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THE "upper" and " lower"
classes in the Highlands were not separated from each other by a wide
gap. The thought was never suggested of a great proprietor above, like a
leg of mutton on the top of a pole, and the people far below, looking up
to him with envy. On reviewing the state of Highland society, one was
rather reminded of a pyramid whose broad base was connected with the
summit by a series of regular steps. The dukes or lords, indeed, were
generally far removed from the inhabitants of the land, living as they
did for the greater part of the year in London; but the minor chiefs,
such as "Lochiel," "Macleod," "Raasay," "Lochnell," "Coll," &c., resided
on their respective estates, and formed centres of local and personal
influence. They had good family mansions; and in some instances the old
keep was enlarged into a fine baronial castle, where all the hospitality
of the far north was combined with the more refined domestic
arrangements of the south. They had also their handsome "birlinn," or
well-built, well-rigged "smack" or "wherry;" and their stately piper,
who played pibrochs with very storms of sound after dinner, or, from the
bow of the boat, with the tartan ribands fluttering from the grand
war-pipe, spread the news of the chief's arrival for miles across the
water. They were looked up to and respected by the people. Their names
were mingled with all the traditions of the country: they were as old as
its history, indeed, practically as old as the hills themselves. They
mingled freely with the peasantry, spoke their language, shared their
feelings, treated them with sympathy, kindness, and, except in outward
circumstances, were in all respects one of themselves. The poorest man
on their estate could converse with them at any time in the frankest
manner, as with friends whom they could trust. There was between them an
old and firm attachment.
This feeling of clanship,
this interest of the clan in their chief, has even lived down to my own
recollection. It is not many years ago—for I heard the incident
described by some of the clan who took part in the emucnte—that a new
family burial-ground was made on an old property by a laird who knew
little of the manners or prejudices of the country, having lived most of
his time abroad. The first person he wished to bury in this new private
tomb near "the big house" was his predecessor, whose lands and name he
inherited, and who had been a true representative of the old stock. But
when the clan heard of what they looked upon as an insult to their late
chief, they formed a conspiracy, seized the body by force, and after
guarding it for a day or two, buried it with all honour in the ancient
family tomb on
"The Isle of Saints, where
stands the old gray cross."
The Tacksmen at that time
formed the most important and influential class of a society which has
now wholly disappeared in most districts. In no country in the world was
such a contrast presented as in the Highlands between the structure of
the houses and the culture of their occupants. The houses were of the
most primitive description; they consisted of one story—had only what
the Scotch call a but and a ben; that is, a room at each end, with a
passage between, two garret rooms above, and in some cases a kitchen,
built out at right angles behind. Most of them were thatched with straw
or heather. Such was the architecture of the house in which Dr Johnson
lived with the elegant and accomplished Sir Allan Maclean, on the island
of Inchkenneth. The old house of Glendessary, again, in "the parish,"
was constructed, like a few more, of wicker work; the outside being
protected with turf, and the interior lined with wood. "The house and
the furniture," writes Dr Johnson, "were ever always nicely suited. We
were driven once, by missing our passage, to the hut of a gentleman,
when, after a very liberal supper, I was conducted to my chamber, and
found an elegant bed of Indian cotton, spread with fine sheets. The
accommodation was flattering; I undressed myself, and found my feet in
the mire. The bed stood on the cold earth, which a long course of rain
had softened to a puddle." But in these houses were gentlemen,
nevertheless, and ladies of education and high-breeding. Writing of Sir
Allan Maclean and his daughters, Johnson says:—"Romance does not often
exhibit a scene that strikes the imagination more than this little
desert in these depths and western obscurity, occupied, not by a gross
herdsman or amphibious fisherman, but by a gentleman and two ladies of
high rank, polished manners, and elegant conversation, who, in a
habitation raised not very far above the ground, but furnished with
unexpected neatness and convenience, practised all the kindness of
hospitality and the refinement of courtesy." It was thus, too, with the
old wicker-house of Glendessary, of which not a trace now remains. The
interior was provided with all the comfort and taste of a modern
mansion. The ladies were accomplished musicians, the harp and piano
sounded in those "halls of Selma," and their descendants are now among
England's aristocracy.
These gentlemen-tacksmen
were generally men of education. They had all small but well-selected
libraries, and had not only acquired some knowledge of the classics, but
were fond of keeping up their acquaintance with them. It was not an
uncommon pastime with them when they met together to try which could
repeat the greatest number of lines from Virgil or Horace, or who among
them, when one line was repeated, could cap it with another line
commencing with the same letter as that which ended the former. All this
may seem to many to have been profitless amusement; but it was not such,
amusement as rude and uncultivated boors would have indulged in, nor was
it such as is likely to be imitated by the rich farmers who now pasture
their flocks where hardly a stone marks the site of those old houses.
