town. 
 
 ' That'll be a foin place, sorr,' said he. 
 ' That's Mr. O'Donnel's, sorr.' 
 
 'Who is Mr. O'Donnel?' I asked. 
 
 ' Oh, he was born in Ballymena, and left it 
 when he was a boy. He went abroad and 
 made his fortune, and now he's come back and 
 he's bought the tinnant roight of the land 
 and he's puttin' up that house and them 
 greenhouses, and plantin' them trees and layin' 
 out the garden. Oh, it'll be a foin place, that it 
 will, sorr.' 
 
 ' You say he went abroad ; where did he go 
 to?' 
 
 'To Scotland, sorr.'
 
 312 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 ' To Scotland ! And how did he come to 
 make his fortune there ? ' 
 
 ' Keepin' public-houses, sorr.' 
 
 The question is often asked why so much 
 whisky should be consumed in Scotland. One 
 explanation assigns as the reason the moist, 
 chilly climate of the country, and this cause 
 may perhaps be allowed to have some con- 
 siderable share in producing the national habit. 
 No small proportion of the spirit, especially 
 in the Highlands, is drunk by men who are 
 certainly not at all drunkards, and who can 
 toss off their glass without being any the worse 
 of it, if, indeed, they are not, as they them- 
 selves maintain, a good deal the better. But 
 it must be confessed that, especially among 
 the working classes in the Lowlands, tipsiness 
 is a state of pleasure to be looked forward to 
 with avidity, to be gained as rapidly and main- 
 tained as long as possible. To many wretched 
 beings it offers a transient escape from the 
 miseries of life, and brings the only moments 
 of comparative happiness which they ever 
 enjoy. They live a double life one part in 
 the gloom and hardship of the workaday world, 
 and the other in the dreamland into which 
 whisky introduces them. The blacksmith ex- 
 pressed this view of life who, when remon-
 
 SCOTTISH DRUNKENNESS 313 
 
 strated with by his clergyman for drunkenness, 
 asked if his reverend monitor had himself ever 
 been overcome with drink, and, on receiving 
 a negative reply, remarked : ' Ah, sir, if ye 
 was ance richt drunk, ye wadna want ever to 
 be sober again.' 
 
 The desire of getting quickly intoxicated is 
 perhaps best illustrated among the miners in 
 the great coal-fields. Thus an Ayrshire collier 
 was heard discoursing to his comrades about a 
 novel way he had found out of getting more 
 rapidly drunk : ' Jist ye putt in thretty draps o' 
 lowdamer (laudanum) into your glass and ye're 
 fine an' fou' in ten minutes.' In the same 
 county a publican advertised the potent quality 
 of the liquor he sold by placing in his window 
 a paper with this announcement : ' Drunk for 
 three bawbees, and mortal for threepence.' 
 
 The quality of the whisky is often bad, since 
 much of what is sold is raw-grain spirit, 
 sometimes adulterated with water and then 
 strengthened with some cheap liquid that 
 will give it pungency. There was some truth 
 in the reply of the Highlander to the 
 minister who was warning him against excess, 
 and assuring him that whisky was a very 
 bad thing: "Deed an' it is, sir, specially 
 baad whusky.' The mere addition of water
 
 314 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 would do no harm, rather the reverse ; but it 
 would be detected at once by the experienced 
 toper. ' This is no' a godly place at all, at 
 all,' said a discontented labourer in the Perth- 
 shire Highlands. 'They dinna preach the 
 gospel here and they wahtter the whusky.' 
 
 Strangers are often astonished at the extent 
 of the draughts of undiluted whisky which 
 Highlanders can swallow, without any apparent 
 ill effects. Burt tells us that in his time, that 
 is in the third decade of the eighteenth century, 
 Highland gentlemen could take 'even three or 
 four quarts at a sitting, and that in general the 
 people that can pay the purchase, drink it with- 
 out moderation.' In the year 1860, in a walk 
 from Kinlochewe through the mountains to 
 Ullapool, I took with me as a guide an old 
 shepherd who had lived there all his life. The 
 distance, as I wished to go, amounted to thirty 
 miles, mostly of rough, trackless ground, and 
 among the refreshments for the journey a 
 bottle of whisky was included. Not being used 
 to the liquor, I hardly tasted it all day, but 
 when we reached the ferry opposite Ullapool, 
 Simon pitched the empty bottle into the loch. 
 He had practically drunk the whole of its con- 
 tents, and was as cool and collected as when we 
 started in the morning.
 
 ASSUMED RELUCTANCE TO DRINK 315 
 
 All over the Highlands 'a glass' serves as 
 ready-money payment for any small service 
 rendered, such as when a driver has brought 
 a guest to a farm or country-house from some 
 distance, when a workman has completed his 
 repairs and has some miles to walk back to his 
 home, or when a messenger has come from a 
 neighbour and waits to take back your answer. 
 A piper who has marched round behind the 
 chairs of a dinner party at a great Highland 
 laird's, blowing his pipes till it seems as if the 
 windows should be broken, ends his perform- 
 ance by halting at the side of the lady of the 
 house, to whom is brought and from whom he 
 receives a full glass of the native beverage. 
 
 It is a characteristic feature of the Scot that, 
 although usually ready for a glass of whisky, he 
 feigns an unwillingness that it should be poured 
 out for him, or at least deprecates that the glass 
 should be filled up to the top. As an illustra- 
 tion of this national habit, the story may be 
 quoted of two Highlanders who were discussing 
 the merits of a gentleman well known to them 
 both. ' Weel, Sandy, ye may say what ye like, 
 but I think he canna be a nice man, whatefer.' 
 ' But what ails ye at him, Donald ? ' ' Weel, 
 then, I'll just tell ye. I wass in his hoose last 
 week, and he wad be pourin' me out a glass o'
 
 3i6 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 whusky ; and of course I cried out "Stop, 
 stop ! " and wad ye believe it ? he stoppit ! ' 
 
 To prevent any such unwelcome arrest of 
 the liquor, and at the same time to ' save the 
 face ' of the would-be participant, he has been 
 known to arrange beforehand with the host 
 or hostess that, while he is to protest as usual 
 against the glass being poured out for him, 
 his scruples are to be peremptorily overcome 
 ' ye maun gar me tak' it ! ' 
 
 Should any untoward incident deprive a 
 man of a glass plainly intended for him, his 
 annoyance may find loud vent. Among curling 
 circles there is a current anecdote of a well- 
 known adept at the ' roaring play,' who used 
 to be distinguished by a remarkable fur cap 
 which covered not only his head, but his ears. 
 Appearing one day without this conspicuous 
 headgear, he was at once questioned by his 
 friends as to the cause of its disappearance. 
 ' Ay,' said he sadly, ' ye'll never see that cap 
 again ; it's been the cause o' a dreadfu' acci- 
 dent.' 'Accident!' exclaimed they; 'where? 
 how? have you been hurt?' ' Weel, I'll no' 
 just say I've been hurtit. But, ye see, the 
 laird o' Dumbreck, they tell me, was ahint me, 
 
 and he was offerin' me a glass of whisky 
 
 and I never heard him ! '
 
 EFFECTS OF WHISKY 317 
 
 Many stories have been told of the efforts of 
 mistresses of households to avoid the bestowal 
 of strong drink on those employed by them. 
 One of these ladies had supplied a workman 
 with a liberal dinner, but without any whisky 
 or alcoholic liquor. Coming back she found 
 that he had proved a much less efficient trencher- 
 man than she supposed he would be, and she 
 rallied him on his bad appetite. His reply was : 
 ' Weel, mem, I canna eat mair, but it wad 
 dae your heart guid to see me drink.' 
 
 A whole volume might be filled with the 
 published anecdotes recording in more or less 
 ludicrous form the effects of whisky. I will 
 only give one or two, which I have never seen 
 in print. A man who was wending his way 
 homeward very unsteadily from a lengthened 
 carouse was heard to address the whisky inside 
 of him, ' I could ha' carryit ye easier in a jar.' 
 The quantity of liquor he had consumed may 
 be imagined from the size of the vessel he 
 required to contain it. 
 
 Sir Charles Lyell used to tell with great 
 glee a story from his own county of Forfar, 
 belonging to the days of deep potations, when 
 it was the belief that ' drinking largely sobers 
 us again.' A party had met at a country- 
 house, and continued their debauch so long
 
 3i 8 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 that the laird. Powrie by name, had fallen 
 below the table, while most of the other guests 
 had gone to sleep. Two or three of them, 
 however, who had managed to evade the 
 deepest potations, resolved to play off a trick 
 on the laird. One accordingly climbed up to 
 the roof of the old mansion and, at the risk of 
 his neck, reached the chimney of the dining- 
 room, down which he roared in his loudest 
 voice, ' Powrie, Powrie, it's the Day o' Judg- 
 ment ' ; whereupon the laird was heard, by 
 those outside the door, to raise himself on his 
 elbow and hiccup out, ' Eh, Lord forgie me, 
 and me fou'.' 
 
 A drunken fellow was found lying at the 
 side of the road by a policeman, who asked 
 him for his name. The answer was, ' " My 
 
 name is Norval, on the Grampian Hills," 
 
 but Hicks is on the door.' 
 
 With the heavy drinking of those days 
 various connected customs have nearly or 
 wholly disappeared. One still meets with old- 
 fashioned gentlemen, especially at public din- 
 ners, who 'take wine with you.' But the 
 rounds of toasts and sentiments, that must 
 have been such an insufferable burden to our 
 grandfathers and grandmothers, have happily 
 vanished. One of the oddest survivals of these
 
 AN OLD SCOTTISH TOAST 319 
 
 toasts was one I heard proposed by the old 
 landlady of a little inn not far from the scene 
 of the Battle of Drumclog. Belonging to the 
 type of landlord 
 
 Who takes his chirping pint and cracks his jokes, 
 
 she welcomed her chance guests into her roomy 
 and clean kitchen, with its bright coal-fire 
 flanked on either side by an empty arm-chair. 
 Having to spend a night in her house, I was 
 invited to one of these chairs, while she took 
 that on the opposite side of the hearth, and 
 her family attended to the household work. 
 Honoured thus far, I knew my duty would be 
 to call for something ' for the good of the 
 house,' and soon found that my worthy hos- 
 tess was not unwilling to partake of my ' brew.' 
 Accordingly I made her a glass of toddy of 
 the strength and sweetness she preferred, 
 which she accepted, with the following pre- 
 face : ' Here's to a' your fouk an' a' oor fouk, 
 an' a' the fouk that's been kind to your fouk 
 an' oor fouk ; an' if a' fouk had aye been as 
 kind to fouk as your fouk's been to oor fouk, 
 there wad aye hae been guid fouk i' the warld, 
 sin' fouk's been fouk.' 
 
 The change of dinner customs, however, 
 has led to whimsical incidents of another kind
 
 320 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 from those of the old days of hard drinking. 
 A story is told in Forfarshire of an inex- 
 perienced lad who was improvised to do 
 duty at a dinner party, and was instructed 
 by the lady of the house as to what he was 
 to do with the different wines, particularly as 
 to the claret, of which one kind was to be 
 served with the dinner, and the other, of better 
 quality, with the dessert. When the dessert 
 came, she was dismayed to hear him begin 
 at the far end of the table and ask each 
 guest in a loud voice : ' Port, sherry, or 
 inferior claaret.'
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 SCOTTISH humour in relation to death and the grave. Re- 
 surrectionists. Tombstone inscriptions. ' Naturals ' in 
 Scotland. Confused thoughts of second childhood. Belief 
 in witchcraft. Miners and their superstitions. Colliers and 
 Salters in Scotland were slaves until the end of the eigh- 
 teenth century. Metal-mining in Scotland. 
 
 A NOTABLE feature in Scottish humour is the 
 frequency with which it deals with death and 
 the grave. The allusions are sometimes un- 
 intentionally ludicrous, not infrequently grim 
 and ghastly. The subject seems to have a 
 kind of fascination which has affected people 
 in every walk of life, more especially the lower 
 ranks. But like most of the national charac- 
 teristics, this too appears to be on the wane, 
 and one has to go back for a generation or 
 two to find the most pregnant illustrations of 
 it. Dr. Sloan of Ayr, about forty years ago, 
 told me that a friend of his had gone not long 
 before to see the parish minister of Craigie,
 
 322 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 near Kilmarnock, and finding him for the 
 moment engaged, had turned into the church- 
 yard, where he sauntered past the sexton, who 
 was at work in digging a grave. As the 
 clergyman was detained some time, the visitor 
 walked to and fro along the path, and at length 
 noticed that the sexton's eyes were pretty con- 
 stantly fixed on him, to the detriment of the 
 excavation on which the man should have 
 been engaged. At last he stopped, and 
 addressing the gravedigger asked, 'What 
 the deil are you staring at me for ? You 
 needna tak' the measure o' me, if that's what 
 ye're ettlin' at, for we bury at Riccarton.' 
 
 Mr. Thomas Stevenson, father of the nove- 
 list, told me that when the gravedigger of 
 Monkton was dying his minister came to see 
 him, and after speaking comfortable words to 
 him for a while, asked if there was anything 
 on his mind that he would like to speak out. 
 The man looked up wistfully and answered, 
 ' Weel, minister, I've put 285 corps in that 
 kirkyard, and I wuss it had been the Lord's 
 wull to let me mak up the 300.' 1 
 
 When Chang, the Chinese giant, was ex- 
 hibited in Glasgow, an elderly country couple 
 
 1 This story is told with variations in the name of the 
 parish and number of interments.
 
 THE RESURRECTIONISTS 323 
 
 went to see him. After gazing long at him, 
 they retired without making any observation. 
 At last, as they were going downstairs, the 
 wife first broke silence with the remark : ' Eh, 
 Duncan, whatna coffin he wull tak.' 
 
 All over Scotland, and more especially in 
 the lowlands, memorials remain of the time 
 when graves were opened and coffins were 
 rifled of their dead, to supply the needs of the 
 dissecting rooms of the medical schools. In 
 the middle of the eighteenth century, Shen- 
 stone, in protesting against this sacrilege, 
 contended that the bodies of convicted male- 
 factors should suffice for the needs of the 
 medical profession 
 
 If Paean's sons these horrid rites require, 
 If Health's fair science be by these refined, 
 
 Let guilty convicts, for their use, expire ; 
 And let their breathless corse avail mankind. 
 
 But though the bodies of executed murderers 
 had for two centuries been handed over to 
 surgeons for dissection, the supply of evil- 
 doers must have been still too scanty, even 
 at a time when theft and robbery were capi- 
 tally punished. The growing success of the 
 medical schools in Scotland increased the de- 
 mand for human bodies to such a degree as 
 to offer strong temptation to the enterprise of
 
 324 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 bold and reckless men. So frequent did viola- 
 tions of the tomb become as to lead to extra- 
 ordinary precautions to prevent them. The 
 graves were protected with heavy iron gratings 
 securely riveted above them, many of which 
 may still be seen in the churchyards of Fife 
 and the Lothians. Watch-houses were like- 
 wise erected in the burial-grounds to serve as 
 shelters for the men who in turn every night 
 took their stations there, with guns loaded, on 
 the outlook for any midnight marauders. In a 
 commanding position in the graveyard around 
 the parish church of Crail, one of these 
 houses may still be seen, bearing the sugges- 
 tive record 
 
 ERECTED for securing the DEAD 
 Ann. Dom. MDCCCXXVI. 
 
 The trade of the ' resurrection-men ' was 
 finally destroyed by an Act of Parliament 
 passed in the year 1832, in consequence of the 
 murders committed by Burke and Hare in 
 Edinburgh, and Bishop and Williams in Lon- 
 don. This measure, by permitting the unclaimed 
 bodies of paupers, dying in poor-houses, to be 
 taken for dissection to the medical schools, pro- 
 vided a supply of subjects which, if not abun- 
 dant, at least prevented any further violations 
 of the grave.
 
 TOMBSTONE INSCRIPTIONS 325 
 
 Of the monumental inscriptions in Scottish 
 graveyards various collections have been pub- 
 lished, and to these many more might be 
 added. They have seldom any literary excel- 
 lence, and their chief interest arises from their 
 oddities of spelling and grammar, and their 
 conceptions of a future state. As an illustra- 
 tive example of them, I may cite one from the 
 kirkyard of Sweetheart Abbey, in the Stewartry 
 of Kirkcudbright. 
 
 Here lyes The body of Alex 
 
 ander Houston son of Matthe w 
 
 Houston and Jean Milligan in 
 
 Parish of New Abbay born 
 
 August y e i2 th 1731 died July y e 15 th 1763 
 
 Non est mortale quid opto 
 
 Farew e ll my obedient Son 
 
 of Neighbours well belov'd 
 and an Exempler Christian 
 
 near thirty two remov'd 
 Farewell a while my parents bot h 
 
 Brothers and Sisters all 
 I'll at the Resurrection day 
 
 obey the Trumpets call. 
 
 The insertion of a few words of bad Latin 
 (probably unintelligible to the grieving family), 
 the farewell to the departed, his farewell in 
 response, and the sacrifice of grammar to the 
 exigencies of verse, are characteristic features
 
 326 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 on the gravestones earlier than the beginning 
 of the last century. Some of these peculiarities 
 are further illustrated by a more ambitious 
 piece of versification which I copied from a 
 tombstone in the churchyard of Berwick-on- 
 Tweed. Though not strictly within the bounds 
 of Scotland, the stone lies at least on the north 
 side of the Tweed, and in its defiance of gram- 
 matical niceties is not unworthy of the pen of a 
 northern elegist. 
 
 1. The peaceful mansions of the dead 
 Are scattered far and near 
 
 But by the stones o'er this yard spread 
 Seem numerously here 
 
 2. A relative far from his home 
 Mindful of men so just 
 
 Reveres this spot inscribes this tomb 
 And in his God doth trust 
 
 3. That he shall pass a righteous life 
 Leve long for sake of seven 
 Return in safety to his wife 
 
 And meet them both in heaven 
 
 4. God bless the souls departed hence 
 This church without a steeple 
 
 The king the clergy and the good sense 
 Of all the Berwick people 
 
 In connexion with tombstones, I may refer 
 to the frequently rapid decay of the materials
 
 RAPID DECAY OF TOMBSTONES 327 
 
 of which they are made, in such a climate 
 as that of Scotland. Nearly five-and-twenty 
 years ago I investigated this subject among 
 the old graveyards of Edinburgh and other 
 parts of the country, and found that while 
 some varieties of hard siliceous sandstone 
 retain their inscriptions quite sharp at the end 
 of two centuries, as in the case of Alexander 
 Henderson's tombstone in Greyfriars Church- 
 yard, no marble monument, freely exposed to 
 the elements in a town, will survive in a 
 legible condition for a single century. As an 
 example of this disintegration I cited the 
 handsome monument erected, in that same 
 churchyard, to the memory of the illustrious 
 Joseph Black, who died in 1799. It consisted 
 of a large slab of white marble, let into a 
 massive framework of sandstone. Less than 
 eighty years had sufficed to render the in- 
 scription partly illegible, and the stone, bulging 
 out in the centre and rent by numerous 
 cracks, was evidently doomed to early destruc- 
 tion. Three years ago I returned to see the 
 condition of the tomb, and then found that 
 the marble had disappeared entirely, its place 
 being now taken by a sandstone slab, on 
 which the authorities had with pious care 
 copied the original inscription. Here the
 
 328 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 marble, though partially protected by the over- 
 hanging masonry of the monument and by a 
 high wall that screened it in some measure 
 from the western ruins, had fallen into irrepar- 
 able ruin in less than a hundred years. 
 
 A curious attitude of mind towards one 
 who has died, but is still unburied, is shown 
 by the use of the word ' corp,' which is 
 popularly supposed to be the singular of 
 'corpse.' This usage may be illustrated by 
 an incident told me by the late Henry 
 Drummond as having occurred in his own 
 experience. While attending the funeral of a 
 man with whom he had had no acquaintance, 
 he enquired of one of the company what em- 
 ployment the deceased had followed. The 
 person questioned did not know, but at once 
 asked his next neighbour, ' I'm sayin', Tarn, 
 what was the corp to trade ? ' 
 
 An old couple were exceedingly annoyed 
 that they had not been invited to the funeral 
 of one of their friends. At last the good 
 wife consoled her husband thus: 'Aweel, 
 never you mind, Tammas, maybe we'll be 
 haein' a corp o' our ain before lang, and 
 we'll no ask them.' 
 
 A gentleman came to a railway station 
 where he found a mourning party. Wishing
 
 FUNERALS 329 
 
 to be sympathetic, he enquired of one of the 
 company whether it was a funeral, and re- 
 ceived the reply : ' We canna exactly ca' it 
 a funeral, for the corp has missed the railway 
 connection.' 
 
 At a funeral in Glasgow, a stranger who 
 had taken his seat in one of the mourning 
 coaches excited the curiosity of the other three 
 occupants, one of whom at last addressed him, 
 ' Ye'll be a brither o' the corp ? ' ' No, I'm 
 no a brither o' the corp,' was the prompt 
 reply. ' Weel, then, ye'll be his cousin ? ' 
 'No, I'm no that.' 'No! then ye'll be at 
 least a frien' o' the corp?' 'No that either. 
 To tell the truth, I've no been that weel my- 
 sel', and as my doctor has ordered me some 
 carriage exercise, I thocht this wad be the 
 cheapest way to tak' it.' 
 
 It has often been remarked how great an 
 attraction funerals have for some half-witted 
 people. There used to be one of these poor 
 creatures in an Ayrshire village, who, when 
 any one was seriously ill, would from time to 
 time knock at the door and enquire, ' Is she 
 ony waur (worse) ? ' his hopes rising at any 
 relapse, and the consequent prospect of another 
 interment. 
 
