Dominie.—’Pon my word, sir, my memory does not serve me in that respeck. But I have another story altogether, in which the Laird of Ballindalloch was also concerned; and, as it has been brought to my mind, nay, I may say, into my vurra mouth at this moment, by the pleasing flavour of Mr. Clifford’s excellent fish, on which we have all dined so heartily, I may as well give you that.
Clifford.—You are a perfect mine of legendary lore, Mr. Macpherson.
LEGEND OF THE LAST GRANT OF TULLOCHCARRON.
In my legend of yesternight, gentlemen, I think I told you, that one of Ballindalloch’s yespecial reasons for selecking the site he did for his peel tower was the commanding view which he thence enjoyed all over the lands of Tullochcarron, lying above the fork of the Aven and the Spey, and which then belonged to another family of Grants, with whom he was liable to be frequently at daggers drawn. It is of the last laird of Tullochcarron, that I am now going to tell you.
In the earlier part of his life, this laird of Tullochcarron lost a younger brother, who was killed while fighting bravely by his side in a feudal skirmish with a former laird of Ballindalloch. Tullochcarron had a strong affection for this brother, and would have been inconsolable for his death, had he not left an only son behind him, called Lachlan Dhu. Tullochcarron was then unmarried, and he therefore instantly transferred all that which had been his fraternal affection to his orphan nephew. Accordingly, he set himself to nurture the boy with all the care and solicitude he could bestow, and with the full intention of making him his heir. But you are well enough aware, gentlemen, that yeddication in those days must have been a mere farce. Indeed, judging from the worthy Dame Julian Berner’s Boke of St. Alban’s, the which, I take it for granted, was the gentleman’s vade mecum in its day, it was worse than a farce, nothing being taught there but hawking and hunting, and the mysteries thereof; as, for example, how to physic a sick falcon, and such like follies, with all the foolish vanities of coat armour, and the frivolities of fishing. Eh! I beg your pardon, Mr. Clifford! I see you are not just altogether pleased with that observe of mine. But I meant no offence,—as sure as death I did not. Where was I? Well, as the lad, Lachlan Dhu, grew up, certain indications of ane evil disposition began to manifest themselves, and these unpromising buds did so bourgeon through time, that after trying to prune away the wicked shoots that sprang from them, and finding, as is often the case, that they only sprouted forth the thicker and the stronger for the lopping, like the poisonous heads of the hydra, the good Tullochcarron found himself compelled to abandon his kind intentions towards the young man, so far as regarded the heirship. But he still continued to make his house his home, and likewise to show him all such kindness as an uncle might be expected to use towards a nephew.
Being thus disappointed in his views of a successor, the worthy man set himself to the serious consideration of another plan, and having cast his eyes about him, they fell upon a fair leddy, whom he resolved, with her consent, to make his wife, and accordingly, after a reasonable courtship, they were married. No couple could have been happier than they were, and his joy was, in due time, rendered complete by the birth of a son and heir, who was called Duncan. But, alas! what is yearthly felicity? Fleeting as the wintry sunbeam on a wall. His beloved wife died soon after the birth of her infant boy, whom she left as the only remaining hope of his family.
Lachlan Dhu had nearly reached manhood before his uncle’s marriage, but Tullochcarron had taken especial care, from the very first, never to allow his nephew to know that he ever had any intention of leaving him the succession of his estate. There was therefore no ostensible cause for disappointment or jealousy in Lachlan. But the youth was sharp enough to have seen the position in which he had so long stood, and to have drawn his own conclusions; and certain it was, that jealousy and disappointment did follow his uncle’s marriage and the birth of his cousin Duncan. But young though he might be, he was already so profound a master of the art of dissimulation, that he not only most perfectly concealed them, but he actually contrived to produce so great a seeming change for the better in his own character, that he gradually succeeded in vurra much effacing the recollection of his former errors and iniquities from the memory of his kind and forgiving uncle.
Duncan Bane, as the young Tullochcarron was called from his fair complexion, was, in every respect, a contrast to Lachlan Dhu, or Black Lachlan. Tullochcarron had committed his infant boy to be nursed and fostered by a respectable lady, a distant relation of the family, who, though low in circumstances, was high in piety and virtue. To this lady the infant Duncan opportunely came to supply the place of a child she had just then lost, and as the little fellow drew his nourishment from her bosom, all the strength of a mother’s attachment fell in tender sorrow upon him; and he who never knew any other mother, repaid it with corresponding affection. Tullochcarron was too conscious of the failure in his attempt at yeddication, in the instance of his nephew, to risk a repetition of it in the still more interesting case of his son. He therefore gladly left the tutoring of the boy to the care of his excellent nurse, who appears to have been as intellectually gifted as any woman of those barbarous times could have been. It is true that she must, in all probability, have been tinctured with some portion of the learning of Dame Julian. For, although nothing remains to establish that the young man had studied hawking and hunting, the legend certainly informs us, that he had a complete knowledge of, and an ardent love for,—hum—ha—I would say for that art of which it would ill become me to speak dispraisingly, seeing that we have had this evening so much reason to thank Mr. Clifford for having so ably and successfully exerceesed it. But—what was much better—under her godly care the boy’s heart was filled with all the best feelings of religion and humanity. He was amiable, generous, and kind-hearted, and ever ready on all occasions to sacrifice his own little interests to those of others; and he was so utterly devoid of guile himself, that he felt it almost impossible to imagine its existence in others. It was not wonderful, therefore, that he grew up with the warmest attachment to his cousin, Lachlan Dhu, who was the very prince of deceivers, and who well knew how to put on the mask of kindness. He allowed no opportunity of gaining his young cousin’s affections to pass unprofitably, and so unremitting was his attention to the young Duncan, that he even succeeded in throwing sand into the eyes of old Tullochcarron himself, who began to thank Heaven for the happy change that had taken place on his nephew, and to trust that he might yet look to him as the future protector of his son’s youth and inexperience, in the very probable event of his being called from this world before his boy had grown to the years of manhood.
But the old man was still a hale and hearty carle when his boy’s seventeenth birthday came round. He had indeed been a marvellously stout and healthy man all his life. The only disease, indeed, with which he had ever been afflicted was an almost insatiable appetite for food, which no endeavours of his own could restrain. It was a never-ending ravenous hunger, for which the poor man was by no means morally responsible, and from the gnawing effects of which he must have died, if it had not been frequently and largely administered to. Nor did he ask for dainties, although there certainly was one species of food which he preferred to all others when he could get it in its season, and that was—salmon. Tullochcarron’s complaint, as you may very naturally conceive, grew with his growth, which was immense, and increased with every additional year that he lived. But, old as he was, and enormous as he became in bulk, his great strength remained unimpaired, and he was still able to move about with wonderful activity in the superintendence of his concerns.