To continue our description of the local surroundings of the Inverness-shire voters—men removed from the ordinary circumstances which make most elections pretty much the same dull, time-worn, vulgarized [pg 535] sight—we quote from a recent article in an English publication: “The nearest neighbors on one side are beyond a great mountain-range, while for miles upon miles on the other there stretch the unpeopled solitudes of a deer-forest. The nearest carriage-road is eight miles off, and that is travelled only three days in the week by a mail-cart that carries passengers. The church and school are at twice the distance; so the children must trust to the parents for their education, and the father can only occasionally join in the Sunday gossip, in the parish churchyard, that expands the ideas of some of his fellow-parishioners. His cottage is ten miles from the nearest hovel where they sell whiskey. His work is arduous; he is afoot among his sheep from the early morning until dusk. In the best of times and in the height of summer it is but seldom that a stray copy of the county paper finds its way to the head of the glen. He is thoughtful by nature, as you may see in his face, which has much the same puzzled expression of intelligence that you remark in the venerable rams of his flock. No doubt he thinks much, after a fashion of his own, as he goes ‘daundering’ about after his straggling sheep, or stretches himself to bask in the hot sunshine, while he leaves his collies (sheep-dogs) to look after his charge.”
This is a very true picture. Of course, in such a situation, it is impossible for the Highland shepherd to follow the questions that affect the fate of ministries. He can know nothing of foreign affairs, probably never heard of the Alabama, and would be at sea on the subject of the Franco-Prussian war. Mr. Gladstone's financial schemes are not only puzzles but terra incognita to his mind. He knows nothing of the extension of the suffrage in counties, and even local rates are indifferent to him, as the only one that concerns him is the dog tax—concerns him, but does not affect him; for his master pays the tax, and he himself is more or less exempted from extra trouble, according to the number of sheep-dogs for which that master chooses to pay. His interest in the man who represents him in Parliament is therefore either purely theoretical or, what happens oftener, purely personal. There are country gentlemen everywhere who, though no newspaper may blow the trumpet of their fame, are nevertheless known throughout a wide expanse as good men and true, kind yet just landlords, upright magistrates, and sound economists. Their names are household words; their memory is always associated with some generous deed; they are looked up to and honored in the county. They are generally scions of the old historical families of the land—of those families to which the Scotchman clings with a proud affection, and which have been perpetuated by the very institutions that some coiners of new political creeds find so deleterious to the human race. The shepherd probably turns his mind to some such man of whom nothing but good has ever been recorded, and willingly entrusts to his safe-keeping the interests of himself, his clan, and his country. Judging from the particular to the general, he concludes that, since this candidate has always been a kind master and a good landlord to his own folks, he is likely to be a conscientious law-maker and an earnest protector of the nation's liberties. Questions of detail may fairly be trusted to him; the main thing is [pg 536] that no widow or orphan has ever had any complaint to make of him.
This is the aspect on the voter's side. Let us see what it is on that of the candidate. There is no question here of bill-sticking, of distributing cockades, or of having bands of music and hired groups of partisans in your wake. Canvassing means “posting long distances in dog-carts, seeking relays at widely-separated inns, where the stable establishments are kept on a peace footing, except during the tourist season. In winter the roads are carried across formidable ferries, where, if you bribe the boatman to imprudence, your business being urgent, you are not unlikely to meet the fate of Lord Ullin's daughter.” But this is not all; for when you have braved the floods, and arrive famished and half-frozen at some out-of-the-way hamlet whence the scattered cottages may be gained, there is yet the ordeal of the interviews before you. The Scottish hermit can hardly be expected to forego or shorten such a rare opportunity of contact with the outside world. He will tax your ingenuity with the shrewdest, perhaps politically inconvenient, questions; and never doing anything in a hurry himself, he will resent his visitor's seeming to be pressed for time. No hasty and transparent condescensions will do for him. He will not be satisfied, like the comfortable trader of the towns, with the candidate's kissing his youngest born and promising his eldest son a rocking-horse. Smiles and hand-shakings are cheap gifts; but he wants no gifts, only pledges. He wishes to be met as an intelligent being, a man who, if worth winning, must be worth convincing. He expects a straightforward, if short, explanation of your general opinions; and though the sense of his own dignity as a voter is great, he does not forget that political does not entail social equality. Grave and earnest, he will resent flippancy as an insult to his understanding; and a joke that would win over a dozen votes in a small commercial town will very probably lose you his vote, and his good opinion too.
