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THIS last Chief of the Macnabs, who
possessed what fragment of the patrimony of his ancestors had escaped the
vengeance of Robert Bruce, and sub- sequent forfeitures and disasters, died
twelve years before I was born, and his property was sold at highest market
value a few years after his death to his old and very helpful friend, the
Earl of Breadalbane, who had at a former crisis in his financial
affairs saved him by procuring a commission for him
as major in the Perthshire and Local Militia, and
later on in the Breadalbane Volunteers. Long after his death the country
rang with stories of his doings and sayings. He was so eccentric that he was
a law to himself. His word was his bond, but it was only the word on his
honour which could really bind him, while he looked upon a written
obligation as a thing to be discharged when it suited his convenience. He was tall, strong, handsome, and
brave to excess, but withal too good-natured to be
quarrelsome. He had his moral line of prohibition,
but he looked on unmarried peasant girls as the
natural prey or prizes of long descent chiefs like
himself. He never married, but was the father of a
baker's dozen of children. Rumour magnified the
number of them so generously that a society lady in
Edinburgh Plurnply asked him if it was true that he
had twenty-six children. The answer she got was
"Madam, I never could count aboon twenty-five."
That was mere banter, but as Janet, his
house-
keeper, bore eight children to him, and he had five
or more by different servant girls before Janet took
command of himself and his house, he was fairly
well supplied with offspring. In his early roving
days he was a thorn in the flesh to his worthy
father, John Macnab of Bovain, and to the scholarly
and sensitively religious minister of Kill in, the Rev.
James Stewart, who translated the New Testament
and a good portion of the Old Testament into the
Gaelic of the Highlands. Father and minister, the
one with his paternal lectures and the other with
his Church censures, were such plagues to him that
he bought the farm of Cruigruie, in Balquhidder, and went to live there. He
paid an instalment of the price by money which had come to him probably from his grandmother, but he never completed
the purchase. When his father died a lad was sent
over the hill to tell him the news, which he received
with gladness, being then botli without credit and
money. As reported to me by Balquhidder men,
these were the words which passed between him
and the messenger, who came to him bonnet in
hand outside the house and said,
"Mhic an Aba, tha
ur n-athair marbh."
Macnab "Mata, 'ille, 's math do naigheachd.
So dhuit tri sgilean. Rach a stigh's gheibh thu
biadh's deoch."
Messenger "Macuab, your father is dead."
Macnab "Well lad, good is your news.
Here's
threepence for you. Go in and you'll get food and
drink."
The three pennies were no doubt all the
coins he
had in his pocket then, for he was a liberal giver
when he had anything to give. When he succeeded
to his patrimony and brought Janet to be his house-
keeper at Kinnell, he settled down to a life of
comparative decency. His father provided for the
proper bringing-up of the early crop of illegitimate
grandchildren. He provided fairly well for Janet's
brood himself. The daughters married honest
countrymen and made good wives to them. Janet's
two sons, who did not marry, were well provided
"for by a property in Callander which their father bought for them at a
low price, and promptly paid for, and which turned out to be a profitable
investment. He was ready enough to admit paternity in
every case of misconduct, but to profess penitence
and to promise amendment was more than he could
be induced to do. When he settled down in regular
concubinage with Janet, he paid his "umhla" or fine
to the poor box, got respectable people to hold his
children for baptism, and was otherwise let off by
more lax ministers than the first he had to deal
with, as a half-reformed reprobate. His good qualities made him popular, and were supposed to out-
balance his one notorious and incorrigible immorality.
