“A wizard of such dreaded fame,
That when in Salamanca’s cave
Him listed his magic wand to wave,
The bells would ring in Notre Dame.”
The Eildon Hills, the tokens of his power, and Melrose, where his bones were laid “on St. Michael’s night,” are only a few miles off. The picturesque ruin of Smailholme Tower, where the later minstrel spent the happiest days of his childhood, was within reach; Abbotsford, the Fairy Dean, and the Rhymer’s Glen, Dryburgh, and the vale of Tweed, haunted at every winding with some old tale or song, all wooed us by turns. So each day had its excursion, its legend of some sort to investigate, its ruin to explore. It was with William Nelson on the Tweed as on the Nile: he was indefatigable in the pursuit of information concerning every minutest object of interest, and never was satisfied till he had seen for himself, and questioned and sifted all available evidence. The memories of many a pleasant day, with the incidents of kindly intercourse and genial humour that added fresh sunshine to the scene, would furnish material enough to add many a chapter over which old friends would not readily tire. But such reminiscences can only be glanced at here. I select, therefore, from among those home holidays the latest of all: a summer at Glenfeochan.
Glenfeochan is a romantic glen of the West Highlands, through which the Feochan finds its way to the sea. Oban is only six miles off, and so steamers and boats and all the attractions of the sea are at hand, such as ever had a fascination for William Nelson. For he guessed, as has been seen, that could the pedigree of the Nelsons of Throsk be followed up, they might prove to be of the stock of old Danish rovers, the sons of Thor, whose home was on the sea; and so he welcomed the hint at an etymology of the Bannockburn farm from the Thor of the Vikings. Unquestionably he possessed not a little of their steady hardihood and love of adventure, softened though it was by transmission through a sober race of Covenanters, who tilled the carse where Bruce had triumphed, and, when needs were, could emulate him in sturdy resistance to the tyrant.
Glenfeochan House is beautifully situated at the foot of the glen. It lies low—perhaps a little too low—nestling among the hills, with glens and lochs on every hand. The drawing-room windows looked across the river to the sea; and when the curtains were drawn, and a fire was found not unpleasant in the cool autumn evenings, the emotional delight with which William Nelson welcomed the songs of Scotland, or some of his favourite hymns, was infectious. His taste in music was simple, but it yielded him intense pleasure, and not infrequently moved him to tears. But such evening relaxations were generally the close of a busy day; for Oban is a choice centre for the explorer. It afforded means of access to the fiords or sea-lochs of Argyleshire, and to the outlying Hebrides. There were Iona and Staffa, Glencoe and Mull, with the ruined keep of Duart Castle, the Lady Rock, and the legend of “Fair Ellen of Lorne,” which is perpetuated in Campbell’s ballad of “Glenara.” There was the vitrified fort of Dun MacUisneachan at Loch Etive to explore; and on the opposite side of the loch, Dunstaffnage, the home of the Dalriadic kings, where of old was held in safe keeping the liah fhail, or stone of destiny, now enshrined in the coronation chair in Westminster Abbey. The unique cairn or serpent-mound of Loch Nell, another object of special curiosity, was visited more than once, in the hope of arriving at some definite idea of its actual character. For the fact of a huge saurian mound, like some of those in the valley of the Ohio, lying there in a secluded nook between the hills of Lorne that form the steep escarpment of Glenfeochan, was a thing too exceptional for William Nelson to allow to pass without some attempt at a solution of its mysteries.
But the choicest of that summer’s explorations was a day on Eilean Naombh, or Holy Island. Our Highland boatmen called it Oil Tsiach n’an Naombh (the College of the Holy People), if we understood rightly; for we had a good deal more Gaelic than tended to our illumination. Our party was pleasantly augmented by the addition of the Rev. Dr. Walter Smith; and William Nelson’s sense of humour was keenly excited by his report of a dialogue between two of the Highlanders, who, happily for us, spoke in English. “James,” said the younger of the two, “I have been told that when the deceiver tempted our mother Eve, it was in Gaelic that he spoke.”—“Well, Donald, I should think it not at all improbable. The Gaelic is a very sweet and persuasive language, particularly when well spoken!” The idea that the Devil’s Gaelic must necessarily be of the best, was a subject of much mirthful comment. Holy Island, the southernmost of the Garvelloch Isles, lies opposite Scarba, with the famous whirlpool of Corryvrechan between. The landing is in a deep cove, where the first object of attraction is St. Columba’s Well, a clear fountain of fresh water bubbling out of the living rock on the margin of the sea. A flight of steps leads up from the sacred pool; and on a level area a short way above stands the chapel of St. Columba, a little ruined cell of only twenty-one feet long. It is of the most primitive Celtic type. A narrow, square-headed opening in the east end, deeply splayed externally, constitutes the east window; under which is the simple altar-slab of slate, still entire. On a neighbouring height a rude enclosure, marked by an upright stone with an incised cross, is traditionally known as the grave of St. Eithne, the mother of St. Columba. But the special objects we were in search of were a pair of bee-hive houses, which we found not far from the chapel. They are built of unhewed slabs, without cement, conjoined like a figure ∞, rude as any Hottentot kraal, and old, probably, as the days of the sainted missionary’s first sojourn among the pagan Celts. The little island is uninhabited, and out of the reach of ordinary tourists, so that time and weather are the only injurers of its curious relics. The day at Holy Island was one of rare enjoyment to all, but especially to William Nelson, whose intelligent inquisitiveness and love of adventure were equally gratified.
