The “Home-going” of Three Brothers.
I will pass over the many interests of the next five years, varied as
they were. They seem so small in comparison with the great realities
which we were called to face in 1865–66, when within nine months, three
of our brothers were taken from us, all in the prime of life, aged
respectively thirty-nine, forty-six, and fifty. Yet, dark as were life’s
shadows, we were blest with light more vivid than we had ever dared to
hope for—such as ought surely to keep faith and trust strong to the end,
whatever the future may have in store for us.
My brothers John and William had started simultaneously, about the year
1845, for their respective careers in the Far East—the former as a
cocoanut-planter in Ceylon, which he combined with much good useful work
for Government, the latter to do very varied work, military and
political, in the Bombay Presidency. Both incidentally found ample scope
for their skill as keen sportsmen in ridding the jungles of a multitude
of dangerous wild beasts—tigers in Bombay and leopards in Ceylon, with
many other creatures whose destruction rejoiced the natives, by whom
both brothers were truly loved.
In 1860, after the terrible anxieties of his work all through the
Mutiny, William came home for a brief spell of leave, but it was not
till 1865 that he could afford to do so for long, or, as it proved,
permanently. Then the two brothers agreed to meet in Ceylon and come
home together.
But when the time arrived, Bill found that the expense would be so
largely increased by this arrangement, that he relinquished the idea,
and came direct to London, fully expecting that John would reach England
about the same time. Alas! instead of his arriving we received the
grievous news that he had died on October 6th, apparently from a tumour
on the brain, in far away Batticaloa, on the further side of Ceylon,
most of which was then clothed with dense forest, and communication with
Colombo or Galle very slow and difficult.
Three months later, ere any relation could interfere, and without even
the knowledge of his friends on the other side of the isle, all his
worldly goods and the hunting-trophies accumulated during his twenty
long years of exile were sold by auction for a mere song,[43] and his
estate was declared insolvent. This did not at all tally with his own
recent reports. Curiously enough, he had written to tell me that he had
made a will leaving all he possessed to me, but the will was not found,
and the estate on which he had expended so much toil and money passed to
other hands.
All through these long years this most affectionate brother rarely
missed a mail in writing to one or other of us, often speaking of his
longing to return to Morayshire and to the dear home faces, and
wondering if there was no hope that any of us could visit Ceylon.
At that time the journey was so slow and so costly that this seemed
utterly out of the question, but so rapidly did these difficulties
become modified that, within two years of his death, several of his
relations did touch Ceylon, and a little later I myself went to visit
his grave, and was so fascinated with the loveliness of other parts of
the isle and the kindness of many friends, that I lingered there for two
years, sketching the very varied scenery and the wonderful “jungle
cities.”
Of course the pilgrimage of primary interest to me was to Batticaloa,
where John had lived and died, and where he had been laid to rest in the
peaceful “GOD’S acre” on the banks of the wide, calm river, its
stillness broken only by the ever-recurring boom, like distant thunder,
of unseen waves, for ever breaking on the coral strand, where beyond the
thick belt of graceful cocoa-palms which fringe its shore, lies that
great ocean which to him had for so many years been the sea of
separation from all whom he most loved.
In 1865–66 my brother Roualeyn was living in old Fort Augustus at the
head of Loch Ness, occupying a couple of the bare barrack-rooms, once
tenanted by the Duke of Cumberland’s soldiers.[44] He had some years
previously built a large handsome room near the Caledonian Canal as a
museum in which to exhibit what he still retained of his
hunting-trophies. Hating the trammels of conventional life, he chose to
live quite apart from us all, taking such sport as came in his way, and
finding in the wild mountainous districts all around him abundant scope
for his love of natural history.
Thus, in a letter to me dated Fort Augustus, April 1862:—
“I came home last night quite knocked up, having been a long, long way
over this district and Badenoch all alone, across a boundless,
desolate wilderness of sterile rocks and frozen lochs, and deep, great
wreaths of frozen snow—a region too barren for even heather to
nourish, and where the prevailing vegetation is grey moss and several
varieties of lichen.