 A great change for the better has come
 
 330 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 over the usages connected with burials in 
 Scotland. In old days, as already mentioned, 
 the ' lyke- wakes ' were often scenes of shock- 
 ing licence and debauchery. By degrees these 
 painful exhibitions have become less and less 
 objectionable until now, except that there is 
 still sometimes too liberal a dispensing of 
 whisky, there is little that can be found fault 
 with. In country places, where the mourners 
 have often to come from long distances to 
 attend a funeral, refreshments of some kind 
 are perhaps necessary, but it is unfortunate 
 that the average Scot would think such 
 refreshments decidedly ' wairsh ' (tasteless) if 
 they did not include an adequate provision of 
 the national drink. Accordingly, it is still too 
 common to think first of seeing that whisky 
 enough has been obtained, even where the 
 claims of pedestrians from a distance have not 
 to be considered. Thus one of the family of 
 an old dying woman was asked, ' Is your 
 Auntie still livin' ? ' ' Ay,' was the answer, 
 ' she's no just deid yet ; but we've gotten in 
 the whusky for the funeral.' 
 
 I remember the first funeral I saw fifty 
 years ago in the Highlands. It was in the 
 old graveyard of Kilchrist, Skye, where a 
 large company of crofters had gathered from
 
 VILLAGE NATURALS 331 
 
 all parts of the parish of Strath. There was 
 a confused undertone of conversation audible 
 at a little distance as I passed along the 
 public road ; and as soon as I came in sight 
 two or three of the mourners at once made 
 for me, carrying bottle, glasses, and a plate 
 of bits of cake. Though I was an entire 
 stranger to them and to the deceased, I knew 
 enough of Highland customs and feelings to 
 be assured that on no account could I be 
 excused from at least tasting the refreshments. 
 The halt of a few minutes showed me that 
 much whisky was being consumed around the 
 ruined kirk. 
 
 In former days most parishes in the country 
 possessed one or more ' naturals,' whose lives 
 were embittered by the persecution of the 
 children, though they might be kindly enough 
 treated by the elders, whom they amused by 
 the oddities of their ways and the quaintness of 
 their expressions. Since the establishment of 
 the Lunacy Board, however, they have been 
 mostly drafted into asylums, much to the 
 increase of the decency of the communities, 
 though a little of the picturesqueness of village 
 life has thereby been lost. One of these 'fules' 
 was seen marching along quickly with a gun 
 over his shoulder. Its owner knew it not to be
 
 332 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 loaded, but he called out, 'Archie, where are 
 you going wi' the gun ? You are no' wantin' 
 to shoot yoursell ? ' ' No,' said he, ' I'm no' jist 
 gaun to shoot mysell, but I'm gaun to gie my- 
 sell a deevil o' a fleg (fright).' 
 
 Many years ago a half-witted but pawky 
 attendant, perhaps as much knave as fool, was 
 a well-known figure at the old inn of Brodick, 
 in Arran. He was employed in miscellaneous 
 errands and simple bits of work about the inn 
 or the farm, such as suited his capacity, and he 
 was noted for having a specially pronounced 
 love of brandy. One day he was seen by 
 two visitors at the hotel, pushing a boat down 
 the beach and getting the oars ready. They 
 accosted him and asked where he was bound 
 for. He answered that he was going across the 
 bay to Corriegills for a bag or two of potatoes. 
 Their request to be allowed to accompany 
 him was all the more willingly complied with, 
 inasmuch as they at once proposed that they 
 should pull the oars if he would steer. Sandy 
 had not much English, but he employed it to 
 the best of his ability in the hope that it might 
 be the means of gaining him some of his 
 favourite liquor. Having crossed the bay, the 
 boat was pulled towards the large granite 
 boulder that forms so notable a landmark on
 
 AN ARRAN NATURAL 333 
 
 that part of the shore. He directed the atten- 
 tion of his crew to it, and said : 
 
 1 D'ye see that muckle stane ? Weel, may- 
 be ye'll no' be believin' me, but it's the truth 
 I'm tellin' ye. If onybody wad be climmin' 
 to the tap o' that stane and wad be roarin' 
 as loud as he likes, there's naebody can hear 
 him.' 
 
 ' Nonsense ; we don't believe a word of it.' 
 
 'But I wad wager ye onythin' ye like it's 
 true. I wad be wagerin' ye a bottle o' brandy, 
 if ye like.' 
 
 ' Very well, we'll try. You jump ashore and 
 get on the stone and roar.' 
 
 Sandy with great alacrity sprang out of the 
 boat, and was speedily on the great grey 
 boulder. He opened his mouth and swung 
 his body, as if he were roaring with the strength 
 of ten bulls of Bashan, until he grew purple in 
 the face with his apparent efforts to make a 
 noise. But though he stooped and gesticulated, 
 he took care that never a sound should escape 
 from him. 
 
 ' Wass you hearin' me ? ' he asked with a 
 triumphant face when he had come down to 
 the boat again. 
 
 'You rascal, you never gave a sound.' 
 
 ' Ochan, ochan, wass you not seein' that I
 
 334 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 was screamin' till I couldna scream ony more, 
 whatefer ? ' 
 
 ' Very extraordinary, to be sure. Well, we'll 
 try ourselves.' 
 
 So saying they jumped upon the beach, and, 
 with rather less agility than Sandy had shown, 
 clambered up the stone, while he stood beside 
 the boat. When they were both on the top, 
 they proceeded to shout with such vehemence 
 that they might have been heard on the other 
 side of the bay. Sandy, however, as if intent 
 on hearing the faintest sound, put his hand be- 
 hind each ear in turn, and bent his head now 
 to one side, now to the other. When the two 
 strangers had had enough of this performance, 
 they came down, and indignantly demanded : 
 
 'Well, Sandy, do you mean to tell us that 
 you did not hear ? ' 
 
 ' Hear ye ! ' said he. ' Wass you roarin' at 
 all. I was never hearin' wan bit.' 
 
 He had a remarkable power of expressing 
 astonishment by his mere looks, and put on a 
 face of child-like innocence when he protested 
 that no sound at all had been heard by him. 
 Feeling that they had been ' sold ' by this 
 apparent ' natural,' they left him to fetch his 
 potatoes and pull the boat back himself. But 
 he had his brandy that evening.
 
 AYRSHIRE WITCHES 335 
 
 Removed into asylums, the village idiots 
 lose the opportunity of giving expression to 
 the memorable sayings which free contact with 
 their kinsfolk and the irritation caused by their 
 young persecutors used to produce. But even 
 there their oddity of phrase comes occasionally 
 forward. My old companion, John Young, 
 already referred to, used to tell how, when he 
 was one of the assistant physicians in the 
 Morningside Asylum at Edinburgh, he was 
 one morning reading prayers. The weather 
 being raw and chilly, he had a cough, which 
 interrupted him at the end of the petition, 
 4 Give us this day our daily bread.' During 
 the pause, one of the patients, sitting in front 
 of him, added in an audible voice, ' and butter' 
 
 The second childhood of old age among 
 people who have been sane all their lives some- 
 times gives rise to confusion of thought and 
 language such as no half-witted creature can 
 rival. I knew an old Scottish lady who used 
 to make curious lapses of this kind. Her 
 nephew met me one day and said, ' I must give 
 you auntie's last. She was in bed, and, calling 
 her maid, said to her : " Jenny, if I'm spared to 
 be taken away soon, I hope my nephew Thomas 
 will get the doctor to open my head, and see if 
 anything canna be done for my hearin'."
 
 336 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 The belief in witchcraft, though it still main- 
 tains its hold in the remote districts of the 
 Highlands and Islands, may be regarded as 
 practically extinct in the non-Celtic parts of the 
 country. Yet it flares out now and then in the 
 lowlands, as if it were still smouldering under- 
 neath the surface, ready to be awakened once 
 more when the occasion arises to revive it. 
 Forty years ago, in the valley of the Girvan 
 Water, there were some old colliers whose 
 grandmothers had been reputed witches, and 
 who, though they professed to disbelieve the 
 report, had evidently a deep-grounded respect 
 for it. One of these men described to me some 
 of his own experiences in the matter. When 
 still a lad, he was walking one Sunday evening 
 along the road near Kilgrammie with a com- 
 panion and a fox-terrier. The dog had jumped 
 over a low wall into a field, and they were 
 attracted by its loud barking. Looking over 
 the wall they saw that it was chasing a hare, 
 which, instead of making its escape, seemed to 
 be enjoying the game, and was racing to and 
 fro across the field. The two lads soon leapt 
 over the wall to join in the sport. At last the 
 hare, tired apparently of the exercise, made for 
 a low part of the far wall and scrambled over it. 
 When they got up to the place they were just
 
 A WITCH'S FUNERAL 337 
 
 in time to see the animal lie down on the door- 
 step of his grandmother's cottage, pass both its 
 paws across its nose, and disappear into the 
 house. It then flashed upon him that as his 
 grandmother was believed to be able to take 
 the shape of a hare, he might really have been 
 chasing her all the while. He added that he 
 went home as fast as he could. 
 
 Another old woman in the neighbouring 
 village of Dailly, who had been long bed-ridden, 
 was at last near her end. On the afternoon of 
 the day she died, the boys of the place were 
 busy with their games in the street, when a 
 hare appeared from the country and tried to 
 pass them. They at once gave chase, and the 
 animal retreated along the road by which it had 
 come. Again, a little later, it returned, and 
 once more attempted to get into the village, 
 but was again chased away. A third time, 
 however, when their game had carried the 
 boys further along the street, puss was suc- 
 cessful, and before her enemies could reach 
 her, gained the outside stair that led up to the 
 old woman's garret, and disappeared inside the 
 doorway. The invalid died that evening, and 
 the hare was believed to be either herself or 
 one of her accomplices who had come to be 
 with her at the last.
 
 338 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 Let me try to repeat in the vernacular of 
 the district the tale told by the grandson 
 of one of these helpless and harmless old 
 women. ' My grannie was weel kent to be 
 no' canny. She had ways of doin' things and 
 kennin' things that naebody could mak oot. 
 At last she deeit, and she behoved to be 
 buryit i' the Barr, that's a village on the ither 
 side o' the hills, laigh doon by the Stinchar. 
 When the funeral day cam', we carryit the 
 coffin up the steep road, and when we were 
 gettin' near the tap, and hadna muckle breath 
 left, for the coffin was nae licht wecht, a fine- 
 lookin' gentleman, ridin' a fine black horse, 
 
 o 
 
 made up to us. Nane o' us kennt him or had 
 seen him afore. But he rade alangside o' us, 
 and cracked awa' maist croosely, and cheered us 
 sae that we gaed scrievin' doon the brae on the 
 ither side. Weel, you may jalouse we were a 
 wee bit forfeuchen when we cam' to the kirk- 
 yard, and some o' us thocht we wadna be the 
 waur o' bit drappie afore we gaed on wi' the 
 buryin'. Sae we steppit into the public-hoose. 
 Weel, ye mauna think we bydeit lang there, but 
 losh me! when we cam' oot the coffin wi' my 
 grannie in't was awa', and sae was the man an' 
 the black horse. And to this day I canna tell 
 what cam' ower them,'
 
 COLLIER SUPERSTITIONS 339 
 
 Miners are generally a superstitious race. 
 Their subterranean occupation, with its dark- 
 ness and its dangers, fosters the inborn human 
 instinct to credit the supernatural. Hence old 
 beliefs that have died out in the general com- 
 munity may still be found lingering among 
 them. A miner who meets a woman, when he 
 starts for his work in the morning, will turn 
 back again, as the day has become unlucky 
 for him. Any unexpected event in the mine 
 is sure to awaken all his old-world ' freits/ 
 If any of his comrades should, by the falling 
 of part of the roof of the mine, be crushed 
 to death, he dreads to continue his ordinary 
 work so long as a corpse remains in the pit, 
 and will spare himself no labour until he has 
 tunnelled through the fallen roof. A memor- 
 able instance of this devotion has been already 
 alluded to as having taken place in the little 
 coal-field of Dailly, where one of the miners 
 was shut off from all communication with man- 
 kind by the crushing down of the roof between 
 him and his fellow-workmen. They toiled day 
 and night to cut a passage through the material, 
 with the view of reaching and removing his 
 body, and they found him actually alive, after 
 being shut up for twenty-three days without 
 food. He died, however, three days after his
 
 340 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 rescue. 1 Such an incident could not fail to 
 awaken to life all the dormant superstitions and 
 fears of the collier mind. For a long time after, 
 strange sounds and sights were imagined in the 
 mine. 
 
 A more ludicrous recollection of that time 
 was narrated to me by a survivor of the 
 tragedy. One of his comrades had returned 
 unexpectedly from work in the forenoon, and, 
 to the surprise of his wife, appeared in front 
 of their cottage. She was in the habit, un- 
 known to him, of solacing herself in the early 
 part of the day with a bottle of porter. On 
 the occasion in question the bottle stood 
 toasting pleasantly before the fire when the 
 form of the 'gudeman' came in sight. In a 
 moment she drove in the cork and thrust the 
 bottle underneath the blankets of the box-bed, 
 when he entered, and, seating himself by the fire, 
 began to light his pipe. In a little while the 
 warmed porter managed to expel the cork, and 
 to escape in a series of very ominous gurgles 
 from underneath the clothes. The poor fellow 
 ran outside at once, crying ' Anither warning, 
 Meg! Rin, rin, the house is fa'ing.' But Meg 
 ' kenn'd what was what fu' brawly,' and made 
 
 1 The story of this entombment alive is told in my Geological 
 Sketches at Home and Abroad, p. 71.
 
 COLLIERS AS SLAVES 341 
 
 for the bed, in time to save only the last dregs 
 of her intended potation. 
 
 It is strange to reflect that many people 
 now alive have known natives of Scotland who 
 were born slaves. The colliers and salters had, 
 from time immemorial, been attached for life to 
 the works in which they were engaged. They 
 could not legally remove from them, and if they 
 escaped, could be lawfully pursued, arrested, and 
 brought back to their proprietors. Their chil- 
 dren, too, if once employed in any part of their 
 work, became from that very fact bondsmen 
 for life. In my own boyhood I have seen old 
 men and women who were born in such servi- 
 tude, and worked in the mines of Midlothian. 
 The women were employed in the pits to carry 
 up heavy baskets of coals on their backs from 
 underground to the surface a laborious and 
 degrading occupation from which they dared 
 not try to escape. 
 
 It is related by Robert Chambers that Bald, 
 the mining engineer, about the year 1820, came 
 upon an old miner near Glasgow who had been 
 actually bartered by his master for a pony. 
 When the famous decision was made by the 
 Court of King's Bench in June, 1772, that 
 slavery could not exist in Great Britain, the 
 Court hardly realised that at that very moment
 
 342 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 there were hundreds of slaves in Scotland who 
 were bought and sold as part of the works on 
 which they and their forbears were employed. 
 
 By an act of Parliament of the United King- 
 dom passed in 1775 (15 George III. cap. 28) 
 the villainage of colliers and salters was meant 
 to be finally abolished. The act, which took 
 effect from ist July of that year, decreed that 
 all colliers under 21 years of age were to be free 
 in seven years from that date. Those between 
 21 and 35 were to be released after a further 
 service of ten years from the date of the act, 
 and those between 35 and 45 after a service 
 of seven years, provided that these two classes, 
 if required, should find and sufficiently instruct 
 ' in the art and mystery of coal-hewing or 
 making of salt,' an apprentice of at least 18 
 years, and on the perfection of such instruction, 
 should then be free from further bondage. All 
 persons above 45 years of age were to be 
 discharged in three years. 
 
 Nothing could apparently have been more 
 precise than these stipulations. Unfortunately, 
 however, they were saddled with a provision 
 that before any collier or salter could claim the 
 benefit of the act and gain his freedom, he was 
 compelled to obtain ' a decree of the Sheriff 
 Court of the county in which he resides, finding
 
 COLLIER WOMEN UNDERGROUND 343 
 
 and declaring that he is entitled unto his free- 
 dom under the authority of this act.' It may 
 readily be understood that only a small propor- 
 tion of the workmen had the means of defraying 
 the cost of such an action at law. As narrated 
 in the subsequent act of 1799, there was 'a 
 general practice among the coal-owners and 
 lessees of coal, of advancing considerable sums 
 to their colliers, or for their behoof, much 
 beyond what the colliers are able to repay ; 
 which sums are advanced for the purpose of 
 tempting them to enter into or continue their 
 engagements, notwithstanding the sums so 
 advanced are kept up as debts against the 
 colliers.' Hence, in spite of the legislation, 
 the provision for emancipation remained a dead 
 letter in regard to the great majority of the 
 colliers, who continued to be slaves until their 
 death. It was not until the act of I3th June, 
 J 799 (39 Geo. III. cap. 56) was passed that 
 the shackles were finally broken, and the colliers 
 of Scotland were ' declared to be free from 
 their servitude.' 
 
 But though no longer legally bound to these 
 collieries, women continued to be employed in 
 the same laborious and degrading occupation 
 within the coal-mines. Quarter of a century 
 after the act of emancipation was passed, Hugh
 
 344 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 Miller, when working as a stone-mason at 
 Niddry, in Midlothian, found the women-toilers 
 still at their task, and he has left the following 
 account of them : ' The collier women of the 
 village, poor over-toiled creatures, who carried 
 up all the coal from underground on their backs 
 by a long turnpike stair inserted in one of the 
 shafts, continued to bear more of the marks of 
 serfdom than even the men. How these poor 
 women did labour, and how thoroughly, even at 
 this time, were they characterised by the slave 
 nature ! It has been estimated that one of their 
 ordinary day's work was equal to the carrying 
 of a hundredweight from the level of the sea to 
 the top of Ben Lomond. They were marked 
 by a peculiar type of mouth. It was wide, 
 open, thick-lipped, projecting equally above and 
 below. ... I have seen these collier-women 
 crying like children, when toiling under their 
 load along the upper rounds of the wooden 
 stair, and then returning, scarce a minute after, 
 with the empty creel, singing with glee.' Some 
 of these women were still at work when, as a 
 child, I first visited the district. It was not 
 indeed until loth August, 1842, that the act (5 
 and 6 Vic. cap. 99) was passed which declared it 
 to be 'unfit that women and girls should be em- 
 ployed in any mine or colliery,' and absolutely
 
 COLLIER HUMOUR 345 
 
 prohibited any mine-owner from employing or 
 permitting to be employed underground any 
 female person whatsoever. 
 
 Their mole-like operations underground do 
 not wholly eradicate a sense of humour in the 
 colliers. When engaged in a study of the 
 Borrowstouness coal-field, I had occasion to 
 see some of the miners at Kinneil House. 
 One of them remarked to me that they had 
 lately found ' Mother Eve ' in one of their 
 pits. I was thereupon shown a large con- 
 cretionary mass of sandstone, having a rude 
 resemblance to a human head and bust. 
 Seeing that this counterfeit presentment of 
 our first parent did not greatly interest me, 
 a younger member of the band, with a sly 
 twinkle in his eye, whispered that besides Eve, 
 they had found the Serpent, and that he was 
 sure I should wish to see that. I was then 
 taken to the back of the house where the 
 4 serpent ' lay extended for a length of some 
 ten or twelve feet. The specimen proved to 
 be one of the long tree-roots known as Stig- 
 maria, and common among the fossil vegetation 
 of the Coal-measures. Not content with having 
 found the tempter of the Garden of Eden, 
 the miners had resolved to beautify and pre- 
 serve his remains, and had accordingly procured
 
 346 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 some black lead with which they had burnished 
 him up like a well-polished grate. Of greater 
 interest to me at the time was the remembrance 
 that this same Kinneil House had been the 
 retreat of the illustrious Dugald Stewart during 
 the later years of his life, whence he gave to 
 the world those essays and dissertations which 
 mark so notable an epoch in the history of 
 Scottish philosophy. 
 
 Metal-mining, save that of iron, has on the 
 whole, been unsuccessful in Scotland. The 
 experience of Lord Breadalbane in this direc- 
 tion has been that of most proprietors who 
 have sought to discover ' what earth's low 
 entrails hold.' The mines of Leadhills and 
 Wanlockhead are the only examples that have 
 long been worked, and can still be carried on. 
 The history of the metal-mining industry in 
 Scotland is well illustrated by the story told by 
 Chambers of one of the old lairds of Alva, on 
 the flanks of the Ochil Hills. Walking one 
 day with a friend, he pointed to a hole on 
 the hillside, and said he had taken fifty thou- 
 sand pounds out of it. A little further on 
 he came to another excavation, and added, 
 ' I put it all into that hole again.'
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 TOWN-LIFE in old times. Dirtiness of the streets. Clubs. 
 Hutton and Black in Edinburgh. A feast of snails. Royal 
 Society Club. Bailies 'gang lowse.' Rothesay fifty years 
 ago. James Smith of Jordanhill. Fisher-folk of the Forth. 
 Decay of the Scots language. Receipt for pronouncing 
 English. 
 
 TOWN-LIFE a hundred years ago presented 
 many contrasts to what it is now in Scotland. 
 Means of locomotion being comparatively 
 scanty and also expensive, communication with 
 England was too serious a matter to be 
 undertaken by any but those who had plenty 
 of money or urgent business. And the num- 
 ber of Englishmen who found their way 
 north of the Tweed was correspondingly 
 small. The Scottish towns, too, though con- 
 nected by lines of road and stage coaches, 
 were far more cut off from each other than 
 they have now become, since they have been 
 linked together by railways. They still to
 
 348 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 some extent continued to be centres, to which 
 the landed gentry betook themselves for part 
 of the winter. Hence they retained some 
 old-world ways and local peculiarities, which 
 modern intercourse has more or less com- 
 pletely effaced. They were much smaller in 
 size and more compact, for the vast acres of 
 suburban villadom, now surrounding our cities 
 and larger towns, had hardly begun to come 
 into existence. They were likewise so much 
 less populous, that each of them rather 
 resembled an overgrown family, where every- 
 body of special note was known more or 
 less familiarly to the whole community. 
 
