OBAN AND GLENCOE--CHAPTERS IN HISTORY
Oban is the heart’s delight for a tourist, provided he does not arrive
when the hotels are overcrowded. If one can get a room upon the high
ridge overlooking the shining waters, he will have a view that is
inspiring.
One can reach Oban either by the Caledonian Railway, by way of Stirling
and Callander, or on the water through the Crinan Canal. This is an
artificial highway, nine miles long, which was cut to avoid the much
longer passage of seventy miles round the Mull of Cantyre, when going
from Glasgow to Inverness. This shorter canal was excavated toward the
end of the eighteenth century, but its life has not been without those
accidents which we, from digging the Panama Canal, have learned are
inevitable. In 1859, after a heavy rain, one of the three reservoirs
which supply the canal, the highest being eight hundred feet above the
canal, burst. The torrent of water rushing down the mountain-slope
washed away part of the bank and filled the canal with earth and stones
for upwards of a mile. Nevertheless, both the Crinan and Caledonian
Canals pay well, and from the surplus earnings are kept in good order.
At Oban, sheltered and with a delightful climate, we look out upon the
pretty little island of Kerrera, an old fortress of the MacDougalls,
which now serves for use as well as beauty. It not only screens the
town from the Atlantic gales, but virtually converts the bay into a
land-locked harbor.
Instead of the little village and fishing-station, which Dr. Johnson
looked upon in 1773, Oban is now a bustling town, which is very lively
and crowded in summer, withal the paradise of the tourist and shopper.
Here any _pater familias_, with loose change in his pocket, when
travelling with his wife and daughters, is apt to be, on entering one
of those splendid shops, as wax in their loving hands. Silks, plaids,
gay woollens, delightful things of all sorts in dry goods--which ladies
especially can so well appreciate--are here in luxurious abundance,
and at prices that do not seem to soar too high. As for tartans, one
can study in color and pattern not only a whole encyclopædia of the
heraldry of the clans, but may be shown combinations of checks and
stripes, wrought into tartans never known in dream, use, or history, by
any Highland clan. Nevertheless these unhistorical and expensive plaids
are delightful to look at and will make “cunning” sashes and “lovely”
dress goods.
Not the least of our pleasant memories of Oban are associated with
those wonderful products of the loom. Whether coming from the splendid
machinery of the great mills, built with the aid of capital and thus
reaching the highest perfection of craftsmanship joined to the last
refinement of invention and experiment, or simply the handwork of the
crofters in the distant isles, these tartans show a wonderful evolution
of national art. From many women and girls on the islands far out at
sea, without much of human society and whose dumb friends are but dogs,
cattle, and sheep, come reminders of their industry and taste that are
touching to both one’s imagination and sympathies. Let us hope that not
too much of the profits of this cottage industry goes into the hands of
those who control the trade. Let the worker be the first partaker of
the fruits of his toil.
In going up by water through Scotland’s great glen and canal, at our
leisure, we shall stop at the places worth seeing. Moreover, the
twenty-eight locks forming “Neptune’s Staircase” will enable us to
alternate pedestrianism with life on deck. First, after a ride of an
hour and a half, we come to the town called Ballaculish. It has an
imposing situation at the entrance of Loch Leven, and is not far away
from the wild glen, which has left, in its name and associations, such
a black spot on the page of Scotland’s annals during the reign of
William III.
With our Boston and Buffalo friends, we chatted over British
politics in the past, reopening leaves of history, as we steamed to
Ballaculish, or progressed on our way on wheels to Glencoe. Except
shops and hotels, and the old slate quarries, by which the roofs of the
world are covered,--since the quarries send many million roofing slates
abroad every year,--there is little to see in this town on the loch.
Next day we mounted the top of the stage-coach, which was equipped with
plenty of seats and was geared to fine horses, and started for our ride
into the upper and lower valleys of Glencoe, which form a ravine about
eight miles long. Accompanying us was the mountain stream called the
Cona, that is, “the dark Cona” of Ossian’s poems, while the scarred
sides of the hills show the beds of numerous mountain torrents. These,
in springtime, must display an impressive activity. Halfway up the
glen, the stream forms a little loch. Toward Invercoe, the landscape
acquires a softer beauty. Lord Strathcona of Canada had not yet, in
1900, purchased the heritage of the Macdonalds of Glencoe, or built
his stately mansion. Yet the wild glen is well worth seeing, either by
starting from the northeastern base or by coming up from Ballaculish.
