The Lecturce.

Otago Witness, Issue 1584, 1 April 1882, Page 27

The Lecturce.

BALQOHIDDBE Jtf THE KIGH-

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

(Concluded.)

Though Rob's disposition was peaceful, his character as a capable warrior has naturally left tho most vivid impression. Tho traditional impression is illustrated by the following story— which I have read in a book on Rob Roy— of a tour of Rob and a select party of friends far into tho North-west Highlands, to the rogion — Where the hunter of dotr and the warrior strodo To their mountains surrounding the sea,— That is, to the Sound of Skye; or, more precisely, to the Loch Duich branch of Lochalsh, known as the country of 'the wild Macßaes.' At Sheriff-Muir one, of .these Macßaes met Rob Roy in command of five hundred MacGregors, Here, you may remember, Rob played the politician when pressed to play the warrior. He and his men cahnly looked on the battle now at its crisis. While strong considerations weighed in favour of the Argyll side, old political feelings drew him and his men towards Marr's. And at bottom they seriously hated the Campbells from of oldl For that race, to them and other clans in the South-west Highlands— arace powerful, politic, ever grasping— had long been the Ute noir of existence; as Sir Walter's 'innocent,' speaking of a life otherwise completely happy, confessed that ho was 'sair forfauchten wi' the bubbly-jock ' (male turkey). And so, when at the crisis of the battle urgently entreated to go and help the bubbly-jock, Rob would not move, but simply said, 'If they canna' do it without us they canna' do it with us.' One fiery Celt imputed this to pusillanimous weakness on Rob's part. That 'wild Macßae,' whom he has recognised and,' interviewed ' this day, knows better, and will deem Rob's inaction a probably ' masterly inactvity.' They had met thirty years before. And this Macßae, then a tough and fell fighter, apparently, with as many lives as a cat, had left 'the meeting with a rifle-bullet through his body—shot, however, not by Rob, but by one of his party of tourists. . The occasion of the tour and meeting was this. From far Loch Duich the ' wild Macßaes ' had come down,

A bßnd of fierce' barbirians from the hills, Sweeping the flocks and herds ■ • Of quiet people in Perthshire, "peacefully, reposing under the guarantee of Rob's' Contract of blackmail— or cattle insurance, 'unlimited.' This would never do. So he' invited the select party aforesaid to accompany him on that walking excursion to the North-west Highlands—armed' for possible battle. On their way they had one skirmish with the marauder's, in which' the Sheriff -Muir redivivus got his Suietus for a time. But they did not overtake le main body and -the 'missing^ cattle (until they had'rea'ched the Saddle^ where you enter the head of I/oc|h Duich from 1 the head of Glenshiel. 1 There theY found the'iin'ssing cattle, all but two that had unfortunately been eaten— the ' ;thie'ves, poor ' fellows^ had' perhaps 'been very I ' 'hungry. They went away home j with them to Perthshire} no doubt; like John Knox after visiting ( Queeh Mary ? ' with a 'reasonable merry countenance/— having previously, and decisively, so tb'speaki punched' the heads 1 of ' the wild Macßaes.'*

