CHAPTER VII.

LEGENDS AND LITERARY NOTABILIA.

Gairloch folk-lore: Prince Olaf and his bride--A laird who had seen a fairy--Tales from Loch Broom: The dance of death--The Kildonan midwife--The magic herring--Taisch--Antiquities of Dunvegan--Miscellaneous terrors--St. Kilda--Lady Grange--Pierless Tiree--Lochbuie in Mull--Inveraray Castle--The sacred isle--Appin--Macdonald's gratitude--Notes on the Trossachs--Lochfyneside: Macivors, Macvicars, and Macallisters--Red Hector--Macphail of Colonsay--Tales from Speyside: Tom Eunan!--Shaws and Grants--The wishing well--Ossian and Macpherson--At the foot o' Bennachie--Harlaw--Lochaber reivers--Reay and Twickenham--Rob Donn--Rev. Mr. Mill of Dunrossness.

GAIRLOCH FOLK-LORE.

I do not think anyone interested in local history and antiquities could find a greater treat than that furnished by Mr. Dixon's _Account of the Parish of Gairloch_. That romantic and lovely district is fortunate in having found a historian of unlimited enthusiasm and untiring industry. There is not a single dry page in his long and detailed narrative. Many of the legends he tells are known to me from other sources, but I am certain that no Scotch compiler (Mr. Dixon, let me say, is English) has written of them with such enjoyable sympathy and poetical ardour. I have been assured by local authorities that the facts adduced by Mr. Dixon are invariably reliable. That I can well believe; but what is still more rare, Mr. Dixon's facts are everywhere made to gleam and glitter in the radiance of romance. Let me narrate, in concentrated form, one of the legends which this clever writer has alluded to in more than one of his chapters.

PRINCE OLAF AND HIS BRIDE.

In the ninth century of the Christian era, one of the islands that in such picturesque fashion dot the surface of Loch Maree, was honoured by being the abode of a pious hermit, despatched thither from the sacred isle of Iona. His presence there, implying as it did austerity, perpetual worship of Heaven, and the reading of devout treatises, inspired veneration in the minds of the obstreperous tribes around. They felt themselves better from having such a good man near them. Wherever in these old times of war and gore, a saintly pioneer established himself, the kingdom of chaos and night was pushed back for miles around his cell.

The Picts of the ninth century revered this man, and his fame was known also to the predatory seamen who came buccaneering among the islands of the West. A Viking of royal blood, Prince Olaf, in the intervals of his sea-roving, hied sometimes to the hermit's retreat, for instruction and spiritual blessing. The young man, as tradition alleges, was not beyond the need of guidance, for his temper was of the most fiery violence, and, at the slightest provocation, his hand was on the hilt of his sword. No doubt the saint of Isle Maree managed to moderate the Prince's vehemence, and draw him somewhat away from wrath which (as Homer puts it), waxeth like smoke in the breasts of warriors, and is far sweeter to them than trickling honey.

By and by, this youth fell in love, and in characteristic fashion he loved with a whole-souled and overwhelming passion. The hot-tempered Viking became a new man, and he thus communed with himself: "How can I ask this maid to share my life on the stormy sea? She is too tender and gentle to go under the dark clouds in a war-galley with me and my rude mates, when we sail to meet the enemy. Nor, were she my wife, could I leave her behind and unprotected. Marry her I must, but I can neither take her with me thereafter, nor defend her in my absence. Go to, I'll e'en visit the monk of Isle Maree and get counsel from _him_."

It is pleasant to note that the holy father found a way out of the difficulty. "Marry her, my son," said he, "and build a tower of strength as her abode on this isle of mine. When you are away, she will be near me. Old man as I am, the natives respect me for my devotion and my hoary hairs." The prince's scruples, so honourable to his love, were overcome. The marriage was celebrated with great pomp and rejoicing. The green pathways of the isle were thronged with feasters; tents were erected beside the thickets of oak and holly, and the Loch had little rest from the plashing of oars. The hermit blessed the couple and blessed the castle too in which the twain were for a time to reside.

Prince Olaf and his lady were perfectly happy, and the golden hours of their wedlock sped merrily by. But the hours that were short to them, were long and dreary to the Norse rovers, lying inactive in the ships anchored hard by in the waters of Loch Ewe. Murmurs, growing at length in volume, were muttered by the men as they reflected, day by day, on the soft uxoriousness of their leader. They wished to be at sea on an expedition that had been planned aforetime ere the marriage had taken place. These murmurs reached the prince's ears, and, with many tears, he tore himself away from the bridal tower to take his place at the head of the squadron. It was a bitter severance, but tempered by the expectation of a speedy reunion. The prince took with him two pennons, a black and a white. "If I am successful in my expedition," he said, "I will display the white pennon on my galley; if misfortune befalls me (which God avert) the black will be flying on the prow. Do you come to meet my returning fleet and let a similar indication be visible on your barge to tell of your safety or your misfortune. A lover feels his excitement growing, the nearer he comes to his home: let us abridge, by such a device, the length of our anxiety."

Love did not make Olaf a worse fighter: rather, indeed, it improved his prowess. The thought of the fair young wife in the lonely tower, protected mainly by the sanctity of an old hermit, nerved his arm, and he speedily got through the expedition with great applause. He swept everything before him, and turned homeward in the expectation of a cordial and meet welcome. During his absence, the lady had been fretting. Finally, as the days passed, she became downright angry. "He is neglecting me," she cried; "he goes away from my arms to the society of rough seamen. I am a mere bauble, a plaything for his leisure. He is tired of me, and perhaps on some distant coast he is dallying with a newer sweetheart. But I will try his heart. When I hear of his homecoming, I will go forth on my barge and have the black flag of desolation flying from the prow. In this way I may obtain some hint of his real feelings."

Olaf came homeward in great glee, and on entering Loch Ewe from the outer sea, the white pennon of success flapped gaily in the wind. The princess, on the other hand, let prepare her boat, and, clothed in the weeds of death, lay down on the deck, while simulated sobs of woe and lamentation were raised by all her attendants. Slowly the boat, with its ill-omened signal, moved to meet the conquering hero. Olaf, the impetuous, was chilled to the heart, when he saw what he thought the sure indication of his lady's misfortune. What a sight met his eyes when he leapt on board! The princess stretched out in apparent death, and robed in the garments of the grave! He could not endure the torment and disillusion. He drove a dirk into his bosom with such passionate might that he fell down, bereft of life, mighty and mightily fallen, on the deck beside her.

She had not expected such a tragic conclusion to her blamable artifice. Remorse, of course, got hold of her, and drawing the gory weapon from her dead lord's breast, she plunged it into her own. Too late was she convinced of his true love for her: she had only one duty, and that was to die with him. It is said in the legend that her life was not extinct when the barge, with its weird freight, returned to the hermit's isle. The old man, holding in his quaking hand the cross before her dying eyes, strove to comfort her somewhat as her blood ebbed quickly away.

"The bodies of the unhappy pair," says Mr. Dixon, "were buried within the inclosure on the island, beneath the shade of the sacred hollies; they were laid with their feet towards each other, and smooth stones with outlines of mediaeval crosses were placed over the graves, and there they remain to this day. A few stones still indicate the site of the hermit's cell, and a considerable mound marks where the tower stood."