But there are also other constituents to be called upon. The numerous islands on the east coast of Scotland afford a still larger field for the danger and romance of canvassing. The islanders are very sensitive, and feel terribly hurt at the insinuation that their home lies out of the world. If their votes are necessary, is the courtesy to ask for them superfluous? They lead hazardous, daring lives themselves, and do not understand how any man can shrink from the danger that may be incurred in nearing their rocky island. If he does, what is he worth? they will argue; for the natural man readily judges of his fellow-man's mental qualities by his physical endurance. Then (we quote again the graphic sketch above referred to), “that island canvass means chartering some crank little screw, beating out into the fogs among the swells and the breakers, taking flying shots at low reefs of inhabited rock, enveloped in mists and unprovided with lighthouses. Landing-places are almost as scarce as light-towers, and you may have to bob about under the ‘lee of the land’ in impatient expectation of establishing communications with it. When you do get to shore, you must be hospitably fêted by the minister and the schoolmaster, the doctor and the principal tacksmen, until what with sea-squeamishness and the strong [pg 537] spirits, it becomes simply heroic to preserve the charm of your manners. Moreover, you had better not make your visit at all than cut it uncivilly short. Our friend the shepherd may have made up his mind to support you; but you may rely upon it that he will promise nothing until you have set yourself down for a solemn ‘crack’ with him.” The day of the election itself is a suitable ending to this romantic episode in the life of an ordinary, drudging M.P. When a Highlander sets about a thing, he never gives in before it is accomplished. Honor binds him to redeem a promise, whether made to another or to himself; pride compels him to prove himself superior to circumstances, almost to nature herself; and he doggedly goes on his way, undeterred by any wayside temptation to turn into smoother and pleasanter paths. So the voters “climb over mountains and plod over snow-fields, wade mountain streams, navigate lochs in crank cobles, and cross raging estuaries in rickety, flat-bottomed ferry-boats; so that, should the winds and the weather interfere too seriously with the exercise of the electors' political rights, the polling of a great Highland constituency may possibly have a gloomily dramatic finale.”[122]
While we are on the subject of Scotland, we may mention the various occasions on which national gatherings draw together thousands of picturesquely-clad men and women. The games are the most characteristic of these meetings. They take place in various places, mostly during the months of August and September. They are generally held under the patronage and supervision of some great family of the neighborhood. Something of old clan feeling is revived. The men often march in in bodies, preceded by their pipers, and wearing their individual tartan, with distinctive badges. The villages for fifty miles around send their group of representatives and their athletes and champions in the games. Vehicles of primitive build with rough, wiry little ponies bring in their load of farmers and petty freeholders. The country-houses and shooting-boxes fill with guests from England; and in the neighborhood of Balmoral, to which we more particularly allude, there is of course the additional attraction of royal countenance and patronage. The queen and the royal family sometimes become the guests of their subjects on these occasions, and an almost German simplicity reigns for a few days among those to whom etiquette must be so sore a chain. The princes wear the Highland dress, and the queen (that is, before her widowhood) something of tartan in her plain toilet. The national sports, such as throwing the hammer, lifting heavy weights and supporting them on the outstretched hand, etc., require both strength and dexterity, and the champions who contend in these games are generally “professionals.” Sometimes, however, some village athlete ambitiously enters the lists against the trained champions, and occasionally bears off a prize. A competition of pipers is often a feature of the day, and these worthies make a brave appearance in their velvet jackets covered with a breast-plate of medals, severally won in various contests. The shrill, clarion-like tones of the bagpipes are not agreeable to the untrained ear, but to the Highlanders, whose national associations are proudly entwined [pg 538] with this wild, primitive music of the hills, they are naturally sweeter than the most sublime strains of the old masters. No one, even though not Highland-bred, can listen to the pipes, playing a pibroch among the echoes of the mountains, without feeling that the soul of the people is in it; that the spirits of “the Flood and the Fell” which Walter Scott so graphically introduces in his Lay of the Last Minstrel might have used just such tones for their fateful, wailing speech; and no one having more than common ties binding him to Scottish traditions and Scottish homes can think of the wild dirges or stirring war-calls of the pipes without sympathy and loving regret. Not quite so inspiring, however, is this music when the piper marches round a small dining-room, and plays the distinctive tune of the host's clan to the guests assembled over their wine and dessert. The narrow space makes the music harsh and grating, just as a confined room takes from the Tyrolese jodel all its romance, and turns the sounds into the caricature of a loud roulade. The games often last for three days, and a sort of encampment springs up by magic to supply the deficiencies of the crowded inns of the neighborhood. At the end of that time there is a ball given at one of the principal country-seats, and a torch-light dance for the people. The queen and the royal family accompany their host and hostess, and are content with a hasty dinner, served with a delightful relaxation from etiquette; for this is their holiday from political anxieties and social duties, and the more informal this assembly, the better it pleases them. The ball-room is not very large, and its simple decorations are in keeping with the character of the feast and the style of the lodge or cottage in which it is given. There are flowers in abundance, flags and evergreen