|
ON reaching the Doune a
great many changes at first perplexed us. The stables in front of the
house were gone, also the old barn, the poultry-house, the duck- pond;
every appurtenance of the old farmyard was removed to the new offices at
the back of the hill; a pretty lawn extended round two sides of the
house, and the backwater was gone, the broom island existed no longer,
no thickets of beech and alder intercepted the view of the Spey. A green
field dotted over with trees stretched from the broad terrace on which
the house now stood to the river, and the washing-shed was gone. All
that scene of fun was over, pots, tubs, baskets, and kettles were
removed with the maids and their attendants to a new building, always at
the back of the hill, better adapted, I daresay, to the purposes of a
regular laundry, but not near so picturesque, although quite as merry,
as our beloved broom island. I am sure I have backwoods tastes, like my
aunt Frere, whom I never could, by letter or in conversation, interest
in the Rothiemurchus improvements. She said the whole romance of the
place was gone. She prophesied, and truly, that with the progress of
knowledge all the old feudal affections would be overwhelmed,
individuality of character would cease, manners would change, the
Highlands would become like the rest of the world, all that made life
most charming there would fade away, little would be left of the olden
time, and life there would become as uninteresting as in other
little-remarkable places. The change had not begun yet, however. There
was plenty of all in the rough as yet in and about the Doune, where we
passed a very happy summer, for though just round the house were
alterations, all else was the same. The old servants were there, and the
old relations were there, and the lakes and the burnies, and the paths
through the forest, and we enjoyed our out-of-door life more this season
than usual, for cousin James Griffith arrived shortly after ourselves
with his sketch-book and paint-boxes, and he passed the greater part of
the day wandering through all that beautiful scenery, Jane and I his
constant companions. Mary was a mere baby, but William, Jane, and I, who
rode in turns on the grey pony, thought ourselves very big little
people, and expected quite as matter of right to belong to all the
excursion trains, were they large or small. Cousin James was fond of the
Lochans with their pretty fringe of birchwood, and the peeps through it
of the Croft, Tullochgrue, and the mountains. A sheep path running along
by the side of the burn which fed these picturesque small lochs was a
favourite walk of aunt Mary's, and my father had christened it by her
name. It started from the Polchar, and followed the water to the
entrance of the forest, where, above all, we loved to lose ourselves,
wandering on among the immense roots of the fir trees, and then
scattering to gather cranberries, while our artist companion made his
sketches. He liked best to draw the scenery round Loch-an-Eilan; he also
talked to us if we were near him, explaining the perspective and the
colouring and the lights and shadows, in a way we never forgot, and
which made these same scenes very dear to us afterwards. It was, indeed,
hardly possible to choose amiss; at every step there lay a picture. All
through the forest, which then measured in extent nearly twenty square
miles, small rivers ran with sometimes narrow strips of meadowland
beside them; many lochs of various sizes spread their tranquil waters
here and there in lonely beauty. In one of them, as its name implied,
was a small island quite covered by the ruins of a stronghold, a momento
of the days of the Bruce, for it was built by the Red Comyns, who then
owned all Strathspey and Badenoch. A low square tower at the end of the
ruin supported an eagle's nest. Often the birds rose as we were watching
their eyrie, and wheeled skimming over the loch in search of the food
required by the young eaglets, who could be seen peeping over the pile
of sticks that formed their home. Up towards the mountains the mass of
fir broke into straggling groups of trees at the entrance of the glens
which ran far up among the bare rocky crags of the Grampians. Here and
there upon the forest streams rude sawmills were constructed, where one
or at most two trees were cut up into planks at one time. The
sawmiller's hut close beside, a cleared field at hand with a slender
crop of oats growing on it, the peat- stack near the door, the cow, and
of course a pony, grazing at will among the wooding. Nearer to the Spey
the fir wood yielded to banks of lovely birch, the one small field
expanded into a farm; yet over all hung the wild charm of Nature,
mountain scenery in mountain solitude beautiful under any aspect of the
sky.
Our summer was less
crowded with company than usual, very few except connections or a
passing stranger coming to mar the sociability of the family party. Some
of the Gumming Gordons were with us, the Lady Logie, and Mrs Cooper,
with whom my mother held secret mysterious conferences. There were
Kinrara gaieties too, but we did not so frequently share in them, some
very coarse speeches of the Duchess of Manchester having too much
disgusted cousin James to make him care for such company too often
repeated. He had a very short time before been elected Head of his
college in Oxford. As Master of University with a certain position, a
good income, a fine house, and still better expectations through his
particular friends Lord Eldon the Chancellor, and his brother Sir
William Scott, he was now able to realise a long-cherished hope of
securing his cousin Mary to share his prosperous fortunes. They were
going together in middle age, very sensibly on both parts, first loves
on either side, fervent as they were, having been long forgotten, and
they were to be married and to be at home in Oxford by the gaudy day in
October. The marriage was to take place in the Episcopal chapel at
Inverness, and the whisperings with Mrs Cooper had reference to the
necessary arrangements. It was on the 19th of September, my brother
William's birthday, that the bridal party set out; a bleak day it was
for encountering Slochd Mor; that wild, lonely road could have hardly
looked more dreary. I accompanied the aunt I was so very much attached
to, in low enough spirits, having the thought of losing her for ever,
dreading many a trial she had saved me from, and Mrs Millar, who feared
her searching eye. My prospects individually were not brightened by the
happy event every one congratulated the family on. Cousin James was to
take his wife by the coast road to Edinburgh, and then to Tennochside.
Some other visits were to be paid by the way, so my aunt had packed the
newest portion of her wardrobe, much that she had been busied upon with
her own neat fingers all those summer days, and all her trinkets, in a
small trunk to take with her on the road; while her heavy boxes had
preceded us by Thomas Mathieson, the carrier, to Inverness, and were to
be sent on from thence by sea to London. We arrived at Grant's Hotel,
the carriage was unpacked, and no little trunk was forthcoming! It had
been very unwisely tied on behind, and had been cut off from under the
rumble by some exemplary Highlander in the dreary waste named from the
wild boors. My poor aunt's little treasures! for she was far from rich,
and had strained her scanty purse for her outfit. Time was short, too,
but my mother prevailed on a dressmaker—a Grant—to work. She contributed
of her own stores. The heavy trunks had luckily not sailed; they were
ransacked for linen, and on the 20th of September good Bishop Macfarlane
united as rationally happy a pair as ever undertook the chances of
matrimony together.
