The Altyre Woods—Banks of the Findhorn—Culbyn Sandhills—Covesea Caves.
“They grew in beauty side by side,
They filled one home with glee,
Their graves are severed, far and wide
By mount, and stream and sea.
· · · · ·
“And parted thus they lie, who played
Beneath the same green tree;
Whose voices mingled as they prayed
Around one parent knee.
They that with smiles lit up the hall
And cheered with song the hearth,
Alas! for love, if thou wert all
And naught beyond, O Earth!”—MRS. HEMANS.
I must now recall some of the leading characteristics of the beautiful
surroundings of those early homes in which my father’s flourishing
family of sixteen (fourteen of whom lived to man’s estate) rejoiced in
their glad young lives—now all an idyll of the past.
Probably the most striking features of Altyre and the neighbouring
estates are the great woods and fields dotted over with fine old trees,
extending in every direction.
Nowhere are the fruits of Sir Walter Scott’s wise counsel, “Aye be
stickin’ in a tree,” better exemplified than in Morayshire, where in the
last two centuries the principal proprietors have done their utmost to
reclothe the land, once so densely covered with primeval forest, but
which was so ruthlessly cut for firewood and for building purposes,
without a thought of replanting, that by the end of the sixteenth
century the country was all bare.
[Illustration:
_C. F. Gordon Cumming._
ALTYRE PRIOR TO 1854.
]
So we are chiefly indebted for the lovely Morayshire woods of the
present day to such men as the sixth Earl of Findlater, who planted 8000
acres in Banff and Moray with larch, Scotch fir, and ornamental trees;
while Francis, Earl of Moray, who succeeded in 1767 to the family
estates of Darnaway, Doune, and Donibristle, is said to have thereon
planted in the two following years thirteen million trees, of which
1,500,000 were oaks. The Earls of Seafield and of Fife carried on the
good work, and my father and his brother, Charles Cumming-Bruce, each
planted immense tracts of waste land, which are now remunerative
forests.
The latter were among the first to introduce and multiply the beautiful
evergreens which we now look upon as a birthright, and can scarcely
realise that about eighty years ago rhododendrons, Portugal and other
laurels, laurustinus arbutus, and most of the beautiful varieties of
pines and cedars, were unknown in Britain, so that these have to be
reckoned among the blessings of life in the nineteenth century.
A drive of about a mile through luxuriant laurels, rhododendrons, fir,
and heather brought us to the West Lodge, just beyond which flows the
Findhorn, which, with its tributaries the Dorbach and the Devie, forms
the loveliest group of all Highland rivers. The course of the Findhorn
is singularly varied. For some distance near Altyre deep red sandstone
cliffs, crowned with dark fir-trees, rise to a height of about two
hundred feet from the rich brown river, the colour of which I can best
describe as that of London porter—coffee scarcely supplying the full
depth of tone.
Further up stream, the sandstone is abruptly replaced for many miles by
crags of grey gneiss, clothed with the loveliest hanging woods—the
graceful white-stemmed birch, the alder, the wild cherry, the
bird-cherry, mingling with dark Scotch fir and with an undergrowth of
heather and bracken—a scene exquisitely varied at all seasons, but in
autumn combining to form for the wondrous brown waters a setting of
orange and gold, crimson, scarlet, dark green, purple and sienna.
As it nears the sea, this beautiful and romantic river totally changes
its character, and those who know it only from crossing the railway
bridge near Forres see but a wide, often shallow, stream flowing
seawards through level sands, very soon to form the placid Findhorn Bay,
guarded from the full force of the tide by a bar of its own creation.
From this estuary, a belt of most singular character stretches along the
sea towards Nairn, an expanse two or three miles wide of arid yellow
sandhills, for ever shifting and changing their form as the strong winds
sweep the fine light sands, beneath which lies buried land formerly so
fertile that prior to 1695 it was called the “Granary of Moray,” but now
known only as the Culbyn sandhills, or, as it is spelt in an old
charter, Cowbyn—and is pronounced _coo_.
