Memoirs of a Highland lady; the autobiography of Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchus, afterwards Mrs. Smith of Baltiboys, 1797-1830

.

SATURDAY, DECEMBEJ

LADY STRACHEY.

INDIAN MEMORIES.

Jane Maria Lady Strachey died at her A1
residence in Gordon-square, W.C., yester- o
day, at the age of 88. She was a daughter •%
of Sir John Peter Grant, of Rothie- tg
murchus, and n 1859 she was married to rr
Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Strachey,
who died in 1908. Lady Strachey was the ^
author of " Lay Texts," " Poets on Poets,"
" Nursery Lyrics," and edited the delight- g
ful " Memoirs of a Highland Lady." She
was the mother of 13 children, of whom
nine survive her. Among them are !1
Mr. Lytton Strachey, the author of
" Eminent Victorians," " Elizabeth and It
Essex," and other works ; Lieutenant-
Colonel John Strachey, Colonel Richard =
John Strachey, Miss J. P. Strachey,
Principal of Newnham College, Cam-
bridge ; and Miss Philippa Strachey.

Lady Strachey's deep interest in the welfare ^
of India, manifested down to old age by
frequent attendances at meetings connected
with that country, was based upon the P
strongest personal links. Her father, Sir John ^
Peter Grant, was the second of his family '
to win distinction in India. He was a member n
of the Government of India both with Dal- tj
housie and with Canning, and when, in the ,
Mutiny, Mr. Colvin, the Lieutenant-Go vernor
of the Agra Provinces, was cut off from all £
communication with a portion of his territory,
Sir John was appointed temporary Lieutenant-
Governor of the severed portion, having a 3
Heat first at Benares and then at Allahabad. ,,
He was much impressed by the ability of
young Richard Strachey who accompanied *'
him and became secretary in all departments. }
Strachey had married in 1864, and had lost
his wife a year later. When the Mutiny was 3
qu.-ll. el and Sir John Peter Grant went to j
Calcutta as the second Lieutenant-Governor
of Bengal, Strachey married his daughter on r
January 4, 1859. At that time Grant was
sharing the unpopularity among the European
population of the Viceroy, " Clemency "
Canning, and it was known that his very
liberal views had had a great inlluence in the

MEMOIRS OF A HIGHLAND LADY

THE AUTHOR.

Frontispiece-.

MEMOIRS OF A

HIGHLAND LADY

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ELIZABETH

GRANT OF ROTHIEMURCHUS AFTER-

WARDS MRS SMITH OF BALTIBOYS

1797-1830

EDITED BY

LADY STRACHEY

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
1911

CONTENTS

FAGB

I. 1797-1803 I

II. 1803-1804 ...... 23

III. 1805-1807 ...... 46

IV. 1701-1808 ...... 64

V. 1808-1809 ...... 81

VI. 1809-1810 . . . . . .no

VII. 1810-1811 ...... 127

VIII. 1811-1812 145

IX. 1812 163

X. 1570-1813 ...... 183

XI. 1813 217

XII. 1813-1814 ...... 247

XIII. 1814 263

XIV. 1814-1815 ...... 282

XV. 1815-1817 ...... 302

XVI. 1817-1818 319

XVII. 1818-1819 334

XVIII. 1820-1822 ...... 341

XIX. 1822-1826 358

XX. 1826-1827 376

XXI. 1827-1828 ...... 393

XXII. 1829-1830 ...... 401

NOTES • ' -. 409

INDEX .....•» 4*7

cr

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE AUTHOR . . . . . . Frontispiece

Face page
LADY GRANT with her Two Children ... 6

Sir JOHN PETER GRANT, Seventh Laird of Rothiemurchus 10
THE PARENTS OF LADY GRANT . . . .18

THE DOUNE ....... 30

JANE IRONSIDE (Lady GRANT) . . . .48

Miss RAPER (afterwards wife of Dr William Grant) . 68

LOCH-AN-ElLAN CASTLE ..... 82

MUCHRACH CASTLE . . . • . .184

INVERDRUIE HOUSE . . . . . 196

THE KIRK ....... 204

THE FLOATERS ...... 220

BRAE RIACH ....... 226

JOHNNIE (Lady Strachey's Father) AND MARY . . 238

THE SPRECKLED LAIRD ..... 242

GLEN ENNICH. • . . . . . 300

JANE . . . ^ , ; . - V , 318

WILLIAM * " . . . ' . . . 344

LOCH-AN-ElLAN COTTAGE . . . . .348

MARY IRONSIDE; RALPH IRONSIDE - ... . . 352

Til

MEMOIRS OF A HIGHLAND

;;;. .,;• LADY ' ;

CHAPTER I

1797-1803

I WAS born on the 7th of May 1797, of a Sunday
evening, at No. 6 (north side) of Charlotte Square,
Edinburgh, in my father's own lately built house, and I
am the eldest of the five children he and my mother
reared to maturity.

My parents had married young ; my father wanted
a few weeks of twenty-two and my mother a very few
of twenty-one when they went together for better for
worse. My poor mother !

They were married on the 2nd of August 1796, in
the church of the little village of Houghton-le-Spring,
in the county of Durham. I have no genealogical
tree of either family at hand, so not liking to trust to
memory in particulars of this nature, I must be content
with stating that my father was descended not very
remotely from the Chief of the Clan Grant, and that
these cadets of that great house having been provided
for handsomely in the way of property, and having also
been generally men of abilities in their rude times, had
connected themselves well in marriage, and held rather
a high position among the lesser barons of their wild
country.

My mother was also of ancient birth, the Ironsides
having held their small estate near Houghton-le-Spring
from the times of our early Norman kings, the cross

A

2 DOCTOR WILLIAM GRANT [1797

they wear for arms having been won in the holy wars ;
the tradition in the family indeed carried back their
origin to the Saxon era to which their name belongs,
and it may be so, for Saxon remains abound in that
part of England.

My parents met in Glasgow in their dancing days,
and there formed an attachment which lasted to the
very close of their long lives through many troubles,
many checks, and many changes ; but they did not
marry immediately, my father at the period of their
first acquaintance not being exactly his own master.
His childhood had been passed strangely without
any fixed plan, and in various homes under widely
different systems, but with the certain future of wealth
and station if he lived. The beautiful plain of
Rothiemurchus, with its lakes and rivers and forest and
mountain glens, offered in those old days but a few
cleared sunny patches fit for tillage ; black cattle were
its staple products; its real wealth, its timber, was
unthought of, so that as its sons multiplied the laird of
the period felt some difficulty in maintaining them;
the result in the generation to which my grandfather,
Dr William Grant, belonged, was that he with a
younger brother, and a set of half-uncles much about
their own age, were all shoved off about the world to
scramble through it as they best could with little but
their good blood to help them. The fortunes of this
set of adventurers were various ; some fared well, others
worse, but all who survived returned to end their days
where they began them, for no change of circumstances
can change the heart of a Highlander ; faithful to the
impressions of his youth wherever he may have
wandered, whatever may have befallen him, to his own
hills he must return in his old age, if only to lay his
bones beneath the heather; at least it was so in my
grandfather's day, for he died at the Doune,1 still but
the laird's brother, surrounded by his relations. He
had prospered in his struggle for independence,
beginning his medical studies at Aberdeen and pur-
1 The name of the house on the Rothiemurchus estate.

1797] FATHER'S EDUCATION 3

suing them through several of the continental hospitals,
remaining some time at Leyden and then fixing in
London, where he got into good practice ; turned
author so successfully that one of his works, a treatise
on fever, was translated into both French and German ;
and then married an heiress of the name of Raper of a
very respectable and highly talented family.

They were for some years — twelve, I think —
childless, then came my father, and four years after-
wards his only sister, my aunt Mrs Frere, at whose
birth her mother died. Good Mrs Sophy Williams, my
father's attendant, bonne or nursery governess, soon
removed with both her charges to their grandfather
Raper's country-house at Twyford, near Bishop's
Stortford, where they remained till his death. My
aunt was then adopted by other Raper relations, and
my father went back to his father, who just at that
time was retiring from his profession. In due course
he accompanied the Doctor to Rothiemurchus, and on
his death, which happened shortly and very suddenly,
his uncle Rothie took entire charge of his heir. The
summers were passed at Inverdruie,1 the winters at
Elgin, and a succession of tutors — queer men enough,
by their pupil's account of them — were engaged to
superintend the studies of this wilful boy and a whole
host of cousins, who helped to spoil him. This plan
not exactly answering, one country school after another
was tried, and at last the High School of Edinburgh,
where his time wore away till the period of college
arrived. He was sent to Glasgow with the intention of
being prepared for the bar ; there he met my mother :
she was on a visit to her elder sister, Mrs Leitch, a
very beautiful woman, the wife of one of the principal
merchants of that eminently mercantile city.

