Among the élite of the company was a stately duchess, whose family have long been notorious in the annals of cruelty and eviction; and whose glens have been swept of thousands of brave men, after the artifices of an infamous factor, the oppression of the game-laws, the destruction of the kelp manufacture, the slaughter of the flower of the clans in the Peninsular war, and other Highland evils, had driven the people to starvation and despair! There were present also a couple of chattering countesses, and many old ladies, whose pedigrees were considerably longer than their purses; but who, nevertheless, deemed themselves the prime patronesses of the gathering, as they usually were of the Northern Meeting. Flounced, feathered, and jewelled, with clan tartan scarfs, they regarded with just and due condescension the crowds of richly-dressed and handsome South-country women, many of whom were attired à outrance, complete in elegance and fashion from bonnet and bracelet to their kid shoes. These, our decayed Highland tabbies regarded with the good-nature which generally falls to the lot of such wallflowers, who may, as Swift has it—
"Convey a libel in a frown,
Or wink a reputation down;
Or by the tossing of a fan,
Describe the lady and the man."
Among the élite of the male sex were various holiday warriors attired in gorgeous clan tartans. Some were distinguished by one eagle's feather in the bonnet, marking the gentleman; others by two, indicating the chieftain; but very few by three, the badge of a chief. The principal of the latter, was the Most Noble the Marquis of Drumalbane, Admiral of the Western Isles and Western Coast of Scotland—one whose forefathers had led their thousands to the field, and from whose glens our most splendid Highland regiments had marched to many a torrid clime and bloody victory; but whose vast territories were now a deathlike waste, where nothing was heard but the bleat of the sheep and the whistle of the curlew. In Glenarchai alone, this enterprising exterminator had converted thirty thousand acres into a hunting-forest. He was attended—not by a thousand brave men in arms—but by a few puny footmen and Lowland gamekeepers attired as Highlanders, and a few gentlemen who wore in their bonnets the eagle's wing, and carried at their necks each a silver key, as captains of certain ruined fortresses among the mountains of the West Highlands.
The varied tartans and magnificent appointments of these holiday Highlanders had a barbaric and picturesque effect. Their belts and buckles, jewelled daggers and pistols, snow-white sporrans, tasselled with silver or gold, their brooches studded by Scottish topazes and amethysts, and all their paraphernalia of mountain chivalry, flashed and sparkled in the noonday sun; while long bright ribbons and little banneroles of every colour streamed from the ebony drones of more than a hundred war-pipes.
Beside these gay duinewassals, the poor men of Glen Ora seemed but a troop of reapers or fishermen; but we stepped not the less proudly, because to the same march with which our pipers woke the echoes of the hills, our fathers had thrice left Glentuirc to sweep the Campbells of Breadalbane from Rannoch and Lochaber to the gates of Kilchurn.
In this epoch of civilization and ridicule, when even patriotism, religion, and love are made a jest, the reader may smile at these references to a past, and what we conventionally deem a barbarous age; but a mountaineer never forgets that the brave traditions of other times are ever his best incentive to heroic enterprise and purity of thought.
In the centre of the vast oval formed by the spectators, tents, and carriages, lay the sledge-hammers, the uprooted cabers, the putting-stones, cannon-balls, broad-swords, targets, and other appurtenances of the games.
On halting and dispersing my followers, my first impulse was to scan the crowd for Miss Everingham, now that I could appear before her in my proper character, and to better advantage than I had hitherto done; and just as the sports were beginning, I saw the baronet's four-in-hand drag, the team of which, the showy Captain Clavering handled in first-rate style, come sweeping round the base of the hill, with its varnished wheels and embossed harness flashing in the sun; the captain, whose costume was most accurate, from his well-fitting white kid gloves to his glazed boots, adroitly halted it in the most central and conspicuous place. I was standing close by where he reined up, and then the sense of Laura's presence made my heart beat violently, while my colour came and went again. No notice was taken of me for some time by the party of well-dressed fashionables who crowded the drag, till the studied respect shown to me by the peasantry, not one of whom passed or approached me without vailing his bonnet, attracted the attention of Sir Horace, who was quietly surveying the canaille through a double-barrelled lorgnette. He then gave me a formal bow and conventional smile, but barely condescended to notice, even by a glance, my foster-brother Callum Dhu; but for whom (as Callum himself said,) 'the red tarr-dhiargan had been then perhaps nestling among his hair at the bottom of Loch Ora.'
Near the carriage-steps stood Mr. Jeames Toodles in all the splendour of red plush investments for his nether-man, and spotless white stockings on his curved but ample calves. He bore a gold-headed cane and an enormous bouquet, and from time to time cast furtive glances at Callum Dhu, who, being armed to the teeth, he deemed little better than a cannibal or Tchernemoski Cossack.
Snobleigh—we beg pardon—Mr. Adolphus Frederick Snobleigh—who cantered up on a dashing bay mare, languidly gave me the tips of his fingers, with a dreamy 'aw—how aw you—glad to see you old fellow—any noos to-day?' But Clavering, who had more of the soldier about him, shook me heartily by the hand, examined the lock and barrel of my rifle, and praised the piece; then he turned to his sister and Miss Everingham, both of whom greeted me in a manner so winning and gay, that even the heart of my mother, encrusted as it was by old Highland prejudices, would have been won.