Silence falls upon the gay deck of the floating palace, as, with
quickly pulsing paddles, she throbs on amid the solitude of these dark
waters under the mountains. Far away to the south behind, like silver
in the sunshine, lies the open sea chased by the wind; but above the
narrowing channel in front the rugged Bens, sombre and vast, frown
down upon the invader. Purple-apparelled these Bens are now, like
allied kings asleep after their battles with the storm-giants of the
North. For the black waves in winter leap here savagely, and gnash
their gleaming teeth against the mountain-sides; the storm-winds roar
in anger as they buffet the iron breasts of their captors; and the
silent frost strains with his strong embrace to crack the great ribs
of the Titans. But the everlasting hills live on, and the sunshine
kisses them again and the summer rain weeps upon their scars, while
their children, the dwellers about their feet, look up and learn to
love them for their memories with a love strong as life itself. Many a
Highland heart failed long ago on the march through the Egyptian desert
when the pipes wailed out “Lochaber no more.” These are the great
mountains of Lochaber rising huge against the sky in front; and even
the gay tourist, here on the sunny deck, feels a silence gather about
his heart as he is borne on under their shadows. The young bride by the
companion-way nestles closer to her husband as, with grave blue eyes,
she gazes upon the solemn loneliness of the hills.
But listen! Do you hear? Wild and sweet in the distance over the
water comes the sound. It is the pipes, and they are playing “Flora
Macdonald’s Lament.” Yonder, down near the shore--you can make them
out through the glass--a shooting party has picnicked, and they have
brought the piper with them. How the colour deepens on the cheek of
the old Highland gentleman here at the sound! He is just returning
from many years’ residence abroad, and for the last hour, leaning over
the deck-rail, he has been feasting his heart upon the sight of the
mountains. “There is no music like that music,” he exclaims, “over the
water and among the hills.” To a Highlander, indeed, the sound of the
pipes is full of many memories, like “the sough of the south wind in
the trees” of an autumn night. The folk on deck who are from the south
will know something of it now perhaps. Yesterday, no doubt, some of
them supposed the ragged vagabond who strutted and blew on a pier-head
as the steamer passed, a specimen of the pibroch-players. They should
see a chief’s own hereditary piper march on the castle terrace,
cairngorm and silver gleaming about him, ribbons streaming on the wind,
and tartans afloat!
And the steamer draws in to the little wooden pier under the mountain,
where the horses are waiting. A quiet and peaceful spot it is, with
the clear green waves washing in among the shining, clinging mussels,
to break upon the dark blue shingle. Only twice a day is the peaceful
murmur of these waters broken upon by the coming of the great palace
steamers, when there is a momentary stir and excitement, the gleam
of white dresses as visitors come ashore, and the getting of the few
mail-bags on board. Then presently with churning paddles the steamer
departs up the loch, leaving behind it on the dark waters a long trail
of foam; the visitors stow themselves like clustering bees upon the
high coaches that are in waiting; and the place falls a-dreaming again
amid the coming and going of the tides.
The five horses in the foremost coach to-day are quite fresh, and as
the steamer was half an hour late, they have grown restive under the
reins. The driver now, however, after looking behind to see that all
is secure, makes his whip crack like a rifle shot, and with prancing
leader and gallant clatter of hoofs the cavalcade moves off. Above, the
mountain-side, tufted with heather and bracken and dark with trees,
overhangs the road, and from the high box-seat one might drop an acorn
into the waves that wash the foot of the precipice forty feet below.
After the throbbing deck of the great steamer, and the oily smell of
engines and cook’s galley, it is pleasant to be bowling along a firm
road with the honey-scent of the heather in the air, and--yes, it is
quite certain--the fragrance of peat smoke. For as the road turns
inland the village opens to view, a double line of dark blue dwellings
along the mountain foot. Cold, perhaps, these cottages look to a
southern eye accustomed to warm red brick; but in winter, when the
storms come roaring down the glens, and the hills are hidden by falling
snow, the hearths within, heaped with glowing sea-coal and peat, are
cosy enough for all that. Then the brown fishermen, home from the
herring harvest of the North Sea, talk over the year’s success as they
mend their gear by the fireside, and swarthy fellows shut out by the
snowdrifts from their work in the great slate quarries on the mountain,
gather to hear the week-old news that has come by the trading steamer.
Just now it is only women and children who come to the doors to see the
coach go past.
The horses dash on at a gallop through the village and into the mouth
of the great glen that opens, rugged and wild and dark, in front.
Between the mountain walls of that deep and lonely pass reigns an
awful silence now, broken only by the far-off cry of the curlew and
the beating of the wild-bird’s wing. Unsought in the corries, the
hazel-nuts are ripening and the rowan clusters growing red; while along
the misty precipices, the eagles, undisturbed, are teaching their
young to fly. All here to-day is desolation, for hand of man has not
tilled the spot since the terrible night, two hundred years ago, when
the valley was swept with fire and sword, and a hundred hearths, the
dwellings of its devoted clan, were buried in smoking ruins. Foul lies
that dark deed at its perpetrators’ door, and its memory remains a blot
upon their name.
Gleams of sunshine lie golden on the steep mountain-sides to-day, and
the purple heather warms them with its bloom; but a storm was raging
through the pass on that awful winter night, and snow lay thick upon
the ground, when shriek and musket-shot told that the unsuspecting
clansmen were being murdered by their guests--guests, too, who,
though soldiers, were their own neighbours and relations. Tottering
old men and lisping children were butchered here then to avenge
the baulked ambition of a cruel statesman; and heart-broken women,
clasping helpless infants to their breasts, fled shrieking from their
blood-stained hearths to perish amid the storm.
[Illustration]
And the coach with its holiday occupants will drive at a gallop to the
head of the glen, and some one will make a jest upon the bard’s choice
of an abode when Ossian’s cave is pointed out, high up in the precipice
face. But the heart of the young bride will fill with world-old pity
as she sees, mouldering among the heather in the valley, the ruins of
once happy homes; and when the coach comes down again there will be
tears perhaps in her eyes as she gazes at the chief’s house, and is
told how the rude soldiers, after shooting her brave old lord before
her eyes, tore the gold wedding-ring with their teeth from the finger
of MacIan’s wife, and thrust her out, trembling with age and grief, to
die of her agony in the snow. For on the loch-shore at the entrance to
the glen, the house of the chief stands yet, silent, haunted by its
memories, amid the trees--
Where Sorrow broods in silence evermore
Among the shadows of eternal hills,
While at her feet sobs the unceasing sea.