“My object in undertaking a little pilgrimage through so toilsome a
tract was to reach the eyrie of the king of birds. Beyond the howlish
region I have described, I descended into a warmer temperature in a
most sequestered and romantic glen, where three mountain streams meet
and form a continuous succession of enchanting little pools and rugged
cataracts.
“High above them, in the upper ridges of the glen, are bold
overhanging rocks, and here for centuries a pair of golden eagles have
been known to locate, and return year after year to add a few fresh
sticks and heather to their already colossal nest. As soon as I made
the glen, a noisy little kestrel apprised the eagles of my approach,
and presently I observed the two noble birds soaring in the most
majestic manner high above the glen, and still ascending higher and
higher, the audacious little kestrel accompanying them in their aerial
revolutions to a great height, when I fancy he felt himself above his
sphere, and left the eagles to enjoy in uninterrupted solitude their
free and glorious flight.
“I was unlucky so far as securing the eggs I sought, but I found a
grand new nest all ready for eggs, and I purpose to pay another visit
to the glen.”
Later he wrote:—
“There is a Ned Luck’s[45] nest a hundred yards from my door
containing a young cuckoo, which ejected all the rest of the inmates.
I intend trying to train him and make a pet of him.”
In 1864 he wrote:—
“I devote much attention to the interesting study of the habits of
birds, especially the genus _falco_, from the golden eagle to the
peregrine falcon downwards. I obtained some very beautiful specimens
of the eggs of these noble birds this season. They are very hard to
obtain, being very rare and inaccessible.
“There are a number of interesting wild ducks which breed not far from
here, among which I may mention the velvet duck or scoter, which is
not generally supposed to build in Britain, as also the sheldrake and
the crested merganser, the widgeon, the mallard, and the teal. That
noble bird, the great black-throated diver, and also the red-throated
diver, nestle on certain green isles in lonesome lochs hereabouts.”
In his eagerness to secure the eggs of one of these black-throated
divers, he swam to an island on Loch Tarff on a bitterly cold day in
March 1865, and was so thoroughly chilled that he contracted a very
severe cough, which, though he made light of it, he was never able to
shake off.
About Christmas came tidings of his brother John’s death in Ceylon.
Roualeyn had loved him with the devotion of an elder brother for a
younger one who shared the same tastes and possessed much of the same
skill as a sportsman, and he had been looking forward anxiously to his
return.
[Illustration:
_Emery Walker. ph. sc._
_Roualeyn George Gordon-Cumming. in 1851._
]
Up to that time he was in apparently magnificent health, doing feats of
walking on mountains which amazed other sportsmen. But he had himself
been conscious of failing health, and the sudden news of John’s death
came to him as a crushing blow. He shut himself up in the old Fort, and
towards the end of February one of the men in charge of the canal-locks
sent a letter to tell my brother Bill that Roualeyn was very ill. He
started at once, sending the letter on to me. I followed the next day,
and then in quick succession came our brother Henry and his Bessie, and
Ida, who in life’s early days had ever been Roualeyn’s special
“comrade.”
Kind neighbours provided sleeping-quarters for such of us as could from
time to time snatch a few hours away from our darling in that strange
sick-room in the grey old Fort. Its walls still bore the names, carved
in their leisure, by the Duke of Cumberland’s soldiers, and from the
wide open chimney, as in any Highland cottage, the black cooking-pot
hung above the low peat-fire (till we instituted a change). On the walls
hung some of his favourite deers’ heads, to which we added long trails
of stag’s-horn moss, and from one of these was slung an eagle’s wing,
with which we used to fan him, for, in the difficulty of breathing, he
could scarcely get air enough, though door and window were wide open all
through the bitter winter nights.
His iron bedstead was so narrow that I think it made him appear even
larger than he really was—he did look so grandly beautiful as he lay
there in a blue flannel shirt, with his old scarlet Cumming tartan plaid
thrown round his shoulders, and his masses of lovely silky curls brushed
straight back from his forehead like a golden halo. His hair was of a
rich nutty brown, and very glossy—not one grey hair had yet appeared. As
he slowly turned his grand head, it seemed like that of one of his own
lions, with a look of strange surprise in his beautiful eyes, as though
wondering what had befallen him.
