from his kin. Rob Roy is understood to be buried at the Kirkton of
Balquhidder, his grave marked by a timeworn stone, sculptured in some
more hoary age. There are tombs in better case ascribed to his wife and
to one of his sons. Another ancient slab is said to commemorate the
first Christian missionary of these glens that were so slowly lit by the
spirit of the new faith, where the most binding oath was on the dirk,
yet a man feared to break vows made on the tomb of this shadowy St
Angus. A more pretentious monument recalls the Maclarens, those older
lords of Roderick Dhu’s country, where yet a Gaelic rhyme boasted that
“the hills, the waters and the sons of Alpin were the three oldest
things in Alban.”
The stage of such stirring lives has become a favourite tourist scene of
Scotland, visited not only by bailies from the Saltmarket, but by
stockbrokers from Capel Court, and by bosses from the United States, who
have nothing to be afraid of but the chance of not finding room in the
trains, coaches, and places of entertainment that now open up this land
of lovely lakes and streams. If any of Rob Roy’s descendants be alive
to-day, they are like to present hotel bills instead of sword points to
the Osbaldistones and Captain Thorntons of our generation. Some of them
may be thanking Sassenach sportsmen for tips; and some, with more
fidelity than the Dougal cratur, may be tramping the streets of Glasgow
as policemen. Times are indeed changed. We no longer carry off our
neighbour’s cattle, nor his wife, nor his widow, nor anything that can
be protected by the police. We harry him only under forms of law; we get
the best of him in the market; we cheat him by tricks of trade; we
peacefully poison him with quack drugs and adulterated drink; then we
can complacently give thanks that we are not as those bare-shanked
publicans who made blood flow into Highland waters almost as freely as
lying advertisements stain the columns of our newspapers.
As yet “glad innocence” has never reigned among sons of Eve nursed upon
the “Braes of Balquhidder,” any more than about the banks of Cheapside.
But a time may come when our customary misdoings as well as Rob Roy’s
will seem--
Monstrous, uncouth horrors of the past,
That blot the blue of heaven and shame the earth
As would the saurians of the age of slime.
VIII
MENTEITH
There might now be looked for a chapter on the Trossachs district that
makes the most famous corner of Perthshire; but indeed we have been in
it for some time back. This was the chief arena of Rob Roy’s exploits.
At Inversnaid, where the stones of the English fort, finished in spite
of him, have gone to build farmhouses and bothies, he had his early
home. Many a time he must have driven a herd, honestly or otherwise come
by, over Ben Venue by the pass of Beal-nam-bo.
The dell upon the mountain’s crest
Yawned like a gash on warrior’s breast.
The Goblin Cave here seems to have been made too much of in Scott’s
imagination, like John Ridd’s Doone houses and the Water-slide on
Exmoor; but the whole region is dotted with hiding-holes that sometimes
bear Rob’s name. Ellen’s Isle, that shrine of pilgrims, may often have
served him as a refuge. Many a time must he have tramped by this chain
of lovely lakes, in no more appreciative humour than a certain drover
who, being admonished on his way back from Stirling market that in
London he could have sold his beasts for twelve pounds a head, sullenly
replied that if he could take Loch Lomond to an unmentionable region it
would fetch “a pound a tot.”
The gracious name of Loch Katrine is in some spellings degraded into
Loch Cateran, as lair of robbers; but different derivations have been
suggested, for one, a root found in other Highland names, _Urrin_, which
denotes a Celtic hell. That was the native idea of a rough and bristly
country through which cattle-driving made awkward work, with the owners
of a stolen herd close at the heels of the spoilers. The Highlandmen
were slow to understand what strangers could admire in this country,
visited by occasional pilgrims of the picturesque, even before Scott
gave it such fame that Dr. Graham can record how twenty-two carriages
had stopped in one day at the chief inn of Callander, and how a London
artist had “actually” spent a whole winter working among those wild
mountains. This minister of Aberfoyle wrote an early guide-book,
entitled _Sketches of Perthshire_; but he hardly gets farther into the
Highlands than the southern edge, widely advertised by the _Lady of the
Lake’s_ popularity, when _Waverley_ and _Rob Roy_ were still in the womb
of time.
