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1805-1809.
DURING the summer of
1805 Capt. Baigrie's third son John became my pupil. He lived with
us first at Kildonan; but latterly I resided with him at Midgarty,
and our school hours were passed in Capt Baigrie's bedroom, where we
also slept in a small bed beside him.
My second session at
college was in 1805-6. I again travelled to Aberdeen on foot with my
father's man, Muckle Donald. I went this time by Inverness. We
crossed the ferry of Invergordon, and then pursued our route through
Resolis and Ferintosh to Kirkhill in Inverness-shire, crossing the
Beauly at the ferry immediately below the village of that name. On
our way to the manse of Kirkhill we were preceded by a funeral. That
was the only time on which I saw or heard a bagpipe playing the
Highland coronach on such an occasion—answering as it did the
purposes both of the hand-bell at the interment of the lower
classes, and of the "Dead March in Saul" at that of the upper
classes of society. When we arrived at the manse our reception was
what may be called very far north of kindness. Mr. Donald Fraser, my
late cousin, was then a young man, his father's successor as
minister of Kirkhill, and newly married. He had guests residing with
pima Air. and Mrs. Munro from Inverness—who, Iike himself, were also
newly married, and were there to spend their honeymoon. Mr. Fraser
himself was scarcely twenty-one years of age, and exceedingly
handsome both in face and figure. His wife looked ten years older
than her elegant husband. Her brother, Mr. Gordon, had been in the
West Indies, and making a fortune, came home and purchased the
property of Drakies, near Inverness, but resided with his sister
somewhere in the parish of Kirkhill. There Mr. Fraser got first
acquainted with her. Succeeding his eminent father, he lived with
his widowed mother and his sisters at the manse; and when he
finished his theological course he paid his addresses to Miss
Gordon, and their union took place when he was but nineteen, tinder
these circumstances the marriage much displeased his mother and the
rest of his relations; but Miss Gordon proved an excellent wife. His
brother-in-law, Mr. Gordon, died insolvent many years thereafter,
and Drakies had to be sold. Unfortunately, owing to the legal
peculiarities of the case, Mr. Fraser got somewhat involved with the
creditors—a circumstance which much encumbered him during his whole
life.
My man and I left
Kirkhill early on Monday for Inverness, where we both breakfasted in
the same room, after a weary tramp under a heavy downpour of rain.
At Fochabers we fell in with a returning hired horse, belonging to a
man of the name of Campbell, an innkeeper and horse-hirer in
Aberdeen. This lucky cast made our journey comparatively easy.
Muckle Donald and I rode alternately, the horse carrying our baggage
also.
On arriving at Aberdeen, rather late in the evening, I went to Mrs.
Gordon's, Upper Kirkgate, where I was received with unabated
kindness. Next day I took lodgings in the house of one Alexander
Brown, a wheelwright in North Street, where I had as my
fellow-lodger my friend James Campbell. He and the landlord's son
George were again my class-fellows.
During this session I
attended the classes of Civil and Natural History, as well as the
Humanity Class, all taught by Prof. James Beattie, nephew of the
well-known Dr. Beattie; and the first Mathematical class, taught by
the eminent but eccentric Dr. Robert Hamilton. "Humanity" was
usually taught at eight in the morning. Professor Beattie was one of
the first classical scholars of his day. Latin he both understood
and spoke, and when the disorderly conduct of the students called it
forth, scolded in it with fluency and force. He was of keen passions
and a hasty temper. As a disciplinarian, he carried matters as far
as they could go, seeing that his reproofs, pointed enough in
themselves, were sometimes rendered terrible by the external
accompaniments of his warmth of temper and extraordinary bodily
strength. To such of the students, however, as were naturally slow
and dull, but at the same time diligent and anxious to learn, he
curbed his temper, and showed the noblest forbearance. His plan of
teaching was as follows:—In the morning hour we read the classics,
both Greek and Latin. In the forenoon the professor carried on his
course of civil history. He commenced by a• few preliminary lectures
on chronology and geography, on oral tradition, historical poems,
and other methods employed before the use of letters for preserving
the memory of past events on the stages of civil society and the
principal forms of government. In entering more immediately on his
subject, he treated of the first four monarchies, viz., the
Assyrian, the Babylonian, the Persian, and the Egyptian. He then
gave a course of lectures on what he called "the two leading
objects" of ancient history—the Revolutions of Greece and of
Rome—pursuing first the history of Greece till its subjection to
Rome, 164 B.C., and concluding it with a view of the state of
literature, philosophy, and of the fine arts among the Greeks. He
then took up the subject of Roman history, which he pursued till the
accession of Augustus, when he lectured on the Roman constitution,
manners, military discipline, and on the progress of Roman
literature. He then resumed the history of Rome, and carried it on
to the final settlement of the northern nations in Italy towards the
close of the 6th century, concluding the whole with a few lectures
on the manners of the northern nations, and on the history of the
Christian Church down to that period.
The course of Natural
History next followed. That science the professor divided into six
great branches. These were—Mineralogy, Geology, Hydrology,
Meteorology, Botany, and Zoology. He also dictated to the class, at
occasional meetings, the outlines of his course of lectures, which
each engrossed in a MS. book. It gave him peculiar pleasure to see
these outlines neatly written out. A copy of the MS., which I wrote
to his dictation, of the outlines of his lectures both on civil and
natural history, I have still in my possession. His lectures on
mineralogy contained a short system of chemistry; and when on the
subject of acids, most of us had our fingers soiled and considerably
burnt by trying experiments on the various properties and effects of
sulphuric and sulphurous acid, nitric and nitrous acid, muriatic
acid, and so forth. When he entered upon mineralogy itself, lie
divided all the subjects of the mineral kingdom into six classes,
viz., Earths, Inflammables, Saline bodies, Metals, Petrefactions,
and the Impregnations of water, He adopted, in botany and zoology,
the systematic arrangement of Linnaeus—the more modern and improved
systems being then unknown.
Dr. Hamilton's first
Mathematical Class we attended daily. He began the course by putting
us through the cardinal rules of arithmetic, and explaining to us,
in his own summary way, the abstract principles of arithmetic as a
science. Then we went on to the Elements of Euclid, or what may be
considered the first principles of mathematical science, such as
Algebra, mensuration, etc. The mathematical course, however, taught
by Dr. Hamilton during that and the ensuing session I may here
dismiss at once, by mentioning that lie published, for the use of
his class, a mathematical treatise, entitled, "Heads of part of a
course of mathematics, as taught at the Marischal College,"
comprehending the following subjects, viz., use of scales and
sliding rules, plane trigonometry, practical geometry, doctrine of
the globes, perspectives, navigation, projection of the sphere, and
spherical trigonometry. These, to the best of my recollection, were
the subjects taught by Dr. Hamilton during the two sessions I
attended. But I must here frankly confess that, under the tuition of
this learned and excellent, but most eccentric man, I never could
understand anything of the subjects he taught. This might, no doubt,
arise from a natural deficiency to comprehend mathematical science.
