|
“The steady brain, the
sinewy limb
“To leap, to climb, to dive, to swim;
“The iron frame inured to bear
“Each dire inclemency of air;
“Nor less confirmed to undergo
“Fatigue’s chill faint, and famine's throe." —Scott.
THE propriety or
impropriety of some kinds of life is to be judged of, not from any fixed
canon, but from a relative point of view, and their social conventional
aspect at the time they were enacted. This statement, of course, holds
good only so far as man’s estimate of morality in his day and generation
goes; for we must logically believe, whatever we do sentimentally and
educationally, that the habit of “rieving,” or cattle-lifting, was
abstractly as immoral in the days of Rob Roy as it would be in our own.
So great an influence, however, has a perverse conventionalism on the
mind of a man as to distort and pervert in his moral nature all honest
notions of meum and tuum, and to paralyze in his mind the legitimate use
of “The Law and the Testimony ” of an inflexible standard of appeal. To
illustrate what is meant: Rob Roy lived at a time when such lax notions
prevailed about cattle-lifting and money-taking from the wealthy, as to
lead him not only to believe that there was no harm in this kind of
life, but positively to think that, when the Chief of the McGregors
could not live any other way—work or even commerce was out of the
question—it afforded a means of livelihood not unbefitting a chieftain
and gentleman. He would not allow young Rob to be taken to Glasgow by
the Bailie, with whom his name is indissolubly associated, to learn the
trade of a weaver, or any other honest calling. So perverted were the
minds of men of this order of thinking, that, though they accounted the
kind of theft spoken of rather meritorious than otherwise, they would
sooner have burned their fingers than have been found burglarizing away
the silver plate of those gentlemen from whom they would take a purse
well lined with “gowd guineas,” or a well fed ox. “ Do you think the
chief of the Macgregors is such a dog as to steal your silver plate ?”
is the language Rob Roy would most naturally have used.
Whether, at any time, a sense of wrong-doing crossed the minds of these
men, in their deviations from what now appears to a child the supreme
law of right, may be open to question; but it is certain that there was
at a more recent date another class of men, by many not thought much
better than Rob Roy, who believed most sincerely in the legitimacy of
their calling. One of these, Alexander Davidson, is the subject of this
sketch.
Sandy held determinedly by the old saying that “the fish out of the
water and the deer out of the forest were his, as well as the rich
man’s.” He used to boast very much that he once argued the point with a
minister the writer knew very well, and “fairly beat him.” Whatever may
be thought of the casuistry by which he imposed upon himself, it is
certain that he did not come to this conclusion unreasoningly. He was
even punctilious in carrying his principle out into nice details. As an
instance, he rarely, if ever, poached on the grounds of those who had
recently paid hard cash for their property, saying, “It would be like
stealing to take game from men who had really paid for themthough he
always questioned the right of the original disposer to take money for
what he had no good title to himself, at least no exclusive property in.
He held with many in our own day that, if it were inquired into, it
would be found that the ancestors of many of our proprietors did not
come fairly by their estates; and that in any case, neither they nor
their ancestors had paid hard cash for their lands, and had no exclusive
right to the natural productions of these lands. On this principle also
he held that “there was no harm in taking a stick out of the wood, if it
was not planted, but to help one’s self to planted timber was theft.”
Sandy and the class of men, of which he was a splendid specimen, are not
for a moment to be confounded with the poachers or roughs, teeming in
our large towns and villages, who hold at arm’s length all law, human
and divine. He is rather to be classed with the men in our own day, who
account the Game Laws as an iniquity on the statute book, and who only
want his daring and bravery to shoot a deer or a muircock, with as
little scruple of conscience as he felt The well known tenderness of
conscience of this wonderful man in his own way will show itself as we
proceed with a sketch of his life.
