THE INVERNESS "CHARACTER" FAIR

1873

"_Thursday_.--Gathering, hand-shaking, brandy and soda and drams.

"_Friday_.--Drinking, dandering, and feeling the way in the forenoon;

the ordinary in the afternoon; at night a spate of drink and bargaining.

"_Saturday_.--Bargaining and drink.

"_Sunday morning_.--Bargains, drink, and the kirk."

Such was the skeleton programme of the Inverness "Character" Fair given

by a farmer friend to me, who happened to be lazily rusticating in the

north of Scotland during the pleasant month of July. My friend asked me

to accompany him in his visit to this remarkable institution and the

programme was too tempting for refusal. As we drove to the station he

handed me Henry Dixon's _Field and Fern_, open at a page which gave

some particulars of the origin and character of the great annual sheep

and wool market of the north. "Its Character Market," wrote "The

Druid,"--no longer, alas! among us--"is the great bucolic glory of

Inverness. The Fort-William market existed before, but the Sutherland

and Caithness men, who sold about 14,000 sheep and 15,000 stones of

wool annually so far back as 1816, did not care to go there. They dealt

with regular customers year after year, and roving wool-staplers with

no regular connection went about and notified their arrival on the

church door. Patrick Sellar, 'the agent for the Sutherland

Association,' saw exactly that some great _caucus_ of buyers and

sellers was wanted at a more central spot; and on 27th February 1817

that meeting of the clans was held at Inverness which brought the fair

into being. Huddersfield, Wakefield, Halifax, Burnley, Aberdeen, and

Elgin signified that their leading merchants were favourable and ready

to attend. Sutherland, Caithness, Wester Ross, Skye, the Orkneys,

Harris, and Lewis were represented at the meeting; Bailie Anderson also

'would state with confidence that the market was approved of by William

Chisholm, Esq., of Chisholm, and James Laidlaw, tacksman, of Knockfin;'

and so the matter was settled for ever and aye, and the _Courier_ and

the _Morning Chronicle_ were the London advertising media. This

Highland Wool Parliament was originally held on the third Thursday in

June, but now it begins on the second Thursday of July and lasts till

the Saturday; and Argyllshire, Nairnshire, and High Aberdeenshire have

gradually joined in. The plain-stones in front of the Caledonian Hotel

have always been the scene of the bargains, which are most truly based

on the broad stone of honour; not a sheep or fleece is to be seen and

the buyer of the year before gets the first offer of the cast or clip.

The previous proving and public character of the different flocks are

the purchasers' guide far more than the sellers' description."

Thus far "The Druid"; and my companion as we drove supplemented his

information. It is from the circumstance that not a head of sheep or a

tait of wool is brought to the market but that everything is sold and

bought unseen and even unsampled, that the market derives its

appellation of "character" fair. Of the value of the business

transacted, the amount of money turned over, it is impossible to form

with confidence even an approximate estimate since there is no source

for data; but none with whom I spoke put the turnover at a lower figure

than half a million. In a good season such as the past, over 200,000

sheep are disposed of exclusive of lambs, and of lambs about the same

number. The stock sold from the hills are for the most part Cheviots

and Blackfaces; from the low grounds half-breds, being a cross between

Leicester and Cheviot and crosses between the Cheviot and Blackface.

All the sales of sheep and lambs are by the "clad score" which contains

twenty-one. The odd one is thrown in to meet the contingency of deaths

before delivery is effected. Established when there was a long and

wearing journey for the flocks from the hills where they were reared

down to their purchasers in the lowlands or the south country, the

altered conditions of transit have stimulated farmers to efforts for

the abolition of the "clad score." Now that sheep are trucked by

railway instead of being driven on foot or conveyed from the islands to

their destination in steamers specially chartered for the purpose, the

farmers grudge the "one in" of the "clad score." In 1866 they seized

the opportunity of an exceptionally high market and keen competition to

combine against the old reckoning and in a measure succeeded. But next

year was as dull as '66 had been brisk, and then the buyers and dealers

had their revenge and re-established the "clad score" in all its

pristine firmness of position. The sheep-farmers wean their lambs about

the 24th of August and delivery of them is given to the buyers as soon

as possible thereafter. The delivery of ewes and wethers is timed by

individual arrangement. A large proportion of the old ewes--no ewes are

sold but such as are old--go to England where a lamb or two is got from

them before they are fattened. Most of the lambs are bought by

sheep-farmers who, not keeping a ewe flock, are not themselves

breeders, and are kept till they are three years old--"three shears" as

they are technically called--and sold fat into the south country. There

they get what Mr. M'Combie called the last dip and the butcher sells

them as "prime four-year-old wedder mutton."