But if my natural capacity had been more extensive than it really
was, it would have but little availed me under the worthy doctor's
method of teaching. For, first of all, lie made himself both the
master and the scholar, both the teacher and the taught. If the
points of instruction were arithmetical questions, he chalked them
out and worked them all himself; if the propositions of Euclid, he
drew the figures, marked the letters, took up the demonstrating-rod,
and, after, uttering or rather muttering, with great rapidity a few
hasty explanations, went on to demonstrate the proposition or
problem, step by step, with all the hurry and assiduity of a tyro,
while the class had only to listen. His personal appearance, the odd
intonations of his voice, the quizzical contortions of his
countenance, the motions of his hands, his fidgety impatience, and
the palpable absurdity of the whole man, with his little scratch wig
awry on his head, and his gown flapping around him, and ever and
anon in the way of his feet, or his hands, or his eyes—all taken
together really held out a premium to every student, from the
lightest to the gravest, to look on and laugh. When be entered the
class, it was with the bustle of one who felt that he was too late,
and had kept people waiting for him. With this impression, he would
walk up to his desk with his hat on; after jumping about here and
there, and handling this thing and the other, it would at last occur
to him that his hat should be taken off; hut, in the hurry of the
removal, both hat and wig would come oft at once, exposing his bald
pate and setting the class in a roar. Stunned by the noise, he would
clap his wig on the nail and his hat on his head; and then, on
discovering his mistake, would make the hat and wig immediately
exchange places. When he noticed any of the students trifling, he
rose from his desk, ran up to the offender with neck out-stretched,
and, clapping his hand upon his chin, first preluding his reproof
with two or three short coughs, he mentioned the offender by his
name in Latin, in the vocative case, and exclaimed, "Take your hat
and go away," or, "Take your hat and leave the skule" —looking at
him the meanwhile like an ape who had ensconced himself aloft out of
the way of a parcel of curs haying at him. The insubordination of
his class came to such a height that he felt himself compelled at
last to summon the aid of the Senatus Academicus, or the "Faculty,"
as he called them, with which he had often threatened the more
disorderly. Responding to his complaint, the Senates deputed Prof.
Beattie, the most thorough disciplinarian at college, to pay us a
visit. Prof. Beattie did so accordingly, and, entering the
class-room one day with the port of Ajax—"earth trembling as he
trode"—he made us tremble too by the wrath of his countenance, the
stern severity of his reproofs, and by the movements of his
herculean person with which every threat was enforced. The effect of
all this, however, was not permanent. The origo sn ali was to be
found, not so much in any peculiar propensity in the students to
turbulence as in the total incapacity of the teacher to maintain his
authority. [Robert Hamilton, LL.D., was born in Edinburgh in 1743.
After having been ten years Rector of the Perth Academy, he was, in
1779, appointed to the Chair of Natural Philosophy, in Marischal
College, which he afterwards exchanged for that of Mathematics. He
is the anthot of a book of reputed merit on the "National Debt of
Great Britain," and also of a posthumous work, entitled, "The
Progress of Society." He died in 1829.]
Brown, my landlord
during this session, was something of a religious character. He
could not be curbed within the limits of any particular sect, but,
on the contrary, was continually wandering from chapel to chapel,
and from one sect to another. He was first an Antibnrgher,. and
decently went with his wife and daughters to be edified under the
plain and pithy, but rather homely, ministrations of Mr. James
Templeton, the Seceder minister of Belmont Street. But he soon tired
of this, and walked off alone to wait upon the ministry of Mr.
Lawrence Glass, a burgher minister of the Old Light. He did not
remain long under the ministry of Mr. Glass, who was both a profound
divine and a preacher of great unction and power, but he finally
joined the Independents, and became the regular hearer of Dr. Philip
of the Laigh Kirk, one of their ablest and most talented preachers,
who afterwards went as a missionary to Cape Town.
During this session,
too, some of my fellow-students and I made an expedition to a
manganese mine, near (3randholm, when we were interested to note,
close by, the site of the great battle of Ilarlaw.
The only public event during this session was the death of William
Pitt, on the '23rd of January, 1806. The recent defeat at Austerlitz,
with its disastrous consequences on the health, and finally the
life, of this illustrious man, was the conversational topic with
every one, and, among others, with the students of the colleges. I
recollect talking of it with a simple Sutherlandshire student from
Invershin, who, not knowing exactly the difference between a
minister of State and a minister of the Gospel, gravely asked me
what parish in England bad become vacant by the Prime Minister's
death.
On the closing (lay
Professor Beattie, in giving his last lecture, was so deeply
affected, that he could scarcely articulate his parting word, "valette."
Next day a number of the students from the north began their journey
homewards, starting about six o'clock in the morning. James
Campbell, John Anderson from Elgin, and a fellow-townsman of his,
one James MacAndrew, a very young man little more than twelve years
of age, but who, notwithstanding, had that year finished-his college
course, and James Bayne, eldest son of the late Dr. Ronald Bayne of
Kiltarlity, and myself, all set out together. Our first stretch was
from Aberdeen to Keith, a most overwhelming journey for one day,
being little less than .0 miles. I was most grievously tired before
I reachea my resting-place for the night, and, when, I did, could
neither eat nor sleep. The present turnpike road from Aberdeen to
Thurso, the Ultima Thule of the five northern counties, did not then
exist, and no part of the old road could be more rugged than that
from Huntly to Keith. After leaving the little dram-house of
Benshole in the glen of Foudland, the wretched, floundering track
crossed a bleak hill, and then came stumbling down a steep, miry
slope immediately to the east of the straggling village of Keith. On
this road, in the olden times, horses have sunk to the very girths
in mud.
During the summer I
was appointed parochial schoolmaster of Loth. I resided with Mr.
Gordon the minister, whose wife was my second cousin, and the
daughter of the venerable Thomas Mackay of Lairg. I remember yet my
scholars, my difficulties, my weariness, and longings for home, to
which I made many Saturday journeys across the Crask, and where I
often remained too long into the ensuing week. It was in this year
that the great county roads were begun, and I had great interest in
tracing their progress through Sutherlandshire. Instead of
straggling along the sea-shore, the new line swept along the base of
the hills in an almost straight course.
My attendance at
college during the third session I shall dismiss in a few sentences.
Patrick Copland, the professor of natural philosophy, under whom I
chiefly studied this year, was the most efficient of the public
teachers of Marischal College. He was a very handsome man both as to
face and figure; his wife was a neat, demure, pretty little woman.
They had three sons and one daughter. His knowledge of the beautiful
and extensive science which he taught was rather superficial, He
was, however, both an elegant lecturer and an expert mechanic, and
thus made the study most interesting to us. The science he divided
into four great branches, viz., the mechanical philosophy,
chemistry, the animal economy, and the vegetable economy. The first
of these constituted the substance of his lectures; this subject he
subdivided into six subordinate branches, mechanics strictly so
called, hydrostatics or the doctrine of fluids, comprehending
hydraulics and pneumatics, electricity, magnetism, optics, or the
doctrine of light and astronomy. He did not dictate a syllabus of
his lectures as the other professors did; but I took very full notes
whilst he spoke on each of these branches, as well as copies of his
drawings, diagrams, mathematical figures, machine models, etc., all
which I digested, when at leisure, into a very full manuscript of
three large 8vo volumes, with plates of my own drawing.
After my third
session at college I resumed my labours at the school of Loth, but I
did not long continue there. I must confess that I had not been very
assiduous in the discharge of the duties devolving upon me, having
ever had a natural repugnance to the drudgery of teaching and being
neither attracted nor reconciled to it by the circumstances in which
I found myself placed. The accommodations provided, the small amount
of salary, and the irregularity with which the fees were paid, and
above all, the character of my patron, the parish minister, combined
to increase my dislike to my calling. Mr. Gordon was, as a preacher,
sound and scriptural, and a lively and animated speaker, but his
mind and spirit were thoroughly secularised, and this great moral
defect palpably exhibited itself in his week-day conduct. My
remembrance of him is both painful and bitter. He was even then
indulging in habits which brought him to the grave about the close
of the year 1822. The only one of his family who survives is his
eldest son Charles, at present minister of Assynt. [Mr. Charles
Gordon ways ordained minister of Assynt on 22nd Sept., 1825. —Ed.]