Alexander Davidson, or, as he was more frequently called, Sandy
Davidson, or not unusually “Roch Same,” from his long beard and
moustache, though, were he living now, the appellation would not be so
distinctive as it then was, was bom at Mill of Inver in the year 1792.
His grandfather, or great-grandfather migrated thither from Glenmuick,
early in the century, having previously come from Donside for something
not so commendable as “biggan’ kirks.” He probably was in the position
of the grandfather of Tetsy, Dr. Johnson’s wife. When, in their courting
days the Doctor, to test the sincerity of her love, informed her that
his grandfather had been hanged for sheep-stealing, she replied that
hers was not hanged, but should have been. In those days there were many
men accounted worthy, who should have been hanged for sheep-stealing, or
something worse. “Muckle Forbes,” whose history George Brown used to
narrate, was one of them. He also migrated from Donside for a
misdemeanour similar to that which drove Sandy’s ancestor from that
country. They were unlike the migratory birds in this respect, that the
latter leave on account of the cold, the former from the place getting
“too hot for them.”
But to return to Sandy. Of his early years and education little is
known, but it may be inferred from the fact that he could read well and
write ordinarily so, that it had not been so much neglected as was too
common at that time among people in the social position of his parents.
But whether he got much school education or not, he must have been early
imbued with the superstitions of Highland Deeside, having known from
childhood the “story of the black han’,” a ghostly visitation
experienced by his grandfather. Perhaps it may be as well here to
narrate this story, as it will be an apology for Sandy’s strong belief
in the preternatural, and for his feeling a little timid, or as he used
himself to express it, “a little eerie,” at the murky hour of midnight,
when lying out, as he almost invariably did, among the wild mountains of
Lochnagar, Ben Muicdhui, or Benavon.
In the year of grace 1767 there lived at Mill of Inver, Crathie, a brave
and honest miller of the name of John Davidson. On a certain night he,
along with another man, who, as the sequel of the story shows, was not
so courageous when unearthly visitors made their appearance, was engaged
in drying com. The night was a very dark one, and none of the neighbours
were abroad to keep the miller from “thinking lang.” He therefore
directed his assistant to keep watch over the kiln, while he lay down to
sleep on some sacks behind the door, telling him to awaken him when the
com was ready for turning. The dryster promised to do this; and then, to
beguile the time, busied himself in clipping off his beard with a
scissors, which, according to the custom of the men of that day, he
carried for the purpose. The miller, who had been mistimed for several
previous nights, was soon fast asleep. But his well-earned repose was of
short duration. All the mill and even bam doors of that period were
provided with a round hole about the centre, and from this hole a heavy
weight was dropped upon the sleeper’s breast, which awoke him just in
time to see a black hand withdrawn from the opening, while beside him
lay a stone of considerable size, that appeared to have been just taken
from the bed of the mill bum. Instead of being alarmed at the uncouth
visitant, or deeming it unearthly, he came to the conclusion that it was
some person practically joking with him, and lay down again to sleep.
But his slumbers were again disturbed by another visit from the “black
han’,” and another stone dropped upon his breast. His temper was now
ruffled, and he resolved within himself that, if the thing should be
again repeated, hs would rush out, lay hold of and chastise the
perpetrator who would thus be caught “black handed.” He had not long to
wait; a heavy sleep seemed to have fallen upon him. Again the black hand
appeared, and the third stone was dropped upon his breast Springing up
in hot haste, he was just about to rush forth, when he was startled by a
voice that spoke ‘richt howe}—“Follow me.” Before obeying the unearthly
summons, the miller cast his eyes on the man sitting on the kilnogie,
whose ghastly visage and quaking limbs bespoke his fear, and in order to
prove how far he might be serviceable in the circumstances, he said to
him, “Will you go out, or will you watch the kiln?”