 There can be little doubt that Scottish 
 towns were once almost incredibly dirty. 
 Drainage, in the modern sense of the word, 
 was unknown. Edinburgh, especially at night, 
 must have been one of the most evil-smelling 
 towns in Europe, when with shouts of 
 ' Gardyloo ' the foul water and garbage of each 
 house were pitched out of the windows. The 
 streets were thus never decently clean, save 
 immediately after a heavy rain had swept the 
 refuse into the central gutter, which then 
 became the channel of a rapid torrent. Laws 
 had indeed been framed against throwing foul 
 water from the windows, and Boswell tells us
 
 DIRTINESS OF THE STREETS 349 
 
 that in his time the magistrates had taken to 
 enforce them, but that owing to the want of 
 covered drains the odour still continued. 
 When he walked up the Canongate with 
 Johnson, who had just arrived, he could have 
 wished his companion ' to be without one of 
 his five senses on this occasion ; ' for he could 
 not keep the lexicographer from grumbling, 
 ' I smell you in the dark.' In Byron's youth 
 the same state of things continued, and he 
 could still say tauntingly to Jeffrey, 
 
 For thee Edina culls her evening sweets, 
 
 And showers their odours on thy candid sheets. 
 
 The state of the Edinburgh streets in a 
 snowy winter must have been deplorable. 
 Sydney Smith, writing from the town in 1799, 
 after a thaw, remarked that ' except the morn- 
 ing after the Flood was over, I should doubt 
 if Edinburgh had ever been dirtier.' By the 
 time that proper sanitary arrangements came 
 into practice, the well-to-do citizens had for- 
 saken their abodes in the high tenements of 
 the Old Town, and the houses came to be 
 tenanted by a poorer class. Although the noc- 
 turnal cascades were prohibited, the refuse was 
 carried down and deposited in the streets. I 
 can remember when these thoroughfares were
 
 350 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 still disgustingly odoriferous and unsightly, 
 until the dustman had been round with his 
 cart and a perfunctory brush, which seemed 
 never to find its way into the narrow closes. 
 
 The domestic habits of the townsmen were 
 in many respects less luxurious and more 
 homely than they are now-a-days, and people 
 saw more of each other in a friendly unosten- 
 tatious way. Instead of the modern stiff, 
 ceremonious dinner party, receding further and 
 further into the late hours of the evening, 
 there was the simple and often frugal supper, 
 the praises of which have been so enthusi- 
 astically recorded by Cockburn. It was 
 customary to ask friends, especially strangers, 
 to breakfast, a usage which still survived in 
 my youth, especially among the University 
 Professors. As already mentioned, long after 
 I had left college, I used to enjoy the break- 
 fasts given by Pillans, and the company he 
 gathered round his table for that meal. 
 
 The people of an older generation gave 
 themselves to social intercourse much more 
 freely and simply than we do now. One 
 feature of town-life, formerly conspicuous in 
 Scotland, is now almost gone the multiplica- 
 tion of convivial clubs. During the seven- 
 teenth and the early part of the eighteenth
 
 CONVIVIAL CLUBS 351 
 
 century, every town in the country had its 
 clubs, to which the male inhabitants would 
 adjourn once a week, or even every evening. 
 In the larger towns these gatherings included 
 the most intellectual and well-born members 
 of the community, who met for the discussion 
 of literary, philosophical or scientific topics, as 
 well as for free social companionship. But 
 no doubt in these towns and in the smaller 
 centres of population throughout the country, 
 there were many associations which had no 
 such laudable aims, but fully deserved Butler's 
 description of them: 
 
 The jolly members of a toping club, 
 
 Like pipe staves, are but hooped into a tub ; 
 
 And in a close confederacy link 
 
 P'or nothing else but only to hold drink. 
 
 The clubs, whatever might be their object, 
 did not then number in each case hundreds 
 of members, most of them unknown to one 
 another, and frequenting a luxuriously fur- 
 nished mansion, such as the word club suggests 
 now, but consisted of mere handfuls of men, 
 all knowing each other, and meeting in a 
 tavern. These associations often boasted of 
 jocular names, which referred to their origin or 
 customs. Thus, in Edinburgh, the Ante- 
 manum Club was so named from its members
 
 352 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 declaring their hands of cards before beginning 
 play, or as has been suggested, because they 
 'paid their lawing' before they began to con- 
 sume the liquor. The Pious Club was so 
 named because it met every night in a pie- 
 house. The Spendthrift Club received its 
 title from its members disbursing as much as 
 fourpence-halfpenny each night. Then there 
 were the Oyster Club, the Dirty Club, the 
 Mirror Club, the Friday Club (so called 
 because they met on Sunday), and many 
 others. Robert Chambers, in his Traditions 
 of Edinburgh, has preserved some interesting 
 reminiscences of these institutions. 
 
 Lord Cockburn has left a graphic picture 
 of a scene in his boyhood when he saw the 
 Duke of Buccleuch, with a dozen more of 
 the aristocracy of Midlothian, assembled in the 
 low-roofed room of a wretched ale-house in 
 the country, and spending the evening in roar- 
 ing, laughing, and rapidly pushing round the 
 claret. As an illustration of the way in which 
 even the most intellectual members of society 
 would forsake their own homes for convivial 
 intercourse in a tavern, the following anecdote 
 may be given. Among the citizens of Edin- 
 burgh none were more illustrious than Joseph 
 Black, the discoverer of carbonic acid, and
 
 AN EDINBURGH CLUB 353 
 
 James Hutton, the author of the Theory of 
 the Earth. These two men, who were inti- 
 mate friends, and took a keen interest in their 
 social meetings, were once deputed by a 
 number of their literary acquaintances to look 
 out for a suitable meeting-place in which they 
 might all assemble once a week. The two 
 philosophers accordingly ' sallied out for this 
 purpose, and seeing on the South Bridge a 
 sign with the words, " Stewart, Vintner down 
 stairs," they immediately went into the house 
 and demanded a sight of their best room, 
 which was accordingly shown to them, and 
 which pleased them much. Without further 
 enquiry the meetings were fixed by them to 
 be held in this house, and the club assembled 
 there during the greater part of the winter, 
 till one evening Dr. Hutton, being rather 
 late, was surprised, when going in, to see a 
 whole bevy of well-dressed but somewhat 
 brazen-faced young ladies brush past him, and 
 take refuge in an adjoining apartment. He 
 then for the first time began to think that all 
 was not right, and communicated his suspicions 
 to the rest of the company. Next morning the 
 notable discovery was made, that our amiable 
 philosophers had introduced their friends to one 
 of the most disreputable houses in the city.'
 
 354 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 The record of another incident in the close 
 intercourse of Black and Hutton has been 
 preserved, and may be inserted here. ' These 
 attached friends agreed in their opposition to 
 the usual vulgar prejudices, and frequently 
 discoursed together upon the absurdity of 
 many generally received opinions, especially in 
 regard to diet. On one occasion they had a 
 disquisition upon the inconveniency of abstain- 
 ing from feeding on the testaceous creatures of 
 the land, while those of the sea were considered 
 as delicacies. Snails, for instance why not 
 use them as articles of food ? They were well 
 known to be nutritious and wholesome even 
 sanative in some cases. The epicures, in olden 
 time, esteemed as a most delicate treat the 
 snails fed in the marble quarries of Lucca. 
 The Italians still hold them in esteem. The 
 two philosophers, perfectly satisfied that their 
 countrymen were acting most absurdly in not 
 making snails an ordinary article of food, 
 resolved themselves to set an example ; and 
 accordingly, having procured a number, caused 
 them to be stewed for dinner. No guests were 
 invited to the banquet. The snails were in 
 due season served up ; but, alas ! great is the 
 difference between theory and practice. So 
 far from exciting the appetite, the smoking
 
 A DISH OF SNAILS 355 
 
 dish acted in a diametrically opposite manner, 
 and neither party felt much inclination to 
 partake of its contents. Nevertheless, if they 
 looked on the snails with disgust, they retained 
 their awe for each other ; so that each, conceiv- 
 ing the symptoms of internal revolt to be 
 peculiar to himself, began with infinite exertion 
 to swallow, in very small quantities, the mess 
 which he internally loathed. Dr. Black at 
 length broke the ice, but in a delicate manner, 
 as if to sound the opinion of his messmate : 
 " Doctor," he said in his precise and quiet 
 manner, " Doctor, do you not think that they 
 
 taste a little a very little queer ? " " D 
 
 queer ! d queer, indeed ! tak' them awa', 
 
 tak' them awa!" vociferated Dr. Hutton, start- 
 ing up from the table, and giving full vent to 
 his feelings of abhorrence.' 1 
 
 The most noted survivor of these old social 
 gatherings in Edinburgh is the ' Royal Society 
 Club,' to which allusion has already been made. 
 This association was founded to promote good 
 fellowship among the fellows of the Royal 
 Society and to ensure a nucleus for the 
 evening meetings. The club has from the 
 beginning been limited in numbers, but has 
 always included the most distinguished and 
 
 1 Kay's Edinburgh Portraits, vol. i. p. 57.
 
 356 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 'clubbable' of the fellows. It meets in some 
 hotel on the evenings on which the Society's 
 meetings are held, and after a pleasant dinner, 
 with talk and songs, its members adjourn in 
 time to take their places in the Society's hall. 
 When Neaves, Maclagan, Blackie, Christison, 
 and Macnee were present, it will be understood 
 how joyous such gatherings were. Many a 
 good song was written for these occasions, and 
 many an excellent story was told. A favourite 
 ditty by Maclagan, sung by him with great 
 effect, ended with the following verse, which 
 illustrates the delightful mixture of science and 
 fun with which the professor was wont to 
 regale us : 
 
 Lyon Playfair last winter took up a whole hour 
 To prove so much mutton is just so much power; 
 He might have done all that he did twice as well 
 By an hour of good feeding in Slaney's Hotel ; 
 And instead of the tables he hung on the wall, 
 Have referred to the table in this festive hall; 
 And as for his facts have more clearly got at 'em 
 From us than from Sappers and Miners at Chatham; 
 
 Whilst like jolly good souls 
 
 We emptied our bowls, 
 And so washed down our grub 
 
 In a style worth the name, 
 
 Wealth, honour, and fame 
 Of the Royal Society Club.
 
 DISAPPEARANCE OF CONVIVIAL CLUBS 357 
 
 Dr. Terrot, Bishop of Edinburgh, and Pro- 
 fessor Pillans were members of this club. The 
 bishop used to be a pretty constant attendant 
 both at the dinners and at the Society's meet- 
 ings afterwards. Pillans, on the other hand, 
 while he came to the dinner, shirked the 
 meeting, the subjects discussed being usually 
 scientific and not especially intelligible or 
 interesting to him. He would say to those 
 who rallied him for his absence, ' I enjoy 
 the play [meaning the dinner] very much ; 
 but I can't stand the farce [F.R.S.] that 
 comes after it.' 
 
 The change to modern domestic habits, more 
 especially the increasing lateness of the dinner 
 hour, has gradually extinguished most of the 
 social clubs that used to make so prominent 
 a feature in the society of the larger towns of 
 Scotland. An effort was made in Edinburgh 
 some thirty years ago to start a new club at 
 which the literary, artistic, and scientific workers 
 in the city might informally meet and enjoy 
 each other's company and conversation over a 
 glass of whisky and water, with a pipe, cigar 
 or cigarette. Its meetings were fixed for 
 Saturday evening, so as to avoid, as far as 
 might be, dinner engagements, which were 
 less frequently fixed for that than for the
 
 358 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 other evenings of the week. It began with 
 considerable success, and continued for a 
 number of years to be a chief centre of culti- 
 vated intercourse. But it too has now gone 
 the way of its predecessors. 
 
 The proverbial patriotism of a Scot shows 
 itself not merely in his love of his country. 
 His attachment binds him still more closely to 
 his shire, to his town, or even to his parish. 
 This intense devotion to the natal district could 
 not be more forcibly illustrated than by the 
 remark of an Aberdonian who, in a company of 
 his fellow townsmen met together in Edin- 
 burgh, appealed to them by asking, ' Tak' awa' 
 Aberdeen and twal mile round about, an' faure 
 are ye ? ' There are times and places, how- 
 ever, where even the most perfervid Scot, 
 Aberdonian or other, is compelled to be candid. 
 Another native of the granite city, in his first 
 visit to London, was taken into St. Paul's 
 Cathedral. He gazed around for a few 
 moments in silent astonishment, and at last 
 exclaimed to the friend who accompanied him, 
 ' My certy, but this makes a perfect feel (fool) 
 o' the Kirk o' Foot Dee.' 
 
 Local patriotism was fostered by the multi- 
 plication of clubs, even in small towns. But 
 in these places also the advance of the modern
 
 PROVOSTS AND BAILIES 359 
 
 spirit seems to have destroyed the old club- 
 life. There remain, however, the trade cor- 
 porations, or guilds, and the magistracy, which 
 in the old burghs still form centres round 
 which much of the life and human interests 
 of these communities cluster. To be a bailie, 
 still more to attain to the dignity of provost, 
 has long been an object of ambition, even in 
 the most insignificant place, and much schem- 
 ing and string-pulling continue to be carried on 
 in order to obtain the coveted position : 
 
 For never title yet so mean could prove 
 
 But there was eke a mind which did that title love. 
 
 The old proverb expresses a truth which 
 has been time-out-of-mind exemplified in every 
 burgh in the country : ' Ance a bailie, aye a 
 bailie ; ance a provost, aye My Lord.' Many 
 anecdotes have been related of the consequen- 
 tial airs assumed by local magnates, who have 
 been as fair game for the caustic remarks 
 of outsiders as even ministers themselves. 
 An English traveller on board of a Clyde 
 steamer, sailing down the firth, got into talk 
 with a native on deck, who good-naturedly 
 pointed out the various places of interest along 
 the coast. When they were passing Largs, the 
 stranger asked some questions about the town.
 
 360 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 ' It seems a nice large place. Have they 
 magistrates there ? ' ' Ow ay ; they have a 
 provost and bailies at the Lairgs.' ' And do 
 these magistrates when they meet wear chains 
 of office, as they do with us in England?' 
 ' Chains ! no, no, bless your sowl, they aye 
 gang lowse.' 1 
 
 During the last forty years the steamboat 
 traffic down the Clyde has so enormously 
 increased, locomotion is so much easier, 
 cheaper, and more rapid, that the temptation 
 to escape from Glasgow to the pleasant shores 
 of the Firth has grown strong in all classes 
 of society. Villages on the coast have ac- 
 cordingly grown into towns, until an almost 
 continuous row of villas and cottages has 
 grown up on both sides of the estuary. 
 Hence, as the older towns have been in- 
 vaded and increased by a population from 
 the outside, they have lost most of their 
 former peculiarities. Rothesay furnishes a 
 good illustration of this growth and transfor- 
 mation. I can remember it as a place with an 
 individuality of its own, when everybody might 
 be said to know everybody else. But it has 
 
 1 There are various versions of this story ; and different 
 towns are assigned as that to which it refers. I heard it 
 more than forty years ago in the form given above.
 
 A ROTHESAY WORTHY 361 
 
 now become almost a kind of marine suburb of 
 Glasgow. When I first came to it, one of its 
 conspicuous inhabitants was known familiarly 
 as ' the Bishop,' not from any ecclesiastical 
 office which he filled, but on account of his 
 somewhat pompous and consequential man- 
 ner. He was in many respects a worthy man, 
 glad to take his share in any useful work, and 
 to be on friendly terms with everybody. One 
 of his peculiarities consisted in the misuse of 
 words, and as he had no hesitation about 
 speaking in public, his mistakes often gave 
 great amusement. His daughter had been ship- 
 wrecked, and in referring to her experiences 
 he declared her to be a 'perfect heron, for 
 she was the last man to leave the ship.' The 
 Free Church congregation at Ascog had been 
 for some time without a pastor. When at last 
 one was chosen, a soiree was held to celebrate 
 the event, and the ' Bishop ' was invited to it. 
 In the speech which he made on the occasion 
 he congratulated the meeting, and expressed 
 the hope that ' now that they had got a new 
 incumbrance, they would have a long time of 
 prosperity and peace.' 
 
 When the parliamentary representation of 
 Bute was contested by Mr. Boyle, afterwards 
 Earl of Glasgow, and Mr. Lamont of Knock-
 
 362 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 dhu, the ' Bishop ' acted as one of Mr. Lament's 
 committee in Rothesay. The ballot had not 
 then come into use, and as the result of the 
 polling in Rothesay, Mr. Lamont at the end of 
 the day obtained a majority of votes. On the 
 other hand, Mr. Boyle had an excess of sup- 
 porters in Cumbrae. All depended on the 
 result of the voting in Arran, and the arrival of 
 the steamer from that island was anxiously 
 awaited. Mr. Lamont's committee were sitting 
 in their room when at last the news arrived. 
 The majority in Arran for Mr. Boyle proved to 
 be so large as to turn the scale, and decide 
 the election in his favour. The silence of 
 disappointment hung for a few moments over 
 the committee. The first man to break it was 
 the ' Bishop/ who consoled his colleagues with 
 these words, ' Well, well, what can we say ? 
 what can we say? but that God always overdoes 
 everything.' He probably meant 'overrules.' 
 
 One of the most familiar objects on the Clyde 
 and in Rothesay Bay fifty years ago was the 
 little sailing yacht of James Smith, of Jordan- 
 hill. During the summer he lived on the water, 
 and took a share in all that was going on 
 around him there. As far back as 1839 he was 
 the first to detect, in the clays along the shores 
 of the Kyles of Bute, remains of Arctic shells
 
 FISHER HAMLETS 363 
 
 which no longer live in our seas, but still 
 flourish in the north of Norway, and in the 
 Arctic ocean. When I made his acquaint- 
 ance, he had long ceased to carry on original 
 scientific researches, or at least to publish 
 anything new, but he retained his interest in 
 the subjects which had early engaged his 
 attention. In his little cabin he had a shelf 
 of geological and other scientific books as his 
 travelling companions, and kept himself in 
 touch with the progress of enquiry in his own 
 department. But it was in yachting all round 
 the Firth of Clyde and its islands that he 
 found the chief employment and solace of his 
 old age. I shall treasure as long as I live 
 the recollection of him in his yacht, attired as 
 a genuine old seaman, his face ruddy with sun 
 and sea-air, and beaming with the heartiest 
 good nature. 
 
 On the east side of the kingdom it has long 
 been noted how tenaciously the fisher folk cling 
 to their old habits and customs. Red-tiled, 
 corby-stepped houses, thrusting their gables 
 into the street, climbing one above another up 
 the steep slope that rises from the beach, and 
 crowned by the picturesque old church or town 
 hall with its quaint spire, give a picturesqueness 
 to the shores of the Forth such as no other
 
 364 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 part of the coast-line can boast. Then the 
 little harbours with their fleets of strong fishing 
 boats, rich brown sails, ' hard coils of cordage, 
 swarthy fishing nets,' and piles of barrels and 
 baskets, bear witness to the staple industry of 
 the inhabitants. The men are square, strongly 
 built, and bronzed with exposure to sea-air. 
 The women may be seen sitting in groups at 
 their doors, mending nets or baiting the lines 
 for next night's fishing. Such places as St. 
 Monans, Pittenweem, Anstruther, Crail, and 
 St. Andrews, afford endless subjects for the 
 artist, whether he selects the buildings or their 
 inhabitants. These places lie outside the main 
 lines of traffic through the country ; they have 
 only in recent years been connected together by 
 a line of railway, and have thus been brought 
 into direct touch with the outer world. Thanks 
 to this seclusion, they have preserved their 
 antique character, and their natives are among 
 the most old-fashioned Scots in the lowlands. 
 An anecdote told by Dr. Hanna serves to 
 illustrate the state of backwardness in some 
 of these coast villages. A clergyman, in the 
 course of a marriage ceremony at Buckhaven, 
 repeated several times to the bridegroom the 
 question whether he would promise to be a 
 faithful, loving, and indulgent husband, but got
 
 FORTH FISHER-FOLK 365 
 
 no response from the man, who remained all 
 the while stiff and erect. At last a neighbour, 
 who had learnt a little more of the ways of the 
 world, was so provoked by the clownishness of 
 his friend that he came forward, and giving him 
 a vigorous thump on the back, indignantly ex- 
 claimed, ' Ye brute, can ye no boo to the mini- 
 ster?' Dr. Chalmers' comment on this scene 
 was ' the heavings of incipient civilisation ! ' x 
 On the south side of the Forth the fish- 
 wives of Newhaven, Fisherrow, and Mussel- 
 burgh have long been famous for their conser- 
 vatism in the matter of the picturesque costume 
 which they wear. Dunbar, once a busy port, 
 and the centre of an important herring fishery, 
 used to boast a number of queer oddities 
 among its sea-faring population. One of these 
 men would now and then indulge in a prolonged 
 carouse at the public-house. After perhaps a 
 day or two thus spent, he would return to his 
 home, and, standing at the door, would take 
 off one of his large fisherman's boots, which he 
 would pitch into the house, with the exclama- 
 tion, 'Peace or war, Meg?' If the goodwife 
 still ' nursed her wrath to keep it warm,' she 
 would summarily eject the boot into the street. 
 Whereupon the husband, knowing that this was 
 
 1 Life of Chalmers, iv. p. 462,
 
 366 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 Meg's signal of war, returned to his cronies. 
 If, on the contrary, the boot was allowed to 
 remain, he might hope for forgiveness, and 
 crept quietly into the house. 
 