The size of some of the Highland sheep farms is to be reckoned by miles

not by acres; and the stock, as in Australia, by the thousand. The

largest sheep-owner, perhaps, that the Highlands ever knew was Cameron

of Corrichollie, now dead. He was once examined before a Committee of

the House of Commons, and came to be questioned on the subject of his

ownership of sheep. "You may have some 1500 sheep, probably, sir?"

quoth the interrogating M.P. "Aiblins," was Corrichollie's quiet reply

as he took a pinch of snuff; "aiblins I have a few more nor that." "Two

thousand, then?" "Yes, I pelieve I have that and a few more forpye,"

calmly responded the Highlander with another pinch. "Five thousand?"

"Oh, ay, and a few more." "Twenty thousand, sir?" cried the M.P.,

capping with a burst his previous bid. "Oh, ay, and some more forpye,"

was the imperturbable response. "In Heaven's name how many sheep have

you, man?" burst out the astonished catechist. "I'm no very sure to a

thousan' or two," replied Corrichollie in his dry laconic way and with

an extra big pinch; "but I'm owner of forty thousan' sheep at the

lowest reckoning." Lochiel, known to the Sassenach as Mr. Cameron,

M.P., is perhaps the largest living sheep-owner in Scotland. He has at

least 30,000 sheep on his vast tracks of moorland on the braes of

Lochaber. In the Island of Skye Captain Cameron of Talisker has a flock

of some 12,000; and there are several other flocks both in the islands

and on the mainland of more than equal magnitude. Sheep-farming, at

least in many instances, is an hereditary avocation, and some families

can trace a sheep-farming ancestry very far back. The oldest

sheep-farming family in Scotland are the Mackinnons of Corrie in Skye.

They have been on Corrie for four hundred years and they were holding

sheep-farms elsewhere even earlier. The Macraes of Achnagart in

Kintail, paid rent to Seaforth for two hundred years. For as long

before they had held Achnagart on the tenure of a bunch of heather

exigible annually and their fighting services as good clansmen. Two

hundred years ago an annual rental of £5 was substituted for the

heather "corve"; the clansmen's service continuing and being rendered

up till the '45. Now clanship is but a name: a Seaforth Mackenzie is no

longer chief in Kintail, and the Macrae who has succeeded his forbears

in Achnagart finds the bunch of heather and the £5 alike superseded by

the very far other than nominal rent of £1000. The modern Achnagart

with his broad shoulders and burly frame, looks as capable as were any

of his ancestry to render personal service to his chief if a demand

were made upon him; and very probably would be quite prepared to accept

a reduction of his money rental if an obligation to perform feudal

clan-service were substituted. Achnagart with his £1000 a year rental

by no means tops the sheep-farming rentals of his county. Perhaps

Robertson of Achiltie, whose sheep-walks stretch up on to the

snow-patched shoulders of Ben Wyvis and far away west to Loch Broom,

pays the highest sheep-farming rental in Ross-shire, when the factor

has pocketed his half-yearly check for £800.

Part of this I learn from my friend as we drive to the station; part I

gather afterwards from other sources. The station for which we are

bound is Elgin, the county town of Morayshire. Between Elgin and

Inverness, it is true, we shall see but few of the great sheep-farmers

and flock-masters of the west country, who converge on the annual tryst

from other points of the compass and by various routes--by the Skye

railway, by that portion of the Highland line which extends north of

Inverness, through Ross into Sutherland, by the Caledonian Canal, etc.

But it is promised to me that I shall see many of the notable

agriculturists of Moray land, who go to the market as buyers; and a

contingent of sheep-breeders are sure to join us at Forres, coming down

the Highland line from the Inverness-shire Highlands on Upper

Strathspey. There is quite an exceptional throng on the platform of the

Elgin station, of farmers, factors, lawyers, and

ex-coffee-planters--all very plentiful in Elgin; tanners bound for

investments in prospective pelts; and men of no avocation yet as much

bound to visit Inverness to-day as if they meant to invest thousands.