We all loved aunt Mary,
and soon had reason to regret her. Mrs Millar, with no eye over her,
ruled again, and as winter approached and we were more in the house,
nursery troubles were renewed. My father had to be frequently appealed
to, seventies were resumed. One day William was locked up in a small
room reserved for this pleasant purpose, the next day it was I, bread
and water the fare of both. A review of the volunteers seldom saw us all
collected on the ground, there was sure to be one naughty child in
prison and at home. We were flogged too for every error, boys and girls
alike, but my father permitted no one to strike us but himself. My
mother's occasional slaps and boxes on the ear were mere interjections
taken no notice of. It was upon this broken rule that I prepared a scene
to rid us of the horrid termagant, whom my mother with a gentle,
self-satisfied sigh announced to all her friends as such a treasure.
William was my accomplice, and this was our plan. My father's
dressing-closet was next to our sitting nursery, and he, with Raper
regularity, made use of it most methodically, dressing at certain stated
hours, continuing a certain almost fixed time at his toilet, very seldom
indeed deviating from this routine, which all in the same house were as
well aware of as we were, Mrs Millar among the rest. The nursery was
very quiet while he was our neighbour. It did sometimes happen, however,
that he ran up from his study to the dressing-room at unwonted hours,
and upon this chance our scheme was founded. William was to watch for
this opportunity; as soon as it occurred he secretly warned me, and I
immediately became naughty, did something that I knew would be
particularly disagreeable to Mrs Millar. She found fault pretty sharply,
I replied very pertly, in fact as saucily as I could, and no one could
do it better; this was followed as I expected by two or three hard slaps
on the back of my neck, upon which I set up a scream worthy of the rest
of the scene, so loud, so piercing, that in came my father to find me
crouching beneath the claws of a fury. "I have long suspected this,
Millar," said he, in the cold voice that sunk the heart of every
culprit, for the first tone uttered told them that their doom was
sealed. "Six weeks ago I warned you of what would be the consequences;
you can go and pack up your clothes without delay, in an hour you leave
this for Aviemore,"—and she did. No entreaties from my mother, no tears
from the three petted younger children, no excuses of any sort availed.
In an hour this odious woman had left us for ever. I can't remember her
wicked temper now without shuddering at all I went through under her
charge. In her character, though my father insisted on mentioning the
cause for which she was dismissed, my mother had gifted her with such a
catalogue of excellences, that the next time we heard of her she was
nurse to the young Duke of Roxburghe—that wonder long looked for, come
at last—and nearly murdered him one day, keeping him under water for
some childish fault till he was nearly drowned, quite insensible when
taken out by the footman who attended him. After this she was sent to a
lunatic asylum, where the poor creature ended her stormy days; her mind
had probably always been too unsettled to bear opposition, and we were
too old as well as too spirited to have been left so long at the mercy
of an ignorant woman, who was really a tender nurse to an infant then.
In some respects we were hardly as comfortable without her, the
good-natured Highland girl who replaced her not understanding the
neatnesses we had been accustomed to; and then I, like other patriots,
had to bear the blame of all these inconveniences; I, who for all our
sakes had borne these sharp slaps in order to secure our freedom, was
now complained of as the cause of very minor evils; my little brothers
and sisters, even William my associate, agreeing that my passionate
temper had aggravated "poor Millar," who had always been "very kind" to
them. Such ingratitude! "Kill the next tiger yourselves," said I, and
withdrew from their questionable society for half a day, by which time
Jane having referred to the story of the soldier and the Brahmin in our
Evenings at Home, and thought the matter over, made an oration which
restored outward harmony; inwardly, I remained a little longer angry—
another half-day--a long period in our estimate of time. My mother,
however, discovered that the gardener's young daughter would not do for
us undirected, so the coachman's wife, an English Anne, a very nice
person who had been nurse before she married, was raised from the
housemaid's place to be in Miliar's, and it being determined we were all
to stay over the winter in the Highlands, a very good plan was suggested
for our profitable management. We were certainly becoming not a little
wild as it was. It was arranged that a Miss Ramsay, an English girl from
Newcastle, who had been employed as a school teacher at Duthil, should
remove to the Doune, a happy change for her and a very fortunate hit for
us. She was a kind, cheerful creature, not capable of giving us much
accomplishment, but she gave us what we wanted more, habits of order.
The autumn and winter
passed very happily away, under these improved arrangements. The
following summer of 1809 was quite a gay one, a great deal of company
flocking both to the Doune and Kinrara, and at midsummer arrived William
; the little fellow, not quite eleven years old then, had travelled all
the way south after the summer holidays from Rothiemurchus to Eton, by
himself, paying his way like a man ; but they did not put his courage to
such a proof during the winter. He spent both his Christmas and his
Easter with the Freres, and so was doubly welcome to us in July. He took
care of himself as before on this long journey, starting with many
companions in a post-chaise, dropping his friends here and there as they
travelled, till it became more economical to coach it. At Perth all
coaching ended, and I don't remember how he could have got on from
thence to Dalwhinnie, where a carriage from the Doune was sent to meet
him.
During the winter my
father had been very much occupied with what we considered mere toys, a
little box full of soldiers, painted wooden figures, and tin flags
belonging to them, all which he twisted about over the table to certain
words of command, which he took the same opportunity of practising.