Gladly did he welcome us, as one by one gathered round him, and for
seven days and nights we watched, thinking that each hour must be the
last, so terrible was the agony and the incessant coughing up quantities
of blood, consequent, Doctor Tolmie told us, on enlargement of the heart
and its pressure on the lungs. All this time and during the three weeks
that followed, kind, strong men from the canal-locks and other
neighbours, constantly came by turns to do all in their power to help
us, and his faithful piper, Tom Moffat, would soothe him for hours by
playing his favourite old Highland airs on the bagpipes.
At length there came a strange rally, so that for awhile it seemed
possible that he would live, and then, too, came that marvellous Light,
like a tropical sunrise, so dazzling and intense was the glow that shone
more and more unto the perfect day. It was as if suddenly a dark cloud
had been raised from his soul, and every word of his beloved mother’s
teaching came to him with a full, new meaning. She had made him learn by
heart many chapters of the Bible and hymns, and he remembered every
word. It was as if he had long possessed a box of treasures, of which he
had only then found the key.
All through these terrible days we had felt it impossible to speak to
him of holy things. At last one night I managed to say that our praying
for him was not enough—he must do so himself.[46] Then he told me that
for months he had been doing so when alone on the wild hills. But
knowing how little he had allowed his companions to imagine what was
passing in his mind, I reminded him of the necessity of “confessing his
Master before men.” There the conversation dropped, and for the next two
days he made no allusion to it, and I felt that I could not say a word.
But one night, when I shared the night-watch with Sandy, his gillie, a
tall, bonnie lad who sat in “the ingle neuk,” crouching over the fire,
he called him to his side, and began speaking to him with a wild,
passionate earnestness, such as I have never heard from any other
lips—speaking of his own wasted life and of the grand talents of mind
and body which GOD had given him for HIS own service, but which he had
so recklessly misused, and imploring Sandy to see to it that he lived
very differently and took warning by him.[47]
Then he bade him kneel beside his bed while he prayed, and his prayer
was like opening the floodgates of a mighty, pent-up torrent—the
agonised repentance of a strong nature, with its intense remorse for all
the irreparable past, and chiefly for having so often misled others, yet
with the simplest childlike trust in the perfect love and forgiveness of
his SAVIOUR, in HIS having sought and found HIS wanderer, and HIS power
to save and keep him from falling again.
From that hour, in every conscious moment (and likewise in many
unconscious ones, though sometimes his delirious utterances were sad and
pitiful to hear), his words were one long outpouring of faith and love.
To every one who came near him (especially to the kind canal
men—tenderest of nurses—who, after their hard day’s work, insisted on
sharing our watching), he continued to speak in the same strain, urging
them not to follow the example he had given them, but to begin a
different life. One day he had been speaking very earnestly; then he
looked troubled, remembering his own reckless life, but after a pause he
turned to them again, and said, “Remember, lads, out of the abundance of
the heart the mouth speaketh.” Often and often he would pray aloud,
simply and naturally, just as if he was speaking to ONE WHOM he saw
standing beside him.
The window of the room which we used as our family sitting and
dining-room and occasional sleeping-room looked right down Loch Ness,
which was constantly swept by wild snowstorms, while from Roualeyn’s own
window, though it looked into the grim courtyard, we could see the
beautiful Glengarry peaks, all dazzlingly white, and on these, morning
after morning, we watched the first gleam of dawn flushing the peaks
like crimson fire, while the lower land still lay shrouded in purple
gloom. One day, as I was watching this red light fade into dazzling
white and describing it to him, he whispered, “Though your sins be as
scarlet they shall be white as snow,” and he unmistakably accepted the
promise as his own.
All his words were like a wild, beautiful poem, so full of metaphors and
images drawn from nature, of hills and mists and storms, and of all
living creatures and flowers, all blended with human sympathy and
strange deep pathos. As I listened, I was continually reminded of the
so-called _Poems of Ossian_, which were collected by Macpherson in Skye,
and other remote mountain districts, in the original Gaelic, and by him
translated, at the suggestion of David Hume, the historian, and Lord
Lyndoch.