Cold-hearted Southrons may look with curious or complimentary eyes upon
this half-Highland region, which to its natives was peopled not only
with carnal but with ghostly enemies, albeit of more romantic form and
quickened by warmer fancy than in the case of those exhaled from flatter
claylands. The most familiar spirits of the Highlands were the “Men of
Peace” or “Good People” who lived underground in green hillocks, which
by spectacled archæologists have been connected with the conical huts of
a race of pigmy aborigines, whose shy prowlings in flesh and blood came
to pass for fairy tales. The abductions and other tricks ascribed to
them in later days may well have been the doings of caterans, walking in
the darkness of superstition. Like the Eumenides, the Highland fairies
were to be spoken of by good names, in dread of their turn for impish
mischief. They had a favourite trick of carrying off mortals to their
underground dwellings, and held special power over unbaptised children,
who must be guarded against them night and day. Traditions of their
pranks are common all over Scotland, from the leading cases of True
Thomas the Rhymer and Tam Lin, whose body and soul stood in sore
jeopardy among them.
Once in every seven years
They pay the teind to hell,
And I’m so fair and fu’ o’ flesh,
I fear ’twill be mysel’.
In Menteith the “Men of Peace” seem to have been particularly active.
One of Dr. Graham’s predecessors as minister of Aberfoyle, the Rev.
Robert Kirke, not only wrote a book testifying his belief in them so
late as the Reformation period, but was understood to have fallen under
their power. His tombstone may be seen by the church, but the story went
that he lived on in fairyland after an ineffectual appearance to a
kinsman, who neglected to follow his instructions for disenchanting him.
When the fairies could deal so masterfully with the very minister, it
may be supposed what their power was over thoughtless young folk, now
and then drawn into unhallowed love affairs with this uncanny race. A
rash mortal who sought their acquaintance had only on Hallow Eve to walk
nine times _widershins_ round one of the conical green hillocks so
common in this district; then a door would open for the adventurer,
henceforth lost to parents, harsh master, or cruel sweetheart. Dr.
Graham relates one legend that had a homelier end.
A young man roaming one day through the forest observed a number of
persons all dressed in green, issuing from one of those round
eminences which are commonly accounted fairy hills. Each of them in
succession called upon a person by name _to fetch his horse_. A
caparisoned steed instantly appeared; they all mounted and sallied
forth into the regions of air. The young man, like Ali Baba in the
_Arabian Nights_, ventured to pronounce the same name, and called
for his horse. The steed immediately appeared; he mounted, and was
soon joined to the fairy choir. He remained with them for a year,
going about with them to fairs and weddings, and feasting, though
unseen by mortal eyes, on the victuals that were exhibited on those
occasions. They had one day gone to a wedding where the cheer was
abundant. During the feast, the bridegroom _sneezed_. The young
man, according to the usual custom, said “God bless you!” The
fairies were offended at the pronunciation of the sacred name, and
assured him that if he dared to repeat it, he would be punished.
The bridegroom sneezed a second time. He repeated his blessing;
they threatened more tremendous vengeance. He sneezed a third time;
he blessed him as before. The fairies were enraged; they tumbled
him from a precipice; but he found himself unhurt, and was restored
to the society of mortals.
Green was the favourite colour of the fairies, understood to be jealous
of its being worn by men. In some parts this colour was held unlucky,
while its use in so many tartans may have led the wearers “to mourn
fifteen renewed in forty-five.”
Who may dare on wold to wear
The fairies’ fatal green?
Among the Grahams, who yet have adopted a chequer of green and blue, the
former colour was avoided, since Dundee had on a green coat at
Killiecrankie, and thus, as the Highlanders whispered, made himself
target for a silver bullet. At the other end of the Highlands, the
Sinclairs have not forgotten how in a green uniform they set out for the
carnage of Flodden. The suit of Lincoln green worn by the Knight of
Snowdon might be supposed to blame for the ill-luck of his chase; but as
matter of fact it is on record how King James got a suit of tartan made
for his Highland excursions.