The earliest mention thereof is the record of how, in the fifteenth
century, Egidia de Moravia, heiress of Culbyn, bestowed her hand and her
lands on Sir Thomas Kynnaird of that Ilk. In 1695 his descendant,
Alexander, last of the Kynnairds of Culbyn, petitioned the Scottish
Parliament for relief of cess and taxes, showing that the two best parts
of his estates of Culbyn were quite ruined and destroyed by “an
inevitable fatality, occasioned by great and vast heaps of sand which
had overblown the same, so that there was not a vestige to be seen of
his manor-place of Culbyn, yards, orchards, and mains thereof ... and
the small remainder of his estate, which yet remained uncovered, was
exposed to the like hazard, and the sand daily gaining ground thereon,
where-through he was like to run the hazard of losing the whole.”
According to tradition, the waving crops were ready for harvest, when a
mighty tempest arose and a strong northerly gale, and in a single night
the fields lay buried beneath two feet of fine sand. Over a great part
of this desolate region there is now not a trace of vegetation, but here
and there are tracts dotted over with broom and whins, all nibbled by
the countless rabbits, as if clipped by the hand of some fanciful
gardener. Elsewhere the hillocks are clothed with dry bent (coarse
sea-grass with long roots and fibres, which does its best to bind the
loose sand).[18]
Sometimes the wind lays bare the once arable land, now so hopelessly
buried, and reveals the ridges and furrows formerly carefully ploughed.
In the early part of this century the tops of apple-trees, and even the
chimneys of the old mansion-house have been seen, but a few hours later
all trace of them had vanished. In some places you come on tracts of
soil and shingle rounded and polished as if by the action of water, but
exactly recalling patches of the Egyptian desert, where beds of pebbles,
polished by the ceaseless friction of wind and sand, reflect the
sunlight like countless rounded mirrors.
In my childhood this dreary region was haunted by innumerable foxes,
which here reared their young undisturbed, finding abundant food in the
natural rabbit-warren, varied by clever captures of wild geese and
ducks, whose slaughter called down no vengeance from any farmer. For
further to the west lay a swampy marsh, interspersed with little lochs,
bordered with rank grass and water-weeds, and these were the favourite
feeding-grounds of wild-fowl of all sorts, including rare varieties of
wild-duck, flocks of geese, and of wild swans.
But now all has been drained to such an extent that the strong, deep
heather and sedgy marshes are replaced by plantations of fir-trees and
fields of oats, and even the sandhills have been in a great measure
conquered and reclaimed.
I know no corner of the world where the face of the earth has undergone
so many remarkable changes within historic times as along the shores of
the Moray Firth, between the mouths of the rivers Nairn and Spey.
Following the coast eastward from the mouth of the Findhorn, it is said
that where the bright sands now lie crisp and firm, there were formerly
wide reaches of alluvial mud, rich in oysters, and further, along the
now treeless expanse towards Burghead, it is certain that there formerly
stretched a great forest which supplied the Danes with timber for their
shipbuilding, when early in the eleventh century they occupied Burghead.
But the strangest of all these changes were those which successively
transformed the beautiful loch of Spynie, near Elgin, from an arm of the
sea into a great fresh-water lake, and finally into rich pastures and
corn-fields, and all these changes have occurred since the Bishops of
Moray built their stately palace overlooking the fisher’s village—a
palace which for centuries has been left desolate on the shore of a
half-drained inland loch.[19]
Dearer, if possible, than even the fragrant Altyre woods, was the breath
of old ocean and the great green waves, the memory of which so often
comes back to me, now that I seem destined to end my days in the very
centre of Scotland. And blending with the invigorating scent of the
seaweed-covered rocks was the honied perfume of white clover and fields
of beans in blossom. Truly a breath of heaven.
My earliest memories of the sea are all associated with the “Covesea
Caves,” which honeycomb the richly tinted sandstone crags, extending for
about three miles along the shores of the Moray Firth, forming the grand
natural bulwark of my father’s sea-board estate of Gordonstoun—one of
the oldest homes of the Gordons, as Altyre was of the Comyns.
