GLENCOE
The story of the Glencoe massacre is renowned among many such deeds of cruelty which have stained the heather; but it is not always recognised how far this was a slaughter of Macdonalds by their hereditary enemies the Campbells, acting under legal authority. Historians variously apportion the guilt between the Earl of Breadalbane and the Master of Stair, a minister who had the art to make King William accomplice in the vindictive design. The innocence of the victims has been unduly heightened for the sake of dramatic effect; and patriotic rage has blindly charged the bloodshed upon English soldiers. The MacIan Macdonalds of Glencoe were a band of sturdy cattle-thieves who, like other Highland heroes of old, naturally lived in bad blood with their neighbours; and an attempt to harry their fastness might have passed as a fair exploit if not carried out with so base treachery. Heavy winter snows having delayed the chieftain from bringing in his submission to the Government by a fixed date, he was yet given to believe it accepted. A detachment of Argyll’s regiment entered the glen under pretence of friendship, and were received with Highland hospitality, their commander, Campbell of Glenlyon, being connected with the Macdonalds by marriage. This worthy is said to have played at cards with the sons of the chieftain whom he had orders to murder next morning, at which time every way of escape from the glen should be closed by several companies marching up under his superior officer.
Before dawn of a winter morning the slaughter began with shooting down the old chieftain at his bedside, his wife being so brutally ill-used that she died next day. Similar scenes took place in the other homes that had unsuspiciously received such guests. The story goes that the soldiers had been loth to do their part in the butchery, but, once it was on foot, they appear to have worked themselves up into a fury of bloodshed, going even beyond their commission in killing children and infirm elders. The Macdonalds, having hidden away their arms after the submission, doubtless in hope to fight another day, found themselves in no state to offer resistance. Scattered and surprised, they were shot down like sheep, wherever the alarm did not warn them to escape. After all, the plan of extirpation failed. Nearly forty men were slain; but a larger number got away, with women and children, some of them to perish in a snowstorm, which also saved many hardy Highlanders, as veiling their flight and hindering the march of the force that should have closed the passes on that woeful morning. Their homes were burned, and from the glen were driven away five hundred horses, three times as many cows, and large flocks of sheep and goats, cattle which the Macdonalds may have come by in much the same violent manner.
Glencoe has now passed into the hands of a Canadian peer, a chief of the great British clan Smith. Till lately its sheep-walks still belonged to Macdonalds whom I knew in my youth. When news came from India that one of this line had got into trouble through killing a native, a neighbour of ours sapiently remarked, “The old massacre blood coming out!” which seemed a confusion of active and passive. A most efficient curse was that laid on the leader of the slaughterers, whose descendants are understood to be conscious of it to this day. There is a famous story, told in various forms, of one Campbell of Glenlyon, on whom fell the duty of producing at the last moment a reprieve for a condemned soldier. But in taking the paper from his pocket he unwittingly pulled out the white handkerchief that was to be signal to the firing party. Next moment the criminal lay dead, and the unhappy officer covered his eyes with a cry—“The curse of God and of Glencoe!” The brightest tradition relating to Glencoe is that noted by Scott, how when Prince Charlie’s army marched by the house of Lord Stair it was thought well to place a guard over it against the vengeance of the Macdonalds, then the Glencoe chieftain proudly demanded for his own clansmen to prove their military honour by fulfilling this duty.
Glencoe, Ben Cruachan, and other outskirts of the Land of Lorne rank among the wildest scenes in Scotland. Loch Awe and Loch Etive are hardly surpassed in fame; and Loch Creran has been called “one of the loveliest and least known of Highland waters,” as comes to be said of so many scenes beheld under congenial conditions. The general aspect of this region, however, seems a blending of true Highland and semi-Lowland, like the character and career of its lords. Robert Buchanan tells us how it is “fair and gentle, a green pastoral land, where the sheep bleat from a thousand hills, and the grey homestead stands in the midst of its own green fields, and the snug macadamised roads ramify in all directions from the tiny capital on the seaside, with the country carts bearing produce, the drouthy farmer trotting home at all hours on his sure-footed nag, and the stage coach, swift and gay, wakening up the echoes in summer time with the guard’s cheery horn.” Even its wilder nooks, as one can see from coach, railway, or steamer, have been much broken up as sites for mansions and villas, hotels and shooting-lodges; and in summer months farms and cottages in a hundred glens are packed tight with holiday-making families from the cities, whose seaside retreats threaten to turn the arms of the Clyde into a gigantic Venice.
Inveraray, of course, is the county capital, a big village picturesquely situated on a sea loch under the shade of lordly woods about the duke’s castle, which in this century has for the first time undergone the indignity of being let to a Southron. An old schoolfellow of mine was once sheriff here, who, to save himself from “eating his head off,” used to walk across the country to hold his court at Dunoon, its biggest gathering of houses, best filled in summer. Campbeltown is the most thriving burgh of business. But to the world the most familiar name in Argyll is Oban, that international rendezvous showing as many hotels as there are clans in the Highlands, and steamboats more than might tow all the “lymphad” galleys of Argyll, overlooked from the heights above by two modern towers of Babel.
OBAN BAY AT NIGHT
At Oban the genius loci seems too much exorcised by steam whistles, and by the mob of knickerbockered and waterproofed tourists comparing notes about their tables d’hôte. Few of these easy travellers find their way into Knapdale, that long parish forming the upper part of the Mull of Cantyre, which makes a characteristic stretch of this green Land of Lorne. Happy days have I spent in youth among its low hills, ten miles from the nearest steamboat pier or village. The name of the place I cannot trust myself to spell, nor could most of my readers pronounce it; but to me it meant paradise. It made the rough Tusculum of a great Lancashire cotton-spinner, his son a schoolfellow of mine. A moor rather than a mountain of the soft west, its strong point was as a fishing quarter, having two trout streams opening into a long winding estuary that looked out on the Paps of Jura and beyond across the wide Atlantic. How we lads splashed through water fresh and salt, in those “days by distance enchanted,” when no mist could cloud “the sunshine of the breast,” when wet jackets and kilts seemed nothing but a joke, and one hardly cared to keep a shod foot in that damp wilderness! We did not enough appreciate our piscatorial blessings, where we might catch dozens of troutlings any idle afternoon, with the chance of a grilse or a yellow trout in the rivulet mouths, and deep-sea fishing in the loch, down to the butchery of lythe, which, trailing bright feathers on the coarsest tackle in the wake of the sunset, one hooked up as fast as they could be drawn into the boat, each as long as one’s arm. How would Piscators of this generation prize such opportunities, now probably let at a pork-king’s ransom!
One holiday visit stands out in memory, when my schoolfellow and I were lent the empty lodge, on condition of playing Robinson Crusoe for ourselves. What could be more inviting to youngsters than such a picnic! We took down by steamer from Glasgow an enormous round of salt beef; we laid in a stock of bread at the nearest shop, ten miles from our hermitage; and on this plain fare, with what fish we could catch, we were prepared to live greatly independent. But the people of the hill farm close at hand would not indulge our Spartanhood. Daily they poured in upon us mutton, broth, bannocks, eggs, jam, honey, and what not, so that we were fed up like turkey-cocks; and not a penny would the goodman take for his friendly entertainment. En Écosse, l’hospitalité se donne has often been quoted sneeringly; but I can answer for its truth in Knapdale.