"Story and Song from Loch Ness-Side"

[120]

Far removed from the "madding crowd's ignoble strife" as our countryside then lay, we had yet our visitors, who were fairly numerous, and who were not, to any appreciable extent, the class of tourists we now see from time to time coming about. They were very largely composed of vagrants, not of the modern tramps who live by open beggary for most, but a much more interesting crowd, such as packmen, travelling tinkers, and rag-merchants; also half-witted, wandering ones who turned up at intervals. They were all looked for, and were received not as strangers but as friends. Each had an individuality and character of his and her own, and in some way or another provided entertainment. They conveyed intelligence of what was going on in the outer world. They were the newspapers and magazines of the time to most of the poorer people, a.nd some of them were not at all illiterate or uncultivated.

The oldest of the tinkers who came round called their fraternity "an luchd ceaird" - "the artisans," and the interesting page of history was well known that these travelling tinkers were really the descendants of the jewellers and smiths of the olden times - a very honourable and respected class, of tradespeople, whose occupation had deteriorated from the making of ornaments and arms to the soldering of tin. pails and "skillets". The packmen came round peri- odically with their little packs on their backs, and ex- changed their wares for money, rags, rabbit skins, or such other old rubbish as our matrons had to dispose of.

Occasionally some of these vagrants squatted down in, [121] the district, making their home there. There was one who did so who was said to have at one time laboured in the coal mines of the then far-away South; but pre ferring the free and easy life of a packman to that of the coal-miner - for which none could blame him - he took to the "top of the road", like Paddy's goat, making his home for the most part with an old cottar in the district. He came in time to be known as "Bodach-na-m-Bianag" - "the old man of the skins." He was a kind and most interesting personage, and his experiences, when he chose to relate them, had the effect of considerably widening the horizon of the thought of young people who had ears to hear and a mind to understand. He had all the news of the day, and kept his customers well informed.

There were among our tramp-visitors one or two who were believed to have been born of well-to-do parents, and brought up with all the care and solicitude of the better class; but they were understood to have got mixed up, in the great whirlpool of life, with some things that upset them, and there they were - derelicts, awaiting the coming of the great leveller to their relief. And yet they seemed to find something attractive in life. They loved bonnie Invermoriston and appreciated the kind- ness of its people. One of two we have in mind was wonderfully learned. He was understood to know the Classics well, and he could speak or write like a professor. He struck one as gifted. He wore long black hair,, parted in the middle, and exhibited an imposing fore- head. His face' was superior in form and features; his eyes, which were of a heavy, dark-brown colour, beamed with that lustrous brightness which indicates nature's fire. Everything seemed easy for him to understand, and yet there was - must have been - an important wheel amissing or displaced in the mechanism of poor John's [122] brains. The other was a man of the most gentlemanly culture. He was spoken of as a descendant of a family whose estate lay not a hundred miles from Inverness, but of whom there is now only a remembrance. He had been in the army, and in a skirmish with the enemy, as we heard, during the Crimean War, was badly wounded, losing a great quantity of blood. He was gentleness and modesty incarnate, and was thankful for the smallest acts of kindness. He loved the district, and was understood to have expressed a desire to be buried there. Singularly enough, on one of his rounds he died suddenly, and was buried in the local churchyard.

There was a family of pack-tramps - father, mother, sons, and daughters, who practically settled down as natives of our place. After several business visits, they stayed for considerable periods, and the death of a be- loved daughter, whose remains were buried in the dis- trict cemetery, bound the family, with what appeared an indissoluble tie, to the locality. The father was an ex- ceptionally intelligent man. A great reader, he always left books here and there with such of the people as cared for reading. It was rumoured that in his youth he had served in some capacity or other in railway work, and that he had wandered away for some reason never known. From long acquaintance with the district, they came to know the Gaelic tongue fairly well. One by one the remaining children left the place, and the parents re- moved for a time to a neighbouring glen. After arriving each at a good old age, they died, and were, according to their own desires, buried by the side of their daughter.

There was among those of our earliest recollection the woman who came round from time to time accompanied by a number of pigs. [Cailleach nam muc - often heard of her.]It was a decidedly peculiar passion hers - it was for pigs - a species of animal not in any way attractive. Still, she and her grunting companions [123] appeared to understand each other well. She travelled over at least all the principal northern districts, lying down with her faithful followers wherever she or they became tired. She, of course, begged for food for her followers, and occasionally, as was understood, sold one or two. Her visits eventually came to an end, and, after many days, the story went from mouth to mouth that she had died.

An interesting character was "Murchadh-nan-Gobhar" ("Murdoch of the Goats"). As the name suggests, Mur- doch's business was in the goat line; but he must have also passed a considerable portion of his life among cattle and sheep as well. He was, at any rate, one of the best authorities of his day on all matters relating to these, and was exceedingly well up in the various occult arts and specifics in use for the treatment of animal diseases. Murdoch was popularly believed to possess certain gifts and powers transcending the ordinary. But the pro-bability is that he was simply an exceptionally smart man, who understood and mastered, for good purposes, certain natural facts which came within the compass of his own circumstances in life. He always wore the kilt. "Cailleach-na-Cloimhe" ("The old Wool-Woman"), who was very fond of a crack over a cup of tea, appeared to have seen better days. She occupied a house in Inverness, and only went her rounds of the country when she could get wool on very easy terms, which, as often as not, meant, getting it for nothing. She was a quiet and pleasant old wife, and always gave the news of Inverness, which seemed then as far away as America now is looked upon to be. It was "Am Baile Mor" ("The Big Town"), and was considered as something like the hub of the universe. There was a wool season, and the poor cailleach did not make her appearance; she had gone the way of all flesh.

