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Silence falls upon the gay
deck of the floating palace, as, with quickly pulsing paddles, she throbs
on amid the solitude of these dark waters under the mountains. Far away to
the south behind, like silver in the sunshine, lies the open sea chased by
the wind; but above the narrowing channel in front the rugged Bens, sombre
and vast, frown down upon the invader. Purple-apparelled these Bens are
now, as they lie like allied kings asleep after their battles with the
storm-giants of the north. For the black waves in winter leap here
savagely, and gnash their gleaming teeth against the mountainsides; the
storm-winds roar in anger as they buffet the iron breasts of their
captors; and the silent frost strains with his strong embrace to crack the
great ribs of the Titans. But the everlasting hills live on, and the
sunshine kisses them again and the summer rain weeps upon their scars,
while their children, the dwellers about their feet, look up and learn to
love them for their memories with a love strong as life itself. Many a
Highland heart failed long ago on the march through the Egyptian desert
when the pipes wailed out "Lochaber no more." These are the great
mountains of Lochaber rising huge against the sky in front; and even the
gay tourist, here on the sunny deck, feels a silence gather upon his heart
as he is borne on under their shadows. The young bride by the
companion-way nestles closer to her husband as, with grave blue eyes, she
gazes upon the solemn loneliness of the hills.
But listen! Do you hear?
Wild and sweet in the distance over the water comes the sound. It is the
pipes, and they are playing "Flora Macdonald’s Lament." Yonder, down near
the shore—you can make them out through the glass—a shooting party has
picnicked, and they have brought the piper with them. How the colour
deepens on the cheek of the old Highland gentleman here at the sound! He
is just returning from many years’ residence abroad, and for the last
hour, leaning over the deck-rail, he has been feasting his heart upon the
sight of the mountains. "There is no music like that music," he exclaims,
"over the water and among the hills." To a Highlander, indeed, the sound
of the pipes is full of many memories, like "the sough of the south wind
in the trees" of an autumn night. The folk on deck who are from the south
will know something of it now perhaps. Yesterday, no doubt, some of them
supposed the ragged vagabond who strutted and blew on a pier-head as the
steamer passed, a specimen of the pibroch-players. They should see a
chieftain’s own hereditary piper march on the castle terrace, cairngorm
and silver gleaming about him, ribbons streaming on the wind, and tartans
afloat!
And the steamer draws in to
the little pier under the mountain, where the horses are waiting. A quiet
and peaceful spot it is, with the clear green waves washing in
among the shining, clinging mussels, to break upon the dark blue shingle.
Only twice a day is the peaceful murmur of these waters broken upon by the
coming of the great palace steamers, when there is a momentary stir and
excitement, the gleam of white dresses as visitors come ashore, and the
getting of the few mail-bags on board. But presently with churning paddles
the steamer departs up the loch, leaving behind it on the dark waters a
long trail of foam; the visitors stow themselves like clustering bees upon
the high coaches that are in waiting; and the place falls a-dreaming again
amid the coming and going of the tides.
The five horses in the
foremost coach to-day are quite fresh, and as the steamer was half an hour
late, they have grown restive under the reins. The driver now, however,
after looking behind to see that all is secure, makes his whip crack like
a rifle shot, and with prancing leader and gallant clatter of hoofs the
cavalcade moves off. Above, the mountain-side, tufted with heather and
bracken and dark with trees, overhangs the road, and from the high
box-seat one might drop an acorn into the waves that wash the foot of the
precipice forty feet below. After the throbbing deck of the great steamer
and the oily smell of engines and cook’s galley, it is pleasant to be
bowling along a firm road with the honey-scent of the heather in the air,
and—yes, it is quite certain—the fragrance of peat smoke. For as the road
turns inland the village opens to view, a double line of dark blue
dwellings along the mountain foot. Cold, perhaps, these cottages look to a
southern eye accustomed to warm red brick; but in winter, when the storms
come roaring down the glens, and the hills are hidden, by falling snow,
the hearths within, heaped with glowing sea-coal and peat, are cosy enough
for all that. Then the brown fishermen, home from the herring harvest of
the North Sea, talk over the year’s success as they mend their gear by the
fireside, and swarthy fellows shut out by the snowdrifts from their work
in the great slate quarries on the mountain, gather to hear the week-old
news that has come by the trading steamer. Just now it is only women and
children who come to the doors to see the coach go past.
The horses dash on at a
gallop through the village and into the mouth of the great glen that
opens, rugged and wild and dark, in front. Between the mountain walls of
that deep and lonely pass reigns an awful silence now, broken only by the
far-off cry of the curlew and the beating of the wild-bird’s wing.
Unsought in the corries, the hazelnuts are ripening and the rowan clusters
growing red; while along the misty precipices, the eagles, undisturbed,
are teaching their young to fly. All here to-day is desolation, for hand
of man has not tilled the spot since the terrible night, two hundred years
ago, when the valley was swept with fire and sword, and a hundred hearths,
the dwellings of its devoted clan, were buried in smoking ruins. Foul lies
that dark deed at its perpetrators’ door, and its memory remains a blot
upon their name. Gleams of sunshine lie golden on the steep mountainsides
to-day, and the purple heather warms them with its bloom; but a storm was
raging through the pass on that awful winter night, and snow lay thick
upon the ground, when shriek and musketshot told that the unsuspecting
clansmen were being murdered by their guests—guests, too, who, though
soldiers, were their own neighbours and relations. Tottering old men and
lisping children were butchered here then to avenge the baulked ambition
of a cruel statesman; and heart-broken women, clasping helpless infants to
their breasts, fled shrieking from their blood-stained hearths to perish
amid the storm.
And the coach with its
holiday occupants will drive at a gallop to the head of the glen, and some
one will make a jest upon the bard’s choice of an abode when Ossian’s cave
is pointed out, high up in the precipice face. But the heart of the young
bride will fill with world-old pity as she sees, mouldering among the
heather in the valley, the ruins of once happy homes; and when the coach
comes down again there will be tears perhaps in her eyes as she gazes at
the chieftain’s house, and is told how the rude soldiers, after shooting
her brave old lord before her eyes, tore the gold wedding-ring with their
teeth from the finger of MacIan’s wife, and thrust her out, trembling with
age and grief, to die of her agony in the snow. For on the loch-shore at
the entrance to the glen, the house of the chief stands yet, silent,
haunted by its memories, amid the trees—
Where Sorrow broods in
silence evermore
Among the shadows of eternal hills,
While at her feet sobs the unceasing sea. |