The last time I stood beside the little pier on Loch Maree, I noticed many indications of the advent of southern tourists. Empty bottles were floating on the waves, and the tiny steamer that plies on the loch was getting ready for the summer traffic. Visitors from the Lowlands do not suspect that such tales as I have narrated still live on the lips of the Gairloch natives, and help to pass the hours at many an evening reunion. How the centuries meet in such nooks of Ross! Steamers on Loch Maree, and Olaf's cross still standing on the hermit's isle! The driver of the mail-coach from Achnasheen to Gairloch will discuss creeds and schisms with you, and tell you he does not believe in modern religious developments at all; anon, as the coach passes the Gairloch Church, he will point with extended whip to a grassy hollow on the left, and say: "That is where the Free Church used to have its open-air Communion Service: the place is called _Leabaidh na Ba Bhaine_, because Fingal scooped it out as a bed where his white cow might calve." "But did Fingal lodge in this neighbourhood?" you ask. "Oh yes, he did whatever," the driver will reply, "and the best proof of it is, that if you go to the north end of Loch Maree, you will see the _sweetheart's stepping-stones_, placed there by Fingal to keep his feet dry when he went that way to court Malvina."

A LAIRD WHO HAD SEEN A FAIRY.

Bailie Nicol Jarvie, whom we all know so well, confessed that when he heard the wild stories of the North, he felt his blood tingle and his pulses leap. This fact, which as a sober man of business he felt bound to apologize for, was probably due to heredity, his mother having been a Macgregor. The Bailie lived at a time when rumours of witchcraft and fairydom were more common than now, and when there was less dissemination of Scripture truth. It is a saying in some parts of the North that the profuse spread of the Shorter Catechism has been the means of driving witches and fairies out of their old haunts. For my own part, I know of nothing more likely to make them decamp.[28]

I was lucky enough to meet a gentleman who declared, not with an oath, but with a _pretty strong_ asseveration, that he had once seen a fairy. It was in a railway train that I knit conversation with him. He was a kilted country squire, tall, thin, and soulful: on his head was a glengarry with a pair of flying ribbons. He spoke in rapt sentences, as if he were looking on a vision. This is the substance of his remarks:--

One autumn morning, when the world lay fair Under the radiant blue, I musing lay By a green knoll, beside a rippling bay, When, suddenly, gliding through the silent air, A green-clad apparition, wrinkled, spare, Angry, and grieving, passed along the way Before me for a moment's space. The fay Was old and did not see me lying there. I grieved to see her sob in fretful mood, And often since I marvel in my mind What grievous heart-pang drove her from the wood To ease her heart away from her own kind. Strange, that these tiny, soulless beings should, Like us, be grieved and be with passion blind!

These are the words of a man who speaks with conviction. I ought to mention that, ecclesiastically (and I hope in other ways, too,) he was a Moderate. Two things annoyed him greatly: (1) that the fairy did not deign to look at him; (2) that nobody but his little grand-daughter of eight would believe he had seen a fairy at all. "Why," he said, "I could draw that fairy now, if I had pencil and paper. I see her as plain as I see you. _Her little bosom was heaving, and she wore a necklace of twisted corn-stalks. I am sorry I did not offer her some refreshment._"

[28] A very similar account is given, of the dearth of the little folk in England, by the poet Chaucer; only, that eminent writer declares that the phenomenon is due to the zeal and prayers of the monks and begging-friars, who paced about the country muttering blessings and exorcistic paragraphs.

TALES FROM LOCH BROOM.

The enquirer will find a specially abundant crop of old stories if he stays long on Loch Broom side. The bard of Ullapool, Mr. Roderick Mackenzie, has made an excellent collection of romantic incidents associated with the neighbourhood, and has told them in a very quaint and effective fashion. From his collection I now cite a specimen or two. I by no means recommend them as reading for the small hours of the morning.

THE DANCE OF DEATH.

Three young fellows belonging to Strathmore, in the parish of Loch Broom, were returning from the Low Country, where they had been living for some time. It was long before the days of Watt and Macadam; roads were not good, progress was slow, and rain was frequent. When they, in the final lap of their journey, arrived at the green hillside of Lochdrom, the weather was extremely inclement. Seeing a commodious shieling on the braeface, the young men entered, and one of them, with the object of driving dull care away, struck up a lightsome tune on his pipes. His two comrades at once began to fling their legs about and caper merrily. Soon, having succeeded in dancing themselves dry, they all agreed that female partners would be a great acquisition. The wish was at once gratified. Three women mysteriously glided into the shieling, and the dancing began in earnest. One of the women stood close by the piper, while the other two skipped about, with their partners, all round the building. Outside it thundered and lightened in terrific fashion. Tired and sweating, the two couples were at length fain to stop, and they sat down to rest on seats of turf and heather. The piper stopped too: he felt some malign influence coming over him; he was certain some devilish deed was a-doing. Stealing a glance at his two friends, he perceived that they were both stark dead, and that the two infernal huzzies were smiling a hideous smile of triumph. Action, he felt, was immediately necessary: he flung the still groaning bagpipes full in the face of the witch near him, stunned her thus for an instant, and with one wild leap cleared the threshold. And now began a hot race and hot pursuit. Like another Tam o' Shanter, but without the mare, the piper sped over the moor and through the rain, plying a foot as good as wings. Not till they came in sight of the clachan of Fasagrianach, did the witches relinquish the chase. The exhausted piper had a sad tale to tell to the mothers of his two hapless friends. Next day a company of mourners went to the scene of the infernal dance, and, amid much mourning, they sang a weird wail with the sad refrain, _Airidh mo Dhubhaich_, which, being interpreted, means "Shieling of my Sorrow."

Let me give another tale, but of less sombre issue, culled from the folk-lore of the same locality.

THE KILDONAN MIDWIFE.

A woman living at Kildonan, on the north shore of Little Loch Broom, and exercising the useful profession of howdie, or midwife, had been summoned to attend a case at Keppoch. She did not arrive at her destination, although she left home after telling her neighbours where she was going. It was on Christmas eve that Fair Sarah, as she was called, left Kildonan, and for the space of an entire year, not a word, good or bad, was heard of her. Search parties were organized, but all to no purpose. Exactly twelve months after her disappearance--the next Christmas eve, namely--back came the errant midwife to her home, not a hair the worse for her long absence. She was immensely astonished to find she had been so long away, her own impression being that only an hour or two had elapsed. It was evident to all the natives of Kildonan that Fair Sarah had been among the fairies, in whose company, as every one knows, months and years slip past as quickly as hours and days. Sarah was asked to speak out and tell her experiences. "It seems to me," said the flustered howdie, "that it was but last night that I left for Keppoch. Just as I passed the White Knoll, between Strathmore and Strathbeg, I came upon a company of little folk, who would have me with them, right reason or none. I accepted their hospitality, and what drinking, skipping, revelry, and glee my eyes beheld! At last I grew sick of their cantrips and capers. Remembering I was a Christian and a communicant, _I blessed myself in the name of the Glorious Trinity_, with the result that I was unceremoniously bundled out of the place."