My mother's education had been a very simple
matter. She had grown up healthy and happy in her
own village among a crowd of brothers and sisters,
and cousins amounting to a multitude, learning the
mere rudiments of knowledge from the village school-
1 A small house on the property.

4 SUCCEEDS TO ROTHIEMURCHUS [1797

mistress, catching up stray bits of better things from
the lessons of her brothers, and enjoying any chance
gaiety that now and then wakened up the quiet but
very sociable neighbourhood. My grandfather Ironside
was a clergyman, rector of an adjoining parish, curate
of his own, and with his little private income might
have done more for his children had he not had so
many of them, and been besides a man of rather
expensively hospitable habits. My aunt Leitch's
marriage opened the world to the family, and my
mother's engagement to my father was the first result.

As I have mentioned, the marriage was deferred a
while, and before it took place both the bride's father
and the bridegroom's uncle died. My grandfather
Ironside had been so long helplessly paralytic, that his
death was really a release from a very pitiable exist-
ence. My uncle Rothie died suddenly in the full
vigour of a green old age. He was found in his study,
leaning back in his chair, a corpse, with his large Bible
open before him. This event altered my father's
position, it enabled him to marry when he liked, and it
would have released him from his legal studies had he
been inclined to give them up; but besides that he
thought a knowledge of law necessary to the usefulness
of a country gentleman, he really liked the profession ;
and the French Revolution, in the startling shake it
had given to the aristocracy of all Europe while it was
annihilating its own, had made it a fashion for all men
to provide themselves with some means of earning a
future livelihood, should the torrent of democracy
reach to other lands. He therefore, during the year of
mourning requisite on both sides, took a lodging in
Edinburgh, where he gave a succession of bachelor
entertainments, got through his law trials, and then, to
make sure of the fidelity of his attachment, went over
to Ireland with an Irish college friend, and made a gay
tour through Cork, Limerick, and Wicklow before
appearing at Houghton. My mother expected him,
but she had not thought herself justified in formally
announcing this; she had therefore to meet some

1797] THE YOUNG PEOPLE'S INCOME 5

frowns for having rejected noble and wealthy suitors,
for the sake of him who was considered to have been
trifling with her, and whom she must have loved for
himself alone — for mind and manner only — as neither
he nor she had any idea of the extent of his inheritance,
and in person he was not handsome.

On their marriage my parents settled in Edinburgh,
which was to be their home, and where my father had
purchased one of the only three houses then finished in
Charlotte Square. Here he was to pursue his pro-
fession, spending the summer vacations either on the
beautiful Highland property, or in travels which were
sometimes to extend to the south of England, a pretty
estate in Hertfordshire having fallen to him just at this
time by the death of his uncle Raper.

The house at Thorley Hall was so small as to be
inconvenient, but its furniture was valuable; a fine
library, some good pictures, portfolios of prints, and all
sorts of philosophical instruments formed part of it,
all of which were removed to the Doune. The land
was worth about £1200 a year. The rents of Rothie-
murchus were small, not more than ;£8oo, but the
timber was beginning to be marketable ; three or four
thousand a year could easily have been cut out of that
extensive forest for ever, and hardly have been missed.
My grandfather Grant had left his son £10,000 in ready
money, and my aunt Frere inherited her mother's
fortune, so that life began well with these happy young
people. To assist in the spending of what was then
a fine income, there were numberless relations on both
sides to bring gay spirits, a good deal of talent, a good
deal of beauty, with healthy appetites to the hospitable
board where they were so welcome. Bachelor friends,
too, were not wanting, and as at that time gentlemen
seldom reappeared in the drawing-room after dinner,
they made, as the wine merchant thought, excellent use
of their freedom from ladies' society.

My memory, however, does not go back to these
scenes, it is very indistinct as to all that happened
before I was four years old. I remember nothing of

6 WILLIAM'S BIRTH [1798

Edinburgh but a certain waggon full of black sacks
which represented coals, which I vainly attempted to
pull or push up some steps in the garden, and which
I think was taken from me for crying, so that its
possession must have been very near my baby
heart when the impression was so vivid. I have a
dreamy recollection of beating a boy in a red jacket
who was playing with me, and of shutting up
another in some cupboard, while I went about with
his drum which he had refused me. My victims
were my regular companions, the children of the houses
on each side of us ; the red jacket was the present Sir
George Sinclair, agricultural Sir John's eldest son, and
the drum boy was poor little Johnny Redfearn, who
died at five years of age, to the abiding grief of his
parents ; he was the last survivor of their once well-filled
nursery. Beyond this, I have no remembrance of
Charlotte Square, which, considering that I was but
three years and a half old when we left it for ever, is
not surprising.

Of the Highlands, that dear home of all our young
hearts, I have more perfect glimmerings. My father
and mother had spent there the summer following my
birth, and I fancy the winter also, and the next summer,
at the end of which, in September, my brother William
was born. I had been named Elizabeth after my two
grandmothers and two aunts, one of each side, Mrs
Leitch and Mrs Frere. William Patrick was called
after both grandfathers, and my great-uncle Rothie,
whom my father had immediately succeeded. He was
christened by the Presbyterian parson, and nursed by
my mother, so that perhaps that nursing winter was
the one they all spent at the Doune, with my two
aunts, Mrs Frere and Mrs Bourne, then Lissy Grant
and Mary Ironside, for company.

It was when I was weaned there had come a tall
randy kind of woman from Forres, a " Meg Merrilies,"
to take care of me; our much-loved Betty Glass in
those days, Betty Campbell afterwards when she
married the grieve. She had William from his birth,

LADY GRANT WITH HER TWO CHILDREN.

[To face page 6.

1798] EARLY RECOLLECTIONS 7

and to test the strength of the young heir, she gave him,
before she washed him, a spoonful of gin in Highland
fashion, which medicine he survived to my great sorrow ;
for spoiled as I had been, the darling of so many, I so
much disliked the arrival of this brother near the
throne, that I very early tried to make away with him.
One day that I had been left alone in his room before
his dressing time I seized his clothes, which had been
all stitched together and laid upon the bed ready to
put on him, and carrying the bundle to the fire tried to
throw it on the flaming peats, saying with all the spite
of a baby not a year and a half old, " Dere ! burn !
nassy sing ! " which exclamation brought in an aunt,
horror-struck. But all this is hearsay. Of my own
impressions I have a clear recollection of some West
Indian seeds, pretty, red and shiny, with black spots on
them, sweet-smelling beans, and a variety of small
shells, all of which were kept in a lower drawer of a
japanned dressing-table in my mother's room, for the
purpose, it appeared to me, of my playing with them.

I recollect also the bookcases in my father's study,
a set of steps by which he used to reach the upper
shelves, and up which I used to climb in terror, not of
a fall, but of being set in the corner as a punishment —
a fox-tail for dusting, and a dark place in the wall
where the peats were kept, so that I think while my
mother was taken up with her baby boy I must have
been the companion of my father.

I remember building materials lying about, an old
woman with a wooden leg warning me from some
mischief, and a lady in a blue gown assisting me to
play see-saw, she and I sitting on the ends of a plank
laid across a trestle, and a clapping of hands around
answering my laughter. I have also a painful remem-
brance of a very tearful parting from our dear Betty,
who declined accompanying us when we left the
Doune.

All these clearer visions of the past must relate to
a summer spent in the Highlands after the birth of my
sister Jane, which took place in Edinburgh in the

8 IN BURY PLACE [1800-1802

month of June of the year 1800. I do not imagine we
ever returned to Charlotte Square afterwards.

My mother nursed Jane herself, and Betty,
unassisted, took charge of us all three. Our nursery at
the Doune was the room at the head of the back-stairs
my mother afterwards took for her own ; it had two
windows looking towards Inverdruie, a fire on the
hearth, two wooden cribs made by Donald Maclean,
a cot cradle, a press bed for Betty into which we all of
us scrambled every morning, a creepie apiece for
William and me, and a low table of suitable height on
which our porridge was set in the mornings. I hated
mine, and Betty used to strew brown sugar over it to
make it more palatable. She washed us well, dressed
us after a fashion, set us to look at pictures while she
tidied the room, and then set ofT out of doors, where
she kept us all day. We were a great deal in the fields
with John Campbell the grieve, and we talked to every-
body we met, and Betty sang to us and told us fairy
tales, and made rush crowns for us, and kept us as
happy as I wish all children were. I don't feel that I
remember all these details, there is just an idea of some
of them fixed by after-allusions.

In the winter of 1802, after a season of all blank, I
wake up in a gloomy house in London in Bury Place;
there were no aunts, no Betty, a cross nurse, Mrs Day,
who took us to walk somewhere where there was gravel,
and nothing and nobody to play with ; the few objects
round us new and disagreeable. William and Jane
were kept in great order by Mrs Day. William she
bullied. Jane she was fond of; everybody was fond of
Jane, she was always so good ; me she did not like, I
was so self-willed. I therefore gave her very little of
my company, but spent most of my time with Mrs
Lynch, my mother's maid, an Englishwoman who had
been with us some time, engaged in London soon after
my mother's marriage when they first visited Thorley
Hall. Mrs Lynch taught me to sew, for I was always
very fond of my needle and my scissors too. I shaped
and cut out and stitched up my doll's clothes from

1802] FATHER AND MOTHER 9

very early days. I used to read to her too, she was so
good-natured ! I fancy my aunts had taught me to
read, though I do not remember this or them up to
this date.

