Of course our first pilgrimage was to the Invercauld Arms, where we again set up the standard on the braes of Mar. It was here that Malcolm Canmore instituted the Highland Gathering which persists to this day. And here, under cover of the hunt, so did the loyal Jacobites conceal their intention, the Rising of the Fifteen was planned—and the hunters became the hunted.
It was evening, it was the Highlands, the great circle of mountains lay round about. And if King James VIII and III had been defeated these two hundred years, and dead a lesser time, and our loyalty had always been to the Prince who came rather to establish his father than himself, the Fifteen seemed like yesterday. In this remote high corner of the world anything is possible, even the oblivion of time. It seemed very vital, that faraway moment, which in truth few persons to-day take into reckoning; even history recks little of it. But very near in this illusory twilight—was that the Fiery Cross that glimmered in the darkness?
"The standard on the braes o' Mar
Is up and streaming rarely;
The gathering pipe on Lochnagar
Is sounding loud and clearly.
The Highlandmen frae hill and glen,
In martial hue, wi' bonnets blue,
Wi' belted plaids and burnished blades,
Are coming late and early.
"Wha' wadna join our noble chief,
The Drummond and Glengarry?
Macgregor, Murray, Rollo, Keith,
Panmure and gallant Harry,
Macdonald's men, Clanranald's men,
Mackenzie's men, Macgilvrary's men,
Strathallan's men, the Lowland men
Of Callander and Airlie."
Next day we met a gentleman we forever call "The Advocate of Aberdeen." In any event the lawyers of Aberdeen have styled themselves "Advocates" since so addressed by King James. We did not know that when we named him, but we preferred it to any Sandy or "Mac" he might legally carry. Having been informed by him that our name was Lowland and we were entitled to none of the thrills of the Highlands, we failed to mount farther than the third stage of the Morrone Hill. The wind blew a gale from the nor'nor'west, like those better known to us from the sou'sou'west. It was humiliating to have the Advocate of Aberdeen instruct us when we returned that if we had gone on we might have proved our Highland blood.
We did not attempt Ben MacDui, although it may be approached by the ever-easy way of pony-back, even the queen—not Mary—having mounted it in this fashion. We were content to master, almost master, its pronunciation according to the pure Gaelic—Muich Dhui. And then we learned that by more accurate and later scientific measurement, MacDui is not the tallest mountain in the kingdom, but Ben Nevis out-tops it.
To make our peace with an almost forfeited fate, we took a dander, that is, we walked back toward Glen Tilt by the way we had not come. There is a happy little falls a couple of miles from the town, Corrimulzie, plunging down a long fall through a deep narrow gorge, but very pleasantly. We passed white milestone after white milestone, measured in particular Scottish accuracy—we timed ourselves to a second and found we could measure the miles by the numbers of our breaths. The forest is thick and bosky, not an original forest, doubtless. But I was reminded that Taylor, on his Pennyless Pilgrimage came to Braemar three hundred years ago, and wrote "as many fir trees growing there as would serve for masts (from this time to the end of the worlde) for all the shippes, caracks, hoyes, galleyes, boates, drumiers, barkes, and water-crafte, that are now, or can be in the worlde these fourty yeeres." He lamented the impossibility of sending them down to tide water where they might meet their proper fate.
Only once did we meet a carriage in which we suspected that royalty, or at least ladies-in-waiting—if Duke's wives who are royal have such appendages—might be sitting.
And on to the Linn of Dee, which is truly a marvelous place. The Advocate of Aberdeen when we had asked him why so many of his townfolk came this way, explained with a sense of possession of the greater Dee, "we like to see what the Dee can do." Surely it can do it. In these rock walls it has spent centuries carving for itself fantastic ways, until not the Dalles of the St. Croix can excel its rock-bound fantasy. Given time, the Dee can "do" pretty much as it pleases in granite.
The few miles we ventured beyond the Linn were enough to prove that the way was long, the wind was cold, the minstrel was infirm and old. Had we walked all the mountain way we should have been much in need of a "plaidie to the angry airts." This air is very bracing.
But we sang many Jacobite songs in memory of the Risings. "Wha'll be King but Charlie?" and "Charlie is my Darling," and "Over the sea Charlie is coming to me," and "Will ye no come back again." And we sang with particular satisfaction that we were not, after all, to suffer royal wrongs—surely there is a falling away in the far generations in the far places, since a King's son could so adventure—