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THE winter of 1814 set in
extremely cold; we had the Spey frozen over early in January. The whole
country was hung with frost, the trees looking like so many feathers
sparkling with diamonds in the sunshine. The harvest-homes, and the
forest ball, and the Christmas at Belleville, and the Christmas at the
Doune had all taken place in due order; our fęte being remarkable by the
opening of the library, now at last completed. The bookcases, finished
by handsome cornices, and very high, looked very comfortable when quite
filled with books; all along the top were busts, vases, etc. The old
Puritan in the ruff was over the mantelpiece. There were the Thorley
telescope, microscope, theodolite, and other instruments of scientific
value; a large atlas, portfolios of prints, and a fair collection of
books amounting to three or four thousand volumes there was not a
subject on which information could not be gathered amongst them. There
were some little old Elzevirs, Aldines, Baskervilles, and a Field Bible,
to rank as curiosities. A shelf of huge folios, the architecture of
Italy, Balbec, Palmyra, and other engravings, as I may well know, for I
wrote the catalogue.
My father and I were
months at this pleasant work, during the progress of which I think that
my frivolous mind learned more of actual worth to me than it had taken
in during all the former years of my young life.
We were still in the middle of our books when the poor old Captain died.
He had been subject for many years to violent attacks of tic in some of
the nerves of the face. He had had teeth drawn, had been to Edinburgh to
undergo treatment both surgical and medical, to no purpose. Twice a
year, in the spring and fall, violent paroxysms of pain came on. The
only relief he got was from heat; he had to live in a room like an oven.
His good wife was so tender of him at these times; what a mass of
comforts she collected round him!
He had been longer than
usual without an attack; we were in hopes he was to be relieved during
his decline from such agony, and so he was—but how? by a stroke of
paralysis. It took him in the night, affected one whole side, including
his countenance and his speech. He never recovered, even partially, and
was a piteous spectacle sitting there helpless, well-nigh senseless,
knowing no one but his wife, and not her always, pleased with the warmth
of the fire and sugar-candy; the state of all others he had had the
greatest horror of falling into. He always prayed to preserve his
faculties of mind whatever befell the failing body, and he lost them
completely; not a gleam of reason ever again shot across his dimmed
intellect. This melancholy condition lasted some months, and then the
old man died gently in the night, either eighty-four or eighty- six
years of age.
The news was brought to
the Doune early in the morning, and my father and mother set out
immediately for Inverdruie. They remained there the greater part of the
day. In the evening my father and I were occupied writing the funeral
letters, and the orders to Inverness for mourning. Next day Jane and I
were taken to Inverdruie. We had never seen a corpse, and the Captain
had died so serenely, his vacant expression had disappeared so entirely,
giving place to a placidity amounting to beauty, that it was judged no
less startling first view of death could be offered to young people. The
impression, however, was fearful; for days I did not recover from it.
Jane, who always cried abundantly when excited, got over it more easily.
The colour—the indescribable want of colour, rather—the rigidity, the
sharp outline of the high nose (he had prided himself on the size and
shape of this feature), the total absence of flexibility, it was all
horror—him, and not him. I longed to cry like Jane, but there came only
a pain in my chest and head. My father preached a little sermon on the
text before us. I am sure it was very good, but I did not hear it. He
always spoke well and feelingly, and the people around seemed much
affected; all my senses were absorbed by the awful image on that bed. We
were led away, and then, while conversation was going on in the chamber
of the widow, my mind's eye went back to the scene we had left, and
things I had not seemed to notice appeared as I must have seen them.
The body lay on the bed
in the best room; it had on a shirt well ruffled, a night-cap, and the
hands were crossed over the breast. A white sheet was spread over all,
white napkins were pinned over all the chair cushions, spread over the
chest of drawers and the tables, and pinned over the few prints that
hung on the walls. Two bottles of wine and a seed-cake were on one small
table, bread, cheese, butter, and whisky on another, offered according
to the rank of the numerous visitors by the solitary watcher beside the
corpse, a natural daughter of the poor Captain's married to a farmer in
Strathspey.