My books had gaudy paper backs, red, and green,
and all manner of colours, with dashes of gold dabbled
on, in size vigesimo quartos, paper coarse, printing
black, and the contents enchanting; Puss in Boots,
Riquet with the Tuft, Blue Beard, Cinderella, The Genii
and the Fisherman ; and in a plain marble cover on
finer paper, full of prints, a small history of Rome, where
one print so shocked me — Tullia in her car riding over
the body of her father — that I never would open that
classic page again.

It is here in Bury Place that the first distinct
notion of the appearance of my parents presents itself;
I see my father in his study at a table writing ; a little
sallow man without any remarkable feature, his hair all
drawn back over his head, powdered and tied in a queue
with a great bow of black ribbon. He has on drab-
coloured stocking pantaloons and little boots up to the
knee, from the two-pointed front of which dangles a
tassel. The last Duke of Gloucester wore the very
dittoes, stocking pantaloons and all, when we saw him
in the year 1832 at Cheltenham. ' Strange, as this figure
rises before my mental eye, it is one which always
produces recollections of happiness, for my father's
voice was the herald of joy to us children, he was the
king of all our romping plays, had always something
agreeable to say, and even when too much occupied to
attend to us, would refuse our petitioning faces with a
kindness and an air of truthful regret so sympathetic
that he gave us nearly as much pleasure as if he could
have assented. There was a charm in his manner I
have never known any one of any age or station capable
of resisting, and which my dear sister Mary inherited.
My mother, though accounted such a handsome person,
impresses my memory much less agreeably. A very
small mouth, dark hair curling all over her head in a
bush close to her eyes, white shapeless gowns, apparently

10 WILLIAM AND THE HAIR TRUNK [1802

bundled up near the chin without any waist visible, her
form extended on the sofa, a book in her hands, and a
resident nervous headache which precluded her from
enduring noise, is the early recollection that remains
with me concerning her. She had probably been ill in
Bury Place, which had contributed to make our
residence there so melancholy.

The reason for our removal from Edinburgh to
London was my father's having determined on giving
up the Scotch for the English bar. Why, with his large
fortune, and plenty to do both on his Highland and his
Hertfordshire properties, he should have followed any
profession but that of managing them, nobody could
very well tell ; but as his wish was to be a great lawyer,
some of his dear friends, in whose way he stood in
Edinburgh, easily persuaded him that his abilities were
too superior to be frittered away in a mere provincial
town, and that Westminster Hall was the only sphere
for such talents — the road to St Stephen's ! the fit arena
for display ! I have often thought my poor mother's
headaches had something to do with all these mistakes
of her young, much-loved husband. She had certainly,
as far as I remember, very little of his company, only
just during dinner, and for the little while he sat to
drink his wine afterwards. William and I always came
to them at that time, and when my mother went up to
the drawing-room to make the tea we two went on
further to bed. Though so young, we were always sent
upstairs by ourselves to our nursery at the top of the
house in the dark ; that is, we had no candle, but a
glimmering of light fell in rays on the windings of the
crooked stairs from a lamp on some landing above. On
the small gallery on the second floor, which we had to
pass on our ascent to our attics, there stood a big hair
trunk into which I had often seen Mrs Lynch dive for
various necessaries required in her needlework. Poor
William, who was kept in the nursery by Mrs Day, and
who during his periodical descents and ascents seldom
looked beyond his own two little feet, which he had
some difficulty in placing and pulling up and down after

SIR JOHN PETER GRANT, SEVENTH LAIRD OK ROTHIEMUKCUU.'

[To face page 10.

1802] AUNT LISSY GRANT 11

him while she was tugging him along by whichever
unfortunate arm she happened to have hold of, had
never noticed in the sunlight this object, which appear-
ing large and dark in the gloomy evenings, and feeling
rough to the touch, he took for a wild beast, the wolf, in
fact, which had eaten Red Riding Hood. He began at
first to shrink, and then to shudder, and then to stop,
till soon I could not get him past the trunk at all. Our
delay being noticed by Mrs Day, that enlightened
person, on being informed of the cause, took upon
herself to put an end to all such nonsense in a summary
manner. She shook me out of the way, and well
thumped poor William. The next night the terrors of
the journey and his probable warm reception at the end
of it so worked upon the poor child's mind that he
became quite nervous long before his bedtime, and this
sort of agony increased so much in the course of a day
or two that my father noticed it ; but as we kept our
secret faithfully our misery continued a little longer, till
my father, certain there was something wrong, followed
us as hand and hand we very slowly withdrew. He
found William stifling his sobs and trembling in every
limb some steps below the fatal landing, and I, with my
arm round him, kissing him and trying to encourage
him to proceed. My father called for lights, and
without a word of anger or mockery showed his boy
the true nature of this object of dread. He was led
gently to it, to look at it, feel it, sit on it, see it
opened, not only then, but in the morning ; and though
we had still to go to bed by ourselves, the drawing-room
door was henceforward left open till our little steps were
heard no more.

About this time, that is, during the course of the two
years which followed our arrival in London, various
perceptions dawned on my young mind to which I can
prefix no date, neither can I remember the order in
which I learned them. My aunt Lissy became known
to me. She had lived generally with my father since
his marriage ; it was her home ; but though she was the
lady in the blue gown, I have no distinct idea of her

12 A VISIT TO TUNBRIDGE WELLS [1802

before this, when she returned from some visit she had
been paying and brought to Jane and me a pretty
basket each. Mine went to bed with me, was settled at
my feet that I might see it the first thing in the morn-
ing. I see it now, as plainly as then, an oval open
basket of fine straw, not by any means small, and with
a handle apparently tied on by two knots of blue ribbon.

In the summer of this year we must have gone to
Tunbridge Wells, for I remember perfectly a house
near the common there where we were allowed to run
about all day, and where to our delight we found some
heather which we greeted as an old friend. I recollect
too a green paper on the walls of the room in which I
slept covered all over with sprigs in a regular pattern,
that it amused me extremely to wake up in the morning
and fall a-counting. In the autumn we must have gone
to Eastbourne, for I remember the seashore, splashing
my feet into the cool green water in the little pools
between the rocks, picking up seaweed, star-fish, and
jelly blobs, and filling my dear basket with quantities of
shells. At some inn on our way to or from one of these
places, while we little people were at our bread-and-milk
supper at one table, and the elders at their dinner at
another, we were all startled by the sounds of a beautiful
voice outside, clear and sweet and tuneful, singing
" Over the mountains and over the moors, Hungry and
barefoot I wander forlorn." It was one of the fashion-
able ballads of the day out of a favourite farce — " No
song no supper," I think, and not inappropriate to the
condition of the poor creature who was wandering
about singing it My father opened the window and
threw out " some charity," when the " kind gentlefolks "
were rewarded by another verse which enabled me to
pick up the air, and it became my favourite for many a
month to come, piped in a childish treble very unlike
the silvery tones I had learned it from.

William and I were taken to see a ruin near
Eastbourne, and what was called the field of Battle
Abbey, and my mother, in that sack of a white gown
with a little hat stuck round with bows of ribbon on one

1802-1803] EARLY ACCOMPLISHMENTS 13

side of her head, showed us the spot where brave King
Harold fell, for she was a Saxon in name and feeling,
and in her historical lessons she never omitted the
scanty praise she could now and then bestow faithfully
on the race she gloried in descending from. It is
curious that I have no recollection of learning anything
from anybody except this, by chance as it were, though
I have understood I was a little wonder, my aunts hav-
ing amused themselves in making a sort of show of me.
I read well at three years old, had long ballads off by
heart, counted miraculously, danced heel and toe, the
Highland fling, and Highland shuffle, and sang, perched
upon the table, ever so many Scotch songs, " Toming
soo ze eye" and such like, to the amusement of the
partial assembly. I fancy I was indebted to aunt Mary
for these higher accomplishments ; counting I know my
aunt Lissy taught me, with a general notion of the four
first rules of arithmetic by the help of little bags of
beans, which were kept in one of the compartments of
an immense box full of all sorts of tangible helps to
knowledge. My further progress might have been
checked had my father and mother been so unwise as
to carry out an intention they frequently reverted to :
that of going over from Eastbourne to France. The
short peace with France had been signed early in the
year. I can remember the illuminations in London on
account of it. On a clear day the French coast was
distinctly visible through a telescope from Eastbourne,
and so many fishing-boats came over with cheap
poultry, eggs, and other market wares that people were
quite bit with a wish to make so short a voyage. Some
that did never returned, war having been declared
again, and Buonaparte retaining all travellers unlucky
enough to have trusted themselves to his ill-temper.

