The Lacturer.

Otago Witness, Issue 1583, 25 March 1882, Page 26

The Lacturer.

BALQUHIDDER IN THE HIGHLANDS.

BALQUHIDDER, ROB ROY, &o. : Sketch Suggested, by a Recent Visit.

' In the ballad of Sir. Patrick Spens, we read about " the auld moon wi 1 the new moon in its airms." My notes on the Clan Gregor and Rob Roy may appear to be really another lecture within my lecture on 'Balquhidder ; and thus !l may be blamed for giving too much of a good thing. Donald Maclaren, postman in Balquhidder, who wanted to be made an elder of the Church, sat down to watch a dead body through the night, along with Donald Ciar,. who did not want to be an elder. After refreshments, Maclaren proposed that they should sing the 119 th Psalm until they were weary. Ciar objected, "We are not commanded to go beyond our ability/ Trusting that I am not transgressing this maxin, I go on to complete my picture of " the auld moon wi' the new moon in its arms."

The MacGregor country of Rob Roy's time was in the Trossachs district of Perthshire, about the head waters of the southern branches of the Forth, and towards Loch Lomond, whose waters go down Strathleven into Clyde.Thus Rob himself, in his early prime, was of Craigrayston and Inversnaid; and his elder brother was of Glengyle. But you can hardly approach Balquhidder without becoming aware that that is a MacGregor country at this hour. In my young days there were six James MacGregors in the little cross-street of Callander in which I was born. In Auchtoo hamlet, over against King's House of Balquhidder, I suppose that a majority of the crofters and cottars were MacGregors, mostly of the subnames of Ciar and Mac Alpine. Between the ' two sections of that hamlet, westward, there is the burying-place or "chapel," and a little eastward of King's House, at Edinchip, there is the' mansion of that family which now claims the hereditary chieftainship of the clan— a family whose ancestor, Sir John Murray MacGregor, Bart., at the beginning of this century gave (a.d. 1818), gratuitously, to Highlanders the excellent edition, of Ossian's poems in Gaelio by Hugh MacLaughlan' of Aberdeen.

Rob's father had been proprietor of Ardchoill. We are thus carried northward beyond even Balquhidder, in which Rob and his family settled in the later period of his life. One of his ancestors was a Dugald Ciar M6r ("Big"), who is remembered as the perpetrator of a foul murder of students, whom fatal curiosity had drawn to look on a battle (a.d. 1589) in Glenfruin, in which a section of the clan Gregor signally defeated a far larger force of Lochlomondside Macfarlanes. The chief in command on that occasion was Alexander Macgregor of Glenstrae. And this Glenstrae, at that time, — with their most beautiful castle of Kilchurn of Lochawe— tho central site of the clan, is tho northernmost site affecting our present story. An enthusiastic clansman in Edinburgh— Mr Donald MacGregor, of the Royal Hotel— has a day-dream about gathering tho clan back into Glcnstrao. Ho will have to go farinsearchof someof them. Andl havetoldhim that nono but the pauper lunatics will go back. For the " Gregaloch " is no longer "landless, landless, landless," and Glenstrae is singularly bleak and ungenial. It is situated far up in the central high land from which flow tho head waters of the Awe, and Forth, and} Tay. And it is over the watershed between Awe and Forth, at the head of the uppermost " braes," where Rob Roy had his farm in later life, that the MacGregors appear to have first come into Balquhidder. Another enthusiastic clansman, a Maclaren in London, has placed on a horizontal tombstone in the churchyard a sort of vengeful "testimony" against the MacGregors, on