These represented our volunteers, about which, ever since I could
remember, my father, whilst in the Highlands, had been extremely
occupied. There was a Rothiemurchus company, his hobby, and an
Invereshie company, and I think a Strathspey company, but really I don't
know enough of warlike matters—though a Colonel's leddyto say whether
there could be as many as three. There were officers from all districts
certainly. My father was the Lieutenant-Colonel; Ballindalioch the
major; the captains, lieutenants, and ensigns were all Grants and
Macphersons, with the exception of our cousin Captain Cameron. Most of
the elders had served in the regular army, and had retired in middle
life upon their half-pay to little Highland farms in Strathspey and
Badenoch, by the names of which they were familiarly known as Sluggan,
Tullochgorm, Ballintomb, Kinchurdy, Bhealiott. Very soldierly they
looked in the drawing room in their uniforms, and very well the regiment
looked on the ground, the little active Highlander taking naturally to
the profession. There were fuglemen in those days, and I remember
hearing the inspecting general say that tall Murdoch Cameron the miller
was a superb model of a fugleman. I can see him now in his picturesque
dress, standing out in front of the lines, a head above the tallest,
directing the movements so accurately followed. My father on field days
rode a beautiful bay charger named Favourite, covered with goat-skins
and other finery, and seemingly quite proud of his housings. It was a
kilted regiment, and a fine set of smart well-set-up men they were, with
their plumed bonnets, dirks, and purses, and their low- heeled buckled
shoes. My father became his trappings well, and when, in early times, my
mother rode to the ground with him, dressed in a tartan petticoat, red
jacket gaudily laced, and just such a bonnet and feathers as he wore
himself, with the addition of a huge cairngorm on the side of it, the
old grey pony might have been proud in turn. These displays had,
however, long been given up. I recollect her always quietly in the
carriage with us bowing on all sides.
To prepare himself for
command, my father, as I have said, spent many a long evening
manoeuvring all his little figures; to some purpose, for his
Rothiemurchus men beat both Strathspey and Badenoch. I have heard my
uncle Lewis and Mr Cameron say there was little trouble in drilling the
men, they had their hearts in the work; and I have heard my father say
that the habits of cleanliness, and habits of order, and the sort of
waking up that accompanied it, had done more real good to the people
than could have been achieved by many years of less exciting progress.
So we owe Napoleon thanks. It was the terror of his expected invasion
that roused this patriotic fever amongst our mountains, where, in spite
of their distance from the coast, inaccessibility, and other advantages
of a hilly position, the alarm was so great that every preparation was
now in train for repelling the enemy. The men were to face the foe, the
women to fly for refuge to Castle Grant. My mother was all ready to
remove there, when the danger passed; but it was thought better to keep
up the volunteers. Accordingly they were periodically drilled,
exercised, and inspected till the year '13, if I remember rightly. It
was a very pretty sight, either on the moor of Tullochgorm or the
beautiful meadows of Dalnavert, to come suddenly on this fine body of
men and the gay crowd collected to look at them. Then their manuvres
with such exquisite scenery around them, and the hearty spirit of their
cheer whenever "the Leddy" appeared upon the ground; the bright sun
seldom shone upon a more exhilarating spectacle. The Laird, their
Colonel, reigned in all hearts. After the "Dismiss," bread and cheese
and whisky, sent forward in a cart for the purpose, were profusely
administered to the men, all of whom from Rothiemurchus formed a running
escort round our carriage, keeping up perfectly with the four horses in
hand, which were necessary to draw the heavy landau up and down the many
steeps of our hilly roads. The officers rode in a group round my father
to the Doune to dinner, and I recollect that it was in this year 1809
that my mother remarked that she saw some of them for the first time in
the drawing-room to tea—and sober.
Miss Ramsay occupied us
so completely this summer, we were much less with the autumn influx of
company than had been usual with us. Happy in the schoolroom, still
happier out in the forest, with a pony among us to ride and tie, and our
luncheon in a basket, we were indifferent to the more dignified parties
whom we sometimes crossed in our wanderings. To say the truth, my father
and mother did not understand the backwoods, they liked a very well
cooked dinner, with all suitable appurtenances in their own comfortable
house; neither of them could walk, she could not ride, there were no
roads for carriages, a cart was out of the question, such a vehicle as
would have answered the sort of expeditions they thus seldom went on was
never thought of, so with them it was a very melancholy attempt at the
elephant's dancing. Very different from the ways of Kinrara. There was a
boat on Loch-an-Eilan, which was regularly rowed over to the old ruined
castle, then to the pike bay to take up the floats that had fish to
them, and then back to the echo and into the carriage again ; but there
was no basket with luncheon, no ponies to ride and tie, no dreaming upon
the heather in pinafores all stained with blackberries! The little
people were a great deal merrier than their elders, and so some of
these, elders thought, for we were often joined by the "lags of the
drove," who perhaps purposely avoided the grander procession. Kinrara
was full as usual. The Duke of Manchester was there with some of his
children, the most beautiful statue-like, person that ever was seen in
flesh and blood. Poor Colonel Cadogan, afterwards killed in Spain, who
taught us to play the devil, which I wonder did not kill us; certainly
throwing that heavily-leaded bit of wood from one string to the
opposite, it might have fallen upon a head by the way, but it never did.
The Cummings of Altyre were always up in our country, some of them in
one house or the other, and a Mr Henville, an Oxford clergyman, Sir
William's tutor, who was in love with the beautiful Emilia, as was young
Charles Grant, now first seen among us, shy and plain and yet preferred;
and an Irish Mr Macklin, a clever little, flighty, ugly man, who played
the flute divinely, and wore out the patience of the laundry-maids by
the number of shirts he put on per day; for we washed for all our
guests, there was no one in all Rothiemurchus competent to earn a penny
in this way. He was a "very clean gentleman," and took a bath twice a
day, not in the river, but in a tub—a tub brought up from the
wash-house, for in those days the chamber apparatus for ablutions was
quite on the modern French scale. Grace Baillie was with us with all her
pelisses, dressing in all the finery she could muster, and in every
style; sometimes like a flower-girl, sometimes like Juno; now she was
queen-like, then Arcadian, then corps de ballet, the most amusing and
extraordinary figure stuck over with coloured glass ornaments, and by
way of being outrageously refined ; the most complete contrast to her
sister the Lady Logie. Well, Miss Baillie coming upstairs to dress for
dinner, opened the door to the left instead of the door to the right,
and came full upon short, fat, black Mr Macklin in his tub! Such a
commotion! we heard it in our schoolroom. Miss Baillie would not appear
at dinner. Mr Macklin, who was full of fun, would stay upstairs if she
did ; she insisted on his immediate departure, he insisted on their
swearing eternal friendship. Such a hubbub was never in a house before.
