Then the tower bell boomed the hour of twelve.
Seeing Dundee often and in the year before the Great War, we noted its broad thoroughfares adorned with flowers, and so full of activity and happy bustle by day and brilliantly lighted by electricity at night, we made favorable comparison with the best streets of Scotland’s two larger cities. Since Queen Victoria’s charter, bestowed in 1889, Dundee’s chief magistrate has been designated as the “Lord Provost.”
One of the commonest expressions in Scotland for the meadow alongside of a river is “the carse.” There are plenty of these carses in the valley of the Tay, and at Dundee “the carse” is that one, of course, which is near the city.
“The Carse of Gowrie” is somewhat over twenty miles long. Four miles from the city post-office, over the carse, is the village of Invergowrie, where we enter Perthshire. Here, in a stately home, we spent many days. We cross a burn, which runs across the turnpike road, and enter a village called Milnefield Feus, the water making the dividing-line between the counties. At Invergowrie we see “the Gows of Gowrie,” the Paddock Stane, and the quarries of Kingoodie, with the old Dargie church, surrounded by an ancient graveyard near the shores of the Tay River. Between the kirkyard and the railway are the “Gows” or large boulders, famous in the prophecy of Thomas the Rhymer:—
“When the Gows of Gowrie come to land
The day of judgment is near at hand.”
Another famous rock is the Deil’s Stone, concerning which there is a legend illustrating the activity of His Satanic Majesty. The village of Invergowrie was originally named the Mylnefield Feus—a relic of Scottish feudalism.
THE VALLEY OF THE TAY
I noticed many odd features, common to most old Scottish towns, especially those with markets, during my numerous rambles in the valley of the Tay. Each had of old for its equipment, suiting the needs of the times, the cross, with the “jougs” attached, and the “tron,” or weighing-machine used for securing honest weight of oatmeal and other produce brought to the market for sale. The canny Scot, like other human beings, has that proverbial “touch of nature,” which scale and measures serve partly to correct. There was also a penfold for impounding stray animals. A joug, as one might guess, from the Latin “jugum,” was an instrument for the punishment of those who were already stiff-necked offenders. It is probably the original of our slang word “jug,” meaning a prison. An iron collar enclosing the neck of the criminal, which was fastened to a wall, tree, or cross, by an iron chain, was the chief feature and implement. This piece of public jewelry went out of use, some time after the Reformation. Often the old town crosses, when broken, dilapidated, or removed, are rebuilt as public ornaments or memorials of the past.