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IN years long gone by a
certain William Grant had enlisted as a soldier and gone off to foreign
parts, never to return in his former station among his people. He rose
early from the ranks, and during a prosperous career in India won for
himself fame, and rupees to balance it. A curious kind of narrow-minded
man, he had, however, the common virtue of his race—he never forgot his
relations; in his advancement he remembered all, none were neglected.
There was a deal of good sense, too, in the ways he took to provide for
them. One brother was never more nor less than a common soldier; we knew
him as Peter the Pensioner, on account of sixpence a day my father got
him from Greenwich, in lieu of an eye he had lost in some engagement. He
lived in one of the cottages on the Milltown muir, with a decent wife
and a large family of children, all of whom earned their bread by
labour. We had a son in the wood-work and a daughter as kitchenmaid
during the time their uncle the General was paying a visit to us. The
next brother rose to be a major, and retiring from the army in middle
life, settled on the farm of Craggan some miles down Speyside. His two
sons, educated by the uncle, were both lieutenant-colonels before their
death. The daughter, to whom he was equally kind, he took out to India,
where she married a civilian high in the service. The rest of his
relations he left in their own place, merely befriending them
occasionally; but for his mother, when she became a widow and wished to
return to Rothiemurchus, where she was born, he built a cottage in a
situation chosen by herself, at the foot of the Ord Bain, surrounded by
birch trees, just in front of the old castle on the loch. Here she lived
many years very happy in her own humble way on a little pension he
transmitted to her regularly, neither "lifted up" herself by the
fortunate career of her son, nor more considered by the neighbours in
consequence. She was just the Widow Grant to her death.
After she was gone, no
one caring to live in so lonely a spot, the cottage fell to ruin; only
the walls were standing when my father took a fancy to restore it, add
to it, and make it a picture of an English cottage home. He gave it high
chimneys, gable ends, and wide windows. Within were three rooms, a
parlour, a front kitchen boarded, and a back kitchen bricked. He hoped
my mother would have fitted it up like to her Houghton recollections of
peasant comfort, but it was not her turn. She began indeed by putting
six green-painted Windsor chairs into the front kitchen, and hanging a
spare warming-pan on the wall, there being no bedroom in the cottage;
there her labours ended. The shutters of those cheerful rooms were
seldom opened, stones and moss lay undisturbed around its white-washed
walls, hardly any one ever entered the door; but it had a good effect in
the scenery. Coming out of the birch wood it struck every eye, and seen
from the water when we were in the boat rowing over the loch, that
single habitation amid the solitude enlivened the landscape. We young
people had the key, for it was our business to go there on fine days to
open the windows, and sometimes when we walked that way we went in to
rest. How often we had wished it were our own, that we might fit it up
to our fancy.
This spring I was
furnished with a new occupation. My mother told me that my childhood had
passed away; I was now seventeen, and must for the future be dressed
suitably to the class "young lady" into which I had passed. Correct
measurements were taken by the help of Mrs Mackenzie, and these were
sent to the Miss Grants of Kinchurdy at Inverness, and to aunt Leitch at
Glasgow. I was extremely pleased I always liked being nicely dressed,
and when the various things ordered arrived, my feelings rose to
delight. My sisters and I had hitherto been all dressed alike. In summer
we wore pink gingham or nankin frocks in the morning, white in the
afternoon. Our common bonnets were of coarse straw, lined with green,
and we had tippets to all our frocks. The best bonnets were of finer
straw, lined and trimmed with white, and we had silk spencers of any
colour that suited my mother's eye. In the winter we wore dark stuff
frocks, black and red for a while—the intended mourning for the king. At
night always scarlet stuff with bodices of black velvet and bands of the
same at the hem of the petticoat. While in England our wraps were in
pelisse form and made of cloth, with beaver bonnets; the bonnets did in
the Highlands, but on outgrowing the pelisses they were replaced by
cloaks with hoods, made of tartan spun and dyed by Jenny Dairy, the red
dress tartan of our clan, the sett originally belonging to the Grants.