Among my acquaintances at Loth were Colonel Cluness of Cracaig, Mrs.
Gray of Kilgour, and George Munro of Whitehill.
Colonel Cluness was
the lineal descendant of a family of that name who were formerly
proprietors of a small estate in the Black Isle of Ross-shire. After
the sale of his property the colonel's grandfather came to
Sutherlandshire, and, being a man of skill and experience in country
business, became the Earl of Sutherland's factor. His residence was
at one of Lord Sutherland's seats, the castle of Cracaig in the
parish of Loth. That baronial mansion was demolished and burned
during one of the rebellions, and a less imposing manor-house was
built in lieu of it, which the factor's descendants, down to my day,
continue to occupy. Colonel Cluness' father was usually styled
"Bailie Cluness," and flourished during the Scottish troubles of
1745. A passage in his life, during these turbulent times, handed
down by popular tradition, now occurs to me. In the glen of Loth,
and nearly at the centre of it, two burns meet almost at right
angles. The larger stream runs through the whole length of the glen,
the lesser joins it at the angle already mentioned; the mountains
tower up on all sides of the streams, and in every direction, to the
height of nearly 2000 feet. On an eminence close by the junction of
the streams are three or four standing stones, grey with the moss of
ages, the memorials either of the rites of the Druids or of the
invasions of the Norsemen. A spot about a quarter of a mile above
these monuments, at a bend of the burn, was the scene of a deed of
blood and treachery, perpetrated during the memorable year of
1745-46, with which Bailie Clunass was innocently associated. Two
young men, one the son of an Episcopal minister, the other of a
Highland chief, both of whom were engaged in the rebellion, had
escaped from the field of Culloden, and directed their flight
northwards towards the counties of Sutherland and Caithness. They
had gone as far as Thurso, when, understanding that the vigilance of
Government in the pursuit of the fugitive rebels had relaxed, they
ventured to return through the mountains homewards. The Government,
however, had held out a reward for the apprehension of the
insurgents, and the course of these unfortunates, ever since they
crossed the Ord of Caithness and entered the county of Sutherland,
was dogged by two or three men from Marril and Helmisdale. These
fellows, under pretence of being their guides, took them to this
fatal and gloomy spot where, rejecting all overtures of escape, or
of surrender on condition of sparing their lives, the ruffians
murdered them in cold blood. After these ruthless homicides had
perpetrated the bloody deed, they came to Cracaig, and gave some
dark and mysterious hints to Bailie Cluness of the tragedy which
they had enacted, with a view to receive the promised reward. The
humane and right-minded magistrate, however, no sooner penetrated
into their design than, after expressing his abhorrence of their
cold-blooded ferocity, and warning them of the moral consequences of
what they had done, he ordered them out of his presence. Bailie
Cluness left a numerous family, but of only two of them have I ever
heard anything, and these were his eldest two sons, Gordon and John.
Gordon was the Col. Cluness of Cracaig of my day. He married a
daughter of Gordon of Carrol, by whom he had three sons and five
daughters. Their eldest son was Archibald, who went to the West
Indies, where he died. William. their second son, was in the army,
and rose to the rank of Major, when he sold out, and lived at
Cracaig after the death of his brother, and subsequently of his
father, of whom, of all his sons, he was the only survivor. Major
William Cluness was a gigantic, handsome, soldierly-looking man, of
a truly noble countenance. After his father's death, lie was among
the first who took extensive sheep-farms in the parish of Kildonan,
on account of which hundreds of the natives of the soil were all
summarily expelled during the first Sutherland clearances. That
whole extent of country, from the lower part of the Strath of
Kildonan to Cnoc-au-Eireannaich on the boundaries of Caithness,
constituted the store-farm of Major Cluness. He never married, and
died in 1829. His nephew, Innes of Thrumster, succeeded to his lease
of Cracaig. Col. Cluness' youngest son, Gordon, rose in the army to
the rank of Captain, but lie too sold out, and came to reside at his
father's farm. He afterwards leased the farm, and commenced working
it according to the new system. Poor Gordon Cluness died a fearfully
sudden death. The local militia were embodied at Darnoch under the
command of Lieut.-Col. the Earl Gower, and in it Gordon Cluness held
rank as Captain. When they were disbanded for the year he, in
company with William Gordon of Dalcharn, a brother officer,
proceeded homewards. They left l)ornoeh after breakfast, and in the
afternoon arrived at Uppat House, the seat of William Munro of
Achany, where they remained for dinner. After dining, Captain
Cluness rose to go away. His intention to leave that evening was
strenuously resisted by his host and by all present. Not only had he
indulged too freely after dinner, but he rode a full-bred English
hunter which, without being urged by whip or spur, would of his own
accord devour the way. Resisting all importunities, he insisted on
having his fiery steed led to the door, when he mounted and set out
at full gallop. Gordon, intending to follow, could scarcely come
within sight of him. Coming full speed down upon Brora bridge, which
crosses the river at almost a right angle with the road, and the
parapets of which were then scarcely a toot and a half in height,
Cluness was flung from the saddle over the parapet into the river,
there at least 50 feet deep. He sank to rise no more. The overseer
of the salmon-fishing at Brora had uniformly made it a practice, as
well as a pastime, every evening to pass and repass with his coble
under the bridge. On that fatal evening, however, he had remained at
home, busily engaged in perusing the newspaper. Had he been present
he might easily have saved the wretched man's life, as the overseer
was one of the best swimmers in the north of Scotland.
Col. Cluness' eldest
daughter married one Inns, an officer of excise, or gauger. By the
death of several wealthy relations, he realised a considerable
fortune, resided for many years at the Castle of Keiss, which, with
the farm, he rented from Sir John Sinclair, and ultimately became
the proprietor of Thrumster. When at Loth I saw several of his sons,
particularly William and Gordon, both of whom were afterwards killed
during the Peninsular war. Cluness' second daughter married John
Reid, surveyor of taxes for the counties of Caithness and
Sutherland; and his third became the second wife of Mr. Robert Gun,
minister of Latheron. His fourth daughter, Elizabeth, died at
Clynemitton in 1837, unmarried; she suffered from kleptomania. Anne
Cluness, the youngest of the family, was, during my residence at
Loth, a dashing young woman, the reigning belle of the coast side of
Suther- land. She married Joseph Gordon of Carrol [who died in 18",
at the age of 80.—Ed.] and has a throng family. The old couple, Col.
and Mrs. Cluness, when I was in Loth, lived in ease and affluence,
and kept open table. The Colonel himself retained his rank as
honorary commander of the Sutherland Volunteers. He was a chatty,
kind old man, very much afflicted with gout, and very much addicted
to swearing, both in Gaelic and English; an old chum and
acquaintance of the late Sir Hector Munro, and a profound admirer of
Elizabeth, Marchioness of Stafford. He died in 1818. Mrs. Cluness
was a most kind, hospitable, and warm-hearted old lady. Her husband
was as enthusiastically fond of her as she was of him, and as an
helpmeet, for this world at least, he had every reason safely to
trust her, for a more skilful manager of a household never existed.
She ruled her servants with a prudence and sagacity beyond all
praise—only now and then she was a little hot-tempered. Like Queen
Bess, too, she not unfrequently let out the occasional sallies of
her temper in something more tangible than words. Her usual weapon
was her slipper, which she put in requisition against any of her
female attendants who offended her, by throwing it directly at them.
