THE REAL HIGHLANDER

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 14285, 1 February 1907, Page 9

THE REAL HIGHLANDER

(By W.'HAROLD THOMSON.) [All Rights Reserved.] Quietly speaking, as between man and man, I can talk as good English as anyone. Some people seem to think that because I happen to be a small farmer in the Perthshire Highlands, I should have tho Gaelic, and use it, and that when I do try English I should be as Highland as peat, and have a singsong in my voice, as though it were worked on a swivel; But no fears! My name may bo Alister Macßonaid, and my fathers and their fathers before them, too, may have worked this farm, but I’ve had schooling, as we all had. I don’t say we’re any better than our neighbours, but we’re that educated you could hardly tell we’ve been bred in the Highland glens. Not that -Tin ashamed of my native tongue—the Lord forbid ! But. oil the other hand, when 1 moot an English-speaking man, I like him to be able to understand what I’m saying. Well, to come to the story! I Kve just about a couple of miles this side of Loch Katrine, and in the summer time I get plenty of diversion watching the English and American tourists. They pass my bit of farm in their hundreds, when they come up to see the Trossachs. They’re all up to the eyes in Walter Scott. I’ve seen a dozen of them fighting over a tartan-bound edition of “The Lady of the Lake,” and putting each other right—or wrong like enough—in their pronunciation of the Highland names. And the clothes they wear! Man, maybe you won’t believe me, but it’s true; I saw one London chappie with calves like a couple of yon curly hairpins, wearing a MacKonzie tartan kilt ! Ho bad a glengarry, too. but J didn’t take so much notice of that. It was the kilt struck my fancy—that and the legs. And I’ve seen, too, goodness knows how many Yankee girls with tartan dresses and tam-o’-shanters. I suppose they expected to see nothing but tartan

and heather; and hear nothing but bagpipes, and corks going out of whisky bottles, when they came to this part of Scotland. That's the ones that have never left home before, you know. Some of them come in ordinary clothes, just as if they had lived here all their days. Well, I remember one evening last summer I was standing smoking my pipe at the gate of the wee road up to the' farmhouse, and along came two Yankees, a young fellow and a girl, and from the way they looked at each other and that, they seemed to be pretty near the end of their single days/ I don’t think they were married, at any rate'they didn’t carry on as if they were. They came up to mo kind of > bewildered-looking, I thought. “ Good evening,” said the young fellow. . “Good eveniug/’iSaid l. They looked at each other. “ Beautiful country you’ve got up here,” said the chap. “ Everytiling so different from the States,” chimed in the girl. “I never saw anything like this in Ndo Yawk.” (That was how -she said it—“ Noo Yawk.”) “Yes,” said I, “I suppose it is. There are no skyscrapers, nor big fires, nor Rockefellers about hero, miss.” I thought they would have melted through the earth. They looked like enough it for a minute, but they steadied up. The young man. smiled in a disappointed sort of way. “ Are there no Scotsmen about here at all?” ho asked. “I’ve been looking around for three clear days, and I haven’t struck a single specimen yet.” “ Well, I’m Scotch myself,” said I. “Yes,” says the girl—cheeky little brat she was—“ but Vernon moans a read Scotsman. One with red whiskers, and—and kilts.” She got red in the face when she said that. I don’t know why. I was going to speak again, and tell them tnat they could see that sort of tiling in a Glasgow music-hall, when ,the fellow cut in ; “ I consider I’ve been done to an almighty extent. I thought I would be able to see a Highlander in this forsaken locality—one who could speak Scotch and wear his proper clothes.” I thought for a bit and then I slapped my leg. But I didn’t let them know 1 was excited. No fears! I’m canny, for all I’m educated. “ \>ell,” said I, very solemnly, “ you’re in luck, for I can show you one this very evening. But you mustn’t tell your friends. I don’t want him to bo taken from me when I’ve just newly got him. He’s a real Highlander if ever there was one. I caught him in the wood at the foot of Ben i Aan this morning early. It was an awful struggle, hut I managed it. I’ve got him drained up in the house at this very minute.” “Chained up!” they gasped both together. “Aye, of course,” said I. “He’s wild, you know. He’s fresh from the hills. Come indoors with me and I’ll let s'ou see Kim. Don’t be frightened.” The young chap took the girl’s hand

