From John O'Groats to Land's End Part 8

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CATHEDRAL, INVERNESS.]

During the singing of this, all the people remained seated except the precentor, who stood near the pulpit. Then followed a prayer, the people all standing; and then the minister read a portion of Scripture from the thirty-fourth chapter of the prophet Ezekiel beginning at the eleventh verse: "For thus saith the Lord G.o.d; Behold I, even I, will both search My sheep, and seek them out."

Another hymn was followed by the Lord's Prayer; after which came the sermon, preached by the Rev. Donald Fraser, M.A., of Marylebone, London, a former minister of the church. He read the last three verses of the ninth chapter of St. John's gospel, continued reading down to the sixteenth verse of the tenth chapter, and then selected for his text the fourth, ninth, and tenth verses of that chapter, the first verse of these reading: "And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice."

The sermon had evidently been well thought out and was ably delivered, the subject being very appropriate to a district where sheep abound and where their habits are so well known. Everybody listened with the greatest attention. At the close there was a public baptism of a child, whose father and mother stood up before the pulpit with their backs to the congregation. The minister recited the Apostles' Creed, which was slightly different in phraseology from that used in the Church of England, and then, descending from the pulpit, proceeded to baptize the child in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The closing hymn followed, and the people stood while the minister p.r.o.nounced the benediction, after which the congregation slowly separated.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INVERNESS CASTLE.]

During the afternoon we visited an isolated hill about a mile from the town named Tomnahurich, or the "Hill of the Fairies." Nicely wooded, it rose to an elevation of about 200 feet above the sea, and, the summit being comparatively level and clear from trees, we had a good view of Inverness and its surroundings. This hill was used as the Cemetery, and many people had been buried, both on the top and along the sides of the serpentine walk leading up to it, their remains resting there peacefully until the resurrection, "when the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible." We considered it an ideal place for the burial of the dead, and quite a number of people were walking up and down the paths leading under the trees, many of them stopping on their way to view the graves where their friends had been buried.

In the evening we attended service in the cathedral, a large modern structure, with two towers, each of which required a spire forty feet high to complete the original design. Ma.s.sive columns of Aberdeen granite had been erected in the interior to support the roof of polished oak, adorned with carved devices, some of which had not yet been completed. The Communion-table, or altar, made in Italy and presented to the cathedral by a wealthy layman, stood beneath a suspended crucifix, and was further adorned with a cross, two candlesticks, and two vases containing flowers. The service, of a High-Church character, was fully choral, a.s.sisted by a robed choir and a good organ. The sermon was preached by the Rev. Provost Powell, who took for his text Romans xiv.

7: "For none liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself." He gave us a clever oration, but whether extempore or otherwise we could not tell, as from where we sat we could not see the preacher. There was not a large congregation, probably owing to the fact that the people in the North are opposed to innovations, and look upon crosses and candlesticks on the Communion-table as imitations of the Roman Catholic ritual, to which the Presbyterians could never be reconciled. The people generally seemed much prejudiced against this form of service, for in the town early in the morning, before we knew this building was the cathedral, we asked a man what kind of a place of worship it was, and he replied, in a tone that implied it was a place to be avoided, that he did not know, but it was "next to th' Catholics." Our landlady spoke of it in exactly the same way.

SECOND WEEK'S JOURNEY

_Monday, September 25th._

[Ill.u.s.tration: CAIRN ON THE BATTLEFIELD OF CULLODEN MUIR.]

We rose early, but were not in very good trim for walking, for a mild attack of diarrhoea yesterday had become intensified during the night, and still continued. After breakfast we went to the post office for our "poste restante" letters, and after replying to them resumed our march.

Culloden Muir, the site of the great battle in 1746, in which the Scottish Clans under Prince Charlie suffered so severely at the hands of the Duke of c.u.mberland, is only six miles away from Inverness, and we had originally planned to visit it, but as that journey would have taken us farther from the Caledonian Ca.n.a.l, the line of which we were now anxious to follow, we gave up the idea of going to Culloden. We were, moreover, in no humour for digressions since we had not yet recovered from the effects of our long walk on Sat.u.r.day, and our bodily ailments were still heavy upon us. As we crossed the suspension-bridge, in close proximity to the castle, we purchased a few prints of the town and the neighbourhood through which we were about to pa.s.s.

Inverness is built in a delightful situation, skirting the Ness, which here takes the form of a beautiful, shallow river moving peacefully forward to its great receptacle, Loch Ness, a few miles away; but, although the country near the town is comparatively level, it is surrounded by mountain scenery of the most charming description. Our route lay along the north-western side of the Caledonian Ca.n.a.l in the direction of Fort Augustus, and we again pa.s.sed the Tomnahurich Hill.