Before Christmas we were established in the tall
house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, which continued for ten
years to be the principal home of the family. 1803
therefore saw us settled in this new abode, where our
fine, airy nurseries, though reached at the expense of a
weary climb, were a delightful change from the gloom

14 LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS

of Bury Place. We had the Square to play in, were
allowed to run about there without a maid, and soon
made acquaintance with plenty of children as well
pleased with new companions as ourselves. From this
time our town life was never an unhappy one. In the
winter my aunt Mary, who had been away, returned
with aunt Fanny, my mother's only other unmarried
sister. They remained some months, which we children
liked. Aunt Mary was dearly loved by us all ; she
knew how to manage, us, could amuse without letting
us plague her — an art poor aunt Fanny did not under-
stand so well. My mother's youngest brother, my
uncle Edward, who was pursuing his studies at Woolwich
with the intention of proceeding to India, spent his
vacations frequently with us. Besides these there were
Highland cousins innumerable, who, on their periodical
flights from the wild hills where they could find nothing,
to the broad world where they never failed to gather
plenty if they lived, were sure of a resting-place with
my father on their passage. It was a strange household
for London, this hotel for all relations. We were
playthings for every one, and perhaps a little more made
of than was good for all of us.

Amongst other indulgences this spring I was taken
twice to the play, and once to Sadler's Wells with
William. The first play was "The Caravan." John
Kemble acted in it ; the lover, and a very lugubrious
one he seemed to be. The actor that delighted me was
a dog, a real Newfoundland trained to leap into a
cataract and bring dripping out of the water, real water,
a doll representing a child which had spoken in the
scene a few minutes before, and had then appeared to
be dropped by a lady in distress while flying across a
plank up at the top of the stage, the only bridge across
the torrent. They could not persuade me the doll was
not the real child : I thought it dead, drowned, and
cried and sobbed so violently I was hardly to be
pacified, — not till all the audience had been attracted
by the noise. The other play was " The Busy Body."
Bannister in all sorts of scrapes, doing mischief

BIRTH OF MARY 15

continually from over-officiousness, hid in a chimney,
discovered when least welcome, etc., a collection of
contretemps that fidgeted and annoyed much more than
they amused me. The horsemanship with the tumblers,
rope dancers, etc., frightened me. William, little as he
was, was in ectasies.

In the month of May of this year, 1803, on the 2ist,
in the evening, my sister Mary was born. From this
point I date all my perfect recollections ; all that
happened stands clearly before me now at the end of a
long life as if that one event had wakened up a sleeping
intellect. It was indeed a matter of moment to me, for
in some way the new baby and I were thrown upon each
other from her birth. Jane was so engrossingly the pet
of my mother and the companion of my brother, that
she was less my associate than the mere difference in
our ages warranted. My father was always busy, my
mother generally ill, William, the heir, was the child of
consequence to all the family connections, more noticed,
of course, by them than either of us his sisters. I was
not romp enough for him, so that he did not seek me
unless Jane was out of the way ; therefore when my
aunts were away I was often lonely. The baby just
suited me for a playmate, to watch her, amuse her, help
to attend upon her, and by and by to work for her and
teach her, were my delight, and as I was six years old
when she was born, I was quite a little mother to her,
preferring her infinitely to the dolls which had hitherto
chiefly occupied me.

My mother had been alarmingly ill after the birth of
this her finest child. She had lost the use of her limbs,
and was carried up and down stairs, and to and from the
carriage, when she took her airings. As my father found
it necessary to go to the Highlands in the summer, and
had to attend circuit somewhere in the north of
England, it was resolved that she and we should have a
few weeks of sea-bathing at Scarborough on our way ;
a sort of couch was contrived for her, on which she lay
comfortably in the large berline we had hitherto used,
and which the four horses must have found heavy

16 THE JOURNEY NORTH [1803

enough when weighted with all its imperials, hat boxes,
and the great hair trunk that had been poor William's
terror. Mrs Lynch and Mackenzie, who had been my
father's valet before he married, were on the outside ;
my father, Jane, and I within with my mother, and we
travelled with our own horses ridden by two postillions
in green jackets and jockey caps, leaving London, I
think, in July. In the heavy post-chariot behind were
the two nurses, the baby in a swinging cot, William,
who was too riotous to be near my mother, and a foot-
man in charge of them. What it must have cost to
have carried such a party from London to the
Highlands ! and how often we travelled that north
road ! Every good inn became a sort of home, every
obliging landlord or landlady an old friend. We had
cakes here, a garden with a summer-house there, a
parrot farther on, all to look forward to on every
migration, along with the pleasant flatteries on our
growth and our looks of health ; as if such a train would
not have been greeted joyously by every publican !
We travelled slowly, thirty miles a day on an average,
starting late and stopping early, with a bait soon after
noon, when we children dined. I forget when we
reached Scarborough, nor can I recollect any particular
impression made by the town itself or the country
around, but I do remember feeling astonishment at the
sight of the sea, and also surprise and annoyance — who
would have believed this in such a child ? — at our not
having a whole house to ourselves, but lodging in the
lower and very upper part of a house, the rest of which
was occupied by the family of Sir Thomas Liddell.
Another merry set of children to play with might have
reconciled me to the humiliation of sharing our
temporary abode with our neighbour, had we been
able to secure such companions as the first few days
promised. Overtures on both parts were answered on
both parts, and Lady Williamson, Lady Normanby,
Lady Harrington, and two little white-faced brothers
had arrived at blowing soap-bubbles most merrily with
William and me. When laughing too loud one

1803] STROLLING PLAYERS 17

unfortunate morning, our respective attendants were
attracted by the uproar and flew to separate us. They
shook us well, Grants and Liddells, scolded us well, and
soon divided us, wondering what our mammas would
say at our offering to make strange acquaintance, when
we knew we were forbidden to speak to any one they
did not know; so we Grants used to listen to the
Liddells, who monopolised the garden, and to their
mother who played delightfully on the harp, and amuse
ourselves as we best could, alone.

A company of strolling-players happening to arrive
in the town, William and I were taken to see them ;
the state of their playhouse astonished us not a little.
The small dirty house, though wretchedly lighted,
brought the audience and the stage so close together
that the streaks of paint on the actors' faces were
plainly visible, also the gauze coverings on the necks
and arms of the actresses ; then the bungling machinery,
the prompter's voice, the few scenes and the shabby
scene-shifters, all so revealed the business that illusion
there was none, and we who at Drury Lane and Astley's
and Covent Garden had felt ourselves transported to
fairyland, were quite pained by the preparations for
deception which the poor strollers so clumsily betrayed
to us. The play was Rosina, an opera, and the prima
donna so old, so wrinkled, so rouged, that had she
warbled like my own Janey she would have been ill-
selected as the heroine ; but she sang vilely, screamed,
and I must have thought so, for I learned none of her
songs, and I generally picked up every air I heard.

Soon after the play I was laid up with scarlet fever,
which I notice as I had it twice afterwards, and have
had returns of the scarlatina throat all my life.

Upon leaving Scarborough we proceeded to
Houghton, where I must have been before, as many
changes in the place struck me. I have no recollection,
however, of a former visit ; as I remember it from this
one, the village consisted of one long, wide, straggling,
winding street, containing every variety of house, from
the hall standing far back beyond the large courtyard,

B

18 HOUGHTON LE SPRING

and the low, square, substantial mansion even with the
road, to the cottage of every size. A few shops here
and there offered a meagre supply of indifferent wares.
About the middle of the village was the church half
concealed by a grove of fine old trees, the Rectory, and
the then celebrated boys' school near it. The finest-
looking of the court-dignified halls belonged to the
Nesham family, from amongst whom my grandfather
Ironside had chosen his wife. She had had but to
move across the little street to the most ancient-looking
of the low substantial houses which offered a long
double row of windows and a wide doorway to the
dusty path, protected only by posts and chains from
the close approach of passengers. A kitchen wing had
been added on one side ; behind this were piled the
roofs of the 9ffices. A clump of old trees sheltered the
east end. A large well-filled garden at the back
stretched down a long slope to a small brook that
drained the neighbouring banks, and all around lay the
fields that had descended from father to son, they said,
for at least 700 years. In this quiet abode my grand-
mother Ironside had passed her life of trials. Children
came fast and noisy, funds were small, and my grand-
father, a hospitable, careless man, left his farm to his
man Jacky Bee, his tithes to his clerk, Cuddy Kitson,
his children to the pure air of his fields, and his wife to
herself and her cares as soon as he found it pleasanter
to be elsewhere ; he was rather an increase than a help
to her difficulties, and for ten years the poor man was
bedrid, paying assistants to do his duty, thus further
diminishing the little my grandmother could reckon on
for the support of their numerous offspring. Only nine
of her fifteen children grew up to be provided for ; my
mother and three sisters, the eldest of whom was
married when very young to Mr Leitch ; the eldest son,
my uncle William, went early into the army ; uncle
Ralph was in the law, my uncles John and Edmund
were taken into Mr Leitch's counting-house ; uncle
Edward was a boy at school when my grandfather died.
His wife did not long survive him, she lived but to

1803] IRONSIDE AND NESHAM RELATIVES 19

bless me ; and in the old family house at Houghton she
had been succeeded by a pretty young woman of most
engaging manners but small fortune, who had persuaded
my uncle William to give up his profession for her sake,
and in the full vigour of his manhood to settle down on
the few acres he had not the skill to make productive,
and which in a less luxurious age had been found
insufficient for the wants of a family.