garlands, Highland badges and emblems, and stags' heads with branching antlers—the trophies of the host's skill in stalking the red deer. Outside the house is a wide space, destined for the torch-light dance. Great iron holders and pans lifted on rude tripods contain the torches and the resinous fluid which, when set on fire, burns steadily for many hours. To and fro flit the kilted Highlanders, with their jewelled dirks or daggers, and their hairy sporrans decorated with silver plates the size of large coins. The champions of the games are there, the rival pipers, the mountain shepherds, the gillies or game-keepers, all the household servants and those of the guests; the women wearing tartan ribbons of different clans, and Scotch flowers, blue-bell, heather or bog-myrtle, in their caps or bodices. The pipes strike up the music of the sword-dance; a noted dancer comes forward, and lays two naked swords of ordinary length on the ground, crossing them at right angles. Within the four narrow spaces between the points of this cross he then begins a series of marvellous steps, leaping high in the air, shuffling, crossing his feet, and invariably alighting in the right spot, within a few inches of the swords, always in these four interstices, but never touching nor even grazing the blades. If he were to touch one ever so lightly, and but for an instant, his reputation would be gone. Another succeeds him, and so on, till all the famous dancers have exhibited their skill. No novice appears; they take care never to dance in public till they are [pg 539] perfect in this feat. Scotch reels for the most part take up the rest of the night, and are danced by four people, two men and two women, the former standing back to back, and their partners opposite. Various figures follow each other, the figure eight being the most frequent. This is managed by the four dancers locking arms and giving a swing round, then passing on to the next person; arms are locked again, and another turn given, and so on till the four have changed places, and in doing so have described the figure eight. Of course, in this dance, it is the men who show to most advantage, as they perform a series of regular steps, snapping their fingers meanwhile, and, as soon as they get excited and enter into the spirit of the national dance, uttering a peculiar sort of cry. The women mostly walk and jump through their evolutions. The less characteristic dancing in the ball-room, but in which reels are also mingled with quadrille and waltz, ceases about two o'clock in the morning, and the musicians are at liberty to join the fun outside. The Highlanders sometimes take possession of the deserted ball-room, and continue their own revels there till daybreak, when the torches flicker out and the spell is broken. Another national dance is the strathspey, which we never had the good fortune to see performed.
In winter curling is the favorite game; it is played on the ice with heavy round stones, about eight or nine inches in diameter, and three to three and a half inches thick. These stones are neither rolled nor thrown at the line and mark, but propelled, by the strength of wrist of the player, along the surface of the ice, and aimed to displace the stones already set up by the opposite side. Whichever side, at the end of the game, has most stones near the line which serves as a mark, is declared by the umpire to be the winner. Miniature curling-boards are very common in Scotch country-houses, with stones two or three inches in diameter; it is an amusing game on a rainy day, and, though so small, no little skill is required to guide these stones aright.
The same house to which we have taken the reader to be present at the torch-light dance is a very pretty specimen of Scotch hunting-lodges. Built at various times, it consists of several cottages, once detached, but now irregularly connected by picturesque galleries, verandas, and staircases. One part has much the appearance of a Swiss châlet; another that of a river-side villa on the Thames, with its glass doors opening on to a lawn, and its rustic porch smothered in climbing roses. Though so straggling, it is a very comfortable house. Nothing is wanting—billiard-room, smoking-room, boudoir, and innumerable pigeonholes for guests—a charming house for persons of sporting tastes; the halls carpeted with deer-skins, and the walls hung with antlers, bearing each the date of the death of the stag to which they belonged; equally charming to the delicate London beauty wearied with her social triumphs, for here she finds the thousand elegances of a rococo drawing-room, the luxurious arm-chairs, the rare china, the velvet screen hung with miniatures, and little gilt brackets, each supporting a tiny cup or a porcelain shepherdess—in a word, every pretty refinement of the latest fashion. The neighborhood is famous for stalking—that is, following the red deer through moor and forest alone, with your rifle and your slight bag containing [pg 540] some biscuits and a pocket-flask. You may have to trudge over miles and miles of heather, watching every turn of the breeze, lest it betray your whereabouts to your beautiful victim; making immense détours to reach him from some convenient cover; creeping along on all fours, or even flat on the ground; often taking a long, cold bath in the mountain burn (stream), wading through it, or waiting in it, so as not to let him scent your trail. If for no other reason, this sport is superior to any because it demands solitude; though it is hard to discover why one should not be privileged to take a twelve hours' walk or saunter without the pretext of the rifle slung at one's back, and also without incurring the charge of eccentricity. A forest in Scotland is treeless; the term is applied to a wide expanse of mountain, covered knee-deep with heather, and perhaps here and there with a few stunted bushes or clumps of graceful birches. Here the red deer feeds in herds, and you sometimes come across six or seven of these “monarchs of the glen.” The sportsman, however, seldom pursues or kills more than one in a day. A moor is much the same in appearance as a forest, but that term is reserved for those tracts of heather-land where the grouse and the black-cock abide. These are often rented to Englishmen, the forests seldom; so that the Southron, if he have a taste for deer-stalking, generally depends for his chance of indulging it on the hospitality of some Scottish friend.
