The old castle of Cromartie has now long disappeared, the stones of which it was built having been used for the erection of a modern house in 1772, after the estate had passed, by purchase, from the family of Urquhart to Mr George Ross. It was a building of considerable antiquity. In 1470 a royal grant was made by James III. to William Urquhart of the Motehill, or Mount of Cromartie, with permission to erect on this a tower or fortalice. Advantage was taken of this permission to fortify the family mansion, and it was converted into a castle of considerable strength.[26] Sir Thomas says of it: "The stance thereof is stately, and the house it selfe of a notable good fabrick and contrivance."[27] An interesting description of the building as it was just before its demolition is given by Hugh Miller. "Directly behind the site of the old town," he says, "the ground rises abruptly from the level to the height of nearly a hundred feet, after which it forms a kind of table-land of considerable extent, and then sweeps gently to the top of the hill. A deep ravine, with a little stream running through it, intersects the rising ground at nearly right angles with the front which it presents to the houses; and on the eastern angle, towering over the ravine on the one side, and the edge of the bank on the other, stood the old castle of Cromarty. It was a massy, time-worn building, rising in some places to the height of six storeys, battlemented at the top, and roofed with grey stone. One immense turret jutted out from the corner, which occupied the extreme point of the angle, and looking down from an altitude of at least one hundred and sixty feet on the little stream, and the struggling row of trees which sprung up at its edge, commanded both sides of the declivity and the town below." Of the interior we are told by the same writer, on the authority of an old woman who, as a child, had lived in the castle, that "two threshers could have plied their flails within the huge chimney of the kitchen; and that, in the great hall, an immense, dark chamber, lined with oak, a party of a hundred men had exercised at the pike."[28]
The elder Sir Thomas had also a winter residence in Banff.[29] In the Court-book of the Burgh of Banff we have the following entry: "1630, July 21st, Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie gave in ane Act of the Session of Banff, geiveing licence to him to erect ane desk and loft in the kirk of Banff (seeing he is both a parochiner and resident within the said toun) for his accomodatione. The brethren gave their approbatione with express provision that neither the edifice nor lichtes of the said kirk suld be deteriorat."[30]
Beyond the bare fact of his having been a student in the University of Aberdeen, we have no information concerning the manner in which the earlier years of our author's life were passed, or the circumstances in which he acquired the miscellaneous erudition which his writings display. The only remark he makes about the education he received is to the effect that his father laid out but a very insignificant portion of his income upon this item of family expenses. Yet, however little the expenditure may have been, Urquhart evidently profited fully by the education which he had received, and attained to something more than a gentlemanly acquaintance with some of the abstruser departments of learning.
The special bent of his mind in early years, and his love for study rather than sport, are shown in the following reminiscence of his youth, which he narrates with his characteristic diffuseness. "There happening," he says, "a gentleman of very good worth to stay awhile at my house, who, one day amongst many other, was pleased, in the deadst time of all the winter, with a gun upon his shoulder, to search for a shot of some wild-fowl; and after he had waded through many waters, taken excessive pains in quest of his game, and by means thereof had killed some five or six moor fowls and partridges, which he brought along with him to my house, he was by some other gentlemen, who chanced to alight at my gate, as he entered in, very much commended for his love to sport; and, as the fashion of most of our countrymen is, not to praise one without dispraising another, I was highly blamed for not giving my self in that kind to the same exercise, having before my eys so commendable a pattern to imitate; I answered, though the gentleman deserved praise for the evident proof he had given that day of his inclination to thrift and laboriousness, that nevertheless I was not to blame, seeing whilst he was busied about that sport, I was imployed in a diversion of another nature, such as optical secrets, mysteries of natural philosophie, reasons for the variety of colours, the finding out of the longitude, the squaring of a circle, and wayes to accomplish all trigonometrical calculations by sines, without tangents, with the same compendiousness of computation,—which, in the estimation of learned men, would be accounted worth six hundred thousand partridges, and as many moor-fowles."