I know only one surviving
gentleman-tacksman belonging to the period of which I write, and he is
beyond ninety years of age, though in the full enjoyment of his bodily
health and mental faculties. About forty years ago, when inspecting his
cattle, he was accosted by a pedestrian, with a knapsack on his back,
who addressed him in a language which was intended for Gaelic. The
tacksman, judging him to be a foreigner, replied in French, which met no
response but a shake of the head, the tacksman's French being probably
as bad as the tourist's Gaelic. The Highlander then tried Latin, which
kindled a smile of surprise, and drew forth an immediate reply. This was
interrupted by the remark that English would probably be more convenient
for both parties. The tourist, who turned out to be an Oxford student,
laughing heartily at the interview, gladly accepted the invitation of
the tacksman to accompany him to his thatched house, and share his
hospitality. He was surprised, on entering "the room," to see a small
library in the humble apartment. "Books here!" he exclaimed, as he
looked over the shelves. "Addison, Johnson, Goldsmith, Shakespeare—what!
Homer, too?" The farmer, with some pride, begged him to look at the
Homer. It had been given as a prize to himself when he was a student at
the university. My old friend will smile as he reads these lines, and
will wonder how I heard the story. [Since the above was written, he has
passed away in perfect peace, and with an eye undimmed, though he was in
his ninety-fifth year.]
It was men like these who
supplied the Highlands with clergymen, physicians, lawyers, and the army
and navy with many of their officers. It is not a little remarkable that
the one island of Skye, for example, should have sent forth from her
wild shores since the beginning of the last wars of the French
Revolution, 21 lieutenant-generals and major-generals; 48
lieutenant-colonels; 600 commissioned officers; 10,000 soldiers; 4
governors of colonies; 1 governor-general; 1 adjutant-general; 1 chief
baron of England; and 1 judge of the Supreme Court of Scotland. I
remember the names of 61 officers being enumerated, who, during "the
war," had joined the army or navy from farms which were visible from one
hill-top in "the parish." These times have now passed away. The
Highlands furnish few soldiers or officers. Even the educated clergy are
becoming few.
One characteristic of
these tacksmen which more than any other forms a delightful reminiscence
of them, was their remarkable kindness to the poor. There was hardly a
family which had not some man or woman who had seen better days, for
their guest, during weeks, months, perhaps years. These forlorn ones
might have been very distant relations, claiming that protection which a
drop of kindred blood never claimed in vain; or former neighbours, or
the children of those who were neighbours long ago ; or, as it often
happened, they might have had no claim whatever upon the hospitable
family beyond the fact that they were utterly destitute, yet could not
be treated as paupers, and had in God's providence been cast on the
kindness of others, like waves of the wild sea breaking at their feet.
Nor was there anything "very interesting" about such objects of charity.
One old gentleman-beggar I remember, who used to live with friends of
mine for months, was singularly stupid, and often bad-tempered. A
decayed old gentlewoman, again, who was an inmate for years in one
house, was subject to fits of great depression, and was by no means
pleasant company-Another needy visitor used to be accompanied by a
female servant. When they departed after a sojourn of a few weeks, the
servant was generally laden with wool, clothing, and a large allowance
of tea and sugar, contributed by the hostess for the use of "the
mistress," who thus obtained supplies from different families during
summer, which kept herself and her red-haired domestic comfortable in
their small hut during the winter. "Weel, weel," said the worthy host,
as on one occasion he saw the pair depart, "it's a puir situation being
a beggar's servant, like yon woman carrying the poke." Now this
hospitality was never dispensed with a grudge, but with all tenderness
and the nicest delicacy. These "genteel beggars" were received into the
family, had comfortable quarters assigned to them in the house, partook
of all the family meals; and the utmost care was taken by old and young
that not one word should be uttered, nor anything done, which could for
a moment suggest to them the idea that they were a trouble, a bore, an
intrusion, or anything save the most welcome and honoured guests. This
attention, according to the minutest details, was almost a religion with
the old Highland "gentleman" and his family.
The poor of the parish,
strictly so called, were, with few exceptions, wholly provided for by
the tacksmen. Each farm, according to its size, had its old men, widows,
and orphans depending on it for their support. The widow had her free
house which the farmer and the " cottiers" around him kept in repair.
They drove home her peats for fuel from "the Moss;" her cow had
pasturage on the green hills. She had Iand sufficient to raise potatoes,
and a small garden for vegetables. She had hens and ducks too, with the
natural results of eggs, chickens, and ducklings. She had sheaves of
corn supplied her, and these, along with her own gleanings, were
threshed at the mill with the tacks-man's crop. In short, she was
tolerably comfortable, and very thankful, enjoying the feeling of being
the object of true charity, which was returned by such labour as she
could give, and by her hearty gratitude.