The White Knoll had long had the repute of harbouring fairies; Sarah's experiences put the matter beyond all doubt. That worthy female continued to ply her vocation for many years after, with unvarying dexterity and signal success. She was certainly a more prosperous woman after her year's excursion into Fairy-land.

THE MAGIC HERRING.

There is an interesting legend told of the device by which shoals of herring were first induced to come into Loch Broom.

It seems that long ago (the precise date is unessential) the lochs round the island of Lewis were invariably, at the herring season, visited by magnificent shoals of fish, while not a tail was ever seen to twinkle in the spacious waters of Loch Broom. Abundance on one side of the Minch, destitution (for no earthly or apparent reason) on the other! After mature consideration, the dwellers by Loch Broom came to the conclusion that the anomaly could only be explained by the malignant operation of the Lews witches. Query: How best neutralise the spells of these partial harridans? A remedy, both unique and effective, was at length devised. A silver herring was made and given into the hands of a sturdy crew, who set sail with it over the water to Lewis. On arriving there, the men partook of an adequate amount of refreshment, let down the silver fish (attached to a cord) among the jostling shoals in one of the lochs, and then, with the metallic animal trailing in the sea behind them, they turned the prow of the boat in the direction of home. The ruse was successful beyond all belief: glimmering clouds of phosphorence followed through the seas below in the wake of the boat and its silver lure. Under the stars of night, in all the rapture of excitement and success, the Loch Broom fishers led the droves of herring right up to the farthest reach of their loch. The metallic herring was then allowed to sink to the bottom: there it remains, and so long as it is there, an abundant harvest of the deep will be the portion of the resourceful toilers of these shores. Perhaps I ought to mention that the famous boat which did the feat was painted black on one side and red on the other. I am not sufficiently versed in the niceties of _grammarye_ to be able to render a reason for this piebald device.

Of late years, as I have been told, the prosperity of Ullapool is not as high as it was. Can it be that the Lews witches are at their old tricks again? Or has the silver herring been borne, by the wash of retreating surges, out into the Hebridean deep. Every visitor who walks through the sea-facing, white-washed little town, must be struck by the silence of the streets and the utter lack of business animation.

TAISCH.

The most interesting place in the island of Skye is, beyond question, the neighbourhood of Dunvegan. It was of surly, superstitious, loyal-hearted Samuel Johnson that I chiefly thought when I leapt out of the trap that landed me at the Hotel of Dunvegan, for I had just been reading his famous _Journey_, with its diverting remarks on second-sight. It would not, I confess, have surprised me over much, in my tired and wind-beaten condition, to see the Doctor and the Auchinleck laird, walking arm in arm along the road. I should have put it down to a kind of inverted _taisch_, certainly to nothing stronger.

It may surprise many southerners to know that the belief in _taisch_ is not by any means extinct. I have met educated Skyemen who firmly believed in the mysterious visual gifts of the seventh son of a seventh son. In old days, the Highlanders were wont to attribute the gift to none but those of an austere and devout cast, who, living a solitary life in the eye of nature, were thought to be specially prepared for receiving supernatural impressions. I am afraid the vast majority of _taisch_ tales are dreadful nonsense. Mr. MacCulloch, in his recent work on Skye, has usefully summarized the various types of second-sight as expounded by the very credulous Macleod of Hamera: (1) The seer is aware of a phantom winding-sheet enwrapping the doomed person; (2) he may see the corpse of some one still in life; (3) he may behold a drowning or accidental death; (4) he may hear noises as of a coffin being hammered; (5) he may see a living person dwindle to the size of a child, and anon expand to normal bulk. As Johnson remarks, many of the seers declared themselves poignantly afflicted by what they saw. Aubrey tells of a clairvoyant who asked the presbytery to pray that the gift (or curse) might be taken away. Instant prayer removed the obsession.

The extraordinary futility and droll language of the sentences uttered by some of the seers are very mirth-provoking. Here are one or two prophecies of the Brahan Seer:--

"The heir of the Mackenzies will take A white rook out of the wood, And will take a wife from a music-house With his people against him. And the heir will be great In deeds, and as an orator, When the Pope in Rome Will be cast off his throne, Over opposite Creagh-a'-chon Will dwell a little lean tailor," etc.

The following is excellent: "_When the big-thumbed sheriff-officer and the blind man of the twenty-four fingers shall be together in Barra, Macneill may be making ready for the flitting._" It is said that the same seer prophesied thus of the Strathpeffer wells: "The day will come when this disagreeable spring, with thick-crusted surface and unpleasant smell, shall be put under lock and key, so great will be the crowd of people pressing to drink the waters."

Belief in clairvoyance and prophecy was quite common among the Lowland Covenanters; and I believe _Peden's Prophecies_ may still be found among the lumber of the book-shops. An old lady, in Irvine, once repeated to me the following couplet, as having been uttered by Peden:--

"Between Segton and the sea A bloody battle there shall be."

Now, as Segton is the old name for Kilwinning, it would seem that the locale of the battle (probably, as the lady, indeed, thought, the battle of Armageddon) will be _in the immediate neighbourhood of the site at present occupied by Nobell's Dynamite Factory_.

ANTIQUITIES OF DUNVEGAN.

_Taisch_ has taken me a long way from Dunvegan, of which I meant to say something. No souvenir is to me more delicious than that of some days spent there, on one of which I visited the fine old castle of the Macleods, stablished on its rocks, and filled with romance from base to topmost turret. On the landward side are lawns, flowers, and abundance of eye-gladdening leafage, while, seaward, there is the unspeakable glory of isle-dotted loch and distant sea. By the kindness of Macleod of Macleod (you must not call that grand and most genial gentleman by any more garish title: he is _the_ Macleod; he typifies the clan--that is his highest glory), I visited the delightful old castle and saw every room, relic, and dirk of importance. What gave me the most pleasure was the illuminating commentary of Macleod himself and of his charming daughters. One cannot hear the history of some of the rooms without a feeling of terror. In the drawing-room of the castle (the room now used for prayers, and well it may be,) a horrible outrage was planned to take place by Black Ian, a usurping chief. The atrocious deed happened in the middle of the sixteenth century, and was due to Ian's fear that the Campbells, who had landed with a large force in Skye, would expel him from Dunvegan castle. Ian, pretending that he wished to discuss terms, invited eleven of the leading Campbells to a banquet. At table, Macleods and Campbells were seated side by side; and, at a given signal, which consisted in placing a cup of blood in front of each guest, all the Campbells were simultaneously stabbed to death, each Macleod exterminating his man. I was glad to get out of that drawing-room.

The main relics in the castle are: (1) The Fairy Flag; (2) Rory Mor's Drinking-horn; and (3) the Dunvegan Cup.

