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About a mile beyond the
clachan of Micras, and just before coming opposite the castle of
Abergeldie, the Ballater and Braemar turnpike, in rounding a comer,
crosses a small stream, which in view of more interesting objects is
very likely to escape the tourist’s notice. It would have claimed more
attention sixty years ago. No public conveyance, and very few private
ones, would then have passed a little stub-thatched cottage, situated on
the roadside, not fifty yards from the confluence of the stream with the
Dee, without stopping to draw upon the hospitality of the gudeman, or,
in his absence, of his equally liberal co-partner, the gudewife. It
would perhaps not be quite correct to designate these two worthies by
the modem titles of landlord and landlady, for they neither had nor
sought a licence to authorise them to entertain the needy or wayworn
passing their doors. This privilege they took upon themselves in virtue
of a law of Highland hospitality to the effect that it is sinful to turn
the stranger from the door, without supplying his wants, especially if
these lie in the direction of something to drink.
This hospitality will appear all the more needful when the exigencies of
the traffic of the district, as there and then carried on, are duly
considered. Very few bridges as yet spanned the Dee; often there was not
one of any description between Potarch and Braemar, a distance of 35
miles.
Sometimes, indeed, there was one at Ballater, but more frequently there
was not A fine bridge built there towards the close of last century had
been swept away by a flood in the year 1799; and it was many years
before another was erected. Its successor, after some years of
usefulness, shared a similar fate during the memorable flood of 1829,
and there was again a considerable interpontium. Fords were therefore
the staple thoroughfares across the river. They might be damaged, but
they were never quite swept away by any flood. After the waters receded
to their normal dimensions, a day or two spent in repairing them, by
those interested in their efficiency for traffic—and they comprised
hundreds of families—generally sufficed to make them as good as new, or
even better.
Whilst they possessed this advantage over bridges, that if damaged, they
could be easily repaired, it must be allowed that the river exercised
over them a somewhat despotic and capricious sway, which often seriously
interfered with the convenience of the natives, sometimes to the risk,
and even to the loss of their lives. It was therefore found necessary to
have help at hand, in case of any sudden exercise of the above
jurisdiction, on the part of the treacherous river; and accordingly
prudence and humanity had dictated the propriety of having a human
dwelling at one entrance at least, if not at both. It is probable that
it was for this humane purpose the stub-thatched cottage, above referred
to, had originally been built; for right in front of it was the AanfuiU^
the principal, if not the only ford for wheeled carriages between
Ballater and Braemar. Nor was its usefulness confined to cases of risk
of life.
It might have been a nice enough thing for a hardy Highlander to cross
by the ford on a fine summer day, when the stream was reduced to a
silver thread in mid channel; but to take the water in winter either by
night or by day, when the river was not only strong but speckled with
grue (floating snow), required no small courage, even in a Highlander.
It was therefore deemed expedient—necessity is the mother of
invention—to have appliances at hand to raise the requisite amount of
resolution for taking the ford, and after having dared it, to take away
the chill consequent on the adventure, so as to prevent evil effects
following. Very naturally then the human dwelling soon became a hospice.
Its existence in such circumstances was justified, if jusification it
required, for the same reason that we justify the erection of similar
establishments on the Grimsel and Furca passes. Besides, there had at
one time been, and probably there still was sixty years ago, a boat here
for the convenience of such passengers as did not care to breast the
torrent; and it was considered contrary to all rule that the boatman
should be dry.
When the boat, which had been kept principally for the laird and his
people at the Castle, was supplanted by the cradle—still an object of
great curiosity to Deeside visitors— and the ford had become obsolete,
through the erection of the chain bridge at Crathie (1834) it was not
found necessary to discontinue the hospice which supplied true Highland
refections, though under ban of the Excise, till a very recent date.
Many a queer scene and many a wild one were here enacted; but at length
a combination of the territorial and imperial authorities (lairds and
gaugers) was formed to put a stop to its illicit and now unneeded trade,
and succeeded so well that in the place where it existed there is not
now one stone left upon another.
