Beside his road-making, with stone and concrete, General Wade had notable success in dealing with the peculiar variety of human nature that was so marked in the Celtic Highlanders. He so won his way into their hearts that, with the tact that came of thorough acquaintance with his subject, he slowly but surely disarmed the clans. Turbulence and habitual brawls ceased, for the most part, and there came an era of civilization and peaceful life, contrasting amazingly with the state of affairs in Scotland before 1745. To the Irish General Wade the world awards the title promised of God by the prophet Isaiah, “The restorer of paths to dwell in.”
It was in 1745 that the road-builder in the Highlands, Wade, then a field marshal, but in poor health and seventy years of age, when attempting to deal with the insurrection of the Jacobites, was utterly baffled by the perplexing rapidity of Prince Charles’s marches. He, therefore, most patriotically, resigned in favor of the Duke of Cumberland, the “Bluff Billie” of fame and story.
Though Wade won great victories in war, his greatest renown was gained not on the field of blood, but in this peaceful triumph over the Highlanders. In this, he gave an inspiring precedent to those of our own American officers of the army and navy, who have done such noble work in preventing riot and other outbreaks of violence among the races in our composite nation, or who, by persuasion, instead of bloodshed, have induced Indians to submit to law. In digging canals, in achieving hygienic mastery over disease, in surmounting natural obstacles, in ministering to the needy, sick, and hungry upon the frontiers, and in time of pestilence, calamity, and devastation, by storm and earthquake, they have shown their heroism. May the time soon come when society and the world at large will honor the heroes of peace and mark their bloodless triumphs, no less renowned in peace than in war. Admirable in the highest degree is now the Scottish camaraderie of Highlander and Lowlander, but none, to gain it, would in these more enlightened days, pay again the awful price at which it was won.
CHAPTER XVII
HEATHER AND HIGHLAND COSTUME
Let us look at the characteristics of Caledonia’s principal garment, the heather: or, shall we say, rather, the hue upon Scotia’s cheeks? Scotland is a land of colors. Her robes and cosmetics are of many dyes. On her flowers are the flushes of the temporary blooms, on her rocks the tints of eternity. Her tarns, her lochs, her bogs are as dye vats, so rich, yet so changeful, are their hues, over which artists thrill and glow.
Scotland’s richest hues are at their full between spring and winter. Then, in nature, pink and purple are the reigning fashions. Over the larger part of the land’s surface grows the plant called, in homely word, ling, or heather, which botanists name Calluna vulgaris. These evergreen shrubs flourish all over northern Europe, but other members of the great family are found also in Africa, where they reach the size of large bushes, while one favored child, in the south of Europe, grows to the proportions of a tree.
Some of these species brought from southern lands ornament British gardens, and produce their flowers in great profusion in April. In fact, some flower-fanciers rear in greenhouses the different varieties of heather, both exotic and native, with the enthusiasm which others devote to orchids. There are special buildings, called heath-houses, erected for the cultivation of the many varieties.
Blessed is the heather, for it enlivens the sterile lands of northern and western Europe, which otherwise would be almost appalling in their vistas of desolation! Great masses of heather give, even to the most forbidding landscapes, a beauty suggesting something like human sympathy. The common heather, like the man suddenly lifted to fame and fortune, is apt to show the lack of early advantages, but give this plant of the moors a sheltered place and kindly care, and it will grow erect and “heave out its blooms”—as said an old mariner—so as to touch the top of a yardstick. With purple stems, close-leaved green fruit, and feathery spikes of bell-shaped flowers, this Calluna vulgaris is one of the handsomest of the heath flowers. Some heather is white, but most of the plants are of a lilac rose color, varying through pink to purple. It is this varying depth of color in the blooms which adds to the glory of the August moors and hillsides.
Under ordinary environment, most of the plants have no human care to give them comfortable growth. Out on the desolate moor, or on the arid slopes, each bush has to wrestle with the tempest and withstand the bombardment of sand and gravel hurled by the wind. Though like the pine of Clan Alpine, “the firmer it roots him, the stronger it blows,” yet the life of the heather is a constant struggle. Even though it rise but a few inches above the surface, its roots must be anchored deep in the ground to prevent its being blown away. Its white stalk must become gray, hard, and tough, if the plant is to live.
The blossoming of the heather, even though it be “the meanest flower that blows,” is hailed with delight as the opening of Nature’s floral calendar. With its clusters of pink, in the time of flowering in midsummer, and its mass of purple later on, it has a strange power to awaken deep-lying thoughts. To the natives, more especially, this wee, modest flower has a mystic potency to please and charm. It rouses among them, at home and abroad, a feeling of patriotism. It becomes, in the Scotsman’s associations, a link between his soul and the ground out of which he came and into which he will go. Probably no toiling and homesick Scot, pining in a foreign land, longs for anything in the old homeland so much as for a sight of his native heather. To hold before his dying eyes a sprig of “the bonnie” has been known to light there a gleam such as nothing else can.