"If she'd been a young girl, one would almost forgive her nonsense,"
said Mrs Bird, the nurse. "If she had had common sense," said Miss
Ramsay, "she would have held her tongue; shut the door and held her
tongue, and no one would have been the wiser." We did not forget this
lesson in presence of mind, but no one having ventured on giving even an
idea of it to Miss Baillie, her adventure much annoyed the ladies, while
it furnished the gentlemen with an excuse for such roars of laughter as
might almost have brought down the ceiling of the dining-room.
Our particular friend,
Sir Robert Ainslie, was another who made a long stay with us. He brought
to my mother the first of those little red morocco cases full of needles
she had seen, where the papers were all arranged in sizes, on a slope,
which made it easy to select from them.
This was the first season
I can recollect seeing a family we all much liked, Colonel Gordon and
his tribe of fine sons. He brought them up to Glentromie in a boat set
on wheels, which after performing coach on the roads was used for
loch-fishing in the hills. He was a most agreeable and gentlemanly man,
full of amusing conversation, and always welcome to every house on the
way. He was said to be a careless father, and not a kind husband to his
very pretty wife, who certainly never accompanied him up to the Glen. He
was a natural son of the Duke of Gordon's, a great favourite with the
Duchess! much beloved by Lord Huntly whom he exceedingly resembled, and
so might have done better for himself and all belonging to him, had not
the Gordon brains been of the lightest with him. He was not so flighty,
however, as another visitor we always received for a few days, Lovat,
the Chief of the Clan Fraser, who was indeed a connection. The peerage
had been forfeited by the wicked lord in the last rebellion, the lands
and the chieftainship had been left with a cousin, the rightful heir,
who had sprung from the common stock before the attainder. He was an old
man, and his quiet, comfortable-looking wife was an old woman. They had
been at Cluny, the lady of the Macpherson chieftain being their niece,
or the laird their nephew, I don't exactly know which; and their
servants told ours they had had a hard matter to get their master away,
for he was subject to strange whims, and he had taken it into his head
when he was there that he was a turkey hen, and so he made a nest of
straw in his carriage and filled it with eggs and a large stone, and
there he sat hatching, never leaving his station but twice a day like
other fowl, and having his supplies of food brought to him. They had at
last to get Lady Cluny's henwife to watch a proper moment to throw out
all the eggs and to put some young chickens in their place, when Lovat,
satisfied he had accomplished his task, went about clucking and
strutting with wonderful pride in the midst of them. He was quite sane
in conversation generally, rather an agreeable man I heard them say, and
would be as steady as other people for a certain length of time; but
every now and then he took these strange fancies, when his wife had much
ado to bring him out of them. The fit was over when he came to us. It
was the year of the Jubilee when George III. had reigned his fifty
years. There had been great doings at Inverness, which this old man
described to us with considerable humour. His lady had brought away with
her some little ornaments prepared for the occasion, and kindly
distributed some of them among us. I long kept a silver buckle with his
Majesty's crowned head somewhere upon it, and an inscription
commemorating the event in pretty raised letters surrounding the
medallion. By the bye it was on the entrance of the old king upon his
fiftieth year of reign that the Jubilee was kept, in October I fancy
1809, for his state of health was such he was hardly expected to live to
complete it; that is, the world at large supposed him to be declining.
Those near his person must have known that it was the mind that was
diseased, not the strong body, which lasted many a long year after this,
though every now and then his death was expected, probably desired, for
he had ceased to be a popular sovereign. John Bull respected the decorum
of his domestic life, and the ministerial Tory party of course made the
best of him. All we of this day can say of him is, that he was a better
man than his son, though, at the period I am writing of, the Whigs,
among whom I was reared, were very far indeed from believing in this
truism.
It was this autumn that a
very great pleasure was given to me. I was taken on a tour of visits
with my father and mother. We went first to Inverness, where my father
had business with his agent, Mr Cooper. None of the lairds in our north
countrie managed their own affairs, all were in the hands of some little
writer body, who to judge by consequences ruined most of their clients.
One of these leeches generally sufficed for ordinary victims. My dear
father was preyed on by two or three, of which fraternity Mr Arthur
Cooper was one. He had married Miss Jenny and made her a very indulgent
husband; her few hundreds and the connection might have been her
principal attractions, but once attracted, she retained her power over
him to the end. She was plain but ladylike, she had very pretty, gentle
manners, a pleasing figure, beautiful hand, dressed neatly, kept a very
comfortable house, and possessed a clear judgment, with high principles
and a few follies; a little absurd pride, given her perhaps by my
great-aunt, the Lady Logie, who had brought her up and was very fond of
her. We were all very fond of Mrs Cooper, and she adored my father.
While we were at Inverness we paid some morning visits too
characteristic of the Highlands to be omitted in this true chronicle of
the times; they were all in the Clan. One was to the Misses Grant of
Kinchurdy, who were much patronised by all of their name, although they
had rather scandalised some of their relations by setting up as
dressmakers in the county town. Their taste was not perfect, and their
skill was not great, yet they prospered. Many a comfort earned by their
busy needles found its way to the fireside of the retired officer their
father, and their helping pounds bought the active officer, their
brother, his majority. We next called on Mrs Grant, late of Aviemore,
and her daughters, who had set up a school, no disparagement to the
family of an innkeeper although the blood they owned was gentle, and
last we took luncheon with my great-aunt, the Lady Glenmoriston, a
handsome old lady with great remains of shrewdness in her countenance. I
thought her cakes and custards excellent; my mother, who had seen them
all come out of a cupboard in the bedroom, found her appetite fail her
that morning. Not long before we had heard of her grandson our cousin
Patrick's death, the eldest of my father's wards, the Laird; she did not
appear to feel the loss, yet she did not long survive him. A clever
wife, as they say in the Highlands, she was in her worldly way. I did
not take a fancy to her.