An Eppy Campbell was an important personage in the establishment,
and enjoyed the confidence and approbation of her mistress, but even
Eppy herself could not at all times escape the discipline of the
slipper. On one occasion the old lady got very angry on some point
of domestic management, and, as Eppy maintained her own side with
not a little obstinacy, Mrs. Cluness' slipper was forthwith hurled
against her. The old lady expected Eppy to do in such a case what
all her women were enjoined to do on these occasions, viz., to pick
up the slipper, and very respectfully return it to its owner. Eppy,
however, adopted another method. Coolly taking up the missile, she
bolted out at the door with it, and left the old lady to tramp
shoeless through the house in quest of it. After her husband's
death, Mrs. Cluness left Cracaig and came to reside in Edinburgh,
where she died in 1830. My first recollections of her are seeing
her, with her daughter Anne, at Kildonan when we were all children.
Mrs. MacCulloch of Loth accompanied them, and one evening we were,
along with Anne Cluness, busily employed in taking out of the river,
immediately below the church, fresh-water mussels in quest of
pearls.
Of John Cluness, who
lived at Whitehill and Kilmot, and who died before I was born, I
only know that he was the father of Medley, who married Captain
Robert Mackay of Hedgefield, near Inverness, Araidh-chlinni's eldest
son.
Mrs. Gray at Kilgour
was another of my acquaintances at Loth. She was then a widow, but
her maiden name was Nicholson, and she was a native of Shetland. Her
father was the proprietor of Shebister; during the first year of my
attendance at the hall in Edinburgh, I recollect seeing at her house
there her nephew, Arthur Nicholson, the heir to the estate. Her
husband, whom she survived for many years, was connected with my
native county. He was a Mr. Walter Gray, whose ancestors had lived
in the county of Sutherland for centuries. They derived from John,
second son of Lord Gray of Foulis, who, having killed the constable
of Dundee for insulting his father, fled his country, and came as a
refugee to Ross-shire. There he succeeded by marriage to certain
lands belonging to a branch of the clan Mackay, the "Siol Thomais"—who
also were proprietors of the lands of Spinningdale, and others in
the county of Sutherland lying on the Dornoch Firth. His descendants
were subsequently, for generations, proprietors in that county.
There were at least four different branches of them; Gray of Skibo,
Gray of Criech, Gray of Lairg, and Gray of Bogart and Ardinns. The
Grays of Creich and of Bogart were the subjects of two of Rob Donn's
most withering satires, and with them Walter Gray, who was their
contemporary and near relative, was connected. But he and his elder
brother, Captain John Gray, were men of probity and honour; both
were therefore exempted by the bard from the sweeping sarcasms with
which he so mercilessly demolished the character of their near
kinsmen, Robert of Creich and John of Rogart. I have a distinct,
though distant, recollection of seeing Captain Walter Gray in his
house at Kilgour. My acquaintance, Mrs. Gray, was his second wife.
His first was a Miss Elizabeth Sutherland, daughter of James
Sutherland of Langwell, Caithness, my stepmother's cousin-german. To
her memory after her death, for she died at a premature age, the
Reay Country bard composed a graphic and beautiful elegy. From the
poet's description of the lady she must have rivalled at least, if
she did not excel, in her personal attractions, my beautiful aunt
and her cousin, Mrs. J. Gordon of Navidale. The only one of Walter
Gray's family by this lady was his daughter Dorothea, whom I often
saw at Kildonan, and who died at Wick unmarried. In regard to his
domicile, Captain Gray was continually shifting. He resided at Rian,
parish of Rogart, and, after his first wife's death, went to
Langwell, the property meanwhile having been sold, and purchased by
a brother, or a near relative of his own; then he went to Skibo, and
at last to Kilgour, where he died. When he was at Langwell, the late
eminent Mr. Hugh Mackay of Moy, already mentioned, who was
missionary minister at Berriedale, Dirlot, and Strathhalladale,
resided at his house. [Mr. Hugh Mackay, A.M., was ordained minister
of Moy on 25th April, 1793. He died 7th March, 1804, aged 42
years.—Ed.] During my last year's residence at Loth, Mrs. Gray was
residing at Kilgour with a numerous family of daughters. Her lease
having expired, the Marquis of Stafford refused to renew it to her,
but let it to Mr. William Pope, elder brother of Robert Pope of
Navidale, who had lately returned from India. Mrs. Gray then went
with her family, in 1808, to reside in Edinburgh.
William Pope, on
taking the farm of Kilgour. began by projecting many improvements,
few of which he was able to carry into effect. Iie had little
capital with which to stock it, and at last he was under the
necessity of resigning his lease. After his return from India, he
lived at his brother's house at Navidale. He was a well-informed
man, generous and kind, but rather extravagant and free in his life.
After he left Kilgour, he came again to reside at Navidale till
after Mr. and Mrs. Pope's death, when, reduced to poverty, he went
to live at a small cottage at Gartymore, where he died in 1811.
The circle of society
of the better classes in Loth at this period was, perhaps, as
respectable as any of the same kind in all Scotland. They were the
tenants or tackamen, to be sure, of the Marchioness of Stafford, but
they were more on the footing of proprietors than of tenants. They
were all, without exception, gentlemen who had been abroad, or had
been in the army, and had made money. They had each of them, too,
their sub-tenants, and their long leases or wadsets, in virtue of
which they each had a vote in the county. Such, indeed, was the
state of society throughout the whole county, more especially on the
coast side of Sutherland, then and long previously, particularly so
in the parish of Loth, which might not unjustly he regarded as an "urbs
in rure." Their farms were not of very great extent towards the
coast, so that their respective houses were in sight of each other.
As in all human societies, however, under similar circumstance, but
too much strife and petty jealousy existed among them. Capt. Baigrie
and Mr. Pope, for example, although nearly connected by marriage,
quarrelled, and during the whole course of their Iives never made it
up. The inland parts of the county, too, abounded with tenants
equally respectable in their own sphere, such as Mackay,
Araidh-chlinni ; Gordon, Dalcharn; Gunn, Achaneccan; Gordon,
Griamachdary; MacDonald, Polley; Mackay, Achoull; and many more whom
I could mention. These men, though dwelling in houses or rather
hovels of stone and turf, and speaking their native Celtic, yet had
their subtenants, were the subsidary owners of vast tracts of
moorland, were given to hospitality, were enlightened by divine
truth, and knew their Bibles well, and to all comers and goers, from
the highest to the lowest, could furnish a plentiful and hospitable
table and lodgings. But, as I shall soon show, this high-souled
gentry and this noble and far-descended peasantry, "their country's
pride," were set at nought, and ultimately obliterated for a set of
needy, greedy, secular adventurers, by the then representatives of
the ancient Earls of Sutherland.
The widow and
daughters of Air. MacCulloch, former minister of Loth, lived at
Kilmote when I was at Loth. The old lady was very feeble, very good
jiatured, very much addicted to tea, and exhibited all the loquacity
incident to "narrative old age." Her daughter Bell was equally
loquacious, and, although considerably advanced in years, had lost
none of her tact in holding fast by the one side of an argument. Her
sister Anne was an obsequious and zealous assentor to any side of an
argument which to her appeared to he the strongest.