Our habits were made of the green tartan, now commonly known by our
name, and first adopted when the Chief raised the 42nd regiment; it was
at first a rifle corps, and the bright red of the belted plaid being too
conspicuous, that colour was left out in the tartan woven for the
soldiers; thus it gradually got into use in the clan, and still goes by
the name of the Grant 42nd tartan.
I now burst out
full-blown into the following wardrobe. Two or three gingham dresses of
different colours very neatly made with frills, tucks, flounces, etc.
Two or three cambric muslins in the same style with embroidery upon
them, and one pale lilac silk, pattern a very small check, to be worn on
very grand occasions —my first silk gown. A pink muslin and a blue
muslin for dinner, both prettily trimmed, and some clear and some soft
muslins, white of course, with sashes of different colours tied at one
side in two small bows with two very long ends. In the bright, glossy,
pale auburn hair no ornament was allowed but natural flowers. The gowns,
very much flounced some of them, were not unlike what we wear now, only
the petticoats were scanty and the waists short, so short as to be most
extremely disfiguring. The best bonnet was white chip trimmed with white
satin and very small, very pale, blush roses, and the new spencer was of
blush-rose pink. Then there were pretty gloves, neat shoes, silk
neckerchiefs, and a parasol. Fancy my happiness—I that had been kept so
completely a child, was in fact so young for my age! It might have
turned my head but for two or three circumstances. The drawing-room was
so dull that, after a few stately days passed there in my new dignity, I
slid back to my sisters in the schoolroom, undeterred from pursuing such
studies as I liked by the foolish sneers and taunts of poor Miss Elphick,
who, with the weak jealousy of an inferior mind, chafed extremely at
losing a pupil; and after all, it was losing only the unlimited
authority over her. Next, it was not easy to dress myself in my finery
up in my corner of the barrack-room, and it was very difficult to carry
myself and my flounces safely down the narrow turning stair which led to
the passage opening on the front staircase. Also, having no wardrobe, my
dresses were kept in a trunk; the one I wanted seemed generally somehow
at the bottom of it, and so troublesome to get at.
A good deal of quiet
gaiety took place this autumn. We had our usual relay of guests.
Glenmoriston married this year; he and his bride were with us nearly a
week on their way to Invermoriston after the wedding. Logie and Mrs
Gumming were not with us; Alexander was for some time; he rode up on his
pony, a fine boy, in deep mourning for his father, who had died suddenly
under painful circumstances.
A public meeting had been
held at Nairn, to be followed by a dinner; Logie was expected, and not
arriving, the meeting had to proceed without him, and so had the dinner.
The master of the hotel was a capital cook, famous for dressing
mushrooms well. This was a favourite dish of Logie's, and Logie himself
being a favourite, the landlord reserved a portion for him, keeping it
hot in the copper skillet he had cooked it in. Logie did come,
accounting in some way for his delay; he ate the mushrooms, was taken
ill, every symptom that of poison, and he died in agony before the
morning. His head was no great loss, but his heart was, for he was kind
to everybody, and was long regretted by his neighbourhood.
Mr and Mrs Dunbar Brodie
came as usual from Coulmonie, she riding on her grey pony, he driving
all the luggage in a gig, flageolet included; and we went to the loch
and rowed on the water and played to the echo, and then she measured all
the rooms.
The Marquis and
Marchioness of Huntly arrived at Kinrara. We gave them a few days to
settle before calling, but might have spared our delicacy, for the
following morning a great racket was heard at the ferry close to the
house, and presently the peculiar laugh of the Marquis; soon he appeared
at the window in his old shabby shooting-dress and one of his queer
hats, without gloves, calling to my father and mother to come out, he
had brought his wife to visit them; and there she was, like another
Cinderella, in a beautiful baby phaeton drawn by four goats. The pretty
animals were harnessed with red ribbons, and at every horned head there
ran a little foot-page, these fairy steeds being rather unruly.