We left Inverness nothing
loth, Mrs Cooper's small house in the narrow, dull street of that little
town not suiting my ideas of liberty; and we proceeded in the open
barouche and four to call at Nairn upon our way to Forres. At Nairn,
comfortless dreary Nairn, where no tree ever grew, we went to see a
sister of Logie's, a cousin, a Mrs Baillie, some of whose sons had found
31 Lincoln's Inn Fields a pleasant resting-place on the road to India.
Her stepson—for she was a second wife —the great Colonel Baillie of
Bundelcund and of Leys, often in his pomposity, when I knew him
afterwards, recalled to my mind the very bare plenishing of this really
nice old lady. The small, cold house chilled our first feelings. The
empty room, uncurtained, half carpeted, with a few heavy chairs stuck
formally against the walls, and one dark-coloured, well-polished table
set before the fireplace, repressed all my gay spirits. It took a great
deal of bread and marmalade, scones and currant wine, and all the kind
welcome of the little, brisk old lady to restore them; not till she
brought out her knitting did I feel at home—a hint remembered with
profit. Leaving this odious fisher place very near as quick as King
James did, we travelled on to dine at five o'clock at Burgie, a small,
shapeless square of a house, about two miles beyond Forres, one of the
prettiest of village towns, taking situation into the account. There is
a low hill with a ruin on it, round which the few streets have
clustered; trees and fields are near, wooded knolls not far distant,
gentlemen's dwellings peep up here and there; the Moray Firth, the town
and Sutors of Cromartie, and the Ross-shire hills in the distance;
between the village and the sea extends a rich flat of meadowland,
through which the Findhorn flows, and where stand the ruins of the
ancient Abbey of Kinloss, my father's late purchase. I don't know why
all this scene impressed me more than did the beautiful situation of
Inverness. In after-years I did not fail in admiration of our northern
capital, but at this period I cannot remember any feeling about
Inverness except the pleasure of getting out of it, while at Forres all
the impressions were vivid because agreeable; that is I, the perceiver,
was in a fitting frame of mind for perceiving. How many travellers, ay,
thinkers, judges, should we sift in this way, to get at the truth of
their relations. On a bilious day authors must write tragically.
The old family of Dunbar
of Burgie, said to be descended from Randolph, Earl of Moray—though all
the links of the chain of connection were far from being forthcoming—had
dwindled down rather before our day to somebody nearly as small as a
bonnet Laird; his far-away collateral heir, who must have been a most
ungainly lad, judging from his extraordinary appearance in middle age,
had gone out to the West Indies to better his fortunes, returning to
take possession of his inheritance a little before my father's marriage.
In figure something the shape of one of his own sugar hogsheads, with
two short thick feet standing out below, and a round head settled on the
top like a picture in the Penny Magazine of one of the old English
punishments, and a countenance utterly indescribable— all cheek and chin
and mouth, without half the proper quantity of teeth; dressed too like a
mountebank in a light blue silk embroidered waistcoat and buff satin
breeches, and this in Pitt and Fox days, when the dark blue coat, and
the red or the buff waistcoat, according to the wearer's party, were
indispensable. So dressed, Mr Dunbar presented himself to my father, to
be introduced by him to an Edinburgh assembly. My father, always fine,
then a beau, and to the last very nervous under ridicule! But Burgie was
a worthy man, honest and upright and kind-hearted, modest as well, for
he never fancied his own merits had won him his wealthy bride; their
estates joined, "and that," as he said himself, "was the happy
coincidence." The Lady Burgie and her elder sister, Miss Brodie of
Lethen, were co-heiresses. Coulmonie, a very picturesque little property
on the Findhorn, was the principal possession of the younger when she
gave her hand to her neighbour, but as Miss Brodie never married, all
their wide lands were united for many a year to the names and titles of
the three contracting parties, and held by Mr and Mrs Dunbar Brodie of
Burgie, Lethen, and Coulmonie during their long reign of dulness
precedence being given to the gentleman after some consideration. They
lived neither at very pretty Coulmonie, nor at very comfortable Lethen,
nor even in the remains of the fine old Castle of Burgie, one tall tower
of which rose from among the trees that sheltered its surrounding
garden, and served only as storehouse and toolhouse for that department;
they built for themselves the tea-canister-like lodge we found them in,
and placed it far from tree or shrub, or any object but the bare moor of
Macbeth's witches. My spare time at this romantic residence was spent
mostly in the tower, there being up at the top of it an apple-room,
where some little maiden belonging to the household was occupied in
wiping the apples and laying them on the floor in a bed of sand. In this
room was a large chest, made of oak with massive hasps, several
padlocks, and a chain; very heavy, very grand-looking, indeed awful,
from its being so alone, so secured, and so mysteriously hidden as it
were. It played its part in after-years, when all that it did and all
that was done to it shall take the proper place in these my memoirs, if
I live to get so far on in my chroniclings. At this time I was afraid
even to allude to it, there appeared to be something so supernatural
about the look of it.
Of course we had several
visits to pay from Burgie. In the town of Forres we had to see old Mrs
Provost Grant and her daughters, Miss Jean and Miss—I forget what—but
she, the nameless one, died. Miss Jean, always called in those parts
Miss Jean Pro, because her mother was the widow of the late Provost, was
the living frontispiece to the 'world of fashion." A plain, ungainly,
middle-aged woman, with good Scotch sense when it was wanted, occupied
every waking hour in copying the new modes in dress; no change was too
absurd for Miss Jean's imitation, and her task was not a light one, her
poor purse being scanty, and the Forres shops, besides being dear, were
ill supplied. My mother, very unwisely, had told me her appearance would
surprise me, and that I must be upon my guard and show my good breeding
by looking as little at this figure of fun as if she were like other
people; and my father repeated the story of the Duchess of Gordon, who
received at dinner at Kinrara some poor dominie, never before in such a
presence; he answered all her civil inquiries thus, "'Deed no, my Lady
Duchess; my Lady Duchess, 'deed yes," she looking all the while exactly
as if she had never been otherwise addressed—not even a side smile to
the amused circle around her, lest she might have wounded the good man's
feelings. I always liked that story, and thought of it often before and
since, and had it well on my mind on this occasion; but it did not
prevent my long gaze of surprise at Miss Pro. In fact, no one could have
avoided opening wide eyes at the caricature of the modes she exhibited;
she was fine, too, very fine, mincing her words to make them English,
and too good to be laughed at, which somehow made it the more difficult
not to laugh at her. In the early days, when her father, besides his
little shop, only kept the post-office in Forres, she, the eldest of a
whole troop of bairns, did her part well in the humble household,
helping her mother in her many cares, and to good purpose; for of the
five clever sons who out of this rude culture grew up to honour in every
profession they made choice of, three returned "belted knights" to lay
their laurels at the feet of their old mother; not in the same poor but
and ben in which she reared them; they took care to shelter her age in a
comfortable house, with a drawing-room upstairs, where we found the
family party assembled, a rather ladylike widow of the eldest son (a
Bengal civilian) forming one of it. Mrs Pro was well born of the
Arndilly Grants, and very proud she was of her lineage, though she had
made none the worse wife to the honest man she married for his failure
in this particular. In manners she could not have been his superior, the
story going that in her working days she called out loud, about the
first thing in the morning, to the servant lass to "put on the parritch
for the pigs and the bairns," the pigs as most useful coming first.