Mrs. Pope of Navidale
had, as a family, two sons, Peter and George, and three daughters,
Elizabeth, Isobel, and Roberta. The three young ladies reside at
Navidale. Peter married his cousin, Miss Mary Mackay of Torboll;
George also married a cousin, Miss Charlotte Baigrie of Midgarty,
and both brothers, with their wives, went to India. Mrs. Pope died
under an operation in Edinburgh, and her husband only survived her a
few months. Mr. Pope, by his will, settled the lease of Navidale on
Alexander Ross, his brother-in-law, until his eldest son Peter
should come of age. Mrs. Gordon took charge of the orphans at
Aberdeen, where they were educated.
In 1808 I left Loth
to reside at Kildonan. About the end of November I went to Aberdeen,
where I found almost everything suhjected to change. Mrs. Gordon had
removed from Upper Kirkgate Street to the opposite side of Denburn,
then consisting merely of a straggling house here and there, but now
grown up into a very elegant street called Skene Terrace. I boarded
in a house situated at the angle between Broad Street and the Upper
Kirkgate. John Baigrie from Midgarty was my fellow-lodger. My
attendance at college was, during this my fourth session, most
uninteresting. I attended the Moral Philosophy class taught by Prof.
G. Glennie, D.D. This reverend and learned person was possessed of
the least possible measure of talent or imagination. Whatever
knowledge he might possess, he was totally destitute of tact in so
conveying it to others as either to arrest attention or excite
interest. His lectures were the very essence of dulness, and were an
ill-digested compilation of the sayings and discussions of more
eminent men, particularly of Dr. Beattie, whom he had succeeded, and
to whose daughter he was married. He also taught the second Humanity
class, both Greek and Latin. His class, at the close of the session,
received each of them the literary distinction of A.M. The
graduation, as it was called, was a mere literary farce. The
students were examined in Latin or some branch of moral science, but
the questions and answers were dictated to us by the professor a
week previously. On our repeating this well-conned catechism the
Principal, Dr. Brown, rose up solemnly, and holding an old dusty
piece of scarlet cloth in his right hand, whilst we all stood like
so many wooden images before him, he went the whole round of us,
and, touching our heads, dubbed each of us a Master of Arts. For
this piece of literary mummery we had each of us to pay double fees
to the professor of Moral Philosopy as the promoter, double fees
also to the sacrist and janitor of the college, and half a guinea
for a piece of vellum, on which a skilful penman had written the
diploma in Latin for our academical houours, and to which was
attached in a tin box the college seal. *
I returned home by
land, and had as my fellow-traveller George Urquhart, only son of
Mr. Alex. Urquhart, minister of Rogart. This young man was my
second-cousin by his mother, who was the niece of the Rev. Thomas
:Mackay of Lairg, my father's uncle. Mrs. Urquhart's father, a Mr
Poison, had the farm of Easter-Helmisdale, previous to its
occupation by Louis Houston. Miss Poison and her sister lived in it
while Mr. A. Urquhart was missionary-minister of Achness, and it was
during her residence there that she was married to Mr. Urquhart.
They were a very odd couple. Mr. Urquhart, who died in 1812, was the
the immediate successor of Mr. Eneas Macleod, minister of Rogart.
Their family were short-lived. His son George succeeded him, in
1813, as minister of Rogart, but falling into bad health, he went to
Italy. There feeling himself dying, he started for his native land,
but died at sea off Marseilles in 1821. James Campbell, "mine
ancient," was employed as his assistant during his absence, and
married his youngest sister Johanna. On my father's decease, in
1824, Campbell was settled minister at Kidonan, and his
mother-in-law, with her two only. surviving daughters, Mrs. Campbell
and Elizabeth, went to reside at Kildonan. He had a family of three
children. Mrs. Campbell died of consumption, and Elizabeth, always
weak in her intellect, was found drowned, after being amissing for
several days, in a pool in the upper end of Craig-an-fhithich'.
George never married. Mr. Campbell demitted his charge in 1845, and
died at Pictou, N.S., in 1859.
I had been only two
months at home when proposals were made to me by Mr. William Smith,
minister of Bower, [Mr. William Smith, A.M., was ordained minister
of Bower on 6th May, 1781); he died 3rd June, 1846, in the 79th year
of his age and 58th of his ministry. On 16th Jan., 1813, he married
Ann Longmore, third daughter of Mr. John Sinclair of Barrock. She
died in 1856.—Ed.] who was long acquainted with and attached to my
father, to become schoolmaster of his parish. Some time thereafter I
accepted of the situation, and accompanied by Robert Gunn, my
father's servant, went to Bower round by the Ord of Caithness. We
came the first night to Latheron manse, where I first saw and became
acquainted with Mr. Robert Gun, the minister of that parish. [Mr.
Robert Gun was ordained minister of Latheron 27th Sept., 1775; he
died 29th Nov., 1819, in the 70th year of his age. His son Thomas,
after having been schoolmaster of Latheron, was ordained minister of
the quoad sacra parish of Keiss, near Wick, 24th Sept., 1829; in
1844 he became Free Church minister of Madderty in Perthshire, where
he died at an advanced age.—Ed.] He was a thin, spare man, and at
that particular period of his life, was fast falling into a gentle
but decided and growing decline of nature, of which, in 1819, he
died. His manners were those of a gentleman of the old school. He
always met his guests at his entry door with his hat off to usher
them into his house. He was not much of a favourite either with his
parishioners or his heritors. He was rather a stiff, uninteresting
preacher, peevish in his dispositions, and not a little fond of
litigation, on account of which his beritors usually styled him Mr.
Robert McProcess. He was, however, a sound although not an
attractive preacher, and a strict disciplinarian; while it is hut
doing him justice to say that his peevishness and love of litigation
were in a great measure wrung from him by his people and heritors,
consequent on their frequent disorderly and improper conduct. His
heritors were, with one exception (Mr. Sheriff Traill), unruly and
profligate. My cousin-german, John Gordon of Swiney, was at the very
head of them. Mr. Gun prosecuted one and all of them, not only for
repairs of church and manse, and augmentation of stipend, but also
for the fines laid upon them in course of parochial discipline. The
parishioners also were disorderly in their own way. They were much
given to battery and bloodshed at markets, and afterwards to
religious dissensions—particularly as the followers of Peter
Stewart, who was a native of that county, and whose leading tenet
was that the public ordinances of the gospel, as administered by the
pastors of the Church of Scotland, should be openly and universally
renounced by the people, on the ground that the Spirit of God had
left the Church, and that it was doomed to destruction. On my
arrival at his house that evening Mr. Gun received me with great
kindness. He lived in the old manse whilst the new was building. He
had been, for many years before, married to his third wife, and the
children of his three wives were residing with him at the time.
Their names were Cecilia, by his first wife Miss Henderson of
Stempster; Gordon, William, and Mary, by his second wife Miss
Cluness of Cracaig; Thomas, and Adam, by his third wife Miss Gun of
Forres. On my telling where I was bound for he shook his bead
doubtfully, and said that he much feared I should not find myself
very comfortable when I arrived. His shrewd predictions were fully
verified. When I arrived at the manse of Bower I found, first of
all, that the minister was not at home. He had gone to the Assembly,
and nobody could tell when he would return. 1 quartered myself in
the meantime at his house until he should arrive. Nothing could be
more dreary than the manse of Bower. Although considerably advanced
in years, Mr. Smith was still a bachelor, and his domestic
arrangements corresponded with his condition. The internal economy
of the manse was placed under the absolute control of a still older
maid than the owner was a bachelor. The agricultural authority was
vested in—a bachelor also—a genuine Caithnessman, or it might be the
descendant of a Norwegian boor. He was a vinegar-visaged,
club-footed, conceited fellow who, without very well knowing why,
assumed in his own proper province all the ignorant but absolute
authority of a German innkeeper in the 15th century. I next
discovered that my appointment to the school of Bower was a mere
thought or capricious suggestion of Mr. Smith to my father in a
private conversation, and that he had taken no legal steps nor even
once consulted the heritors about the matter.