In the early days of George Brown, there were the rudiments of a
Highland clachan at this now deserted comer. Besides the boathouse or
alehouse, or whatever else it might be called, there were several small
dwellings, and a manufactory of oatmeal, well known in the district for
its wonderful achievements in the way of grinding. A manufactory it was
in the original acceptation of that now perverted term, for, with the
exception of turning the stones, and not always that, all the other
operations required to convert the raw material into serviceable
oatmeal, were strictly performed by the hand. The producer of the grain
regularly sent his wife and daughters to the mill to sift the shillin,
that is when he was not disposed to go himself to have a crack, and
perhaps something else with “Boatie” and the miller. On such occasions
the amount of work performed at the mill was by no means astonishingly
large ; and it is believed to this day, that what bits of machinery the
establishment could boast of were contrived with the special object of
affording the miller opportunities of pretty lengthy sederunts with his
customers in Boatie’s without reducing him to the necessity of turning
off the water. It is even on traditional record that, when on one
occasion he and a drouthy shepherd had adjourned as usual to Clinkum’s,
Collie, being more hungry than drouthy, had preferred the mill to the
alehouse, and quietly betaken himself thither. Planting himself in the
bin, his appetite had so far outrun the supply reaching him that, when
his master and the miller, after satisfying their wants, which generally
took a good hour, returned to the mill, they found to their dismay, the
voracious animal had licked up the whole proceeds of an hour’s grinding,
and was wistfully eyeing the spout for further store.
All had now passed away. The mill was removed higher up the stream to
what was considered* a more advantageous position, and Clinkum’s, after
a period of free trade, was also obliged to succumb in the manner
already stated; so that this once bustling comer will now attract no
attention, and the mountain stream which passes it, and which once
performed such feats of grinding at Buckie Mill, issuing timidly, as it
now does, from the comer of a larch plantation, and babbling feebly as
it struggles with the huge boulders that stud its channel and impede its
course to join the foaming river, will scarcely be noticed by the
passing stranger.
But though its banks are desolate, there are many places on Deeside now
much frequented by tourists that are less worthy of a visit than this
same tiny stream. Should a stray naturalist pause on his way, to examine
its features, he would find not a little to interest, perhaps something
to instruct him. He might be led to inquire whence came the great blocks
of granite and gneiss that lie scattered around, or are piled upon each
other in huge cairns. Evidently from their polish and rounded forms they
have been subjected to much wear and tear and tossing to and fro. Have
they been floated hither from a distant shore on the back of some huge
iceberg which chanced to be stranded on this particular promontory in
the days when the valley of the Dee was but a long fiord from the German
Ocean? That mode of conveyance will hardly account for their rounded and
water worn outlines. Are they then a deposit from some Mer de Glace that
once filled the corries of Black Geallaig, and gathering the fragments
of the higher rocks upon its bosom slipped them gently down and heaped
them up in rounded moraines in the valley below? It is probable that an
amateur geologist would take this view of their deposition here,
especially if he had seen the similar deposits in the Grindelwald, and
had read in books how large heaps of rocky fragments are gathered on the
surface of glaciers, and sinking into crevasses, get played upon by
surface streams and so in time become waterwom like those around him.
“Quite true, my amateur geologist,” I feel myself sorely tempted to
reply, “there may be such deposits on Deeside—perhaps the knolls of the
Tornadoes are of this origin—but in regard to these, you have, like
Oldbuck, gone on altogether too old a scent Unfortunately for your fine
theory my knowledge is of the Edie Ochiltree type—for, glacier here or
glacier there, I mind the laying down o’ them.”
Ah! tiny streamlet, playing teet-bo here and there among that wild chaos
of shattered rock that bestrews thy path; here with an eddy like the
dimple on the face of a child you slip beneath a boulder or two, to
babble out yonder with infantile prattle. Ah! tiny streamlet, I know you
have not always been so gentle and lamb-like as now, and those who know
thee not may little suspect how at times thou canst play the lion too,
and roar and tear at the mountains most savagely. It was at no distant
geological period that these boulders were rent from the mountain side
and deposited here.