From Burgie we went back
a few miles to Moy, an old-fashioned house, very warm and very
comfortable, and very plentiful, quite a contrast, where lived a distant
connection, an old Colonel Grant, a cousin of Glenmoriston's, with a
very queer wife, whom he had brought home from the Cape of Good Hope.
This old man, unfortunately for me, always breakfasted upon porridge; my
mother, who had particular reasons for wishing to make herself agreeable
to him, informed him I always did the same, so during the three days of
this otherwise pleasant visit a little plate of porridge for me was
placed next to the big plate of porridge for him, and I had to help
myself to it in silent sadness, for I much disliked this kind of food as
it never agreed with me, and though at Moy they gave me cream with it, I
found it made me just as sick and heavy afterwards as when I had the
skimmed milk at home. They were kind old people these in their homely
way.
From Moy we went straight
to Elgin, where I remember only the immense library belonging to the
shop of Mr Grant the bookseller, and the ruins of the fine old
Cathedral. We got to Duffus to dinner, and remained there a few days
with Sir Archibald and Lady Dunbar and their tribe of children. Lady
Dunbar was one of the Cummings of Altyre—one of a dozen--and she had
about a dozen herself, all the girls handsome. The house was very full.
We went upon expeditions every morning, danced all the evenings, the
children forming quite a part of the general company, and as some of the
Altyre sisters were there, I felt perfectly at home. Ellen and Margaret
Dunbar wore sashes with their white frocks, and had each a pair of silk
stockings which they drew on for full dress, a style that much surprised
me, as I, at home or abroad, had only my pink gingham frocks for the
morning, white calico for the afternoon, cotton stockings at all times,
and not a ribbon, a curl, or an ornament about me.
One day we drove to
Gordonstown, an extraordinary palace of a house lately descended to Sir
William, along with a large property, where he had to add the Southron
Gordon to the Wolf of Badenoch's long-famed name, not that it is quite
clear that the failing clan owes allegiance to this branch particularly,
but there being no other claimant Altyre passes for the Comyn Chief. His
name is on the roll of the victors at Bannockburn as a chieftain
undoubtedly. I wonder what can have been done with Gordonstown. It was
like the side of a square in a town for extent of façade, and had
remains of rich furnishings in it, piled up in the large deserted rooms,
a delightful bit of romance to the young Dunbars and me. Another day we
went greyhound coursing along the fine bold cliffs near Peterhead, and
in a house on some bleak point or other we called on a gentleman and his
sister, who showed us coins, vases, and spear-heads found on excavating
for some purpose in their close neighbourhood at Burghead, all Roman; on
going lower the workmen came upon a bath, a spring enclosed by cut-stone
walls, a mosaic pavement surrounding the bath, steps descending to it,
and paintings on the walls. The place was known to have been a Roman
station with many others along the south side of the Moray Firth. We had
all of us great pleasure in going to see these curious remains of past
ages thus suddenly brought to light. I remember it all perfectly as if I
had visited it quite lately, and I recollect regretting that the walls
were in many parts defaced.
On leaving Duffus we
drove on to Garmouth to see Mr Steenson, my father's wood agent there;
he had charge of all the timber floated down the Spey from the forest of
Rothiemurchus where it had grown for ages, to the shore near Fochabers
where it was sorted and stacked for sale. There was a good-natured wife
who made me a present of a milk-jug in the form of a cow, which did duty
at our nursery feasts for a wonderful while, considering it was made of
crockery ware; and rather a pretty daughter, just come from the
finishing school at Elgin, and stiff and shy of course. These ladies
interested me much less than did the timber-yard, where all my old
friends the logs, the spars, and the deals and my mother's oars were
piled in such quantities as appeared to me endless. The great width of
the Spey, the bridge at Fochabers, and the peep of the towers of Gordon
Castle from amongst the cluster of trees that concealed the rest of the
building, all return to me now as a picture of beauty. The Duke lived
very disreputably in this solitude, for he was very little noticed, and,
I believe, preferred seclusion.
It was late when we
reached Leitchison, a large wandering house in a flat bare part of the
country, which the Duke had given, with a good farm attached, to his
natural son Colonel Gordon, our Glentromie friend. Bright fires were
blazing in all the large rooms, to which long passages led, and all the
merry children were jumping about the hail anxiously waiting for us.
There were five or six fine boys, and one daughter, Jane, named after
the Duchess. Mrs Gordon and her two sisters, the dark beautiful Agnes,
and fat, red-haired Charlotte, were respectably connected in Elgin, had
money, were well educated and so popular women. Mrs Gordon was pretty
and pleasing, and the Colonel in company delightful; but somehow they
did not get on harmoniously together; he was eccentric and extravagant,
she peevish, and so they lived very much asunder. I did not at all
approve of the ways of the house after Duffus, where big and little
people all associated in the family arrangements. Here at Leitchison the
children were quite by themselves, with porridge breakfasts and broth
dinners, and very cross Charlotte Ross to keep us in order. If she tried
her authority on the Colonel as well, it was no wonder if he preferred
the Highlands without her to the Lowlands with her, for I know I was not
sorry when the four bays turned their heads westward, and, after a
pleasant day's drive, on our return through Fochabers, Elgin, and Forres,
again stopped at the door at Logie.
