The Country of Sir Walter Scott

by Charles S. Olcott

DOUNE CASTLE FROM THE TEITH

One other incident of this same Highland excursion must be mentioned. It was then that Scott first visited the home of his friend, Buchanan, the Laird of Cambusmore. Francis Buchanan, the great uncle of the young laird, was carried away from this house to Carlisle, where he was hanged on a charge of treason, this estate and another at Strathyre being confiscated. The property was later restored to the family, by whom it is still owned. The account of the execution of Fergus MacIvor at Carlisle Castle was based upon this story, as told to Scott on the porch of Cambusmore by his friend Buchanan.

Another spot in the Highlands of which Scott was very fond is the little waterfall of Lediard. We found the place because we were looking for it, but the casual tourist would not be likely to see it. It is reached from the road leading along the north shore of Loch Ard, west of Aberfoyle and south of the Trossachs. I found it necessary to walk through a lane to a near-by farmhouse and then go up a slight incline by a narrow winding path along a little brook until I came to a thick wood. There the rush of the waters could be plainly heard, and guided by the sound, I was able after some search to find a rock where I could place my camera for a view of the little cascade. It is not remarkable either for the height of the fall or for the volume of water, but its charm comes from the dense foliage through which the sunlight dances and sparkles, from the rough rocks clothed in ferns and moss and wild flowers, except where the fantastic play of the streamlet keeps them bare, and from the deep pool at the bottom filled to the brim with pure, cold water.

This exquisite scene was chosen by Scott for one of his most romantic pictures—the meeting of Waverley and Flora MacIvor, when the graceful and beautiful daughter of the Highlands, blending her voice with the music of the waterfall and the accompaniment of the harp, sang the Celtic verses so full of devotion to her native land and the cause of the Prince, calling to the clans:—

For honour, for freedom, for vengeance awake!

It is interesting to compare the character of Flora MacIvor and her devotion to the fortunes of the exiled Stuarts with that of the famous Flora MacDonald. In the circumstances of their environment there is no similarity between the two heroines, one of fiction and the other of real life. Flora MacDonald was born in the Island of South Uist and brought in infancy to the neighbouring island of Skye. Except for a brief visit to Argyleshire, she never left those islands until after the stirring events which made her famous. She did not meet the Prince until she engaged in her efforts to rescue him, after the battle of Culloden.

In personal characteristics there is a very striking resemblance. Flora MacDonald, though reared in the solitude of a remote island, acquired an excellent education, to which she added the natural love of poetry and romance peculiar to her people. 'There was nothing unfeminine, either in her form or in her manners, to detract from the charm of her great natural vivacity, or give a tone of hardness to her strong good sense, calm judgment, and power of decision. Her voice was sweet and low; the harsher accents of the Scottish tongue were not to be detected in her discourse.'[[2]] She always manifested a perfect modesty and propriety of behaviour coupled with a noble simplicity of character which led her to regard with surprise the many tributes of praise which her conduct merited. These were the characteristics with which Scott invested his heroine. Flora MacDonald's family belonged to the clan of MacDonald of Clanronald, and one of Scott's most valued friends, Colonel Ronaldson MacDonnel of Glengarry,[[3]] was a descendant of the same clan. He was an eccentric character who tried to play the chieftain and thought, felt, and acted about as he might have done a hundred years earlier, but could not do in his own time without provoking censure and ridicule. He even attempted to have himself recognized as the chief of the whole clan of Clanronald, though his own ancestors had been unable to establish the right. Scott regarded him as a treasure, 'full of information as to the history of his own clan, and the manners and customs of the Highlanders in general.' In his effort to make Fergus MacIvor, Vich Ian Vohr, a typical leader of one of the Highland clans, Scott no doubt received considerable help from Glengarry, whose castle of Invergarry was on Loch Oich, in Inverness, in the very heart of the country of the rebellious chiefs and only a few miles distant from Culloden, the scene of their final defeat.

Cosmo Comyne Bradwardine, Esq., the pompous, tiresome, but laughable bore, with his endless quotations in Latin, the honourable soldier, the excellent father and the lovable friend, is one of Scott's most interesting characters. Though an original creation, there was more than one man of his time who might have sat for the portrait of the brave, honourable, kind-hearted gentleman who spoke Latin as fluently as his native Scotch dialect and who loved his 'Livy' so much that after escaping from some soldiers who had arrested him, he risked recapture in order to return and secure the beloved volume which he had forgotten in his haste. The absurd old Baron is represented as insisting upon his right and duty, under a charter of Robert Bruce, by which his lands were held, to pull off the boots of the King. Two difficulties present themselves:—first that Prince Charles is not the King, and second that he does not wear boots. But it is decided that Charles represents the King, and that a service performed to him is done for the King; also that brogues are a legitimate substitute for boots. So with the good-natured consent of the Prince, the ridiculous ceremony takes place with due solemnity. This incident, fantastic as it seems, is only an example of the way in which certain Scottish tenures were held. Mrs. Hughes, of Uffington, says that Scott told her of a similar tenure under which the Howistons of Braehead held their lands, namely, by presenting a basin and ewer with water and a towel for the King to wash whenever he came to Holyrood.

The Laird of Balmawhapple was a purely fictitious character, but the method of his death at Prestonpans was one of the true stories told to Scott as a child when he first visited the battle-field. A brave and honourable gentleman, one of the few cavalrymen who followed Prince Charles, was pursuing some fugitive dragoons. Suddenly discovering that they were followed only by one man and his two servants, the soldiers turned and cut down the courageous Highlander.