In Touch with Nature Part 22

There were roses on the cheeks of Maggie May, and--let me whisper it-- freckles on her nose.

Frank was as brown as a brick, and even Bob and the caravan cat had increased in size, and looked intensely self-satisfied, and on good terms with themselves.

This chapter finds me fishing in the Don; Maggie May is basking in the sunshine, book in hand, and the rest of our crew are invisible.

"There is something radically wrong, Robert," I said, casting my fly for the fortieth time, and so coaxingly too, over the very spot where I knew more than one fine finny fellow was hiding.

"Something radically wrong, Bob; either the sky is too clear or the water too bright, or there isn't wind enough, or I haven't got the right fly on. But never a bite and never a ghost of a nibble have I had for the last half-hour. I'm tired of it; sick of it. But they are there, Bob, for many a one we have landed on luckier days than this. Besides, what says the old, old poem?"

Bob wagged his immensity of a tail by way of reply, but he never took his eyes off a hole in the bank, that he had been as earnestly watching as I had been flogging the pool.

Whip! Splash! I thought I had one then. And I believe I would have had one, only out of its hole sprang a big black vole, and took to the water. In floundered Hurricane Bob after it, and there was an end to my fishing.

Bob came out of the water presently, and stood between me and the sun, and shook himself several times, causing a rainbow to appear around him each time he did so.

I wound in my tackle, and put up my rod.

Half an hour afterwards, Maggie May, Bob, and I were on the braes above Balhaggarty. We lay ourselves down on a sweet mossy bank, bedecked with many a wild flower; peac.o.c.k b.u.t.terflies are floating in the sunshine, and great velvety bees make drowsy music in the air; and not far off, on a branch of a brown-trunked fir-tree, c.o.c.k-robin is singing his clear, crisp little song. Before us, beneath us, and on every side, is spread out one of the fairest landscapes in all the wild romantic North. Woods and water, hills and dales, stretch away as far as the eye can reach.

Yonder is the wimpling Ury, meandering through the peaceful valley to join the winding Don. Near its banks stands, or lies, or rather lies and sleeps, and seems to dream, the village of Inverurie. Very blue are the roofs of its houses in the surrounding greenery, very white are its granite walls, and its spires and steeples look like snow or marble in the autumn sunshine.

That was the village home of one of Scotia's n.o.blest bards--the gentle, genial Thom. Though six-and-thirty years have fled since they laid him to rest in the moors, there is more than one old man and woman living in the village there yet, who knew him in his prime, and have stories well worth listening to, to tell of the poet of the Ury; but as long as pine-trees shall nod on Scottish hills, as long as the dark plumes of Caledonia's sons shall wave in the van of battle, so long will Thom's name be known in the land of his nativity, and among his countrymen all over the world.

Far to the right of the spot where we are reclining, the giant mountain, Ben-na-chie, rears its proud head into the air.

It is a solitary hill, and yet tourists to this land of romance ought to know that from its summit the view obtained on a fine day is probably more beautiful, varied, and extensive than any other I know of in "a'

braid Scotland."

It is a solitary hill--a wild, bold, cliffy ma.s.s--yet--

"The clouds love to rest on this mountain's dark breast, Ere they journey afar o'er the boundless blue sea."

A solitary hill--and O! if it could but speak, what tales it could tell: eeriesome, drearisome tales, tales of intrigue and plot, plot domestic and plot political, tales of battle and slaughter and strife--for not a glen for miles and miles around it, not a moorland, not a hill the heather on which has not over and over again been dyed with the blood of fiercely fighting foemen.

Nor were the struggles that took place among these hills and forests and glens of merely local importance; for Aberdeenshire has cut as deep notches in the history of this country as any other shire I wot of.

Down yonder is Bruce's howe, or cave, by the side of the Don at Ardtannies, celebrated in history as the place where the sick king lay, broken in health and fortune, and where he had his memorable interview with the spider, which so raised his hopes that he feared not shortly after to sally forth, give battle to and defeat the fierce, false c.u.myn.

Then Bruce laid Buchan waste. After this the whole North of Scotland soon owned his sway, and five years after the sanguinary battle of Inverurie here Bannockburn was fought, and Scotland freed of its would-be conquerors.

But to-day we are seated on the very edge of the great battle-field of Harlaw.