The whole equipage had
been brought over in our small passenger boat. No sylph stepped out of
this frail machine, but a stout bouncing girl, not tastefully attired,
and with a pale broad face, fair—which he never liked—and stiff—which he
could not endure. He grew very fond of her, and so did I; the rest of
the family never took to her, and my father and mother remembering her
predecessor, the beautiful brilliant Duchess, could not avoid making
disadvantageous comparisons.
Kinrara too was
different, a more elevated and very stupid society, dull propriety,
regularity, ceremony. There was a feast of food, but not of reason; a
flow of wine, but not of soul. I cannot wonder that they sighed over the
change and thought with regret over the bright spirits departed.
They came and dined with
us; we were alone. She was very timid. She never had the gift of
conversation; she could talk well on a subject that interested her, and
with a person she liked, otherwise she was silent. Buonaparte would not
have chosen her for the wife of one of his marshals; she did not shine
in her reception rooms. We did not get on well at this dinner, we ladies
by ourselves in the drawing-room. I was of no use, having only just been
brought out of the schoolroom; besides, it was not then the custom for
young persons to speak unless spoken to. At last Lady Huntly proposed
music, and on the pianoforte being opened she sat down to it to let us
hear some Swiss airs she had picked up in her travels. The first chord
was sufficient, the touch was masterly. In every style she played well,
but her Scotch music, tender or lively, was perfection. Sir Walter Scott
immortalised this delightful talent of hers in his Halidon Hill, and she
merited his highest praise. I have never heard her surpassed or even
equalled, as I do not reckon that wonderful finger-work now in fashion
as worth listening to. Her lord, who was very little sensible of the
power of harmony, was always pleased with her music, listening to it
with evident pleasure and pride, particularly when she gave him the
reels and strathspeys he danced so well, when he would jump up gaily and
crack his fingers, and ask did any one ever hear better playing than
that.
Of course we were to dine
at Kinrara, a visit the idea of which frightened me out of my wits. I
was not afraid of Lord Huntly, I knew him well and he was my cousin
besides; but she was so stiff, and I knew there would be company,
strangers, and I had never dined out. Young people did not slide into
society then. They strode at once from pinafores, bread and butter, and
the governess, into long petticoats and their silent, young-lady place.
They did not add to the general sociability, most of them could not;
unpractised as they were in all that was going and doing and saying,
their little word would most likely have been put in out of season. In
the ordinary run of houses company was anything but pleasant. Everybody
seemed to assume an unnatural manner; they did not follow their
customary employments; the books, and the drawings, and the needlework
were all put carefully out of sight. All were put out of their way too
by a grand fatigue day of best glass, best china, best linen, furniture
uncovered, etc., making everything look and feel as unlike home as
possible. It was not a welcome we gave our friends, but a worry they
gave us.
In great houses there
were skilful servants to take all this trouble and to prevent mistakes
or fuss; in lesser houses it was annoying. There was little of this sort
of troublesome preparation in our house, but there was a degree of
formality, it was the manner of the day; and happily and easily as we
lived with our parents when alone, or when only intimate friends were
with them, we knew we were to keep at a respectful distance from
company; it was a distasteful word, and the having to encounter all it
meant in a strange house among strangers was far from agreeable.
After dressing myself in
the blue muslin frock, with wild roses in my hair, I should have felt
more at ease had not my mother thought it necessary to read me a lecture
on proper behaviour, so depriving me of all self-possession; I was
thoroughly uncomfortable during an evening that might have afforded me
pleasure. Lord Huntly, too, increased this agitation by calling
attention to me most unpleasantly. It was during dinner, that great long
table filled with guests, covered with plate, brilliantly lighted, and a
servant behind every chair. He was the greatest fidget on earth. He had
a set of rules for his household, any infringement of which was visited
by rigorous punishment. He used to be up himself to call the maids in
the morning, in the kitchen at odd times to see what was doing; at no
hour of the day, or the night indeed, was the family safe from the
bright—very bright—eyes of my lord, peering here, there, and everywhere.