,! His practice'ofblack-maii-has occasioned the mistaken viejv that Rob., was something like a commonplace lawless robber, in his life*. ,It must be remembered that he, was ,by, birth apd up-brhlging a gentleman;, of good, standing. The fir-tree on 'his tombstone, the , emblem of the ,clan, still jbeara traces of ,b,eing of much more recent execution, than.the sword ; ,a Bif it had been placed there when the pld stone with the, sword was appropriated, by Rob or his family., The motto accompanying is not^ that which I have cited, 4 s , ffioghall ineo dhreams Ardchoille, speaking-, of descent from .Gregory the son- of Alpine, king of the Scots ;' but another one, referring to some, king's deliverance from a wild boar $haj> had , turned jupon him in hunting. "A young .chief of the, clan Gregor, seeing ,tho king's, deadly ,pe,nl, sprang•to the rescue, with a fir-trae which he' had torn up for a weapon. Politely asking leave to Strike the ' redding stroke 'fin the fray, he was graciously permitted, in a phrase which thenceforward was a motto of the clan — 'E'en do, and spare nocht.' It bears, you perceive, a certain character of trenchancy,— more so than the considerate response of a Highlander at Waterloo, to a Frenchman who cried for ' quarter ' : — ' I hae na time ta quarter ye tha noo ; all jeest cut ye in twa.' But though Rob had the trenchancy, he personally had a more direct special interest in the old Gaelic motto, with its reference to 'Ardchoille'} for Ardchoil, as I have said,, had once belonged 'to' his father. Further, his elder brother was head of the family of Glengyle, one of the ■claimants to the hereditary chieftainship of the clan. After that brother's death he was tutor, or plenipotentiary guardian, of Glengyle during his nephew's minority.. His occupation as a cattle drover was then familiar in the practice ■of- men of gentle blood.. His. long series of annexations, of money and cattle from the Duke of Monfaose, was,--.by v 'jhimself and others regarded as justifiable reprisals, under a clan system which permitted private war, on account of a ducal injustice which had ruined Rob in his business, so that, as Bailie Nicol Jarvie says, he was driven to the hillside, ' a broken man.'+ I have never heard of any one action of his which by Highland gentlemen of his time would be regarded as we regard an act of robbery or theft, ' making due allowance' for the custom of private i war— a .custom inseparable from the Celtic clan system. His spoliations, though technically unlawful under the Lowland cpnsfatution, and though on this or that occasion they should have been intrinsically unjust, fall, in an estimate of his character and conduct, to' be regarded simply as forcible acts^ of what he"" and others regarded as justice, in a form sanctioned by the use and wont constitution of the community as it existed then and there. The notion of a Balquhidder harumscarum Robin Hood, underlying the representations of prose and poetic fiction, is really no

* Tho above story I cannot trace to any authentic source. It may b<» a pure fiction of romance. The MacKaesl have known in their own country aro the "•randost bamples of manhood I have anywhere scou.

|7he 'rrdding stroke' is proverbially dangerous. Mac Nab of Mac • ab « as once appejled to for help by a tinker's wife under discipline by her husband. He (horefore set himself to light the husband. But, when ho wan gettiag the upper hand, the wife sprang upon him in defence of her lord, and tore of! his bag-wig, along with the hair it inclosed. ■■

% He hud gonp into some sort of cattle-droving partnciship with the Duke. A fraud by an agent in this business ruined him. Ho alwa.\ s held tnafc tho Duke ought to have borne a proportion of the loss, and lie therefore paid himself back out; of the Duke's rents and othnr goods. Hence the Duke of Argyle said to Montroßo, <I( I countenance Bob Boy, you maintain him,'

better than a romancing popular hallucination. Thon and' thero'the custom of black-mail was warranted by a system of public policy, whose abstract legitimacy no one called in question. It was in effect cattle insurance against robbery or theft. And in order to this effect it w<vs necessary that the insurer should be able, with an armed force, to keep watch and ward over the land and cattle insured, to pursue and punish robbers, and in this way to act as it he had been ' regularly commissioned by the National Government to act as the captainol an armed police.* He might abuse this position, for, purposes of extortion or concealment of crime ; as also may a regularly commissioned officer of Government. Or he might push his business by force, as an insurance manager now may push his business by fraud. But the possibility of abuso adheres to .many an innocent usago. The ostensibly sorious flaw, was, that that manner of insurance was not authorised by law, and that the individual or community undertaking it in that manner had no regular commission from the nation., And that flaw was not really serious, at least in relation to, the question of personal character. ITor under the clan system, then still in operation, the national Government stood in a loose and ' ill-defined relation to the clans and their chiefs. Rob, you will remember, died before the abolition of heritable jurisdictions (1747), when the chiefs became lairds, owners of the soil which had belonged to the clan, and the clan was placed under the direct and sole authority of sheriffs, or others commissioned by the nation. And before that time every clan was a sort of little nation by itself, owning no magistracy but that of its own chiefs, asserting a right to make war or peace with other clans or districts, . and acknowledging in the national Government only a vague suzerainty which, according to varying circumstances, might practically amount to either everything or nothing. Outside of every clan association there would always be a number of individuals without a chief, or other close connection. And in such circumstances, the action of a capable captain like Rob Roy in forming a band of associates, and acting as their military head for civil purposos, was no more an offence against ordinary morality, or even against consuetudinary Celtic law, than the similar action of such a chief as Hyder Ali before Britain had established a really eifective government of India. The soundness of this reasoning appears to be evinced by Rob's own career, through a life in which he was really respected and trusted by his well-conducted neighbours, to an honoured old age, and a memory of affectionate respect in the tradition and in the heart of the people of his own country, t But how was it; with his children ? .