There were fluctuations in his illness, and for awhile even the doctor
thought he would live. He himself clung to this hope, chiefly, he said,
because he knew what influence he had with all the people around, and
that he could use it so differently. His devoted old tutor, Mr. M‘Watt
(Free Church minister of Rothes on the Spey), now came to see him, and
was a real help and comfort to him. To him he talked much of this hope
of living to work in the right cause.
But after awhile he seemed oppressed by the fear that he might not be
able to stand true, and again and again I heard him pray, “Suffer me not
to fall away from THEE.” It seemed like the answer to this prayer that
he was spared the sore test of life, and rapidly grew weaker. When Ida
one day spoke of her longing to keep him, and that they would never part
again, he said, “Oh, don’t wish that! I am very weary of this sad life,
and I long to get away to the Rest.” Little did we foresee that only
four years later she would follow him to the land where there shall be
no more partings, nor any more pain.
He constantly spoke of his mother in terms of deepest love, as also of
all his brothers and sisters, as if the long separation from his own
people, and the silence, had only deepened his heart’s yearning for them
all.
It grieved him to hear that Penrose, his eldest brother, was even then
suffering grievously, for, he said, “My pain makes me know what his must
be. My Maker, my Saviour has humbled me sorely, but it has all been to
draw me closer to Himself.” And with his whole soul he pleaded for his
suffering brother. Almost his last utterance was a wild, passionate cry
for him, addressing him by all the old pet-names. Afterwards this seemed
to us like a prophetic call.
Even in the weary half-delirious hours he never uttered a word that
could vex any one, all was an overflowing of gratitude, chiefly to GOD,
and then to all of us for every trifling little comfort we could
contrive for him, and if ever his agony wrung from him one word of
impatience, his grief for that was too touching.
One evening he was for awhile anxious and distressed in mind, but
presently he was able to cast all his care on the Friend Whom he had
learnt to trust implicitly, and slept calmly as a child. When he awoke,
the cloud had passed, and he said to me: “See how my little simple
prayer has gone up to the throne of the Great GOD, and HE has sent me an
answer. HE has sent me this peace for Christ’s sake.”
Again, on the last night he seemed somewhat troubled in mind, but when
Ida gently repeated a few verses of strong promise, he looked up
earnestly, saying, “LORD, I believe, help THOU mine unbelief.” Then she
and I sang some of the old Scotch paraphrases, “I’m not ashamed to own
my LORD,” to the old tune “Martyrdom,” and others, she singing second,
and after awhile he fell into a troubled sleep. Towards morning (24th
March 1866) one deeper breath ended the struggle, and the emancipated
spirit passed away.
We hung the opposite room with white, and there that beautiful soul-case
lay for three days, while the Highlanders came from many a distant glen
to have one last look at him who from his boyhood had captivated all
their hearts, and who now lay before them with all the beauty of his
earlier years, but refined and spiritualised. “He looked so grand when
he was dead.”
In the misty early morning of 28th March they assembled in the
courtyard, and carried down the coffin, on which lay his plaid, bonnet,
broadsword, and the Bible and Prayer-book which his father and mother
had given him many years before when he first left Altyre to join the
Madras cavalry, and from which, through all his wanderings, he had never
parted. (His beautiful goat stood by—a magnificent white one with
splendid horns—which followed him about like a dog, and which throughout
his illness constantly waited under his window, listening to his voice,
and sometimes climbing upstairs to his door. It seemed to recognise our
right to its allegiance, for, though dangerous to most people, it was
always very obedient to us.)
After prayer by the parish minister, the Highlanders carried the coffin
to the pier, where lay a steamer which we had chartered, and whose
captain had hoisted the Union Jack at half-mast. As we slowly marched
down, the piper played “M‘Crimmon’s Lament,” the wildest of all the
Gaelic wails, and its echoes mingled with the wild cries of the seapiats
(_i.e._ peewits) or oyster-catchers, which were breeding in all the
little creeks about the loch. Presently the sun broke through the mist,
and bits of rainbow—bow of promise—irradiated the snowy mountain
summits.