It is not as well known as it should be that one of the mediaeval chiefs of the Macleods married a fairy. This dainty little woman presented her lord with a yellow silk flag, dotted here and there with red spots. The virtue of the flag, she told him, resided in its efficacy to save the chief of the Macleods on three different occasions. After the third employment of the flag, it would flutter away to fairy-land. The flag has twice saved a chief out of a particularly awkward predicament, and it is still in Dunvegan, though sadly grimed and rent. The present chief, who has served his country nobly, is quite fit, in soldierly fashion, to grapple single-handed with any difficulty he may encounter; but he is in hopes that the flag may yield its residual virtue to the contentment of some one or other of his successors.

Rory Mor's drinking-horn, which could contain, I should think, between two and three bottles of wine, is an interesting indication of pre-Reformation thirst. Of old, each chief as he came of age, was expected to drink off its contents at one draught as a proof that he had arrived at years of discretion.

The cup is made of dark wood, and is finely adorned with silver work. It is dated 1493, and contains a Latin inscription.

The Fairy Tower in Dunvegan Castle contains the room in which Dr. Johnson and Sir Walter Scott slept during their respective visits to the castle. The burly lexicographer would have little wind left for argument after he had toiled up the steep and narrow spiral stairway leading to the room. Formerly, so the smiling chief told me, the young lady chosen by the Macleod to be his wife, had to pass a night alone in this haunted chamber, in order that the fairies might have an opportunity of seeing her, and formally approving the choice.

MISCELLANEOUS TERRORS.

He who investigates Celtic demonology will hear a good deal about a gruesome and insidious animal called the _Water Horse_. This fell beast, though able at need to transform itself into the shape of a human being, is normally like a horse, though much bulkier and fiercer. Its usual abode is in the deep lochs, but it may occasionally be seen, with wreck or sea-weed clinging to its hoof or mane, feeding on the hill-side among earthly horses. The detestable feature about the brute is its fondness for human beings. There is no hope for any man, woman, or child, who gets upon its back: at a furious gallop, the animal bounds off by the nearest road to the loch, and leaps under the waves to devour its prey. Foals of a specially vicious turn are believed to have this brute for their sire: in some such way the furious nature of the horse called "Kelpy" in George Macdonald's story might be explained.

Certain lochs in Skye are believed to harbour a variant terror, the water-bull. Loch Morar, on the mainland, contains a huge mystic bogie, undefined in shape, but of terrible malignity. I have heard too, in Uist, of a phantom dog, with eyes of glede and unearthly bark, that frequents the entrance to the old wayside burying-ground. No driver, unless fortified by several glasses, will drive you that way after dark.

"Duncan," said a commercial traveller to a driver, "I'll have to go to Gruiginish farm to-night. Have everything ready at 8.30."

"I can't do that, Mr. Smith; it'll be dark."

"But you have lamps, Duncan."

"Yes, yes, but I can't go. You have to pass the old cemetery."

"I know that, but I must attend to my business. What ails you at the cemetery?"

"There's the dog at the gate, the dog with the eyes of burning coal. What is he doing there? And the wee man inside, _What is he doing there?_"

"I don't know what he's doing, but to Gruiginish this night I must go. Do you think a glass of _forked lightning_ would do you any good?"

"Well, it might help."

In spite of more than one glass of forked lightning, poor Duncan was in a terrible state of excitement when the cemetery was approached. He kept his head averted, and clutched the reins so nervously that the vehicle was in imminent danger of being upset.

It is a beautiful saying of Goldsmith that innocently to amuse the imagination in this dream of life is wisdom. Judged by this standard, the imaginative operations taking place in Duncan's brain, considering their effect on his happiness, cannot be pronounced either innocent or wise. To add ideal terrors to the prosaic hardships of a place like Uist is the very height of folly. And yet it is precisely in such bare and rough regions where man has to fight with nature as with a constant foe, that the unseen powers are believed to be most terrible. The _lutin_ of the smiling land of France is a mere capering trickster, and the "lubber fiend" of Milton's poem is pictured as an unpaid adjunct of the dairy. Duncan's "wee man up on the hill-side" is a permanent and unspeakable horror of the night. "_What is he doing there?_"[29]

[29] Collins's long _Ode on Popular Superstitions in the Highlands of Scotland_, addressed to Home, author of _Douglas_, contains some excellent rhetorical passages. Speaking of the second-sighted seer, Collins represents him as one who

"In the _depth of Uist's dark forest_ dwells."

We may say of Uist what Lord Rosebery said of Caithness, that it is _entirely delivered from the contaminating influence of foliage_. The air one breathes there does not suffer deterioration by coming through any such _dark forest_ as Collins mentions: it blows from the Atlantic in an absolutely pure and strong condition.

ST. KILDA.

St. Kilda, the lonely and precipitous island, forty miles west of Lewis, which Boswell at one time thought of buying, has now, like so many other islands of the West, a well-furnished library from Paisley. I hope the minister of the place encourages the reading of the books, and does everything in his power to broaden the religious views of the people by healthy secular literature. A luckless inspector of schools crossed over once to examine the school of this island. His boat arrived late on Saturday, and was to leave again early on Monday. To suit his own convenience, the greatly-daring official proposed to examine the scholars on Sunday. Never was their such indignation among the islanders. What! examine the school on the first day of the week! Did the unhappy man wish the wrath of Heaven to fall in fire and brimstone on the island? The inspector was angrily hooted and denounced. Still, as he must needs return by his steamer, the islanders agreed to send their children immediately after Sunday was over, _i.e._, _the bairns were assembled at midnight_, and parts of speech were bandied about then in the visible darkness of the tiny school.

St. Kilda belongs to the Macleod, and every spring the factor goes over to collect the rents. All winter the island is isolated, and has no outer news save, perhaps, from some stray Aberdeen trawler. For twenty years the factor went over in a sailing-boat belonging to the chief, but by some mishap, in which no lives were lost, this boat was ill-manoeuvred and, with sails full-set, was engulfed in a whirlpool. He now goes over in the steamer.

The first question propounded to the factor is this: "_Has there been war anywhere, my dear?_" If the answer is "Yes," a great joy is visible on every face. "_That's good, that's good: tell us all about it._" Having heard all about the war, the natives show an eagerness for sweets, of which they are inordinately fond.

The natives are expert cragsmen, and much of their time is occupied in collecting birds' feathers. The oil of the solan goose is also a source of wealth. Rough tweeds are now woven in many of the houses. The factor informed me that, for some unknown reason, everything that comes from the island is impregnated with a heavy odour that is most disagreeable. Means have been tried to neutralise this smell, but success is only for a time: by and by the odour returns, as bad as ever, to fabric and feather. Merchants, both at home and abroad, are loath to purchase such unfragrant wares.

In Dunvegan Castle are to be seen several of the little letter-boats employed by the St. Kildeans to convey news to Scotland in the winter months. The tide is watched, and the letter-boat cast into the sea. Usually the message is washed ashore on some part of the Long Island. Natural superstition supplements, in a small degree, the lack of mails: when the islanders, for example, hear _the notes of the cuckoo_, they are convinced that the Macleod is dead. Happily the cuckoo is rarely heard breaking the silence of the seas so far west.

LADY GRANGE.

To this day there are in the possession of the Macleod family certain old accounts of the years 1744 and 1745, that recall one of the most diabolical and continuous pieces of cruelty recorded in history. I refer to the accounts paid in these years to the Laird of Macleod for the board and burial of Lady Grange. No one who knows the history of that ill-fated lady can look at these time-stained documents without a knocking of the seated heart at the ribs.