My mother always went to Houghton well provided
with trifling presents for her numerous connections
there. There had never been any lack of daughters
in the house of the reigning Ironside, and they formed
quite a Saxon colony by their marriages. We had a
great-aunt Blackburn, Horseman, Potter, Goodchild,
with cousins to match, all the degradations in name
possible bestowed on the serf Saxon by his conquering
Norman lord — with one redeeming great-aunt Griffith,
who, however, had never recovered caste among her
relations for her misalliance with, I believe, a school-
master, though had they followed my clever Welsh
great-uncle to his mountains his maligners might have
heard of a princely ancestry.

Two maiden sisters of this generation, my great-
aunts Peggy and Elsie, lived in the village in a square
low house very near to, and very like my uncle's, but it
stood back from the road, and was kept delightfully
dark by some large elm trees which grew in front in a
courtyard. This retreat was apparently sacred to the
ancient virgins of the family, for their aunts Patience
and Prudence had been established there before them.
I hardly remember these old ladies, aunt Elsie not at
all, though it was in their house that Jane and I were
domiciled. Aunt Peggy made more impression, she
was fat, rosy, merry, idle, told funny stories, made faces,
and winked her eyes at good jokes when sometimes
her laughing listeners rather blushed for her. My
mother was much more attached to her aunt Nesham,
the only and the maiden sister of her mother; her
house was just opposite to my uncle's, and it was the
home of my two unmarried Ironside aunts, Mary and

20 STOPPAGE AT EDINBURGH [1803

Fanny. Aunt Jane Nesham was a charming little old
lady with powdered hair turned over a cushion, and a
little white muslin turban stuck up on the top of it.
She wore tight-fitting cross-folded gowns with full
skirts, the whitest and the clearest of muslin kerchiefs
puffed over her neck, a row of pearls round her throat,
and high-heeled shoes. Her house was order itself, her
voice gentle and her smile the sweetest. She had been
in the Highlands with my father and mother before my
recollection. The cousins Nesham lived in the village,
at least the then head of the family with one or two of
his unmarried sisters and a young wife. Mrs Griffith
and a disagreeable daughter had a small house there,
and the clergyman, the schoolmaster, the doctor and
Squire Hutton, and there was a populous neighbour-
hood. Such was Houghton as I first remember it
How different from what it is now I There are no gentry,
the few neat rows of pitmen's houses have grown into
streets belonging to a town. It is all dirt and bustle
and huge machinery and tramways, one of which cuts
through the fields of the Ironside inheritance. These
frightful tramways were our childish delight ; such a
string of waggons running along without horses
reminded us of our fairy tales, and the splendid fires
blazing on all sides enchanted us, after the economical
management of scanty fuel we had been accustomed to
in London. We liked our young cousins too, three or
four of whom were old enough to play with us.

The next stoppage on our northern journey was at
Edinburgh, where we remained long enough for an
abiding impression of that beautiful city to be made on
a young mind. The width of the streets, the size of the
houses, the brightness and the cleanliness, with the
quantity of gooseberries to be bought for a penny,
impressed me before I was capable of appreciating the
grandeur of its position. It was then very far from
being what it became a few years later, how very very
far from what we see it now 1 The New Town was but
in progress, the untidy appendages of building
encumbered the half-finished streets, and where after-

1803] UNCLE SANDY 21

wards the innumerable gardens spread in every quarter
to embellish the city of palaces, there were then only
unsightly greens abandoned to the washerwomen. My
father had always business to detain him here. We
put up at Blackwood's Hotel, at the corner of the North
Bridge in Princes Street.

The Queen's Ferry was the next /aWmark, to speak
in Irish fashion ; no steamer in those days, no frame to
run the carriage on from quay to deck. Ugly, dirty,
miserable sailing vessels, an hour at the quickest
crossing, sometimes two or three, it was the great
drawback to the journey. The landing at Inverkeithing
was as disagreeable as the embarking, as tedious too ;
we seldom got beyond Kinross that night, where
Queen Mary, the Castle, the lake, red trout, and a
splendid parrot all combined to make it one of our
favourite resting-places. At Perth we were always
met by my father's only surviving uncle, Sandy, the
parson, his mother the Lady Jean's favourite son, and
her youngest. He was of the Episcopalian Church, and
had at this time the care of a chapel at Dundee. He
was a popular preacher, had published very fair sermons,
was an accomplished person for his times, gentlemanly
in manner, taller than the "little Grants," more of a
Gordon, in fact, in appearance. He had had a good
deal to do with my father's education, and his own five
ill-brought-up sons had been my father's principal
companions towards his college days. My mother
never thought kindly of this uncle, to whom my father
was much attached. She judged him perhaps harshly,
an easiness of temper may have been fully as much the
cause of the loose discipline he maintained as want of
principle, to which she ascribed his errors.

It took us three days to reach home from Perth,
Blackbird, Smiler, and their pairs (whose names I have
not remembered) who met us there, not being in as
great a hurry to return to the Doune as we were.
There was no good ford near the house in those days,
the shifting river not having revealed the rather deep
one near the offices that we used so constantly after-

22 THE BELOVED DUCHUS [1801

wards ; besides, there was then no road from the
bridge of Alvie down the heathery bank to the boyack
and so round its shallow waters to the river-side. We
had to drive on, after a good peep of our dear home,
two or three miles past the burn at Lynwilg, towards
Aviemore, and then turn off down a seldom-travelled
road through the birch woods — I smell them now — to
the ford at Inverdruie, where there was a carriage-boat
at the ferry a little higher up the stream, so that
travellers could cross in all states of the river.

Once over the water we were at home in Rothie-
murchus, our beloved Duchus,1 which, through all the
changes of our lives, has remained the spot on earth
dearest to every one of us. We have been scattered far
and wide, separated, never now all to meet again ; we
have grown up and married and have had new interests
engrafted on our old feelings, and have changed our
homes and changed all our surroundings, and most of
us have lived long, busy years far away from the High-
lands, yet have we never any one of us ceased to feel
that there was the magnet to which all our purest,
warmest, earliest, and latest affections were steadily
drawn. No other spot ever replaced it, no other scenery
ever surpassed it, no other young happiness ever
seemed to approach within a comprehensible distance
of our childhood at Rothiemurchus.

1 A Gaelic word having much the same signification as domain.
The crest of the family is an armed hand holding a broadsword,
with the motto " For my Duchus."

CHAPTER II
1803-1804

IT was in July or August then in 1803 we crossed the
Spey in the big boat at Inverdruie in a perfect fever of
happiness. Every mountain, every hill, every bank,
fence, path, tree, cottage was known to me, every face
we met revealed a friend, and our acquaintance was by
no means limited, for the " wide plain of the fir trees,"
which lies in the bosom of the Grampians, cut off by
the rapid Spey from every neighbour, has its beautiful
variety of mountain scenery, its heights, its dells, and
glens, its lakes and plains and haughs, and it had then
its miles and miles of dark pine forest through which
were little clearings by the side of rapid burnies, and
here and there a sawmill. We were expected, so from
the boathouse to the Doune it was one long gathering,
all our people flocking to meet us and to shout the
" welcome home " ; the only time that I remember so
great an assemblage to meet us on our arrival, the
custom becoming obsolete, warm and hearty as it was.
William and I knew every one, remembered everything.
Our dear Betty waited for us at the house anxiously ;
she had married the grieve, John Campbell, and was
now a great lady in her high cap and shawl, and she
had a baby to show us, a little daughter, the only child
she ever had, called after me, to whom I was bringing a
real silver coral with more than the usual complement
of bells. Betty had been left in charge of the house,
and beautifully clean she delivered it. We thought the
floors so white, the polish so bright, the beds so snowy,

24 DESCRIPTION OF THE DOUNE [1803

all so light, so airy, our nursery so enchanting with its
row of little plain deal stools — creepies — and our own
dear low table, round which we could ourselves place
them. We were certainly easily pleased with anything
Highland, for a less luxurious abode than the charm-
ingly situated Doune at that date could hardly have
been the residence of a lady and gentleman.