Near this we saw a large building which we were surprised to learn was a lunatic asylum--an inst.i.tution we did not expect to find here, for we had only heard of one madman in the three counties of Scotland through which we had pa.s.sed. We concluded it must have been built for persons from farther south.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CULLODEN MUIR.]

The diarrhoea still continued to trouble us, so we asked the advice of a gentleman we met on the road, and he recommended us to call at the next farmhouse, which, fortunately, happened to be only a short distance away, and to "take a quart of milk each, as hot as you can drink it." So away we walked to the farm, which we found standing a short distance from our road, and, after explaining our troubles and wishes to the farmer, were invited into the house, where the mistress quickly provided us with the hot milk, which luckily proved to be a safe and simple remedy. The farmer and his wife were as pleased with our company as we were with theirs, and were just the sort of people that tourists like to meet. We had a long talk with them about the crops, the markets, our long walk, and, last but not least, the weather. Speaking of diarrhoea, the farmer informed us that the water of Inverness often affected strangers in that way, and that it had even been known to produce dysentery.

After regaining our road, we had a lovely walk that day; the scenery and the weather were both very fine, and, about a mile farther on, we had a glorious view over Loch Ness, beside which our walk led us, through a delightful country studded with mansions amidst some of nature's most beautiful scenery. Presently we met a party of men, consisting of two soldiers and three civilians, engaged in cutting branches from the trees that were likely to interfere with the working of the telegraph, which pa.s.sed along the side of the road. It consisted of a single wire, and had only just been erected, for we noticed each post bore the Government mark and the date 1871. We asked the men if they knew of a good remedy for our complaint, and one of the soldiers, who had seen service abroad, recommended "a spoonful of sweet oil and cinnamon mixed with it." Our former remedy had proved to be efficacious, so we had no need to try this, but we give the information here for the benefit of all whom it may concern.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BURYING-PLACE OF THE CLANS.]

We were certainly in for the best day's march we had yet experienced, if not for distance, certainly for beauty of route; and if we had had the gift of poetry--which only affected us occasionally--we should have had here food for poems sufficient to fill the side of a newspaper. Mountain rills, gushing rivulets, and murmuring waters! Here they were in abundance, rolling down the rocky mountains from unknown heights, and lending an additional charm to the landscape! Is it necessary to dilate on such beauties?--for if words were conjured in the most delicate and exquisite language imaginable, the glories of Loch Ness and its surroundings are, after all, things to be seen before they can be fully appreciated. The loch is over twenty miles long, and averages about a mile broad; while a strange fact is that its water never freezes.

Scientific men, we were told, attributed this to the action of earthquakes in distant parts of the world, their vibrations affecting the surface of the water here; while others, apparently of the more commonsense type, attribute it to the extreme depth of the water in the loch itself, for in the centre it is said to exceed 260 yards.

As we loitered along--for we were very lazy--we decided to have a picnic amongst the large stones on the sh.o.r.e of the loch, so we selected a suitable position, and broke into the provisions we carried in our bags as a reserve for emergencies. We were filling our water-boiling apparatus from the loch, when we saw a steamboat approaching from the direction of Glasgow. It presented quite a picture as it pa.s.sed us, in the sunshine, with its flags flying and its pa.s.sengers crowded on the deck, enjoying the fine scenery, and looking for Inverness, where their trip on the boat, like the Caledonian Ca.n.a.l itself, would doubtless end.

There was music on board, of which we got the full benefit, as the sound was wafted towards us across the water, to echo and re-echo amongst the hills and adjoining woods; and we could hear the strains of the music long after the boat was cut off from our vision by the branches of the trees which partially surrounded us.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WELL OF THE DEAD, CULLODEN MUIR. The stone marks the spot where MacGillivray of Dunmagla.s.s died while stretching out his hand toward the little spring of water.]

We were, in reality, having a holiday compared with our exertions on Sat.u.r.day, and, as we were practically on the sick-list, considered ourselves fully ent.i.tled to it. We thought we had travelled quite far enough for invalids when, at fourteen miles from Inverness, and in the light of a lovely sunset, we reached Drumnadrochit, a village on the side of the loch.

Is it to be wondered at that we succ.u.mbed to the seductions of the famous inn there, as distinguished men had done before us, as the records of the inn both in prose and poetry plainly showed? One poetical Irishman had written a rhyme of four verses each ending with the word Drumnadrochit, one of which we thought formed a sufficient invitation and excuse for our calling there; it read:

Stop, traveller! with well-pack'd bag, And hasten to unlock it; You'll ne'er regret it, though you lag A day at Drumnadrochit.