Strange to say, this fine mass of sandstone crops up quite suddenly in
the middle of a wide expanse of level sands, which stretch to east and
west. As seen at low tide on a sunny day, these crags afford a feast of
colour which, so far as my pretty wide experience goes, is unsurpassed
in any corner of the world. It ranges from deep Venetian red and brown
madder shot with the gleaming green of wet weed within some of the great
gloomy caves, to the most vivid sienna and cadmium glowing in the
sunlight, and varied with pearly grey, all harmonised by grey, green,
and golden lichens. At the base of the crags lie masses of dark brown
rock, fringed with yellow and olive sea-weed, with here and there
stretches of pale sandhills, partly covered with coarse bent, partly
with rich turf, which in the springtime is starred with delicate
primroses, and these in due season are replaced by tall spikes of rosy
foxglove.
Smooth, yellow sands meet the clear blue and green waters, and with the
blue, distant hills seen beyond the Moray and Cromarty Firths, and the
soft blue sky overhead (varied by dark leaden-grey or dazzlingly white
clouds) combine, even in the prosaic light of noonday, to produce
effects of colour which must rejoice all true lovers of beautiful
nature. Doubtless these unconsciously influenced our childish minds,
when those cave-pierced crags formed the delightful playground of a
happy band of brothers and sisters in the joyful years of our early
youth.
Great was our delight when, in the long summer days, the family forsook
for a while the lovely woods and gardens of Altyre, and drove sixteen
miles in the direction of Elgin to the delightfully quaint old house of
Gordonstoun, which contains within itself stone-and-lime suggestions of
the successive homes of some twenty generations.
The site of the original house was selected when it was well not to
attract the attention of Danes or Norsemen, so it lies low, concealed
from the sea by rising ground, gradually sloping upwards for a mile,
then descends to the summit of the aforesaid precipitous crags. These
extend from the small fishing town of Hopeman (which now rejoices in a
branch railway connecting it with Burghead and Elgin) as far as the
little village of Covesea, or the Coissey as it is called in the old
records.[20] At this point the cliffs and seaweed-covered rocks end
abruptly, or rather, the cliffs leave the shore and form a great
horse-shoe enclosing a wilderness of bent-covered sandhills—a Paradise
for rabbits—curving round a beautiful bay of fine white sands, which
form a most delightful shore for young bathers.
Many a gleesome hour did we spend there in happy days long, long ago,
rejoicing in the brine-laden breezes. With childish awe we looked to the
Beacon which at high tide seemed to rise from the waters off the further
end of the bay, and which marked the treacherous Black Skerries, so
dangerous to shipping until a tall lighthouse was erected on a solitary
cliff rising from the sandhills just opposite the Skerries, and now its
ruby and diamond flashes gleam far over the Firth to warn seamen against
venturing too near.
Naturally our never-ending pleasure centred in the caves. Some are
always accessible in every stage of the tide, others can only be reached
when the receding waters suffer us to pass certain headlands; and to be
hemmed in by the tide at certain points involves a good many hours’
detention, though happily no risk of drowning. Indeed in most of the
little bays a tolerably expert scrambler can contrive to gain the summit
by carefully following natural fissures, several of which have now been
artificially improved, so as to afford secure foothold. One of those is
known as “the lummie” or chimney, suggesting a very steep and narrow
way. Many long years ago, my father was here held captive by the tide;
and a flight of roughly hewn steps, cunningly zig-zagged up the face of
the cliff, show how he thenceforth secured access to the shore he so
dearly loved.
[Illustration:
_C. F. Gordon Cumming._
THE BATHING-PLACE, COVESEA.
]
Many a time have I scrambled up and down it, but it was not till very
recently that I had to prove its true value in the hour of need. Of
course, in order to enjoy a leisurely walk, especially if sketching is
the order of the day, it is wise to secure an outgoing tide, and so
avoid the risk of unpleasant adventures. By neglecting this precaution,
or rather by rashly assuming from the appearance of the seaweed-covered
rocks that the tide was receding, I narrowly escaped being held prisoner
for a most inconvenient spell.