An uglier and more perilous brood of spirits were the _Urisks_ who
haunted the misty mountains, with Ben Venue for their Brocken. Then
every lake had its malignant _kelpie_, that in the Highlands usually
takes the form of a water-bull, or horse, to be avoided like any loathly
dragon. I have mentioned such a monster on the Tay; and Loch Vennachar
has its own legend of the same kind, how on its banks a horse appeared
among a band of children, so pretty, and to all seeming so gentle, that
one of them ventured to mount it, then another and another, the creature
drawing out its back like a telescope till the whole laughing party were
astride, when it plunged into the water, carrying down all but the one
who, in such stories, is bound to escape for telling the tale.
I fancy that kelpies, banshees, brownies, and the like uncanny creatures
are not so well-known in Perthshire to-day as in the Western Highlands;
but here, too, old folks, rather than young ones, may go warily by
certain spots after dark. In the middle of last century a young lad whom
a German tourist took as guide from Callander was able to cheer the way
by eerie stories, one of a whisky smuggler accepting the invitation of
an unearthly spirit to dance with her for an hour or so, as it seemed,
then on reaching home he found his wife turned grey and his young
children grown up. Even yet, upon the Highland line, you may find the
Scottish character not all one grey shepherd’s plaid of stern theology
and hard-headed shrewdness.
Ben Ledi, “the sacred mount,” was an ancient scene of pagan rites such
as those which Roderick Dhu’s weird chaplain mingled with the ordinances
of Christianity. I shall never forget a day I spent at its foot, that
black Twelfth of August, through which a prolonged thunderstorm raged
over Scotland, striking down members of more than one shooting party, on
moors overcast by so awful darkness that Benjamin Franklin himself might
have heard the voice of offended mountain spirits. Has the reader ever
come in for a thunderstorm in the Highlands? Here is the late Mr. A. I.
Shand’s account of such an experience as often gives a certain zest of
danger to a sportsman’s beat.
You hear the muttering growl of distant thunder; you see the
storm-clouds gathering ominously over the lowering head of the Boar
of Badenoch or the Sow of Athol: the storm bursts, the rain comes
down in torrents, and, before you have been well soaked to the
skin, each stream and tiny burn is in foaming spate. Many a torrent
has to be breasted waist-deep, or maybe shoulder-high, before you
get into dry garments at the shooting-lodge. Still more perilous it
is if you are belated and without a knowledgeable guide in the mist
that envelops you in its fleecy folds, either thickening insensibly
into palpable darkness, or coming down in a rush with appalling
suddenness. Coming with a rush, I say, and I speak by book. I
remember one bright afternoon, below the Tap o’ Noth, on an
Aberdeenshire moor, and when walking up to a point, we had little
time to look up at the phenomenon of a sudden sun-eclipse. What we
did see was a dense wall of vapour descending on the dogs, who were
drawing on a point, some twenty yards ahead. It was a race against
time. I got forward to score a right and left. One of the birds we
did pick up, the other was lost beyond groping for in a darkness
that might be felt. Of course experiences like these are
comparatively rare and I do not pretend there is real danger on the
moors; I only say there is an inspiring suspicion of it. There is
undeniable romance, more enjoyable in the recollection than in the
reality, when you feel you are abroad as to the points of the
compass; when you are “turned round,” like the lost sportsman on
the American prairies; when the whistle of the curlew, the crow of
the grouse, the bellowing of the amorous harts in the rutting
season, sound strangely uncanny out of the watery cloud. You can
understand how the fervid imagination of the Celt, nursed on
superstitions in a savage solitude, peopled the gloomy wilderness
with brownies and spectres, and heard the wings and weird shrieks
of witches in the air, when the skein of wild geese was flying
inland.
When Ben Ledi’s top be not veiled in clouds, one has hence a noble
prospect over “the varied realms of fair Menteith,” another of those
domain provinces whose names in Scotland are older than its shires. Dr.
