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I WAS nearly fifteen when I began to learn
Latin
by myself, and next year when Mr Drummond took
me in hand to inspire, guide, and drill me properly,
he was pleased to find that I had made substantial
rudimentary progress. By that time my mind was
stored with a curious medley of information. The
humble school furnished me with the three keys of
knowledge, and outside the school I did a great deal
for myself. From infancy I was becoming insensibly
saturated with the traditional lore of old Gamaliels
tales of the Feinne, fairy stories, local history
(which subsequent publication of State records proved
to be wonderfully correct) back to John of Lome
(called by us Iain Dubh nan Lann, who married
Janet Maciosaig, the grand-daughter of Bruce in
1360, and got as her tocher from her uncle, King
David, Glenlyon), and old songs most of which have
perished, and which carried, in prefatory explana-
tions in prose, information of various kinds on their
backs. From the age of five I could read English
and Gaelic, and get enjoyment for myself from easy
books in both these languages. All we children of
that time were well drilled in the Shorter Catechism,
which, no doubt, we repeated by rote at first, but
which, as the years passed, took hold of our under-
standing and furnished us with a canon of reasoned
theology, and, what was of more importance, a rule
of life to which we might not always make our
conduct conform, but which always kept its grip on
us. It was not such a hard task to commit the
Catechism to memory as to find the proofs for the
dogmatic assertions contained in it by searching the
Bible. That part of our task belonged more to the
Sunday than to the week school. It was the part
which I liked least myself, and in it boys and girls,
especially the girls in my class, were often ahead of
me. The "Ceasnachadh," which came once a year,
when the minister, accompanied by the elders of
each ward into which the parish was divided, went
his rounds to examine old and young, was less a
terror to us youngsters than it was to some of
the grey-headed old men, whose early Catechism
education had been neglected, or who had forgotten
what they had once learned. We school children
took a wicked pleasure in their worry and blunders,
and afterwards made fun among ourselves of their
wrong or haphazard answers.
Bible narratives had such an overwhelming
fascination for me that one summer, when quite a
small boy, I read all the historical books, and
because of their historical references to ancient
nations, most of the prophetical books likewise.
That summer my daily occupation was to herd
calves, and to keep them out of corn and hay land,
on a stretch of banks and bogs within the park
wall which extended from above the churchyard to
Clachaig, named so, the Place of Stones, because
the old Druidic stone circle was there. Herding
alone would have been tedious enough, had not this
Bible-reading made the time pass pleasantly. My
dog Torm, indeed, did the biggest part of the
herding, for he knew as well as myself how far it
was free for the calves to go, and when it was his
duty to deal with them as trespassers. When on
a very rainy day we had taken them to a corner
above Clachaig, and I told him to take care of them
there, I could go off to Calum Macgibbon's house
with an easy conscience and stay there for a while.
On returning I was sure to find the calves more
closely pinned up in their corner than when I left
them. Torm then would come rushing to me with
self-satisfied eyes to be praised and patted on the
head, and given leave to go on a scamper of his own
if he felt so inclined. He liked to have such runs,
but never went too far to hear being called back by a
whistle. The worst fault of the faithful, intelligent
creature was that he would not let a strange dog
pass on the road without looking on him as a
trespasser and wanting to fight with him.
When ten years old, the medley of
information
which I had gained out of school was derived from
the following sources: Glenlyon traditional lore,
Bible history, the "Pilgrim's Progress," "Scots
Worthies," "Robinson Crusoe," and the "Arabian
Nights." About the latter I had much trouble with
my mother, whose own reading was limited to her
Gaelic Bible. She highly approved of my Bible
studies, and knew enough about the "Pilgrim's
Progress" and the "Scots Worthies" to think the
reading of them commendable. I gave her such an
account of Robinson Crusoe's adventures that she
became interested in them herself. I was indeed
rather in the habit of telling in Gaelic round the
kitchen fire on winter nights the stories I had read
in English. It was that habit which brought down
maternal condemnation on the un-Christian tales
of the "Arabian Nights." She wanted to restrict
my reading to Boston's "Fourfold State" and the
similar prim books which were contained in the
parish library. My father's authority was invoked,
but, although no scholar, he could read and speak
English, and had broader views than hers. He saw
I was mutinous, and thought it was best to let me
follow my own course. But till I reached the age
of twelve, when she gave up her attempt at censor-
ship as a bad job, my mother was suspicious, and
bothered me a good deal about the books I read.