Everyone who has enjoyed the light and graceful poetry of Ovid, has sighed over the relegation of that city man to the barbarous horrors of the Black Sea. As Gibbon exquisitely phrases it: "The tender Ovid, after a youth spent in the enjoyment of wealth and luxury, was condemned to a hopeless exile on the frozen banks of the Danube, where he was exposed without remorse to those fierce denizens of the desert with whose stern spirits he feared that his gentle shade might hereafter be confounded." The banishment of Lady Grange to St. Kilda, in 1734, by her rascally husband, is to me fully as pathetic as Ovid's expatriation to Tomi. She, a refined and beautiful woman, the light of Edinburgh drawing-rooms, was hustled off to a lonely rock and left remorselessly to pine there amid the squalls. Let me briefly summarise this affecting history.

Lord Grange, a Scottish judge of strong Jacobite leanings, was known by his Lady to be concerned in a plot, along with Lovat, Mar, and others, to bring back the Pretender. This was in the year 1730. Stung in her wifely pride by her husband's ill-treatment and licentiousness, she openly threatened to expose his treason. To prevent such exposure, Grange caused his wife to be kidnapped and clandestinely conveyed first to a small island off North Uist, and subsequently to St. Kilda. In the latter island, no one could speak any English except the catechist, and here for seven years this polished society dame lived amid the blasts and the screaming ocean-fowl, lacking even the privilege, which Ovid enjoyed, of sending letters to child or friend. In 1741, when the catechist left the island, she made him bearer of letters to her law-agent, Hope of Rankeillor. Hope fitted out a sloop, with twenty-five armed men on board, and set out for St. Kilda to rescue the lady. Macleod, who was, of course, privy to her detention, at once removed her to Skye, and Hope's expedition came to nothing. The poor woman, worn out with sorrow and suffering, died in 1745, a helpless imbecile!

The story, which throws a lurid light on the savagery of the eighteenth century, and which, to my thinking, surpasses in pathos anything occurring in fiction, was long disbelieved. But it was only too true. It is said that ill-luck pursued the lady even after death, and that her funeral was a miserable parody. A coffin filled with stones and turf was interred, before a large crowd, in the churchyard of Duirinish, the real remains being, with maimed rites or none at all, secretly buried elsewhere.

It is noteworthy that Lady Grange died in 1745, the year when Prince Charlie's hopes were shattered on Culloden Moor. Like her, he too had the ill-luck to be a hopeless wanderer in the Misty Isle.

PIERLESS TIREE.

I regret to say that I did not stay long enough in the island of Tiree to add to my store of legends, and yet, I went there with a capacious note-book and excellent intentions. What is more, I read from beginning to end, Dr. Erskine Beveridge's detailed book on the island, and could have passed an examination on semi-brochs, rock-forts, marsh duns, islet-forts, sandhill dwellings, and prehistoric burial-sites. I steeped myself so thoroughly in the _minutiae_ of pre-Reformation churches, that I almost forgot to go to the modern ones. Tiree took hold of me completely, and so did the Norse invaders of the Hebrides--men like Ketil Flatnose, Magnus Barelegs, Hako, and Somerled. I got a pocket map arranged for my own use (copied from Dr. Beveridge's large one) with a red cross at all the sites of ancient forts. It was my fond hope, for pride attends us still, that I might find some inaccuracy in Dr. Beveridge's book, and, from measurements on the spot, be able to contradict some of his statements. But what are the hopes of man! I did not know that predestination, in the form of dirty weather, was working against me, and was about to quench all my interest in _duns_. On September 5th, 1907, I determined to take Dr. Beveridge's measurements for granted.

On that day, in fact, I was for some time under the impression that my last lecture had been delivered. It was on the way between Coll and Tiree. The gale was a furious one and, combined with the greasy odours of the _Fingal_, was enough to sicken a practised seafarer. I did notice that some of the crew were prostrated, so that there was some excuse for a landsman not being proof against Neptune's dandling. So low, exposed, and precarious is the shore at Scarinish, that, often for weeks, the ferrymen dare not venture out to the steamer for passengers. I asked one of the _Fingal_ men if there was any chance of being landed. He was a cruel cynic, and said: "No, not to-day. The sea is too wild for the ferry to come out. We'll go right across to Bunessan in Mull, so prepare for three more hours' shaking. You won't forget the _Dutchman's Cap_ for the rest of your life." Then with a remark addressed to the Creator, he added: "_There's the ferryboat after all; she's racing over the water like a stag._"

He was right: the lugsail was careering out to us and came alongside at length, and, after fearful trouble, got fastened to the _Fingal_. Sometimes the ferryboat was even with our deck, sometimes far above it, sometimes fifteen feet below. It looked like certain death to leap into that lugsail.

I hesitated, and shouted to the captain: "Is it safe to jump?"

He replied, "I wish to Tophet I had the chance."

I watched for the next opportunity of the ferryboat and the _Fingal_ being approximately on the same plane, and leaped into the arms of a boatman.

Other passengers followed,--men, women, even babies. Then came the mails; and finally, live stock. I remember being struck on the mouth by a sheep heaved into the boat by the above-mentioned cynic. "Come, come, that's enough, keep the rest; let us be off," shouted a boatman. Everybody was wet to the skin: the wind was howling; the women weeping; and the babies were mixed up with the sheep.

Once clear of the _Fingal_, the adroit ferrymen did their duty well, and in less than ten minutes we were all landed. A crowd of islanders were waiting to lift us out. All agreed that it had been a _close shave_.

Such was my introduction to _Pierless Tiree_.

I did not stay long enough in the island to measure brochs, but quite long enough to experience the good-will and kindliness of the natives. The houses are solid and substantial, the inhabitants strong and muscular. Great gales from the Atlantic blow almost continually, sweep up the sand in clouds, and prevent any trees from taking root. I did not see much poverty with my own eyes, but the ministers all assured me there was a great deal. Maize, more than oatmeal, is the cereal used for porridge. For supplementary information, Dr. Beveridge's admirable and accurate work may be consulted.

LOCHBUIE IN MULL.

The great straggling island of Mull, so full of scenery, romance, and song, still awaits its historian. Few, who have ever visited the noble isle, will refuse to say with Macphail, the bard of Torosay:

"O the island of Mull is an isle of delight With the wave on the shore and the sun on the height, And the breeze on the hills and the blast on the Bens, And the old green woods and the old grassy glens."

The gem of the island is undoubtedly the haven of Lochbuie, one of the choicest nooks in insular Scotland. The modern mansion, which is but a step or two from the well-preserved castle of olden times, is quite near the shore, and looks straight south over the Atlantic to the island of Colonsay. The entire surroundings are a delight to the eye: great towering mountains behind, the sea in front, and in the space between, green lawns, rocks, gorse, and many-tinted garden-plots.