Nothing doubting, I made my way to perhaps the only bay from which at
high water there is positively no means of escape, and, climbing a sandy
hillock, entered a cave known as “the Sculpture Cave,” by reason of
certain rude carvings on its rocky walls, and was soon deeply engrossed
in securing drawings of these.
My sketching-materials being somewhat bulky, I was happily escorted by a
trusty helper, who, after duly inspecting the interior of the cave,
chanced to look out, and exclaimed in dismay “The tide is coming in
fast!” It was too true, and though we were in no danger, I knew that
anxiety would be caused should we not return for so many hours. Without
a moment’s delay, after hastily packing the sketches, we ran along the
sandy bay to the projecting crag which closed it in on the side nearest
Covesea.
That crag has been hollowed by the ceaseless action of the waves, and
forms one of the finest caves, with three great arches, two of which
face the sea. We entered by the third, hoping to be able to pass out by
one of the others, but though we quickly took off our boots and
stockings, hoping to be able to wade, we were too late—already the water
was far too deep. I thought we were effectually trapped, when, to my
joy, my companion observed a fourth, very low, opening on the further
side, which neither he nor I ever remembered having noticed before. By
stooping very low, we found we could just make our way along the little
passage, and were soon safe beyond that crag. But we had still a
considerable distance to scramble over the slippery rocks, sometimes
above our knees in water, ere reaching “the lummie,” and right
thankfully we climbed that steep rock-stair, and found ourselves safe on
the summit, where we could rest a while on banks of heather and
crowberry.
Thence, an hour later, I watched great crested waves breaking on the
shore, while the rocks along which we made our way were more than six
feet under water. Beyond the successive distances of wave-worn cliff lay
the headlands of Hopeman and Burghead, whence the fleet of herring boats
were starting for their night of hard toil. And far in the distance Ben
Wyvis rose blue above the two Sutors which form the entrance to Cromarty
Bay. Concerning these, there is a legend to the effect that in days of
old, a sutor, or cobbler, sat on each headland, and as they had only one
awl between them, they skilfully threw it backwards and forwards across
the Firth.
Very charming is the walk all along the top of the cliffs, peering down
into their dark recesses or watching the endless changes of light and
colour on the wide ocean, while now and again resting on the brow of
some specially attractive crag. These in springtime are rosy with
delicate sea-pinks nestling among grey lichens, and in autumn they glow
with tufts of rich purple heather, contrasting with the vivid green of
the luxuriant crowberry with its little, hard, glossy black berries, the
search for which wiles away many a lonely hour for the laddies who herd
the nimble black-faced sheep.
A stranger needs to walk warily, for here and there deep narrow chasms
are partly hidden by the close growth of plants; and it would be easy to
slip into one of these as into an upright tomb, where only after many
days some herd-lad might discover the too venturesome wanderer.
In some places the rocks are strangely indented with deep, water-worn
holes, only divided from each other by sharp ridges, very unpleasant to
the foot. Each hollow is a little cistern where the falling spray or
rain collects as in a cup. Some of the rocks on the sea-level are
literally like a gigantic honeycomb, whose cells are pot-holes, each
large enough to contain a big cannon-ball, or to do serious damage to
the unwary walker whose foot slips on that unattractive surface.
The higher ledges of this singularly perforated rock are closely covered
with grey and bright yellow lichens, and gold or brown mosses and green
ferns nestle in every crevice.
Another curious feature of this coast is its changeableness. Not only is
there the variety of finding some bays of the finest shell-strewn sands,
while perhaps the very next turning brings us to an expanse of great
water-worn boulders, exhausting to clamber over, but these rock ridges,
which seem to be the accumulation of ages, are really subject to
ceaseless change with every wintry storm. Sometimes they are so piled up
as to render the shore almost impassable, and perhaps by the following
spring the sportive waves have rolled them all back to the ocean depths.