account of their having set fire to some 16 or 18 houses of tho Maolarens', of Invernertie, in the " Braes," and burned tho inmates along with their homes. That must have been very early, before the clan had got instated in the district, and when they needed to clear a place' for themselves. Their warmest friend must own that the manner of effecting a clearance, by burning Maclarens with their homes, was at best peculiar and informal. It took place so long ago that one may hope it never happened. In any case tho sore must have been healed before the great clan-fight between the Maclarens and the Lenies, when the aid of the Macgregors enabled the former to "annihilate " their foes. Our fire and sword Maclaren in London is thus far behind the ago, in respect of knowlodge as well as of charity. Still the clan in those early times was restless, because it had become unfortunately landless. For its own original lands, centring in Fortingall, it had neglectod to obtain parchment titles such as camo into use under the feudal system, and held only by the old Celtic tenure of the sword. Hence neighbouring clans, the Campbells especially, were able to apply the letter of the law to dispossess them of lands which had been theirs from time immemorial. Consequently, they had to move from district to district ; they got into strife with clans jealous of their approaches or encroachments ;' and at last they came into a position of outlawry, extending over the centuries from Ciar Mar to Rob Roy, which has mado their history quite unique among the clan histories of Scotland. During that long period they were proscribed as a clan, were given over to fire and sword of enemies with sanction of royal authority, and their very name prohibited upon pain of death,— so that Rob Roy, c. g. t had (in the Lowlands) to call himself Robert Campbell, Their long, sue cessful resistance to every attempt to suppress them may have tended to form m them elements of character truly valuable, as Scotland was hammered into a character of stubborn unconquerable tenacity by the 314 pitched battle? of the wars of independence. But the attempts to repross them at the same time occasioned a restlessness on their part, with oc-' casional acts of ferocity, which to others may have seemed to justify a series of acts of proscription, now read as curiosites of legislative barbarism. , . ', ' An illustrative sample of that history is given by Sir Walter Scott, m his "Legend of Montrose," especially the Introduction and Notes. Drummond of Drummond-Earnach, king's forester, was murdered by a roving band of MacGregors, in revenge for a supposed injury to their clan. Then they drove his sister, the lady of Stewart of Ardvoirlich, into insanity; by showing her, on her own table, her brothor's detruncated head, with bread and cheese bei tween its teeth, in mockery of what they deemed the shabbiness of her (enforced) hospitality, and then the Balquhidder MacGregors; in the church, solemnly "homologated' (as the Scotch say) tho murderous deed, laying their hands upon the gory head. If such wild work was the result of proscriptions, it was the cause of farther proscriptions. From that wild work we gladly turn to the comparatively quieter times of Rob Roy. Let me first introduce my old acquaintance luin Duhh na Ciiile (Black John of the Nook). When I knew him in early boyhood he must have been over 80 years of age. The Ouil was a little farm he had got free of rent from Sir John Murray MacGregor, whom he had accompanied to Ireland for the repression of the rebellion in 1792 : where he may have foregathered with my grandfather, who alao had volunteered for that little war and came home disgusted with ■ the Irish because they would not fight, but at Vinegar Hill threw down their arms ' and 1 ran away, shouting " More pikes to the front, or ould Ireland is gone." Black John must have been a favourite with the baronet, and presumed on his favour. Thus, when, one bad year, Sir John was making a reduction of rents to his tenantry, Cuil— who paid no rent— said that he would not press for reduction, but would be satisfied if another field were added to his farm ! Yet his cleverness appears not to have brought him prosperity. It is said that at one time his stock was reduced to one swift and powerful wether, which he stalked like a deer, and shot with the rifle he had brought home from the wars. Copious in pawky and witty speech, he was said to have brought home, not only a rifle, but a long bow— in nis mouth. But, as an Irishman said of " Gulliver's Travels," that there were some things in the Dean's book he really oould not believe, so Black John of the Nook may sometimes have lighted upon a truth. Thus, as to the great steep wall of mountain that stretches east and west along the north side of the valley as approached at Kind's House, he told me that twice within his memory that green mountain face had all been dark with heather— heather so tall that a man could wade in it over his thighs. He also told me as to population, that in his youth there would come down from the " Braes" with a funeral as many young men as could now fling the whole population of Balquhidder into Balvaig. I have lingered to speak about him for this purpose among others, that I wish to give full effect to the fact that he, the man who was so familiarly known to him who now addresses you in middle life, must, by my reckoning, have for about 20 years lived in Balquhidder along with Ronald, the youngest son of Rob Roy, who, if my memory serve me right, died about 1780, in the ninety-sixth year of his age. But what follows may bring the matter still further home to our feeling of nearness in tune. • „_,.. Ronald, greatly esteemed for his Christian character, had a" son who practised as a physician in Greenock. Some of his sons, who repaired and completed the family lair in Balquhidder, were general officers m India. JNot of their stock is the Mr MacGregor, of the " Rob Roy" canoe, who is so well-known for his exploits as a solitary navigator, and is distinguished as a Christian philanthropist m London. He is a son of that Colonel Macgregor, of whom you may have read in the thrilling narrative of the burning of the Kent East Indiaman. He, in fact, is the then infant boy who was saved from the flames. But among Rob Roy's great grandchildren are the world-renowned shipbuilding Lairds of Birkenhead: one of whom, Mr Macgregor Laird, died m Africa in an enterprise like that of David Livingstone, intended to spread by means of commerce through that benighted continent tho blessed light of Christian civilisation.* . You thus can understand that in my time the Balq\thiddor tradition of Rob Roy was quite living and fresh. And tho hero of that tradition was a wholly different being, not only from the desperate Highland Roguo " of ancient line and cry, but even from the " noble savage " warrior of rocent romanco and Hong, such as Wordsworth's tall talk about, " The eagle ho was lord above, but Rob, &c. You can hardly believo that tho real hero of tradition was in temper not n man of war, but emphatically a man of poace. Tmrty