kind of dazed like, and they followed me up to the house. I make no doubt they were sort of scared and excited, but as for me I very nearly burst a blood-vessel trying to keep from laughing. For I had nit on a glorious plan. You see it was like this. My nephew. Neil, was staying with 'me at the time. He’s a student at Edinburgh, and he had been in some fancy dress proces- | sion, tricked out as Rob Roy Mac- , Gregor. Well, standing down at urn I gate, 1 had suddenly remembered that I he had his rig-out with him, and it was 1 then the idea struck me. I knew Neil I would help me. He was, and is, just about tiie wildest young scamp in all Scotland. 1 I took the Yankees into the house, and left them chattering to each other in the parlour. I told them that I’d just go and see if the Highlander was still on the chain, and then I made a bolt into the kitchen and laughed for exactly three minutes. Neil timed mo. i When I’d finished, I told Neil what I ! wanted him to do, and he was as happy as a schoolboy on a half-holiday. He went away to get himself rigged up as Rob Roy, and I went out to the stable, and brought back a bit - of chaini harness. 1 The wife and Maggie were out at the I milking, and I knew we wouldn’t be 1 disturbed for a bit. I When Neil was ready—and he didn’t ! take long, considering the stuff ho had to get into—l tied one end of the chain round his waist, and the other to an iron hook in the wall. Then I pasred a leather strap kind of loosely round his wrists, and put an empty black bottle into his fingers. He was laughing like a jackass all the time, but I told him to stop it, and ho sobered down. He’s a tip-top actor, Neil. I’ll say that for him. I I went back to my two Yankees, and said I was sorry I'd, been so long, but I’d been trying to pacify the Highlander. I told them he was in a frisky sort of mood, and that they’d never see the like of it again in all their lives, and I meant every word of what I said. They evidently hadn’t been wasting their time, for the girl was trying to put her hair straight as she said to mo: “I hope the chain is secure and tight.” “Tight enough,” says I, “so’s ’the Highlander. If you’ll come with mo I’ll let you see him, but don’t go too near at first.” They took each other’s hands, again, as though they were playing some sort of game, and came after mo with their eyes nearly starting out of their heads. I I made a row opening the kitchen I door to let Neil know we were coming, ' and then I let them in. I never want , to have a happier moment in all my 1 life. I There was Neil, dressed for all the I world like a comic-picture postcard. He had on a fiery red wig, and a red beard and whiskers, that came up almost to his eyes. Ho wore a flaring Rob Roy tartan kilt and a plaid thrown over a mud-stained red shirt. There was a skean-dhu stuck in his stocking, and the neck of a bottle was peeping out of the pouch of his sporran. The bottle I had given him was clutched in his fingers, and ho was growling and rolling his eyes like a nigger in a fit. s I looked at the Yankees, and I thought I would have burst on the spot. They were edged up against the wall, staring at Neil with faces as white as milk. “Gurr!” roared Neil, beginning to tug at the chain, and waving his arms round and round. “I do wish poppa was hero to see this,” said tile girl, speaking very , low and getting closer to the chap. “ Can he speak?” asked the fellow of me, keeping his eye on the door. “ Oh, yes, he can speak,” said I, “but only in Gaelic.” I turned to' Neil, nearly choking. “ Cia mar tha : thu an diudh?” I said, which was one of the two Gaelic phrases I knew. “Ha ga math!” shrieked Neil, waving his arms and beginning to dance up and down. “What did it say?” asked the girl. “He said, ‘ Who are you cattle?’ ” I answered, lying easily enough for once in a way. “ Oh, how fierce!” said she. “ Look, Vernon—look at it now!” Neil was down on his knees trying to get at the skean-dhu with his teeth. Me wouldn’t leave hold of the bottle for a single instant. He couldn’t manage to get the thing out, so he got on hia ' feet again and began roaring and laughing, and shrieking and howling, by turns. The Yankees stood motionless, but when ho started to dance the Highland fling and keep tugging at the chain, they began to edge closer to the door. When Neil saw this, he lifted up his hands, and flung the battle as hard as he could at the other side of the room. I didn’t laugh much at that, because the bottle knocked over a bowl of milk on the dresser and broke a pair of cups, but it had had a great effect ou the Americans. “Shriekin' toothache!” said the young fellow, “ we’d better clear away, Lily, while we’ve life.” “Wait a moment,” said I, “perhaps he’ll speak again.” Neil took the tip, and began to yell i scraps of an old Gaelic song he had I picked up somewhere. It was weird i enough, I can tell you, to eeo him j there, pulling this way and that at his ■ chain, and glaring at us from under Ins big red eyebrows. Ho stopped for breath once, and the ohap says to me: “ What’s he been saying?” I thought a bit, while Neil stood snarling and growling like a Polar bear. Of course, I didn’t know a blessed word of what he had been roaring, and I don’t suppose he did himself, but I had | to say something. I “ 1 don’t like to tell you,” I ventured at last, slutting my feet about a bit. | “ Oh, do!” said the girl, pricking up her ears. | “ Well, if .you will have it, ho was singing a kind of dirge affair for all the shepherds and folss he’s killed on , the hills.” She got frightened at that, and took a grip of the clsap’s arm. “Oh, Vernon,” she said, “take me away.” But Neil wasn’t done with them yet. “ Muokle mulic an’ parridge,” he bellowed, bending down and drawing out bis skean-dhu. j “What’s that?” asked the chap, with his lips almost white. ‘ ‘ He says he’s marked you for his next victim,” said I, feeling that I wanted to go away somewhere and laugh for twe a months without stopping. “He says he wants the young lady here to with hi..i to the hills, and help him to steal cattle.” “ Never,” said the American chap, thumping himself on the chest and looking very big. “Never while I live, and the Stars and Stripes are behind me!” “Rats!” roared Neil, flourishing His skean-dhu, and nearly spoiling the wiiole affair. “ What’s that?” said the girl, quick as a knife. “ He just swore,” said I, solemnly. 1 “Oh,” said she. “I reckoned he 1 said ‘ Rats.’ ” “ It sounds like that in. Gaelic,” said < I, which you’ll allow was pre ty smart. 1 But they had had about enough, and when they saw Nci. starting to gnaw at the chain with his teeth, they made ; for the dcor. < “I guess we’ll bo off now,” said the chap. j I nodded and opened the dcor, and ,