What days of unclouded happiness those shores recall! Days when the
finding of a tiny scarlet shell was a well-spring of delight; or when,
each provided with a rusty old sickle and a creel,[21] we followed the
receding tide to search for such crabs as might be lurking in the rock
pools or ledges, concealed by the heavy fringe of tangle. It mattered
little that our treasures were rarely appreciated by our elders. The
excitement of capturing them with skill, so as to avoid a nip of their
claws, lent them a flavour far excelling that of the finest “partans”
brought by old Meg the fishwife, from rocks far beyond our reach.
These expeditions were not lacking a spice of possible adventure, for
the sea-weed made the rocks exceedingly slippery, and it was often
difficult to avoid sliding into the deep rock pools, many of which,
though not larger than a bath, would have taken us far overhead.
Well do I remember our mischievous glee on one occasion when a very
romantic lady, much addicted to writing poetry, but also guilty of the
folly of wearing a good deal of rouge, persuaded my father to escort her
one lovely summer evening on to the rocks, when, just as she was
exclaiming on the beauty of one of these pools fringed with golden weed,
her foot slipped, and she disappeared headforemost! When she emerged, we
all contributed dry handkerchiefs as towels, and did our best to wring
her clothes, which nevertheless clung heavily and chill, making the walk
home slow and exhausting. But the point of the story lay in the unlucky
fact that though the lady’s first care was to dry her face, she only
made matters worse, for the wet paint merely changed its position, and
leaving her cheeks of an unwonted pallor, settled in a rich glow on her
very prominent nose; an incident which was not likely to escape
keen-eyed young folk, though the lady herself remained in happy
ignorance thereof.
[Illustration:
_C. F. Gordon Cumming._
HELL’S HOLE, HOPEMAN.
]
Descending by the steep cart-road from Covesea village to the caves, the
first point of interest is the Dripping Well, where the villagers leave
their tin pails standing all day to collect the clear, sparkling water
which drips drop by drop from an overhanging rock. Here, too, is a rude
cistern hollowed out of one great stone, which supplies impatient folk.
A well just above the bathing bay yields their regular supply, entailing
many a weary travel up that steep, grassy hill. Never was there greater
need to obey the good old counsel, “Set a stout heart to a stey brae,”
words of wisdom which come to our aid at many a stiff turn of life. The
dripping-well which supplies such excellent drinking-water is a good
deal further from the village, but people in those parts do not expect
to find everything ready to their hand, and the luxury of obtaining hot
and cold water in abundance, with no further trouble than turning a tap,
would seem to them a fairy-tale.
That steep cart-road over the well-worn rock is suggestive of many a
toilsome journey for weary horses and men, for by it the loads of heavy,
wet sea-weed cast up by the waves are brought to the fields
above—ocean’s gift of precious salts for fertilising the land. Following
its track, we enter a fine, large cave, which, in common with several
others, affords such secure shelter from wind and storm, that it is a
favourite camp for certain gipsies, or, as they are here called, cairds
or tinkers—a quiet, inoffensive tribe, who from time immemorial have
frequented these shores, coming and going as fancy dictates, and
selecting their cave for the time being, facing east or west, with due
regard to the prevailing wind.
Their favourite haunt, however, is the fine cave (a marvel of vivid
orange colouring) commonly called “Hell’s Hole,” an obnoxious name, said
to be a corruption of Hele’s Hale, which in some old Norse dialect
signified the head of the harbour. At that time an inlet of the sea
extended some distance inland where now all is green grass—one of the
many strange topographical changes all along this coast. The harbour now
lies considerably to the west, at the town of Hopeman. Hell’s Hole lies
at the westmost extremity of the wave-worn cliffs.
To these wandering folk, the cave with the unpleasant name possesses all
the charm of a loved home—an attraction which the most comfortable house
made with hands fails to exert. Well sheltered from all save a western
wind, they here find good grazing for their horses, good water for man
and beast, and plenty of dry whins within easy reach, wherewith to
kindle a blazing fire in the mouth of the cave. So here men, women, and
children assemble; they make their tin pails, cook, sleep, smoke, drink,
live and love or fight, as the case may be. Here they are born, and here
some return to die, but not many. The country folk say, “There’s a deal
of killing in a caird,” and a dead caird is rarer than the proverbial
dead donkey. Do you remember that very characteristic Scottish song,
“Donald Caird’s come again”? But he was a thief and a skilful poacher on
moor and loch, and these tinkers are noted for honesty.