There can be little doubt that Sir Thomas had the best of the argument. But he was not satisfied with this: for nothing less would content him than vanquishing his opponent on his own ground, as well as with the weapons of logic. With the same lordliness of temper which had led him to re-capitulate the dignified subjects which had occupied his studious mind—the squaring of the circle being but one of them—he chose the breaking-in of a horse as a set-off against his friend's achievements of the day before. The success of the scientific student and the discomfiture of the mere sportsman are told in the conclusion of the story. "In the mean while," he says, "that worthy gentleman, being wet and weary after travel, was not able to eat of what he had so much toyled for, whilst my braine recreations so sharpened my appetite, that I supped to very good purpose. That night past, the next morning I gave six pence to a footman of mine, to try his fortune with the gun, during the time I should disport my self in the breaking of a young horse; and it so fell out, that by [the time] I had given my selfe a good heat by riding, the boy returned with a dozen of wild fouls, half moor foule, half partridge, whereat being exceeding well pleased, I alighted, gave him my horse to care for, and forthwith entred in to see my gentlemen, the most especiall whereof was unable to rise out of his bed, by reason of the Gout and Sciatick, wherewith he was seized for his former daye's toyle."[31]
In the early years of his manhood, before our author felt himself qualified to take part in public life, he spent some time in foreign travel. The kind of figure cut by a young English gentleman of that period upon the Continent we know from the testimony of Portia, for it can scarcely be that much change had taken place in the interval of a generation, between her time and the end of the first quarter of the seventeenth century. He was generally unversed in the languages of the countries he visited, and, from his lack of Latin, French, or Italian, was apt to fail in understanding the natives, or in making himself understood by them. He might be handsome in figure, but conversation with him was reduced to the level of a dumb-show. His dress was often very odd, and his manners eccentric, as though he had bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour—everywhere. A strong contrast to him in the matter of language was the young Scotchman of the period, if Sir Thomas Urquhart is to be taken as at all an average specimen of his nation, and if his account of himself can be relied upon. He says of himself that when he travelled through France, Spain, and Italy, he spoke the languages to such perfection that he might easily have passed himself off as a native of any one of these countries. Some advised him to do so, but his patriotic feelings were too strong to allow him to follow such a course: "he plainly told them (without making bones thereof), that truly he thought he had as much honour by his own country, which did contrevalue the riches and fertility of those nations, by the valour, learning, and honesty, wherein it did parallel, if not surpass them."[32]
It is somewhat difficult for the mind to grasp the idea of a Scotchman in those days, when so many of the things which we now associate with the nationality were not in existence—when his Church was Episcopalian in constitution, the Shorter Catechism not yet written by Englishmen for his use, Burns unborn, and distilled spirits not extensively used as a beverage. We could scarcely even know him by his costume. For no self-respecting representative of that country would assume the Highland garb which so many Englishmen believe to be generally worn north of the Tweed, if we are to credit the authoritative statement of Macaulay to the effect that "before the Union it was considered by nine Scotchmen out of ten as the dress of a thief."[33] The characteristics by which "a Scot abroad" in those days was recognised, were, from some accounts, not shrewdness in making bargains, economical habits, indomitable perseverance, and unsleeping caution, but the pride and high-spiritedness which made him keen in detecting and swift in avenging slights that might be cast upon the country from which he came. So deep was the impression made by these peculiarities upon foreign nations, that they became proverbial. "He is a Scot, he has pepper in his nose!"[34] said they, somewhat familiarly, yet with a touch of fear, when they noticed the flashing eye, and the hand instinctively seeking the sword-hilt. "High-spirited as a Scot!"[35] they exclaimed with admiration, when among themselves some soul was moved to unwonted courage. Such, at least, is the impression produced upon the mind by some of those novels in which Scott and his imitators trace the wanderings of their fellow-countrymen through European lands in those earlier times. That there is some foundation of truth for the lofty superstructure is rendered credible by the case of Sir Thomas Urquhart. "My heart,"[36] he says, "gave me the courage for adventuring in a forrain climat, thrice to enter the lists against men of three severall nations, to vindicate my native country[37] from the calumnies wherewith they had aspersed it; wherein it pleased God so to conduct my fortune, that, after I had disarmed them, they in such sort acknowledged their error, and the obligation they did owe me for sparing their lives, which justly by the law of arms I might have taken, that, in lieu of three enemies that formerly they were, I acquired three constant friends, both to my selfe and my compatriots, whereof by severall gallant testimonies they gave evident proofe, to the improvement of my country's credit in many occasions."[38]
The fair critic, whose estimate of the young Englishman has been referred to, gives her opinion also of his Scottish rival; but, strangely enough, she observes in him qualities of a kind opposite to those displayed by Sir Thomas Urquhart. She was struck by his neighbourly charity, "for he borrowed a box of the ear of the Englishman, and swore he would pay him back again when he was able."[39] Can it be that the words put into her mouth are merely the ribald wit of an envious Southron, or are we to understand that the spirit which triumphed over so many inferiors was yet wise enough to discern when it stood in the presence of a mightier than itself?
How a young man on his travels should occupy his time, had been laid down in a little volume which had been published just before Urquhart set out to see the world abroad. In this he might read a list of the things which should engage his attention, drawn up in sonorous language by no less a personage than a late Lord Chancellor of England—a man who was ready to give advice to all his fellow-creatures in all conceivable circumstances. "The things," says Lord Bacon, "to be seen and observed are: the courts of princes, especially when they give audience to ambassadors; the courts of justice, while they sit and hear causes; and so of consistories ecclesiastic; the churches and monasteries, with the monuments which are therein extant; the walls and fortifications of cities and towns, and so the havens and harbours; antiquities and ruins; libraries, colleges, disputations and lectures, where any are; shipping and navies; house and gardens of state and pleasure near great cities; armories, arsenals, magazines, exchanges, burses, warehouses; exercises of horsemanship, fencing, training of soldiers, and the like; comedies, such whereunto the better sort of persons do resort; treasuries of jewels and robes, cabinets and rarities; and, to conclude, whatsoever is memorable in the places where they go.... As for triumphs, masks, feasts, weddings, funerals, capital executions, and such shows, men need not be put in mind of them; yet they are not to be neglected."[40]
To what extent Urquhart followed a plan of this kind it is impossible to say; for, though his writings are so discursive that we might expect to find in them allusions to anything remarkable he had seen or heard, he has very little to say about his foreign experiences. Dr Johnson spoke with contempt of an English peer, who had extended his travels as far as Egypt, but who had brought back only one small contribution to the general stock of human information—the fact that he had seen "a large serpent in one of the pyramids of Egypt." Urquhart was not quite so poverty-stricken as this; for he seems to have observed examples of mental infirmity, illustrations of which he might doubtless have found nearer home.