they went out keeping their eyes glued on Neil, who was still b.ting and wo Tying away at the chain. When the door was shut behind us, they didn’t waste much time in getting out into the air again. I went with them, though I was pretty near the last gasp for want of a laugh. “Phe.v!” said the chap, wiping his face with his handkerchief. “ I’m glad that’s over. It was an almighty narrow sque'k.” “ Oh, Vernon,” says the girl, clinging to him like a bull-pup. “tell me, are wo still alive?” “ I reckon so, Inly, I reckon so, but one can never bo sure.” After >e had said this, he took it into bis head to thank me for the entertainment. “'What do I owe you?” he asked. That would have put ms back at any other time, but just then I loved him as a brother. “Nothing,” I said, “I am in your debt,” and I felt that was true. He opened his eyes a bit wider. “What do you intend doing with that in there,” he asked, nodding his head towards the house. “Oh,” said I, “ I’ll maybe put him in a gLes-caso, and send him up to London. The, species is almost extinct.” I think he saw then that I was having a hit of a joke with him, for he said “ Good-night,” and told the girl that thev 'must- hurry back to the hotel. Well, that was my part of the joke, but I got a hit of a shock next morning. when I found that there were about fif'y visitors from the hotel near Loch Katrine, who wanted to see the Highlander. Some of them had cameras with them, and altogether they looked as if they meant business. It took Neil and me nearly threequarters of an hour to convince them that the Highlander had broken the chain in . the night, and escaped through one of the windows. I said he would probably he in the woods somewhere if they cared to look. I caught sight of the voung fellow of the night before, and I saw his face grow pale, as he and the girl and her “poppa” slid away, with the rest growling and disappointed at their heels. ' One of the hotel folk came down in the afterucon and asked me about it. I told him the whole story, and I suppose he handed it on to the visitors. At any rate, nono of them ever came again to worry me about the Highlander.