Some of them have some knowledge of the medicinal properties of herbs,
and much prefer their own remedies to ours. We spoke one day to a poor
woman who was on the eve of her confinement, and was suffering acutely
from a running sore. She bemoaned her helpless condition, which
prevented her from going to a certain wood to search for a plant, which
she said would certainly heal the sore, but there was no use in sending
the bairns to gather it, as they would never be able to find it, so she
must e’en go on using the doctor’s stuff.
Many efforts have been made to induce the most promising of the younger
generation to settle down to regular work, but the gipsy blood always
asserts itself, and the yearning for the old wandering life returns. No
house made by human hands can ever have the same charm of old
association as their cave-dwellings.
We had a very pathetic instance of this craving when the aged mother of
the tribe, known to all the country as “Old Mary,” became so very ill
that she submitted to be taken to the excellent county hospital for
treatment. There she received such care and comfort as in all her life
she could never have dreamt of, but she pined, and was so miserable,
that at last, yielding to her entreaties, her people brought a cart with
straw, and therein carried her to the beloved cave which had been her
birthplace, that she might die in peace within sound of the waves. They
laid her on a layer of straw beside a crackling fire of whins, the very
smoke of which was fragrant to the dying woman, and there she lingered
for a while, rejoicing in her escape from the comfortable hospital.
Some of the far-receding caves are haunted by solemn, black
cormorants—“scarts” the country folk call them—which dart out with angry
cries, as if resenting our intrusion, and blue rock-pigeons also find
here a congenial home. It is strange how creatures adapt themselves to
circumstances. A little further along the coast, among the Culbyn
sandhills, where no crags or caves are available, these rock-pigeons
occasionally startle the ferreters, by darting out from the rabbit
burrows, in which they have made their nest.
Among the charms of many of these caves are the numerous water-worn
openings—circular windows—which tempt one to much scrambling in order to
peep out at the sea from new angles, and to catch new glimpses of
richly-coloured crag. Passing through the first cave of which I spoke,
and out by another entrance, we find ourselves at the foot of a great
solitary rock-mass, in form something like a gigantic body on two thick
legs. This in our childhood was called the Gull’s Castle, and a somewhat
similar mass further on was known as the Tailors’ Castle; each have
evidently once formed part of great caves which have fallen in, and
their fragments have been dispersed by the waves, or buried beneath the
sand.
Overlooking the Tailors’ Castle, and well raised above the sea, is a
small cave, in the centre of which a rudely squared stone receives the
water which slowly filters through the sandstone roof. In the cliff
beyond is a large cave somewhat difficult of access, the approach being
over huge, smooth boulders. Within, the deep-red colour is relieved by
glistening, green mosses. In this cave lived and died a solitary tinker,
who made a living by weaving bass matting from the coarse bent which
grows on the sandhills. Here, too, the body of a man drowned on the
Skelligs was found wedged into a cleft, where it had been carried by the
waves. Many a peaceful hour have I there spent, watching the slow and
silent influx of the tide, as it quietly stole onwards over weedy rock
and gleaming sand, till it bathed the base of the tall “Castle,” and the
pile of fallen rock and shingle below the cave.
Behind the Gull’s Castle, grassy hillocks nestle round the base of an
amphitheatre of rock, and, well-concealed by these, a low
artificially-squared entrance marks a small cave known as Sir Robert’s
stable—a well-founded tradition being that here in the days of Jacobite
trouble, Sir Robert Gordon was in the habit of concealing his best
horses, so that when “the Rebels” came to Gordonstoun to requisition his
steeds, they found only common cart horses.
