This finished the conversation, and John remained with Breadalbane. This story, it may be noted, bears a striking resemblance to one told of the Prince of Wales’s piper in a previous chapter.[[15]]
Queen Victoria seems to have coveted the best of the Highland pipers, but while no one doubted their loyalty, they did not always agree to serve Her Majesty. Not only did John Bane Mac Kenzie prefer the service of his chief to that of his Queen, but Donald Cameron, a pupil of his, and the piper who, more than any other, was acknowledged to be the true successor of the Mac Crimmons, declined a similar offer, and remained with his Highland master.
Eleven years before the last Mac Crimmon piper died, Donald Cameron was born at “the burn of the music,” in Strath-Conan, Ross-shire, and at eight years of age he was playing the pipes. The late Mr. Mac Kenzie of Millbank, an influential Highland gentleman in the district, took a great interest in the youthful musician, and put him under the tuition of Big Donald Mac Lennan, of Moy, father of the well-known John Mac Lennan, piper to the late Earl of Fife. Cameron was next taught by Angus Mac Kay, whose father, John Mac Kay was taught by John Dubh Mac Crimmon. His last tutor was John Bane Mac Kenzie. He first competed in Edinburgh in 1838, at seventeen years of age, and won second prize, a claymore marked “Andria Varara,” which afterwards came into the possession of the late Major A. C. Mac Kenzie, Maryburgh, Ross-shire.
DONALD CAMERON
(From a Photograph in the possession of Pipe-Major Mac Dougall Gillies, Glasgow)
The prizes won by Cameron during his career as a professional piper were not very numerous, but they were all high, and he soon became ineligible through having won all the possible firsts. In his early days there was generally a rehearsal of intending competitors, and only the best were allowed to compete in public, with the result that the very permission to compete was considered an honour, and the winning of a prize a distinguished honour. Cameron won at Perth, in 1850, a large silver challenge medal presented by his employer, the late Colonel Keith W. Stewart Mac Kenzie of Seaforth; and he won the Highland Society of London’s challenge gold medal in Inverness in 1859, a feat which was subsequently performed by his sons, Colin and Alexander; and also six sets of pipes at different meetings. His first service as piper was with Mr. Robert Morison, Scallisaig, Glenelg. Afterwards he was employed by Sir James J. R. Mac Kenzie, Bart., of Scatwell and Rosehaugh, but his principal service was with Colonel Mac Kenzie of Seaforth, with whom he continued till his death at Maryburgh in January, 1868. When the Brahan Company of Volunteers was formed by Seaforth in 1866, Cameron was appointed honorary piper, and when he died a detachment accompanied his remains to the burying-ground of the High Church, Inverness.
In 1863, Seaforth presented his piper with the title deeds of one of the best houses in the village of Maryburgh, thus following to a certain extent the practice of the chiefs when the piper was a part of the household. Ten years previously he was selected to be piper to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, an honour which he highly appreciated, but so strong was his attachment to Seaforth that he preferred to remain with him. Donald Cameron was very like the Mac Crimmons. He lived in different times, but had he lived when they lived he would have been as one of them. In his theory of pipe music the sounds formed a continuous and harmonious whole, as distinguished from that of one or two other well-known pipers, whose playing, even of pibrochs, was marked by its jerkiness. He was practically an illiterate man, but, besides being able to read ordinary music, he noted his tunes in a special manner, on the lines of the Canntaireachd of the Mac Crimmons or the Mac Arthurs. Each of these systems of notation was different from the others, and the invention of the piper who originally used it, so if Cameron was illiterate he was certainly also clever. He was a shrewd old man, with a fund of stories connected with the Highlands and leading Highland families. He was a keen angler and a great favourite with Seaforth. When, at a comparatively early age, he had ceased playing at competitions, he determined once more to try his skill in public. So he took advantage of the Northern Meeting, Inverness, where a competition was to be held for former gold medalists only. This competition was the first of its kind, and all the best men were there. When Donald Cameron began to play a great hush fell on the crowd, and he played to an audience that scarcely breathed. He was, of course, placed first. On that matter there was no room for dispute. The photograph here reproduced was taken immediately after that competition.
When Cameron was playing in the year 1859 for the Highland Society of London’s gold medal at Inverness, he had rather an awkward experience. The tune was “Mac Intosh’s Lament,” and he had not got much more than through the ground or urlar when the drones began to slip off his shoulder. He made several futile attempts to adjust them, but down they would come, and down they did come, until they rested on his arm. But this made no difference whatever to the rendering of the tune. He played just as if the instrument was on his shoulder in the ordinary way. An onlooker remarked to Alexander Mac Lennan how splendidly he played, although under a disadvantage. “Sandy” replied that “it made no difference to Donald although he held the bag between his knees.”
In personal appearance, as the sketch shows, he was the ideal successor of the hereditary pipers. In 1862 he won a prize of £10 offered by the Club of True Highlanders for the best rendering of pibrochs, and the chronicler of the event refers to him as being “with his grand, massive face and ample grey beard, the very impersonation of an old Highland piper.” His favourite music was pibroch, but he was an all-round master of the pipes. Like many old players, he made all his own reeds, and was very particular about them. He had one special reed, which he used only on high occasions, such as a guest night at Brahan Castle. He kept it, when not in use, in an air-tight bottle, and one day a tinker piper called at his house, and, as usual with the class, begged for a reed. Mrs. Cameron thoughtlessly gave him this old-looking reed out of the bottle, and when Donald came home some time after, and was told what had been done, he was sorely put about. Cameron was one of that small number of men who could keep up a continuous sound when playing the practice chanter, a thing very few players can do. He was the composer of some first-class tunes, including “Kessock Ferry,” “Brahan Castle,” and “Lady Anne Mac Kenzie’s Farewell to Rosehaugh.” Of his four sons, three became pipers. Colin, piper to the Duke of Fife, is well known as a teacher of pipe music; Alexander was piper to the Marquis of Huntly; and Keith Cameron, now dead, was piper to the Highland Light Infantry. They all made names for themselves in the musical world, but in no case is their personality so outstanding as that of their father. Although the mantle of the Mac Crimmons seemed to fall on him, the changing circumstances of life made it impossible for him to pass it on to another generation, and to find the true representative of the old pipers in the pipers of to-day would task the ingenuity of those best acquainted with the accomplishments of the different men.