"The clouds love to rest on this mountain's dark breast, Ere they
journey afar o'er the boundless blue sea."
A solitary hill--and O! if it could but speak, what tales it could tell:
eeriesome, drearisome tales, tales of intrigue and plot, plot domestic
and plot political, tales of battle and slaughter and strife--for not a
glen for miles and miles around it, not a moorland, not a hill the
heather on which has not over and over again been dyed with the blood of
fiercely fighting foemen.
Nor were the struggles that took place among these hills and forests and
glens of merely local importance; for Aberdeenshire has cut as deep
notches in the history of this country as any other shire I wot of.
Down yonder is Bruce's howe, or cave, by the side of the Don at
Ardtannies, celebrated in history as the place where the sick king lay,
broken in health and fortune, and where he had his memorable interview
with the spider, which so raised his hopes that he feared not shortly
after to sally forth, give battle to and defeat the fierce, false Cumyn.
Then Bruce laid Buchan waste. After this the whole North of Scotland
soon owned his sway, and five years after the sanguinary battle of
Inverurie here Bannockburn was fought, and Scotland freed of its
would-be conquerors.
But to-day we are seated on the very edge of the great battle-field of
Harlaw.
This battle was fought here on a summer's day in July 1411. The Duke of
Albany, then regent of the kingdom, had managed by hook or by crook--
more likely it was by crook--to secure the earldom of Ross to his son
John Stewart, Earl of Buchan, although by rights it belonged to the wife
of Donald, Lord of the Isles. Now Donald did not see any reason why he
should submit to so barefaced a robbery. The Donalds and the McDonalds
of the Isles have always been a bold and straightforward set of billies.
The reader may remember the anecdote that is related of one of these
Lords of the Isles. At a royal feast, having entered somewhat late, he
had seated himself at the far end of the board, seeing which the king
sent a messenger to ask him to come and sit by him, at the head of the
table.
"Tell his Majesty," was the reply, given loud enough for all to hear,
"that wherever McDonald o' the Isles sits is _the_ head of the table."
Donald of the Isles sent the fiery cross through the length and breadth
of his domains, and soon crossed into the mainland at the head of his
followers. He fought and conquered at Dingwall. Then captured
Inverness, swept through the Highlands, and encamped here at Harlaw,
determined to push on next day and attack the Aberdonians in their city
of granite.
"Give their roofs to the flames,
And their flesh to the eagles."
Donald had reckoned without his host, however. That host was the bold
Earl of Mar, who with a splendid little army of not more than a thousand
men, officered by the flower of the county, hurried out and gave Donald
battle here on the hill-head of Harlaw. Donald's wild followers
numbered 10,000, though they were badly armed. But it was Greek to
Greek, it was Scot to Scot, and the conflict was a terrible one.
As I look around me on this lovely autumn evening, my imagination can
easily depict the conflict and people the plain once more with the brave
knights, and men-at-arms, the mailed Lowlanders that made up the
battalions of Mar, and with the wild kilted warriors that formed the
hosts of Donald of the West.
Yonder is Mar himself leading the centre fight, on his right the
Gordons, Leiths and Leslies, on his left the Keiths and Forbeses, and
many other brave clans; all feuds are forgotten for a time, they make
common cause against the foe. The Highlanders fight on foot, armed only
with dirk and sword, the Lowlanders ride them down and hew them down in
hundreds, but the odds against them are fearful; all day even till
nightfall the battle rages, when in the darkness Donald draws off the
remainder of his forces and slowly retreats by Ben-na-chie; leaving
nearly one thousand dead on the field, while Mar is left presumably
master thereof, but too sore beaten and far too weak to leave it.
The terrible nature of the struggle may be gleaned from the fact that of
the thousand Lowland knights and men-of-arms, who had entered the
battle, hardly four hundred remained alive. What a sad day for the
gentry of Angus and Mearns! In many cases every male of the house was
slain. Leslie of Balquhain fell with every one of his six bold sons,
and besides others, Sir James Scrymgeour, Sir Alexander Ogilvie and son,
the Constable of Dundee, the Provost of Aberdeen, Sir Alexander Irvine,
Sir Thomas Moray, Gilbert de Greenlaw, Sir Robert Maul, etc, etc.
But Donald was conquered and Aberdeen was saved.
Just a word about the Ury for the reader's sake, for who knows but these
lines I write may lead some tourist who is fond of the romantic, fond of
the beautiful, and fond of fishing, to sojourn for a time in these
sequestered glens.
The trout-fishing then of the Ury and of many a brawling wee burn around
here, and which are literally alive "wi sonsy fish," can easily be
obtained on application to the magistrates, and the kindly landlady of
the Kintore Arms has also liberty to grant the boon to those who make
her house their home.
"The Ury," says Skinner, "moves onward in noiseless sweetness, winding
and winding, as if aware of its own brief course, and all unwilling to
leave the braes that hap the heroes of Harlaw. By-and-by it creeps
mournfully past the sequestered graveyard of Inverurie, and kisses the
Bass, and is then swallowed up in the blue waters of the Don."