The stable cave is now merely a dark, damp place, very different from
most of the neighbouring breezy caves, daily washed by the green waves;
but it was then probably in better order. The front was artificially
built up, so as to leave only a small doorway with a peep-hole above the
door, from which watchers within could guard the approach in times of
danger—only the hinges of the old door now remain. According to
tradition there was in those days an underground passage thence all the
way to Gordonstoun House—a full mile—but if such ever existed, all trace
of it has long since become impassable.
It was not for live stock only that the cave afforded a secure
hiding-place. In those days when smuggling was so much in fashion, the
facilities offered by such a shore as this were not likely to be
overlooked. Consequently even among old family documents of some of the
neighbouring gentry, letters have been found proving very plainly how
many lovers of good wine, brandy, and tobacco, profited by all chances
of landing their share of cargoes which had contrived to elude the
obnoxious excise duties.
Among the old papers of Sir Archibald Dunbar of Duffus was found the
following tell-tale letter to one of his ancestors, written in 1710 by
William Sutherland, merchant in Elgin:—
“I have ventured to order Skipper Watt, how soon it pleases God he
comes to the Firth, to call at Caussie, and cruise betwixt that and
Burgh-head until you order boats to waite him. He is to give the half
of what I have of the same sort with his last cargo, to any having
your order. Its not amiss you secure one boat at Caussie as well as
the burgh boats. The signall he makes will be, all sails furled,
except his main topsaile, and the boats you order to him are to lower
their saile when within muskett shott, and then hoist it again; this,
least he should be surprised with catch-poles. He is to write you
before he sails from Bordeaux, per Elgin post.”
In later years, smuggling here and in other parts of the Moray Firth
seems to have increased to so serious an extent as to call for special
inquiry, and a letter from the Lord President of the Court of Session
was read at a meeting of the Justices in Elgin, wherein he expressed his
hope that no gentlemen (whatever their connection with, or tenderness
for the unhappy smuggler might be) will be so impudently profligate as
to attempt to screen these cutthroats.
“Such an attempt” he says, “requires more than an ordinary degree of
courage and wickedness; the guilty person cannot hope to remain
unknown; the Minutes of the Court must record his infamy, nor is it to
be expected by him that the character which by such practices he may
purchase shall remain confined to his own country; the common post
can, by an Extract of the Minutes, convey his fame to Edinburgh, from
whence it may be communicated to the whole kingdom.”... “This mean,
shameful course to destruction must be prevented, or our unhappy
country must be undone. Make my compliment to every one who can lay
his hand on his heart and say he does not deserve the title of RASCAL,
and believe me to be, etc.
DUNCAN FORBES.”
That turning king’s evidence might have involved rascality of a more
contemptible form does not seem to have occurred to this zealous
upholder of the law. Doubtless such illicit stores may in some cases
have had to be hidden for a considerable period ere a safe opportunity
arose for transporting them to their destination, and in some cases it
may have been necessary to trust largely to the honour of the country
folk, who might very well have discovered and appropriated the hid
treasure.
Hence, in the interior of the “Sculpture Cave,” which stands well above
high-water mark, thus forming a very secure storehouse, there is
inscribed on the rock in large, well-cut letters, this ban—
CURSED BE THEY Y^T PLINDER
with the initials JH, the date Mar. 1655 or 1677, and a peculiar
ornamental scroll. Further in the interior, the same date and scroll is
repeated with the well-cut name JHorn. Curiously enough, I find that in
1672 James Horne was minister of Elgin. Was it he who here reminded his
outlying flock of the sin of theft, and had he any personal interest in
the safety of hidden treasure?
That cave, which is entered by a double mouth, seeming as though it must
have been artificially squared, has been a favourite haunt of many
successive generations, and is the only one on which they have left
their rude designs. Unfortunately, the rock is of so friable a character
that it crumbles at a touch, and the marvel is that any of its very
primitive sculptures should still be discernible, more especially as
with lamentably bad taste many visitors have proved their own hopeless
vulgarity by deeply cutting their own or their friend’s name or
initials, generally in letters so large, that it now requires careful
observation to trace out the fainter carvings so interesting to the
archæologist.