In another matter he took a slantendicular view of duty. He was a Justice of
the Peace and a friend and patron of the smugglers. This friendship and
sympathy suffered no interruption during the few years in which he was
himself a licensed producer of whisky. It was shortly before 1796 that
he set up a small distillery at Killin on his own side
of the river Dochart. That speculation did not pay
and had soon to be dropped. When he was residing
in Balquidder, a smuggler whom he had befriended
came to him in much distress to announce that two
barrels full of whisky, which he had hidden in the
hills till he could get them conveyed southward for
sale, had been discovered by revenue men, who were
then taking them with great difficulty (as they had
no horses) down to the roadway, whence they were
to be carried to Callander to be condemned. "Have
they found out that the barrels belong to you?"
asked Macnab. "No doubt," replied the man, "their base informant knew and
told that they were mine." "You are a law-breaking rascal, and it would only
be like you if you, with your accomplices, followed them to the place on the
way where the revenue men, arriving late and tired, will certainly stop to
rest, eat, and drink, and if, while they are doing so, you and the other
fellows transferred under cloud of night the whisky into new
barrels, and filled the old ones with water Lord !
if your trick succeeded what a joke it would be
when the amazed revenue men, on being called
upon to prove they had really seized smuggled
whisky, found there was nothing of whisky about
them except an old smell!!" The plan suggested
was, with some help from the innkeeper of the
half-way house of entertainment, easily carried out.
The revenue men were covered with ridicule, for
they could not swear that the barrels contained
whisky when they had seized them, and whatever
they might suspect regarding the transfer, they
were far from anxious to confess how careless their
guardianship had been.
Macnab kept his Volunteer regiment, under
excellent discipline, not so much by military severity
as by terrible scoldings in barbed Gaelic. He was
ordered to take his men to Stirling, and he took
care that there should be no indiscretions by the
way, as he was bent on making his regiment a
model of military propriety. They were close on
Stirling, and Macnab, looking like an old hera of
romance, was riding in state at the head of his men,
swollen with pride in their good conduct, splendid
marching, and kilted and plaided picturesque
appearance, when word came to him from the rear
that gangers were trying to stop the waggons to
search for smuggled whisky, which, they said, they
had learned was concealed among the baggage. A
wrathful burst of surprise and indignation proved
that oji this occasion the smugglers had abused
Macriab's confidence. Yet for all that he would do
his best to cover their misconduct. He ordered the
regiment to halt, and rode back to the rear, taking
with him a sergeant and a dozen men. On coming
to the waggons he found his quartermaster and the
chief of the would-be searchers in hot altercation.
He silenced the former by a wave of his hand, and
turning to the latter, asked, "My pretty man, who
are you and your people? And what do you want?"
The latter explained that he was a revenue officer,
and that on information received he wanted to
search the waggons for smuggled whisky. "Well,"
replied Macnab, "the information you declare you
have received has been kept from my knowledge,
and without proof I'll not believe it. But produce
your warrant and you may search away." The
other, taken aback, said he had had no time to
procure a warrant. "Not time to procure a war-
rant? How dare you stop the King's waggons on
the King's highway? Who are you? Show your
commission." He acknowledged that he had not
his commission with him. "No search warrant, no
commission to be shown? How do I know that
you are not impostors, thieves, and robbers" Then
turning to the sergeant and his men, he said, "Lads,
this is a serious matter. Load with ball." The,
revenue men scampered off as fast as they could,
thankful to escape with their lives. Then, reverting
to Gaelic, Macnab first swore at the waggon men
for abusing his confidence, and then told them to
drive into Stirling as fast as if the deil were
chasing them, and if they had whisky among the
baggage, to get it out, and out of sight, before the
revenue men could come on them with a search
warrant. His orders were carried out, and when
the search was made in Stirling nothing seizable
was discovered.
Macnab was punctilious about being
properly
addressed. No mistake was ever made in Gaelic.
Everybody addressed him as Mhic an Aba, "Son of
the Abbot." But those who did not know Gaelic
and Highland rules of precedence often made him
angry by calling him "Mr Macnab." He could not
bear that indignity, although he took no offence at
all if he was called Laird of Macnab. One day as
he was sitting in an upper room which had its
windows open, in his house at Kinnell, he heard the
bell of the front door below ring, and when Janet
appeared, a stranger asked: "Is Mr Macnab at home?" The Chief,
resenting the unconscious insult to his dignity, rushed to the open window of
his room above, thrust out his head and roared like
a bull of Bashan, "There is nae Mister Macnab
here. There are mony Mister Macnabs, but deil
tak me if there is but ae Macnab."