The occasion was one which will long be remembered in this part of
Deeside, and is not unworthy of a passing notice, when attention is
being called to the scene where it occurred. But first let us take a
survey of the bed of the stream from the river to the mountain. Passing
through the larch plantation we come at once to a deep cut in the rocks,
which is so narrow and so overhung with hazel and other bushes as to be
almost invisible from above. At the upper end of this cut there is the
unfailing linn of such places. Then a more open space where the stream
takes a turn over a bouldery channel. Then the rocks, the outer timbers
of the adjacent mountain, are again struck. Then more linns, deep pools
and precipitous banks for a considerable distance, till the moorish
upland is gained. Through this region of boulder drift, which slopes
backwards to the steep hill sides, the stream has cut for itself a
narrow trough, to the depth of a hundred feet or more. The geologist who
wishes to study this rather puzzling formation will find here an immense
excavation ready for inspection; and perhaps from a careful study of it
he may be able to determine whether it be a deep sea formation, brought
thither by icebergs, or a glacial accumulation, or the eroded materials
of some mighty Alp, of which the neighbouring hill is but the decayed
weather-beaten stump, huddled together in this once rocky valley by the
torrent and the avalanche. At all events, he will find a new field to
explore which may probably yield a new fact to science.
The little stream which has laid open to the foundation this large bed
of diluvial drift must have had many a spate since it first began the
work of excavation. Perhaps, like human excavators, it wrought more
vigorously in its youth than now. Perhaps, too, great climatic changes
may have attenuated its body and crippled its energies, so that no
estimate of its years can be made from the amount of its labours. Of
what it may have done in the vigour of youth we may, however, form some
conjecture from a consideration of what it really did accomplish not
more than a quarter of a century ago in its green old age.
The morning of the 8th of August, 1846, broke with unusual, almost
unnatural brightness; but ere the sun had ascended far in his course,
heavy masses of clouds began to gather round him. At intervals, he shot
his beams through the openings between them with intense splendour, and
displayed the huge proportions of their volumes. Gradually their
thickening masses shut out the whole sky; and though the day was calm, a
filmy mist drifted along from the southeast under the dark clouds, and
at no great distance above the ground. As the gloom deepened, the
growling of distant thunder behind the Grampians was getting more loud
and continuous. Rain began to fall, at first not heavily, but like a
thick mist with a few heavy drops now and then. Soon, however, the mist
changed into a drenching drizzle, the thunder became louder, and with
every successive peal there came a rush of very heavy rain for a second
or two. Before noon the thunder was deafening and the forked lightning
played almost incessantly. The heavy rain was no longer fitful but
constant, and every minute increased the intensity of the watery
discharge. The streams began to break from their channels, and channels
that had been dry for months, now carried floods. The whole population
without exception of age or sex turned out with what implements they
could find to keep the bums from breaking out and carrying off the
arable soil, and depositing in its stead the stones and gravel with
which they were charged.
So intent were all on this work, and so severely did it tax their
energies, that no one thought of a little cottage, situated on the very
brink of this same stream, or of the poor bed-rid occupant, who in her
day and station was a character, though not of the amiable stamp.
Terrified by the glare of the lightning, the rattle of the thunder, and
the scarcely less loud though duller roar of the stream, Janet had
screamed for assistance till no voice was left her, and then wrought
herself into a fury of rage at the neglect she suffered. As yet her
little dwelling was not thought to be in danger, and her splenetic fits
were too common to be much heeded, even had any one been by. About 2
p.m. an unusually heavy and prolonged roll was followed instantly by a
discharge from the murky clouds that made those exposed to it gasp for
breath as if they had been under a shower bath. Immediately the streams
broke off from their channels with a violence that made human efforts to
restrain them utterly contemptible, and they were abandoned as useless.
Great mounds of mountain ddbris were hurled together on fruitful fields,
and the Dee flowed black with soil. After this there was a short lull in
the storm, but an ominous lull, for the darkness still increased. All at
once the gloom was broken by the most vivid flashes of lightning playing
athwart each other on the hill-side. Then two or three terrific peals of
thunder, and the clouds seemed to lift immediately, disclosing the whole
mountain as if covered by a heavy shower of snow. Then came a rushing
sound like that of a whirlwind in a forest, followed soon by a hoarse
rumbling noise in the upper comes.
“Janet’s house! oh auld Janet’s house! ” shouted some females who were
the first to observe that the torrent had surrounded it, and was fast
undermining its foundations.
Though their cries could not be heard for the roaring of the stream,
their wild rushing towards the spot attracted attention, and in a few
seconds a little crowd had assembled on the bank.
“Can nothing be done to save the poor body?” cried the women
imploringly. No human strength could by this time reach the door; but
two or three daring fellows seized a spade each, plunged into the
roaring waters, tore open a hole in the roof behind, and bore the poor
creature foaming and raging to the bank in safety. It was not a moment
too soon. The rumbling noise first heard in the upper corries was fast
approaching.