The last time I visited the cave, I took the trouble to note the most
offensively conspicuous of these names, with the intention of publishing
them for public indignation; but fortunately for the culprits, a sudden
gust of wind carried away my paper while I was subsequently sketching
from the summit of the crags.
[Illustration:
_C. F. Gordon Cumming._
THE SCULPTURE CAVE, COVESEA.
LOOKING TO HOPEMAN, BURGHEAD, CROMARTY, AND BEN WYVIS.
]
(How truly witty was the ironic courtesy of the Dowager Duchess of
Athol, who, finding it impossible to prevent visitors to her lovely
grounds at Dunkeld from scribbling their names on her favourite
summerhouse and elsewhere, had an attractive white board put up, with a
notice that the Duchess would be much obliged if visitors would kindly
write their names on this board—a request which was generally complied
with, under the impression that it was complimentary. Of course the
board was washed clean by next morning, and the woodwork of the
summerhouse was spared.)
Of the inscriptions, one bears date 1370, but the designs are
undoubtedly prehistoric. Such are the fish fourteen inches long, and the
curious symbol which, for want of a better name, is, I believe, known to
antiquarians as “the spectacles.” Another is “the looking-glass,” which
figures in so many stories of divination in the old folklore.
Others seem to be simply the rude symbols of three fishes, double
crescents, and curiously blended double triangles, also crosses and an
hour-glass, all of which have their counterpart among the rude
sculptures in the caves of Fifeshire. One, however, is, I believe,
peculiar to this cave, namely two figures within a shrine, the whole
fifteen inches high. It has become much less distinct within my own
memory.
Strange indeed are those traces, faint but unmistakable, of the
handiwork of these long-forgotten people. Yet lingering survivals from
heathen times are scarcely yet wholly extinct among us; and the
neighbouring fishing towns of Hopeman and Burghead have happily retained
some picturesque customs directly linking this prosaic nineteenth
century with those ancient days when fire-worship and well-worship here
prevailed.
Thus at Burghead on New Year’s Eve, reckoned according to old style, the
old ceremony of Burning the Clavie is still kept up. The fisher-folk and
seamen assemble, as they have done for unknown centuries, and make a
portable bonfire, formed of half an old tar-barrel filled with firewood,
and securely attached to a long handle. Though a nail may now be used
for this purpose, it may on no account be struck with an iron tool, but
is driven in with a stone. Nor may a modern lucifer match be used to
ignite it, but a burning peat, and when once ablaze, the strongest man
present is told off to the honour of carrying the Clavie round the old
part of the town, regardless of the streams of boiling tar, which of
course trickle all down his back. Should he stumble or fall, the omen
would be held unlucky indeed both to the town and to himself.
When the first man is tired out, a second succeeds him in this post of
honour and perhaps a third, and a fourth, till the circuit of the town
is completed. Formerly the vessels in harbour were likewise thus
safeguarded for the year. Thus is a direct link with the ancient Yule
Fire Festival still kept up.
At Hopeman, the “Holy Well” (though now only called the Brae-mou Well)
continued till very recently to be a favourite gathering-place on May
morning and on Hallowe’en (the spring and autumn festivals), for it was
firmly believed that at those times the well had healing powers for
those who reverently drank its waters, washed therein (in a very
modified sense), and left a small gift for the spirit of the well.
A little further inland, on my father’s estate of Dallas, it is an
undoubted fact that so recently as about sixty years ago, one of the
farmers having a murrain in his cattle, actually sacrificed one of his
oxen as a burnt-offering to the offended spirit of the disease.
Speaking of cattle, I must record a good story told us by the Rev.
Richard Rose, D.D., who in his later years was minister of Drainie (near
Gordonstoun), namely, that when he was appointed to Dallas as his first
charge, he knew an old man who remembered a celebrated “cattle-lifter,”
who was considered by his neighbours to be a very pious man, because,
before setting out on a cattle-lifting raid in the laich or low county
of Moray, he laid his blue bonnet on the ground, knelt down on it, and
prayed that the Almighty would keep him from robbing the fatherless and
the widow, and would guide him to the flocks of rich folk, such as Duff
o’ Dipple![22]