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 century
has been in Scotland, as elsewhere in Britain, the successive extinction
or displacement 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 personality 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 combined with the
most winning graciousness of manner, he was the incarnation of what one
imagined that a great Highland chief should be. When in i860 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 Murchison, when visiting him
in i860, 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 generalisation, 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, 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
during 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 conversation 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 countrymen, 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
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 entertaining 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 animated talk, now about land and rent, or
improvements 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 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 furnish an ampler list of landed
proprietors than Ayrshire, both of the old stock and of the new comers.
The former included both titled possessors 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 considerable 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 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 sometimes 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 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 association 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 responsible. His friend Lord Murray thought 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 continued 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 coincidence that he himself was also an only child, born after
twenty years of wedlock. The inhabited Dalquharran Castle is a large
modern 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 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 suspected 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 themselves.
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 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 Nore,’ 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 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 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 persecutor, 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 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 portrait of a certain member of the Cassilis family who had likewise
distinguished himself for his zeal against the Covenanters. But the
difficulty 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 prevailing upon the
housekeeper to open this room for him and let him see the portrait in
question. He used to describe his experience 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 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 succeeding 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 subjoined 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
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 Association 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 from the University of Rome. He was
delighted 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 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. According 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’.’
One of these men went to see Egypt, and took with him as a kind of guide
and companion, 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,
‘Dye 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 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 letters, 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.’ |