* My informant (the Roy. Mr MacGregor) named several other families known to bo grout grand children of Ronald -though one of them, a solicitor, bears the name of Gregory. They all are of tho 'upper-mloW clase, and well-esteemed for theU personal cbatagter.

years ago DonvdM Ciar (" Duncan the Mousebrown "), of Auchtoq! gave me many a "yarn" about Rob Roy. This sennach ie, who delighted in narratives of Rob's prowess with hand and foot, yet in spite of himself always brought into view a character which was essentially that of quiet, neighbourly goodness and kindness., So the Rev. Mr MacGregor told me that Rob was remarkable for kindness to the poor, and was universally esteemed for his good qualitieb by gentle and simple— a thing which was strikingly shown at his funeral (A.D. 1738). He is supposed to have been born about 1660. His funeral was the last in Balquhidder conducted with the old Celtic ceremonial of bagpipe music, and solemn public procession. And it was attended not only by the neighbours in tho district, but by tho whole gentry of the' region around, excepting the Duke of Montrose —an exception which may have been regarded as discrediting, not the dead lion, but the living dog.

I have said that on his tombstone there is a Bword. It is, Mr J. Anderson told me, in form the true old Scottish broadsword, differing in form from the' full-dress " broadsword " of imitation or artificial Celts in recent times. Mr Macgregor thought that it may or must have come down to Rob from a time before' Bannockburn. But Mr , Anderson assured me that Rob's sword must have been made in the 15th century, .not in the beginning of the 14th : a thrng about which ho was certain, because oi old times the gmos ("Smiths") of successive ages had so many successive manners oi 1 fashions of workmanship, so that now a skilled archaeologist can confidently assign it 3 proper age to any such piece of their work. Another tombstone occasioned another such inquiry and result. It now is placed inside of the old church, immediately in front of the site of the pulpit, where I heard Mr Macgregor preaching some 30 years ago. There it had been placed at an earlier date ; but had become displaced at the instance of one of my friend's predecessors in office, because women standing on that stone when their children were being baptised had some superstitious expectation of benefit from it in respect of fertility. It thus came to be flung away, and had disappeared underground among a heap of accumulating debiis, until it was excavated and replaced in course of Mr Macgregor'f labours of restoring into ruin picturesquely trim. On the slab there is an image of a minister of religion, which, from the dress, he took to represent a Culdee abbot— perhaps the prot-evangelist Angus himself. And in this opinion he felt fortified by the shape of a cross engraved on the slab— a shape distinctively Qreek or Oriental, not Latin or Occidental It will be, remembered that to. all appearance, it is from the East that the primitive Culdee Christianity went to Scotland and Ireland. But tha;L argument likewise the terrible Mr Anderson showed to be lame. In church architecture, he saidj' the various forms of the cross are no conclusive evidences of! respectively Greek and Latin authorship; and in proof of this, instancing the Maltese cross, which is a variety of the species Greek, he laid before me, in .the great work of ' the late Dr Stewart; more than one Maltese cross on the Norman cathedral of Elpin