One of the best advertis.e.m.e.nts of this hotel and Drumnadrochit generally appeared in a letter written by Shirley Brooks to _Punch_ in 1860, in which he wrote:

The inn whence these lines are dated faces a scene which, happily, is not too often to be observed in this planet. I say happily, sir, because we are all properly well aware that this world is a vale of tears, in which it is our duty to mortify ourselves and make everybody else as uncomfortable as possible. If there were many places like Drumnadrochit, persons would be in fearful danger of forgetting that they ought to be miserable.

But who would have thought that a quiet and sedate-looking Quaker like John Bright, the famous M.P. for Birmingham, could have been moved by the spirit to write a verse of poetry--such an unusual thing for a member of the Society of Friends! Here it is:

In the Highland glens 'tis far too oft observed, That man is chased away and game preserved; Glen Urquhart is to me a lovelier glen-- Here deer and grouse have not supplanted men.

But was the position reversed when Mr. Bright visited it? and did the men supplant the deer and grouse then?

[Ill.u.s.tration: DRUMNADROCHIT.]

Glen Urquhart was one of the places we had to pa.s.s on the following day, but as we had no designs on the deer and grouse, since our sporting proclivities did not lie in that direction, we thought that we might be safely trusted to leave the game undisturbed.

(_Distance walked fourteen miles_.)

_Tuesday, September 26th._

We set out from Drumnadrochit early in the morning, and, leaving Glen Urquhart to the right, after walking about two miles turned aside to view Urquhart Castle, a ruin occupying a commanding position on the side of Loch Ness and immediately opposite the entrance to the glen. The castle was besieged by Edward I when he was trying to subdue Scotland, and a melancholy story was told of that period. The Scots, who were defending the castle, were "in extremis," as their provisions were exhausted and they knew that when they surrendered they would all be slain. The Governor, however, was anxious to save his wife, who was shortly to become a mother, so he bade her clothe herself in rags and drove her from the gate as though she were a beggar who had been shut up in the castle and whom they had driven away because their provisions were running short. The ruse succeeded, for the English, believing her story, let her go; after the garrison saw that she was safe they sallied forth to meet their fate, and were all killed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: URQUHART CASTLE.]

The approach to the ruins from the road is by upwards of a hundred rough hardwood steps, and the castle must have been a well-nigh impregnable stronghold in former times, protected as it was on three sides by the water of the loch and by a moat on the fourth, the position of the drawbridge being still clearly denned.

Beneath the solitary tower is a dismal dungeon, and we wondered what horrors had been enacted within its time-worn and gloomy walls! Once a grim fortress, its ruins had now been mellowed by the hand of time, and looked quite inviting amidst their picturesque surroundings. To them might fitly be applied the words: "Time has made beautiful that which at first was only terrible."

Whilst we were amongst the ruins, a steamboat which had called at Drumnadrochit pa.s.sed close alongside the castle, and we waved our handkerchiefs to those on board, our silent salutations being returned by some of the pa.s.sengers. We afterwards learned we had been recognised by a gentleman who had met us on the previous day.

About ten miles from Drumnadrochit we reached Invermoriston, and visited a church which was almost filled with monuments to the memory of the Grant family, the lairds of Glenmoriston. Among them was the tombstone of the son of a former innkeeper, with the following inscription, which reminded us of our own mortality:

Remember, Friend, when this you see, As I am now so you must be; As you are now so once was I.

Remember, Friend, that you must die.

There was also another tombstone, apparently that of his mother, inscribed:

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF JEAN SCOTT, THE AMIABLE WIFE OF WILLIAM FALL, INVERMORISTON, INNKEEPER, WHO DIED ON THE 13TH DAY OF APRIL 1837 AGED 68 YEARS.

and on this appeared the following epitaph:

Weep not for me, O friends, But weep and mourn For your own sins.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOCH NESS FROM FORT AUGUSTUS.]

We then went to visit the remarkable waterfall of Glenmoriston, where the water after rushing down the rocks for some distance entered a crevice in a projecting rock below, evidently worn in the course of ages by the falls themselves. Here the water suddenly disappeared, to reappear as suddenly some distance below, where, as if furious at its short imprisonment, it came out splashing, dashing, and boiling in fantastic beauty amongst the rocks over which it pursued its downward course. We descended a few paces along a footpath leading to a small but ancient building, probably at one time a summer house, in the centre of which a very old millstone had done duty as a table. Here we were fairly in the whirl of waters, and had a splendid view of the falls and of the spray which rose to a considerable height. There was no doubt that we saw this lovely waterfall under the best possible conditions, and it was some recompense to us when we thought that the heavy rainfall through which we had pa.s.sed had contributed to this result. The thistle may overshadow many more beautiful falls than the falls of Glenmoriston, but we claim a share of praise for this lively little waterfall as viewed by us in full force from this shady retreat.