STRUAN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume I, Issue 266, 19 September 1864, Page 6

STRUAN.

(From the Kcufsiuttii, April IS.) Anotiikk Highland chief of the old breed has been gathered to his lathers iu 1110 midst of his years. JStruan Robertson—or, as ho was best known, •Stimni, not Tho Struan—the head of the clan O'-nachic, and representative of one of the oldest families m the north, who -were Counts of A thole before the Murrays, and once owned land from tho watershed of tho lUoor of Rannoeh to within a mile of ]Yrth, and were always "out" when anybody was—was laid in his grave on Monday last, carried shoulder high by his men and the stout shepherd:;, of liannocli, and lowered into Ins re&t by his bruther olliuers of the Atholo Guard. A more e.vjuisito place i.s not in all tho Perthshire Highlands—ui which it is the very heart—a little wooded knoll near L/unalisler> within which from the lolly pines the shadow of it death gently ami lor ever i.roods even at noun over tho few graves of tho chieis and their kin; at its loot the wild Kannoch, now* a-deep, now ehaiing with the rocks; auu l-inomi, t lie i! »ble Sehiehaliiou, crowned, as it was on that day, with miow, and raked with its own pathetic, shrot.dhue misls. Though he was but occasionally in Kdinburgh, Struan was heller known than many men who would never leave it; aJid all led prou.l nf walehing the manly, athletic, and affile chief, with hi.s M..rti aiid I pow» rful look, as ol an e.igh- — " The turi-oi* nf his look, ihu v\' his eye"— and his beard black as an Arab sheikh's, as ho strode along .Princes'-street in his decorous kill of hodden | grey—for iie detested the Cockney iopperies and cuit j garments of what ne called •' 6ubhalh-dav llieland- ' men"—as if he were oil tho heather in his own | " Ulack Wood." His last ac'; befoie leaving this

country for tic south, to die, wan to give his thin trembling hand to lower his Duke and friend into the grave at Blair; and as he came home ho said, " I'll he the next; " and so lie was; we muy wait long enough liet'ore wc sec such a pair.

iStruan was in the 42nd when young. Had he remained in the army he would have made himself famous. lie had a true military instinct, and was pre-eminently cool and inventive in emergencies. \Ve remember well his sudden appearance at the prat lire in Leith-street some six-and-twenty years ago —as a stripling, in Highland hall dross—with a company of his men, whom lie had led from the Castle ; how ho took, as if by right, the command of every one, and worked like Telainonian -Ajax (who, we are sure, was like him) at the engines—how the hoys gloried in him, s;n ing, " There's young Struan, lie works like six ; " and so he did. He and his men got the thanks of the Town Council next- day. But his life was spent in his own liannocli, and among his own people, taking part not only in all their sports and games and strenuous festivities, the life and soul of them all, hut leading till II! also in better ways—making roads, and building for them schools and. bridges.

T,iko nil true sportsmen, lie was .a naturalist- — studied xsatm e\s ongoings and all lier children with a keen, unerring, ar.'L loving eye, irom her lichens and insects (for -which liannoch is lamous) to licr cables and (leer, and salnto ft-roz ; and his stories, if recorded, would stand side by side with Mr. St. John's. One avc remember. lie and his keeper were on a cloudless day in midwinter, walking across the head of Loeli Kannoch, which, being shallow, was frozi n ever. Tlio keeper stopped and, looking straight up into the clear sky, said to his master, " Do you see that Keen as he was, Stnian said,

" "What r" "An eagle." And there, sine enough, was a mere speck in the far c(l' " azure depths of air." Duncan Kov filing a wliite hai o he had shot along the ice, and instantly the speck darkened, and down came the mighty creature with a swoop, and not knowing of the ice, was made a round, ilat dish of, with the head in the centre."

I'or one thing fitruan was remarkable, even among good shots; ho was the most merciful spoitsman we ever saw; he never shot but he hit, and he never hit but lie killed. No temptation over made him wound and lose a bird or deer—he was literally a dead shot. He used to say that once when a boy lie found a poor bird lying in the heath ; he took it up and it died in his hand—lie knew he had lost it fome days h( I'oie. lie said that bird's dying eye haunted him for months ; and ho made a covenant with himself that never again would his hand cause such long misery. "H'o have said he was in the •ICnd, and his house, Ranaeh Barracks, was the iirst rendezvous of that renowned corps eallcd the Black Watch. lie was courtly and mannerly, as gentle and full of chivalrous service, as he was strong and hardy : and any one seeing him with ladies or children or old folks, would agree with one half of King Jamie's saying, " A'the'sens" (men with names ending in " i-on," like "Wilson, &<•■), "are carles' sons.l ut Btiuan Bobcrtsen's a gentleman's." Those who knew and moum him can never hope to see anyone like him again, with his abounding jokes and mirth, and his still more abounding hospitality and heart.