 Another of these Dunbar worthies had 
 arranged with old Mr. Jeffray, the parish 
 minister, to have his infant baptised at the 
 manse. On the evening fixed he duly made his 
 appearance, but not until after he had fortified 
 himself for the occasion by sundry applications 
 to the whisky bottle. When he stood with the 
 child in his arms, he seemed so unsteady that 
 the minister solemnly addressed him, 'John, you 
 are not fit to hold up that child.' The stalwart 
 sailor, thinking his personal prowess called 
 in question, indignantly answered, ' Haud up 
 the bairn, I could fling't ower the kirk,' the 
 church being the loftiest building and most 
 prominent landmark in the burgh. 
 
 A fisherman from another hamlet in the 
 same district had found a set of bladders at 
 sea which he claimed as his property. The 
 owner of them, however, sued him for restitu- 
 tion of the property, which bore, in large letters, 
 P.S.M., the initials of his name and seaport, 
 as proof of his assertion. The East Lothian 
 man, nothing daunted, exclaimed loudly to 
 the presiding bailie, ' Naething o' the kind,
 
 GOLFING HUMOUR 367 
 
 sir, P.S. stands for Willie Miller, and M. for 
 for the Cove.' 
 
 These lowland regions of the Lothians and 
 Fife, with their strips of sand-hills and links 
 along the shore, have for centuries been the 
 headquarters of Golf a game which has now 
 naturalised itself over the whole civilised 
 globe. Golfing anecdotes are innumerable 
 and form a group by themselves, of which 
 only one or two samples may be culled here. 
 
 A landed proprietor and his son were 
 playing at North Berwick when the young 
 man drove a ball close to his father's head. 
 The observant caddie remarked quietly to 
 him, ' Ye maunna kill Pa ! ' and then after a 
 pause added, ' Maybe ye'll be the eldest son ? ' 
 
 Strong language appears to be a natural 
 accompaniment of the game. A laird in try- 
 ing to get his ball out of a ' bunker ' swore 
 so dreadfully that his caddie threw down the 
 bundle of clubs on the ground exclaiming, 
 ' Damn it, sir, I wunna carry clubs for a man 
 that swears like you.' 
 
 An English caddie on a links in Kent, who 
 was listening to a discussion among the players 
 as to the proper way of spelling the word 
 ' golf,' broke into the conversation with the 
 remark, 'Surely there's no hV in it' (aspirating
 
 368 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 the letter in Cockney fashion). ' Is there not?' 
 exclaimed a young Scotswoman, ' You should 
 just hear my father on the St. Andrews links.' 
 A marked and regrettable change has passed 
 and is passing over lowland Scotland the 
 decay of the old national language the Doric 
 of Burns and Scott. The local accents, indeed, 
 still remain fairly well-marked. The Aber- 
 donian is probably as distinguishable as ever 
 from a Paisley 'body,' and the citizen of Edin- 
 burgh from his neighbour of Glasgow. But 
 the old national words have almost all dropped 
 out of the current vocabulary of the towns. 
 Even in the country districts, though a good 
 many remain, they are fast becoming obsolete 
 and unintelligible to the younger generation. 
 It is sad to find how small a proportion of the 
 sons and daughters of middle aged parents in 
 Scotland can read Burns without constant 
 reference to the glossary. A similar inevit- 
 able change was in progress for many centuries 
 on the south side of the Tweed, though it 
 has become extremely slow now : 
 
 Our sons their fathers' failing language see, 
 And such as Chaucer is, shall Dryden be. 
 
 I can remember men and women in good 
 society, who if they did not ordinarily speak 
 pure Scots, at least habitually introduced
 
 HOW TO SPEAK ENGLISH 369 
 
 Scots words and phrases, laying emphasis on 
 them as telling expressions, for which they 
 knew no English equivalents. I have watched 
 the gradual vanishing of these national ele- 
 ments from ordinary conversation, until now 
 one hardly ever hears them. Lord Cockburn 
 used to lament the decay of the old speech in 
 his day ; it has made huge strides since then. 
 Not only have the old words and phrases 
 disappeared, but there has arisen an affectation 
 of what is supposed to be English pronuncia- 
 tion, which is sometimes irresistibly ludicrous. 
 The broad, open vowels, the rolling rs and 
 the strongly aspirated gutturals, so character- 
 istic of the old tongue, are softened down to a 
 milk and water lingo, which is only a vulgarised 
 and debased English. There was unconscious 
 satire in the answer given by a housemaid to 
 her mistress who was puzzled to conjecture 
 how far the girl could be intelligible in London 
 whence she had returned to Scotland. 
 
 ' You speak such broad Scotch, Kate, that 
 I wonder how they could understand you in 
 London. 1 
 
 'O but, mam, I aye spak' English there.' 
 ' Did you? And how did you manage that ?' 
 ' O, mam, there's naethin' easier. Ye maun 
 spit oot a' the r's and gi'e the words a bit 
 chow in the middle.' 
 
 2A
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE Scottish School of Geology. Neptunist and Vulcanist 
 Controversy. J. D. Forbes. Charles Maclaren. Hugh 
 Miller. Robert Chambers. W. Haidinger. H. von Dechen. 
 Ami Boue". The life of a field-geologist. Experiences of 
 a geologist in the West Highlands. A crofter home in 
 Skye. The Spar Cave and Coruisk. Night in Loch 
 Scavaig. 
 
 As it has been in pursuit of geological investi- 
 gation that I have been enabled to see so 
 much of Scotland, I hope the reader will not 
 think it inappropriate that a few of the pages 
 of this volume of reminiscences should be 
 devoted to some recollections of Scottish 
 geologists, more especially of those with whom 
 I have been personally acquainted, and to 
 some illustrations of my own experiences of 
 the life of a field-geologist in Scotland. Let 
 me preface this chapter with a brief refer- 
 ence to the rise of the Scottish School of 
 Geology.
 
 THE SCOTTISH SCHOOL OF GEOLOGY 371 
 
 The intellectual society for which Edinburgh 
 was distinguished in the later decades of the 
 eighteenth and the early years of the nine- 
 teenth century, besides its brilliant company of 
 literary men, included also some of the founders 
 of modern science. To three of these men 
 reference has already been made Joseph 
 Black, one of the pioneers of modern chem- 
 istry; James Hutton, the father of modern 
 physical geology ; and John Play fair, who first 
 revealed to the general public the far-reaching 
 scope of Hutton's philosophy. With these 
 illustrious men there was likewise associated 
 Sir James Hall of Dunglass, who introduced 
 experimental research as a potent method of 
 testing geological speculation. A striking 
 characteristic of this group of men was 
 shown in their indifference to the opinion of 
 the world outside, and to the making of con- 
 verts to their views. It was not until some 
 years after Hutton's death in 1797 that his 
 teaching was recognised as the initiation of a 
 new school of thought, which bade fair to 
 rival or even to supersede that of Werner 
 at Freiberg, who was then attracting pupils 
 from all parts of the world. This Scottish 
 school, inasmuch as it laid great stress on 
 the importance taken by the internal heat of
 
 372 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 the earth in geological history, came to be 
 known as the Vulcanist. 
 
 While these men were at work in Scotland, 
 by a curious irony of fate one of Werner's 
 most distinguished pupils returned to Edin- 
 burgh, and in 1804 was appointed to the Chair 
 of Natural History in the University there. 
 Robert Jameson, like the other disciples of 
 the Saxon teacher, was fired with zeal to 
 spread the doctrines of his master, and as 
 these doctrines were diametrically opposed to 
 those of Hutton, there began a lively contro- 
 versy which for a number of years had its chief 
 battlefield in the Scottish metropolis. Werner 
 claimed that by far the most important part in 
 the history of the earth had been taken by 
 water. His system was accordingly known as 
 the Neptunist. It is difficult now to realise 
 the fierceness of this warfare. The rocks round 
 Edinburgh were appealed to with equal con- 
 fidence by both sides, and many a lively 
 discussion arose upon them. After a good 
 many years, however, Jameson came to see 
 that his master's theory offered but a partial 
 explanation of the phenomena of nature, and 
 that essentially the Vulcanists were right. 
 He publicly recanted his early opinions, and 
 the defection of their leading protagonist led
 
 THE SCOTTISH SCHOOL OF GEOLOGY 373 
 
 to the extinction of the Scottish Neptunists. 
 With the dying out of the fires of controversy, 
 a kind of languor seems to have settled down 
 upon the progress of geological science in 
 Scotland. There was no longer an active 
 resident school of geologists, and though many 
 Scotsmen had acquired renown as geologists, 
 it was mainly by work in other countries, rather 
 than in their own. In an address which he 
 gave to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 
 1862, James David Forbes expressed himself 
 as follows : 'It is a fact which admits of no 
 doubt, that the Scottish Geological School, 
 which once made Edinburgh famous, espe- 
 cially when the Vulcanist and Neptunian war 
 raged simultaneously in the hall of this Society 
 and in the class-rooms of the University, 
 may almost be said to have been transported 
 bodily to Burlington House [London]. Rode- 
 rick Murchison, Charles Lyell, Leonard Horner, 
 are Scottish names, and the bearers of them 
 are Scottish in everything save residence. . . . 
 Our younger men are drafted off as soon as 
 their acquirements become known. ... Of all 
 the changes which have befallen Scottish 
 science during the last half- century, that which 
 I most deeply deplore, and at the same time 
 wonder at, is the progressive decay of our once
 
 374 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 illustrious Geological School. Centralisation 
 may account for it in part, but not entirely.' 1 
 Notwithstanding this somewhat gloomy re- 
 trospect, there were still a few able men in 
 Scotland, who continued to hold aloft the 
 torch of geological progress. The illustrious 
 Principal Forbes himself was widely known to 
 the geological world for his researches on the 
 glaciers of the Alps and of Norway, and on 
 Earth-temperature. As one saw him in the 
 street or in the class-room, he looked singu- 
 larly fragile, and it was not easy to realise how 
 such a seemingly frail body could have under- 
 gone the physical exertion required for his 
 notable Alpine ascents. His tall spare figure 
 might be seen striding from the University 
 to the rooms of the Royal Society, of which 
 for many years he was the active Secretary. 
 His clear brown eyes wore a wistful expres- 
 sion, and his pale face and sunken cheeks 
 
 1 Opening Address to Royal Society of Edinburgh, ist 
 December, 1862. The distinguished author expresses regret 
 that a certain feeling of patriotism did not still keep a portion 
 of the labours of the Scottish geologists for the Transactions of 
 the Scottish Royal Society, and he makes a kindly and half 
 prophetic allusion to my own probable removal to London. I 
 may here say that I never forgot his words, and that I have 
 considered it a duty as well as a pleasure, even when no longer 
 resident in Scotland, to send some of the results of my researches 
 to the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
 
 SCOTTISH GEOLOGISTS 375 
 
 showed how his well-chiselled features had 
 been preyed on by serious illness. Round his 
 long neck he always wore one of the large 
 neckcloths then in vogue, and above this, when 
 out of doors, he carried a thick muffler, from 
 under which, as one passed him, one might 
 hear now and then the cough that told of 
 the malady from which he was suffering. In 
 his own house, especially when showing some 
 of the beautifully artistic water-colour draw- 
 ings which he had made in the course of his 
 wanderings, the thin, white, almost transparent, 
 hands told the same tale of suffering. And 
 yet, in spite of all these visible signs of increas- 
 ing bodily feebleness, his mind remained to 
 the last clear and bright, his memory, even 
 for minute details, perfect, his interest in men 
 and things, more particularly in scientific pro- 
 gress, as keen as ever, and his kindly help- 
 fulness to those whom he could assist as 
 prompt and effective as of old. He was one 
 of the most beautiful and interesting person- 
 alities whom I have ever known. 
 
 Two of the ablest resident Scottish geologists 
 were editors of leading Edinburgh newspapers 
 Charles Maclaren and Hugh Miller and to 
 both of them science was the recreation of 
 such leisure hours as they could snatch from
 
 3/6 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 literary labour and political controversy. 
 Maclaren was the founder, and for a quarter 
 of a century, editor of the Scotsman, from 
 which, as far back as 1845, he had retired 
 to spend his later years in a delightful retreat 
 on the southern outskirts of Edinburgh. His 
 editorial task had been relieved by many a 
 pleasant geological excursion among the rocks 
 around that city, and he had worked out the 
 volcanic history of the district with a minute- 
 ness, accuracy, and breadth of view which no 
 one had attempted before him. After passing 
 the results of his researches through the 
 columns of his newspaper, he collected them 
 into a small volume entitled Geology of Fife 
 and the Lotkians, which, though little known 
 to the general reader, has long ago taken its 
 place among the classics of Scottish geology. 
 Maclaren had acquired a command of clear, 
 forcible English, and was a great admirer 
 of good style in literature. I remember a 
 conversation with him, in which he enlarged 
 on the tendency of the age to pile up intensi- 
 tives in description, both in ordinary conversa- 
 tion and in writing. The words ' awful ' and 
 ' awfully ' were then beginning to come into 
 vogue in the familiar slang. He strongly ob- 
 jected to such tasteless misuse of terms,
 
 HUGH MILLER 377 
 
 holding with Pope that expletives give but 
 a feeble aid in composition. ' Take my ad- 
 vice,' he said, 'after the experience of a long 
 life, and be careful to strike out the word 
 " very " in almost every place where you find 
 it in your manuscript. You will discover that 
 this excision will really strengthen your style, 
 in the same proportion that the frequent 
 repetition of the word would weaken it' 
 
 Hugh Miller, as editor of the Witness 
 newspaper, the accredited organ of the Free 
 Church, was one of the living forces of 
 Scotland during the last sixteen years of his 
 life. He threw himself with great ardour into 
 all the controversies, political and ecclesiastical, 
 of the time, and his articles were read with 
 eager interest from one end of the country 
 to the other. His establishment in the edi- 
 torial chair, however, and the consciousness 
 of the influence which his pen enabled him 
 to wield over the minds of his fellow-country- 
 men, never led him to put into the back- 
 ground the fact that he had been a journey- 
 man mason. His appearance on the streets 
 was certainly most uneditorial. Above the 
 middle height, strongly built, with broad 
 shoulders, a shock of sandy hair, large bushy 
 whiskers, and dressed in rough tweeds, with
 
 378 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 a shepherd's plaid across his shoulder, he 
 might have been taken for one of the hill- 
 farmers who, on market days, come to Edin- 
 burgh from the uplands of the Lothians. He 
 had the true ' Highlandman's ling' the elastic, 
 springy and swift step of the mountaineer, 
 accustomed to traverse shaking bog and rough 
 moor. As he swung down the North Bridge, 
 wielding a stout walking stick, looking straight 
 before him, his eyes apparently fixed on 
 vacancy and his lips compressed, one could 
 hardly help turning to look after him and to 
 wonder what manner of man he could be. 
 His, however, was a familiar figure on the 
 line of streets and roads that led from the 
 Witness office to his home in Portobello. His 
 fellow citizens were proud of him as one of 
 their literary lions, who had also made for 
 himself in science a name which was known 
 all over the English-speaking world. 
 
 To Hugh Miller I owe much, and am glad 
 of every opportunity of acknowledging my in- 
 debtedness. His Old Red Sandstone kindled 
 in me, as it has done in so many others, an 
 enthusiasm for the science to which he devoted 
 his leisure hours, and an admiration for the 
 well of English undefiled to be found in every 
 page of his writing. He personally encouraged
 
 HUGH MILLER 379 
 
 me in my earliest efforts at original observation. 
 He introduced me to Murchison, and thus 
 opened the way for my entry into the Geo- 
 logical Survey. 
 
 At the end of each summer we met at his 
 house to talk over the results of our geological 
 wanderings. The last note I had from him, 
 written on 9th October, 1856, only a few weeks 
 before his sudden and tragic end, asked me to 
 ' drop in upon him on the evening of Saturday 
 first, and have a quiet cup of tea.' He added, 
 1 my explorations this season have been chiefly 
 in the Pleistocene and the Old Red. I have 
 now got boreal shells in the very middle of 
 Scotland, about equally removed from the 
 eastern and western seas. But the details of 
 our respective explorations we shall discuss at 
 our meeting.' That discussion duly took place, 
 and full of interest it was to me. He displayed 
 on the table the shells he had gathered, and he 
 looked forward with keen pleasure to the task 
 of describing them, and showing the important 
 bearing they had on the geological history of 
 the country. It proved to be his last excursion, 
 as that evening was also the last of our inter- 
 course, for before the end of the year I followed 
 him to his resting place, near to his great hero 
 Chalmers, in the Grange Cemetery.
 
 38o SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 Another literary man in Edinburgh who had 
 also made some interesting contributions to 
 geology was Robert Chambers. He especially 
 concerned himself with the later phases of geo- 
 logical history, more particularly the proofs that 
 Britain had been overspread with ice, and that 
 important changes of level had taken place 
 along the coasts of Scotland and northern 
 Norway. He was also generally believed to 
 be the author of the famous Vestiges of 
 Creation a belief which was fully confirmed 
 after his death. When he heard that I pur- 
 posed to become a member of the Geological 
 Survey he gave me, I remember, an account of 
 a recent excursion which he had made with a 
 party of the Survey in North Wales. ' Being 
 the oldest member of the company,' he said, ' I 
 was voted into the chair, and had to carve. A 
 leg of Welsh mutton was placed before me, 
 from which I was kept supplying the demands 
 of the geologists, until there was nothing left on 
 the dish but a bare bone. So if you join the 
 Survey, my young friend, you must be prepared 
 for the development of a portentous appetite.' 
 
 The house of Robert Chambers in Edin- 
 burgh was one of the chief centres at which 
 literary and scientific strangers met the intellec- 
 tual society of the town. He was an excellent
 
 CHAMBERS, FLEMING, NICOL 381 
 
 host. His fund of anecdote and reminiscence 
 went back to near the beginning of the century. 
 When no more than twenty years of age he 
 had published a volume illustrative of the 
 Waverley novels, followed next year by two 
 volumes of Traditions of Edinburgh, which 
 astonished Scott, who wondered where the boy 
 could have picked up all the information. 
 
 Besides the geologists here enumerated there 
 were others contemporary with them who did 
 good service, but with whom my acquaintance 
 was too slight to furnish me now with any per- 
 sonal reminiscences of them. Dr. John Fleming, 
 author of the well-known Philosophy of Zoology, 
 was trained as a Wernerian, and never quite 
 adopted the views of modern geologists. I 
 remember him as a tall rather grim figure, full 
 of personal kindness, and gifted with keen 
 critical power. He seemed never to be happier 
 than when he had an opportunity of exercising 
 that power in sarcastically demolishing the 
 arguments of those to whom he was opposed. 
 James Nicol, after he became Professor in 
 Aberdeen in 1853, devoted himself with much 
 enthusiasm and success to the study of the 
 Highland rocks, and I only met him occasion- 
 ally at the meetings of the British Association, 
 where his tall figure, his abundant sandy-
 
 382 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 coloured hair, and pronounced south-country 
 accent, made him a prominent personage. 
 
 In the early decades of last century a few 
 students from foreign countries were attracted 
 to Scotland for the purpose of examining the 
 rocks, which since the days of the Huttonian 
 and Wernerian controversy had become famous 
 on the Continent. In my journeys abroad I 
 met three of these veterans, each of whom 
 retained a vivid recollection of his stay in this 
 country. 
 
 W. Haidinger, who was long at the head of 
 the Austrian Geological Survey and Museum 
 in Vienna, had established his reputation as an 
 able mineralogist, and came to Scotland to 
 study the various cabinets of minerals, public 
 and private, to be found in the country. When 
 I saw him in Vienna in 1869, he had retired 
 from all official duties, and as he sat in his 
 study, surrounded with his books and papers, 
 presented a singularly picturesque appearance, 
 not unlike that in which Faust is usually 
 represented on the stage before transformation 
 into youth by Mephistopheles. Enveloped in 
 a long dressing gown, he sat in an easy chair, 
 his white beard flowing down his breast, and 
 his head covered with an equal exuberance of 
 snowy hair (which, however, was said to be a
 
 HAIDINGER, VON DECHEN, BOUE 383 
 
 wig), while his feet were encased in large 
 warm slippers. He remembered well the 
 various mineral collections he had studied in 
 Scotland, and was interested in hearing about 
 the places he had seen, and the survivors of 
 the acquaintances he had made. 
 
 H. von Dechen came to Scotland in 1827, 
 and travelled over a good deal of the country, 
 of which he subsequently gave an account in 
 one of the German scientific journals. I first 
 met him in Bonn, where he had a large house 
 commanding fine views up to the Siebenge- 
 birge, which he had studied so minutely and 
 described so carefully. His age, the number 
 and excellence of his geological writings, and 
 his friendly interest in the career of younger 
 men made him the popular Nestor of Prussian 
 geologists. The last time I met him was in 
 Berlin on the occasion of the meeting of the 
 International Geological Congress in 1885, of 
 which he was president. There was one lady 
 member present at his address, and the 
 audience was amused by the formal courtesy 
 with which he began ' Lady and Gentlemen.' 
 
 Ami Boue had an interesting history. He 
 was descended from a French family which 
 could trace its pedigree back for some 400 
 years. In the reign of Louis XIV, his ancestor,
 
 384 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 being Protestant, had to escape from Bordeaux 
 in a barrel. Bou himself was born in Hamburg. 
 His mother had been educated in Geneva, and 
 French was the language she used in her 
 family circle. His early education was also 
 given in Geneva, but as the French armies had 
 overrun Europe, and the family property in 
 Hamburg consisted largely of houses, which 
 might at any moment be destroyed in the 
 political convulsions, it was considered desir- 
 able that Ami should have a profession to fall 
 back upon, in case of any such catastrophe. 
 He was accordingly sent to Edinburgh to 
 study medicine. As he long after remarked 
 to me, ' I really went to Scotland to escape 
 from Napoleon.' But although, when Napoleon 
 was finally crushed at Waterloo, the Hamburg 
 property was saved, Boue determined to con- 
 tinue his medical studies and to take his 
 degree, which he gained in 1817. 
 