The Bass is a small round hill evidently made by human hands, and
supposed to be the burial-place of an ancient Pictish king. I visit the
quiet graveyard. I have reasons for doing so--sad ones. I might say
with Thom--
"Move noiseless, gently Ury, around yon grassy bed,
And I'll love thee, gentle Ury, where'er my footsteps tread;
For sooner shall thy fairy wave return from yonder sea,
Than I forget yon lowly grave and all it hides from me."
The roads here are glorious, and what matter the hills when the air is
so fresh and invigorating; if there are braes that one must walk up,
there are also braes down which one can roll, at any speed one pleases
without a touch on treadle. And how delightful it is to linger on these
breezy hill-tops, and while positively drinking in health with every
breath of the ozone-laden air, leisurely, dreamily scan the bold and
matchless panorama spread out before us.
Yonder is Ben-na-chie again. You never can get past Ben-na-chie. Go
where you like in this region, it is always frowning over your path just
before you, or alongside, or on the horizon to the right or to the left.
There is "an ower true story" connected with that mountain which might
well and easily furnish subject-matter for a three-volume novel. The
Earl of Mar's Master of Horse at the Harlaw was a Sir Thomas Leslie, of
Balquhain, a wild and lawless man of unbridled passions. On the very
summit of yonder mountain he built a fortress, to which he was in the
habit of carrying off young women of beauty sufficient to attract him.
One of these was Chief Allan's daughter, the Fair Maid of Strathdon. In
like manner his son bore away the Fair Maid of Kemnay, who was betrothed
to young Sir John Forbes of Drumminnon. Sir John soon after attacked
and burned the mansion or castle of Balquhain, and Sir Andrew Leslie, in
revenge, sallied down from his fortress and laid waste the lands of the
Forbeses with fire and sword. So much for the Fair Maid of Kemnay, and
here is the village itself. High up on a table-land it is situated,
among pine-woods and quarries, every house is a charming cottage, built
of the whitest of granite. Surely poverty is unknown in such a place,
and people here must live for a century at the very least! I'd like to
come to Kemnay some time and live for a month in perfect peace, far from
the bustle and worry of city life; to live and laze, and fish and
dream--perchance to write a book.
Almost buried among trees is Monymusk, as primitive in every way as the
grand old hills around it, with only one hotel, or rather inn, but a
very cosy one; and O! so quiet is everything here, that in the silence
of the night, gazing from the _coupe_ when the moon was silvering the
mountain-tops, I have positively heard the field-mice sneeze.
About a quarter of a mile from Monymusk is New Paradise, a kind of a
sylvan fairy-land. Here are miles of charming walks, here are
rustic-seats, and wells, and streams and bridges, and arbours, and a
lake, the whole embosomed in woods, in which are many a bosky dell
beloved of birds and all kinds of wild forest creatures. There are
little glades, where ferns and brackens grow nearly ten feet high; it is
sweet to see the soft evening sunshine shimmering down from among the
trees, and falling on these, their greenery relieved by patches of warm
autumn brown, and by the crimson lights of tall foxgloves.
Do lovers come here in the evening? We never see them. We have the
sweet place all to ourselves, and when we want to change the scene we
journey farther on, and soon enter a gloomy defile or forest ravine.
This is Paradise Old. Its gateway is a huge jawbone of a whale; for
anything I know to the contrary, it may have been the identical whale
that swallowed up Jonah. The tourist, at all events, feels swallowed up
as soon as he has entered. The long avenue that lies before him is one
of the most remarkable in Scotland. It is on moss you are walking, at
each side are trees--larches, spruces, and firs, as straight as arrows,
and fully one hundred and twenty feet in height, the stems of which two
men can hardly touch fingers round. To your right, dimly seen, is the
roaring Don, beyond it cliffs and braes, covered with forest and fern,
heather and blaeberries.
You come at last to a large circle of gigantic beeches and limes,
eighteen in all, inside which seats and tables have been placed, though
they are now but little used.
The most remarkable thing about these wondrous trees is that they have
grown almost straight, their stems are mighty pillars, and even their
branches have gone upwards, skywards, as if seeking the light, the
result being a vast and leafy colosseum forming a dome for over a
hundred feet high.
The silence is unbroken save for the steady hum of the river, or the
occasional cry of some wild bird, and as he looks upwards or gazes
around him, a feeling of awe steals over the beholder, which cannot be
repressed.
There is in the valley of the majestic Don many a village where the
tourist might dwell for a time with a certainty of enjoyment. The
scenery everywhere is grand and noble; it is all a classic land, and
eminently historical; in every glen a battle has been fought, every
parish has its castle ruins, every castle has a story of its own, and be
you artist, author, actor, or antiquary, or merely an invalid seeking
rest and health, you cannot do better than visit--
"The banks and braes o' bonnie Don."