The MacLaines of Lochbuie trace their descent from the great Gillean of the Battle-axe, a redoubtable warrior who flourished his weapon to some purpose in the reign of Alexander III. But the most notorious of all the MacLaines is _Ewen of the Little Head_, who died in battle, and thereafter assumed the role of family ghost. Before the death of any of his race, this phantom-warrior gallops along the sea-beach near the castle, announcing the event by cries and loud lamentations. The doctor, who attended the present chief's mother, declares that, while sitting beside her bed during the silent watches of the night, he heard the noise of the spectral horse just before the old lady's decease. The natives of Mull can describe the ghost and horse with accurate detail. The horse is a small, hardy, sure-footed animal of brown colour, and Ewen is known by the smallness of his head, and by a long floating mantle of green. He performed a weird and long-continued gallop round the bay in 1815, before the news of the valiant Sir Archibald MacLaine's death became known by official despatch from the seat of war.

Lochbuie, like so many other places in Scotland, has its Piper's Cave. There is a remarkable similarity in all such tales--diversified, however, by quaint local additions. MacLaine's piper, a foolhardy man, determined once to test the allegation that a certain cave on Lochbuie was connected with another cave at Pennygown on the Sound of Mull. Attired in his official costume and having his dog at his heels, he entered the cave, blowing his pipes triumphantly. Those above, on the hills, were able to make out his line of passage by the sound of the music. At a certain point the pipes ceased, and nevermore did the piper come up to the shores of light. The dog got to the cave of Pennygown--a limp and hairless parody of its former self.

Browning, in his "Pied Piper of Hamelin," has but poetised one version of a world-wide tale. Often, in the Highland tales, it is money the piper is after. There is a deep cave near Melvaig, in Wester Ross, into which a piper is said to have led a band of men in search of gold, and never returned. In this case the pipe-music is said to have continued for years--some natives even asserting that it may be heard still by those who have ears to hear.

In spite of all the legendary lore connected with the family of the MacLaines, the chief interest of Lochbuie for a lover of literature, centres round the visit of Boswell and Johnson. In one of the rooms of the castle there is a fine portrait of Johnson. On looking at it, my mind reverted to the amusing question addressed to the sage by the "bluff, comely, noisy old gentleman" who was the laird of Lochbuie in 1773: "Are you of the Johnstons of Glencro or of Ardnamurchan?" "Dr. Johnson," says Boswell, "gave him a significant look, but made no answer; and I told Lochbuie that he was not Johnston, but Johnson, and that he was an Englishman."

I regret to say that the great war saddle, which was in Lochbuie's possession in 1773, and which Boswell did not see because the young laird had taken it to Falkirk with a drove of black cattle, is no longer in the island: somebody took it to America, and forgot to bring it back.

The present laird is greatly beloved by his tenantry. At the lecture I gave at Lochbuie, he was unable, owing to illness, to take the chair. His absence was a terrible grief to the people, and the piper of the family, in a brief speech, alluded in a most touching way to the sorrow felt by all present.[30]

INVERARAY CASTLE.

Three days after Johnson and his friend left Lochbuie, they were entertained by the Duke of Argyll in Inveraray Castle. Boswell's description of the incidents of this visit is one of his finest efforts. He tells us that Johnson admired the "utter defiance of expense" shown by the Duke in the building and appointments of the place. Records exist which show that the masons were paid at the rate of 41/2d. a day, _plus_ a weekly bonus of meal!

It is interesting to note that the Rev. John Macaulay (grandfather of Lord Macaulay) was one of the ministers of Inveraray in 1773. Boswell gives him a very high character, but this had no emollient effect on the great historian, when he came to review _Croker's Edition of Boswell's Johnson_.

Inveraray Castle is a superb object-lesson in Scotch history. All the Campbells of note for centuries past are hanging on the walls, from the old Duke who passed away last, to the squinting Marquis (_Gleed Argyll_ mentioned in the "Bonnie House o' Airlie"), who was beheaded on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh in 1661. The Duke, who commanded at Sheriffmuir ("when we ran and they ran, and they ran and we ran," etc.) is standing in his accoutrements of pride, painted by the son of Allan Ramsay:

"Argyll the State's whole thunder, born to wield And shake alike the Senate and the Field."

Mediaeval armour, firelocks from Culloden, flags from a score of battlefields, mutely suggest the glory and gore of the olden times. It is impossible to walk through the rooms of such a place without feeling intimately in touch with the events of the past.

The present hotel is the one in which Johnson and his biographer lodged. Burns came sixteen years later, and wrote on the pane of his bedroom window the scandalous epigram on Inveraray so often quoted. The present Duke (who has perpetrated a fair amount of poetry himself) would give much of his odd cash to recover that pane, which was cut out some years ago by a pilfering visitor.[31]

[30] I am inclined to think that the relationship formerly existing between the Highland chief and the member of his clan was perfect in its way--a _model_ of class relationship. There was nothing menial about the clansman's attitude, though he gave unbounded homage to his lord. At the battle of Inverkeithing, a clansman and his seven sons gave up their lives to shield from death their chieftain, Sir Hector Maclean. As the old man saw his boys fall one after the other, he shouted with glee and pride, "_Another for Sir Hector!_" until he himself lay, like a true thane, beside his progeny. Nothing could be finer or more touching than such a scene.

[31] Burns tells us that when in Inveraray Hotel, he was entirely neglected by the servants, who gave all their attention to some gentlemen from the Castle. In our day, the Campbells have shown contrition by their willingness to admit that Burns was one of their own clan. Burns's ancestors were, it is said, Campbells of Taynuilt. Taynuilt means in English, Burnhouse. When the poet's ancestors emigrated to Forfarshire, they were known as _Campbells from Burnhouse_. In course of time the appellation was shortened into Burnhouse simply, and latterly into Burness or Burns.--Q.E.D.

THE SACRED ISLE.

Wordsworth came to Iona (which also belongs to the Argyll family) in 1833, and wrote four poor sonnets on the sacred isle. This is what he saw:

"To each voyager Some ragged child holds up for sale a store Of wave-worn pebbles, pleading on the shore Where once came monk and nun with gentle stir."

Owing to its ecclesiastical renown as the cradle of Christianity in Britain, no island is so much visited as Iona. The audience I addressed was the most miscellaneous I have ever seen: there were boatmen and barristers, anglers and artists, curates and crofters, French and Germans.

The present-day natives seem desirous of keeping up the old reputation for theology. The boatman who ferries visitors ashore, remarked to me with pride that his favourite book was one entitled _The Great Controversy between God and the Devil_, a book with which I was, and am still, unacquainted.

Dr. Johnson's remarks on Iona remain the most eloquent tribute to the island. He never wrote anything finer. All the children in the Iona school should be made to learn the piece by heart.[32]

It is most gratifying to think that Christianity has been the great purifying force in Europe. The introduction of Christianity into the world must be reckoned as the most revolutionary event of history. Nothing was ever more needed. To one who knows the morality of the most brilliant society of the Greeks and Romans, there is no need to extol the pure and lofty moral tone of Jesus of Nazareth. But those who have not read the masterpieces of ancient art, with their mingled beauty and foulness, may be assured that literature owes more to Christianity than has ever yet been told. With Christianity a great healthy breeze swept over the world. Men became ashamed of wallowing in the mire. An ideal was raised up before them for their worship and imitation. The old Adam and his deeds needed stern repression after the wild iniquities of the effete society of imperial Rome. The spirit needed to curb the flesh, literature needed to be cleansed. We, living to-day and nursed on the accumulated tradition of so many anterior Christian centuries, are sometimes disposed to minimise the debt we owe, in pure and simple morality, to the teachings of the New Testament. I find it impossible to imagine what the world would be without these teachings. They renewed the world, they made it do penance for its sins, they made advance practicable. An entirely retrograde movement is impossible when once man is indoctrinated with a grand ideal.