But all this was changed
when those tacksmen were swept away to make room for the large sheep
farms, and when the remnants of the people flocked from their empty
glens to occupy houses in wretched villages near the sea-shore, by way
of becoming fishers—often where no fish could be caught. The result has
been that "the parish," for example, which once had a population of 2200
souls, and received only £11 per annum from public (church) funds for
the support of the poor, expends now under the Poor-law upwards of £600
annually, with a population diminished by one-half, but with poverty
increased in a greater ratio. This, by the way, is the result generally,
when money awarded by law, and distributed by officials, is substituted
for the true charity prompted by the heart, and dispensed systematically
to known and well-ascertained cases, which draw it forth by the law of
sympathy and Christian duty. I am quite aware how very chimerical this
doctrine is held to be by some political economists, but in these days
of heresy in regard to older and more certain truths, it may be treated
charitably. [In no case can a poor-law meet the wants of the deserving
poor. In every case it must be supplemented by systematic benevolence.
If it attempts, by means of a few officials, to deal kindly and
liberally with every case of poverty, it will soon pauperise and
demoralise the country. If, on the other hand, it applies such stringent
tests as starvation and extreme distress alone can submit to, a vast
mass of unrelieved suffering must be the result. Christian charity has
yet to fill up, as it has never clone, the gap between legal paupers and
the deserving poor.]
The effect of the
poor-law, I fear, has been to destroy in a great measure the old
feelings of self-respect which looked upon it as a degradation to
receive any support from public charity when living, or to be buried by
it when dead. It has loosened also, those kind bonds of neighbourhood,
family relationship, and natural love which linked the needy to those
who had the ability to supply their wants, and whose duty it was to do
so, and which was blessed both to the giver and receiver. Those who
ought on principle to support the poor arc tempted to cast them on the
rates, and thus to lose all the good derived from the exercise of
Christian almsgiving. The poor themselves have become more needy and
more greedy, and scramble for the miserable pittance which is given and
received with equal heartlessness.
The temptation to create
large sheep-farms has no doubt been great. Rents are increased, and more
easily collected. Outlays are fewer and less expensive than upon houses,
steadings, &c. But should more rent be the highest, the noblest object
of a proprietor? Are human beings to be treated like so many things used
in manufactures? Are no sacrifices to be demanded for their good and
happiness? Granting, for the sake of argument, that profit, in the sense
of obtaining more money, will be found in the long run to measure what
is best for the people as well as for the landlord, yet may not the
converse of this be equally true—that the good and happiness of the
people will in the long run be found the most profitable? Proprietors,
we are glad to hear, are beginning to think that if a middle-class
tenantry, with small arable farms of a rental of from £20 to £100 per
annum, were again introduced into the Highlands, the result would be
increased rents. Better still, the huge glens, along whose rich straths
no sound but the bleat of sheep or the bark of dogs is now heard for
twenty or thirty miles, would be tenanted, as of yore, with a
comfortable and happy peasantry:
In the meantime,
emigration has been to a large extent a blessing to the Highlands, and
to a larger extent still a blessing to the colonies. It is the only
relief for a poor and redundant population. The hopelessness of
improving their condition, which rendered many in the Highlands listless
and lazy, has in the colonies given place to the hope of securing a
competency by prudence and industry. These virtues have accordingly
sprung up, and the results have been comfort and independence. A wise
political economy, with sympathy for human feelings and attachments,
will, I trust, be able more and more to adjust the balance between the
demands of the old and new country, for the benefit both of proprietors
and people. But I must return to the old tenants.
Below the gentlemen-tacksmen
were those who paid a much lower rent, and who lived very comfortably,
and shared hospitably with others the gifts God had given them. I
remember a group of men, tenants in a large glen, which now "has not a
smoke in it," as the Highlanders say, throughout its length of twenty
miles. They had the custom of entertaining in rotation every traveller
who cast himself upon their hospitality. The host on the occasion was
bound to summon his neighbours to the homely feast. It was my good
fortune to be a guest when they received the present minister of "the
parish," while en route to visit some of his flock. We had a most
sumptuous feast—oat-cake, crisp and fresh from the fire; cream, rich and
thick, and more beautiful than nectar, whatever that may be; blue
Highland cheese, finer than Stilton; fat hens, slowly cooked on the fire
in a pot of potatoes, without their skins, and with fresh butter—"stoved
hens," as the superb dish was called; and, though last, not least,
tender kid, roasted as nicely as Charles Lamb's cracklin' pig. All was
served up with the utmost propriety, on a table covered with a pure
white cloth, and with all the requisites for a comfortable dinner,
including the champagne of elastic, buoyant and exciting mountain air.