In a corner towers the mighty form of Paterson of Mulben, famous among

breeders of polls with his tribe of "Mayflowers." From beneath a kilt

peep out the brawny limbs of Willie Brown of Linkwood and Morriston,

nephew of stout old Sir George who commanded the light division at the

Alma, son to a factor whose word in his day was as the laws of the

Medes and Persians over a wide territory, and himself the feeder of the

leviathan cross red ox and the beautiful gray heifer which took honours

so high at one of the recent Smithfield Christmas Shows. There is the

white beard and hearty face of Mr. Collie, late of Ardgay, owner

erstwhile of "Fair Maid of Perth" and breeder of "Zarah." Here, too, is

a fresh, sprightly gentleman in a kilt whom his companions designate

"the Bourach." Requesting an explanation of the term I am told that

"Bourach" is the Gaelic for "through-other," which again is the

Scottish synonym for a kind of amalgam of addled and harum-scarum. A

jolly tanner observes: "I'll get a compartment to oursels." The reason

of the desire for this exclusive accommodation is apparent as soon as

we start. A "deck" of cards is produced and a quartette betake

themselves to whist with half-crown stakes on the rubber and sixpenny

points. This was mild speculation to that which was engaged in on the

homeward journey after the market, when a Strathspey sheep-farmer won

£8 between Dalvey and Forres. As my friends shuffle and deal, I look

out of window at the warm gray towers of the cathedral, beautiful still

spite of the desecrating hand of the "Wolf of Badenoch." Our road lies

through the fertile "Laigh of Moray," one of the richest wheat

districts in the Empire and as beautiful as fertile. At Alves we pick

up a fresh, hale gentleman, who is described to me as "the laird of

three properties," bought for more than £100,000 by a man who began

life as the son of a hillside crofter. We pass the picturesque ruins of

Kinloss Abbey and draw up at Forres station, whose platform is thronged

with noted agriculturists bound for the "Character" Fair. Here is that

spirited Englishman Mr. Harris of Earnhill, whose great cross ox took

the cup at the Agricultural Hall seven or eight years ago; and the

brothers Bruce--he of Newton Struthers, whose marvellous polled cow

beat everything in Bingley Hall at the '71 Christmas Show and but for

"foot and mouth" would have repeated the performance at the Smithfield

Show; and he of Burnside who likewise has stamped his mark pretty

deeply in the latter arena. At Forres we first hear Gaelic; for a train

from Carr Bridge and Grantown in Upper Strathspey has come down the

Highland Railway to join ours, and the red-haired Grants around the

Rock of Craigellachie--where a man whose name is not Grant is regarded

as a _lusus naturae_--are Gaelic speakers to a man. No witches accost

us, and speaking personally I feel no "pricking of the thumbs" as we

skirt the blasted heath on which Macbeth met the witches; the most

graphic modern description of which on record was given to Henry Dixon

in the following quaint form of Shakespearean annotation: "It's just a

sort of eminence; all firs and ploughed land now; you paid a toll near

it. I'm thinking, it's just a mile wast from Brodie Station."

Nairn is that town by the citation of a peculiarity of which King Jamie

put to shame the boastings of the Southrons as to the superior

magnitude of English towns. "I have a town," quoth the sapient James,

"in my ancient kingdom of Scotland, whilk is sae lang that at ane end

of it a different language is spoken from that whilk prevails at the

other." To this day the monarch's words are true; one end of Nairn is

Gaelic, the other Sassenach. Here we obtain a considerable accession of

strength. The attributes of one kilted chieftain are described to me in

curious scraps of illustrative patchwork. "A great litigant, an

enthusiastic agriculturist, a dealer in Hielan' nowt--something of a

Hielan' nowt himself, a semi-auctioneer, a great hand as chairman at an

agricultural dinner, a visitor to the Baker Street Bazaar when the

Smithfield Shows were held there and where the Cockneys mistook him for

one of the exhibits and began pinching and punching him." Stewart of

Duntalloch swings his stalwart form into our carriage--a noted breeder

of Highland cattle and as fine a specimen of a Highlander as can be

seen from Reay to Pitlochrie. "Culloden! Culloden!" chant the porters

in that curious sing-song peculiar to the Scotch platform porter. The

whistle of the engine and the talk about turnips and cattle contrast

harshly with that bleak, lonely, moorland swell yonder--the patches of

green among the brown heather telling where moulders the dust of the

chivalrous clansmen. It is but little longer than a century and a

quarter ago since Charles Stuart and Cumberland confronted each other

over against us there; and here are the descendants of the men that

fought in their tartans for the "King over the Water," who are

discussing the right proportion of phosphates in artificial manures and

of whom one asks me confidentially for my opinion on the Leger

favourite.