Sir Walter brings this matter into view in a manner at once amusing and affecting. Thus, when honest Baillid Jarvie presses upon , his cousin the offer to give his sons an apprenticeship to weaving, the haughty Celtic gentleman breaks out into scornful rage. But on reflection, he confesses that his heart is sometimes sore when he thinks of the future of. his boys. 1 It is said that some such interchange of sentiment .'actually took place between Rob and a real cousin— Doctor ,Gregory ( ,' of Aberdeen,head qf a long illustrious line in the intellectual aristocracy of Britain.it And reflection jori that •future of his' children must, to a man of- his forecasting sagacity, have been bitterly depres- ' sing. " Sucli'reflections are' expressed in .G-othe's fine tragedy, .by'Gotz of the, Iron Hand, [who, just ,when chivalry was passing. over into discredited outlawry,' himself, could go on in the old way while maintaining the respect of,hihaself and Others, but had' darkfbrebodings of the fate in store for his son. /'And Rob was pre- ' precisely, in s'uclj, , a , .'position. 'He was . on the safe side of a,diyiding:line between one state of society and another. His sons were, after: his 'death; bri'tHe unsafe side. • Not only so far. as 'they' imitated his irregular practices, they} were against the law, now precisely defined and made' applicable to all. They we're in a^positiori.whicn, more, and more, was reckoned dishonourable ■by ordinarily decent neighbours and friends. They were thus on a steep and slippery incline— from what was' deemed j compatible with , the character of an honourable gentleman, to what, in th'q common estimation of themselveß.and others, was tainted, witih 'the vulgarity as well as 'immorality of the common robber or swindler: In their history, tqp, we have a commentary on our abstract moralising. , ; Rohald, as we, have seen, lived.'hisloriglife as, a Christian citizen of the new time j and his example has been followed with beneficent distinction by at least four generations of, his posterity. But • that may have been by the extraordinary grace of God, perhaps operating on the youngest son through a salutary terror occasioned ,by the sad fate of all his brothers. One of these, Coll, is happily not known to fame beyond this, that when quite a yoiith he was shot to death by a King's party, or soldier, in Dunkeld. Two others, Duncan and Robert (jßb&iri Oig, ' Young Rob,' a mispronunciation by the Lennox and Menteith Lowlanders), as is still seen at full in the Justiciary Records of Scotland,' were tried for an infamous crime, and Robert was hanged in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh. Not so sad inexpressibly, but yet very very sad, is the story, of Sennas 4ffo\(',]3ig James.') He alone "appears to have inherited the trenchant ability, as well as valour, of his father. At the battle of' Prestonpans, he " and Mao Donald of Keppoch /were foremost on Charles Edward's side in the •resistless, and shattering rush of the Highlan- , ilers' army on the King's ; and he continued to direct, and even threaten, his men after He was laid low on the field with five wounds, including two shots through the body. After thfe col- ' lapse 'of the rebellion, he appears to have been employed in some subtle (and 'shady')]negotiations between State parties. But he is last found at Paris, among other broken-hearted followers of Prince Charles, writing a miser-