It took its name from a long low hill in the form of
a boat with its keel upwards, at the end of which it had
been rather ill-advisedly built, and which had been
fortified in the ruder days when the dwelling of our
ancestors had been upon the top of it. I never' saw the
vestige of a ruin there, but the moat is perfect, and two
or three steep terraces along the side. When improv-
ing times permitted our ancestors to descend from their
Doune, a formal Scotch house was built at the foot of it,
with a wide door in the centre, over which were
emblazoned the arms in a shield, and as many narrow
windows were stuck in rows over the wall as were
required to light the rooms within. A kitchen built of
black turf was patched on to one end ; it had an open
chimney and bare rafters overhead. A green duck-
pond and such offices as were at the period necessary
were popped down anywhere in front and all round,
wherever and whenever they were wanted. There were
a barn, a smithy, and a carpenter's shop and poultry-
houses, all in full view from the principal rooms, as was
the duck-pond. A perfect network of sluggish streams,
backwater from the Spey, crept round a little knot of
wooded islands close at hand, and a garden lay at the
foot of the hill. My uncle Rothie had not latterly lived
here ; he had married a very delicate woman, a daughter
of Mr Grant of Elchies, commonly known as a Lord of
Session by his legal title of Lord Elchies. She had
persuaded him that the situation of this old family
mansion was unhealthy, which, considering all the wood
and water on this side of the Spey, and the swamp of
the boyack on the other, was probably a correct opinion.
He had therefore built at Inverdruie, to please her, a
modern mansion very like a crab with four extended

1803] DOCTOR GRANT'S IMPROVEMENTS 25

claws, for there was a dumpy centre to live in, with four
low wings, one at each corner, for offices ; and this was
set down on a bare heath, with a small walled garden
behind and a pump standing all alone a little way off in
front. Here with them my father had spent his
boyhood, always, however, preferring the Doune, which
had been, when deserted, let to various half-uncles and
second cousins, retired half-pay captains and lieutenants,
who all, after their wandering youth, returned to farm
out their old age in the Highlands. A few years before
his death my grandfather, the Doctor, had taken
possession of it, and anticipating a much longer tenure,
undertook many improvements. To the end of the old
house opposite the black kitchen he stuck an outrigger
of an overwhelming size, containing a cellar to which
the descent was by stone steps outside, a large dining-
room on the ground-floor, and a couple of good bed-
rooms above reached by a turning-stair; as an
additional object from the windows he erected a high
stable, where as long as it stood my brother William
spent his leisure, and he increased the old garden, laid
it out anew, and stocked it from Hertfordshire. The
entrance to this paradise of our childhood was by a
white gate between two cherry trees — such cherry trees
— large white heart, still standing there to prove my
taste, and by no means dwarfish, even beside the fine
row of lime trees that extended on either side. The
old house had a few low rooms on the ground-floor with
many dark closets ; the principal apartment was on the
first floor, and reached by a wide and easy stair ; the
family bedroom was on the one hand, a large hall on
the other for the reception of guests, and the state
bedroom through it. Up in the attics, beneath the
steep grey roof, were little rooms again. This was the
Highland home to which my mother had been brought
a bride.

I imagine that the furniture had been very much
suited to the style of the house ; there was some plate,
some fine old china and glass, and a few valuables of
little use but as curiosities. The state bed and bedroom

26 AN OLD-STYLE HIGHLAND HOME [1803

were curtained with rich green silk damask heavily
fringed, and the japanned toilet-table — in which was my
drawer of shells — with a mirror to match, and number-
less boxes, trays, and baskets of japanned ware
belonged to this chamber; the other rooms were, I
fancy, rather bare. There was, however, never any lack
of living furniture. My mother found established there
my great-uncle Sandy with his English wife, her sister,
and all their carpet work, two of the five sons, an old
Donald — a faithful servant of my grandfather's, who
had been pensioned for his merits — an old Christy, who
had gone from Strathspey to wait on my father and my
aunt Lissy, and their bonne good Mrs Sophy Williams.
She had her pension and her attic, and so had Mr
Dallas, one of the line of tutors, when he chose to come
to it. Then there were college friends, bachelor cousins,
and it was the fashion of the country for any of the
nearer neighbours, when they came in their full dress
to pay their occasional morning visits, to expect to be
pressed to remain the day, often the night, as the
distances are considerable in that thinly-peopled
district. My father and mother never wanted for
company, and the house was as full of servants as an
Indian or an Irish one, strange, ignorant creatures,
running about in each other's way, wondering at the
fine English maids who could make so little of them.
Amongst the rest was a piper, who, for fear of spoiling
the delicacy of the touch of his fingers, declined any
work unconnected with whisky, which with plenty of
oat-bread and cheese was given to all-comers all day
long.

Most of the farms were occupied by relations,
Colonel William Grant was at the Croft, Captain Lewis
at Inverdruie. These were my father's great-uncles.
Lieutenant Cameron, a cousin, came to Kinapol from
Kinrara as soon as a former tenant left it. Up in
Badenoch and down in Strathspey there were endless
humble connections most attentive in observing the
visiting customs of the country. Relations at a greater
distance were not wanting, — Cummings in Morayshire,

1803] HIGHLAND NEIGHBOURS 27

Mackenzies in Ross-shire, Grants in Urquhart, etc. Of
great neighbours there were few. Highland properties
are so extensive that there can be neither walks nor
rides in general to the homes of equals. Each pro-
prietor holds, or held, perhaps I should say, his own
little court in his own domains. When he paid a
brother laird a visit it was in a stately manner befitting
the rareness of the event, and the number of miles he
had to travel. Our great house then was Castle Grant,
the residence of our Chief. It was about twenty miles
off down Speyside. My father and mother were much
there when they first married, my aunts Mary and
Lissy delighting in the gaiety of a scene so new to
them. Generally about fifty people sat down to dinner
there in the great hall in the shooting season, of all
ranks. There was not exactly a "below the salt"
division so marked at the table, but the company at the
lower end was of a very different description from those
at the top, and treated accordingly with whisky punch
instead of wine. Neither was there a distinct " yellow
drawing-room" party, though a large portion of the
guests seldom obtruded themselves on the more refined
section of the company unless on a dancing evening,
when all again united in the cleared hall. Sir James
Grant was hospitable in the feudal style ; his house was
open to all ; to each and all he bade_a hearty welcome,
and he was glad to see his table filled, and scrupulous
to pay fit attention to every individual present ; but in
spite of much cordiality of manner it was all somewhat
in the king style, the Chief condescending to the Clan,
above the best of whom he considered himself
extremely. It was a rough royalty too, plenty, but
rude plenty, a footman in the gorgeous green and
scarlet livery behind every chair, but they were mere
gillies, lads quite untutored, sons of small tenants
brought in for the occasion, the autumn gathering, and
fitted into the suit that they best filled. Lady Grant
was quiet and ladylike, Miss Grant a favourite, the rest
of the family of less account. This was my mother's
account to me years afterwards, when all connection

28 MISS JENNY [1803

between us and the head of our house had unhappily
ceased.

A permanent member of our family at this time
I must not forget, for I bore her great affection. She
was indeed very kind to us, and very careful of us the
few years she remained in the household. She was a
natural daughter of my grandfather's, born long after
his wife's death, and had been brought up by his sister
the Lady Logic. When this great-aunt of mine died,
" Miss Jenny " removed as matter of course to the
family asylum, as I may call my father's house. She
was entrusted with the store-room keys, and was
employed as a general superintendent of the family
business till she married, which event, luckily for her,
poor thing, was not very long delayed. A Forres beau,
a Mr Arthur Cooper, learned in the law, became her
husband, and so relieved my mother of one of her
burdens. It was indeed a strange mixture of ranks and
positions and interests, of which my mother was the
head. I do not imagine that it was always harmony
among them. My parents were both too young, too
inexperienced, to be very patient with such a hetero-
geneous assemblage. It might do very well in the
bright summer weather when an out-door life in the
pure air occupied all the day and produced a glow of
spirits for all the night, but there were wintry weeks in
this gay sphere of theirs, clouds and storms and chills,
when annoyances gloomed into grievances, and worry
brought on ill-humour. In those days, unluckily,
education had not extended to the temper. My
mother's family cares were principally confined to
such as she could reach with her needle, in the use of
which she was very dexterous. As for the rest,
after the dinner was ordered and the windows opened,
matters were left very much to the direction of the
chances.