Because the poetry of Burns was under clerical ban
in our Glen and my mother knew it was so, I had
to read it out of her sight, and found it as sweet
as stolen waters. Had she known as much as the
little she did about Burns about other books which
I devoured between the ages of twelve and fifteen,
she would have been truly horrified, although
perhaps Defoe's "History of the Devil" might have
passed muster as perfectly orthodox!
My grandfather, who received a good
middle-
class education at the parish schools of Muthil and
Crieff, left behind him a collection of English and
Gaelic books, which were kept stored in a cupboard
until I rummaged among them. I found that in
other farm houses there were many old books which
nobody read, and which were gladly lent to me.
The books of friends who died in the South came
back to their relations in the Glen, but these were
books of the beginning of the last century, and were
more read than the others. The others stretched
back in a straggling way to the time of the Reformation, and forwards to 1770. How did these old
books come into the possession of people who did
not, and few of whom could, read them or understand them? I believe it was because they were
sold with the furniture in Meggernie Castle on the
death of Commissioner Archibald Menzies in 1776.
His father, Old Culdares, died the year before.
When his son died, leaving a widow and an infant
daughter, the upper and bigger part of the barony
went to John Stewart of Cardeney under the deed
of entail, and the Chesthill end fell to the Commissioner's daughter, but it was so burdened with
debt that it soon had to be sold to her uncle by
marriage, Archibald Menzies, Chief Clerk to the
Court of Session. No doubt that at this sale of
effects the books went so cheap that, with an eye to
the future, people who could not read them were
tempted to buy them for possible use by their
descendants. The most ponderous, and to me not
the least attractive, was Hackluyt's "Collection of
Voyages and Travels." Interspersed with imperishable literature were publications of the Restoration
period, some of which were witty and wicked, and
some of which were simply dull and immoral.
I judged Charles II. and his Court with
the
merciless severity of a young Puritan or Covenanter,
but was quite tolerant about the disreputable doings
of heathen gods and goddesses. I do not think it
did me the least moral harm to get in early life a
peep-show knowledge of the seamy side of human
life. That side of human life was much dwelt upon
in the Bible itself, in the authority, inspiration, and
infallibility of which we were taught to believe
implicitly by our own spiritual guides. And was
there not much of it in our own ancient Celtic
poetry and prose tales? I remember I sided strongly
with Prometheus against thundering Jupiter, and
felt glad that the latter's autocratic tyranny was at
times controlled by Fate. I pondered often on the
similarities between the full-fledged mythology of
Greece and Rome and the . fragments of Celtic
mythology which came down to us in the Cuchullin
and Feinne stories. Was not Cuchullin himself the
Hercules of our race? Then my own clan claimed
descent from Diarmid O'Duibhne, who eloped with
his uncle Fionn's wife, or, at least, betrothed bride,
Grainne. Was their story not somewhat like the
elopement of Paris and Helen? Comparative rumi-
nation cleared paths for me through the tangles of
classical mythology. But I thought less of assorting
than of acquiring knowledge. I had a retentive
memory, and stored my mind like a pawnbroker's
shop with miscellaneous goods that had to wait
for sorting out at convenience. Everything in the
shape of a book was fish that came into my nets.
I had read Pope's Homer and Dryden's Virgil before
Mr Drummond took me in hand, and was full of the
enthusiastic hope of being some day able to read
these great poems in their original languages.
Knowledge of Gaelic is a great help to any young
student of Latin and Greek. Bi-lingualism of any
kind is in itself a mental discipline and an educational ladder.
The desultory reading which I began in my
early
youth became a habit which clung to me throughout
my life. It was my form of dissipation. I had
much hard work to do to earn my daily bread, and
at first that work had nothing in connection with
books. But although I did not know it, I was
qualifying myself for the journalistic work into
which I ultimately drifted, and at which I remained
for forty-six years. When I began to learn Latin
I intended to go to a University; but I did not
know to what profession I should devote attention.
The ministry was the usual aim of Highland lads of
my kind, but I did not think myself pious enough
for that calling, for the revival doctrine of conversion
was then overawing the rising generation, and I
knew I could not honestly say to myself or others
that I had gone through any process of conversion.