 During his residence in Scotland he became 
 greatly interested in geological pursuits, and 
 travelled over a good deal of the country, 
 examining its rocks. When he returned to the 
 Continent, he settled for a time in Paris, where 
 
 s 
 
 he wrote his Esquisse Geologique sur I'Ecosse 
 a most valuable treatise which in many respects 
 was far in advance of its time. Subsequently,
 
 AMI BOUE 385 
 
 after wandering over much of Europe, he finally 
 fixed his home in Austria. 
 
 Having occasion in some of my own early 
 writings to refer appreciatively to Boue's work, 
 I one day received a letter written in broken 
 English and in a minute, cramped calligraphy, 
 the lines slanting obliquely across the page. 
 To my astonishment the letter bore the signa- 
 ture Ami Boue. This was the beginning of a 
 correspondence which lasted up to the time of 
 his death. I paid him a visit in 1869, and 
 spent some time with him at his pleasant 
 country-house on the last spurs of the Alps 
 near Voslau, where he had planted quinces, 
 almond-trees, peaches, apples, and vines, and 
 where I found his recollections of Edinburgh 
 and Scotland as vivid as if he had only 
 returned from that region a few years before. 
 
 Bou6 was singular in this respect, that he 
 never thoroughly mastered any language. 
 Although French was the tongue that in 
 early life came most naturally to him, his 
 French sometimes betrayed his German con- 
 nections. In German he only acquired fluency 
 after middle life, when he had settled in 
 Vienna, and it was in German that all his later 
 contributions to science were written. English 
 he never learned to speak or write correctly. 
 
 2B
 
 386 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 But he was rather proud of what he thought 
 to be his facility in that language, and all his 
 letters to me, extending over a period of 
 thirteen years, were written in broken English. 
 As a specimen of the way in which he ex- 
 pressed himself, I may quote a sentence from 
 a letter written by him on 2ist November, 
 1870, during the calamitous Franco-German 
 war. ' The dreadful war-pre-occupations did 
 take me all time for thinking at scientific 
 matter, and now perhaps that distress will 
 approach till nearer our abode ! When you 
 will know that I have very good and near 
 parents in both armies and you perceive the 
 possibility of parents killing themselves without 
 recognizing themselves, nor having the oppor- 
 tunity to do so, you will understand that I 
 have often headach when I ride the news- 
 papers or hear from the quite useless slaughters, 
 which have been provocated only by those 
 men at the head of the human society.' 
 
 The life of a field-geologist, being spent 
 to a large extent in the open air, brings him 
 into contact with various classes of the 
 people, to. whom his occupation is exceedingly 
 mysterious. They see him marching up and 
 down the face of a rocky declivity, chipping 
 the rock here and there, putting the chips
 
 A FIELD-GEOLOGIST 387 
 
 up to his eye, scrutinising them narrowly 
 through his lens, which is popularly supposed 
 to be an eye-glass for extremely short sight, 
 then perhaps wrapping them up in paper and 
 putting them in his pocket, or in a bag slung 
 across his shoulder. They watch him taking 
 out a map and marking down something upon 
 it, or whipping out a note-book and writing 
 in it, perhaps for so long a time that the 
 patience of the watchers behind a neighbour- 
 ing wall or hedge is nearly exhausted, when 
 off he marches again, or comes back to the 
 place he started from, as if he had left some- 
 thing behind him, or had hopelessly lost his 
 way. 
 
 A member of the Geological Survey, whose 
 daily avocation consists in such pursuits, is 
 of course specially liable to become the victim 
 of curiosity and suspicion. He carries his 
 accoutrements about his person in such a 
 manner that they do not attract notice, so 
 that his object and actions become extremely 
 puzzling to the country people among whom 
 he has taken quarters for a time. He finds 
 himself set down now for a postman, now for 
 a doctor, for a farmer, a cattle dealer, a 
 travelling showman, a country gentleman, a 
 gamekeeper, a poacher, an itinerant lecturer,
 
 388 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 a gauger, a clergyman, a playactor, and often 
 as a generally suspicious character. A member 
 of the Survey, who afterwards became a 
 University Professor, received and posted 
 many a letter entrusted to him in the belief 
 that he was the authorised bearer of Her 
 Majesty's mails. Another member, also sub- 
 sequently Professor, was taken for a policeman 
 in plain clothes, and could not for some time 
 make out why a poor woman poured into his 
 ears a long story about her son, who had 
 been taken up for something that he had 
 not done, and did quite unintentionally, and 
 was quite justified in doing. 1 
 
 Gamekeepers are sometimes sorely at a 
 loss what to make of the Geological Survey 
 trespasser : afraid to challenge him lest he 
 prove to be a friend of their master, and yet 
 afraid to let him go his way for fear he be 
 on poaching thoughts intent, though the 
 absence of a visible gun piques their curiosity. 
 One member of the staff, who had taken up 
 his quarters in a coast town in Fife, was 
 watched by the police on suspicion of having 
 been concerned in a recent burglary. Another 
 was stalked as a suspect who had been setting 
 
 1 This and the next paragraph are taken with some altera- 
 tions from my Life of A. C. Ramsay.
 
 EXPERIENCES OF GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 389 
 
 fire to farm buildings. A third was watched 
 hammering by himself in the bed of a stream 
 near Girvan, and as he gave vent to some 
 strong expression when the obstinate boulder 
 refused to part with a splinter, the onlooker 
 on the other side of an adjoining hedge fled 
 in terror to the village and reported that this 
 strange man who had come among them was 
 stark mad, and should not be left to go by 
 himself. Sometimes the laugh goes distinctly 
 against the geologist, as in the case of one of 
 the most distinguished of the staff who, poking 
 about to see the rocks exposed on the out- 
 skirts of a village in Cumberland, was greeted 
 by an old woman as the ' sanitary 'spector.' 
 He modestly disclaimed the honour, but notic- 
 ing that the place was very filthy, ventured 
 to hint that such an official would find some- 
 thing to do there. And he thereupon began 
 to enlarge on the evils of accumulating filth, 
 resulting, among other things, in an unhealthy 
 and stunted population. His auditor heard 
 him out, and then, calmly surveying him from 
 head to foot, remarked : ' Well, young man, 
 all I have to tell ye is, that the men o' this 
 place are a deal bigger and stronger and 
 handsomer nor you.' She bore no malice, for 
 she offered him a cup of tea, but, like Falstaff,
 
 390 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 he was 'as crestfallen as a dried pear,' and 
 could not face her any longer. 
 
 Professor James Geikie supplies me with the 
 following record of his experience when he was 
 on the staff of the Survey : ' One warm sum- 
 mer day I was laboriously forcing my way up 
 a narrow ravine or " cleugh " in the hills south 
 of Colmonel, in Ayrshire. The geology being 
 somewhat complicated, it was necessary to use 
 my hammer at almost every step, and for this 
 purpose I had to keep the bed of the burn 
 where the rocks were best seen. The cleugh 
 was not only narrow and steep, but choked in 
 places with blackthorn, so that progress was 
 both slow and painful. Being far from the 
 madding crowd, there was no reason why, 
 under a broiling sun, I should affect a philo- 
 sophical coolness which I was far from feeling, 
 and it is probable, therefore, that from time to 
 time I may have sought relief by addressing 
 the obnoxious thorns in vehement language. 
 At the head of the cleugh I came upon a tall 
 farmer-looking man, who told me he had been 
 watching my movements, and wondering who 
 and what I was. When he heard I was trying 
 to find out how the world was made, he ex- 
 pressed no astonishment, but showed keen 
 interest as I pointed out the evidence of
 
 EXPERIENCES OF GEOLOGISTS 391 
 
 glacial work striated rocks, morainic debris, 
 and large erratics all of which happened to 
 be well displayed on the hill-side where we 
 stood. As he seemed really anxious to know 
 the meaning of the evidence, I explained it 
 as well as I could, and then we parted. A 
 few weeks afterwards I was dining with an 
 old friend the late Mr. Cathcart of Knock- 
 dolian who told me he was quite sure I must 
 have been recently in his neighbourhood. 
 " Only yesterday," he said, " I met the old 
 
 farmer of G ," who had a strange tale to 
 
 tell me. " Dod ! Mr. Caithcart," he began, " I 
 ran across the queerest body the ither day. 
 As I was comin' by the head o' the cleugh I 
 thocht I heard a wheen tinkers quarrellin', but 
 whan I lookit doon there was jist ae wee stoot 
 man. Whiles he was chappin' the rocks wi' a 
 hammer : whiles he was writin' in a book, 
 whiles fechtin' wi' the thorns, and miscain' 
 them for a' that was bad. When he cam up 
 frae the burn, him and me had a long confab. 
 Dod ! he tell't me a' aboot the stanes, and hoo 
 they showed that Scotland was ance like 
 Greenland, smoored in ice. A vary enterteenin' 
 body, Mr. Caithcart, but an awfu' leear." 
 
 Among my own geological experiences 
 in Scotland I may mention that on one of
 
 392 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 my excursions, when, with a large party of 
 my students, I was passing along the sea- 
 front of a fishing village in Fife, I heard 
 a stalwart matron ask her gossip at the next 
 door, ' Whae's aucht them ? ' that is, who 
 owns them, or has charge of them ? She 
 evidently believed the company to be lunatic 
 patients, but could not see any one among 
 their number who seemed to her sane enough 
 to be probably their keeper. 
 
 On another occasion in the same district 
 I had been engaged for some days in geo- 
 logical exploration with a colleague, and had 
 several times come upon a travelling show, 
 which was slowly making its way through 
 the country. On entering one of the little 
 coast-towns we found that we were imme- 
 diately behind this show, which, with its 
 cavalcade of waggons, had preceded us by 
 only a few minutes. The women were still 
 standing at their doors, making remarks on 
 the new arrival, when my companion and I 
 came up. As we passed a couple of them, 
 we heard the one remark to the other, ' Na 
 noo, arena thae twa daicent-lookin' chiels to 
 be play-actin' blackguards ! ' 
 
 If, fifty years ago, the ongoings of a field- 
 geologist gave rise to much curiosity and
 
 GEOLOGISTS IN THE HIGHLANDS 393 
 
 speculation in the lowlands, it may be imagined 
 how strange his occupation would seem to the 
 natives of the Highlands, especially among 
 the Western Isles, and in districts where little 
 English was spoken, and where, consequently, 
 he might be the subject of audible remarks 
 that he did not understand or could not reply 
 to. When I first set foot in Skye, most of my 
 rambles there had geological pursuits as their 
 aim. The general character and succession of 
 the rocks of the island had been made known 
 by Macculloch in his classic Description of 
 the U'estern Islands of Scotland. I found 
 that he was still remembered by some of 
 the older inhabitants, but less as a geologist 
 than as a writer who had maligned them. 
 In his four volumes of letters to Sir Walter 
 Scott on The Highlands and Western Isles 
 of Scotland on the whole a somewhat tedious 
 work, though often amusing and occasionally 
 even brilliant he had given an account of his 
 experiences as a traveller and geologist in the 
 Highlands. This account was angrily resented 
 by the natives as exaggerated, and even un- 
 truthful. They had entertained him in their 
 houses, furnished him with boats, carriages, 
 men, and other assistance, and he repaid them 
 by satirising their households and holding their
 
 394 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 manners and customs up to public ridicule. 
 Old Mackinnon of Corriehatachan was so 
 indignant that the next time he went to 
 Glasgow after the publication of the book, he 
 took the engraved portrait of its author to 
 a crockery-dealer and commissioned a set of 
 earthenware with Macculloch's likeness on 
 each. These articles were distributed over 
 Skye, and I have been told that some of them 
 are still to be seen. 
 
 Subsequently Skye was visited in 1827 by 
 Murchison and Sedgwick, who came to Strath. 
 The familiar anecdote of the geologist who 
 entrusted his bag of specimens to a lad to 
 be carried some miles to his inn, and who 
 found that the bag had been emptied and 
 refilled with stones picked up near the door, 
 is told of Hugh Miller, of Sedgwick and of 
 Murchison. I was assured in Skye that the 
 trick was played on Macculloch. But to con- 
 trive to escape from the apparently unneces- 
 sary fatigue of carrying a heavy bag a long 
 distance is so natural that we can believe it may 
 have been carried out with all these worthies. 
 I heard the anecdote in Skye, from the late 
 Dr. Donald Mackinnon. But the most circum- 
 stantial account of it I have met with is that 
 of Dr. Norman Macleod. ' A shepherd, while
 
 GEOLOGISTS IN THE HIGHLANDS 395 
 
 smoking his cutty-pipe at a small Highland 
 inn, was communicating to another in Gaelic 
 his experiences of "mad Englishmen," as he 
 called them. " There was one," said he, " who 
 once gave me his bag to carry to the inn by a 
 short cut across the hills, while he walked by 
 another road. I was wondering myself why it 
 was so dreadfully heavy, and when I got out 
 of his sight I was determined to see what was 
 in it. I opened it, and what do you think it 
 was ? But I need not ask you to guess, for 
 you would never find out. It was stones ! " 
 " Stones ! " exclaimed his companion, opening 
 his eyes, " Stones ! well, well, that beats all I 
 ever knew or heard of them ! and did you carry 
 it ? " " Carry it ! Do you think I was as mad 
 as himself? No! I emptied them all out, but 
 I filled the bag again from the cairn near the 
 house, and gave him good measure for his 
 money " ! ' 
 
 Another well-known story to the detriment 
 of a geologist, is also claimed for Skye. I 
 was assured that it was Sedgwick, who, when 
 chipping a rock by the roadside as he went 
 along on a Sunday, was stopped by a Strath 
 man with the query, ' Do you know what 
 you are doing ? ' and, on answering that he 
 was breaking a stone, was told, ' Ay, you are
 
 396 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 doing mair than that ; you are breakin' the 
 Sabbath.' But here, again, the remark is so 
 obvious in a Sabbatarian country that it may 
 have been made by independent censors on 
 more occasions than one. 
 
 The memory of the visits of these early geo- 
 logical pioneers had faded away when I came 
 to Skye. It seemed that no geologist since 
 their day had been seen in Strath, so that 
 the appearance of a lad wandering about alone 
 and, as it looked, aimlessly, with a hammer 
 in his hand and a bag over his shoulder, 
 gave rise to much wonderment and conjecture 
 among the crofters. They knew me by the 
 name of Gille na Clack, or the ' Lad of the 
 Stones,' and came in the end to see that I 
 was harmless. But now and then they would 
 express their convictions or their pity. Once, 
 when passing some huts on the shore of Loch 
 Slapin, I stopped to break off a fragment 
 from a projecting rock in front of them. As 
 usual, I looked at the chip with my lens, and, 
 having satisfied myself as to the nature of the 
 rock, was resuming my walk, when I heard 
 two old crones at their doors speaking of me. 
 I knew very little Gaelic, but I caught up 
 the emphatic remark that closed the conversa- 
 tion 'As a cheill.' When I returned to
 
 LIFE ON PABBA 397 
 
 Kilbride I asked the tutor of the family the 
 meaning of the expression, and learnt that 
 it was, ' He's wrong in the head.' 
 
 One of my earliest excursions from Kil- 
 bride led me to the island of Pabba, which 
 lies like a flat green meadow in front of 
 Broadford Bay. Hugh Miller had described 
 to me its richly fossiliferous Liassic shales, 
 and I went with the determination to spend 
 some time on the island, and make a good 
 collection of its fossils. The only habitation 
 in the place was one small hut, tenanted by 
 Charles Mackinnon and his family, who looked 
 after the cattle sent across from the farm of 
 Corrie. Coming with the recommendation of 
 their master, I was cordially welcomed. But 
 the resources of the island were slender. My 
 sleeping quarters were a heap of heather in 
 a corner of the upper floor of a barn, while 
 for my dining-room I had the use of the 
 ' ben ' or inner room in Charles' hut. The 
 food consisted chiefly of potatoes, oat-cakes, 
 milk, and tea, with an occasional herring or an 
 egg. After a day's work along the shore, I 
 would spend the evening in the hut, labelling and 
 wrapping up my specimens, while Mackinnon, 
 who knew a little English, sat by the side of the 
 peat fire, and gave me his company. We had
 
 398 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 been engaged in this way for some time the 
 first evening, when the door opened, and his 
 wife looked in. After watching me for a few 
 moments arranging my bits of stone, she made 
 a remark in Gaelic which drew an angry 
 reproof from her 'goodman,' who ordered her 
 to go away. With some difficulty I drew from 
 him the admission that the poor woman had 
 only said ' if she wassna kennin' ye had sense, 
 she wad be thinking ye wass a terrible eediot.' 
 
 When it was time to retire for the night, 
 my hostess would take a live peat between 
 the tongs in one hand and a candle in the 
 other, and sally out into the night, then up 
 an outside stair, without any rail, to my barn, 
 where she lit the candle, and left me. I shall 
 never forget the moaning of the wind through 
 the open louver-boards that served for windows, 
 the gusts that swept through the place and 
 nearly blew out the candle, and the shrieking 
 of the sea-fowl, like the agonised cries of 
 drowning seamen. But the heather was soft, 
 the blankets warm, and with youth on one's 
 side one slept soundly till the morning. 
 
 At my departure I pressed my kind host 
 and hostess to accept remuneration for their 
 services, but they rejected the notion almost 
 with indignation. At last Charles was per-
 
 A GEOLOGIST IN SKYE 399 
 
 suaded to let me send him some remem- 
 brance when I got back to the south country. 
 He said he would prefer a book, and when 
 asked to choose his book, he timidly enquired 
 whether he might have ' Josaiphus? Al- 
 though his knowledge of English was scanty, 
 he used to read English books aloud to his 
 children, but I am afraid that much of what 
 he read must have been unintelligible both to 
 him and to them. However, I procured and 
 sent him an illustrated copy of Josephus, 
 which, I was told, he used to show with 
 pride as the largest book on his shelf. 
 
 A more distant excursion took me to the 
 extreme north-eastern part of Skye. After 
 spending some time on the shore of Loch 
 Staffin and making a collection of the well-pre- 
 served fossils to be obtained there, I started 
 late one afternoon for the hamlet of Lonfern, 
 in which my friends at the Manse of Snizort, 
 told me I would get a warm welcome at Mrs. 
 Nicolson's, if I mentioned that I came from 
 them. The distance was only a few miles, 
 but there was much to interest me by the 
 way, so that the gloaming had set in, and still 
 no sign could be seen of the hamlet. At last 
 I came upon a man returning from the hill 
 with a creel of peats on his back, and asked
 
 400 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 him the path to Lonfern, when a conversation 
 ensued, which may here be given as an illus- 
 tration of crofter inquisitiveness. 
 
 ' Lonfern ! Are you gaun to Lonfern ? And 
 where hae ye come frae?' 
 
 ' I have come this evening from Loch 
 Staffin.' 
 
 ' Frae Loch Staffin ! and ye'll be a mar- 
 chant ? ' 
 
 ' No, I'm not a merchant.' 
 
 ' Not a marchant ! and what is't that ye'll be 
 carryin' in your bag ? ' 
 
 ' My bag is full of stones.' 
 
 ' Full of stones \ Ochan, ochan ! d'ye tell me 
 that ? STONES in your bag. And what wull 
 ye be doin' wi' the stones ? ' 
 
 4 Well, I mean to take them south and look 
 at them all very carefully.' 
 
 ' Lookin' at stones ! Well, well ! And have 
 ye no stones in your ain countrie?' 
 
 ' O yes, plenty of them ; but they are not 
 the same as you have in Skye. But will you 
 not tell me how I am to go to reach Lonfern.' 
 
 ' To Lonfern ! Ow ay, to be sure, the way 
 to Lonfern. But what use are the stones to 
 you ? ' 
 
 ' Well, I told you, I wished to have samples 
 of the Skye stones beside me.'
 
 CROFTER INQUISITIVENESS 401 
 
 ' To think o' a man keepin' stones to look at 
 them ! But are they worth onythin' ? Can 
 you make onythin' oot o' them?' 
 
 ' Yes to me they are worth a great deal, for 
 they show me what Skye was like long, long 
 ago. But it is getting dark now, and I really 
 must push on to Lonfern, if you will point 
 out the track.' 
 
 ' Ay, ay ; well, well, that's queer enough. 
 To think that ye wud be comin' all the way 
 frae the south country to pick up a wheen 
 stanes at Loch Staffin. And I'll warrant the 
 bag's heavy too. So it is, whatever ' (gently 
 lifting it from my back). 
 
 ' Well, my friend, I must say good night, if 
 you won't help me to find Lonfern.' 
 
 ' Ow ay, but I wull that. D'ye see thae twa 
 peat-stacks. Weel then, ye'll be keepin' round 
 by them to the burn, and ye'll be coming to 
 the wood plank across the burn, and ye'll cross 
 over there, and then ye'll be keepin' straught 
 on by the side o' the dyke, and in a wee while 
 you will be seein' Lonfern forenenst you.' 
 
 ' Thank you, thank you, and good night.' 
 
 ' Gude nicht, and I'm wussin' ye safe hame 
 wi' that bag.' 
 