So during the dinner he was glancing about all round the room, talking,
laughing, apparently only intent on being agreeable; yet he knew all
that was going on at the sideboard behind him better than Wagstaffe who
presided there. The gentlemen-sportsmen between whom I was placed found
very little to interest them in the shy replies made by a young girl,
hardly beyond childhood, to their few civil speeches. They busied
themselves elsewhere and left me to the use of my eyes, and for them
there was abundant amusement. I was accustomed to long dinners with all
their tiresome courses, therefore bore the tedium of this very
patiently. At last we reached the "sweets," and I took some jelly; not
finding a fork beside my plate I asked my attendant for one, very gently
too—I hardly heard my own voice. But Lord Huntly heard it right well—out
he burst: "No fork for Miss Grant! A fork for Miss Grant Rothiemurchus
directly! Wagstaffe, pray who attends to these things? Who sees the
covers laid? Great inattention somewhere! This must not happen again.
Lizzy, have you got your fork? Now for the jelly, ha! ha! ha!" How I
wished I had made shift with the spoon. I would gladly have sunk under
the table, for the storm had hushed every voice and turned every eye on
poor me. I hardly ever remember feeling more miserable. Certainly
bashfulness is very near akin to vanity. Jane would have gone through
the whole unmoved, and would have thought Wagstaffe and suite fully
deserving of the reproof they got.
My next public appearance
was much happier. It was the house-warming at the Croft. The family had
already taken possession of the pretty new cottage, and the old had been
turned into offices. Mr Cameron had promised us a dance to commemorate
the change; he now determined to give a dinner first, a dinner
superintended by Mrs William, who had been invested by her father-in-law
with all power over the new premises.
My father and mother and
William went to the dinner, the rest of us followed to the tea in our
favourite equipage, a cart filled with hay. We always went in a cart to
the Dell when we could, because of the seven streams of the Druie we had
to ford; it was so charming to be close to the water and to hear
ourselves rumble over the stones ; the hay prevented our being hurt by
the jolting, and plenty of plaids kept us warm. Even Miss Elphick
enjoyed this manner of visiting. We generally sang all the way, bursting
into screams of laughter when a big stone under the wheel cut short a
holding note. We had a rough enough road to the Croft, a mere cart-track
past the Fairy's Knowe to the Moss Riachan, and so on into the birch
wood. William Cameron afterwards made a good approach to his house by
this route, admired by every one but me; I had something of my aunt
Lissy in me, and liked it all in the wild state. The gates were all open
for us—a lucky thought, as they had no hinges; they were merely tied by
two withes on one side and one on the other, and had to be pulled back
by a strong arm.
Between parlour, kitchen,
and barn we had nearly all Rothiemurchus at the Croft house-warming;
Duncan Macintosh playing his best, his son Johnnie in tartan, and our
Johnnie in his frightful short-waisted nankin frock and trousers,
dancing the fling with all their hearts and cracking their small
fingers. Old Mr Cameron danced too, and called for his tune The Auld
Wife ayont the Fire, and instead of kissing his partner went up and
kissed the old lady where she sat by the hearth in the old chair, and in
the bonnet and shawl and green shade as usual. We were all so merry
except her; she was neither graver not gayer than was her wont.
This merry dance there
was the end of the old times. Whether the old lady had caught cold when
moving, or whether her ailing frame had simply been worn out, she never
seemed to thrive after leaving the little "but and ben" she had so long
lived in. Before the winter set in Mrs Cameron died without any
suffering. She was buried with the rest of us in the small enclosure in
the kirkyard, her husband appearing at the funeral, in the house, and at
the refreshment table, just as if it had been any other person's. He
came in to visitors afterwards with his calm manner unaltered; there was
no change in him to common eyes, nor in the proceedings of the family.
There was only her chair empty, and a shade over his benignant
countenance that never left it. Before the spring he was laid beside
her. We were far away when we lost him. Many many years have passed
since I last heard him try Crochallan—he never touched the "trump" after
his wife's death—but I shall never forget Mr Cameron, a real Highland
gentleman, loving us with the love of kin, teaching us all wisdom, piety
and a lively fancy glowing through his clear, sound sense.