We left the steamer at Drumnadrochit, travelling thence by carriage to
Inverness, and by rail to Elgin, whence we drove to Duffus, there to be
welcomed and cared for by our cousins, the Dunbars, while in the old
hall at Gordonstoun the coffin rested till Easter Eve, 31st March,
whence many who loved him dearly followed it along the quiet green
glades to the old Michael Kirk, where we laid him beside his father and
mother. On the coffin lay one lovely cross of white flowers, in the
centre of which, wrapped up in soft green moss, Ida had placed some
sea-shells from the Covesea sands, to which he had so craved to return.
Henceforth his dust would lie within sound of the waves which he loved,
but might not see again.
On the following morning—Easter Day—we all went together to church in
Elgin, and more real than ever seemed the glorious greetings of the
Morning of the Resurrection.
One who would fain have been with us—our eldest brother, Sir Alexander
Penrose—was prevented from coming by illness, which for some months had
been gradually intensifying its grip of him. All through the previous
autumn, while struggling to be, as was his wont, the life of the many
balls[48] and other gay doings at Floors Castle, Kelso, etc., in honour
of the young Prince and Princess of Wales, he had frequently been
enduring grievous pain.
But he battled bravely on, till in the month of February it became
evident that he must have further medical advice, and so, telling his
specially loved little son Walter that he hoped to return to him in a
week, he took what proved to be his last look at his beloved Altyre, and
journeyed to the Cumming-Bruces’ southern home at Kinnaird, near
Larbert, whence he could conveniently go to Edinburgh and back in a day.
Soon, however, it became evident that much closer medical attendance was
necessary, and he moved first to rooms in Forres Street, and then to 11
Albyn Place, which was destined to become to us all hallowed ground
indeed.
All through the weary summer months the slow “purification by fire” went
on—days and nights of such agony as mercifully few human beings are
called to endure—hardly a moment’s respite from pain in some form,
except when the momentary sharp pain of the morphia needle soothed and
enabled him to sleep for some hours. Always hungry, yet hardly daring to
touch necessary food, for the certainty of torture, as well as desperate
sickness, so soon as it was swallowed. The only relief he experienced
was when by turns we were almost incessantly rubbing or kneading the
seat of pain, when it would shift to some new place.
His illness sorely perplexed the medical faculty, who attributed it to
the presence of sarcinae, a fungoid or zoophyte growth on the coats of
the stomach, combined with the gravest form of liver-complaint.
Dr. Christison, whom he consulted in the first instance, had treated the
case so lightly, that the patient placed himself in the care of Dr.
Simpson, who at once corroborated the above, which was the view taken by
Dr. Murray, our local doctor at Forres. Dr. Simpson was himself at that
time in such precarious health, that the charge of his patients devolved
almost entirely on Dr. Black, who, on my brother’s very bad days,
sometimes looked in seven or eight times, and soon the strongest
brotherly friendship grew up between him and the sufferer. Often in the
moments of worst torture, when our words seemed powerless to help him,
some little whisper from that grave gentle friend would soothe and
strengthen him.
At first only Annie, his wife, had accompanied him south, but when his
young only daughter, Eisa,[49] realised that her father was seriously
ill, she followed without waiting for permission, accompanied by little
Walter and his governess. The child, who had been his chief idol, seemed
more than he could bear, so he was sent back to Gordonstoun, and the two
elder boys, who were at school, remained there till the holidays; but
from that moment his daughter was his chief comfort, and my sister Ida
and I helped her in tending him. (Our ever kind cousin, Lady Emma
Campbell, made her house my home all through these long months.)
Now once again we were to have the wonderful privilege of, as it were,
standing by to see GOD fight HIS own wonderful battle, and rescue HIS
wanderer. Once again we watched how, as the outward man decayed, the
inward man was renewed—not suddenly, as with Roualeyn, when it seemed as
if a spark had touched an already well-laid fire. He knew everything
concerning the Christian faith, though he had never made it a rule of
action. Penrose told us that he knew nothing—hardly the simplest words
of Scripture or of prayer, and that although a fairly regular attendant
at what he called “church parade,” he had never thought of what was
said, or that the words spoken had any reality whatever—certainly not as
concerning himself. He said he believed that the vast majority of men of
his own standing thought as little. “But,” he said, almost in Roualeyn’s
own words, “when GOD lays HIS hand on a man, as HE has done on me, he
MUST think.”