* Hence in certain public proclamations Rob was designated ' Captain Robert Campb&U or MacGfregor.' BSf'Sir W. Scoti's estimate of Rob, apart from romance, . isas follows :-•' The character of Rob Roy is, of course, a mixed one. His sagacity, boldness, and pnidenco, qualities so highly necessary to success in war, became in some degree vices, from tho manucr in which they were employed. The circumstances of his education, however, must be admitted as some cxteumtion of his habitual transgressions against tho law ; and for his political torgivcrsations, ho might plead the example of men Jar moi c powerful, and less excusable in becoming the sport of circumstancey, than the poor and desperate outlaw. On tho other hand, ho' was in the constant exercise of viitues, the moie meritorious a3 they seem inconsistent with his general oharactor. Pursuing tho occupation of a predatoiy chieftain,— in modem phrase, a captain of banditti,— Rob Roy was moderate in his revenge, and humane in his successes. No charge of cruelfcv or bloodshed, unless in 'battle, , is brought against his memory. In like manner, tho formidable outlaw was tho friend of the poor, and, to the 'utmost of his ability, the support of the widow and the orphan— kept his word when pledged — iimd died lamented in his own wild country, where theru were hearts grateful for his beneficence, though their minds were not sufficiently instructed to appreciate his en ore.' Good biv Walter here appcara," (in his kind wishfulness to apologise for Rob, to minimi.-o him<too much into something of a picturesque oiteran like tho ,Buan Lean of Waveriey. But hii estimate of the man, his career, and 'its flualo, is on tho whole a fiiijjono. i t The story, however, is, that it is Rob who proposed, by a Hißhland training in warlike and other oxercJses, to' make p> man of a son o( Dy Gregory, who afterwards became & famous professor,

ablebeg'ging letter t'o'sqme who.had neglected him,'— avowedly in a state' of titter destitution And there is no apparent reason to doubt that Scumar Mbr, the hero of Prestonpans, the son of Rob Roy, then and there, in a Parisian garret, died' in extremity of want, if not literally of starvation ! That woful family history was really an evolution out of Rob Roy's own careor. If his children reaped the whirlwind,, he had sown the wind. The conventional Rob Roy, of Sir Walter Scott and others, maybe parted' from with a smile, and shake of the head — ' a mad wag, my masters!' — in, the spirit' of Bailie Jarvie's memorable description of a sadly mixed character, 'he was ower quid to ban, and ower bad to bless, .like Rob Roy.' 5 But that implies a very great underestimate, not only of the awful calamities in which Bis example involved his children, but also and especially of his own masculine ability arid natural worth. A .man so clear and far-seeing cannot be excused 'from forecasting the 'natural consequences of his conduct. A"man r s'o resolute and strong, with so much of good, l bo'th by nature and by habit, is deeply guilty, no' matter what are the circumstances which warrant, his detailed actions, if 'he persevere in a course whose native results to his children a.f c so dismally tragic. Our interest in that celebrated person is partly caused by those circumstances 1 . Sir Walter is fond of quoting 1 the 'dictum 'of Mrs Montague, that thp ' most, interesting 'natural scenery is found where the'rdbuntkin's pass into the plain's. He applies this 'to illustrate the peculiar interest, represented by t h,iS W ( averley, ofthetransitionstage'inhumanmarin'etsandcustoms from two types so strongly cbritraßted^as the ancient Highland and the modern' LdWland or English. An d that peculiar interest ia de'ejpened in Rob Roy's case by the peculiarities' in his case,— of a ■ high-born Highland ' gentleman, beggared and broken through treacherous injustice, driven' beyond the pale of public law, and yet maintaining throughout a character of recognised distinction,' in respect not "only of sheer force but of amiability and worth. 1 But to make him on this account a mere stage hero of romance, to be excused because his character and career have been romantic, is to degrade him. He is appreciated only when he is condemned severely. For no ' one failing to condemn him as deeply faulty, in relation to great fundamental duties of man 1 to man; can be in the right mental attitude towards nim,^of regarding him as a real man, of great and' varied powers, rarely' gifted -with *th£ kingly governing faculty.' When subh a' man; leaves tage of inevitable woe to' his children, no sentimental emotion heals our bitter even when poets sing his praises, and 'tradition loves his ' memory, after his ' contemporaries' hava laid him in a singularly honoured grave,'^