[32] Boswell's religious instincts come well out in his account of the visit to Iona. Two of his descendants, Messrs. Albert and James Boswell, devoted themselves entirely to religion, and were well known in Ayrshire, thirty years ago, as zealous evangelists. These two gentlemen went on a preaching campaign through the northern islands, and did much highly appreciated philanthropic and religious work there. They were members of the sect called Plymouth Brethren.

APPIN.

In this chapter (as, indeed, in all the others) I am rummaging among my souvenirs for materials that are in some way noteworthy. It is utterly impossible to exhaust the romance and glamour of the Highlands. Those who go regularly North are certain to bring back, on each occasion, a host of interesting memories. "Swift as a weaver's shuttle fly our years": the chief difficulty is to jot down all that one sees and hears.

On the occasion of my second visit to Appin, I stayed in the fine new hotel built on the eminence called Druim-an-t-Sealbhain. The landlord is a man of great wit and reading, and with him I had some enjoyable hours of miscellaneous conversation. Mr. Macdonald (for that is his name) has an excellent knowledge of the Celtic dialects, has translated into Gaelic verse some of the best-known poems of Burns, Tannahill, and Byron, and is extremely clever at retailing the legendary tales that still go rumouring along the Strath of Appin. He has also a good knowledge of English literature, and told me certain details regarding Scott and Wordsworth which I was pleased to know.

It seems that Sir Walter was at one time tutor in Appin House, and was in the habit of visiting the cot of an old shepherd, a notorious _seanachie_, full of romantic lore, for the purpose of hearing, and writing down, the old man's tales. An oak tree is still pointed out, under which, it is said, Scott composed part of _The Lord of the Isles_. Appin is not very far from the castles of Dunollie and Dunstaffnage, which Sir Walter wrought skilfully into the texture of his tales.

The most interesting item mentioned by Mr. Macdonald had reference to the visit of William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy, in the year 1803. Everyone who has read the life of the great poet of Nature knows the charming description of the district contained in one of his sister's letters. "We arrived," she says, "at Port-na-croish. It is a small village--a few huts and an indifferent inn, by the side of the loch; ordered a fowl for dinner, had a fire lighted, and went a few steps from the door up the road, and turning aside into a field, stood at the top of a low eminence, from which, looking down the loch to the sea through a long vista of hills and mountains, _we beheld one of the most delightful prospects that, even when we dream of fairer worlds than this, it is possible to conceive in our hearts_." Here follows a description so exquisite of the sea-scenery and the Morven Hills, that it deserves to be classed with the finest examples of word-painting in the English language.

The new hotel at Appin is built on the low eminence referred to in the above-cited letter. The name Druim-an-t-Sealbhain is giving way to the complimentary title of "Dorothy Wordsworth's View." From the front windows of the hotel, the same calm inland seas, grassy hills, Morven mists, grim old forts, and intricate communion of land and water, can be seen precisely as they were seen by the Wordsworths more than a century ago. The Port-na-croish inn has become a village store: it is well worthy of note, not merely for the reference in the letter, but for a fine legend, which I shall now narrate.

MACDONALD'S GRATITUDE.

The first tenant of the inn was a Macdonald of Glencoe, a man between sixty and seventy at the time of the story, the year 1755 namely. He had around him a family of stalwart sons, all imbued with intense hatred of the clan Campbell. The peculiar and fiendish malignity of the terrible massacre of Glencoe precluded all possibility of forgiveness on the part of the clan. Highland hospitality has always been a lavish and magnificent thing, and Colonel Campbell and his assassins had been treated with exceptional kindness in Glencoe. The bloody outrage, in a midnight of winter snows, was too terrible a meed of hospitality to be readily forgotten or forgiven by the Macdonalds. This old innkeeper of Port-na-croish, then, hated the Campbells with the unquenchable hate that deep wrongs, done not alone to an individual but to a tribe, engender in the Celtic soul.

One day a white-bearded wayfarer begged food and shelter in the little hostel, and in the course of conversation over the meal that was soon spread on the board for his wants, he let slip an avowal that, in his youth, as one of Campbell's men, he had taken part in the gruesome massacre of the "valley of weeping." Without more ado, the landlord slipped out and posted his sons at the door, with whispered orders to them that the stranger should be dirked to death on crossing the threshold of the inn. Returning indoors, old Macdonald, dissimulating his fell intentions, proceeded to ply the visitor with question upon question, so as to gain a detailed knowledge of all the incidents of the weird carnage. Finally he said, "Tell me, Campbell, what part of that devilish business made the strongest impression on your mind?" "I will tell you," said the old soldier, "what to me was the outstanding incident of that night. Towards the close of the massacre, a child's voice was heard piercingly on the night air--a scream it was, and seemed to come from no great distance. The captain sent me in the direction of the sound, bidding me, if the child should be a male Macdonald, to kill it forthwith; if a girl, to spare. I soon came up to the place whence the sound proceeded, and saw through the whirling snow, under the protection of a jutting cliff, a nurse with a boy of four years old, both of them wailing and shivering with cold. The child was gnawing a bone and, near by, a dog was crouching. Pity wrung my heart. I drove my bayonet through the trembling cur, and, going back to the captain, showed him the bloody steel as a proof that I had obeyed his commands."

The innkeeper, who had been all ears, said: "You, then, were that soldier?" "I was, indeed," replied the old wanderer. "_And I was that child!_" said the landlord, "and _your_ life is saved. My sons stand at the threshold of the inn, ready to fall upon you when you leave. I countermand the order for your destruction. Here you shall stay, an honoured guest, till the end of your days, as a recompense for saving my life on that awful night."

The story goes on to state that the foot-weary Campbell lived for some years a pensioner in Port-na-croish inn, and was buried at the expense of the grateful innkeeper. I do not know any story that comes nearer perfection.

NOTES ON THE TROSSACHS.

The Rev. Mr. Wilson, the cultured and genial minister of the Trossachs, has recently published a most readable little book on the district he knows so well. Perhaps no district indeed on the world's surface is so well known (even to those who have never seen it), as the Trossachs. Little did Sir Walter suspect, when he penned the stirring iambics of _The Lady of the Lake_, that he was furnishing materials to the pedagogue which would be parsed, analysed, and dissected by myriads of pupils in all the schools of the British Empire. We shall all carry with us to the grave the leading passages of that romantic lay: the stag-hunt, the duel at Coilantogle Ford, the whistle that garrisoned the glen, and the episode of the Fiery Cross. Such lines, we may say, have gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. Happening to pass Strathyre station in July, 1907, I was requested by a bright-eyed little Japanese gentleman in the compartment to tell him where we were. On being informed, he (after casting an eye of pity on the deplorable stork that is supposed to decorate the drinking-fountain of the station), began to declaim, in capital English, the passage that begins--

"Benledi saw the Cross of Fire, It glanced like lightning up Strathyre, O'er dale and hill the summons flew, Nor rest nor pause young Angus knew; The tear that gathered in his eye He left the mountain breeze to dry."