This neighborhood is full of romantic glens and hollows where mountain streams gurgle through narrow channels of rock, where tiny waterfalls splash under bridges mossy with old age, and where real forests of pine and birch and rowan, or mountain ash, make a variegated network across the blue horizon. In one little gorge tradition says that a hunted partisan of Charles Edward took refuge after the fatal battle of Culloden, in 1745, and lived there concealed for several weeks. The particular place where he hid was under a projecting ledge or table of rock, overhanging the brown, foaming waters of the mimic torrent, which, though not large in volume, might yet have strength enough to dash you in pieces, if you fell into the narrow bed bristling with sharp, rocky points and irregular boulders, round which the water boils and hisses, as if chafing at its imprisonment. The rocks incline their jagged sides so far forward over the stream as almost to meet in an arch above it, and the chasm can be easily, almost safely, leaped. Indeed, the rift is invisible from the road, which passes within a few yards of it. Its sides are fringed with heather, and are undistinguishable, except when one is standing close upon them.
The North of England, with its mountains and its lakes, its solitary tarns (pools or smaller lakes) and its becks, has a family likeness to Scotch scenery. Its people, too, are akin to the Lowland Scotch in their taciturnity, their hardy, physical nature, and their language; yet to those who know both well the difference is very perceptible. In olden times Lancashire and Yorkshire, lying to the west of the Lake country, were emphatically the land of the church, one vast net-work of beautiful abbeys with their immense possessions. Even after the Reformation these two counties remained the stronghold of Catholicity, and to this day they contain more Catholics (exclusive of the large modern [pg 541] towns and their population) than any other part of England. The favorite sport of Lancashire is otter-hunting.
A certain breed of hounds, having very long bodies and short legs, is kept for the purpose; the streams abound in otters, and the hunt is very exciting. The gentlemen wear preternaturally thick boots, covering even the thighs, as they often have to wade in after the otter, whose teeth are so sharp that they can take off a hound's leg at one bite. These animals dive dexterously under the banks, and generally lead the hunt a pretty chase; but, never having seen this sport ourselves, it is difficult to describe it graphically. The dialect of this part of the country is almost as much a language as Provençal; the people have their own literature, and one of their poets (a humorous one) has been styled, par excellence, the “Lancashire Poet.” Lancashire people are desperately clannish, quite despise the southern English, and obstinately adhere to their own customs, as something immeasurably more dignified than the finical fashions of the Southron. The gentlemen all talk the dialect when speaking with their farmers, game-keepers, or servants, and speak it with genuine gusto too. A Lancashire kitchen is a heart-warming sight; it is emphatically the room of a farm, an inn, or any middle-class dwelling. The fire blazes in the depths of a cavernous chimney, with settles on each side, on which two men can sit abreast, while from the low roof hang endless strings of fine onions and dozens of hams and flitches of bacon. At another part of the ceiling is fixed an immense rack, over which hangs the oatmeal cake in large sheets, of which any one is at liberty to break off a piece for his supper unrebuked and without question of repayment. Hospitality is a cardinal virtue here, but it is not that voluble, fussy hospitality which worries its recipient and makes him feel the obligation; you are welcome to go in and sit down, eat and drink, warm and dry yourself at the hearth, and go out again, without being assailed by impertinent questions or bored by long domestic revelations. A Lancashire host respects your mind while he refreshes your body, and silently makes you at home. Those kitchens of the north are the very type of comfort, with their vast corner-cupboards, their cleanliness—you might literally eat off the brick floors; they are always paved with brick—their long oat-cake racks and tempting meat, all home-cured, hung from the ceiling. The temptation may be too great for you some night, if you happen to return to your lodgings, very hungry, at the late hour of twelve—that is dissipation in Lancashire—for you may wander in, and see no harm in hunting in the cupboard for eggs and flour, and in slicing off whatever will conveniently detach itself from a hanging flitch, in order to flavor some appetizing sauce of which you possess the secret. Perhaps the midnight raid ends fatally, and you stumble over the pots and pans, or find the embers hardly hot enough to cook the sauce, or give it up at last in despair, with a ridiculous foreboding of what the landlady will say to-morrow morning when she contemplates the ragged appearance of the best flitch! Let us hope that you will honestly own your delinquencies, and not affirm that “it must have been the mice, ma'am!” It will be the easier as [pg 542] you happen to know the house well, and its inmates long ago agreed to overlook your little eccentricities with regard to sauces!