Beautiful Logie! a few
miles up the Findhorn, on the wooded banks of that dashing river, wooded
with beech and elm and oak centuries old; a grassy holm on which the
hideous house stood, sloping hills behind, the water beneath, the
Darnaway woods beyond, and such a garden! such an orchard! well did we
know the Logie pears, large hampers of them had often found their way to
the Doune; but the Logie guignes could only be tasted at the foot of the
trees, and did not my young cousins and I help ourselves! Logie himself,
my father's first cousin, was a tall, fine-looking man, with a very ugly
Scotch face, sandy hair and huge mouth, ungainly in manner yet kindly,
very simple in character, in fact a sort of goose; much liked for his
hospitable ways, respected for his old Cumming blood (he was closely
related to Altyre), and admired for one accomplishment, his playing on
the violin. He had married rather late in life one of the cleverest
women of the age, an Ayrshire Miss Baillie, a beauty in her youth, for
she was Burns' "Bonnie Leslie," and a bit of a fortune, and she gave
herself to the militia captain before she had ever seen the Findhorn!
and they were very happy. He looked up to her without being afraid of
her, for she gave herself no superior wisdom airs, indeed she set out so
heartily on St Paul's advice to be subject to her husband, that she
actually got into a habit of thinking he had judgment; and my mother
remembered a whole room full of people hardly able to keep their
countenances, when she, giving her opinion on some disputed matter,
clenched the argument as she supposed, by adding, "It's not my
conviction only, but Mr Cumming says so." She was too Southron to call
the Laird "Logic." Logic banks and Logic braes! how very lovely ye were
on those bright autumn days, when wandering through the beech woods upon
the rocky banks of the Findhorn, we passed hours, my young cousins and
I, out in the pure air, unchecked of any one. Five sons and one fair
daughter the Lady Logic bore her Laird; they were not all born at the
time I write of. Poor Alexander and Robert, the two eldest, fine
handsome boys, were my companions in these happy days; long since
mourned for in their early graves. There was a strange mixture of the
father's simplicity and the mother's shrewdness in all the children, and
the same in their looks; only two were regularly handsome, May Anne and
Alexander, who was his mother's darling. Clever as she was she made far
too much distinction between him and the rest; he was better dressed,
better fed, more considered in every way than the younger ones, and yet
not spoiled. He never assumed and they never envied, it was natural that
the young Laird should be most considered. A tutor, very little older
than themselves, and hardly as well dressed, though plaiding was the
wear of all, taught the boys their humanities ; he ate his porridge at
the side-table with them, declining the after-cup of tea, which
Alexander alone went to the state-table to receive. At dinner it was the
same system still, broth and boiled mutton, or the kain fowl at the poor
tutor's side-table. Yet he revered the Lady; everybody did; every one
obeyed her without a word, or even, I believe, a thought, that it was
possible her orders could be incorrect. Her manner was very kind, very
simple, though she had an affected way of speaking; but it was her
strong sense, her truthful honesty, her courage—moral courage, for the
body's was weak enough—her wit, her fire, her readiness that made her
the queen of the intellect of the north countrie. Every one referred to
her in their difficulties; it was well that no winds wandered over the
reeds that grew by the side of the Lady Logie. Yet she was worldly in a
degree, no one ever more truly counselled for the times, or lived more
truly up to the times, but so as it was no reproach to her. She was with
us often at the Doune with or without the Laird, Alexander sometimes her
companion, and he would be left with us while she was over at Kinrara,
where she was a great favourite. I believe it was intended by the family
to marry Alexander to Mary, they were very like and of suitable ages,
and he was next heir of entail presumptive to Rothiemurchus after my
brothers. It had also been settled to marry first Sir William Cumming
and afterwards Charles, to me. Jane oddly enough was let alone, though
we always understood her to be the favourite with everybody.
My father had a story of
Mrs Cumming that often has come into my head since. He put her in mind
of it now, when she declined going on in the carriage with him and my
mother to dine at Relugas, where we were to remain for a few days. She
had no great faith in four-in-hands on Highland roads, at our English
coachman's rate of driving. She determined on walking that lovely mile
by the river-side, with Alexander and the "girlie "—me—as her escort;
her dress during the whole of our visit, morning, noon, and night, was a
scarlet cloth gown made in habit fashion, only without a train, braided
in black upon the breast and cuffs, and on her head a black velvet cap,
smartly set on one side, bound with scarlet cord, and having a long
scarlet tassel, which dangled merrily enough now, as my father reminded
her of what he called the "Passage of the Spey." It seemed that upon one
occasion when she was on a visit to us, they were all going together to
dine at Kinrara, and as was usual with them then, before the ford at our
offices was settled enough to use when the water was high, or the road
made passable for a heavy carriage up the bank of the boyack, they were
to cross the Spey at the ford below Kinapol close to Kinrara. The river
had risen very much after heavy rain in the hills, and the ford, never
shallow, was now so deep that the water was up above the small front
wheels and in under the doors, flooding the footboard. My mother sat
still and screamed. Mrs Cumming doubled herself up orientally upon the
seat, and in a commanding voice, though pale with terror, desired the
coachman, who could not hear her, to turn. On plunged the horses, in
rushed more water, both ladies shrieked. My father attempted the
masculine consolation of appealing to their sense of eyesight, which
would show them "returning were as tedious as going o'er," that the next
step must be into the shallows. The Lady Logie turned her head
indignantly, her body she could not move, and from her divan-like seat
she thus in tragic tones replied—"A reasonable man like you,
Rothiemurchus, to attempt to appeal to the judgment of a woman while
under the dominion of the passion of fear!"
At Relugas lived an old
Mrs Cuming, with one m, the widow of I don't know whom, her only child
her heiress daughter, and the daughter's husband, Tom Lauder. He had
some income from his father, was to have more when his father died, and
a large inheritance with a baronetcy at an uncle's death, Lord
Fountainhall. It had been a common small Scotch house, but an Italian
front had been thrown before the old building, an Italian tower had been
raised above the offices, and with neatly kept grounds it was about the
prettiest place ever lived in. The situation was beautiful, on a high
tongue of land between the Divie and the Findhorn—the wild, leaping,
rocky-bedded Divie and the broader and rapid Findhorn. All along the
banks of both were well-directed paths among the wooding, a group of
children flitting about the heathery braes, and the heartiest, merriest
welcome within. Mr and Mrs Lauder were little more than children
themselves, in manner at least; really young in years and gifted with
almost bewildering animal spirits, they did keep up a racket at Relugas!