Macnab's always precarious financial
business was
managed by the Perth bank, where the officials, by
knowing his peculiarities and how to humour him,
always got back the money lent to him with full
interest. Macnab never thought that it was incumbent on him to pay upon the dates mentioned in his
bills. But by mischance one of his bills fell into the
hands of a Stirling bank agent, who, when no reply
was made to his note asking payment without delay,
resorted to legal proceedings, which Macnab ignored,
and having got decree against him the agent sent a
Sheriff-officer and concurrent to Kihnell to poind
goods and chattels, unless the debt with interest
and expenses should be instantly paid. Macnab
knew that these limbs of the law were coming forth-
with to pounce on him, so he thought it best to pay
at once a long visit to Taymouth, where he was
always welcome, and to leave Janet to deal with the
visitors. When he was away they came late in the
evening. They were footsore, weary, hungry, and
thirsty. When they told their errand, Janet assured
them that the Laird had gold in his kist, and would
readily pay them when he got back from visiting
his friends, Lord and Lady Breadalbane, at Tay-
mouth, which return, she hoped, would take place
the next day. They got plenty to eat and drink,
were elated with the hope of obtaining full payment
promptly, and it was in a jubilant frame of mind
that they followed Janet to the ground-floor room in
which they were to sleep. The moon was shining
bright; the bed was at the room's further end;
while the window, which was near the door, was
open; and Janet, while bidding them good-night,
and holding the door half-open, advised them to shut
the window. The one who went to do her bidding
looked out, and seeing the figure of a man hanging
to a tree outside, emitted a cry of consternation
which drew his companion to his side. "What is
that horrid thing?" they asked in one breath.
"Oh," replied Janet, "that is only a poor body who
has been hanged out of hand by the Laird, because
he came bothering about the payment of a miserable
debt." Having given her explanation, Janet quickly
withdrew, and closed and locked the heavy door
behind her. The trembling limbs of the law, believing Janet's tale, and fearing a similar fate for
bothering the formidable Macnab about a debt,
made their escape through the unbarred window and
got far beyond the Breadalbane march before the
sun rose. What so thoroughly frightened them
were old clothes stuffed with straw and a round bag
filled with chaff to represent a human head. Wherever he got the money perhaps it was lent to him
at Taymouth this particular debt was paid without
further delay, and nothing worse than fun sprang
out of Janet's trickery.
All classes of his countrymen agreed in
the
opinion variously expressed that Francie Mor Mac
an Aba was the most remarkable anachronism that
could be found in the orderly-disposed Highlands of
the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the
nineteenth centuries. His faults were counter-
balanced by many good qualities. In grain he was
noble and chivalrous. He made no enemies. He
was a perpetual source of amusement and eccentric
surprises. When in good old age he was buried
with his ancestors in romantic Innis Buidhe, he had
sincere mourners there, and thousands who were not
there said with a sigh, "We shall never see his like
again." His lineage probably went back to William
the Lion's Abbot of Glendochart; and an ancestor of
his, to the detriment of his descendants, for the most
of his lands was taken from him to endow the new
priory of Strathfillan, fought along with the Lome
Chief against Bruce at Dalrigh, where the future
hero of Bannockburn narrowly escaped death, or a
capture which would end in death to him and to the
independence of Scotland. Francie succeeded to a
small estate which was encumbered by some family
charges in favour of junior members of his father's
family. At his death Francie's estate was quite
hopelessly insolvent. It had, therefore, to be sold,
and as the next legitimate heir, Erchie'n Doctair,
could not re-purchase it, the Earl of Breadalbane
became the purchaser. Thus the candle of an old
lineage was removed from the place which had been
lighted by it for four or five centuries. |