As there was no
preaching at Bower, I walked on the Sabbaths to the neighbouring
parishes. My first "Sabbath-day journey" was to Thurso. My relative
and future father-in-law, Mr. Dlackintosh, was minister of this
parish. I arrived about 11 o'clock, A.M., had no place to which to
go but the inn, and, when the hour for public worship arrived, I
went along with others into the church. Mr. Mackintosh preached
first in Gaelic and then in English, within the old church, for the
present elegant building was not then in existence. During the
Gaelic service I got a seat., but when the English service commenced
I was ousted from one seat to another until, at last, I found no
rest for the "soles of my feet" but at the outside of the church
altogether, so I walked off that afternoon to Bower. During the
week-days I called upon the resident heritors, Mr. Sinclair of
Barrock, Mr. Henderson of Stempster, and C'ol. B. Williamson of
Banniskirk, as trustee and factor on the estate of Standstill. They
all, without exception, told me that they knew nothing of my
appointment as a parochial teacher, yet, with all the liberality of
gentlemen, they assured me that they would neither cancel my
appointment nor refuse to pay me my salary when demanded.
It was then I got
acquainted with the late Mr. John Sinclair of Barrock, father of the
present Sir John Sinclair, 6th Baronet of Dunbeath. The Sinclairs of
Barrock are the oldest and most respectably descended of all that
name in Caithness, being nearly connected with the noble family of
Caithness, the powerful family of Freswick, and, as they have lately
proved, with the knights-baronet of Dunbeath. tiV When I first
called at Barrock House, I was civilly and even kindly received. It
was about the dinner hour, and I was hospitably invited to partake.
The old gentleman, a little before dinner, came into the parlour,
saluted me politely, and after expressing his utter ignorance of my
appointment, and his long and intimate acquaintance with Mr. Smith's
peculiarities, entered warmly into politics, declared himself a Whig
and a firm adherent of Mr. Fox, to whom he was attached from
personal acquaintance, and personal favour with which the Right
Honourable Secretary had honoured him. His family consisted of two
young ladies arrived at their bloom, and two or three more of them
below their teens. When dinner was served up a rather vulgar-looking
person bustled in, moved to the head of the table, and set herself
down in the hostess' chair. The young ladies eyed her with looks of
scorn, and the old gentleman introduced her as Mrs. Sinclair. During
dinner she spoke but little, for she had been a servant in the
family establishment of Barrock house. In that humble sphere,
however, she was able to attract the eye of her laird and master,
and with such powerful effect as to make his attentions remarkable
during his first wife's life-time, who was then in declining health,
and but too soon after her death the menial became the second Mrs.
Sinclair of Barrock.
I called at Stempster
House. The laird was not at home, but was expected to dinner. His
lady and eldest daughter, after a very polite reception and the
offer of a glass of whisky, invited me kindly to wait his arrival.
He did come, and I dined with him. I found him to be a plain, frank,
and most gentlemanly man, full of kindly feeling, totally unaware of
my appointment as parochial teacher, but utterly unwilling to give
me any opposition. After calling upon Col. Williamson, who was my
dear stepmother's near relative, and getting his consent also to my
otherwise vague appointment, 1 returned home until Mr. Smith should
come back from the Assembly. About the middle of October thereafter
I was informed of his arrival, and again set out for Caithness by a
short rugged track across the mountains, and, again accompanied by
Robert Gunn, arrived at Bower on the evening of the same day. It was
a distance of at least 36 miles, and in the course of this long
journey we called at Braemore, at the house of one Jean Gunn, who
had been for many years dairymaid at Kildonan during the days of my
boyhood, had afterwards married one MacDonald from Skye, and resided
in this place. Jean received me with tears of joy. The best viands
were immediately produced, consisting of very thick cream mixed with
oatmeal, which Jean called an "ollag."
I resided with Mr.
Smith that winter and spring teaching the school. The winter and
spring which I passed at the manse of Bower was to me perhaps the
most disconsolate and disagreeable of any portion of the years of my
life. Mr. Smith was capricious and eccentric, "unstable as water "
also in all his plans, conferences, and habits. His meals were most
extraordinary. To breakfast we had porridge and milk, and mustard
seed mixed up with them. I now rather think that he furnished me
with this extraordinary beverage in order the more speedily to weary
me of living with him at the manse, which I perceived he neither
relished, nor had at all calculated upon. [It is more probable as
those acquainted with Mr. Smith's frugal habits know, that this was
one of his usual, favourite diets. Another Scotch dish in great
favour was aorrans—"a thick soup or jelly made from the husks or
millings of oats —a very nutritious food, called hi huglaud
flummery." (Stormonth).—Ed.] But the matter was brought at once to
the issue in the ensuing summer when, one morning, having taken down
a book placed on the mantelpiece to read it, I neglected to put it
back again precisely in the place I had found it. He flew into a
passion, and said that if I bad nothing else to employ me at his
house but to put matters into confusion, the sooner I shifted my
quarters the better. The hint was too broad not to be taken, and
that day I took my lodgings in the house of his neighbour, Peter
Keith, tasksman of Thura, where I remained until I got happily rid
of the school of Bower.
My reminiscences at
Bower go back to two or three individuals. The first is Mr. Stewart,
whom I found a guest with Mr. Smith on the first night of my
arrival. The young man was a preacher, and came to the county in the
capacity of assistant to Mr. James Smith, minister of Canisbay,
brother of the pastor at Bower. Mr. James had got disordered in his
intellect, and therefore required an assistant. Mr. W. Smith, who
was himself a most accomplished scholar, had a tolerably
well-furnished library of books. Among others, he had "Whitaker's
Life of Queen Mary," a strong defence of that unfortunate princess.
As a devoted adherent, Stewart devoured the book, and afterwards
quarrelled with many on the guilt or innocence of Queen Mary. Mr.
Smith of Canisbay recovered in the course of a few years, and Mr.
Stewart was consequently parted with. He afterwards became private
tutor in a family at Gairloch, Ross-shire, when, in a fit of
despondency, he drowned himself in Lochewe.
Dr. William Sinclair
of Freswick was also another visitor at the manse of Bower. This
most eccentric but highly-ingenious man was a relative of my own and
of Mr. Smith of Bower. He was bred to the medical profession, and,
had he turned his attention to it, would have attained eminence. His
father was also a physician, and the country people, who recollected
them both, called the elder the Red Doctor, and the younger "the
Black Doctor," from the respective colours of their hair. Dr.