Now, when the inner teaching began, and he felt that he had missed the
true aim of life, and was tossing about rudderless, and would fain find
a pilot, he was hardly able to grasp any consecutive thought. His
spiritual perceptions were as much enfeebled by long neglect as his body
was by illness, so he (the once brilliant _raconteur_ of witty stories,
and ever the readiest at repartee) could only take a few words at a time
and repeat them over and over again, and even then it was very slowly
that their intense reality came home to him.
First, silently in his own heart the conviction dawned upon him that he,
too, although a first-class landlord, county gentleman, and leader in
society, had nevertheless, as concerning the great realities of life,
wasted his talents as recklessly as Roualeyn, whom he had so justly
blamed. And so, when I first came to him, he eagerly caught at every
word I could tell him, of all the glad assurances we had in his death.
“Now,” he said, “you must tell me all about it, just as if you were
speaking to a child.” And so, childlike, carefully, and with great
difficulty he tried to grasp one thought at a time—a verse of a psalm,
which he could make his prayer again and again, or a promise—chiefly,
“Fear not. I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy name. Thou
art MINE,” which he called “our verse,” and repeated hundreds of times,
whenever a shade of doubt or trouble crossed his mind.
He liked Eisa or me to read and pray with him every morning and evening,
and when, with the instinct of the old soldier, he had heard the
newspaper accounts of the Prusso-Austrian war, he liked one of us to
read some very simply-told story, such as “_Jessica’s First
Prayer_.”[50] In the evening he liked several of his most intimate
friends to gather round the piano in the next room, and sing simple
hymns, such as “Tell me the old, old story,” Keble’s evening hymn, and
various others, which soothed him as he fell asleep under the brief
respite from pain secured by the morphia needle.
As the months wore on, I was sent with his daughter and eldest son to
the Malcolms of Poltalloch, in Argyllshire, for a much-needed change of
air, but we were soon summoned back by telegraph, in consequence of an
attack so agonising that it seemed as if it must be the last. As I
slipped into his room, he turned to me, and with great difficulty, but
with a look of blessed peace and trust, he whispered “our verse”: “Fear
not. I have redeemed thee. Thou art MINE.” He had evidently been waiting
eagerly for our return, and longing to tell us by those words how our
hearts’ desire had been granted.
He rallied again, and lived for some days longer, speaking strong,
loving words of counsel to both his elder sons, bidding them love GOD
and one another. As his strength allowed, he bade a loving farewell to
each of those who had been about him. Just as Roualeyn took Tom Moffat’s
head in his hands and kissed him, so Penrose took Peter Dustan, his
devoted manservant, and kissing him tenderly, bade him be as faithful to
his GOD as he had always been to him.
Then he seemed to have done with earth, and we heard him praying to be
taken “to that Home which THOU hast prepared for sinners such as I, but
who DO believe on JESUS CHRIST, as I DO believe on HIM.” But sometimes
he would check his prayer, and say that “perhaps God was not ready for
him, and he must be patient and wait. Or that perhaps there might be
need for his suffering longer, and if so, he was content to bear
whatever GOD laid upon him.” And patiently he did bear all his sore
trial—never one word of murmuring did we hear from him, formerly so
irritable and exacting, but through all those weary months so gentle and
considerate for every one, and so grateful for the tiniest cares.
Two nights before he died he bade us sing as usual, but that night we
tried in vain. Then he said, “Oh, if I could hear the pipes once more!”
Suddenly, and for the first time in all the months since we came to
Edinburgh, two young volunteer pipers struck up just as they marched
past his window. My sister Ida darted out, and told them that a Highland
chief was lying there very ill, and longed to hear the dear old pipes.
She asked if they could halt awhile and play to him, which they gladly
did, playing for half an hour in the dark under his open window. He
said, “THAT IS MUSIC!” and then sank back exhausted, but so pleased.
Sir Noel Paton wrote some very pretty verses about that incident, but he
thought it had occurred on the last night of all, whereas Penrose lived
on till Sunday morning, 2nd September, “the morning of the
Resurrection,” as he himself said. He was conscious to the very last,
though suffering from frightful cramp; and when Ida closed his dear eyes
I think the one feeling amongst us all was of intense thankfulness for
having been permitted to witness so sure and certain a victory after so
long and hardly-fought a battle. “Thanks be unto GOD for HIS unspeakable
gift.”