A great crowd was
gathered in and about the house; the name of each new arrival was
carried up immediately to Mrs Grant, who bowed her head in approbation;
the more that came the higher the compliment. She said nothing, however;
she had a serious part to play—the Highland widow—and most decorously
she went through it. Every one expected it of her, for when had she
failed in any duty? and every one must have been gratified, for this
performance was perfect. She sat on the Captain's cornered armchair in a
spare bedroom, dressed in a black gown, and with a white handkerchief
pinned on her head, one side pinned round the head, all the rest hanging
over it like the kerchief on the head of Henry of Bolingbroke in some of
the prints. Motionless the widow sat during the whole length of the day,
silent and motionless; if addressed, she either nodded slowly or waved
her head, or, if an answer were indispensable, whispered it. Her
insignia of office, the big bright bunch of large house keys, lay beside
her, and if required, a lady friend, first begging permission, and
ascertaining by the nod or the wave which was the proper key to use,
carried off the bunch, gave out what was wanted, and then replaced it.
All the directions for
the funeral were taken from herself in the same solemn manner. We were
awestruck, the room was full, crowded by comers and goers, and yet a pin
could have been heard to drop in it; the short question asked gravely in
the lowest possible tone, the dignified sign in reply, alone broke the
silence of the scene—for scene it was. Early in the morning, before
company hours, who had been so busy as the widow? Streaking the corpse,
dressing the chamber, settling her own, giving out every bit and every
drop that was to be used upstairs and down by gentle and simple,
preparing the additional supplies in case of need afterwards so quietly
applied for by the friendly young lady, there was nothing, from the
merest trifle to the matter of most importance, that she had not, her
own active self, seen to.
I shall never forget her
on the day of the funeral, the fifth day from the death. Her weeds had
arrived, and remarkably well she looked in them. She, a plain woman in
her ordinary rather shabby attire, came out in her new "mournings" like
an elderly gentlewoman. She sat in the same room, in the same chair,
with the addition of just a little more dignity, and a large white
pocket-handkerchief. All her lady friends were round her, Miss Mary and
Mrs William from the Croft, Mrs Macintosh from the Dell, Mrs Stewart
from Pityoulish, two Miss Grants from Kinchurdy, her own sister Anne
from Burnside, Miss Bell Macpherson from Invereshie, my mother, Jane,
and I. There was little said; every gig or horse arriving caused a
little stir for a moment, hushed instantly.
The noise without was
incessant, for a great concourse had assembled to convoy the last of
Macalpine's Sons to his long home.
A substantial collation
had been set out in the parlour, and another, unlimited in extent, in
the kitchen; people coming from so far, waiting for so long, required
abundance of refreshment. They were by no means so decorous below as we
were above in the lady's chamber, though we had our table of good things
too; but we helped ourselves sparingly and quietly.
At length my father
entered with a paper in his hand ; it was the list of the pall-bearers.
He read it over to Mrs Grant, and then gave it to her to read herself.
She went over the names without a muscle moving, and then, putting her
finger upon one, she said, "I would rather Ballintomb, they were
brothers in arms." My father bowed, and then offered her his hand, on
which she rose, and every one making way they went out together, a few
following.
They passed along the
passage to the death- chamber, where on trestles stood the coffin,
uncovered as yet, and with the face exposed. The widow took her calm
last look, she then raised a small square of linen—probably put there by
herself for the purpose— and dropping it over the countenance, turned
and walked away. It was never to be raised. Though Jane and I had been
spared this solemnity, there was something in the whole proceedings that
frightened us. When Mrs Grant returned to her arm-chair and lay back in
it, her own face covered by a handkerchief, and when my father's step
sounded on the stairs as he descended, and the screws were heard as one
by one they fastened down the coffin lid, and then the heavy tramp of
the feet along the passage as the men moved with their burden, we drew
closer to each other and to good Mrs Mackenzie from Aviemore, who was
among the company.
Hundreds attended the
funeral. A young girl in her usual best attire walked first, then the
coffin borne by four sets of stout shoulders, extra bearers grouping
round, as the distance to the kirkyard was a couple of miles at least.
Next came the near of kin, and then all friends fell in according to
their rank without being marshalled. Highlanders never presume, their
innate good-breeding never subjecting them to an enforced descent from a
too honourable place; there is even a fuss at times to get them to
accept one due to them. Like the bishops, etiquette requires them to
refuse at first the proffered dignity. What would either say if taken at
his word?