William, "the Black Doctor," was an impersonation of erudition and
eccentricity. He and Mr. Ross of Clyne were fellow-students, and
also fellow-combatants against the mob both at Aberdeen and at
Thurso. On the death of John of Freswick, who lived at Dunbeath, and
was famous for the gift of second sight, Dr. William Sinclair
succeeded as heir to his estates in Caithness. By living long the
life of a bachelor, and by penurious habits, he saved so much money
as greatly to augment his already extensive property. At one time,
and in some one of his numerous manors, he used to lie in bed for
weeks and even months, sleeping away the most of his time, and
living on cold sowans, having no other attendant but an old woman,
as eccentric as himself, and well known in the neighbourhood of
Dunbeath as "Black :Nance." When he chose to eat, the meagre diet of
sowans was served up to him, and what he left of it, which often was
little enough, for he had a voracious appetite, Black Nance got, and
this she gobbled up at the fireside in his bed-room, whilst he again
betook himself to his slumbers. Her very slender portion, however,
of the meagre fare BIack Nance often attempted to increase by a
secret application to the cask where the sowaus was stored up, on
the presumption that her master was asleep. She was, however, very
frequently and rather unpleasantly convinced of her mistake in this
last particular. Freswick shut his eyes but kept awake, all the
while watching the movements of his house-keeper, and having at his
side in bed a black stick of more than ordinary length; so that when
Black Nance had arrived at the cask, and was in the act of
stretching out her hand to denude it of so much of the contents as
might eke out what she lacked of her evening meal, she was promptly
reminded of the illegality of her attempt by a sudden and rather
smart application on the crown of her head of the black stick, by
her apparently slumbering master. Foiled in this attempt to better
her commons, she went out among the people, complaining most
bitterly to them of her master for starving her. Some of them used
to give her heels of old cheeses which she most thankfully received,
and carefully secreted from her master's eye, but which, after he
fell asleep, she roasted at the fire, and joyfully regaled herself
with. One evening, after making a very tolerable repast on the heel
of a kebbuck, just as she was about half through with it, she
herself fell asleep. Freswick smelt, if he did not exactly see, what
was going on, and getting up whilst she was asleep, took it out of
tier lap, and ate it. When she awakened her first search was for the
cheese, but it was gone. "Ah," said she, shaking her fist at the
sleeper, "I even dreamt that the black dog was upon me." At other
times Freswick could travel all over the country on foot, and
quarter himself on every family whom he thought he could impose
upon. With Smith of Bower and old John Cameron of Halkirk he lived
at free quarters for many months. At last he took a fancy for the
married state, and, being often at Barrock, the whole country had it
that Miss Jean Sinclair, Barrock's second and very handsome
daughter, was to be his wedded wife. But going to Edinburgh, he
there fell in with a Miss Calder of Lynegar, whom about three weeks
after their first introduction to each other he made his wife. He
had three children by tier, the eldest of whom was a son and heir to
the estate of Freswick. Mrs. Sinclair died soon after the birth of
her last child, and her husband was inconsolable. He soon rallied,
however, and in a very few years turned again to her whom everyone
concluded to be his first choice, via., Miss Jean Sinclair of
Barrock. They were married; and whilst Mrs. Sinclair insisted that
he should reside permanently at Dunbeath Castle, he insisted on
repairing his father's old domicile at Thurso, and residing there.
There they did reside, and there both Mrs. Sinclair and he
terminated their earthly existence. Mrs. Sinclair died first.
Freswick, and one of his daughters by her, as also his eldest son by
his first marriage, survived her. He lived to the age of 90. During
his last illness he continued to be active and anxious about the
passing things of time. All the inland and mountainous parts of
Dunbeath he converted into a sheep-walk, took it into his own bands,
and turned out a numerous tenantry. Whilst on his death-bed, and
conscious of the injuries he had inflicted, he used to say, "Sandy
Gair, the godly man, has been telling the people that `the earth is
the Lord's and the fulness thereof,' but I'll show him and them that
Dunbeath is not the Lord's but mine." The hour of his dissolution,
however, at last came. He himself, from his medical skill, was fully
aware of its approach. His more intimate friends were assembled
around his dying lied. He told them that he had not full ten minutes
to live, but that he was resolved as he had lived so would he die.
He called for a glass of port wine. "Now," said he, "gentlemen, I
wish you all a good night." He swallowed the bumper of port, leaned
back on his pillow, and, after a few strong convulsive struggles,
expired. Freswick was, in his personal appearance, above the
ordinary size, exceedingly handsome, with a fine open countenance,
but over which had been superinduced an expression of recklessness.
The last time 1 saw him was at Thurso, at my father-in-law's house
in 1828. He wandered up about 10 o'clock at night, anxious to have a
chat about matters bygone, for he was a great antiquary. Mr.
Mackintosh did not wish to encourage him, and, after a few civil
words, left us both, and went to lied. About an hour afterwards I
got him away, and accompanied him to his own door.
Another of Mr. W.
Smith's visitors, whilst I lodged with him, was Captain Wemyss of
Standstill. He dined one day at the manse. He was then unmarried and
very handsome. His mother, the heiress of Southdun, was living and
residing at Standstill. Afterwards he formed an attachment to, and
subsequently married, a Miss Harriet Dunbar, second daughter of Sir
Benjamin Dunbar of Hempriggs. They had a son and two daughters, the
one married Mr. Sinclair of Forse, the other Mr. Robert Innes of
Thrumster. Poor Captain Wemyss got deranged, from which he never
fully recovered, except at brief intervals. Having retired to
private life, and taken lodgings on the banks of the Solway, he went
out one day, in a fit of insanity, to walk on the sands at ebb-tide,
but, neglecting to return in time, before the tide came in with its
usual well-known speed, he was overtaken and drowned.
I left Bower in 1811,
and went to Stempster in the capacity of private tutor. I do not
remember the length of time I resided at Stempster, but of my
intercourse with the family, and of the public and private events
involved in that period of my life, I have a distinct recollection.
Mr. Henderson of Stempster and his lady were a very amiable couple.
Mr., or Captain Henderson, as he was usually called from his holding
that rank in the local militia of the county, was a plain,
unassuming, upright country gentleman, the proprietor of an estate
which realised between £300 and £400 per annum, the best part of
which he personally farmed. In his younger years Mr. Henderson
served as midshipman on board the "Royal George," afterwards lost in
port. His father died, not an old man, and he succeeded to his
patrimonial inheritance when comparatively young. He married, in the
year 1787, a Miss Duthy, daughter of Mr. Duthy of Arduthy in the
"How of the llearns." Soon after his marriage he took the farm of
Tister in his immediate neighbourhood, and on such terms that he
could easily enough have become the proprietor. By the profits of
the farm he was enabled to improve his estate, to build a
manor-house, and to lay up the balance as bank stock at Thurso. A
bank-agent of the neighbourhood was, before his appointment, obliged
to find securities. Unfortunately for Captain Henderson he became
one of them, and in consequence his money was lost. Mrs. Henderson
was amiable and good-looking. While fond of argument on any subject,
she had a tender conscience on religion. They had nine children—sons
and daughters. David, the eldest son, was then in the army and in
Spain. Alexander, their second son, also got a commission in the
army, and having, with many of his brother officers, been put on
board an old leaky transport, he was wrecked and drowned. William
got into the navy, and has, since then, by his merit and gallantry,
risen to distinction. Margaret, the eldest daughter, was then a
Iively young lady of nineteen, the image of her father. The rest of
the family, Mary, Johan, James, and Peter were my pupils. My
recollections of the treatment I met with from members of the family
of Stempster are most pleasing. As parents they were both judicious
and affectionate, as children docile and submissive. In the
discharge of my duties as teacher, however, I never had reason to be
satisfied with myself. I regret how little I then made the
instruction of my pupils a matter of conscience before God, and how
my natural heat of temper disqualified me from being a successful
teacher of youth. Indeed, I must note this period of my life as that
during which I was least tinder the influence of divine truth. It
was not merely that I was not religious, but I was an enemy to
religion, and my hostility to it rested solely on the ground of the
stern and uncompromising opposition which its pure precepts
uniformly gave to my own corrupt nature and propensities. In this
hopeless state of mind, too, I was confirmed by everything around
me. Religious truth, as publicly taught in two of the neighbouring
parishes at which we attended on alternate Sabbaths, rather
confirmed me in, than convinced me of, my moral obliquities. Mr.