I had more leaning towards the medical than to the
legal profession. But to get some learning was my
first craving, and the choice of a profession would
be made when I had more knowledge of the world
and of my capacity, likings, and chances. Meanwhile the great thing was to earn money, and with
the money I earned to scramble for a higher education. I was the eldest of my parents' family of five
children, and the only son. But before my father
had lost the farm on which he and his ancestors had
been for two hundred years, it was tacitly under-
stood by all concerned that I was to turn my back
on farming and to shape a course for myself. Had
my people kept on the ancestral farm they could
manage to work it without me, for a bachelor
brother of my father's had lately come home after
long service with Mr Charles Stewart as his
manager at Chesthill. When my father went out
of the old farm, he never took another one, and he
needed his small means and industry for his own
family needs. I was determined to earn for myself
what I was to spend on my own education. In the
process of earning that money by my own efforts, I
steadily kept the idea of a University career before
my mind. It was useful as a stimulus to exertion
and saving, but as things turned out, I was never
to get nearer to a University training than two
partial sessions at the Edinburgh Training College,
or Normal School, as it was then called.
My scramble for a higher education was
made
with strenuous self-effort; as mutatis mutandis was that of many country
lads, Highland and Low- land, who broke away from their birth -spheres and
shaped their own careers. Not a few of such youths fell short of their aims
by overworking brains and bodies, and throwing themselves into consumption
or some other fatal or disabling illness. But such as succeeded increased
that aristocracy of merit which, in Scotland from the Reformation downwards,
did so much to link classes together, and to harmonise old- fashioned
feudalism and clanship with a Church and system of education established on
democratic principles. From fifteen until nearly twenty, I was spending in
fees, books, bread, and lodgings, money I had earned in the country. I might
almost call myself a jack-of-all-trades; so many were my employments that it would be difficult for me now to
enumerate them in consecutive order. I did my
share in planting the wood on Meggernie hill. For
several years I was gillie to the Earl of Sefton
during the shooting season. Lord Sefton had
Meggernie Castle, and the shooting and fishing
both of the Culdares estate and of the Marquis of
Breadalbane's Roro estate, for fifteen years. He
knew the Glen and its people better than the pro-
prietor whose shooting tenant he was; and the
people knew him and his wife and children, and,
although shy of showing their feelings, they looked
upon the Sefton family with almost clannish affection. One day I heard Lord Sefton pay a high
compliment to Glen honesty. Looking at the
carcases of two fat wedders hanging up in an open
shed, he said "In Lancashire these would have
been stolen before morning unless kept under lock
and key. Here the people would never lay hands
on anything which did not belong to them." He
was not in his former robust state of health when I
was his gillie. When not equal to the exertion of
going far up the rugged hills, he and I and his two
favourite dogs, Nelson and Juno, went by ourselves
up the Loch hills, to the bottom of which he rode,
and when he got tired of shooting, lie would join his
lady and children at the Loch's side and take a turn
at fishing. My business then was to row the boat.
Hauls of salmon were got on the Lyon by nets on
the linns and by poke-nets at the falls between
Gallin and Moar. Rod-fishing, too, was often
resorted to by Lord Seftori, and, less often, by one
or more of his guests. Although Lord Sef'ton gave
me credit for being very efficient at the river and
loch business, considering my want of training, it was
the joy of the hill sports my memory treasured
up for ever more. How often in smoky towns I
thought of the mountain tops where' ptarmigan and
golden plover were to be found ; of the corries where
deer that strayed from the Black Mount could be
stalked, and of the heather slopes on which the
passing breezes caused billowy movements like waves
of the sea ! How often when in fair and fertile
country scenes, free from the smoke of long
chimneys, the clatter of streets, and the rattle of
machinery, I said with Byron:
England, thy beauties are tame and
domestic
To one who has roved o'er the mountains
afar;
Oh, for the crags that are wild and
majestic!
The steep, frowning glories of dark
Loch-na-Garr!
When our neighbour the elder was turned
out of
the Eight Merkland holding like ourselves, he took
the farm of Balnahanait on the Roro estate, and
there I worked under him as farm servant for six
months. The work was hard enough for a growing
lad, but it was one to which I was accustomed, and
we were all of us a cheery household of friends and
acquaintances. That was the end of my farm life,
and it does not come in here in proper sequence, but
I am rather grouping my chief employments during
the jack-of-all-trades' years than giving them in the
order in which they occurred. An odd job after the
shooting season was the smearing of sheep at Lochs.