The manners and conversation of those men would have pleased the
best-bred gentleman. Everything was so simple, modest, unassuming,
unaffected, yet so frank and cordial. The conversation was such as might
have been heard at the table of any intelligent man. Alas! there is not
a vestige remaining of their homes. I know not whither they are gone,
but they have left no representatives behind. The land in the glen is
divided between sheep, shepherds, and the shadows of the clouds.
There were annual
festivals of the Highland tenantry, which deeply moved every glen. These
were the Dumbarton and Falkirk "Trysts," or fairs for cattle and sheep.
What preparations were made for these gatherings, on which the rent and
income of the year depended! What a collecting of cattle, of drovers,
and of dogs,—the latter being the most interested and excited of all the
members of the caravan. What speculations as to how the "market" would
turn out. What a shaking of hands in boats and wayside inns by the men
in homespun cloth, gay tartans, or in the more correct garbs of Glasgow
or Edinburgh tailors! What a pouring in from all the glens, increasing
at every ferry and village, and flowing on, a river of tenants and
proprietors, small and great, to the market ! What that market was I
know not from personal observation, neither have I any desire to know.
"Let Yarrow be unseen,
unknown,
If now we're sure to rue it;
We have a vision of our own,
Ah, why should we undo it?"
The impression left in
early years is too sublime to be tampered with. I have a vision of miles
of tents, of flocks, and herds, surpassed only by those in the
wilderness of Sinai; of armies of Highland sellers trying to get high
prices out of the Englishmen, and Englishmen trying to put off the
Highlandmen with low prices—but all in the way of "fair dealing."
When any person returned
who had been himself at the market, who could recount its ups and downs,
its sales and purchases, with all the skirmishes, stern encounters, and
great victories, it was an eventful day in the tacksman's dwelling! A
stranger not initiated into the mysteries of a great fair might have
supposed it possible for any one to give all information about it in a
brief business form. But there was such an enjoyment in details, such a
luxury in going over all the prices, and all that was asked by the
seller and refused by the buyer, and asked again by the seller, and
again refused by the buyer, with such nice financial fencing of
"splitting the difference," or giving back a "luck-penny," as baffles
all description. It was not enough to give the prices of three-year-olds
and four-year-olds, yell cows, crock ewes, stirks, stots, lambs, tups,
wethers, shots, bulls, &c., but the stock of each well-known proprietor
or breeder had to be discussed. Colonsay's bulls, Corrie's sheep,
Drumdriesaig's heifers, or Achadashenaig's wethers, had all to be passed
under careful review. Then followed discussions about distinguished
"beasts," which had "fetched high prices; "their horns, their hair,
their houghs, and general "fashion," with their parentage. It did not
suffice to tell that this or that great purchaser from the south had
given so much for this or that "lot," but his first offer, his remarks,
his doubts, his advance of price, with the sparring between him and the
Highland dealer, must all be particularly recorded, until the final
shaking of hands closed the bargain. And after all was gone over, it was
a pleasure to begin the same tune again with variations. But who that
has ever heard an after-dinner talk in England about a good day's
hunting, or a good race, will be surprised at this endless talk about a
market?
I will close this chapter
with a story told of a great sheep-farmer (not one of the old "gentleman
tenants" verily!) who, though he could hardly read or write, had
nevertheless made a large fortune by sheep-farming, and was open to any
degree of flattery as to his abilities in this department of labour. A
buyer, knowing his weakness, and anxious to ingratiate himself into his
good graces, ventured one evening over their whisky-toddy to remark, "I
am of opinion, sir, that you are a greater man than even the Duke of
Wellington!" "Hoot toot!" replied the sheep-farmer, modestly hanging his
head with a pleasing smile, and taking a large pinch of snuff. "That's
too much—too much by far—by far." But his guest, after, expatiating for
a while upon the great powers of his host in collecting and
concentrating upon a Southern market a flock of sheep, suggested the
question, "Could the Duke of Wellington have done that?" The
sheep-farmer thought a little, snuffed, took a glass of toddy, and
slowly replied, "The Duke of Wellington was, nae doot, a clever man;
very, very clever, I believe. They tell me he was a good sojer; but
then, d'ye see, he had reasonable men to deal with—captains, and majors,
and generals that could understand him,—every one of them, both officers
and men; but I'm no so sure after all if he could manage say tweny
thousand sheep, besides black cattle, that couldna understand one word
he said, Gaelic or English, and bring every hoof o' them to Fa'kirk
Tryst! I doot it—I doot it! But I have often done that." The inference
was evident. |