The Presbyterian Church
has no burial ceremony. It is the custom, however, for the minister to
attend, generally speaking, and to give a lengthy blessing before the
feast, and a short prayer at the grave. Mr Grant of Duthil did his part
better than was expected; no one, from the style of his sermons,
anticipated the touching eulogy pronounced over the remains of the good
old Captain—not undeserved, for our great-granduncle had died at peace
with all the world. He was long regretted, many a kind action he had
done, and never a harsh word had he said of or to any one.
My father gave the
funeral feast at the Doune; most of the friends of fit degree
accompanied him home to dinner. All sorts of pleasant stories went the
round with the wine-bottles, and very merry they were, clergy and all;
the parsons of Alvie and Abernethy were both there, coming in to the
library to tea in high good- humour. The rest of the people, who had
been abundantly refreshed at Inverdruie, dispersed.
The funeral over, there
came on a marriage. Lord Huntly, now in the decline of his rackety life,
overwhelmed with debts, sated with pleasure, tired of fashion, the last
male heir of the Gordon line—married. What would not the mother who
adored him have given to have seen his wedding-day? What regrets she
caused to herself and to him for preventing the love of his youth from
becoming her daughter-in-law! She actually carried this beautiful girl
away with her to Paris and married her to an old merchant, while her son
was away with his regiment. His bride was young, and good, and rich, but
neither clever nor handsome. She made him very happy, and paid his most
pressing debts, that is her father did, old Mr Brodie of the Burn,
brother to Brodie of Brodie, who either himself or somebody for him had
had the good sense to send him with a pen to a counting-house instead of
with a sword to the battle-field. He made a really large fortune; he
gave with his daughter, his only child, one hundred thousand pounds
down, and left her more than another at his death. Really to her husband
her large fortune was the least part of her value; she possessed upright
principles, good sense, and when by and by she began to feel her powers
and took the management of his affairs, she turned out a first-rate
woman of business. In her later years she got into the cant of the
Methodists. At the time of her marriage she was very young, and too
unformed to be shown as the bride of the fastidious Marquis, so while
all the North was a blaze of bonfires in honour of the happy event, her
lord carried her off abroad.
The minister of Alvie
made what was thought a very indelicate allusion to "coming rejoicings
closely connected with the present" in a speech to the crowd round the
blazing pile on Tor Alvie; and as no after- events justified the
prophecy, this incorrect allusion was never forgotten. The marriage was
childless; Lord Huntly was the last Duke of Gordon.
Miss Elphick's mother
having had a serious illness during the winter, and wishing to see her
daughter, it was determined that we should have holiday for six weeks,
and that our governess should travel to town under my father's escort,
Caroline the French girl going with them. She was not to return; she had
been very useful to us in naturalising her language amongst us. People
may read a foreign language well, understand it as read, even write it
well, but to speak it, to carry on the affairs of daily life from mere
grammar and dictionary learning, I do not believe to be possible. A
needle full of thread was my first example in point. We were all at
work, and I asked for "du flu pour mon azçuulle." "Ah," said Caroline,
"me azguullée de flu; tenez, mademoiselle;" and so on with a thousand
other instances never forgotten, for those eighteen months during which
her Parisian French was our colloquial medium for the greater part of
the day made us all thoroughly at home in the language; and though
rusted by years of disuse, a week in France brought it back so
familiarly to my sister Mary and me that the natives could not believe
we had not been brought up in the country. My father was much pleased at
his plan having succeeded so well; he however forbade any mixture of
tongues; when we wrote or spoke English no French words were to be
introduced; English, he said, was rich in expletives, there could be no
difficulty in finding in it fit expressions to convey any meaning. He
would send us to Dryden, Milton, Bolingbroke, and Addison in proof of
this; were we to alter any sentences of theirs by changing an English
for a French word we should enfeeble the style.
One of his favourite
exercises for us was making us read aloud passages from his favourite
authors; he himself had been taught by Stephen Kemble, and he certainly
read beautifully. Jane was an apt pupil; she sometimes mouthed a little,
but in general she in her clear round voice gave the music, as it were,
to the subject, expressed so perfectly by the gentle emphasis she
employed. William was not bad; I was wretched, they did nothing but make
fun of me. They used to tell an abominable story of me—how Jane, having
got grandly through the mustering of all the devils in hell, alias
fallen angels, and ended magnificently with "He called so loud that all
the hollow deep Of hell resounded" (as did our library!), I began in
what William called my "childish treble," "Princes, Potentates," in a
voice that a mouse at the fireside could have imitated!