We spent a half-hour in “Ossian’s Cave.”
All natural associations, however, whether weird or beautiful, and
even the Cave of Ossian faded into insignificance compared with the
thrilling story of the terrible massacre of February 13, 1690, when
six score soldiers, most of them of Campbell’s clan, who had a personal
spite against the Macdonalds, lived for twelve days in the glen, in
order to become all the more successful murderers in the end. After
receiving the hospitality of the villagers, they began early in the
morning, before daylight, the massacre of men, women, and children. The
work of butchery was finished by fire and the flocks and herds were
driven off.
From childhood we had heard this story. Who that has lived in
Schenectady, New York, which suffered a like fate with Glencoe, during
“King William’s War,” or who has studied, without family prejudice, the
episode of Jacob Leisler, the people’s champion on Manhattan, but has
heard of the many horrors for which William was blamed and unjustly
condemned?
What was the share of King William III in this Glencoe transaction?
The subject has been discussed in pamphlets and books. Turning to
Macaulay, the Whig historian,--since historiography, as with Grote,
for example, is often political pamphletism,--who found his greatest
hero in the Dutch Deliverer, we are told that His Majesty knew of the
Macdonalds only as a rebellious clan who had rejected his conciliatory
offers. The Government had, in good season, fixed the day for rebellion
to cease, and in signing the order for their extirpation, His Majesty
merely meant that the existence of the clan as a predatory gang should
be broken up. Indeed, their stronghold had long been called “a den of
thieves.” William did not know that the certificates of loyalty to the
throne, made in correct form by MacIan, the chief of the Macdonalds at
Glencoe, had been delayed for a week after the date of possible pardon,
and that this certificate had been suppressed so that when he signed
the order of attack, he was ignorant of the situation. It is not for us
to give judgment in the case.
On the second visit our travel mate, Frances, on seeing the dark glen,
felt like a child entering into a haunted chamber, almost expecting the
ghosts of the Macdonalds to rise up and call for justice.
Nevertheless, while twice visiting Glencoe, and still again and more,
when in Ireland, in 1913, I wondered why no complete life of William
III, King of England and Stadholder of the Dutch Republic, and one of
England’s best rulers, had ever been written. Pamphlets, sketches,
materials to serve, biographical chapters there are, but no work at
once scholarly and exhaustive. There is abundant material for such
a biography, and if written with historical accuracy and literary
charm, it would be not only a great contribution to literature, but
would serve to allay prejudices that still rankle. Such a work, so
greatly needed, would help to solve some of those terrible problems
generated by age-long misrule and misunderstanding, that have made
Ireland the weakest spot in the British Empire and a reproach to
English government. It may even be true to assert that the political
condition of Ireland in 1913 was one of the potent causes precipitating
war in Europe. Personally, I believe, from having studied the life
of King William, from documents in Holland and England, that he is
not responsible for one half of the cruelties with which the Irish
Nationalists, mostly of alien form of faith, charge him. Nor does he
deserve the censure and reproach which so many Scottish writers and
prejudiced Englishmen have heaped upon him. Nor could he possibly have
been the “sour” Calvinist of popular tradition. From his reign the Free
Churchmen date their freedom.
It is not at all creditable that such a hiatus exists in the library
of English biography, for the fame of William is as surely and as
constantly increasing as is that of William Pitt, Millard Fillmore,
and Abraham Lincoln. In 1914 a new statue of this royal statesman
was reared and dedicated in one of the towns of England. It was
this champion of representative government who, with sword and pen,
curbed in Louis XIV of France that same spirit of ambition which was
manifested by Philip II and has been shown by William of Germany. The
Stadtholder of Holland saved Europe to the principles of Magna Charta
and of constitutional government.