“Go out yourself,” was his instant reply, “for I winna.” Finding there
was no help to be got from his craven companion, he opened the door and
issued forth. The darkness of the night not a little appalled him, but
he was supported by unnatural courage; or, if certain doctrines of the
present day be true, that spirit afflatus was upon him which transforms
its subject into a spirit-meeting condition of mind. Notwithstanding the
almost palpable darkness in which he found himself, he was conscious of
a still darker shadow that preceded him across a small foot bridge over
the Fearder, the stream on which the mill stood, and then on through a
glade to a “heugh” beside the stream. Here the apparition came to a
stand; and the miller, knowing that a combat was inevitable, rushed
forward, and laid hold of it, resolving to do battle with it according
to the rules laid down in ghost lore, which saith that no spirit can be
laid “ unless words can be had of it,” and that it will not speak till
“the air be let between it and the ground” After a long wrestle he
succeeded in accomplishing this feat; and then his antagonist gave
utterance to its troubles. It revealed its name, though the miller, like
all spirit wrestlers, would never divulge it; but it informed him, as
the cause of its disquietude, that in the days of its fleshly sojourn it
had stolen a sword-handle, which, having iron on it and being concealed
in the earth, debarred its former unlawful possessor from finding rest
in the world of spirits.
The progress of events now brings the tale a link nearer to Sandy
Davidson. On the day after the interview above narrated, the miller
directed his son, Sandy’s unde, whom the writer remembers well, and has
often heard tell the story of the “Black Han’,” to look out for a spade
and bring it to him. When the little boy did so, the father, addressing
him in a more solemn tone than was his wont, said, “Come awa’, laddie,
wi* me,” and then directed his steps to the kail-yard, where he began
digging industriously beside an apple tree. The mysterious silence he
preserved regarding the purpose of his work impressed the boy much; and
still more was he struck, when, after digging a long while and going
very deep, he began to mutter to himself with evident tokens on his face
of disappointment, “I doot I’m wrang.” But he still went on digging
downwards, and when at last the spade struck on something hard, his son
observed a light of joy suffuse his countenance, as he handed him the
spade, saying, “Noo, noo, laddie, gae ’wa and put by the spade, the
"black han” will get rest noo.”
This sword-handle was kept for many years, laid up on the top of one of
the beds, as a trophy of the old man’s encounter with the “black han’”;
and as the story was often told in the hearing of Sandy, during his most
impressionable years, and the sword-handle exhibited in token of its
truth, it is little wonder that he was deeply imbued with the
superstitious notions of his forefathers.
Having said so much about his grandfather, it may not be amiss to notice
shortly his father, who also was a remarkable man, if not for doing
battle with spirits, at least for holding his own against any beings of
flesh and blood, in a set-to with cudgels. All the old people the writer
has ever met, who knew Alexander Davidson, Sandy’s father, are unanimous
in saying that for personal appearance, noble courage, sprightly
manners, as well as for the moral qualities of a warm and kind heart, he
had no peer on Deeside in his day. It is a pity these qualities were not
better directed. Their possessor was well fitted to shine in other walks
than the barbarous one into which he was led by the infamous custom of
the age, in which he had no match in a very extensive district of
country. It must not, however, be inferred that, though he was
universally acknowledged to be the prince of fighters, he was a rough,
or even a quarrelsome man. The combats in which he won his laurels were
not accounted brawls, they were rather looked upon as trials of
strength. In short, they were ill-regulated plebeian tournaments, copied
from the more aristocratic engagements so named in previous centuries,
and adapted to the circumstances of the time, and of those who engaged
in them; and they had the very same objects in view—to earn the envy of
men and the admiration of women. In a purely moral point of view it
might be difficult to determine who was most to be condemned, the knight
of the bloody tournament, who with lance in rest spurred on to meet his
antagonist that he might win the applause of beauty, or the man who, at
a penny wedding or a Tarland market, should, for his prowess in dealing
most plaguey knocks, be crowned by the shouts of an admiring crowd, king
d the cudgel\
Alexander Davidson, having fairly earned this meed over a large
district, was held in high admiration by his own class. But he had other
qualities, qualities of head and heart, that procured him the friendship
of those above him in the scale of society. Besides being the hero of
country balls and festivals, he was on terms of familiarity with the
surrounding gentry, and a guest at all their rejoicings. Captain Gordon,
Abergeldie—he to whom reference has already been made in connection with
the 77th regiment—was particularly fond of him, and they were very often
together. Though in different stations in life, they were men very like
each other in natural gifts; and they held one accomplishment in common,
they were both great dancers. Of Captain Gordon’s dancing powers it is
related that he leaped so high, and possessed such agility that he could
cross his legs three times before coming to the floor. At that time, men
in his position did not think it derogatory to their social standing to
rub shoulders with their poor neighbours at balls and weddings; and it
was no unusual sight on such occasions to witness the Captain and Sandy
trying each other’s mettle at an old Highland “ headset” This easy
intercourse permitted a familiarity of speech between Davidson and his
superiors, which is now a thing of the past, but of which the following
will serve as an illustration.