 I had been told by my Snizort friends that 
 Jessie Nicolson's cottage could easily be
 
 402 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 found, for it was the largest of the row that 
 formed the hamlet. But by the time I arrived 
 there, the darkness had settled down, so that 
 only by stooping, in order to get the outline 
 of the roofs against the western sky, could one 
 judge of the relative size of the huts. At last 
 I selected what seemed to be the right one, 
 and knocked at the door. There was no 
 answer for a time, and while waiting I could 
 hear, to the left hand, under the same roof, 
 the heavy breathing and crunching noises of 
 the cows. After a second knock, the door was 
 eventually opened, and the figure of an elderly 
 woman appeared against the faint light of a 
 candle in the room to the right hand. I asked 
 if this was Mrs. Nicolson's. Instead of answer- 
 ing, she began to pass her hand over my 
 face, neck, and shoulders. Not knowing 
 whether she might be deaf and dumb, I shouted 
 out that I had come from the Manse of Snizort. 
 At the sound of these words, she took me by 
 the arm and almost dragged me into the room 
 with the light. ' Frae the Manse o' Snizort, 
 are ye ?' she exclaimed. ' And very welcome 
 here.' Planting me down by the side of the 
 peat fire, which she raked together and stacked 
 up with more fuel, she plied me with ques- 
 tions as to how they all were at the manse,
 
 A CROFTER HOME IN SKYE 403 
 
 and at every additional detail of news, her joy 
 seemed to increase. By degrees her family of 
 well-grown sons and daughters began to as- 
 semble, and to every one I was introduced 
 afresh as from the Manse of Snizort, and had 
 to answer a similar round of questions. Mean- 
 while the old lady, from a handsome brass- 
 bound chest of drawers (perhaps a marriage 
 gift from her friends at Snizort) which stood 
 on one side of the room, took out a tablecloth 
 of beautiful snow-white linen, and spread it on 
 the table. One of the sons had come in from 
 the bay with a fresh salmon, which, cut up 
 into steaks, formed part of an excellent supper, 
 enlivened with much talk, wherein the Manse 
 of Snizort and its inmates played a large part. 
 
 In this same room there were two beds, one 
 of which was spread afresh for me, while the 
 other was occupied by one of the sons. My 
 experience among the crofters had accustomed 
 me to peat-reek, but its pungency this evening 
 surpassed anything I had previously under- 
 gone. After the family had retired, and I had 
 lain down between the soft white sheets, it was 
 some time before the smarting of the closed 
 eyelids would allow of sleep. 
 
 The architecture of one of these houses is of 
 the simplest kind. On one side of the door is
 
 404 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 the division reserved for the cattle. On the other 
 is the part occupied by the human inmates, 
 which in the smallest huts may consist of a 
 single room. Where there are more rooms 
 than one, they are joined on to each other, with 
 only a thin wattled or blanket partition between 
 them. There is no separate passage, so that 
 from the innermost room it is necessary to pass 
 through the others to reach the outside. The 
 doors between the rooms often consist only of 
 a blanket hung across the opening, and pushed 
 aside when one wishes to enter or to leave. 
 On the morning following my arrival I was 
 awakened by the footsteps of some one passing 
 through my room, and noticed a female skirt 
 disappearing beyond the blanket. In a few 
 moments the eldest daughter of the house 
 entered bearing a tray laden with bottles and 
 glasses, which she brought up to my bedside, 
 in order that, as she said, I might ' taste some- 
 thing before I got up.' Not being used to such 
 a matutinal habit, I declined her offer with my 
 best thanks. But she grew quite serious over 
 my refusal, assuring me that my tasting would 
 give me an appetite. In vain I maintained 
 that at breakfast time she would see that I 
 stood in no need of any help of that kind. She 
 only the more ran over the choice of good
 
 A HIGHLAND BREAKFAST 405 
 
 appetising things she had brought me. ' Some 
 whusky nate? some whusky and wahtter? some 
 whusky and milk ? some acetates ? ' This last 
 I conjectured to be a decoction of bitter roots 
 in whisky, often to be found on Highland 
 sideboards in the morning. Seeing that a 
 persistent refusal would have displeased her, 
 I consented at last to have some milk and 
 whisky, but I did not discover that the draught 
 in any way improved my breakfast. 
 
 There are few meals in the world more en- 
 joyable than a true Highland breakfast. It 
 presupposes, however, good health, a good 
 digestion, and freedom from the daily visits of 
 the penny post. The porridge and cream at 
 the beginning provide a sensible substratum on 
 which the later viands can be built up. Even 
 if you confine your efforts to only one or two of 
 these viands, the variety of the whole table, 
 redolent of the hillside and the moor, and so 
 unlike the typical morning repast of ordi- 
 nary southerners, imparts a sense of plenty 
 and freedom, and renews the longing to be 
 out once more in the glen or on the moun- 
 tain. Christopher North, who more than most 
 men appreciated the merits of this repast, 
 used to say, after having made a good meal, 
 ' now is the time to pitch in a few eggs.'
 
 406 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 Johnson, too, who liked good living, admitted 
 that the Scots, both Lowland and Highland, 
 excel the English in breakfast. ' If an epi- 
 cure/ he says, 'could remove by a wish, in 
 quest of sensual gratification, wherever he had 
 supped, he would breakfast in Scotland.' l 
 
 The breakfast at Lonfern was worthy of the 
 supper of the evening before. When I had to 
 address myself to my journey to Portree those 
 kindly folk gathered round me with expressions 
 of the most affectionate interest, as if I had 
 been an old friend instead of an unknown 
 stranger. They would not hear of my starting 
 off by myself. It was a walk of eighteen miles, 
 they said, and the track was rough, and in 
 many places not easy to find. Besides, there 
 was a high cliff on the left hand, and if mist 
 came on I might fall over into the sea, several 
 hundred feet below, and there were deep slacks 
 (ravines) to cross, and many burns which might 
 be swollen, together with other dangers which 
 were duly detailed. So one of the sons must 
 accompany me all the way, and carry my bag. 
 To refuse the escort would have given offence ; 
 so we parted with the heartiest good wishes on 
 both sides, and I had unlocked for companion- 
 ship through the moors and boggy tracts that 
 
 1 Journey of a Tour to the Western Islands. 1757, p. 124.
 
 THE SPAR-CAVE 407 
 
 lie between the edge of the sea-washed preci- 
 pices and the steep hillsides of Trotternish. 
 
 During my earlier visits to Skye, the Admir- 
 alty survey of the surrounding seas and coasts 
 was in progress, under the direction of Captain 
 Wood, R.N. He used to be a welcome guest 
 at Kilbride, and he sometimes took the house 
 party on board his gunboat for a sail down 
 Loch Slapin. On one of these occasions we 
 visited the Spar Cave, and, with the help 
 of the sailors and Bengal lights, we saw 
 that famous cavern more completely than per- 
 haps it had ever been seen before. But its 
 glory was gone. A couple of generations of 
 Sassenach tourists, aided by the hammers, 
 candles, and torches of ignorant Celts, had 
 defaced the place beyond belief, shorn it of 
 the beauty of its white crystalline pillars, and 
 left it mangled and smoke-streaked. In the 
 course of centuries, if left undisturbed, ' Nature, 
 softening and concealing, and busy with a 
 hand of healing,' would doubtless repair the 
 damage. But the ruthless iconoclast should 
 in the meantime be debarred access to the 
 grotto, until the ' sweet benefit of time ' has 
 renewed the former glories of the place. 
 
 We went on to Loch Scavaig, landed at 
 the head of that gloomy fjord, and walked
 
 408 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 over to Coruisk. I have often been there 
 since, but have never a second time witnessed 
 a sight which was provided for us by the tars 
 of the gunboat. As everybody knows, who 
 has been to this most sombre of Scottish 
 lakes, the declivities around the water are 
 dotted over with boulders of all sizes, left 
 there by the glacier which once filled the 
 basin of Loch Coruisk and passed down Loch 
 Scavaig out to sea. Some of these blocks 
 of stone stand perched in the most perilous 
 positions, on steep slopes and on the edge 
 of cliffs, whence from a little distance it seems 
 as if a mere touch would suffice to send them 
 bounding into the lake below. Their number 
 and situation evidently interested the sailors, 
 who, as a change from their usual boating 
 and sounding for the marine survey, dashed 
 off for the nearest hill, along the profile of 
 which the boulders lay in especial abundance. 
 We had not noticed at first in which direction 
 the men moved, when our attention was 
 attracted by a thundering noise from the hill 
 in question, followed by a loud splash in the 
 lake below. The tars had found some of the 
 perched blocks capable of being moved, and 
 no doubt they dislodged as many as they 
 could. But, fortunately for the sake of geolo-
 
 NIGHT AT LOCH SCAVAIG 409 
 
 gists, they could not succeed with the larger 
 and finer boulders, which still remain where 
 the melting ice allowed them to rest. 
 
 In recent years, while the 'Aster' has been 
 cruising along these coasts, it has several times 
 anchored for the night at the head of Loch 
 Scavaig, and a more impressive anchorage can 
 hardly be imagined. The precipices on either 
 side plunge almost perpendicularly into the 
 water, and mount upwards, crag over crag, 
 into the far black, splintered crests and pin- 
 nacles that surround Coruisk. The tints of 
 sunset flame along these peaks, while the 
 evening shadows creep slowly upwards, and 
 deepen into such darkness below that one 
 cannot tell where land and water meet. The 
 sea, though tidal, may be motionless as the 
 calmest lake. The stillness is only broken 
 by the hoarse roar of the torrents that tumble 
 in white cascades through rifts in the black 
 rocks. In the long summer nights the northern 
 sky remains full of light, and even at mid- 
 night the striking outlines of the surrounding 
 mountains stand out sharp and clear against 
 it. Now and then a sea-gull may circle 
 slowly past and disappear in the gloom, but 
 for the most part there is little sign of life 
 at these hours.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 INFLUENCE of Topography on the people of Scotland. Distri- 
 bution and ancient antagonism of Celt and Saxon. Caithness 
 and its grin. Legends and place-names. Popdlar explana- 
 tion of boulders. Cliff-portraits. Fairy-stones and supposed 
 human footprints. Imitative forms of flint. Scottish climate 
 and its influence on the people. Indifference of the High- 
 lander to rain. ' Dry rain.' Wind in Scotland. Shakespeare 
 on the climate of Morayland. Influence of environment on 
 the Highlander. 
 
 IT is impossible to wander with attentive eyes 
 over Scotland without recognising how power- 
 fully the topography of the country has con- 
 trolled the distribution of the races that have 
 successively peopled it, and how seriously the 
 combined influences of topography and climate 
 have come to affect the national temperament 
 and imagination. As I have elsewhere dis- 
 cussed this subject, I will only refer briefly to 
 it here as an appropriate ending to these 
 chapters of a geologist's reminiscences. 
 
 I. First as regards the Topography. Confin-
 
 INFLUENCE OF TOPOGRAPHY 411 
 
 ing our attention to the Saxon and Celtic 
 elements of the population, we can readily see 
 from the mere form of the ground why the 
 two races have been distributed as we now 
 find them. On the west side of the country 
 the Norse sea-rovers seized upon the islands 
 and the narrow strips of cultivable land along 
 the coasts of the mainland. They were 
 ' vikings ' or baysmen, at home on the sea 
 and unwilling to wander far from its margin. 
 They had no inducement to quit their har- 
 bours and surrounding farms in order to 
 penetrate into the bleak mountainous fast- 
 nesses of the interior which they left in 
 possession of the older Celtic people. When 
 the Norwegian sway came to an end, and 
 the invaders returned to the cradle of their 
 race in the north, they left behind them some 
 of their own stock who had intermarried 
 with the Gaels, and as a still more enduring 
 memorial of their presence, abundant Norse 
 names, which still cling to hamlet, island, pro- 
 montory, bay, and hill. But the selvage of 
 coast-line which they had occupied was so 
 narrow, and the chain of islands lay so near, 
 that the mountaineers would have little difficulty 
 in moving down from the high grounds, over- 
 spreading the Norse settlements, and mingling
 
 412 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 with their inhabitants. The spoken language 
 of the vikings disappeared, and Gaelic once 
 more became the native tongue of the whole 
 district. 
 
 On the east side of the country, however, 
 the conditions were somewhat different. In 
 that region the mountains here and there retire 
 so far from the sea as to leave wide stretches 
 of lowland. On these spaces of comparatively 
 fertile land the early Teutonic invaders found 
 more ample room for their settlements. They 
 accordingly possessed themselves of these tracts 
 from Caithness southward, along the shores of 
 the Moray Firth to Aberdeen, and thence 
 round the eastern end of the Grampian range 
 into the broad valley of central Scotland. 
 They seem to have in large measure driven 
 out the earlier Celtic people who, on this 
 side of the island also, were left to live as 
 best they could among the mountains. The 
 topography which enabled the invaders to 
 possess themselves of this territory has sufficed 
 ever since to keep the races apart. Gradually, 
 indeed, along their mutual boundaries, though 
 apparently less distinctly than on the West 
 Coast, they came to intermingle with each 
 other. But the ancient antagonism between 
 Celt and Saxon lasted down through the
 
 ANTAGONISM OF CELT AND SAXON 413 
 
 centuries, and in an attenuated form almost to 
 our own day. The Highlander, when he used 
 to raid the cattle and burn the farms of the 
 Lowlander, was avenging the wrongs which his 
 remote ancestors had suffered at the hands of 
 the hated Sassenach. The Lowlander, on the 
 other hand, who found himself often powerless 
 to ward off or revenge these outrages, and had 
 to pay blackmail to prevent their repetition, 
 solaced himself by losing no opportunity of ex- 
 pressing his contempt for his Celtic neighbour. 
 The word 'Highland' actually came to have an 
 opprobrious meaning, summing up, as it did, 
 all the bad qualities of the race to which it 
 was applied. More particularly, the imperfect 
 knowledge of English on the part of the 
 mountaineers, and their slowness or inability 
 to understand what was said to them in that 
 language, led their Saxon fellow-countrymen 
 to the foolish conclusion that this apparent 
 dullness arose from innate stupidity. The poor 
 Celts, in their efforts to express themselves in 
 the language of the Lowlands, naturally made 
 use of the words they heard there, so that a 
 Highlander who was warned against doing 
 what would have been a foolish action, could 
 innocently exclaim, ' She's no sae tam Heelan' 
 to do that.' I can remember in my boyhood,
 
 4H SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 being much struck by coming across some sur- 
 vivals of this use of the word, and of the 
 feelings of contempt with which it was em- 
 ployed. There were then many stories current 
 illustrative of what was thought to be the dense 
 stolidity and ignorance of the Celts. The type 
 of conceited Lowlander, so well represented 
 in Bailie Nicol Jarvie, never realised his own 
 vulgarity, or recognised the innate gentleman- 
 liness of even the poorest and least educated 
 Highlander who had escaped Sassenach con- 
 tamination. But these misunderstandings have 
 been buried and forgotten. 
 
 Probably the best district of the country for 
 the purpose of marking the topographical con- 
 ditions that determined the limits within which 
 the two races are confined, is to be found on 
 the east side of Sutherland and Ross, and in 
 the county of Caithness. To this day these 
 limits remain fairly well marked. The low 
 ground forms but a narrow strip along the 
 coast from the Moray Firth to the Ord. On 
 that strip, and through the Black Isle to Tar- 
 bat Ness, the people are Teutonic, but as we 
 penetrate into the hills, the squalid cabins, 
 poor crofts, peat reek, and sounds of the Gaelic 
 tongue, tell unmistakeably that we have entered 
 upon the domain of the Celt. Caithness offers
 
 THE FLAT OF CAITHNESS 415 
 
 one of the most singular pieces of topography 
 in Scotland. Looking at the map, one would 
 naturally regard it as a continuation of the 
 highlands of Sutherland, and expect its popu- 
 lation to be also Gaelic. But in actual fact, 
 it belongs not to the mountains, but to the 
 lowlands, and has been for many centuries in 
 possession of the Scandinavian stock. It con- 
 sists of a flat platform or tableland, in places 
 not more than 100 feet above the sea, into 
 which it descends in an almost continuous line 
 of abrupt precipices. The contrast between the 
 varied and picturesque coast-line and the tame 
 monotony of the featureless interior is singu- 
 larly striking, and again, that between the 
 wide, moory, peat-covered plain, and the bold 
 Sutherland mountains that spring up from its 
 border. The names of places over this plain 
 and along the shore bear witness to the long 
 occupation of the territory by the descendants 
 of the Norsemen. But as soon as we enter 
 the hills, Gaelic names appear, and we find 
 ourselves among a population that still speaks 
 Gaelic. 
 
 As a consequence of the flatness of the 
 interior of Caithness, the few roads which cross 
 the county run for miles in straight lines. 
 Their rectilinear direction is said to have had
 
 416 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 a curious effect on the physiognomy of the 
 inhabitants. Two men coming from opposite 
 quarters recognise each other long before they 
 can come within speaking distance. A smile 
 of recognition, however, begins to form itself 
 on their faces, and this lasts so long, before 
 they actually meet, that it becomes stereotyped 
 into a kind of grin, which is alleged to be 
 characteristic of the most typical natives of 
 Caithness. 
 
 That the topographical features of Scot- 
 land have influenced the national imagination 
 is well indicated by the legends and place- 
 names that have been attached to them. A 
 deep cleft on a mountain-crest, a bowl-shaped 
 hollow scooped out of a hillside, a profound 
 ravine, a conical mound or a group of such 
 mounds, rising conspicuously above a bare 
 moorland, a solitary boulder of gigantic size, or 
 a line of large boulders these and many other 
 prominent elements in the scenery, alike of the 
 Lowlands and the Highlands, have arrested 
 attention from the earliest times. As they 
 appear so exceptional in the general topo- 
 graphy, exceptional causes have been sought 
 to explain them, and they have given rise to 
 legendary beliefs that have been gradually 
 interwoven in the mythology and superstition
 
 LEGENDS AND TOPOGRAPHY 417 
 
 of the races that have dwelt among them. 
 That these apparently abnormal features owed 
 their origin to some form of direct supernatural 
 agency has been tacitly assumed as their only 
 possible explanation. Now and then they are 
 referred to the immediate action of the Deity. 
 Thus all over the hills and valleys of the south 
 of Ayrshire, an incredible number of boulders 
 of grey granite have been scattered. So 
 abundant are they in some places as, when 
 seen from a distance, to look like flocks of 
 sheep, and so distinct are they in form, colour, 
 and composition from any of the rocks round 
 about them, that they could not fail to excite 
 the imagination in trying to account for them. 
 A stonebreaker who was asked how he sup- 
 posed they had come to lie where they are, 
 after a pause gave the following picturesque 
 explanation, ' Weel ye see, when the Almichtie 
 flang the warld out, He maun hae putten thae 
 stanes upon her to keep her steady.' 
 
 More usually the popular fancy has fixed 
 on the Devil, with his copartnery of wizards, 
 warlocks, witches and carlines, as the authors 
 of the more singular parts of a landscape. I 
 have already referred to this aspect of diabolic 
 agency, and by way of further illustration may 
 cite here an example of the kind of legend 
 
 2D
 
 4i 8 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 which has grown up in all parts of the country. 
 I was once directed to a shoemaker in the 
 village of Carnwath as possessing more local 
 knowledge of his district than anyone else. 
 By a piece of bad luck for himself, but of good 
 fortune for me, on the day of my call upon him 
 the man had so injured a finger that he could 
 not at the moment continue to ply ;his trade. 
 He was accordingly delighted to accompany 
 me over the ground, and point out some of 
 the changes which it had undergone within his 
 own memory. A conspicuous feature in the 
 district was furnished by a number of boul- 
 ders of dark stone scattered over the surface 
 between the River Clyde and the Yelping 
 Craig, about two miles to the east. Before 
 farming operations had reached their present 
 development there, the number of these blocks 
 was so much greater than at present that one 
 place was known familiarly as ' Hell Stanes 
 Gate ' (road), and . another as ' Hell Stanes 
 Loan.' The tradition runs that Michael Scott, 
 the famous wizard, had entered into a compact 
 with the Devil and a band of witches to dam 
 back the Clyde with masses of stone to be 
 carried from the Yelping Craig. It was one 
 of the conditions of such pacts that the name 
 of the Supreme Being should never on any
 
 WITCHES' CANTRIPS 419 
 
 account be mentioned from the beginning to 
 the end of the transaction. All went well for 
 a while, some of the stronger carlines having 
 brought their burden of boulders to within a 
 few yards from the river, when one of the 
 younger members of the company, staggering 
 under the weight of a huge block of green- 
 stone, exclaimed, 'O Lord! but I'm tired.' 
 Instantly every boulder tumbled to the ground, 
 nor could witch, warlock, or devil move a 
 single stone one yard further. And there the 
 blocks had lain for many a long century, 
 until the modern farmers blasted some of 
 them with gunpowder to furnish material for 
 dykes and road-metal, and got rid of others 
 by tumbling them into holes dug to receive 
 them. 
 
 The shoemaker, however, though he enjoyed 
 the popular explanation, had got far beyond 
 the thraldom of old superstition, and had 
 made some acquaintance with modern science. 
 When I asked him how he would himself 
 account for the scattering of these blocks of 
 stone over the district, he replied at once, 
 ' O, ye ken, they cam on the backs o' the 
 icebairges,' and he proceeded to give me a 
 graphic picture of what he supposed must 
 have been the condition of Clydesdale when
 
 420 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 it lay below an icy sea, across which the 
 stones were transported and were left where 
 they now lie. 
 
 In many cases the origin of striking local 
 features is referred to the doings of powerful 
 witches alone, as in the case of Ailsa Craig, 
 which is said to be the work of 
 
 A witch so strong 
 That could control the moon, make flows and ebbs. 
 
