In the summer of the year 1793, we have some reason to believe that the
rugging and riving times of antiquity were so well over in the north
of Scotland, that, not only might any one of his Majesty’s subalterns
travel there on the recruiting service, but even any spinster, not
less than threescore, without let, hindrance, or molestation, to say
nothing of personal violence; we shall not, therefore, attempt to
seduce the tears of our fair readers, with a sentimental description of
the incidents which befell our friend Walkinshaw, in his journey from
Camrachle to Glengael, except to mention, in a parenthetical way, that,
when he alighted from the Edinburgh coach at the canny twa and twae
toun of Aberdeenawa, he had some doubt if the inhabitants spoke any
Christian language.
Having remained there a night and part of a day, to see the place, and
to make an arrangement with the host of an hostel, for a man and gig to
take him to Glengael Castle, he turned his face towards the northwest,
and soon entered what to him appeared a new region. Mrs. Eadie had
supplied him with introductory letters to all her kith and kin, along
the line of his route, and the recommendations of the daughter of
the old Glengael were billets on the hospitality and kindness of the
country. They were even received as the greatest favours by those who
knew her least, so cherished and so honoured was the memory of the
ill-fated chieftain, among the descendants of that brave and hardy
race, who suffered in the desolation of the clans at Culloden.
The appearance and the natural joyous spirits of Walkinshaw endeared
him to the families at the houses where he stopped on his way to
Glengael, and his journey was, in consequence, longer and happier than
he expected. On the afternoon of the ninth day after leaving Aberdeen,
he arrived at the entrance of the rugged valley, in which the residence
of Mr. Frazer was situated.
During the morning, he had travelled along the foot of the mountains
and patches of cultivation, and here and there small knots of larches,
recently planted, served to vary the prospect and enliven his journey;
but as he approached the entrance to Glengael, these marks of
civilization and improvement gradually became rarer. When he entered on
the land that had been forfeited, they entirely disappeared, for the
green spots that chequered the heath there were as the graves of a race
that had been rooted out or slaughtered. They consisted of the sites
of cottages which the soldiers of the Duke of Cumberland’s army had
plundered and burnt in the year Forty-five.
The reflections which these monuments of fidelity awakened in the
breast of the young soldier, as the guide explained to him what they
were, saddened his spirit, and the scene which opened, when he entered
the cliffy pass that led into Glengael, darkened it more and more. It
seemed to him as if he was quitting the habitable world, and passing
into the realms, not merely of desolation, but of silence and herbless
sterility. A few tufts of heath and fern among the rocks, in the bottom
of the glen, showed that it was not absolutely the valley of death.
The appearance of the lowering steeps, that hung their loose crags
over the road, was as if some elder mountains had been crushed into
fragments, and the wreck thrown in torrents, to fill up that dreary,
soundless, desolate solitude, where nature appeared a famished
skeleton, pining amidst poverty and horror.
But, after travelling for two or three miles through this interdicted
chasm, the cliffs began to recede, and on turning a lofty projecting
rock, his ears were gladdened with the sound of a small torrent that
was leaping in a hundred cascades down a ravine fringed with birch and
hazel. From that point verdure began to reappear, and as the stream in
its course was increased by other mountain rivulets, the scenery of the
glen gradually assumed a more refreshing aspect. The rocks became again
shaggy with intermingled heath and brambles, and the stately crimson
foxglove, in full blossom, rose so thickly along the sides of the
mountains, that Walkinshaw, unconscious that it was from the effect of
their appearance, began to dream in his reverie of guarded passes, and
bloody battles, and picquets of red-coated soldiers bivouacking on the
hills.
But his attention was soon roused from these heroical imaginings by a
sudden turn of the road, laying open before him the glassy expanse of
an extensive lake, and on the summit of a lofty rocky peninsula, which
projected far into its bosom, the walls and turrets of Glengael.
From the desolate contrast of the pass he had travelled, it seemed to
him that he had never beheld a landscape so romantic and beautiful. The
mountains, from the margin of the water, were green to their summits,
and a few oaks and firs around the castle enriched the picturesque
appearance of the little promontory on which it stood. Beyond a distant
vista of the dark hills of Ross, the sun had retired, but the clouds,
in glorious masses of golden fires, rose in a prodigality of splendid
forms, in which the military imagination of the young enthusiast had no
difficulty in discovering the towers, and domes, and pinnacles of some
airy Babylon, with burnished chariots on the walls, and brazen warriors
in clusters on the battlements.
This poetical enchantment, however, was soon dissolved. The road along
the skirt of the lake, as it approached the castle, was rugged and
steep, and where it turned off into the peninsula, towards the gate,
it literally lay on the cornice of a precipice, which, with all his
valour, made Walkinshaw more than once inclined to leap from the gig.
Here and there a fragment of an old wall showed that it had once been
fenced, and where the rains had scooped hollows on the edge of the
cliff, a few stakes had recently been put up; but there was an air of
decay and negligence around, that prepared the mind of the visitor for
the ruinous aspect of the castle.
Mr. Frazer, owing to his professional avocations, had seldom resided
there, and he was too ambitious to raise the means to redeem the bonds
he had granted for the purchase, to lay anything out in improvements.
The state and appearance of the place was, in consequence, lone and
dismal. Not only were the outer walls mantled with ivy, but the arch of
the gateway was broken. Many of the windows in the principal edifice
were rudely filled up with stones. The slates in several places had
fallen from the extinguisher-less desolate roofed turrets, and patches
of new lime on different places of the habitable buildings, bore
testimony to the stinted funds which the proprietor allowed for repairs.
Within the gate the scene was somewhat more alluring. The space
inclosed by the walls had been converted into a garden, which Mrs.
Frazer and her daughters superintended, and had ornamented with
evergreens and flowers. The apartments of the family were also neatly
repaired, and showed, in the midst of an evident parsimony, a degree of
taste that bespoke a favourable opinion of the inhabitants, which the
reception given to Walkinshaw confirmed.
Mr. Frazer, an elderly gentleman, of an acute and penetrating look, met
him at the door, and, heartily shaking him by the hand, led him into a
parlour, where Mrs. Frazer, with two daughters, the sisters of Ellen,
were sitting. The young ladies and their mother received him even with
more frankness than the advocate. It was, indeed, not difficult to
perceive, that they had previously formed an agreeable opinion of him,
which they were pleased to find his prepossessing appearance confirm.
But after the first congratulatory greetings were over, a slight cloud
was cast on the spirits of the family by his account of the health of
their relation Mrs. Eadie. It, however, was not of very long duration,
for the intelligence that she might be daily expected with Ellen soon
chased it away.