It was a pitiful scene: poor Janet, now a lunatic, for she had quite
lost her reason, lay wrapped in her blanket on the green, jabbering
maledictions on her deliverers, while the wild torrent approached with
elevated front, dashed against her frail habitation, and swept it before
it as if it had been a heap of chaff, leaving not one stone upon
another.
Janet was conveyed to a neighbouring house, where, though every
attention was paid her, she never rallied from the effect of her fright,
and in a few weeks after died.
Between this sad scene and another wholly ludicrous, only a few minutes
intervened. Auld Janet was scarcely rescued when the attention of those
gathered around her was directed to some people rushing hurriedly in the
direction of the turnpike. A nobleman in a grand carriage, driven by
red-jacketed postillions, was on his way to his shooting quarters in
Braemar, and had passed with difficulty the Torgalter Bum just before
its sudden and fearful rise above noticed, but before he reached the
next stream, though only a few hundred yards farther on, the full flood
was down, rushing in channels from 4 to 8 feet deep through the
turnpike. To pass was utterly impracticable. He therefore resolved to
return to Ballater; but his retreat had been more effectually cut off
than his advance had been barred. Thus trapped, and getting impatient of
delay, he kept driving from the one stream to the other in hopes of
finding some means of passing either—the postillions meanwhile shouting
at the pitch of their voices for assistance. As to the shouting, they
might, with as good a chance of being heard, have been whispering in a
discharging battery ; but the novel spectacle of red-jacketed
postillions driving wildly hither and thither did bring the natives to
the rescue. Rescue it was only to the worn out horses and postillions;
for the noble animal of the human species who seemed to have more fire
in his blood than sense in his brains, refused to leave his carriage,
though he was constrained to order it to be drawn up alongside a string
of carts that had been caught in the same trap, and were patiently
awaiting the subsidence of the spate. When the carriage stopped an old
man approached the door, hat in hand, and respectfully requested what
was its occupant’s “wull.” “Why,” said he crossly, “can’t you fellows
make a passage for me through these torrents?”
“To make a passage through the waters,” meekly put in the old man,
“belangs to the Almichty alane; an’ its my thoucht that it’s nae his
will that ony o’ his creatures shu’d gang afore him i’ the mids o’ the
meantime; but gin ye’ll cause the horses to be lowsed, they can be put
up somewhere, and get a feed, an’ ye can rest yersel’ in my house; an’
though I’m no safe to say that it’s free o’ draps the day, ye’se be very
welcome to sic shelter as it can gie ye; an’ in an hour or twa we’ll see
what can be deen to get ye through.”
“An hour or two!! ” exclaimed the frothy lordling, “wait here an hour or
two! I’ll be hanged if I do.”
“Aweel, weel, sir,” replied the other quietly, “your will either way;
but it’s my thoucht that ye’re mair likely to be droon’t than hang*t if
ye dinna,” and turning aside, remarked to his companions in Gaelic,
“Fear nach gabh comhairU, cha ghabh e cobhair” (who refuses advice
refuses aid). He was about to move off, when his worship, or whatever
else he was, called after him—
“Now, friend, that I think of it, if you could find somewhere to put up
these horses for a little, and get them fed, I fancy I shall very soon
be able to push through on horseback.”
By this time the postboys were busy unfastening the jaded animals, which
they housed in a neighbouring stable; but it was not till nearly three
hours had elapsed that the journey could be resumed as proposed; and the
carriage had to wait the clearing of the roads some days after.
The generation; and the question is therefore apt to arise, in the
unscientific mind at least, whether in the post-tertiary age such
rainfalls or even heavier ones may not have been very common. In order
to account for the phenomena of even this comparatively recent period,
geologists do not scruple to assume conditions of climate far more
different from those now experienced than would be required for the
supposition that the meteorological state of our atmosphere was then
such that rainfalls like the one described were of annual or even more
frequent occurence. And if so, it is evident that greater changes in the
configuration of hill and dale may have been produced in a century then,
than it is now the fashion to ascribe to thousands of ages. Be that as
it may, certain it is that not many hundreds of such spates would have
sufficed to open in the boulder drift the whole of that immense cut in
which the stream now flows.
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