Highland Legends. Sir Thomas Dick Lauder
during the earlier periods of its history, and immediately furnished us with a subject for talk.
Author.—You see yonder hill, called the Aitnoch. Although it is, as you may easily perceive, the highest in all this neighbourhood, yet an extensive plain on its summit, almost entirely peat-moss, is so thickly set with the stocks and roots of pine trees, such as these you are now looking at, and all fixed, too, like these, in the growing position, that, if the boles and branches were still standing on them, it would absolutely be a difficult matter for a deer, or even for a dog, to force a passage through among them.
Grant.—I should like much to mount the hill to examine the plain you speak of. Well as I am acquainted with this north country, I never heard of it before.
Author.—It will cost us little more than the additional fatigue created by its rather rough and steep ascent to do so, for it is not quite an hundred miles out of our way.
Clifford.—Phoo! we are not to be tied to ways of any kind. Let us climb the hill, then, by all means. But, to return to what you were talking about, can you tell us how, and for what purpose, these vast forests were annihilated?
Author.—The charred surfaces which most of these stocks and roots still exhibit sufficiently prove that fire must have been the grand instrument of their destruction. The logs which originally grew upon them, but which are now found lying horizontally under the present surface, all bear testimony to the same fact in a greater or lesser degree. Many of these, indeed, when dug up, present a very curious appearance, the nether part being left almost entire, whilst the upper side has been hollowed like a spout. This must have been effected by the flames, which naturally continue to smoulder on the upper surfaces of the fallen trunks, whilst the moisture of the ground where they fell extinguished them below.
Clifford.—Come, that is all very well as to the how; now, let us have your wherefore.
Author.—As to the causes of the devouring element being let loose among these aboriginal forests we might speculate long enough, for they were probably many and various. Accidental fires may have been kindled by the rude inhabitants, which afterwards spread destruction far and wide, as they often do now in the forests of America. Or they may have been raised with the intention of driving away wild beasts, or of aiding in their destruction, of annoying enemies, or even for the more simple purpose of clearing spots of ground for hunting or for pasture. The causes may have been trivial enough in themselves. You, Grant, who have travelled so much in Switzerland, must be aware of the practice which still prevails there, of burning down large patches of gigantic pine timber on the sides of the Alps, for no other reason than to allow the sun and the moisture to reach the surface of the ground, so as thereby to increase the quantity and value of the pasture growing beneath.
Grant.—Yes, I can vouch for what you say with regard to the practice in Switzerland, and I am much inclined to think with you, that instead of attributing the fall of these mighty Caledonian forests, as many are disposed to do, to some one great and general catastrophe, we ought rather to place their ruin to the account of a combination and reiteration of fortuitous causes, by the increasing frequency of the repetition of which they were rapidly extirpated in detail. Indeed, in support of what I now say, I remember having heard a well authenticated tradition of exactly such an accidental conflagration, which is said to have taken place so late as the year 1640.
Author.—I should be glad to hear the particulars of it. Do you think you can recall them?
Grant.—I think I can, but you will perhaps find the story rather a long one.
Clifford.—Long or short, let us have it by all means. And let me tell you for your comfort, my good fellow, none of Chaucer’s pilgrims could have begun a story under circumstances so favourable. A parliamentary speech itself might have some chance of being listened to if uttered to one whilst passing through so dull a country as this—that is to say, without one’s gun and pointers.
THE BURNING OF MACFARLANE’S FOREST OF BEN LAOIDH.
The sun had not yet disappeared behind the mountains on the western side of Loch Lomond, and the unruffled surface of the lake was gleaming with his parting rays, when the Laird of Macfarlane, as he was returning from the chase, looked down from the ridge of a hill over the glorious scene that lay extended beneath him. His eyes travelled far along the calm expanse of the waters, till they lost themselves in the distance, amid the tufted and clustering islands which lay glittering in the fleeting light like gems on the bosom of Beauty. He then recalled them along the romantic undulations and irregularities of its shores, to dwell with peculiar pride and inward satisfaction on the wide stretch of those rich and smiling pastures which he could call his own, and on the numerous herds of cattle which his vassals were then driving to their home-grazings for the night. All was still and silent around, save when the quiet of the balmy evening air was gently broken by those rural sounds which, when blended together and softened by distance, as they then were to Macfarlane’s ear, never fail to produce a musical harmony that thrills to the very heart of the true lover of nature. The lowing of the cattle—the occasional prolonged shouts of the herdsmen—the watchful bark of their attendant dogs, careful to permit no individual of their charge to stray from the main body—the shrill and solitary scream of the eagle, coming from the upper regions of the sky, as he soared to his place of repose amid the towering crags of Ben Lomond—and, lastly, the mingled cawing of the retreating army of rooks as they wheeled away in black battalions, to seek for undisturbed roost among the branches of that forest which then filled the whole country from Loch Lomond to Glen Urchay with a dark and interminable sea of foliage—such were the sounds that came in mellow chorus on the delighted ear of Macfarlane. He sat him down on a mossy stone to rest for a while, that his eyes and his ears might have fuller enjoyment. His faithful sleuth-hounds and braches, overcome with fatigue, quickly stretched out their wearied bodies in ready slumber around him; and his numerous followers no less gladly availed themselves of their lord’s example to ease their tired shoulders of the heavy loads which the success of that day’s woodcraft had imposed upon them.
Macfarlane was a stern chief of the olden time. Yet, what heart, however stark or rude, but must have been subdued and softened beneath the warm influence of those emotions which such a scene, and such sounds, and such an evening combined to excite? As he sat apart from his people he was melted into a mood of feeling which he had rarely experienced during his life of feudal turmoil. His thoughts insensibly stole upwards in secret musings, which gradually exhaled themselves in grateful orisons to that Heaven whence he felt that all the blessings he possessed had so liberally flowed; and although these prayers were inwardly breathed in the formal and set terms prescribed by his church, yet his soul more fully and effectually suffused itself into them than it had ever done before. That mysterious and uncontrollable desire which man often feels to hold converse with his Creator alone, gradually stole upon him; and, having ordered his attendants to precede him, he arose soon after their departure, to saunter homewards through the twilight in that calm and dreamy state of religious reflection which had rarely ever before visited his stormy mind.
As he slowly descended the mountain side that slopes down to the Arroquhar, the course of the little rill, which he followed, led him into a grove of natural birches, and his silent footstep betrayed him into an involuntary intrusion on the privacy of two lovers. These were his foster brother, Angus Macfarlane, and Ellen, a beautiful maiden, who was about to become his wife. The wedding-day was fixed, as the Laird of Macfarlane well knew; and as his heart was at this moment brimful of kindly feeling, the sight of this betrothed pair made it run over with benevolence.
“What ho! my fair Ellen,” cried he, as, chased away by her modest confusion, her sylph-like form was disappearing among the tender foliage of the birchen bushes like some delicate thing of air, “dost fear the face of thy chief? Knowest thou not that Macfarlane’s most earnest wish ever is to be held as the father of his meanest clansman? and think ye that he would be less than a father to thee, sad posthumous pledge of the worthiest