Just before our first visit to Scotland, Quandril had been reading
Scott’s story of “Aunt Margaret’s Mirror,” the scenes of which romance
are laid in Lady Stair’s house and “close.” Since that time Marjorie
Bowen has put in fiction some of the salient incidents of the king’s
life, and thus brought him to the notice of many tens of thousands of
readers to whom he had been previously but a name. The novel entitled
“The Master of Stair” treats of the Glencoe incident, with great detail
and with wonderful vividness and great literary power. The title of the
book is identical with that of the title of Sir James Dalrymple, first
Viscount of Stair, who must bear the blame of the odious transaction,
for he was undoubtedly the principal adviser of the king, and was
perhaps personally responsible for the treachery and cruelty which
accompanied the deed. It was he who urged this method of extirpation
as an effective way of repressing rebellion in the Highlands. In spite
of his great services to the State, this stain upon his name cannot be
effaced. He is buried in the church of St. Giles in Edinburgh.
As for Claverhouse, or “Claver’se,” as the common folks pronounce his
name,--the “Bonnie Dundee” of Scott’s rollicking cavalry song,--he
still bears with many the Gaelic name given him, which means “Dark
John of the Battles.” How highly King William appreciated the military
abilities of one whom he had known in the Belgic Netherlands as a
soldier of fortune in the Dutch army, and who is said to have there,
on one occasion, saved William’s life, is shown, when on hearing the
news of the death, at Killiecrankie, of his friend, Claverhouse, the
Viscount of Dundee, who had become his enemy, he remarked, “Dundee is
slain. He would otherwise have been here to tell the news himself.”
At Drumclog, near Loudon Hill, where the Covenanters obtained a
temporary victory over Claverhouse, a stone has been erected to
commemorate the triumph. For many years an annual sermon, on the 1st of
June, was preached on the field. Perhaps this may even yet be the case,
but, under the shadow of the great world-war of the twentieth century,
it is probable that these local anniversaries suffer, are ignored, or
their celebrations are postponed to a happier time.
Happily for Scotland’s people, they have the gift of song, which
lightens many labors. Even on the days we visited Glencoe’s dark
ravine, we heard, toward the end of the afternoon, sounds of melody
from the toilers in the grain-fields. It came like a burst of sunshine
after a dark and cloudy day.
This inborn love of music among the Highlanders was shown when the
women reaped the grain and the men bound up the sheaves. The strokes
of the sickle were timed by the modulations of the harvest song, by
which all their voices were united. The sight and sound recalled the
line in Campbell’s poem, “The Soldier’s Dream,” committed to memory in
boyhood:--
“I heard my own mountain goats bleating aloft,
And knew the sweet strain that the corn reapers sung.”
“They accompany in the Highlands every action, which can be done in
equal time, with an appropriate strain, which has, they say, not much
meaning, but the effects are regularity and cheerfulness,” writes
the historian of Scottish music. The ancient song, by which the
rowers of galleys were animated, may be supposed to have been of this
metrical kind and synchronous. There is an oar song still used by the
Hebridians, and we all recall the boat song in “The Lady of the Lake,”
which begins:--
“Hail to the chief who in triumph advances.”
Finely, in “Marmion,” is the story of rhythmic motion joined to song to
lighten labor, told by Fitz-Eustace, the squire, concerning the lost
battle, on which Scott comments, with an American reference:--
“Such have I heard, in Scottish land,
Rise from the busy harvest band,
When falls before the mountaineer,
On lowland plains, the ripened ear.
Now one shrill voice the notes prolong,
Now a wild chorus swells the song;
Oft have I listened, and stood still,
As it came softened up the hill,
And deemed it the lament of men
Who languished for their native glen;
And thought, how sad would be such sound,
On Susquehanna’s swampy ground,
Kentucky’s wood-encumbered brake,
Or wild Ontario’s boundless lake;
Where heart-sick exiles, in the strain,
Recalled fair Scotland’s hills again!”
Yet it is not in secular music only that the Scots excel. They have
also a rich treasury of devotion and praise, though for centuries the
superabundance of song which had only worldly associations and was
linked with the lower pleasures made them put superfine value on the
Hebrew Psalms as being most fit for the soul’s utterance before the
Infinite.