Mr. Wilson's book to which I have alluded is a collection of the impressions written down by eminent visitors to the locality, from Dorothy Wordsworth to Queen Victoria. Carlyle, who was in Perthshire in 1818, wrote the following note, which, though short, is finely characteristic of him: "The Trossachs I found really grand and impressive, Loch Katrine exquisitely so, my first taste of the beautiful in scenery. Not so, any of us, the dirty, smoky farm-hut at the entrance, with no provision in it but bad oatcakes and unacceptable whisky, or the Mrs. Stewart who somewhat royally presided over it, and dispensed these dainties, expecting to be flattered like an independency, as well as paid like an innkeeper." The foregoing note, by itself, is good value for the cost of Mr. Wilson's book (two shillings, namely), and raises regrets that the author of _Sartor_ did not travel oftener through the Land of Cakes. (The only other place in the Highlands where I have heard Carlyle spoken of, is Kyleakin in Skye, where he was the guest of Lady Ashburton, and where (as the natives say), the cocks and hens had to be removed out of ear-shot for his convenience.)

One of Mr. Wilson's stories (contributed by a lady) is apposite at the present time, when so much is being heard of women's rights. Glengyle, a district of the Trossachs, was once _entirely ruled_ by a number of women, who constituted a sort of High Court with women as Judge and Jury. "The most notorious case which they dealt with, and which probably led to their downfall through drawing the ridicule of the country upon them, was a case of horse-stealing. The accused man had been seen riding furiously away on someone else's horse, and all evidence pointed to his guilt. To the astonishment of the outsiders, the jury returned a verdict of 'not guilty,' and the Judge on summing up declared the horse was the culprit, as it had run away with the man. _She condemned the unfortunate animal to be hanged, and hanged it was, while the man got off scot free._"

LOCHFYNE-SIDE.

None of the mainland counties of Scotland can boast of such wonderful ramifications of sea and loch as the county of Argyll. The present amiable and cultured head of the Clan Campbell declaimed, with great applause, at a social gathering not long ago, a fine poem, in which the beauties of his ancestral shire were floridly--but not unjustly--elaborated. It would be difficult to over-praise the county of Argyll, with its splendid sea-board, its rugged and impressive peaks, and its unrivalled fiords and lakes. Thanks to its proximity to large centres of population, few counties are so much visited. Its fame, in our day, is likely to be more widespread than ever, owing to the graceful and entertaining writings of Mr. Neil Munro, who probably knows the details of its local history better than any man living, and who possesses the inimitable art of interesting others in his delineations of the past. I confess that I feel, personally, as much interest in the Wars of Lorn as I do in the Siege of Sphacteria, and that "Glee'd Argyll" seems fully as attractive as Cleon or Brasidas.

Of course, long before Mr. Munro, Loch Fyne had a European reputation, which it owed to its herring. The Popes of Rome used to eat these herring in mediaeval times, and sent for them _via_ Amsterdam or Antwerp. Orthodox Catholics have always had good judgment in the matter of fish, and especially the French, who belong to a country which proudly boasts of being _the eldest daughter of the Church_. For many a generation the French came annually to Lochgilphead, and bartered their kegs of claret for barrels of salt herring. The French Revolution, among its many other effects, put a stop to this trade. War lasted for so many years between Britain and France, that, at the end of it all, the continental sailors had forgotten the way to Loch Fyne.

Argyllshire is rich in legends, for many of which no date can be given except the elastic one _long ago_ or _in byegone times_. Let me cite one or two of these:--

MACIVORS, MACVICARS, AND MACALLISTERS.

On the road to Kilmartin is a place called the Robber's Den, the locality of which may be firmly fixed in the tourist's memory by noting that it is just behind a large distillery. Here, long ago, lived one Macvicar, whose wife was a Macivor. These names are important, and so also is that of the Macallisters of Tarbert, who one day stole cattle belonging to the Macivors. Mrs. Macvicar noticed these Tarbert scoundrels driving her father's cattle through the glen, and mentioned the fact to her boy. Young Macvicar followed the robbers, and found them in a forest feeding joyously on a slain bullock belonging to his grandfather. As each Macallister finished picking a bone, he would throw it violently against a big stone, remarking at the same time, with a chuckle: "_If a Macivor were here, that's how I would treat him_." The boy, from his hiding-place in the foliage, threw a stone and struck one of the feasters. The injured man blamed one of his own clansmen, and, after much recrimination, a free fight of Macallisters was the result. During the melee, the boy slunk off and told his mother's family what was happening. The Macivors, in a furious and determined band, soon fell upon their disordered foes, and completely routed them and regained their cattle, _minus_ the consumed bullock. The chief of the Macallisters was slain by a woman, who took off her stocking, placed a _large stone therein_, and heaved it at his head. That same night, Mrs. Macallister, wife of the chieftain thus ignominiously laid low, gave birth, perhaps prematurely, to a son, whom the care of a discriminate midwife secreted from the vengeance of the Macivors, who were howling all round the house. This child grew up to manhood with the picture of the stone-laden stocking ever before his mind's eye. He prepared a most effective retaliation: he sent to Ireland and got over a large band of Antrim men, who were quite pleased to help him in his bloody projects. The Macivors were completely overpowered, and even the Macvicars had a taste of Irish steel. Macvicar, father of the boy who distinguished himself in the wood, was attacked in his own house. He was an athlete of great powers, and was _able to jump thirty feet either in a backward or a forward direction_. The Irishmen set fire to his house, and Macvicar--hoping, no doubt, to make a final leap for life--tried to escape by the chimney. His foes struck him on the knee with a spear: he fell into their hands, and was at once despatched.

RED HECTOR.

We hear a good deal of the Irish in the traditions of Argyllshire. The ruthless Colkitto, notorious for his own deeds and also for Milton's mention of him, brought over a contingent of men from Ireland to help Montrose in the Royalist wars. These auxiliaries swooped down on Kintyre, murdered hundreds of Campbells, and devastated with fire and sword the whole of Argyll's country. To this period belongs the story of Red Hector and the Irish colossus, Phadrig Mor.

Hector was a little, red-haired kern of the Campbell clan, who was caught by Colkitto's men skulking in the wood, and dragged with pinioned arms before the son of that bandit. Hector was about to be hanged without more ado, but as preparations were being made he cried out: "_Give me a sword and I'll fight any one of you. If I am beaten, kill me then._" The Irishmen, to whom an "illigant foight" has always been welcome, agreed to the proposal of Red Hector. They chose Phadrig Mor, a fierce giant of a man, to fight with the little fellow. The latter, to neutralise the advantages of Phadrig's stature, leapt nimbly on the sawn stump