Graham defines this as the country between the Forth and the Teith,
rising in the lakes of the Trossachs region, to unite a little above
Stirling. Its old bounds appear to have been rather wider, taking in
Perthshire up to Strathearn, and Stirlingshire down to the basin of the
Clyde. It was, in fact, the upper part of Strathmore, enclosed between
the Grampians to the north and the southern Campsie Fells or Lennox
Hills, which, curving to the west beyond Stirling, continue the line of
the Ochils and the Sidlaws. Through this finely broken valley of
heights, meadows, and moors flow the streams of the Forth, that seem to
have drained away the importance of the old heart of Scotland to
Stirling and Edinburgh. In our day these abundant waters have been
artificially led off to Glasgow, where Bailie Nicol Jarvie little
thought how Loch Katrine would be laid on to make toddy in the
Saltmarket. For centuries this half-Lowland strath has been a channel
through which the civilisation of the South flowed up into the
Highlands, long stemmed at the mountain gates of the Trossachs country.
The farmers who settled here under the shadow of the Grampians had to
lay their account with being exposed to attacks from their mountain
neighbours. On the west of Perthshire the clans were shut in by bens and
glens as rugged as their own, defended by warriors of the same race;
what feuds raged on that side have at all events left slighter marks in
history. On the east, the walls of Perth and the castles of the Tay and
Earn, each with its pit and gallows, would avail to keep raiders in
check. On the north, it was a far cry to the rich plains of Moray, which
yet suffered sorely from invasion through Badenoch. But, southwards, a
day’s march brought Roderick Dhus and Rob Roys down to a tempting
prospect of “Lowland field and fold,” opened from their “savage hills.”
Time was when the Lowlanders could better guard their own against
frequent foes; but a day came in which they would be more at home in
markets than on battlefields, while the mountaineer still kept the use
and the habit of arms. That was the flourishing period of a man like Rob
Roy, who had a head for business as well as a hand for violence upon
occasion. Both he and his son, Robin Oig--probably confused with each
other--left a dubious name in Menteith, over which the father is said to
have pushed his _creaghs_ so far as to come to encounter with Macgregor
of Balhaldie, the Sheriffmuir laird who by some was recognised as chief
of the clan. For the like of them, such raids were honourable
occupation: a Highland gentleman, who would scorn to be the thief of a
single cow, might be proud of playing the robber on a drove of cattle,
yet also with a good conscience he could act as policeman, for a
consideration.
My sketch of Rob did not dwell on his dealings in the blackmail
business, because I cannot clearly make out at what period or periods of
his life it was that, when not harrying or spoiling the Grahams and
other ill-wishers, he turned to this comparatively honest means of
livelihood. The word _blackmail_, which has now taken on a darker shade,
then answered to an institution marking a certain advance in peace and
order. As Bailie Nicol Jarvie calculated, there were far more men in the
Highlands than could find honest work, even had they wanted it. The
loose fringe of unemployed, when no more glorious warfare was stirred,
sought an outlet for their energies in foraging upon their neighbours’
cattle; and such enterprises naturally found lines of least resistance
in richer Lowland straths like Menteith and the Lennox. While civil
authority was too weak to guard “herds and harvests reared in vain”
within swoop of the Highland line, an urgent demand called forth a
supply of redress by means of more calculating adventurers, who
undertook for a fixed payment to guarantee their peaceful clients
against serious loss. The line between caterans and blackmailers would
not be very clearly drawn. As the Jonathan Wilds and Vidocqs of a more
organised police played alternately the part of thief and thief-taker;
and as
He who _silence_ hoots
Is apt to make the hubbub he imputes--
so the professed guardians might also take a turn at robbery, if only by
way of impressing the need of insurance on should-be clients. Even the
commissioned Watch companies, who were the nucleus of our famous
Highland regiments, had the repute of being somewhat discriminating in
their protective service. But a “high-toned” blackmailer like Rob Roy
made it a point of honour to carry out his contract with subscribers, if
sometimes he turned aside to give non-subscribers a plain hint of what
they might gain by employing him. They had nothing but his honour to
depend upon, a contract of blackmail being strictly illegal--indeed, by
an act of the sixteenth century, declared a capital crime in the case of
both parties. The necessity of the time, however, let the law wink at
the effect of its own shortcomings; and prudent border landlords were
fain to insure movable property with men who made it their business and
pleasure to take hard knocks and rough excursions.