 The legend relates that for some purpose she 
 designed to carry over a hill to Ireland, and 
 selected one near Colmonell. Having lifted 
 it up in her apron, she set off on her broom- 
 stick through the air, but unfortunately, when 
 some miles out over the firth, her apron-strings 
 broke, and the huge mass fell into the water, 
 where its upper part has projected ever since 
 as the well-known 'craggy ocean-pyramid.' 
 In proof of the truth of this tale, the hollow 
 is pointed out from which the rock was re- 
 moved. 
 
 Even among the minor topographical feat- 
 ures of the country, the natural play of the 
 imagination may be seen where the instinctive 
 feeling for the detection of resemblances has 
 led to the recognition of so many likenesses to 
 men and to animals, sometimes obvious, some- 
 times far-fetched, among the outlines of hills
 
 CLIFF-PORTRAITS 42 1 
 
 and crags. This tendency may be seen at 
 work in every country. Anyone can perceive 
 the strikingly lion-like aspect of Arthur's Seat, 
 which seems to sit watching over Edinburgh, 
 ready to spring at a foe. The profile of Samuel 
 Johnson's (some say Lord Brougham's) face 
 and his portly body have long been familiar 
 on the southern front of Salisbury Crags, 
 though it seems to me that the mouth is 
 wider open and the chin hangs a little more 
 than when I used to admire it as a boy. 
 The * tooth of time ' is incessantly gnawing 
 at all such cliffs, and while some fancied 
 resemblances are gradually effaced, others are 
 brought into existence. Travellers up Loch 
 Carron see in front of them on the summit 
 of the mountain Fuar Thol a gigantic recum- 
 bent profile, which from generation to genera- 
 tion is likened to that of some contemporary 
 personage. At present it is spoken of as the 
 face of a well-known politician whose features 
 are familiar in the pages of Punch. Our 
 grandchildren will find a likeness in it to some 
 one of their own time. In the little anchor- 
 age of the Shiant Isles, the face of one of 
 the surrounding cliffs presents the outline of 
 a man in the attitude so often depicted in 
 the background of Teniers' pictures.
 
 422 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 Further illustration of this universal habit 
 of mind may be gathered from even the 
 smaller objects in nature. Children delight to 
 recognise resemblances in things ; the grown 
 man learns to detect differences. Yet in re- 
 gard to things that are unfamiliar, the man's 
 first instincts are those of the child. He seizes 
 on the likeness which the newly observed 
 objects bear to some already known to him, 
 and he may even go so far as to mistake 
 similarity for identity. Perhaps in no depart- 
 ment of nature does this habit of mind manifest 
 itself more flagrantly than in the mineral 
 kingdom. People who know little or nothing 
 of minerals or rocks, readily enough perceive 
 a resemblance between some pieces of stone 
 and certain plants, animals or inanimate objects, 
 with which they at once compare or even 
 identify them. In the vast majority of cases, 
 there is no real connection between the stone 
 and the object which it resembles. The like- 
 ness is merely accidental and external. Among 
 the multitudinous shapes which concretions 
 of mineral matter have assumed, a curious 
 collection might be made of imitative forms. 
 The ' fairy stones ' of Scotland, found as 
 concretions among deposits of clay, present 
 endless rude figures of manikins, or portions
 
 SUPPOSED ANIMAL FOOTPRINTS 423 
 
 of the human body, of fishes, birds, plants, 
 cannon-balls, snuff-boxes, shoes, and innumer- 
 able familiar objects. Similar concretions occur 
 all over the world, and have long attracted 
 popular notice. 
 
 An Orkney laird once wrote to me that 
 his people, while removing flagstones from 
 the shore of his island, had made an extra- 
 ordinary discovery, no less than ' the footprints 
 of men, women, children and animals/ all 
 impressed on the solid stone and in excellent 
 preservation, and he courteously offered to 
 send me some specimens of these interesting 
 remains. The identification of the impres- 
 sions as human relics was of course out of 
 the question, for the rock that contained them 
 belonged to the Old Red Sandstone, which 
 was deposited long before any trace of man 
 appeared upon the earth. Nevertheless, as 
 there was just a possibility that among the 
 specimens, there might be some new fossils, 
 which might add to our knowledge of the 
 flora or fauna of that ancient formation, I 
 asked the proprietor to be good enough to 
 send a few examples of the ' find.' In due 
 course one or two large boxes arrived con- 
 taining several hundredweight of stone. But 
 every one of the specimens was merely the
 
 424 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 cast of a mineral concretion. Yet they were 
 curiously like footprints. One looked as if a 
 young man, in going out to a ball, had stepped 
 with his dress-boot upon soft mud, into 
 which he had sunk about an inch. Another 
 seemed as if it might have been made by a 
 rough-shod farmer, springing from his dog- 
 cart upon the surface of a muddy pool. There 
 were prints resembling misshapen female feet, 
 and one or two might, with a little imagina- 
 tion, have been taken for prints of infants, 
 whose fond mothers were trying to make 
 them stand on a soft clay floor. But not a 
 single one of them had anything to do with 
 a human being, or with any fossil plant or 
 animal. 
 
 The flints which lie dispersed through the 
 chalk, and which are distributed in such pro- 
 fusion over the surface of parts of the north- 
 east of Scotland, present many curiously 
 imitative shapes, either belonging to them 
 originally, or brought about by the irregular 
 fracturing and rolling which the stones have 
 undergone under the sea or on the beds of 
 rivers. The following letter, written to me 
 by a workman in the south of England, where 
 chalk-flints are immensely abundant, and are 
 largely used for road making and other pur-
 
 IMITATIVE SHAPES IN FLINT 425 
 
 poses, may be taken as an illustration of the 
 popular view of these objects. It is given 
 verbatim et literatim. 
 
 I have a collection of flints In fantistic Shapes of a 
 human Race such as leg with foot also feet harms legs 
 Hand with finger also finger skul and other Parts of 
 Human frame about 50 Pieces weight nearley One hundred 
 I have also Kelt harrow heds speer heds and set. My 
 Collection of the Human Race is a splended one and I 
 dont think they Can be beeten they look as natrel as 
 the boddy they or far sale and honestly worth a thousand 
 Pounds I will take a Reasonable Offer for them they are 
 on View at my House and I should like to find a Home 
 for them. Faithfully yours, Gravel Thrower. 
 
 II. Not less important than the topography 
 of a country, as a factor in the bodily and 
 mental development of a people, is the 
 Climate. Alike in prose and verse the 
 climates of northern countries have been 
 abundantly maligned, though it has been 
 generally allowed that they produce men of 
 mark both in body and mind. We are told 
 that the sun ' ripens spirits in cold northern 
 climes,' and that courage, strength, and endur- 
 ance may be looked for in people inured to 
 exertion in these regions. In English litera- 
 ture the climate of Scotland has naturally 
 offered a convenient butt for sarcasm and 
 abuse, coupled occasionally with an admission
 
 426 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 that, at all events, it has fostered a sturdy 
 race. Waller, in order to enhance his praise 
 of the doings of Cromwell in Scotland, speaks 
 of his successes over 
 
 A race unconquered, by their clime made bold, 
 The Caledonians, arm'd with want and cold. 
 
 There can be no doubt that most of this 
 dispraise of the climate has been based on 
 mere hear-say report, and that where it has 
 been grounded on actual personal observation 
 in Scotland, it has generally been the result 
 of exceedingly brief experience, during short 
 excursions into the country. It has in large 
 measure arisen from the confounding of 
 climate with weather. A man who comes 
 into a country for a few weeks, and is unlucky 
 enough to meet with a spell of bad weather 
 which lasts most of the time of his visit, may 
 be pardoned if he abuses what he has himself 
 suffered from, but he has no right to pass 
 any judgment on the climate of the country. 
 Climate is the average of all the variations 
 of weather during a long succession of years, 
 and cannot be tested by any mere summer 
 tour. A Scot may fairly claim that his country 
 can boast of two or three climates, tolerably 
 well marked off from each other, but all of
 
 SCOTTISH CLIMATES 427 
 
 them healthy, and on the whole, not dis- 
 agreeable. There is the oceanic climate of 
 the western isles and firths, under which in 
 sheltered places many flowering shrubs and 
 evergreens flourish luxuriantly, which can 
 scarcely be grown elsewhere in the country 
 save under glass. The eastern climate, being 
 further removed from the warm Atlantic 
 waters, and more directly exposed to the chilly 
 east-wind, is less genial. The central climate 
 of the mountains is one of greater extremes, 
 the summer temperature in the valleys being 
 sometimes high, while the frosts in winter are 
 often severe, and the snow-rifts remain un- 
 melted in the shaded corries all the summer. 
 To these might perhaps be added the Shet- 
 land climate, characterised by the prevalence 
 of winds and sea-fogs. The winds are there 
 fierce, and always more or less laden with 
 salt from the spindrift of the surrounding 
 ocean, so that shrubs cannot grow above the 
 limit of their sheltering wall, and true trees 
 are not to be seen. The white sea-fogs spread 
 rapidly over the islands during summer, 
 and though dense enough to blot out the view, 
 are not always so thick as wholly to obscure 
 the sun. 
 
 To one accustomed to more southern latitudes
 
 428 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 the chief defect of the Scottish climate is 
 the want of sunshine. The nimbus Britannicus 
 spreads too frequently as a grey pall across 
 the sky. But the native who has been used 
 to this canopy all his life, and has never seen 
 the continuous unclouded blue of a southern 
 clime, manages to enjoy good health, lives 
 often a long and active life, and resents im- 
 putations on the meteorology of his country, 
 though he reserves to himself, especially if 
 he be a farmer, the privilege of a good 
 grumble, when no stranger is at hand to 
 overhear it. 
 
 Most people shun a shower, and think 
 themselves worthy of pity if one should 
 overtake them when they can find no shelter, 
 or have no umbrella to protect them. But to 
 ordinary Highlanders exposure to heavy rain 
 is a matter of indifference, even if not a source 
 of real pleasure. On any wet day you may see 
 these men standing together in pouring rain, 
 although a shed or other shelter may be close 
 at hand. They get soaked to the skin, but it 
 does not seem to do them any harm. In fact, 
 they say themselves that the wet thickens 
 the cloth of their raiment and keeps them 
 warm. And that they are often really warm 
 is obvious enough when the steam may be
 
 HIGHLANDERS IN RAIN 429 
 
 seen rising from them, as if they were drying 
 themselves before a fire. The only concession 
 I ever noticed a Highlander make is now 
 and then to take off his cap, if the water is 
 trickling from it down his neck, and to wring 
 the rain out of it before putting it on again. 
 As an illustration of how strong and persistent 
 this national trait is, it may be mentioned 
 that about the middle of the eighteenth 
 century a Highlander from the forest of Mam 
 More emigrated to Canada, where after some 
 years he was visited by an old friend from 
 Scotland who, when the man was out of the 
 way, asked his wife and daughters whether 
 he ever talked of the Highlands. They said 
 he frequently did so, and though he was fairly 
 content with his home in the colony, he would 
 often complain that there was not rain enough. 
 When a good heavy shower came, he would 
 go out and stand in it till he was quite 
 drenched ; and returning into the house, 
 dripping wet, but with a smile of satisfaction 
 on his face, he would say, ' What a comfort- 
 able thing rain is!' 1 
 
 A lady of my acquaintance on the west 
 coast, to whom I remarked that it was a pity 
 for ordinary mortals that so much rain fell 
 
 ^Burt's Letters, vol. ii., p. 28.
 
 430 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 there, immediately answered me, ' O, but you 
 must remember, it is dry rain.' The remark 
 appears stupidly absurd, but she was an intel- 
 ligent and observant person, who would not 
 have made an idiotic statement. I learnt 
 that what she referred to was the rapidity 
 with which the rain disappeared from the 
 surface of the ground and from the garments 
 of those exposed to it. She maintained that, 
 owing to the more genial climate of the west, 
 the rain, as it fell, was warmer than on the 
 east side of the country, and owing to more 
 rapid evaporation, and perhaps to greater 
 porousness of the soil, it vanished out of sight 
 sooner. Certainly from my own experience, I 
 do not think one catches cold from severe 
 wetting so readily on the west as on the east 
 coast. 
 
 In the year 1728, Aaron Hill, who is now 
 chiefly remembered because of his connection 
 with Pope, became popular in the north of 
 Scotland owing to the vigorous, but ultimately 
 unsuccessful efforts, he made to cut and float 
 down timber on the Spey, for the uses of 
 the navy. He was entertained by the nobles 
 and magistrates, and received the freedom of 
 the town of Inverness. But he must have 
 happened upon a spell of bad weather, for
 
 WIND AND RAIN 431 
 
 when he halted at Berwick he wrote on the 
 window of the inn the following lines : 
 
 Scotland ! thy weather's like a modish wife ; 
 Thy winds and rains for ever are at strife; 
 So Termagant a while her thunder tries, 
 And when she can no longer scold she cries. 1 
 
 More trying to the temper than the rain 
 is the wind that too often sweeps across the 
 country. Men who have to ' strive with all 
 the tempest in their teeth,' acquire a certain 
 compression of the lips and look of deter- 
 mination which sometimes, by the end of a 
 long and weather-beaten life, may become 
 permanent. Edinburgh, built on ridges ex- 
 posed to the breeze from all quarters, is said 
 to be distinguished by the l windy walk ' of 
 its inhabitants. Ami Boue was struck with the 
 wall that ran along the middle of the earthen 
 mound which was thrown across the central 
 valley, in order to connect the old and the new 
 town of that city, and he tells us that pedes- 
 trians chose one or other side of this wall 
 
 1 Burt in his Letters says that he found these lines 
 scribbled on the window with the initials A. H. at the end of 
 them, and he conjectured them to be Hill's. They were 
 afterwards included in the poems of that writer, who seems 
 to have had a passion for thus disfiguring window-panes, for 
 he has collected a series of his verses ' written on windows 
 in several parts of the kingdom in a journey to Scotland.'
 
 432 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 according to the quarter from which the con- 
 tinual and often violent winds blew. ' How 
 many hats,' he exclaims, 'were lost there in a 
 year ! I wore out more umbrellas in my four 
 years of residence in Great Britain than during 
 all the rest of my life. Macintoshes had not 
 been invented.' 1 
 
 To any one intent on some definite employ- 
 ment out-of-doors, such as fishing, sketching, 
 botanising, geological mapping, or any pursuit 
 where quiet air is necessary, nothing can be 
 more exasperating than a struggle against the 
 ceaseless driving of the blast. Mere heavy 
 rain, if it fall straight, can be endured, for it 
 allows one to stand, to turn round, and if an 
 umbrella be used, to consult a map or guide- 
 book. With a furious wind, however, you can 
 do nothing but 
 
 Grow sick, and damn the climate like a lord. 
 
 In Scotland, as in other countries having a 
 variable climate, the weather has long been a 
 
 1 From Boue's Autobiography, which he wrote in French 
 some time before his death, and printed in Vienna. It abounds 
 in misprints, over and above those of which he appends a 
 long list, and reminds one of the French of his Esquisse 
 Gtologique sur VEcosse. He addressed copies of the work in 
 his own handwriting to his friends, to be distributed after his 
 death. Mine was not only inscribed to me inside, but the 
 postal cover was also addressed by him, and I received it by 
 post shortly after the news came that he had passed away.
 
 WEATHER SALUTATIONS 433 
 
 staple subject with which to introduce a con- 
 versation. And it is curious that even when 
 the sky is overcast, with a threatening of rain, 
 the usual greeting, 'It's a fine day,' may not 
 infrequently be heard as the beginning of the 
 colloquy. So inveterate is this habit that the 
 observation is apt to escape from the lips, 
 even when the meteorological conditions make 
 it grotesquely out of place, as in the case of 
 the man who made use of it on a day of 
 howling tempest, but immediately corrected 
 himself: 'It's a fine day,' said he, 'but 
 coorse.' 
 
 Remarks about the weather have been known 
 to be resented on Sundays as an unbecoming 
 topic of conversation for that solemn season. 
 When the usual salutation had been made to 
 one of the more strait-laced elders, he testily 
 answered, ' Ay, but whatna a day's this, to be 
 speakin' about days ? ' 
 
 Still more gruff was the Aberdonian response 
 to the ordinary greeting of a stranger on a 
 country road, ' Ou ay, fae's findin' faut wi' the 
 day. There's some folk wad fecht wi' a stane 
 
 waV 
 
 The number of days in a year when an 
 outdoor walk is impracticable on account of 
 the weather is in Scotland far smaller than
 
 434 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 people might imagine. Of course there come 
 storms of wind and rain that will keep one 
 a prisoner for a day or so at a time. But 
 even in these storms there are not infre- 
 quently lulls, when a brisk walk may be 
 enjoyed before the tempest begins again. Geo- 
 logical surveying affords a good test of climate, 
 and I have found it quite possible to carry 
 this work on the whole year through. Snow 
 puts a stop to it, but many winters come 
 and go without leaving snow on the lowlands 
 at all, or at least for more than a day or two 
 altogether. 
 
 Those who are familiar with the peculiarly 
 genial and healthy climate of the southern 
 shores of the Moray Firth have sometimes 
 thought that as good an argument as many 
 that have been brought forward to prove that 
 Shakespeare visited Scotland, might be based 
 on the extraordinarily minute and accurate 
 description which he gives of the climate of 
 that region. 
 
 The air 
 
 Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself 
 Unto our gentle senses. This guest of summer, 
 The temple-haunting martlet, does approve 
 By his loved mansionry that the heaven's breath 
 Smells wooingly here : no jutty, frieze, 
 Buttress nor coign of vantage, but this bird
 
 IRISHMAN AND HIGHLANDER 435 
 
 Hath made his bed and procreant cradle ; 
 
 Where they most breed and haunt I have observed 
 
 The air is delicate. 
 
 The salubrity of the climate has been 
 recognised for many years by medical men, 
 who, as already mentioned, send their patients 
 from the south of England to these northern 
 shores. 
 
 The most suggestive illustration of the 
 influence of environment upon the character 
 of the people is probably to be found in the 
 Highlands. There can be no doubt that the 
 Celtic inhabitants of that region belong to the 
 same stock as those of Ireland. We know, 
 indeed, as a historical fact, that the south- 
 western districts of Scotland were actually 
 peopled from Ireland. Yet no one familiar 
 with the population of the two countries can 
 fail to recognise the contrasts which they 
 present to each other, both in general physique 
 and in habits and temperament. Neither race 
 has kept itself pure and unmixed, but in each 
 case the foreign infusion has been of the 
 same kind in varying proportions. Norsemen, 
 Danes, Normans, English, have mingled with 
 the Celtic stock in both islands. The Irishman, 
 however, has had the advantage of, on the 
 whole, a better climate. His country possesses
 
 436 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 far more level ground and a much larger pro- 
 portion of arable soil. His mountains rise 
 up for the most part as islands out of a vast 
 plain, and thus have offered little serious 
 impediment to the free intercourse of the 
 people from one end of the island to the 
 other. Hence he has been able to sow and 
 reap his crops, and to rear his sheep, cattle 
 and horses, with comparatively little opposition 
 from nature. Moreover, he has escaped the 
 shadow of the Calvinistic gloom. His religion 
 has not repressed his natural liveliness of tem- 
 perament. His clergy have not set themselves 
 to eradicate all his superstitions and usages, 
 habits and customs, but have allowed these 
 free play where they were not clearly opposed 
 to the cause of morality. And thus his gaiety, 
 if it has not been greatly promoted by the 
 cheerfulness of his surroundings, has at least 
 not been always and everywhere dimmed and 
 chastened by a contest with his environment 
 for the means of subsistence, save where the 
 population has increased beyond the capacity 
 of the ground to support it, nor by a stern 
 and inquisitorial interference on the part of 
 his priesthood. 
 
 The fate of the Celt in the Highlands has 
 been far different. There he has found himself
 
 GRIMNESS OF THE HIGHLANDER 437 
 
 in a region of mountains too rugged and lofty 
 for cultivation, save along their bases, and 
 too continuous to permit easy access from one 
 district to another, yet not sufficiently im- 
 passable to prevent the sudden irruption of 
 some hostile clan of mountaineers, carrying 
 with it slaughter and spoliation. Shut in 
 among long, narrow, and deep glens, he has 
 cultivated their strips of alluvium, but has too 
 often found the thin stony soil to yield but 
 a poor return for his labour. For many a 
 long century he had to defend his flocks and 
 herds from the wolf, the fox, and the wild 
 cat. 1 The gloom of his valleys is deepened 
 by the canopy of cloud which for so large a 
 part of the year rests upon the mountain-ridges 
 and cuts off the light and heat of the sun. 
 Hence his harvests are often thrown into the 
 late autumn, and in many a season his thin 
 and scanty crops rot on the ground, leaving 
 
 1 The last wolf is believed to have been killed in Scotland 
 about the year 1743 m the forest of Tarnaway, Morayland, 
 by Macqueen of Pall-a'-Chrocain, a deer-stalker of great 
 stature and strength (Chambers' Domestic Annals of Scotland, 
 Vol. III. p. 609). The fox is still common in many districts, 
 where it is hunted with dogs and rifles. The wild-cat is 
 becoming scarce, but continues to haunt some of the mountain- 
 ous tracts of the Highlands. A number of captive individuals 
 are kept in confinement at the Earl of Seaforth's residence 
 in Glen Urquhart.
 