Here we are at Inverness at length; that city of the Clachnacudden

stone. There is quite a crowd in the spacious station of business

people who have been awaiting the arrival of the train from the east,

and the buyers and sellers whom it has conveyed find themselves at once

among eager friends. Hurried announcements are made as to the

conditions and prospects of the market. The card-players have plunged

suddenly _in medias res_ of bargaining. The man who had volunteered to

stand me a seltzer and sherry has forgotten all about his offer, and is

talking energetically about clad scores and the price of lambs. I quit

the station and walk up Union Street through a gradually thickening

throng, till I reach Church Street and shoulder my way to the front of

the Caledonian Hotel. I am now in "the heart of the market," standing

as I am on the plain-stones in front of the Caledonian Hotel and

looking up and down along the crowded street. What physique, what broad

shoulders, what stalwart limbs, what wiry red beards and high

cheek-bones there are everywhere! You have the kilt at every turn, in

every tartan, and often in no tartan at all. Other men wear

whole-coloured suits of inconceivably shaggy tweed, and the breadth of

the bonnets is only equalled by that of the accents. Every second man

has a mighty plaid over his shoulder. It may serve as a sample of his

wool, for invariably it is home made. Some carry long twisted crooks

such as we see in old pastoral prints; others have massive gnarled

sticks grasped in vast sinewy hands on the back of which the wiry red

hairs stand out like prickles. There is falling what in the south we

should reckon as a very respectable pelt of rain, but the Inverness

Wool Fair heeds rain no more than thistledown. Hardly a man has thought

it worth his pains to envelop his shoulders in his plaid, but stands

and lets the rain take its chance. There is a perfect babel of tongues;

no bawling or shouting, however, but a perpetual gruff _susurrus_ of

broad guttural conversation accentuated every now and then by a louder

exclamation in Gaelic. Quite half of the throng are discoursing in this

language. It is possible to note the difference in the character of the

Celt and Teuton. The former gesticulates, splutters out a perfect

torrent of alternately shrill, guttural, and intoned Gaelic; he shrugs

his shoulders, he throws his arms about, he thrills with vivacity. The

Teuton expresses quiet, sententious canniness in every gesture and

every utterance; he is a cold-blooded man and keeps his breath to cool

his porridge.

On the plain-stones there are a number of benches on which men sit down

to gossip and chaffer. Scraps of dialogue float about in the moist air.

If you care to be an eavesdropper you must have a knowledge of Gaelic

to be one effectively. "It's to be a stout market," remarks stalwart

Macrae of Invershiel, come of a fine old West Highland stock and

himself a very large sheep-farmer. "Sixteen shillings is my price. I'll

come down a little if you like," says the tenant of Belmaduthy to

keen-faced Mr. Mackenzie of Liverpool, one of the largest wool-dealers

and sheep-buyers visiting the market. "You'll petter juist pe coming

down to it at once." "I could not meet you at all." "I'm afraid I'll pe

doing what they'll pe laughing at me for." "We can't agree at all," are

the words as a couple separate, probably to come together again later

in the day. "An do reic thu na 'h'uainn fhathast, Coignasgailean?" "Cha

neil fios again'm lieil thusa air son tavigse thoirtorra,

Cnocnangraisheag?" "Thig gus ain fluich sin ambarfan." Perhaps I had

better translate. Two sheep-farmers are in colloquy, and address each

other by the names of their farms, as is all but universal in the

north. Cnocnangraisheag asks Coignasgailean, "Have you sold your

lambs?" The cautious reply is, "I don't know; are you inclined to give

me an offer?" and the proposal ensues, "Come and let us take a drink on

the transaction." Let us follow the two worthies into the Caledonian.

Jostling goes for nothing here and you may shove as much in reason as

you choose, taking your chance of reprisals from the sons of Anak. The

lobbies of the Caledonian are full of men drinking and bargaining with

books in hand. There is no sitting-room in all the house and we follow

the Cnocnangraisheag and his friend into the billiard-room, where we

are promptly served standing. What keenness of business-discussion

mingled with what galore of whisky there is everywhere! The whisky

seems to make no more impression than if it were ginger-beer; and yet

it is over-proof Talisker, as my throat and eyes find to their cost

when I recklessly attempt to imitate Coignasgailean and take a dram

neat. As I pass the bar going out Willie Brown is bawling for soda with

something in it, and Donald Murray of Geanies, one of the ablest men in

the north of Scotland, brushes by with quick decisive step. In the

doorway stands the sturdy square-built form of Macdonald of Balranald,

the largest breeder of Highland cattle in the country. Over the

heathery pasture-land of North Uist 1500 head and more of horned newt

of his range in half-wild freedom. The Mundells and the Mitchells seem

ubiquitous. The ancestors of both families came from England as

shepherds when the Sutherland clearances were made toward the end of

last century, and between them they now hold probably the largest

acreage--or rather mileage, of sheep-farming territory in all Scotland.