Milton did not suit me,
but Sterne was worse; nobody could read Sterne, I am certain. My father
could not; that ass, and the Lieutenant's death, and the prisoner—who
could read them aloud, or without tears?
To return from this
episode. My father, Miss Elphick, and Caroline happily off, we bade
adieu to the restraints of the schoolroom. We did not neglect our
studies, but we shoved them aside sometimes, and we led an easy sort of
half-busy merry life, more out of doors than in, all the fine bright
weather of the spring- tide. Jane looked after Mary's lessons, I carried
Johnnie through his; we all four agreed that the governess was quite a
supernumerary! Yet we owed her much; with Mary she had done wonders; by
methodical perseverance she had roused her mind to exertion; Touchstone
had been a great help. Jane and I were surprised to find the child who a
year before could not count, able to work any sum in the simple rules.
She gave great expression to the simple airs she had learnt on the
pianoforte, and she had wakened up to ask questions, and to be merry and
enjoy her walks, and though, from her great size for her age, her
intellect remained slow till her growth of body was over, she was never
again so inert as Miss Elphick had found her.
Johnnie was so easy to
teach that he and I worked in sunshine. He was the dearest little fellow
ever was in the world, not pretty except for fine eyes, small, slight,
very quiet and silent, but full of fun, full of spirit, clever in seeing
and bearing and observing and understanding all that went on around him,
preferring to learn in this practical way rather than from books. He
grew fond of reading, but he had found the mastering of the mere
mechanical part so difficult that he had rather a distaste for the
labour then.
We had two ponies at our
command, William's pretty and rather headstrong Black Sally, and the old
grey my mother used to ride to the reviews, now grown milk-white. He was
large, but so quiet that Mary, who was a coward, was mounted on him. She
never liked riding, and went but seldom. Johnnie, besides being so
little, was much of her mind; Jane and I therefore had our steed to
ourselves, and plenty of use we made of it. We rode to Belleville, to
the Dell of Killiehuntly, and all over the country up and down the Spey,
a fat coachman on one of the carriage horses behind us.
At the Dell of
Killiehuntly lived John and Betty Campbell, doing well, but alas! not
happy. His brother shared the farm, a good managing man with whom it was
easy to live—but he had a wife with whom it was not easy to live. The
two ladies soon disagreed, and though they parted household—John and
Betty living in the farmhouse, Donald and Mary in rooms they fitted up
in the offices—perfect harmony never subsisted until sorrow came to
both.
Donald and Mary had a
fine son drowned in the Spey; John and Betty lost their only child, my
goddaughter, in the measles. Neither bereaved mother ever " faulted" the
other after these events. Each had shown so much heart on the occasion
of the grief of the other, that some bond of kindness, at least of
forbearance, existed evermore between them. Betty never got over her "puir
Eliza's" death ; she never alluded to her, never replied when any one
else did, nor did she appear altered outwardly, yet it had changed her.
Her hair turned grey, her manner became restless, and from that day she
never called me anything but Miss Grant, my Christian name she never
uttered, nor the pet name "burdie" by which she had oftenest called us
both. It altered John Campbell too. What had brought that pair together
was a problem not to be solved. John had but very few words of English,
it was difficult to make out his meaning when he tried to explain
himself in that foreign language; to the end of his life he never got
beyond the smattering he began with. Betty, a Forres woman, spoke broad,
low-country Scotch, pure Morayshire, and never anything else to her
husband or to any one; she never attempted the Gaelic. The language she
did speak was all but incomprehensible, any English the Highlanders
acquire being real good English such as they are taught by books at
school, and in conversation with the upper classes; Betty's was another
tongue, the Low Dutch would have comprehended it as easily as did the
Highlander, yet she and John managed to understand each other and to get
on together lovingly, the grey mare taking the lead.