Before these melancholy
events, we proceeded this pleasant autumn with the usual merry-makings.
There was more company at the Doune, though I cannot remember who they
were, and there were more dinners at Kinrara, no longer formidable, and
a party at Belleyule during some days, when for the first time to my
recollection I saw him whom by courtesy for many years we continued to
call young Charles Grant. Writing that once familiar name again is
pleasant to me, recalling so much that was enjoyable, although some
little that awakens regret. He was no ordinary man, and to be so
thoroughly estranged from one who had been quite a son of the house, a
dear elder brother, is cause for grief in a world where few of us ever
suit sufficiently for intimacy. There was no fault on either part, it
was merely that our paths through life lay differently. His father had
been with us most summers; he was our county member, so had to come to
look after political interests. He was now intending to introduce his
son to the electors against the time when he should himself, from age or
weariness, disincline to continue in Parliament. The north country owed
him much; we got canals, roads, bridges, cadetships, and writerships in
almost undue proportion. My father, his firm friend and most useful
supporter, seldom applied in vain for anything in the old Director's
power to give. We had reason to be grateful for all his many kindnesses,
but he was never to any of us the delightful companion that we found his
son.
Young Charles was at this
time deeply in love with Emilia Cumming. She was a lovely-looking woman—
not a regular beauty, but more attractive than many handsome persons.
Old Charles Grant had reasons for forbidding a marriage between them,
and they were good ones, acquiesced in by his son, who yet had not the
resolution to avoid her society. Year after year he dangled about her
till her youth and her beauty went, and he found absence no longer a
difficulty. Neither of them married.
Mrs Macpherson, who had
known him from a child, was really absurdly attached to him. She was
anxious we should make an agreeable impression on each other. I do not
remember that he spoke ten words to me, nor looked a second time at the
childish girl quite overpraised to him. On my part, half a look was
enough; I thought him hideous, tall, thin, yellow, grave, with sandy
hair, small light eyes, and a shy awkward manner, though nearly as old
as my father and already of some note among clever men. These were the
dear friends of after-days! We have often laughed over our introduction.
Then came the Pitmain
Tryst. It was an old custom to hold a cattle market yearly in the month
of September on a moor between Kingussie and Pitmain. Instead of as in
Ireland, the farmers flying about on cars to fairs, dressed in old
clothes and with bank-notes in an inside pocket, to buy a lot of beasts
from the small rearing farmers, choosing them here and there according
to their fitness for the quality of grass they are destined to fatten
on, our Highland proprietors reared large stocks of young cattle,
disposed of regularly once a year at the current price. Belleville had a
hundred cows, thus he had every year a hundred stots, sold generally for
from £7 to £8 apiece. If any died during their period of growth he made
up his number by buying from the cottar farmers, the only way these
little bodies had of disposing of their single beast. Balnespick kept up
fifty store cows, my father thirty. There was great emulation among them
as to which reared the finest cattle. I must confess that though my
father boasted of his superior breeding, great pains being taken to
improve the stock, Belleville generally got the top price at the Tryst.
The buyers were drovers, such men as Walter Scott most faithfully
describes in Rob Roy. It was a separate trade. The drovers bought, and
paid for, and carried off their purchase in large herds to the south,
either to be privately disposed of or resold at Falkirk for the English
market.
A few substantial yeomen
farmers were gradually establishing themselves in the country, some of
whom were also drovers, who tried hard by patient industry to rival the
produce of the laird's fuller purse. They probably made more of the
business in the end. Our fine Staffa bull was choked by an uncut turnip.
His price swallowed up a deal of profit.
After the market in the
morning, there was a dinner in the evening, drovers, farmers, and lairds
all meeting in the large room at Pitmain to enjoy the best good cheer
the county afforded. Lord Huntly presided, and sent a stag from Gaick
forest. My father was croupier, and very grand speeches he and others
made after the punch began to circulate.