This in itself was far from being so pleasant as
ranging the hills or cutting hay with a well-balanced
scythe, or indeed any field-work. A month of it
was enough at any time, and in wet weather even
too much, for blackened nails and sore hands. But
the smearing-house company always kept itself
hearty with songs, jests, and stories, and, not in-
frequently, with discussions like a debating club.
Smearing has long been displaced by dips, to the
detriment of the poor sheep, and, I almost think, of
the grazings too. It could not be kept on much
longer than it was, because, with the desolation of
the country districts, smearers were not to be found
in most places. So the sheep had to lose their
warm, water-tight, winter cloaks, and to put up
with less clean skins than the tar and butter or oil
unction had given them.
On losing the ancestral holding my father
took a
series of contracts for repairing and rebuilding head-
walls which separated arable and hay lands from
outer grazings. In carrying out these contracts he
had to associate others with himself, sometimes only
one his cousin, Duncan Dewar if it was merely
repairing, sometimes three, two for each side of the
wall, when it meant building or rebuilding altogether.
Of all his wall contracts the one which was looked
upon at first as a bad bargain turned out to be the
most profitable. This was the long wall between
the Dalreoch and the Leacan Odhar remnant of the
self-sown Caledonian forest. The park and the
wood are on the other side of the river opposite
Meggernie Castle. His associates in building this
wall were Duncan Dewar, Duncan Macnaughton
(Donnachadh Ruadh), and myself. Donnachadh
and I built the hill-side and my father arid Duncan
Dewar the inside of the wall. The wall that was
there before had fallen into utter disrepair, and it
had originally been one of the irregularly built
structures of the cattle age which would keep cows
in or out but would be no great hindrance to more
audacious climbing or jumping animals. It was
plain that much new building material would be
required, hence the doubt of the value of the con-
tract. But we soon discovered that we had stones
in plenty quite near us concealed under the long
heather, mixed with cranberry patches, juniper
bushes, and anthills. Outside the park everything
was little different from what it had been in the
days of Galgacus and Agricola. The roe-buck herd
itself was as primeval as its surroundings, although
it must lately have been inconvenienced by the
wintering of sheep in its preserves. Blackcocks and
woodcocks no doubt resented that invasion also.
But all the ancient denizens were now to be relieved of
their woolly invaders who disturbed their immemorial
heritage. The new building material being so easily
won made it possible for us to earn a considerably
higher daily wage than the average one of the
district at those times, when two shillings a day
was considered good pay. We about doubled that
and were quite content. Early in the spring we
began leaving home by dawn of day and returned
at dusk ; for we had to go two miles to get to our
work. Until I hardened to this work I was glad
enough when the seventh day's rest came round.
Donnachadh Ruadh and I were, notwithstanding the great disparity of age, the
best of friends and the best possible companions. He was an old experienced hand, and I was a young willing one at
the work on which we were engaged. Any little
controversy that arose came from old Dewar on the
other side of the wall, who wanted to boss everyone
except my father, and who now and then accused
us, unjustly as we thought, of not doing our just
part in packing the wall interior with pinning and
filling stone fragments. Our wall face at any rate
was as good as his and my father's. But it was old
Dewar's nature to find fault with somebody, when
company working. On the other hand he was the
best and most diligent of servants when his master
kept out of sight. My finger-nails, worked down to
the quick, and the worn skin of my hands, sorely
needed the Sunday's recuperative rest and restoration. But, after all, it was a joyous time for me.
In my jacket pocket I always took with me to the
wall-building a small neatly-printed edition of the
poems of Horace, published in 1814 by R. Morison,
Perth ; and then, or a short time afterwards, I used
to take the small copy of Greenfield's Greek New
Testament with lexicon with me to church, and I
used it for following the scripture lessons and the
text. I fear that I sometimes continued my own
reading of it, seeking in the lexicon the words which
were new to me, instead of listening to the sermon.
In learning Latin and Greek I thought it best to
peg away at my task with grammar and dictionary,
and not to look at any translation until I had
first done the best for myself. With the little
edition of Horace I used a crib made in the reign
of Queen Anne, but it was not until I had gone over
it all and could enjoy the Latin text without any
help that I realised the charms of the Burns of
Roman literature and polished society in the great
Augustan reign. With his revelations of himself,
his great fear of death, his Epicurean philosophy and
observance of the rites of a mythology which he did
not believe, and his love of the country life when in
Rome, and his desire to be back at Rome when on
his Sabine farm, Horace makes himself so personally
and intimately known to his reader that he exercises
a peculiar fascination. |