This battle was fought here on a summer's day in July 1411. The Duke of Albany, then regent of the kingdom, had managed by hook or by crook-- more likely it was by crook--to secure the earldom of Ross to his son John Stewart, Earl of Buchan, although by rights it belonged to the wife of Donald, Lord of the Isles. Now Donald did not see any reason why he should submit to so barefaced a robbery. The Donalds and the McDonalds of the Isles have always been a bold and straightforward set of billies.

The reader may remember the anecdote that is related of one of these Lords of the Isles. At a royal feast, having entered somewhat late, he had seated himself at the far end of the board, seeing which the king sent a messenger to ask him to come and sit by him, at the head of the table.

"Tell his Majesty," was the reply, given loud enough for all to hear, "that wherever McDonald o' the Isles sits is _the_ head of the table."

Donald of the Isles sent the fiery cross through the length and breadth of his domains, and soon crossed into the mainland at the head of his followers. He fought and conquered at Dingwall. Then captured Inverness, swept through the Highlands, and encamped here at Harlaw, determined to push on next day and attack the Aberdonians in their city of granite.

"Give their roofs to the flames, And their flesh to the eagles."

Donald had reckoned without his host, however. That host was the bold Earl of Mar, who with a splendid little army of not more than a thousand men, officered by the flower of the county, hurried out and gave Donald battle here on the hill-head of Harlaw. Donald's wild followers numbered 10,000, though they were badly armed. But it was Greek to Greek, it was Scot to Scot, and the conflict was a terrible one.

As I look around me on this lovely autumn evening, my imagination can easily depict the conflict and people the plain once more with the brave knights, and men-at-arms, the mailed Lowlanders that made up the battalions of Mar, and with the wild kilted warriors that formed the hosts of Donald of the West.

Yonder is Mar himself leading the centre fight, on his right the Gordons, Leiths and Leslies, on his left the Keiths and Forbeses, and many other brave clans; all feuds are forgotten for a time, they make common cause against the foe. The Highlanders fight on foot, armed only with dirk and sword, the Lowlanders ride them down and hew them down in hundreds, but the odds against them are fearful; all day even till nightfall the battle rages, when in the darkness Donald draws off the remainder of his forces and slowly retreats by Ben-na-chie; leaving nearly one thousand dead on the field, while Mar is left presumably master thereof, but too sore beaten and far too weak to leave it.

The terrible nature of the struggle may be gleaned from the fact that of the thousand Lowland knights and men-of-arms, who had entered the battle, hardly four hundred remained alive. What a sad day for the gentry of Angus and Mearns! In many cases every male of the house was slain. Leslie of Balquhain fell with every one of his six bold sons, and besides others, Sir James Scrymgeour, Sir Alexander Ogilvie and son, the Constable of Dundee, the Provost of Aberdeen, Sir Alexander Irvine, Sir Thomas Moray, Gilbert de Greenlaw, Sir Robert Maul, etc, etc.

But Donald was conquered and Aberdeen was saved.

Just a word about the Ury for the reader's sake, for who knows but these lines I write may lead some tourist who is fond of the romantic, fond of the beautiful, and fond of fishing, to sojourn for a time in these sequestered glens.

The trout-fishing then of the Ury and of many a brawling wee burn around here, and which are literally alive "wi sonsy fish," can easily be obtained on application to the magistrates, and the kindly landlady of the Kintore Arms has also liberty to grant the boon to those who make her house their home.

"The Ury," says Skinner, "moves onward in noiseless sweetness, winding and winding, as if aware of its own brief course, and all unwilling to leave the braes that hap the heroes of Harlaw. By-and-by it creeps mournfully past the sequestered graveyard of Inverurie, and kisses the Ba.s.s, and is then swallowed up in the blue waters of the Don."

The Ba.s.s is a small round hill evidently made by human hands, and supposed to be the burial-place of an ancient Pictish king. I visit the quiet graveyard. I have reasons for doing so--sad ones. I might say with Thom--

"Move noiseless, gently Ury, around yon gra.s.sy bed, And I'll love thee, gentle Ury, where'er my footsteps tread; For sooner shall thy fairy wave return from yonder sea, Than I forget yon lowly grave and all it hides from me."