This year it was proposed
that the ladies should be invited to shine on the assemblage—not at the
dinner, but to prepare tea in another room, which would break up the
punch party earlier, and allow of the larger apartment being meanwhile
prepared for dancing. Both Lord Huntly and my father were promoters of
this sort of mixed meeting, so consonant to the spirit of feudalism
still cherished throughout our mountains. They themselves were the life
and soul of such gatherings, courteous to all, gay in manner, and very
gallant to the fair. The ball was received with much favour, and in
future always followed the Tryst, doing more in the way of improving the
country than any one at first sight would suppose. Besides the renewal
of intercourse between the ranks, leading to a continuance of kind
feeling, a sort of stimulus was given to the spirits of those whom
Belleville called the bodies. They had hardly finished talking over the
pleasure of the one meeting before the preparations for the next had to
be begun. Husbands were proud of producing handsome wives nicely
dressed; mothers looked forward to bringing with them pretty daughters
to be introduced to grander friends. The dress and the manners of the
higher portion of the company had a sensible effect on the lower. Mrs
John Macnab's first cap was greatly moderated on her second appearance,
and Janet Mitchell's boisterous dancing fined down into a not unbecoming
sprightliness of movement.
All this is over now. The
few grandees shut themselves up rigorously in their proud exclusiveness.
Those who could have perpetuated a better tone are gone, their places
know them no more. Our former wise occasional reunions are matters of
history; each section appears now to keep apart, unnoticed by the class
above, and in turn not noticing the class below.
Lady Huntly did not do
her part with all the charming kindness of her lord. She kept up at the
head of the room among her own Kinrara guests, laughing so frequently
that nothing could persuade the Laggan and Badenoch farmers that she was
not ridiculing them. Her dancing did not quite redeem her character,
though it was good, in the old reel and strathspey style. The sort of
thing did not suit her, it was plain her being there at all was an
effort.
The Lady Belleville was
known of old to keep herself very distant, but she was a Southron, and
little was expected from her. She sat up in her big red turban amid the
great, and there she, and such as she, were allowed to sit; all the rest
of the room were in high glee, dancing, old and young, almost without a
rest.
One of the ladies most in
repute as a partner was a very old Mrs Macintosh of Borlam, who lived in
the village of Kingussie with her daughter, the widow of a Major
Macpherson, and a comely widow too. The Leddy Borlam was said to be not
far from ninety years of age, upright, active, slender, richly dressed
for her station, and with a pleasant countenance. Her handsome silks
caused many a sly remark. She was the widow of a celebrated freebooter
whom Sir Thomas Lauder endeavoured to portray as "Lochandhu." There were
many tales current of his doings in our part of the country. A cave he
hid his treasures in was still open on the hill at Belleville, for he
did not deal in black cattle only; no traveller was safe when Borlam
wanted. His wife was said to have been frequently occupied in picking
out the marks in the fine holland ruffled shirts it was his especial
coxcombry to appear in, and it was more than whispered that he had given
her braws enough to last beyond a lifetime; seemingly a true suspicion,
for the Lady Borlam's silks would stand alone, and she had plenty of
them. With them she wore the Highland mulch (the high clear cap of fine
muslin, trimmed, in her case with Flanders lace), and then, calm as a
princess, she moved about in her ill-gotten gear. She was a wonderful
old woman, keen, merry, kindly, and as cute as an Irishwoman, never
tripping in her talk, or giving the remotest hint of the true character
of her lamented husband.
The Northern Meeting was
to all of our degree as important a gathering as was the Badenoch Tryst
to our humbler acquaintance. It had been set agoing soon after my birth
by her who was the life of all circles she entered, the Duchess of
Gordon. She had persuaded all the northern counties to come together
once a year about the middle of October, and spend the better part of a
week at Inverness. There were dinners and balls in the evenings; the
mornings were devoted to visiting neighbouring friends and the beautiful
scenery abounding on all sides. She had always herself taken a large
party there, and done her utmost to induce her friends to do
likewise—stray English being particularly acceptable, as supposed
admirers of our national beauties! while enacting the part of lion
themselves. No one with equal energy had replaced her; still, the annual
meeting went on, bringing many together who otherwise might not have
become acquainted, renewing old intimacies, and sometimes obliterating
old grudges.