My father was a much more active person, very
despotic when called on to decide, yet much beloved.
An eye everywhere, nursery, kitchen, farm, garden,
tenantry, but not a steady eye, no prevention in it,

1803] FATHER'S IMPROVEMENTS 29

fitful glances seeing sometimes too much, and very
summary in the punishment of detected offences.
He was occupied principally at this time with his
mason and carpenter, as he was making great changes
in and about the Doune. These changes, indeed,
employed him most of his life, for he so frequently
altered in the present year what had been executed the
year before, that neither he nor his allies, Donald
Maclean and the Colleys, were ever out of work. The
changes effected up to this period, the autumn of 1803,
when we reached our beloved Highland home from
Scarborough and Houghton, were of some importance.
My grandfather's outrigger had been heightened and
lengthened, and carried back beyond the old house, the
windows in it had all been changed and enlarged, and
ornamented with cut granite ; in fact, a handsome
modern wing appeared in place of an ill-contrived ugly
appendage. It was intended at no very distant time to
have matched it with another, and to have connected
the two by a handsome portico, all in front of the old
house, which would have been entirely concealed, and
being single, was to have had all its windows turned to the
back, looking on a neat square of offices, some of which
were now in progress. My grandfather's new dining-
room was thus made into a pleasant drawing-room, his
turning-stair was replaced by an easier one in a hall
which divided the drawing-room from a new dining-
room, and in which was the door of entrance to this
modern part of the house. Above were the spare bed-
rooms and dressing-rooms, and over them two large
attics, barrack-rooms, one for the maids, the other for
visiting maidens, young ladies who in this primitive age
were quite in the habit of being thus huddled up in
company. In the old part of the house my father's
study, the ancient reception hall, had been cut short by
a window to give him a dressing-room, and the black
kitchen outside had vanished, much to the satisfaction
of my mother and Mrs Lynch, who declared no decent
dinner could by possibility be cooked in it It was
indeed a rude apology for a set of kitchen offices. A

30 THE BROOM ISLAND [1803

mouse one day fell into the soup from the rafters, a
sample of a hundred such accidents.

To make room for the new range of servants' rooms,
part of the end of the hill had to be cut away, spoiling
entirely the boat shape of our Doune. The soil thus
removed was thrown into the nearest channel of the
backwater, it being my father's intention to fill these up
by degrees; an improvement to which William and I
were decidedly opposed, for on the broom island, the
largest of the group amidst this maze of waters, our
very merriest hours were spent. A couple of wide,
well-worn planks formed the bridge by which we
crossed to our Elysian field ; two large alder trees grew
close to the opposite end of this charming bridge,
making the shallow water underneath look as dark and
dangerous as " Annan Water " did to Annie's lover ; an
additional delight to us. Between the two large alders
hung in gipsy fashion the large cauldron used for the
washing; a rude open shed, just sufficient to protect
the officiating damsels from the weather ; tubs, cogues,
lippies, a watering-pot and a beetle — a bit of wood,
bottle-shaped, with which the clothes were thumped,
Indian and French fashion — lay all about among the
yellow broom under the alders and hazels on this happy
island, the scene of as much mirth and as much fun as
ever lightened heavy labour, for be it remembered the
high stable was in very close neighbourhood ! William
and I were never-failing parts of the merry group, for
our time was pretty much at our own disposal, Jane
joining us only occasionally. We two elder ones were
of an age to say our lessons every day to my mother,
and we always faithfully learned our twelve words —
that is, I did — out of a red-marble-covered book filled
with columns of words in large, black print ; but my
mother was not often able to hear us ; sometimes she
was ill, and sometimes she was busy, and sometimes
she was from home, and sometimes she had company
at home, and our lessons had oftentime to be got pretty
perfect before we were called upon to say them. But
we had plenty of story books to read on rainy days,

SUMMER DAYS 31

and we had pleasure in reading to ourselves, for even
Jane at three years old could read her " Cobwebs to
catch Flies." I was fond, too, of dressing my doll by
the side of Mrs Lynch, and of learning to write from
Mackenzie. On fine days we were always out, either
by ourselves or with a son of the old gardener, George
Ross, to attend us. There was also a Highland nursery
maid and Mrs Acres, the baby's nurse, superintending.
Amongst them they did not take very good care of us,
for William was found one sunny morning very near
the Spey, sailing away in a washing-tub, paddling along
the backwater with a crooked stick in his hand for an
oar, and his pocket-handkerchief knotted on to another
he had stuck between his knees for a flag. A summer-
set into the rapid river, had he reached it, would have
made an end of him, but for my voice of rapturous
delight from the bank where I stood clapping my hands
at his progress, which directed some one to our doings,
and thus saved the young laird from his perilous situa-
tion.

So passed our summer days ; we grew strong and
healthy, and we were very happy, revelling among the
blackberries on the Doune till we were tattooed^ frocks
and all, like American Indians ; in the garden, stung
into objects by the mosquitoes in the fruit bushes ; in
our dear broom island, or farther off sometimes in the
forest, gathering cranberries and lying half asleep upon
the fragrant heather, listening to tales of the fairy
guardians of all the beautiful scenery around us. I was
a tall, pale, slight, fair child to look at, but I seldom
ailed anything. William, fat and rosy and sturdy, was
the picture of a robust boy. Jane was the beauty,
small and well formed, with a healthy colour and her
Ironside eyes. She was the flower of the little flock,
for Mary was a mere large, white baby, very inanimate,
nor anyway engaging to any one but my mother, who
always made the youngest her favourite.

In winter we returned to Lincoln's Inn Fields, and
then began our sorrows. Two short walks in the
Square every day, sauntering behind a new nurse, Mrs

32 RETURN TO LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS [1803

Millar, who had come to wean the baby ; an illness of
my mother's, whose room being just beneath our nursery,
prevented all the noisy plays we loved ; and next, a
governess, a young timid girl, a Miss Gardiner, quite
new to her business, who was always in a fright lest
neither we nor herself were doing right, and whom we
soon tyrannised over properly; for my father and
mother and my aunts went to Bath to meet Mr and
Mrs Leitch, and we were left with this poor Miss
Gardiner, who from the beginning had always lived up
in the schoolroom with us, and never entered the
drawing-room unless invited. How well I remember
the morning after her arrival. She had charge of
William, Jane, and me. We were all brought in by
Mrs Millar and seated together upon a low sofa with-
out a back which had been made for us. Our school-
room was the large front nursery, curtained anew and
carpeted. There were besides the sofa, four chairs, two
tables, one in the middle of the room, one against the
wall ; a high fender, of course, two hanging bookcases,
six framed maps, one on Mercator's projection, which
we never could understand ; a crib in which William
slept — I slept in my mother's dressing-room, Jane in
the nursery — and between the two windows a large
office desk, opening on each side, with two high stools
belonging to it. To increase the enjoyment of this
prospect, into my hands was put the large edition of
Lindley Murray's grammar, William was presented
with " Geography by a Lady for the use of her own
Children," not one word of which he was capable of
reading, and Jane — who had fine easy times of it in our
eyes, though I question whether at three years of age
she thought so — had a spelling-book given to her.
Such was the commencement to us of the year 1804.
We were soon as thoroughly miserable as from this
method of instruction our anxious parents could expect.
The lessons were hard enough and numerous enough,
considering the mere infants who had to learn them,
but for my part, though I would rather not have had
them, they were very little in my way, although the

1804] EDUCATION IN LINCOLN'S INN 33

notes of the whole music gamut were included, with the
names of all the keys and the various times, etc., all at
a blow, as it were. It was never any trouble to me to
have to get whole pages off by rote ; I was not asked to
take the further trouble of thinking about them. No
explanations were either asked or given, so that the
brain was by no means over-excited, and the writing
and cyphering and pianoforte lesson which followed
the drier studies of the morning pleased me exceedingly.
Hook's easy lessons were soon heard in great style,
played by ear after the first painful reading, without
any one but the performer being the wiser. But what
we wanted was our fun, flying from crib to crib on
awakening in the morning, dancing in our night-clothes,
all about the room, making horses of the overturned
chairs, and acting plays dressed up in old trumpery.
We had only sedate amusements now. How delighted
I was to escape sometimes to my aunts, from one of
whom, aunt Mary, I heard stories, now real, now
fabulous, always containing some moral, however, which
I had wit enough to apply silently, as occasion offered.
By my aunt Lissy I was diverted and instructed
through the contents of the big box full of every sort of
object likely to interest a child.

Poor Miss Gardiner ! She was neither reasoning nor
reasonable, too young for her situation, without
sufficient mind, or heart, or experience for it, a mere
school-girl, which at that time meant a zero ; her system
of restraint became intolerable, when from the absence
of the heads of the family we had no relief from it.
Still a certain awe of a person placed in authority over
us had prevented our annoying her otherwise than by
our petulance, till one day that she desired us to remain
very quiet while she wrote a letter, rather a serious
business with her; it was to my mother to give an
account of our health and behaviour. She took a small
packet of very small pens from a box near her, and a
sheet of very shiny paper, and after some moments of
reflection she began. I observed her accurately.
"What do you call those pretty little pens?" said I.

