MEMORY CORNER

Evening Star, Issue 20312, 22 October 1929, Page 1

MEMORY CORNER

OLD HIGHLAND CASTLES All old houses'with a record of continuous ownership by the same family are romantic, those situated in die Highlands most ot all. Kor them die romance is accentuated by the fact Unit the life which went on within those rugged walls was a scaled book to Englishmen until tiie eighteenth century was well advanced, says a writer in the London ‘ Daily Telegraph.' Indeed, Dr Johnson, making his Highland tour late in the eighteenth century, went into the savage unknown with all the blind courage of a Park or a Livingstone. It was nob until alter the collapse of the ’45 rising that at Jong last the harrier of the Grampians was blenched and the Highlands laid open to intercourse with civilisation. And then it was that cultured Englishmen had the surprise of their lives, a surprise which it is amusing to observe in their descriptions ot Highland home, it appeared that behind their rugged barriers these savage chieftains were not quite ignorant of the amenities of civilisation; had, indeed, managed to “do themselves pretty well.” And no doubt Dr Johnson gaped at the Spanish tapestries and the new gardens of Cawdor, as he gaped at the learning of the Macdonalds and the hospitality of tho M'Leods. Cawdor, Kilravock, and Dunvogau are three typical Highland castles which have sulfercd very littio change since Dr Johnson’s tour. Eor close on 1,000 years Duuvegan, on the northwest coast, of Skye, lias sheltered the M'Leods, and one ot my most romantic memories is a tour ot the castle under the personal direction of the present chicitain, twenty-third of his hue, now t)U years of age. Ho might, indeed, have been his ancestor doing the honours to iloswcli. There was nothing he showed to me--save . only Dr ‘ Johnson’s letter of thanks for his visit—which his ancestor did not show to Boswell, from me cobweb ling given ton centuries ago to his forbear by the (jucon ol the Ifniries, to the bottle which conveyed letters from the M'Lood kingdom ol St. Kudu to the M'Leod shores ol Skye by lavour of the tide at certain seasons of the year. The Hospitable iront ooor of Duuvegan is a modern innovation. If or the great part ot its life Dun vegan admitted callers only from the sen and after very strict scrutiny. The map oi Scotland is still a puzzle to the average Englishman, i hose who travel to Inverness and proceed onwards by rail to Aylo and Snyo usually imagine that uiey arc travelling ever northwards into the remote Hebrides. Tet Duuvegan, in tact, lies south ot Nairn, from which littio r wn Cawdor and Kilravock can bo rcr.c..cd on foot.

I Neither of ,these castles has—except .. J:uau;aiy a.. /blood-stained . record. At Cawdor die rwm in which Mac., eh murdered Duncan, luridly decor, ad I with amateur paintings of witches ;.ml daggers, is shown, but - the old tower itself was not. in fact, built until 145-1, four centuries after the murder. Ami all through‘the troubles ot the sevonteenin and eighteenth centuries .no Campbells of Cawdor lived on f air estates in Wales, and avoided the tragedies of Covenanters and Jacobite:. Divinely placed between the gh moors and the smiling corn holds ordering the Moray Firth, Cawdor is a dwelling ol perlcct peace, innocent, of ghosts, biasing with dowers, mm..cal with the ceaseless singing of its peatbrown burn. It is Idled wrtn interesting relics of the past, ancient dinners from Alexander 11. ami Robert Hrucc ; drawbridge and portcullis; and a great iron door carried across country from the Badcnoch robbers’ stronghold at Lochindorb. The who.e of the ground floor of the old tower is given over to two famous relics, a hawthorn tree built into the stone floor and an iron-bound treasure chest. These items played a notable part in the building of Cawdor. Thane William (Mol);, obtaining license to build, was warned in a dream to put his treasure on an ass and to build wherever the ass Jay down. The ass chose to lie down beside a spring in the shade of two hawthorns, and round the trees the castle rose. Other relics include some splendid tapestry, a hiding hole, said to have been used by fat old Lovat after Cullodcn, but. far too narrow for his great carcass, and several rare and curious mantelpieces, on one of which is depicted a fox smoking a pipe, a prophetic fox committing an anachronism. The same mantelpiece bears a motto jvliidi no one has ever succeeded m translating, “ Ceri Muni Meniimeris Mane.” Kilravock (pronounced “Kilrawk”) lies hard by Cawdor, and the records of Nairn show that for near a thousand years a Hugh Hose or Hnehon the floss has Jairdod it at- Kilravock and done good service in his county, from father to son, from generation to generation. Here, too, a famous and immortal tree plays a big part in family history, and when an heir is to bo horn to thy Laird of Kilravock a hoary gooseberry hush on the turrets puts forth fruit. Jt was called on to function a few years back, ami the lino of Hose o! 5 Kilravock is as firmly established as ever. It needs neither battle, murder, nor sudden death to lend romance to grey old walls which have sheltered for 60'.! years ono family constant to type and tradition.