Within more easy reach of Glenfeochan, in a sequestered nook among the hills, lies the ancient cemetery of Kilbride, with its ruined church, its holy well, and moss-grown sepulchral memorials. Here, among others of note in the district, lie the Macdougals of Lorne, whose castle of Dunolly stands at the mouth of Oban Bay, with their more modern mansion near by, where is still preserved the famous Brooch of Lorne. But here, above all, lies prostrate, in three detached pieces, a singularly beautiful sculptured cross, with a figure of the crucifixion, and the traces that show where a crown of bronze, or other more precious metal, surrounded the Saviour’s head. Its inscription was conned and puzzled over in repeated visits. Rubbings were taken of it, and the legend at length deciphered, showing that it was erected in 1616 by the lord of the neighbouring manor, Alexander Campbell of Laeraig.
The Cross of Kilbride had at this time an unwonted interest, for William Nelson was already enlisted in the project of erecting at Kinghorn a memorial cross to Alexander III., the last of the Celtic kings, in the successful accomplishment of which, as will be seen hereafter, he took an active part. But, meanwhile, some of the Glenfeochan experiences of a more special character are worth noting. A letter that followed me to Canada, written in the middle of October, supplies the details. “Our stay at Glenfeochan,” he writes, “is fast drawing to a close, Fred only remaining behind till the end of the week, unless great success with his rod should tempt him to stay longer. The sight of Loch Nell on Friday last made his teeth water, as salmon were leaping in it at the north end in great numbers; he is sure he saw at least forty of them so engaged. He was not rewarded, however, with even a rise from any of them, and he had to be contented with bringing home nothing but a single sea-trout, which, however, was a very respectable one as to size, and in splendid condition.... There was very nearly being a terrible tragedy here, the story of which is this. We had staying with us a son of Mr. Keeley Halswell, the artist, a boy of eleven years of age. He made friends with the son of the gardener, a boy about eight; and the two went one day to the loft over the stable to catch mice, they being accompanied by Bertram’s little dog, Gip. There is in the loft a large chest for holding grain for the horses, but it was empty at the time; and what did the two little fellows do? They lifted up the lid and got into the chest, in order that they might not be seen by the mice; and down came the lid, the catch took hold, and they were imprisoned like poor Ginevra of Rogers’s ‘Italy,’—
‘When a spring-lock that lay in ambush there
Fastened them down,’
but happily not for ever. They made what noise they could, and Bertram heard this; but he thought it was just the boys amusing themselves, and so he paid no attention to it. Thus it went on, and the poor little fellows so suffered from want of fresh air that they could not speak to each other, and were getting very faint. Young Halswell had a dreadful headache; when at what would have been in all likelihood their last effort, they tried the lid of the chest, and found to their surprise that it opened, and they were free, after a confinement that must have lasted about three hours. For their release they were indebted to the little dog Gip. After the lid came down they heard the little creature running round the chest and leaping on it in a state of great excitement, as if conscious that there was something wrong. His leaps were continued for a long time; and they are sure that in one of them he must have pushed his nose at the hasp of the lid and opened it, and hence their release. Well done, Gip! Nothing could have been more extraordinary or more unexpected than this.” In the same letter he refers to a robbery that had just taken place at Parkside, by which about £250 had been carried off out of the safe. The police seemed to think that the robbery might have been committed by some one in the works. It was amusingly characteristic of the writer to find him in a subsequent letter seemingly deriving much satisfaction from the fact that the rogue had not been convicted!
His recreations, as already stated, alternated between such pleasant rambles among the beauties of nature and objects of historic and archæological interest in his own country as have been glanced at here, and a journey through novel scenes in foreign lands. The previous summer had been devoted to the tour in the Baltic and Russia, which has furnished some brief notes for a previous chapter. Writing to his friend, Major MacEnery, soon after his return, Mr. Nelson thus indicated the plans he was already maturing for another season: “We went over a good many thousand miles in our late journeyings. The only breakdown was that of Florence, at Moscow, which came in the way to prevent our all going to the Volga, and seeing some of the strange sights that are to be witnessed there, especially at the great fair of Nijni-Novgorod. So we had to leave our visit to that part of the world till another opportunity; and when I go next to Moscow, which I hope will be in the course of next summer or autumn, if all’s well, I will not be satisfied unless I go down the Volga to Astrakhan, at the extreme north of the Caspian Sea, and sail down that sea to Baku, where the celebrated oil wells are, and take the railway then across to Batoum on the Black Sea, and go thence to the Crimea, and so find my way home by Greece and Vienna: and this will be a glorious journey.”