The roads here are glorious, and what matter the hills when the air is so fresh and invigorating; if there are braes that one must walk up, there are also braes down which one can roll, at any speed one pleases without a touch on treadle. And how delightful it is to linger on these breezy hill-tops, and while positively drinking in health with every breath of the ozone-laden air, leisurely, dreamily scan the bold and matchless panorama spread out before us.

Yonder is Ben-na-chie again. You never can get past Ben-na-chie. Go where you like in this region, it is always frowning over your path just before you, or alongside, or on the horizon to the right or to the left.

There is "an ower true story" connected with that mountain which might well and easily furnish subject-matter for a three-volume novel. The Earl of Mar's Master of Horse at the Harlaw was a Sir Thomas Leslie, of Balquhain, a wild and lawless man of unbridled pa.s.sions. On the very summit of yonder mountain he built a fortress, to which he was in the habit of carrying off young women of beauty sufficient to attract him.

One of these was Chief Allan's daughter, the Fair Maid of Strathdon. In like manner his son bore away the Fair Maid of Kemnay, who was betrothed to young Sir John Forbes of Drumminnon. Sir John soon after attacked and burned the mansion or castle of Balquhain, and Sir Andrew Leslie, in revenge, sallied down from his fortress and laid waste the lands of the Forbeses with fire and sword. So much for the Fair Maid of Kemnay, and here is the village itself. High up on a table-land it is situated, among pine-woods and quarries, every house is a charming cottage, built of the whitest of granite. Surely poverty is unknown in such a place, and people here must live for a century at the very least! I'd like to come to Kemnay some time and live for a month in perfect peace, far from the bustle and worry of city life; to live and laze, and fish and dream--perchance to write a book.

Almost buried among trees is Monymusk, as primitive in every way as the grand old hills around it, with only one hotel, or rather inn, but a very cosy one; and O! so quiet is everything here, that in the silence of the night, gazing from the _coupe_ when the moon was silvering the mountain-tops, I have positively heard the field-mice sneeze.

About a quarter of a mile from Monymusk is New Paradise, a kind of a sylvan fairy-land. Here are miles of charming walks, here are rustic-seats, and wells, and streams and bridges, and arbours, and a lake, the whole embosomed in woods, in which are many a bosky dell beloved of birds and all kinds of wild forest creatures. There are little glades, where ferns and brackens grow nearly ten feet high; it is sweet to see the soft evening sunshine shimmering down from among the trees, and falling on these, their greenery relieved by patches of warm autumn brown, and by the crimson lights of tall foxgloves.

Do lovers come here in the evening? We never see them. We have the sweet place all to ourselves, and when we want to change the scene we journey farther on, and soon enter a gloomy defile or forest ravine.

This is Paradise Old. Its gateway is a huge jawbone of a whale; for anything I know to the contrary, it may have been the identical whale that swallowed up Jonah. The tourist, at all events, feels swallowed up as soon as he has entered. The long avenue that lies before him is one of the most remarkable in Scotland. It is on moss you are walking, at each side are trees--larches, spruces, and firs, as straight as arrows, and fully one hundred and twenty feet in height, the stems of which two men can hardly touch fingers round. To your right, dimly seen, is the roaring Don, beyond it cliffs and braes, covered with forest and fern, heather and blaeberries.

You come at last to a large circle of gigantic beeches and limes, eighteen in all, inside which seats and tables have been placed, though they are now but little used.

The most remarkable thing about these wondrous trees is that they have grown almost straight, their stems are mighty pillars, and even their branches have gone upwards, skywards, as if seeking the light, the result being a vast and leafy colosseum forming a dome for over a hundred feet high.

The silence is unbroken save for the steady hum of the river, or the occasional cry of some wild bird, and as he looks upwards or gazes around him, a feeling of awe steals over the beholder, which cannot be repressed.

There is in the valley of the majestic Don many a village where the tourist might dwell for a time with a certainty of enjoyment. The scenery everywhere is grand and n.o.ble; it is all a cla.s.sic land, and eminently historical; in every glen a battle has been fought, every parish has its castle ruins, every castle has a story of its own, and be you artist, author, actor, or antiquary, or merely an invalid seeking rest and health, you cannot do better than visit--

"The banks and braes o' bonnie Don."

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

BACK ONCE MORE IN BIRD-HAUNTED BERKS.