around them, and perhaps a few goats to give them milk and butter. They live there strong, healthy, and happy; ignorant of any better sort of dwelling, and utterly undesirous of it. I have seen wild-eyed children on the hills, who screamed when shown a looking-glass: and a tall, strong woman who had never seen a staircase in her life, and, from very astonishment at the first sight of one, could not ascend it. The Highland huts (I speak not of the modern model cottages sprinkled here and there on portions of the vast estates lately passed into southern hands) are all built more or less alike, rudely; only that the shepherds' bothies may boast a longer range of unclayed stone; within are bundles of wool for winter spinning, hanging from blackened rafters, with mutton hams and goat's-milk cheeses, and a full meal girnel, and other more affluent appliances. The appearance of the people, as a picture, also assimilates closely. You generally find the old smoke-dried grandmother crooning over the wooden cradle, with its sunburnt baby sleeping on straw (the beds of the cattle are of dried fern), while the sonsy high-capped mother spins the woollen yarn and watches the lassies tramping the blankets with naked feet in the burn; or calls to her husband, a great hulking, taciturn, rough-coated man, sitting on the hearth-stone in the centre of the room, to put a bit more peat to boil up the potatoes. The Highlanders are mostly slow and taciturn, unless excited to garrulousness by whisky, or by supposed grievance; and these poorer crofters are indolent and slothful in their small business of life. But the shepherds on the Highland hills are, as a class, almost invariably keen, intelligent, and observant; even well read, so as to be masters of their business, and well proved, ere entrusted with so valuable a charge, requiring energy, knowledge, and decision; they are thoroughly trusted by the master, whose profits almost, wholly depend on their fidelity and honesty. The strong devotional feeling, so deeply and firmly rooted amongst the people, lives in the minds of the shepherds, and, during their wild night watches, is at once their comfort and their staff of strength. Few better show the power of religion, in the simplicity and the strength of faith, than these men; for with it they combat the supernatural fears that so abound in the Highlands, and which, if obeyed (as by minds, less stayed, and as much prejudiced, they would be), must cause failure in duty and loss of property to their master. No men are more superstitious than the shepherds, and no men more manfully brave it. It may be from the increasing growth and hold of religion, within the last fifty years, in the Highlands, that superstition has proportionably decreased; for, though there is still much extant, there is not nearly so much as in the olden times; nor more, perhaps, than accord with the character of their life, and the scenery of the country. The lonely brown-coloured tarns, where the shepherd's dog descends from the hill to drink, frighting away the bittern that breaks the solitude with her shriek as she flies, may well suggest the black-haired Kelpie, diving from sight, and scarcely distinguishable on a dark night from the water. The rowan tree, laden with its scarlet berries, growing groundless amongst the rocks, and the fragrant bog-myrtle scenting the air, have always had power against witch, hag, and bodach, watchful for soul and body of wandering maiden; while the accursed gambols of brown-eyed hares on a moonlight night show their distortion. of limb; and a gun, fired bravely amongst them, has sent a track of blood direct back to the kirkyard, whence they came. Many a strong-nerved man, or prayerful woman, wending quick in the twilight for distant aid for the dying, has sworn to the death-light, flickering, lurid, faint, and blue, on the path before them: it almost invariably burns on the mossy swamp round the hut, where night-watchers sit wakeful by the dying. Then there is the fatal Fetch, that fearful second self, following noiselessly-the soul momentarily disembodied as a warning, following the living body, and retaining its image, with mocking steps to the grave. The Fetch is not that reflection on the mist which generally the shepherd alone perceives at early sunrise: it comes at unsettled hour and place, is never visible to the doomed one, but follows male or female on the hearth, and on the hill. It is horribly palpable, and its dread familiarity is not for a moment to be classed or confounded with those other flitting misty wraiths of out-door life, of which we shall speak anon. The Fetch of the strong-built, buxom, hearty mother of the family has been known to enter a hut, heralding in mockery the real approach of the living flesh and blood, and, approaching the kitchen fire, has poked it, and busily proceeded to the domestic duties, totally unsuspected by the on-lookers-silence being the only earthly trace of suspicion -until the appearance of the real person, entering with high voice and step, and acting over again the scene just rehearsed (being blinded to the Fetch just disappearing on her entrance) has betrayed to the startled gazers the fearful fact of its recent presence. The Fetch has also come gliding in amongst the fireside evening circle, in the pale and fragile form of the farmer's love-lorn daughter, then, in reality, lying in slumber, sighing on her dreaming pillow; as the sisters find when they go to her room. In most cases the death warrant surely follows; but there are times when the Fetch's prophecy seems averted, though sickening anxiety is felt long after its visitation: one human means of aid towards this merciful result often lies in carefully withholding from the threatened one the past fearful vision of warning. There are other sights and sounds without, which belong almost exclusively to the open-air life of the shepherds, or others who may, like them, take their lonely station night and morning in deep, solitary, echoing ravines, or by the roaring cataracts of unseen waterfall and lynn; and