"Now, coming back to the sword of Rob Roy. It shows that he was in some sense a professed man of the sword. For the sword was placed over him by his own choice, or by that of his friends, although it had been carved' on the slab as early as the fifteenth century, i The stone of which the slabs are made, though found in the district abundantly— the primitive gneiss— is extremely hard, and thus difficult to work. Therefore it was convenient tb find orie ready made. And- that was easily found; because, when one family had died out of the district, the r family lair, with the old memorial slab, could without difficulty be appropriatejd by survivors or successors. ' But a family of standing so good as Rob's would not accept a present of a stone that was not in its character fitted for a monument of him.* We therefore may rest assured that the sword was fitted and intended as an appropriate' emblem of one leading aspect of his character and life. Thus on other slabs in the churchyard we find other characters or pursuits represented by their appropriate symbols : e.g. the Qow, ("smith), by his bellows and anvil ; and the tailor, perhaps, by his sheers and' his. goose ("clothessniith," from the German schmiedm, " forge," "fabricate," giving the name to all skilled handicraftsmen'— whence the countless multitudinousness of the clan Smith). But the fact of Rob's having thus been a man of the sword by no means shows that he was at all a swashbuckling sworder, or in any way characteristically a man of strife. A sword occurs often on other monuments, ordinarily along with the symbol of some special profession, such as that of the blacksmith or the arrow-maker (Macalisteir, Fletcher, Flechier x Fr.) Its prevalence only reminds us how stirring and perilous were the old times in that district, where now so peaceful, in God's acre, " the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep." In those times every capable man had to be a man of the sword, and to be known to be able as well as willing to use it trenchantly ; as the nation which will be at peace must hold itself manifestly prepared for war. And one good effect of the habit thus occasioned is shown by the singular fact that Rob Roy, through his long life in a • stormy period, is not known to have once in anger shed a drop of human blood. For, with many occasions for strife, he had in him the qualifications of a most formidable fighter. Calm, keen, swift, resolute, skilful, he was' at the same time "light-footed and heavy-handed," of extraordinary strength and agility, proverbial through following generations for manly powers as an athlete. And with the broad-sword he was confessedly without) a rival; so that, even in sport, he himself was never touched with antagonistic sword but once ; and on that occasion he is supposed, out of State policy conneoted with the Jacobite cause, to have allowed his peaceful adversary an advantage which he oould easily have withheld from him. If such a man, in such times as his wore, and in a career so agitated and often stormy as his, never once shed human bloodin anger, he surely must havo been at heart a man of peace, while all the more able to play the man of peace because ho notoriously was a most capable man of war. In truth, ho appears to havo been far too warlike to bo quarrelsome ; as he will bo slow to strike who knows that his hand is a " dead hand."

* The fir-tree on the tombstone, probably added when tho stono was appropriated by itob's family, is manifestly of raoro recent workmanship than tho sword.

The now metal, of which ft 5s proposal to make pipta in which to lay telegraph wires nn. dergroiwd, is said to be only about ono'Bixth the weight of iron. Id ia composed almost wholly of puro carbon, autl bo is indestructible; it does not rusb or change by exposure, whether in the air or uudorgrouiuf, nnd Ik not nffdcfcod by frost. But Ibe obief virluo claimed for it, in counecMoD with underground wireß is that it ia a perfect insulator. It in BaicJ, too, that the pipoH neorl nob be hurled very deup in the earth, as they may be of a semi-elastic character, adjusting themselves to the ul'gbt upheaval and depression of the ground through the aofcion of