New dresses had come for
my decoration, and beautiful flowers chosen by dear Annie Grant, her
last kind office for a while for any of us. There were white muslin with
blue trimmings, shoes to match, and roses; white gauze, pink shoes and
trimmings, and hyacinths; pearl-grey gauze and pink, and a Bacchus
wreath of grapes and vine leaves, for we had three balls, dinners before
the first two, and a supper after the last. With what delight I stepped
into the barouche which was to carry us to this scene of pleasure! I had
no fears about partners, Pitmain had set me quite at ease on that score.
We went through the ford at Inverdruie, every one we met bidding us
godspeed, and looking after us affectionately—for it was an era in the
annals of the family, this coming out of Miss Grant—and we stopped at
Aviemore to have a few pleasant words with Mrs Mackenzie. It had been a
beautiful drive so far, all along by the banks of the Spey, under the
shade of the graceful birch trees, the well-wooded rock of Craigellachie
rising high above us to the left after we had crossed the river. Just at
the foot of this, our beacon-hill, there lies, quite close to Aviemore,
a little loch shrouded in the wood, and full of small sweet trout, which
during the earthquake at Lisbon was strangely agitated, dashing about in
its small basin in a way not soon to be forgotten. It is the last bit of
beauty on the road for many a long mile. A bare moor, with little to
mark on it or near it, leads on to the lonely inn at Freeburn, a
desolate dirty inn, where never was found a fire, or anything
comfortable. A short way from this abode of despair, a fine valley far
below opens on the view, containing a lake of some extent, the banks
artificially wooded, a good stretch of meadowland, and a new house built
by the Laird of Mackintosh, the Chief of his Clan," my uncle Sir Eneas."
The planting was then so young that even in that wilderness this
solitary tract of cultivation was hardly worthy of much praise. Later on
it grew into a fine place—roads were made, and shrubberies and gardens,
and the trees grew to a goodly size, but the succeeding Mackintosh did
not live there; he preferred Divie Castle near Inverness, and Moy, the
ancient residence of his family, was let to sportsmen. From Freeburn the
moor extends again, another dreary waste till we reached a wild scene I
always admired. The Findhorn, an unsheltered, very rocky stream, rises
somewhere beyond the ken of travellers, and tumbles on through a gully
whose high banks give only an occasional glimpse of fair plains far off.
A new road has been engineered along the sides of this "pass of the wild
boars," Slochd Mor, thought a wonder of skill when viewed beside the
narrow precipitous pathway tracked out by General Wade, up and down
which one could scarcely be made to believe a carriage, with people
sitting in it, had ever attempted to pass. My mother had always walked
those two or three miles, or the greater part of them, the new route not
having been completed till some years after her marriage. A third now
puts to shame that much-praised second, and the planting, the cottages
with gardens, and the roadside inns have all given a different character
to this once bare region. There is no change, however, near Inverness;
there could be no improvement. It breaks upon the eye weary of the
monotony of the journey as a fairy scene on drawing up a curtain. On
rising the hill at the Kirk of Divie—where the curious belfry is ever so
far from this desolate place of worship-.---the whole of the Moray
Firth, with the bounding Ross-shire hills, the great plain of Culloden,
Loch Ness, the mountains beyond that fine sheet of water, the broad
river, and one of the prettiest of towns scattered about its banks just
as it meets the sea, open before wondering eyes. That vale of beauty
must have been a surprise to the first discoverer—no Roman; their
legions crept along the coast to reach their fort at Euchiass, they
never tried the Grampians.
We put up at Mr Cooper's
good house in Church Street, where we were made very welcome and very
comfortable; and being tired with our day's work, we enjoyed a quiet
evening with Mrs Cooper and her girls. We had come purposely the day
before the first ball for the rest. The next morning I was sent with
some of the children to Castle Hill, a very pretty farm of Mr Cooper's
three miles from Inverness. We came back in time for me to get my toilet
laid out ready, and my mother's too, with help, and to have my hair
dressed by Mr Urquhart.