In Aberarder, the district in which Sandy resided, there happened to be
a penny wedding; and of course Captain Gordon was there to help to set
up the young couple in the world. Sandy, it would seem, as was usual
with him in his neighbourhood, was governor of the feast The Captain (he
was afterwards Colonel), observing that there was rather a scarcity of
drinkables, seized the opportunity to chaff the master of ceremonies,
knowing the generosity of his nature, and addressed him, “How is it,
Sandy, that ye have not plenty of whisky going among the people?” To
which Sandy replied in the same high-toned strain, “If I were Captain
Gordon of Abergeldie, I would order in an anker forthwith.” “It shall be
done, Sandy,” said the Captain, quietly remarking to himself, “Sandy has
the best of it.”
Whether there was any fighting at this wedding or not is not recorded;
but it is certain that hardly ever did a penny wedding pass over without
some display of this nature, and when people from different districts
met at one, they never parted without such a trial of skill and
strength. One of these occasions was the direct cause of Davidson’s
strong life being snatched away.
At Ruibalchlaggan, a grazing station far up on the Gaim, there happened
to be a penny wedding, to which assembled two or three hundred men,
contributed in nearly equal numbers by Deeside and Donside. Their
ostensible object was social enjoyment, but the real object of the
meeting was to put to the proof & outrance, which district produced the
best men, if it was necessary to draw a distinction between these two
objects. Each party was led on by its own champion; the Donside people
by Finla MacHardy, Dalgargie, and the Deeside men by Alexander Davidson.
There had never been such a tournament as this in the memory of the
oldest man; and it is still spoken of, though nearly a hundred years
have gathered their mists around it, as “the great fecht at
Ruibalchlaggan.” Davidson performed prodigies in the mill but was, it
has been said, surrounded in a quiet way, sometime after the contest had
been decided, and got his strong skull so injured that he came home,
lingered for a few months, and then died, leaving a widow with two sons
and two daughters to bewail the barbarous custom of the times, which had
deprived them of that life on which they depended for support.
The day on which his remains were conveyed to the family burying ground
in the churchyard of Glenmuick, was so remarkable for the depth of snow
on the ground that tradition still signalizes it as “the day of the
great storm.” Yet, notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather, three
hundred men from Ciathie turned out to do honour to the shade of their
hero, and conduct his remains to their last resting place. When the
procession had advanced a little beyond Corbieha’, a hamlet about a mile
below Abergeldie, the men deposited the coffin on the snow, and sat down
to rest and have some refreshments—a dram, to wit Perhaps they had been
a little too free with the dram; at all events, it was deemed unbecoming
for the funeral of such a man to pass over without a fight, and a fight
too, worthy of the occasion. They accordingly set to, and nearly ended
by doing by the coffin, what was done by "Lady Jane’s,” as recorded in
Dean Ramsay’s Reminiscences, going to the churchyard without it.
|