It was one eternal carnival: up late, a plentiful Scotch breakfast, out
all day, a dinner of many courses, mumming all the evening, and a supper
at the end to please the old lady. A Colonel Somebody had a story—ages
after this, however—that having received an appointment to India, he
went to take leave of his kind friends at Relugas. It was in the
evening, and instead of finding a quiet party at tea, he got into a
crowd of popes, cardinals, jugglers, gipsies, minstrels, flower-girls,
etc., the usual amusements of the family. He spent half a lifetime in
the East, and returning to his native place thought he would not pass
that same hospitable door. He felt as in a dream, or as if his years of
military service had been a dream— there was all the crowd of
mountebanks again! The only difference was In the actors; children had
grown up to take the places of the elders, some children, for all the
elders were not gone. Sir Thomas Dick Lauder wore as full a turban, made
as much noise, and was just as thin as the Tom Lauder of twenty years
before, and his good lady, equally travestied and a little stouter, did
not look a day older with her grownup daughters round her, than she did
in her own girlish times. It was certainly a pleasant house for young
people. Sir Thomas, with all his frivolity, was a very accomplished man;
his taste was excellent, as all his improvements showed; no walks could
have been better conducted, no trees better placed, no views better
chosen, and this refinement was carried all through, to the colours of
the furniture and the arrangement of It. He drew well, sketched very
accurately from nature, was clever at puzzles, bouts-rimés, etc.—the
very man for a country neighbourhood. Her merit was in implicitly
following his lead; she thought, felt, saw, heard as he did, and if his
perceptions altered or varied, so did hers. There never was such a
patient Grizzel; and the curious part of their history was that being
early destined by their parents to go together, they detested one
another, as children did nothing but quarrel, agreed no better as they
grew, being at one on one only point, that they never would marry. How
to avoid such •a catastrophe was the single subject they discussed
amicably. They grew confidential upon it quite, and it ended in their
settlement at Relugas.
This merry visit ended
our tour. We drove home in a few hours over the long, dreary moor
between the Spey and the Findhorn, passing one of the old strongholds of
the Grants, the remains of a square tower beside a lonely lake—a very
lonely lake, for not a tree nor a shrub was near it; and resting the
horses at the Bridge of Carr, a single arch over the Dulnain, near which
had clustered a few cottages, a little inn amongst them sheltered by
trees; altogether a bit of beauty in the desert. I had been so good all
this tour, well amused, made of, and not worried, that Miss Ramsay was
extremely complimented on the improvement she had effected in my
naturally bad disposition. As if there were any naturally bad
dispositions! Don't we crook them, and stunt them, and force them, and
break them, and do everything in the world except let them alone to
expand in pure air to the sun, and nourish them healthfully?
We were now to prepare
for a journey to London. I recollect rather a tearful parting from a
companion to whom we had become much attached, Mr Peter of Duthil's
youngest son—or only son, for all I know, as I never saw any other.
Willie Grant was a fine handsome boy, a favourite with everybody and the
darling of his poor father, who had but this bright spot to cheer his
dull home horizon. All this summer Willie had come to the Doune with the
parson every third Sunday; that is, they came on the Saturday, and
generally remained over Monday. He was older than any of us, but not too
old to share all our out-of-door fun, and he was full of all good,
really and truly sterling. We were to love one another for ever, yet we
never met again. When we returned to the Highlands he was in the East
India Military College, and then he sailed, and though he lived to come
home, marry, and settle in the Highlands, neither Jane nor I ever saw
him more. How many of these fine lads did my father and Charles Grant
send out to India! Some that throve, some that only passed, some that
made a name we were all proud of, and not one that I heard of that
disgraced the homely rearing of their humbly-positioned but gentle-born
parents. The moral training of those simple times bore its fair fruits:
the history of many great men in the last age began in a cabin. Sir
Charles Forbes was the son of a small farmer in Aberdeenshire. Sir
William Grant, the Master of the Rolls, was a mere peasant—his uncles
floated my father's timber down the Spey as long as they had strength to
follow the calling. General William Grant was a footboy in my uncle
Rothie's family. Sir Coiquhoun Grant, though a woodsetter's child, was
but poorly reared, in the same fashion as Mrs Pro's fortunate boys. Sir
William Macgregor, whose history was most romantic of all, was such
another. The list could be easily lengthened did my memory serve, but
these were among the most striking examples of what the good plain
schooling of the dominie, the principles and the pride of the parents,
produced in young ardent spirits; forming characters which, however they
were acted on by the world, never forgot home feelings, although they
proved this differently. The Master of the Rolls, for instance, left all
his relations in obscurity. A small annuity rendered his parents merely
independent of hard labour; very moderate portions just secured for his
sisters decent matches in their own degree; an occasional remittance in
a bad season helped an uncle or a brother out of a difficulty. I never
heard of his going to see them, or bringing any of them out of their own
sphere to visit him. While the General shoved on his brothers, educated
his nephews and nieces, pushed the boys up, married the girls well—such
as had a wish to raise themselves—and almost resented the folly of Peter
the Pensioner, who would not part with one of his flock from the very
humble home where he chose to keep them. Which plan was wisest, or was
either quite right? Which relations were happiest—those whose feelings
were sometimes hurt, or those whose frames were sometimes over-wearied
and but scantily refreshed? I often pondered in my own young mind over
these and similar questions; but just at the time of our last journey
from the Doune to London less puzzling matters principally occupied my
sister Jane and me.
We were not sure whether
or no Miss Ramsay were to remain with us; neither were we sure whether
or no we wished it. We should have more of our own way without her, that
was certain; but whether that would be so good for us, whether we should
get on as well in all points by ourselves, we were beginning to be
suspicious of. She had taught us the value of constant employment,
regular habits, obliging manners, and we knew, though we did not allow
it, that there would be less peace as well as less industry should we be
again left to govern ourselves. However, so it was settled. Miss Ramsay
was dropped at Newcastle amongst her own friends, and for the time the
relief from restraint seemed most agreeable. |