 438 SCOTTISH REMINISCENCES 
 
 him face to face with starvation and an in- 
 clement winter. Under these adverse con- 
 ditions he could hardly fail to become more 
 or less subdued and grim. But he has likewise 
 been exposed, more irresistibly than his fellow- 
 countrymen of the Lowlands, to the mis- 
 guided solicitude and sombre fanaticism of 
 kirk-sessions and Presbyteries. His tales, his 
 legends, and his superstitions have been de- 
 rided by his ecclesiastical guides as foolish 
 fables ; his songs, his instrumental music, and 
 his dances, have been stigmatised as vain and 
 unworthy exhibitions, his musical instruments 
 have been broken and burnt. His natural 
 and innocent ebullitions of joy and mirth have 
 been checked and repressed as unbecoming in 
 a being who is journeying onward to eternity. 
 Need it be matter for wonder if under 
 these various restraining influences the gaiety 
 which the Highlander doubtless shared origin- 
 ally with his brother in Ireland, has been in 
 large measure replaced by a serious sedate- 
 ness, passing even into depression. When he 
 chooses to solace himself with music, its sad 
 cadences seem to re-echo the monotonous 
 melancholy of the winds that sough past his 
 roughly-built cot, or howl down his glens and 
 across his wastes of barren moorland. But
 
 HIGHLAND CHARACTER 439 
 
 while the lighter side of his nature has thus 
 suffered, his higher qualities have probably 
 been only further fostered and developed. His 
 struggle with climate and soil has strengthened 
 in him a spirit of stubborn endurance and self- 
 reliance, which his moral training has directed 
 towards praiseworthy ends. This spirit finds 
 its freest scope in the life of a soldier. In 
 that career, also, the instincts and traditions 
 of his race meet with their fullest realisation. 
 And thus it has come that for more than a 
 century and a half the British Army has had 
 no braver or more loyal body of men than 
 those of the Highland regiments. On many 
 a hard-fought field, in all parts of the world, 
 wherever deeds of heroism had to be done, 
 the pibroch has thrilled and the tartan has 
 waved in the front.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Aberfoyle, Bailie Nicol Jarvie's 
 
 coulter at, 18. 
 
 Accent, persistence of local, 368. 
 Advocates at Scottish Bar, 148, 
 
 154. 
 Ailsa Craig, legendary origin of, 
 
 420. 
 
 Alexander, Rev. Dr. W. L., 19. 
 Angling experiences, 288. 
 Anstruther, 364. 
 Arctic shells of Kyles of Bute, 
 
 362. 
 
 Ardnamurchan, Point of, 163. 
 Argyll, Duke of, 187. 
 Arran, village ' natural ' in, 332 ; 
 
 Parliamentary election in, 362. 
 'Aster' steam yacht, 248, 255, 
 
 282, 284. 
 
 Avoch, saint's well in, 112. 
 Ayrshire ministers, 67, 70 ; 
 
 Sabbath observance in, 138 ; 
 
 lairds, 190; miners, 116, 313, 
 
 336 ; witches, 336. 
 
 Bailies in Scotland, 359. 
 Bald, Robert, 341. 
 
 Baptismal rites, 68. 
 Barometer, use of, by farmers, 
 
 211. 
 
 Barra, 45. 
 Benbecula, 45. 
 Berwick-on-Tweed, tombstone 
 
 at, 326. 
 
 Birkhill, Moffatdale, 300. 
 Black Isle, 414. 
 Black, Joseph, tomb of, 327 ; 
 
 anecdotes of, 352 ; one of the 
 
 scientific lights of Edinburgh, 
 
 371- 
 
 Black, William, 31. 
 
 Blackie, John Stuart, 175, 272. 
 
 Boswell, James, 349. 
 
 Boue, Ami, 383, 431. 
 
 Boulders, explanations of origin 
 of, 4I7- 
 
 Breadalbane, second Marquis of, 
 185, 346. 
 
 Breakfasts, former sociality of, 
 350 ; attractions of, in Scot- 
 land, 405. 
 
 Brodick, ' natural ' at, 332. 
 
 Buckhaven, 364.
 
 INDEX 
 
 441 
 
 Burke and Hare, murders by, 
 
 324- 
 
 1 Burning the water,' 288. 
 Burns, Robert, 116, 144, 368. 
 Burl's Letters from a Gentleman 
 
 in the North of Scotland, 1 7, 
 
 235, 314, 431- 
 Bute, volunteer battery on, 64 ; 
 
 social changes in, 360. 
 Butler, S., cited, 125, 297, 351. 
 Butter, superstitions in making 
 
 of, 114. 
 Byron, cited, 126, 157, 173, 349. 
 
 Caithness, 275, 414. 
 Callernish, standing stones of, 
 
 39, 248. 
 
 Campbell, Lord Chancellor, 12. 
 Campbell, Rev. J. Gregorson, 
 
 cited, 108, 257. 
 Canal travelling, 14. 
 Canna Island, 45 ; a broken leg 
 
 in, 162. 
 
 Castles in West Highlands, 253. 
 Catechising in church, 71. 
 Celtic Church, 40, 60, 108. 
 Chalmers, Dr., 179, 365, 379. 
 Chambers, Robert, 173, 341, 346, 
 
 352, 380, 437. 
 
 Chang, the Chinese giant, 322. 
 Christison, Sir R., 177. 
 Churchill, 161. 
 Clans, dispersion of, 267. 
 Cleanliness, former want of, in 
 
 Scottish inns and towns, 302. 
 Clergy, influence of, in Scotland, 
 
 47, 101, 438. 
 Clubs, convivial, 350, 358. 
 
 Clyde, social changes in district 
 
 of, 360. 
 Cockburn, Henry, 4, 350, 352, 
 
 369- 
 
 Collier superstitions, 116, 336 ; 
 servitude in Scotland, 341 ; 
 humour, 345. 
 
 ' Corp,' use of the word, in Scot- 
 land, 328. 
 
 Crail, 324, 364. 
 
 Crofter-life in Highlands, 219, 
 224, 330, 397, 399, 401. 
 
 Cromarty, holy well near, 112. 
 
 Cromwell, tradition connected 
 with, in Lammermuir, 208. 
 
 Cullen, Lord, 150. 
 
 Culloden, effects of Battle of, 2. 
 
 Curling, game of, 218. 
 
 Cyclists and inns, 360. 
 
 Dalquharran Castle, 193. 
 
 Dancing, sinfulness of, 141. 
 
 Darlings of Priestlaw, 206. 
 
 Death, Scottish humour in re- 
 lation to, 321. 
 
 Dechen, H. von, 383. 
 
 Deer, depredations of, in High- 
 lands, 220. 
 
 ' Deserts' of the Celtic saints, 41. 
 
 Devil, superstitions connected 
 with the, 114, 417. 
 
 ' Devilish,' modern use of the 
 word, 1 1 8. 
 
 Dinner customs, 318. 
 
 Disruption of the Church of 
 Scotland, 96. 
 
 Dogs, shepherds', 296. 
 
 Dolphinton, railways to, 21.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Drink in Scotland, 303, 310. 
 Drunkenness, Scottish, 312. 
 Dryden, cited, 129. 
 D unbar, fisher folk of, 365. 
 Dunvegan Castle, 253. 
 
 Edinburgh, stage-coaches from, 
 8, 10, 13 ; street preaching in, 
 75 ; Sunday walking in, 126 ; 
 medical school of, 156 ; Uni- 
 versity of, 1 66 ; former dirti- 
 ness of, 348 ; convivial clubs 
 of, 35i, 355,357; Geology in, 
 371 ; cliff portrait near, 421 ; 
 wind of, 431. 
 
 Eigg, steamboats to, 31 ; Roman 
 Catholicism in, 45 ; massacre 
 of Macdonalds in, 254. 
 
 Eviction, a Highland, 225. 
 
 Excise officers on English Bor- 
 der, 304. 
 
 Fairies, 108. 
 
 Fairs in the Highlands, 233. 
 
 Fairy-stones, 422. 
 
 Farm-life in the Highlands, 219. 
 
 Farm-servants, 215. 
 
 Farmers, Lowland, 205. 
 
 Faroe Isles, 284. 
 
 Fast Day, 139. 
 
 Ferries in Highlands, 239. 
 
 Field-geologist, experiences of a, 
 
 386. 
 Fisher-folk of Eastern Scotland, 
 
 363- 
 
 Fisherrow, 365. 
 Fleming, John, 381. 
 Flint, imitative shapes in, 424. 
 
 Fogs on northern seas, 284, 427. 
 Footprints, supposed, in rock, 
 
 423- 
 
 Forbes, James David, 373, 374. 
 Forth, fisher towns of the, 363. 
 Foula, Isle of, 282. 
 Free Church, influence of, in 
 
 Highlands, 141, 261. 
 Funerals and half-witted folk, 
 
 329- 
 
 Gaelic in court, 1 50 ; dying out 
 of, 268 ; topographical names, 
 269 ; difficulty of acquiring, 
 270. 
 
 Galloway, inns of, 305. 
 
 Gannets, 42, 251. 
 
 Geikie, Prof. James, 390. 
 
 Geological Survey, 379, 380, 
 
 387. 
 
 Geology, Scottish school of, 370. 
 Glasgow, stage-coaches from, 
 
 8, 13; medical school of, 156; 
 
 a professor at, 168. 
 Goat in kirk, 89 ; taken for 
 
 'Auld Hornie,' 118. 
 Golf, early attractions of, 122 ; 
 
 derived from Scotland, 305, 
 
 367 ; anecdotes of, 367. 
 Grant, Mrs., of Laggan, 9, 234, 
 
 237- 
 
 Gravediggers, 322. 
 Gravestones, 325, rapid decay 
 
 of, 326. 
 
 Grierson of Lag, 197. 
 Gull, Sir W., 1 60. 
 
 Haidinger, W., 382.
 
 INDEX 
 
 443 
 
 Hall, Sir James, of Dunglass, 
 
 371- 
 
 Hanna, Dr., 69, 74, 81, 364. 
 Harris, Sound of, 252. 
 Heaven and Hell, influence of 
 
 belief in a material, 103. 
 Hebrides, medical attendance 
 
 in, 161 ; scenery of, 248 ; 
 
 charm of, 258 ; geologists in, 
 
 393- 
 Henderson, Alexander, tomb of, 
 
 327. 
 
 Highlander, demureness of, 261 ; 
 gentlemanliness of, 414 ; dis- 
 regards rain, 428 ; influence 
 of environment on, 435. 
 
 Highlands, history of roads in, 
 2, 8 ; songs of, 16, 264 ; rail- 
 way construction in, 23 ; 
 steamboats in, 27-36 ; tele- 
 graph in, 37 ; Celtic Church 
 in, 40, 60; ministers in, 53-66, 
 74, 80 ; sermon in, 83 ; church- 
 psalmody in, 92 ; Established 
 and Free Churches in, 96, 141 ; 
 Sabbath observance in, 128 ; 
 dancing in, 141 ; medical 
 attendance in, 161 ; laziness 
 in, 234 ; want of manufactures 
 in, 237 ; ferries and coaches in, 
 239 ; castles in, 253 ; crusade 
 against music in, 260, 438 ; 
 topographical names in, 269 ; 
 inns of, 306 ; whisky in, 315 ; 
 geologists in, 393 ; breakfast 
 in, 405. 
 
 Hill, Aaron, 430. 
 
 Horner, Leonard, 174, 373. 
 
 Hoy, cliffs of, 277. 
 Hume's 'Essays,' 155. 
 Humour, character of Scottish 
 
 50, 52. 
 
 Hutcheson, David, 29. 
 Hutton, James, anecdotes of, 
 
 353 ; one of the founders of 
 
 modern geology, 371. 
 
 Idiots in Scotland, 331. 
 
 Inns, Scottish, 302. 
 
 lona, cathedral of, 44 ; island 
 of, 244. 
 
 Irishman and Highlander com- 
 pared, 435. 
 
 Jameson, Robert, 372. 
 Jeffrey, Francis, 349. 
 Johnson, Samuel, 349, 406. 
 Jura, unburied skeleton in, 255 ; 
 
 caves of, 256 ; laird of, 257. 
 Jury- trial in Scotland, 145. 
 
 Kennedy, T. F., of Dunure, 10, 
 
 190. 
 Knox, Robert, 157. 
 
 Lady of the Lake, influence of, 
 16. 
 
 Lairds, Scottish, 185. 
 
 Lammermuir, 206. 
 
 Landed proprietors, 185. 
 
 Law, Scottish fondness for, 142. 
 
 Legends connected with topo- 
 graphy, 416. 
 
 Lesmahagow, 99. 
 
 Lewis, Isle of, 248. 
 
 Litigiousness of Scotsmen, 142.
 
 444 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Loch Alsh, 63. 
 
 Carron, 421. 
 
 Coruisk, 408. 
 
 ,, Duich, 62. 
 
 Katrine in 1843, 15 ; in 
 1810, 16. 
 
 Lomond, first steamboats 
 on, 15 ; ferry on, 16. 
 
 Maree, in. 
 
 Roag, 248. 
 
 Scavaig, 407, 409. 
 
 Striven, 64. 
 London, travelling to, 9, 10. 
 Lyell, Sir Charles, 317, 373. 
 Lyke-wakes, 124, 330. 
 Lyndsay, Sir David, 142. 
 
 Macculloch, John, 393. 
 Macintoshes and Macgregors, 
 
 268. 
 Mackinnon of Corriehatachan, 
 
 394- 
 Mackinnon, Rev. John,of Strath, 
 
 53, 96, 219. 
 
 Maclagan, Sir D., 177, 356. 
 Maclaren, Charles, 375. 
 Macleod, Dr. Norman, 9, 165, 
 
 394- 
 
 Macnee, Sir D., 145. 
 Maconochie Welwood, Allan, 
 
 1 68. 
 Macrae, Rev. Mr., of Glenelg, 
 
 61. 
 
 Mania, religious, 105. 
 Manses of the Highlands, 57. 
 Marble, rapid open-air decay of, 
 
 327. 
 Martin's Western Islands, 1 10. 
 
 Medical profession in Scotland, 
 
 156. 
 
 Metal-mining, 346. 
 Miller, Hugh, on women colliers, 
 
 344; references to, 375, 377, 
 
 394, 397- 
 Mineral-oil, consequences of 
 
 introduction of, 266. 
 Minister's ' man,' 97. 
 Ministers, Scottish, 47, 48, 53-76, 
 
 77-106. 
 
 Moflfatdale, 300. 
 Moray, climate of, 160, 434. 
 Mull, steamboats to, 33. 
 Murchison, Sir R. I., 129-186, 
 
 39, 373, 379, 394- 
 Murray, Lord, 192. 
 Music, instrumental, in Scottish 
 
 kirks, 94 ; in the Highlands, 
 
 263, 438. 
 Musselburgh, 365. 
 
 ' Naturals ' in Scottish villages, 
 
 331- 
 
 Neaves, Lord, 139, 151. 
 Neptunist School of Geology, 
 
 372. 
 
 Newhaven, 365. 
 Nicol, James, 381. 
 North Berwick Links, 367. 
 North, Christopher, 405. 
 Norsemen in Scotland, 411. 
 
 Ochil Hills, metal-mining in, 
 
 346. 
 Old Red Sandstone, supposed 
 
 footprints in, 423. 
 Orkney Islands, 274.
 
 INDEX 
 
 445 
 
 Pabba island, 397. 
 
 Paganism, traces of, in Scotland, 
 38, 107. 
 
 Palmer's Stage-coaches, 12. 
 
 Papa Stour, 279. 
 
 Parish-visiting by Scottish 
 ministers, 98. 
 
 Parliamentary election in Bute, 
 361. 
 
 Patriotism, Scottish, 358. 
 
 Peach, Mr. B. N., 275. 
 
 Peat, time for cutting, 114. 
 
 Physiognomy affected by topo- 
 graphy, 415. 
 
 Pig, prejudice against, in High- 
 lands, 114. 
 
 Pillans, Professor, 173, 350, 357. 
 
 Pine-candles and torches, 266. 
 
 Pittenweem, 364. 
 
 Playfair, Lord, 139, 178, 356. 
 
 Popery, Scottish abhorrence of, 
 
 95- 
 
 Posting in Scotland, 9. 
 Precentors, 92. 
 Provosts, Scottish, 359. 
 Publican, Irish, in Scotland, 
 
 3"- 
 
 Queensferry, South, 100. 
 
 Raasay, isle of, 93, 227. 
 Railways in Scotland, 15, 20-27. 
 Rain in Scotland, 428. 
 Resurrectionists, 323. 
 Roads in Scotland, history of, 
 
 2,8. 
 
 Robertson, Patrick, 148. 
 Rodil, church of, 44, 252. 
 
 Roman Catholicism in Scotland, 
 
 45, in. 
 
 Rothesay, growth of, 360. 
 Royal Society Club (Edinburgh), 
 
 176, 355- 
 Rutherford Clark, Lord, 153. 
 
 Sabbath observance, history of, 
 119; illustrations of, 126. 
 
 St. Andrews, Celtic church at, 
 44 ; Kirk Session Register of, 
 121 ; professor at, 167; fisher 
 part of, 364. 
 
 St. Kilda, 250. 
 
 St. Monans, 364. 
 
 St. Vigeans, 45. 
 
 Saints' wells, in. 
 
 Salmon, a la mode, 290. 
 
 Salters, formerly slaves, 341. 
 
 Sanday Island, 46. 
 
 Saxon element, cause of distri- 
 bution of, in population of 
 Scotland, 411. 
 
 Schoolmasters in Scotland, 180. 
 
 Scots drink, 303. 
 
 Scots language, decay of, 368. 
 
 Scotsman newspaper, founded 
 by Charles Maclaren, 376. 
 
 Scott, Michael, and witches, 
 418. 
 
 Scott, Walter, his influence on 
 the tourist traffic in Scotland, 
 16 ; his fiction characters, 143, 
 238, 302 ; his repartee on 
 Patrick Robertson, 148. 
 
 Sculptured Stones, 44. 
 
 Sedgwick, Adam, 394, 395. 
 
 Sermons in Scottish kirks, 77.
 
 446 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Shakespeare and the climate of 
 Moray, 434. 
 
 Sheep-stealing, 232. 
 
 Shenstone, cited, 323. 
 
 Shepherds, 294. 
 
 Shetland Isles, 274, 279, 427. 
 
 Shiant Isles, 421. 
 
 Shiels, Tibbie, 299. 
 
 Skye, in 1773, 28 ; communica- 
 tion with, 29, 31, 36 ; ministers 
 in, 53-64 ; Disruption in, 96 ; 
 fairies in, 108 ; superstitions 
 in, 112; Sabbath observance 
 in, 133; farm-life in, 219; 
 crofters of, 224, 397 ; an evic- 
 tion in, 225 ; fairs in, 233; 
 place-names in, 269 ; old inns 
 of, 306 ; funeral in, 330 ; geo- 
 logists in, 393, 395, 396. 
 
 Slaves, Scottish, 341. 
 
 Sleeping in church, 85. 
 
 Smith, James, of Jordanhill, 362. 
 
 Smith, Sydney, 302, 349. 
 
 Snails, a dish of, 354. 
 
 Snow-storm in Southern Up- 
 lands, 299. 
 
 South Uist, 45. 
 
 Southern Uplands, reminiscen- 
 ces of, 294-302. 
 
 Spain, insurrection in, 169. 
 
 Spar Cave, 407. 
 
 Speldings and drink, 304. 
 
 Springs, superstitions connected 
 with, ill. 
 
 Staffa, 246. 
 
 Stage-coaches in Scotland, 8, 
 10. 
 
 Standing Stones, 39, 108, 248. 
 
 Steamboats on Scottish lakes, 
 
 15 ; to London, 18 ; in West 
 
 Highlands, 27-36. 
 Stewart, Dugald, 346. 
 Stories, perennial reappearance 
 
 of Scottish, 86, 292. 
 Story, Principal, 88. 
 Street-preachers, 74. 
 Stroma, Isle of, 275. 
 Sula Sgeir, islet of, 41. 
 Superstition in Scotland, 107- 
 
 119, 416. 
 Supper, former importance of, 
 
 35. 
 Sutherland, Sabbath observance 
 
 in, 131. 
 Sweetheart Abbey, 325. 
 
 Tait, Prof. P. G., 180. 
 
 Talla, valley of the, 294, 298. 
 
 Terrot, Bishop, 357. 
 
 Thorn, Rev. Mr., of Govan, 86. 
 
 Tippeny, 303. 
 
 Toasts, Scottish, 318. 
 
 Tombstone inscriptions, 325. 
 
 Topographical features, influ- 
 ence of, on population of Scot- 
 land, 410 ; legends suggested 
 by, 416. 
 
 Town-life in Scotland, 347. 
 
 Towns, former condition of 
 Scottish, 347. 
 
 Travel, former modes of, in 
 Scotland, 8. 
 
 Trossachs, 15, 17. 
 
 Trout in a Skye well, 1 10. 
 
 Universities, changes in the, 165
 
 INDEX 
 
 447 
 
 University professors, 159. 
 Unst Lighthouse, 283. 
 
 Victoria, Queen, and Sabbath 
 
 observance, 136. 
 Vulcanist School of Geology, 372. 
 
 Waller, quoted, 426. 
 
 Water-bull, 113. 
 
 Water-horse, 113. 
 
 Weather and climate, difference 
 between, 426 ; anecdotes con- 
 nected with, 432. 
 
 Wells, holy, in. 
 
 Werner, A. G., 371, 372. 
 
 Western Isles. See Hebrides. 
 
 Whisky and law-pleas, 144 ; and 
 
 interments, 165, 330 ; potency 
 of, 285, 313 ; modern increase 
 in consumption of, 303, 305 ; 
 before breakfast, 405. 
 
 Witches, 115, 336. 
 
 Witnesses, Scottish, 150. 
 
 Wolf in the Highlands, 292, 437. 
 
 Women in Scottish coal-mines, 
 
 34i, 343- 
 Women's work in the Highlands, 
 
 235- 
 
 Wood, Long Sandy, 157. 
 Writers to the Signet, 1 54. 
 
 Yarrow, valley of the, 299. 
 Young, Professor John, 298, 335. 
 
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