Smith, the minister of one of these parishes, was both a talented
man and an accomplished scholar. But his religion, both in the
pulpit and out of it, was, at best, but the mere caprice of the
moment. He had, in his public prayers, a volubility and variety of
words and expression, and even of ideas, such as they were, which
bad nothing of the spirit of devotion. No one could ever have
conceived that he was addressing his Creator, but rather that lie
was exhibiting like a mountebank on the boards of a platform. Then,
in his sermons and expository Iectures on scripture, he was always
straining after something curious, or sarcastic, or puzzling, or
even profane. There was no unction, no edification, no solemnity,
not even sound scripture doctrine, but a sort of nondescript jumble
of everything that might be said or fancied on the text, however in
themselves either absurd or contradictory. Then his private
devotions, as well as conversations with his people, were equally
frivolous and flighty. He had an odd habit of marching down from his
house to the church, at a certain fixed hour in the evening, both in
summer and winter, for the purpose of reading, or rather chanting
aloud and alone, the Hebrew Psalter, concluding the whole with a
long prayer, which he uttered aloud. The locality about the manse
and church was exceedingly wet in winter, and cut up in all
directions with quagmires of very considerable depth. On one
occasion, and in the pitchy gloom of a December night, I saw him
coming in at his door, covered over from his crown to his feet soles
with slime, and exhibiting the most grotesque and ludicrous
appearance imaginable. The cause of the mishap was that, whilst
engaged in church in the dark, he had been suddenly interrupted by
some urchins who had crept up on the church couples, and in the love
of fun had, right above him, uttered some unearthly yells. This so
terrified him that he rushed out at the church door, and in passing
through the gate of the churchyard, he stumbled headlong into a deep
ditch crossing it at the threshold, whence, after floundering about
in order to get to his legs again, he came home at last in the
plight already mentioned. If any of his parishioners conversed with
him on light or secular subjects, he changed the conversation at
once into that of a grave and solemn cast; and if any of them spoke
to him about the state of their minds, or the concerns of their
souls, he turned the whole at once into a jest. His co-presbyter,
Mr. John Cameron of Halkirk, was his twin brother in levity and
folly. I have already twice made mention of him. But whilst at
Stempster I was often his hearer. Nothing could be more irreverent
or unedifying than his appearance in the pulpit. He had a
stuttering, rapid utterance, slurring his words so much as to make
them unintelligible, or, if they were understood, they were so
perfectly ludicrous as often to set his audience a-laughing. He
usually read his English sermons. The manuscripts were at least 40
years old, the crude lucubrations of his younger years, whilst the
deep yellow hue of the leaves, and their tattered and rounded
corners, bore occular testimony to their antiquity. He was
diminutive in person, had an ill-combed shock of grey hair coming
down on his forehead and shoulders, with a countenance strongly
expressive of levity, drollery, profanity, and folly. He died at the
manse of Halkirk, on the 8th of Dec., 1822, at the advanced age of
88. Under the ministrations of two such men, from the existing state
of my own mind, I had no prospect or opportunity of improvement, and
religion, distasteful to myself, was thus presented to me in the
very light which of all others was most calculated to make it more
so. Besides, the family at Stempster, although naturally as amiable,
kind, and hospitable as all their intimates and friends could wish
them to be, were destitute of even the forms of either personal or
family devotion. They did not relish their parish minister; their
discontent did not arise from any want which they discovered in him
of fidelity and spiritual power as a preacher, but because they
considered him, as the laird often pronounced him to be, "a
wrong-headed man." The society in which they moved was also worldly
and secular. Religion was never mentioned except to sneer at, or to
argue against.
The families and
individuals with whom I became acquainted at Stcmpster I can but
cursorily mention. All the clergy without exception I both knew and
visited. Mr. Sutherland of Wick, a hospitable landlord, his amiable
wife, and their two daughters, Misses Mary and Margaret; Mr.
Macintosh of Thurso, my future father-in-law, his wife, and then
very young family, of whom my present wife was one; Mr. Jolly of
Dnnnet, whom I often visited on Saturday, remaining until Sabbath
afternoon to meet John Dunn, my old college companion whom I had
formerly known in Sutherland, when tutor at Wester. Helmisdale, and
who, afterwards, became parochial schoolmaster at Dunnet. Mrs. Jolly
brought her husband a large family of sons, with each and all of
whom I became acquainted. The late Mr. George Mackenzie of Olrig,
Mr. David Mackay of Ilcay, Mr. Alexander Gunn of Watten, and Mr.
James Smith of Canisbav were acquaintances at whose manses I was
often kindly received and hospitably entertained. The laity whom I
met as guests at Stempster or elsewhere were, the present Earl of
Caithness, then Lord Berriedale, Sheriff Traill, his sons and
daughters, Col. Williamson, who then resided at Oldfield, near
Thurso; Mr. Tunes of Sandside; Mr. John Miller, merchant at Thurso,
who was married to a sister of the minister of Bower, and his
brother, Donald Miller, tacksman of Skinnet. I also met Captain
Swanson at Gerston, a laughing, jovial fellow; John Horne of
Stirkoke; Bailie \facLeay at Nick; Major Williamson at Reiss; George
Sinclair Sutherland at Brabster; and I)r. Henderson of Clyth. With
Mr. John Gordon of Swiney, my cousin-gerrnan, I of ten spent days
and weeks at his house in Caithness, and afterwards at Fortrose. Of
Mr. Gordon my recollections both at Swiney and at Fortrose, are most
vivid He was well-informed, and had travelled much on the continent.
He resided at Fortrose for some time to get his children educated.
Whilst there his second daughter Catherine died, and his third
daughter Fairly married one Young, then Town-clerk, and in good
circumstances. Swiney himself died at his own house in 1825. I
remained about two years at Stempster. My father visited me whilst
there. He spent a day at Stempster. His sound, Christian advice to
me on that occasion I still reverentially remember. Mr. Milne, then
schoolmaster at Wick and a I.reacher, who afterwards married a
daughter of Mr. Sutherland of Wick, often officiated for Mr. Smith
during his absence. Mr. Milne was a dull, evangelical, but unmeaning
preacher—a mere gospel parrot. lie afterwards, on the death of Mr.
James Smith, became minister of Canisbay. Mr. Wm. Munro,
schoolmaster at Thurso, also frequently officiated for the minister
of Bower. He was a native of Reay, and had, with many others, been
aided in the prosecution of his studies by the worthy and
philanthropic Mr. David Mackay, minister of that parish.
The public events
during my residence at Stempster were the Spanish war and the
campaigns of the Duke of Wellington. Stempster's eldest son was in
the Duke of Wellington's army, and the progress of the campaign, its
bloody contests, and its doubtful issue, filled his parents with the
most intense anxiety. Col. Williamson's two sons were also thare—Duadd
and Jamas, both of whom were killed, the one at Burgos, the other at
Badajoz. Captain Donald Williamson, the elder son, I have seen at
Stempster, a most elegant youth, but thoughtless and extravagant. He
soon afterwards joined his regiment in Spain. His brother was killed
as he was cheering on his men to the assault at the scige of Burgos.
He himself fell at Badajoz in a forlorn hope expedition for which he
volunteered his services. Captain Sinclair Davidson, the eldest son
of Mr. Davidson of Bukkies, Sir John Sinclair's quondam factor, fell
in the Spanish war, with many more of the natives of Caithness. |