Both husband and wife
loved us dearly; few events made either of them happier that the sight
of our ponies picking their steps cannily down the brae a little piece
away from their good farmhouse. All that they had of the best was
brought out for us, our steeds and our fat attendant faring equally well
for our sakes; and then Betty would promise to return the visit, and she
would not forget her promise either, but walk her eight or nine miles
some fine day, and pay her respects all through the Duchus. She always
reminded me of Meg Merrilies, a tall, large-framed, powerfully-made
woman, with dark flashing eyes and raven hair, eminently handsome,
though resolute-looking. Her dress, though of a different style from the
gipsy's, was picturesque; a linsey gown, white neckerchief, white apron,
a clear close-fitting cap with a plaited lace-edged border, and a bright
satin ribbon to bind it on the head, and over this a high steeple cap of
clearer muslin, set farther back than the underneath one so that the
borders did not interfere. A red plaid of the Campbell tartan, spun and
dyed by herself, was thrown round her when she went out.
She spun the wool for
stockings too, and knitted them; at fine needleworks she was not expert,
indeed she was too active to sit to them. She was a stirring wife, in
and out, but and ben, cooking, washing, cleaning, keeping a quick eye
over all, warm-tempered and kindhearted. In her old age, when husband
and child were gone, Betty grew fond of money. She was free-handed in
happier days.
Miss Elphick returned
before my father. She came by sea to Inverness, stayed a day or two with
the Coopers, and then came on in the gig with Mr Cooper, who had
business with William Cameron and such a dose of north country gossip
for my mother! She liked a little gossip, and she got abundance. I like
gossip too, I suppose we all do, clever gossip, but not Mr Cooper's:
"The laird of this, his bills flying about; the lady of that, too sharp
a tongue to keep a servant. Everything under lock and key at Glen here;
open house to all corners at Rath there. Fish bought at extravagantly
high price by Mrs So-and-So of New Street, while the children of
Some-one in Church Lane often came to Mrs Cooper for a 'piece." He was a
kind good-natured man, and his home was very happy. Miss Elphick admired
him extremely, "his coats fitted so beautifully." She had brought for
her own wear from London a bottle-green cloth surcoat, much braided,
quite military-looking, and a regular man's hat, a Welsh style of dress
she fancied particularly becoming and suited to her, as tartans were to
us, her mother being a Welshwoman. In this guise she went in the month
of May, or June indeed, to pay her visit of condolence to the widow at
Inverdruie; a farewell on our part, Mrs Grant having determined to give
up her farm and return to Burnside to keep house with her very old
mother and her bachelor brother. We were coming back, and had reached
the turn in the road under the bank of fir trees near James Macgregor's,
when a disastrous piece of news reached us. What we called "the widows'
house" at Loch-an-Eilan was burnt to the ground.
My father had always had
a turn for beautifying Rothiemurchus with cottages; it was more that, at
first, than the wish to improve the dwellings of the people,
consequently his first attempts were guiltless of any addition to the
family comfort. A single room, thatched, with a gable end battened down
at top, like a snub nose, had been stuck on the hill at the Poichar for
the gamekeeper, on the bank at the ferry for the boatman, at the end of
the West gate as a lodge. They were all as inconvenient as any old turf
hut, and a great deal more ugly, because more pretending.
Searching through our
drawing-books for a model for the Croft improved his ideas of cottage
architecture; also, he now better understood the wants of a household.
He picked out a number of pretty elevations, suggested the necessary
changes, and left it to Jane and me to make correct drawings and working
plans.
We had to try perhaps a
dozen times before a sketch was sufficiently good to be accepted. We
became attached to the subjects; it was no wonder that the new cottages
became of such importance to us. The West gate was the first improved.
It was lengthened by a room, heightened sufficiently to allow of a store
loft under the steep roof, the snub nose disappeared, the heather thatch
was extended by means of supporting brackets, and a neat verandah ran
along the side next the road and round the gable end. We trained
Ayrshire roses on the walls, honeysuckle on the verandah, and we planted
all sorts of common flowers in a border between the cottage and the
road. It was a pretty cottage, particularly suited to the scenery, and
when neatly kept was one of the shows of the place.
The next attempt was the
Poichar, a more ambitious one, for there were a front and a back door, a
long passage, staircase, pantry, kitchen, parlour, and two bedrooms
above. It was very picturesque with its overhanging heather-thatched
roof, its tall chimneys, and its wide latticed windows. There was no
border of flowers, only a small grass plot and a gravel walk, but there
was an enclosed yard fronted by the dog kennels, and a path led to a
good kitchen garden laid out in a hollow close by. Another path went
down to the edge of the first of the chain of Lochans, and on through
the birch wood to the Croft. Another path skirted these little lochs by
James Macgregor's to the fir forest—aunt Mary's walk. It was a model for
the dwelling of a Highland gamekeeper.
