Bridge over the Awe built by Captain William Piman about 1756.
No ghost story is more widely known or better authenticated than that of Duncan Campbell of Inverawe. It has been made the subject of an address before this Association by the late Robert O. Bascom at the meeting of July 30, 1901, and has been repeated in many forms and in various publications but it will bear still one more repetition. The following is taken from Parkman’s “Montcalm and Wolfe” and is the story as was told by Dean Stanley and endorsed by the family of the hero of the tale:
“The ancient castle of Inverawe stands by the banks of the Awe, in the midst of the wild and picturesque scenery of the Western Highlands. Late one evening, before the middle of the last century, as the laird, Duncan Campbell, sat alone in the old hall, there was a loud knocking at the gate; and, opening it, he saw a stranger, with torn clothing and kilt besmeared with blood, who in a breathless voice begged for asylum. He went on to say that he had killed a man in a fray, and that the pursuers were at his heels. Campbell promised to shelter him. “Swear on your dirk!”[35] said the stranger; and Campbell swore. He then led him to a secret recess in the depths of the castle. Scarcely was he hidden when again there was a loud knocking at the gate, and two armed men appeared. “Your cousin Donald has been murdered, and we are looking for the murderer!” Campbell, remembering his oath, professed to have no knowledge of the fugitive; and the men went on their way. The laird, in great agitation, lay down to rest in a large dark room where at length he fell asleep. Waking suddenly in bewilderment and terror, he saw the ghost of the murdered Donald standing by his bedside, and heard a hollow voice pronounce the words: “Inverawe! Inverawe! blood has been shed. Shield not the murderer.” In the morning Campbell went to the hiding place of the guilty man and told him that he could harbor him no longer. “You have sworn on your dirk” he replied; and the laird of Inverawe, greatly perplexed and troubled, made a compromise between conflicting duties, promised not to betray his guest, led him to the neighboring mountain (Ben Cruachan) and hid him in a cave.[36]
In the next night, as he lay tossing in feverish slumbers, the same stern voice awoke him, the ghost of his cousin Donald stood again at his bedside, and again he heard the same appalling words: “Inverawe! Inverawe! blood has been shed. Shield not the murderer!” At break of day he hastened, in strange agitation, to the cave; but it was empty, the stranger had gone. At night, as he strove in vain to sleep, the vision appeared once more, ghastly pale, but less stern of aspect than before. “Farewell, Inverawe!” it said; “Farewell, till we meet at TICONDEROGA!”
The strange name dwelt in Campbell’s memory. He had joined the Black Watch, or Forty-Second Regiment, then employed in keeping order in the turbulent Highlands. In time he became its major; and, a year or two after the war broke out, he went with it to America. Here, to his horror, he learned that it was ordered to the attack of Ticonderoga. His story was well known among his brother officers. They combined among themselves to disarm his fears; and when they reached the fatal spot they told him on the eve of the battle, “This is not Ticonderoga; we are not there yet; this is Fort George.”[37] But in the morning he came to them with haggard looks. “I have seen him! You have deceived me! He came to my tent last night! This is Ticonderoga! I shall die today!” and his prediction was fulfilled.”
As will be seen by the preceding pages, Inverawe lived nine days after the battle and was not even mortally wounded if it had been possible in those times to have had antiseptic treatment, but the real point of the legend is that he had been warned of Ticonderoga when he did not know there was such a place, years before there was any prospect of his being sent there and when Ticonderoga was only the Indian name for a point of land on a lake in the wilderness of a far off continent.
To one interested no place could be more fascinating than old Inverawe;[38] everything connected with it breathes of legend and romance and naturally this was one of the first places visited in our Black Watch pilgrimage last summer. Taynuilt, the railroad station nearest Inverawe is a small village across the Awe and about a mile away as the crow flies, but to drive to our destination, one must follow the road two miles up the River to the old bridge which was being built at the time that the Major left for the war in America in 1756. The builder was Captain William Pitman apparently a good friend of Duncan of Inverawe as he charged him with the safe keeping during his absence of his daughter Janet and his favorite dog. History does not record what happened to the dog but the Captain married the daughter and in time Inverawe became her property.
Two Views of Library