Peace, perfect peace, was the irresistible thought, as we looked on the
calmly beautiful face, like exquisitely chiselled marble, with the old
look of unrest gone for ever, and replaced, even in death, by the new
expression of quiet trust. Round him lay fair white flowers and sprays
of willow and ivy, his clan-badges.
Dear Sir Noel came to take a last look, and made a pencil outline of the
face which he had first seen in fancy. For, strange to say, the
beginning of our friendship arose from Sir Noel painting his well-known
picture of “The Wounded Soldier’s Return to his Home,” in which the
soldier bore so striking a likeness to Penrose, that Sir Noel was
repeatedly asked when he had secured sittings, whereas he had never seen
him.
A few days later we all travelled north, and for the second time within
seven months one of our bonnie brothers rested in the old hall at
Gordonstoun preparatory to the last brief journey. On his coffin were
laid his blue bonnet and plaid, volunteer shako, sword, Bible, and one
lovely cross of white lilies. It was a day of glorious sunshine (11th
September) when he was carried through the green avenues to the old
Michael Kirk, our uncle’s piper, John Macdonald, playing wild laments
alternately with the volunteer band, which played “The Flowers of the
Forest” and the “Dead March in Saul.” He had always wished that the
latter might be played when he was buried, but, as he had left the
regular army,[51] he thought it could not be.
[Illustration:
_C. F. Gordon Cumming._
THE OLD MICHAEL KIRK. 1866.
]
There was a very great gathering of friends (there were fully a thousand
people in the park), and the Primus, Bishop Eden, who with many others
had come all the way from Inverness, read the service most impressively.
I think, as we walked home through the sunshine, with cloudless blue sky
overhead and harvest-fields all around us, we thought thankfully of our
grain so safely garnered in God’s own storehouse.
Among the friends who gathered round us from long distances were dear
old Mr. Grant of Glen Morriston and his son John. We trembled for the
effect on that truly grand old man, little thinking that within a year
he would have to lay his own young roof-tree in the quiet old
burial-ground beside Loch Ness. Few indeed of all that kindly company
now survive.
THE CHIEFTAIN’S CORONACH.
“Far from his fir-clad hills and moorlands brown,
Far from the rushing thunder of the Spey,
Amid the din and turmoil of the town
A Highland Chieftain on his death-bed lay;
Dying in pride of manhood, ere to grey
One lock had turned, or from his eagle face
And stag-like form, Time’s touch of slow decay
Had reft the strength and beauty of his race.
And as the feverish night drew sadly on,
‘Music!’ they heard him breathe in low, beseeching tone.
“From where beside his couch she, weeping, leant,
Uprose the fair-haired daughter of his love,
And touched with gentle hand the instrument,
Singing with tremulous voice that vainly strove
To still its faltering, songs that wont to move
His heart to joy in many a dear home hour;
But not to-night thy strains, sweet sorrowing dove,
To fill the hungering of his heart have power!
And hark! he calls aloud with kindling eye,
Ah! might I hear a pibroch once before I die?
“Was it the gathering silence of the grave
Lent ghostly prescience to his yearning ear?
Was it the pitying GOD WHO heard and gave
Swift answer to his heart’s wild cry? For clear,
Though far, but swelling nearer and more near,
Sounded the mighty war-pipe of the Gael
Upon the night-wind! In his eye a tear
Of sadness gleamed, but flushed his visage pale
With the old martial rapture. On his bed
They raised him. When it passed—the Highland Chief was dead!
“Yet, ere it passed, ah! doubt not he was borne
Away in spirit to the ancestral home
Beyond the Grampians, where, in life’s fresh morn,
He scaled the crag and stemmed the torrent’s foam;
Where the lone corrie he was wont to roam,
A light-foot hunter of the deer! But where,
Alas! to-day, beneath the cloudless dome
Of this blue autumn heaven, the clansmen bear
Him, with the coronach’s piercing knell
To sleep amid the wilds he loved in life so well.”
J. NOEL PATON.