Next came a cottage for
four aged widows; they had been living apparently in discomfort, either
alone in miserable sheilings, far from aid in case of sickness, and on
such dole as kind neighbours gave helped by a share of the poor's box,
or in families weary enough of the burden of supporting them.
My father thought that by
putting them all together he could lodge them cheaply, that they might
be of use to one another in many ways, and that the help given to them
would go farther when less subdivided. It was a really beautiful home
that he built for them; there were the cantilever roof of heather, the
wide latticed windows, the tall chimneys, but he made it two storeys
high, and he put the staircase leading to the upper rooms outside. It
had quite a Swiss look. Sociable as were his intentions regarding the
widows, he knew too well to make them live together except when they
were inclined. Each was to have a room and a closet for herself. Two of
them were to live on the ground floor with a separate entrance to their
apartments, one door opening from the front, the other from the back of
the house; the two above reached their abode by the hanging staircase, a
balcony landing each beside her door-window.
We were charmed with this
creation of our united fancies, and had grand plans for suitable
fittings, creeping plants, flower borders, rustic seats, and furniture.
The loch was on one hand; the meal-mill at the foot of the Ord, with the
burnie, the mill-race, a few cottages and small fields, on the other;
the grey mountains and the forest behind; all was divine but the spirit
of woman. The widows rebelled; old, smoke-dried, shrivelled-up witches
with pipes in their mouths, and blankets on their backs, they preferred
the ingle-nook in their dark, dirty, smoke-filled huts to this picture
of comfort. Stone walls were cold, light hurt the eyes, deal floors got
dirty and had to be scrubbed! The front door complained of the outside
stair, it was so much in the way and noisy; the back door objected to
entering at the back, she had as good a right as her neighbour to the
exit of honour; her windows looked on the burn, there was no road that
way, she could see nothing; she equally detested the stairs though they
were not near her; both ground floors said that people going up and
coming down, for ever crossing them in all ways, forced them to spend a
great deal of valuable time at the foot of this annoyance, expostulating
with the upper windows for the ceaseless din they made. These more
exalted ladies felt themselves quite as ill used as those beneath them.
Their backs were broken carrying burdens up those weary stairs; no one
could come to see them without being watched from below. In short, they
were all in despair, agreeing in nothing but hatred of their beautiful
home. The fact is that they were not fit for it; it is not at threescore
and ten that we can alter habits and the feelings grown out of them. It
was very little understood then where to begin, and how slowly it was
necessary to go on in order to reach the first even of the many
resting-places on the road to better ways.
The poor Captain sealed
the fate of the widows' house. One day after he had come in from his
drive in the old pony phaeton with the long-tailed black pony, somebody
asking which way he had been, he replied, "By Rothie's poorhouse at
Loch-an-Eilan." Of all things on earth this name is most repugnant to
the feelings of the Highlander; to be paraded as inmates of a recognised
almshouse was more than the pride of any clanswoman could bear, and so
it fell out that by accident the heather thatch took fire, and although
neighbours were near, and a stream ran past the door, and the widows
were all alive during the burning, active as bees removing their
effects—the stairs being no hindrance—the flames raged on. In the
morning only blackened walls remained.
We could not help being
so far uncharitable as to believe that whether or no they had lit the
spark that threw them homeless on the world, they had at least taken no
trouble to extinguish it.
My father was much
annoyed at this misfortune; he would do nothing towards any further
arrangements for the comfort of these old bodies. Perhaps they lived to
repent their folly. He did not, however, give up his building; the next
cottage he undertook was given to more grateful occupants. He had
intended it as a toy for my mother, but the amusement of fitting it up
not suiting her tastes, it was eventually made over to us, and became
one of the principal delights of our happy Rothiemurchus life.
We will pause before
describing it. Dalachapple once conversing with my mother concerning
some firm in Glasgow the partners in which had been her acquaintance in
her dancing day, "They failed, did not they?" said she. "They paused,"
said he; and so will we. |