Later on, the authorities saw well to recognise what had become a
regular practice. Rob Roy’s nephew, Glengyle, who appears to have borne
a more respectable character than the uncle, entered into formal
contracts to recover stolen cattle, or make good the loss, at the rate
of five per cent on the rent of a holding; and in the end he was
employed and subsidised by Government as Captain of a Watch, the
makeshift police of the border line. More distinguished chiefs were not
ashamed to carry on the same business. Scott asserts that one of the
last to practise it was Macdonald of Barrisdale--a hero rubbed rather
threadbare by Mr. A. Lang--who adorned his claymore with a Virgilian
inscription--
Hae tibi erunt artes--pacisque imponere morem,
Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos.
Rob Roy’s blackmailing had to be carried on more or less _sub rosa_, but
may have been quite as efficient for the protection of those who made
terms with him. Such a Highland Robin Hood would have no difficulty in
keeping about him a gang of followers like the Dougal cratur and his own
sturdy brood. His proceedings in a case of robbery within his
jurisdiction are described by Scott from the mouth of an old man in the
Lennox, who, scores of years afterwards, told him the tale of this
exciting experience. As a herd-lad of fifteen, he had been working with
his father on an estate from which some dozen head of cattle were
carried off one autumn
[Illustration: STIRLING CASTLE]
night. Rob Roy was called in, and came with seven or eight men armed as
instruments of his function. Having gravely inquired into the symptoms,
he soon diagnosed the cause, and set about the remedy with professional
promptness, only requiring that two herds should accompany him to
identify the cattle and to drive them back when recovered, a duty not to
be expected of gentlemen like those who figured in his tail. If Scott’s
stories be skimmed nowadays, his notes and introductions are apt to be
skipped; so I make bold to borrow freely from one who has so much to
lend.
My informant and his father were dispatched on the expedition. They
had no goodwill to the journey; nevertheless, provided with a
little food, and with a dog to help them to manage the cattle, they
set off with Macgregor. They travelled a long day’s journey in the
direction of the mountain Benvoirlich, and slept for the night in a
ruinous hut or bothy. The next morning they resumed their journey
among the hills, Rob Roy directing their course by signs and marks
on the heath, which my informant did not understand. About noon Rob
commanded the armed party to halt and to lie crouched in the
heather where it was thickest. “Do you and your son,” he said to
the oldest Lowlander, “go boldly over the hill;--you will see
beneath you, in a glen on the other side, your master’s cattle
feeding, it may be, with others; gather your own together, taking
care to disturb no one else, and drive them to this place. If
anyone speak to, or threaten you, tell them that I am here, at the
head of twenty men.” “But what if they abuse us, or kill us?” said
the Lowland peasant, by no means delighted at finding the embassy
imposed on him and his son. “If they do you any wrong,” said Rob,
“I will never forgive them as long as I live.” The Lowlander was by
no means content with this security, but did not think it safe to
dispute Rob’s injunctions. He and his son climbed the hill,
therefore, found a deep valley, where there grazed, as Rob had
predicted, a large herd of cattle. They cautiously selected those
which their master had lost, and took measures to drive them over
the hill. As soon as they began to remove them, they were surprised
by hearing cries and screams, and looking around in fear and
trembling, they saw a woman, seeming to have started out of the
earth, who _flyted_ at them, that is, scolded them, in Gaelic. When
they contrived, however, in the best Gaelic they could muster, to
deliver the message Rob Roy told them, she became silent, and
disappeared without offering them any further annoyance. The chief
heard their story on their return, and spoke with great complacency
of the art which he possessed of putting such things to rights
without any unpleasant bustle.
On the way back the herd-boy gained a recollection to last him for life,
and to suggest an incident in _Waverley_. At nightfall they bivouacked
on one of those bare moors that so much appalled Andrew Fairservice,
swept by a frosty wind which did not much trouble the hardy escort.