that there are sights and sounds which exclusively and alone are to be seen and heard in mountainous regions, neither experience nor science can deny. More than one English sportsman could testify to his own shadowed semblance keeping pace, approaching, or retreating, in misty vividness on an early morning, when out on the hill top intent only on the motions of the deer; as well as to the creeping sensations of awe, overcoming, on first encounter with the wraith-like self, all scientific knowledge of its simple origin in nature's law. But I do not know if any Englishman has seen those vaster visions of spiritual mockery of life, to which many a native inhabitant of Strath and Highland Glen will give creditable oath-I mean those moving vistas of bloody battle, funeral pageant, or turbulent scene of ancient foray, which have been viewed in shadowy distinctness by breathless gazers far removed from sympathy with such scenes. There have been seen wild flying phalanxes of kilted men speeding before a conquering clan, and every incident of bloody battle and retreat, extending vividly and distinctly over the breadth of a sunlit hill, and lasting visibly for an hour-the hard-pressed fugitive going headlong in his haste o'er a deathsteep precipice, the fallen stabbed cruelly by pursuing foe, the desperate stand of despairing strength, the impetuous rally and last repulse. At one time have been seen with the naked eye furious herds of o'erdriven cattle trampling over the distant swamp, urged on with hasty gesture and soundless speed by successful drovers, who perhaps had thus driven them, rived from the Lowlands, a hundred years before; and again, from beneath the wreaths of smoke rising slow and dark from a lis tant hill, has wound the mighty funeral of some departed chief, who thus, on a day of ancient date long since forgotten, was borne with lighted torches and inflated pipes by hundreds of retainers to the far-off family burial-place. These sights have been seen on sunny morns as well as on misty nights; and the country people will tell you, that below that battle-ground lie deep the bones of many who died there in clannish fight. As for those other shadows, it was over yon hill-side that Macdonald of Stran Shanshie drove the largest foray ever brought home, and the funerals of the chiefs of Grant Aye went for ages back at night by that lone haunted way. CHAPTER VII. NORMAL MAC ALASTAIR. Bonny Kilmeny gaed up the glen, And the nut that hangs frae the hazel tree, For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be.-HOGG. THE breakfast party next morning at Glenbenrough was much diminished in number. Mrs. Sternbotham was confined to her room with headache, and neither Roderick nor Patrick Mac Neil appeared. The family of Strathshielie were to leave the next day, but Glenbenrough insisted on the young people being left behind, to pay a longer visit to their cousins. Marion and Julia looked delighted, for sundry schemes of out-door amusement had been planned by the five girls, even ere seeking their beds that morning. The day passed in quiet occupation: Norah, Ishbel, and Julia gathered flowers, and the former arranged them. After lunch Mrs. Sternbotham appeared; Norah paid her exclusive attention, and strolled with her and Lady Mac Neil to the foot of the Roua Pass, where they were joined by the others. With much assistance, and assurances of recompence in the view, they got Mrs. Sternbotham to the top, and on to the Pass; but when she found herself on the perilous edge, and, instead of gazing on the glorious spreading distant landscape, caught sight of the red precipice slanting headlong to the dark waters beneath, she screamed and shut eyes; and Norah held her with a nervous grasp as she led her her, blindfold and tottering, back the few steps, to the safety of the broad bosom of the hill. Mrs. Sternbotham got down quicker than she had ascended, and had seen only horror and no beauty in the glimpse she had allowed herself to take. Next day, the first of September, was bright and warm, favourable for the long drive back to Strathshielie; as Sir Alastair and Lady Mac Neil were to take their departure home, accompanied by the Sternbothams, but leaving their two sons and daughters to pay a longer and indefinite visit at Glenbenrough. It was with a great feeling of relief that the young people saw the colonel mount to the front seat beside Sir Alastair, and drive away as he had come; the bright jovial face of the good-tempered Highland baronet atoning for the sour parting smile of his guest. Ishbel gave three skips from the ground. "Now do let us get up our spirits! Roderick and Patrick, will you come and have a romp round the haystacks after lunch? Yes; very well-all settled. Papa, you must come and be our 'parley.'" "That I will," replied Glenbenrough; "so you don't ask me to run." Accordingly, after dinner, the band of seven, with Glenbenrough at their head, all started to a field above the square, where a good range of haystacks stood. Marion and Julia had exchanged their bonnets for their wideawakes, which had been in reserve until Colonel Sternbotham should depart; and they were all in high spirits like a band of children. A rose bush was declared the " parley" or safety point, and there Glenbenrough sat, clapping his hands, and shouting warning, or fair play, while they played hide and seek among the hay stacks. Roderick Mac Neil was the enemy, in pursuit of all the others, who kept in ambush each behind a haystack, while he ranged round and round in search and pursuit, pouncing on a new victim when one gave him the slip, and sometimes having three together flying with shrieks before him. When very hard pressed they broke cover and rushed to parley, where they were safe; and when one was caught, he or she was delivered over to parley, who was to be kept in prison until all had been captured. At last this was accomplished, and Roderick lay down on the grass breathless. "Now we shall have Fox and Goose," cried Ishbel. Patrick, you must be Fox. Who'll be Mother Goose or Father Gander?" |