Probably all young girls
have felt once in their lives, at least, as I felt on mounting the
broad, handsome staircase of the Northern Meeting rooms on my father's
arm. The hall was well lit, the music sounded joyously, and my heart
beat so high, it might have been seen to palpitate! My mother and I
passed into a suite of waiting-rooms, where poor Peggy Davidson's aunt
attended to take care of the wraps, then rejoining my father we entered,
through the large folding-doors, our fine assembly rooms. All was noise
and blaze and mob. I could neither see nor hear distinctly. A pleasant
voice sounded near, it was Glenmoriston's; he was there with his wife,
and his sisters, and her sisters, and their husbands and cousins, a
whole generation of us. A little farther on we encountered relations I
did not know, Colonel and Mrs Rose of Holme, just returned from India;
she was a little plain woman loaded with diamonds; he was delightful,
although he did introduce to me a very ugly small, pock-marked man, the
captain of the Indiaman who brought them home, and with this remarkable
partner I joined the long country dance then forming. My captain danced
well; he was very pleasant too, and much amused at the shaking of hands
that took place between me and half the room. We were really acquainted
with almost everybody, and of kin to a great number.
Lord and Lady Huntly were
there with a large party. Old Lady Saltoun ditto, dancing away in an
open frock almost as lightly as her pretty daughter Eleanor—who
afterwards married young Mr Grant of Arndilly—and she near eighty.
Charlotte Rose, now Lady Burgoyne, was very pretty, and danced
beautfully; but the beauties of the room, I thought, were the two Miss
Duffs of Muirtown—tall, graceful girls with a pensive air that made them
very attractive. My next partner was Culduthel—poor Culduthel !—a fine,
gay, good-natured, rattling young man. Then Lord Huntly in a reel
vis-â-vis to his wife, then Sir Francis Mackenzie of Gairloch, then one
or two of the Kinrara gentlemen, and all the rest of the evening
Applecross—Mackenzie of Applecross, the last of his clever line. He was
the catch of the north country from the extent of his property, and
though very plain, sickly, and no great use as a dancing partner, he
would have been, without a penny, a catch for any one worthy of him. Had
he lived, he would have ably filled his position, but he and his only
sister both died of consumption a few years after this, and before their
parents. A writer in Edinburgh, with a large family, succeeded to that
fine Ross-shire property.
Mr Cooper told us at
breakfast that my first appearance had been a decided success. I was
perfectly aware of it, and not one bit elated, though my mother was, and
her maternal anxieties had gone farther than mine; I had stopped at
abundance of dancing.
This evening's ball was
pleasanter than the first; the third and last, with the supper, was best
of all, even in spite of a drawback. Every joy has its attendant sorrow,
every rose its thorn, and I had the persevering assiduities of a
good-natured and rather vulgar person quite unable to see that his
company was disagreeable. In no way could I escape two or three dances
with this persistent young man, to my extreme annoyance, and, as it
seemed to me, the unreasonable amusement of my new friend, Mr Mackenzie
of Applecross.
The mornings had hung
heavy to many, but not to me. Most people lounged about the narrow
ill-paved streets, paid each other visits, or congregated in our
northern emporium of fashion, Mr Urquhart the hairdresser's shop. My
father took my mother, Mrs Cooper, one of the girls, and me for charming
drives in several directions; it was impossible to turn amiss, the whole
surrounding scenery is so enchanting. We had visitors too, people
calling early, before luncheon; Mrs Rose of Kilravock, the dowager, was
one of them. An extraordinary woman, once a beauty and still a wit, who
was matronising two elderly young ladies, West Indians of large
fortunes, and amusing them and every one else with her clever
eccentricities and tales of her brilliant youth. She had been often at
Kinrara in former days with Jacky Gordon, the particular friend of the
Duchess.
It was after our return
home that Mrs Cameron of the Croft died, |