[124] A ny record of our casual visitors would be incomplete without a short account of "Marsali Ghorach ("Foolish May"), who was one of the most interesting of them. Her master passion was the tender one. From her own tale she would appear to have had offers of marriage from most of the young proprietors in the Northern Highlands, The common men of her acquaintance she all but despised. Her choice fell on a. young laird or rich shooting tenant here and there, and with every marriage- able one of these from end to end of the country she had had, according to her own story, innumerable flirtations, and they had all given her valuable presents. Marsali was always gaudily and elaborately dressed. Her get-up was in the very latest' fashion, as she thought herself; but, at the same time, her fashion was of a kind which was not very extensively copied. She had imitation fineries of every description about her, and there could be no doubt whatever that she was a great and unique "toff." She was always scrupulously clean. Poor Marsali! we have often thought that there must have been in her constitution a strain of the nobler blood. She had aspirations and ideas uncommon in her circum- stances. They were uncontrolled; but there unmistake- ably they were; There was a bit of tragedy in her life. It was the old, old story. There had been a bright, good-looking young maiden who had loved and lost.

The queer passion another of our casuals suffered from was the desire for a journey to America. He walked time after time for years all the way to the western sea coast, and sometimes to Glasgow and Liver- pool, with the intention of getting on a ship across the Atlantic, and on each occasion just missed the vessel by a few hours. He came to be known as "Bodach America," Columbus-like, he felt an uncontrollable interest in the land of the West, and there ho would [125] require at all costs to get. He had been in America for a time. He was an excellent singer of Gaelic songs.

There was a respectable, elderly man who came round with tea and other domestic commodities. He was often found useful in the way of providing certain goods difficult for the people to obtain. He advocated as a cure for the toothache placing a small bit of stick on the suffering tooth, following an ancient superstitious custom, and part of what is believed to have at one time been in the nature of a charm.

"Niall'-na-Coise-Cruinne" ("Neill-of-the-Round-Foot") came periodically about for a few nights' hospi- tality. He was a typical looking Highlander, a native of Kintail. In his youth he met with an accident which necessitated the amputation of part of his right foot. He possessed a fund of olden time story, and was a pleasant companion. He loved the district, and took a kindly interest in its boys.

A few local characters occur to us now, who were no less interesting studies. There was at one time an old man in the Glen called "An Ceannaiche Moon" ("The Merchant Moon"), whose great weakness was philosophy. He could explain anything - to his own satisfaction at anyrate. But on one occasion, when attending a funeral, a question was put to him which upset him for days. He was asked whether the egg or the chicken was of the two the first to appear in the world. When he said the chicken was, somebody asked him if he had ever heard of a chicken that did not come out of an egg; and so on with the other side of this great problem, until after much worrying and deep study it was suggested to him, as a possible solution, that the first chicken must have come out of an egg which a hen had laid. The explana- tion seemed quite good enough for the poor old " Ceann- aiche," and he got once more balanced.

[126] John Grant ("Iain Cam") was a genuine native. He took the world as a rule with philosophical ease. He relied a good deal upon the hospitality of the people, and in this he met with no disappointment. But it was once arranged that John should perform some simple duties by way of return for the kindness extended to him. John worked slowly till he got a good dinner, and then coolly took leg. This little circumstance was made the subject of the following lines:

It would seem the boys occasionally troubled John, judging from these lines:

''Larach-Tigh-Iain-Chaim" is an interesting old landmark still pointed out to the curious.

"Allie Moon", another local worthy, though not a native, lived for years in Invermoriston. His characteristic failing was in the musical line. He sang and he played; but in ways which never could, by any stretch of imagination, be con- sidered other than barbarous. When he performed, it was in a manner that must have gone to induce suicidal tendencies in his hearers. He sometimes tried to imitate the pipes, flourishing a, branch over his shoulder. Frequently did the children invite his contri- butions, to the despair of the older people. Yet poor Allie had his companionable moments, and taking his life all in all he seemed to enjoy it wonderfully. Like [127]

a great many saner people, he thought himself much wiser than anybody else did. Allie once distinguished himself in a peculiar way. He had got possession of a piece of cheese, in a manner that could not, perhaps, be considered strictly an ordinary commercial transaction. On his way homewards with the booty loud thunder came on. Allie felt exceedingly uncomfortable. He appears to have got the idea at once into his head that the thunder was sent to punish him; but he did not wish to give in. The cheese was sweet, and Allie's appetite was of the robust kind. However, the thunder became louder and still louder, and Allie, getting thoroughly frightened, tried to make the best of his position, saying - "Ubh ! Ubh! b'e bhrunndail e! Mar bi thu samhach gheibh thu fhein e" ("Ubh! Ubh! what a row! If you won't be quiet you will get it yourself"), addressing the thunder thus in reference to the cheese. A little later, when a terrible peal sounded right over- head, Allie could stand it no longer. "Conscience makes cowards of us all." He threw the cheese away with all haste, saying bitterly but still with a show of sub- missiveness: "Sin agad e mata 's, bi samhach leis" ("There it is to you, then, and be quiet with it"), running into the nearest house for shelter. This story has always been current in our district, and we are not a little surprised to find it told of a. similar character who lived in the Highlands of Perthshire. (See "Remin- iscences and Reflections," by D. Campbell. 1910).

Chapter 7