It is a "very dour market," that all admit. Everybody is holding back,

for it is obvious prices are to be "desperate high" and everybody wants

to get the full benefit of the rise. The predetermination of the

Southern dealers to "buy out" freely at big prices had been rashly

revealed over-night by one of the fraternity at the after-dinner

toddy-symposium in the Caledonian. He had been sedulously plied with

drink by "Charlie Mitchell" and some others of the Ross and Sutherland

sheep-farmers, till reticence had departed from his tongue. Ultimately

he had leaped on the table, breaking any quantity of glass-ware in the

saltatory feat, and had asserted with free swearing his readiness to

give 50s. all round for every three-year-old wedder in the north of

Scotland. His horror-stricken partners rushed upon him and bundled him

downstairs in hot haste, but the murder was out and the "dour market"

was accounted for. Fancy 50s. a head for beasts that do not weigh 60

lb. apiece as they come off the hill! No wonder that we townsmen have

to pay dear for our mutton.

I push my way out of the heart of the market to find the outlying

neighbourhood studded all over with conversing groups. There is an

all-pervading smell of whisky, and yet I see no man who has "turned a

hair" by reason of the strength of the Talisker. A town-crier ringing a

bell passes me. He halts, and the burden of his cry is, "There is a

large supply of fresh haddies in the market!" The walls are placarded

with advertisements of sheep smearing and dipping substances; the

leading ingredients of which appear to be tar and butter. A recruiting

sergeant of the Scots Fusilier Guards is standing by the Clachnacudden

Stone, apparently in some dejection owing to the little business doing

in his line. Men don't come to the "Character" Fair to 'list. It

strikes me that quite three-fourths of the shops of Inverness are

devoted to the sale of articles of Highland costume. Their fronts are

hidden by hangings of tartan cloth; the windows are decked with

sporrans, dirks, cairngorm plaid-brooches, ram's-head snuff-boxes,

bullocks' horns and skean dhus. If I chose I might enter the emporium

of Messrs. Macdougall in my Sassenach garb and re-emerge in ten minutes

outwardly a full-blown Highland chief, from the eagle's feather in my

bonnet to the buckles on my brogues. Turning down High Street I reach

the quay on the Ness bank, where I find in full blast a horse fair of a

very miscellaneous description, and totally destitute of the features

that have earned for the wool market the title of "Character" Fair.

There are blood colts running chiefly to stomach, splints and bog

spavins; ponies with shaggy manes, trim barrels, and clean legs; and

slack-jointed cart-horses nearly asleep--for "ginger" is an institution

which does not seem to have come so far north as Inverness. Business is

lively here, the chronic "dourness" of a market being discounted by the

scarcity of horseflesh.

At four o'clock we sit down to the market ordinary in the great room of

the Caledonian. A member of Parliament occupies the chair, one of the

croupiers is a baronet, the other the chief of the clan Mackintosh.

There is a great collection of north-country notabilities, and tables

upon tables of sheep-farmers and sheep-dealers. We have a considerable

_cacoethes_ of speech-making, among the orators being Professor Blackie

of Edinburgh, whose quaint comicalities convulse his audience. It is

pretty late when the Professor rises to speak, and the whisky has been

flowing free. Some one interjects a whiskyfied interruption into the

Professor's speech, who at once in stentorian tones orders that the

disturber of the harmony of the evening shall be summarily consigned to

the lunatic asylum. I see him ejected with something like the force of

a stone from a catapult and have no reasonable doubt that he will spend

the night an inmate of "Craig Duncan." The speeches over bargaining

recommences moistened by toddy, which fluid appears to exercise an

appreciable softening influence on the "dourness" of the market. Till

long after midnight seasoned vessels are talking and dealing, booking

sales while they sip their tenth tumbler.

I have to leave on the Saturday morning, but I make no doubt that the

skeleton programme given at the beginning of this paper will have its

bones duly clothed with flesh.