C

34 MISS GARDINER [1804

" Crow quills, my dear," said she, for she was very kind
in her manner to us. " William," said I in a low aside,
" I don't think we need mind her any more, nor learn
any more lessons, for she can't really teach us. She is a
fool, / shan't mind her any more." " Very well," said
William, "nor I, nor I shan't learn my lessons." He
never yet had learned one, for a more thorough dunce
in his childish days than this very clever brother of
mine never performed the part of booby in a village
school, but it was very disagreeable to him to have to try
to sit quiet behind a book for half an hour two or three
times a day, poor child ! He was but five years old,
and he was of course satisfied with any suggestion that
would release him.

Some weeks before, my mother had received a note
in my father's absence, which appeared greatly to
irritate her. The contents I did not know, but on my
father's return she imparted them to him with some
lively comments to the disparagement of the writer.
" I always knew she was a fool," cried she, for she spoke
strongly when excited ; " but I did not expect such an
extreme proof of her folly." " My dear," said my
father, in his quietest and calmest manner, " what did
you expect from a woman who writes on satin paper
with a crow quill 1 " In my corner with my doll and
pictures I saw and heard a great deal that passed.
Miss Gardiner fell her proud height on the day she
wrote her letter, and she never regained a shadow of
authority over us, for I led all, even good little Jane.
Like Sir Robert Peel, Louis XIV., and other dictators,/*
fus Fttat moit and respect for our poor governess had
vanished. The next time the crow quills and satin
paper occupied her, William and I, provided with the
necessary strings got ready beforehand, tied her by her
dress and her feet to the legs of the chair and table, so
that as she rose from her engrossing composition the
crash that ensued was astounding, the fright and even
pain not small. She was extremely agitated, almost
angry, but so gentle in her expostulations that, like
Irish servants, we were encouraged to continue a system

1804] UNCLE EDWARD IRONSIDE 35

of annoyance that must have made her very uncom-
fortable. We behaved very ill, there is no doubt of it, and
she had not any way of putting a stop to our impertin-
ence. When Mrs Millar found out these proceedings
and remonstrated, I told her it was of little consequence
how we acted, as I knew my papa would send her away
when he came home ; which he did. She was not
supposed to be equal to the situation, and her father
came to take her home. The state of anarchy the
schoolroom exhibited was perhaps as much against her
as the finely penned account of it, but I have since
thought that her beauty and my uncle Edward's
undisguised admiration of it had as much to do with
her departure as the crow quills. We heard a few years
afterwards that she had married happily, and had a fine
set of children of her own who would be all the better
managed for the apprenticeship she had served with us.
Uncle Edward was now studying at Woolwich,
expecting to proceed to India as a cadet. Fortunately
old Charles Grant was able to change his appointment
and give him a writership, so he came to us to prepare
his equipment. Being quite a boy, full of spirits and
not the least studious, he romped with his little nephew
and nieces to our hearts' content, particularly after the
departure of the governess, when William and I resumed
our spellings with my mother, and Jane roamed " fancy
free." Lindley Murray and Geography by a Lady
retired from our world, but a Mr Thompson who was
teaching uncle Edward mathematics was engaged to
continue our lessons in writing and cyphering. I had a
turn for drawing, too, as was found by the alterations I
made one rainy day in my young uncle's designs. He
had been studying fortifications ; his plans were said to
be very neatly executed, but they were not finished to
please me. I therefore extended the patches of colour
laid on here and there, round the whole works, filled up
vacant spaces, etc., and I wonder now when I know all
the mischief I did how my good-natured uncle could
ever have forgiven me, for he had been much flattered
on his skill as a draughtsman. He blamed himself for

36 JANE'S SHOWER BATH [1804

having left his plans within my reach, and for having
given me leave to amuse myself with his paint-box.
He got into a great scrape himself this spring. He
slept in my mother's dressing-room, I being removed to
Miss Gardiner's room. The shower-bath stood there,
although my mother had given up the use of it, and it
was supposed to be empty. We were all in this room
at play with our uncle, and I suppose teasing him, for
he suddenly caught up Jane, the most riotous of the set,
and popped her into the shower-bath, threatening a
ducking, and touching, to prove his sincerity, the string ;
down came the whole bucketful of water on the poor
child's head! Both the man and the baby were
frightened near to death. He actually waited till the
deluge was over before his presence of mind returned,
and then the piteous object he rescued, stunned almost
and dripping ! At last she spoke. " Oh my soos, my
red soos ! " it was a new pair put on that morning. I
suppose no words ever gave more relief to an anxious
listener. The hubbub brought my mother, who, in the
impartial manner customary in nursery dealings at that
time, scolded us all heartily. We three departed in
tears to have "that naughty little girl" dried, leaving
uncle Edward looking very sheepish.

My three maiden aunts were with us at this time,
and uncle Ralph came for a short visit, then Mr and
Mrs Leitch, all to take leave of poor uncle Edward,
whom we observed begin to look very grave. He went
often out in the carriage with my father, sometimes they
remained away a long time, once, all day ; and trunks
came, and parcels to fill them, and Mr? Lynch was
marking stockings, changing buttons, and sewing on
strings for ever. She made also a long, large chintz
housewife full of pockets, with a thread-case, and a
curiously nicked leaf of scarlet flannel filled with needles ;
it was her modest offering to Mr Edward, who truly
promised to keep it for her sake, for he showed it to me
more than twenty years afterwards at his house at
Camballa in Bombay.

At length came a sad day ; all the eyes in the house

1804] UNCLE EDWARD'S DEPARTURE 37

were red ; on meeting, every one talked with assumed
cheerfulness on indifferent subjects, to which no one
seemed really to attend. A sort of nervousness spread
from old to young ; we children felt afraid of what was
coming, and as the hours wore away the gloom spread.
We were all in the dining-room when Mackenzie opened
the door ; uncle Edward rose and kissed each child ;
Mary was his darling, he doted on her with a love that
never left him. " When shall I see you again, little
woman ? " said he as he sat her down out of his arms ; —
little any one there thought then where the next
meeting would be, and when — his heart was too full for
another word ; he folded my mother silently to his
breast and followed my father out, while she fell back in
a passicn of tears very rare in a woman of her calm,
reserved nature. I watched through the blind and saw
them turn the corner of Sir Griffin Wilson's garden wall
next door to us, my father leaning on my uncle's arm,
and my uncle with his hat slouched over his brows and
his head held down. It was my first idea of grief; I
had never lost anybody I had loved, and it was long ere
even my gay spirits recovered from the first scene of
distress I had noticed.

One of my employments at this time was to hold the
skeins of cotton thread which my mother wound off
neatly on two square pieces of card placed one over the
other, so as to form eight corners between which the
thread was secured. This cotton thread was a great
invention, a wonderful improvement on the flax thread
in previous use, which it was difficult to get of sufficient
fineness for some works, and hardly possible to find
evenly spun. When one thinks of the machine-spinning
of these days, the cotton and flax threads like the fibres
of spider's webs which we produce in tons weight now,
we may indeed wonder at the difficulties in needlework
overcome by our mothers.

Evenings at Home, Sandford and Merton, and a
short Roman history in which very little mention was
made of Tullia, were added to our library. In imitation
of aunt Mary I began to take upon myself to tell fairy

38 VISIT TO RICHMOND [1804

tales to " the little ones," sometimes relating, sometimes
embellishing, sometimes inventing, choosing historical
heroes to place in situations of my own imagining,
turning all occurrences into romance. We acted too
occasionally, or played at ladies and gentlemen,
copying the style of my mother's various visitors,
supporting these characters for days together at our
play-hours. We began to feel great interest in
Shakespeare's plays, several of which we were taken to
see, my father talking them over with us afterwards. I
remember thinking they were all extemporised by the
players as they proceeded in their parts, as we did our-
selves in our own dramas, and wondering whether we
should ever, any of us, attain to the dignified declama-
tion of John Kemble.

This spring of 1804 aunt Mary had a long, serious
illness ; she was so weakened by it that country air
was recommended, so she and aunt Fanny took lodgings
at Richmond, and I was sent with them. We lived in
the house of a widow who had a parrot which talked to
me just as much as I wished, and a maid who was
pleased to have my company on all her errands. I re-
collect perfectly, delighting in the view of the river with
so many pretty boats on it and gardens down to its
edge.

Mrs Bonner, our landlady, allowed me also to
help her to make my aunts' puddings, the family
preserves, pickles, etc., an honour I was extremely proud
of. She lent me an old tea-caddy to put my work in ;
the sugar-bowl and canister had been broken, so the
empty compartments exactly suited the patches I was
engaged on, and made me as perfectly happy as if it had
been the handsomest in the land. I was so improved
by this visit to Richmond, that as my aunts determined
on remaining there during the summer, my father
resolved to leave his two youngest children near them
under the care of Nurse Millar, in whom they had full
confidence. Lodgings were taken for them not far from
Mrs Bonner, where they were to sleep and be sent
whenever my aunts were tired of them in the day.

1804] AUNT LISSY GRANT 39

William and I were to accompany our parents to the
Doune.

I can't remember where aunt Lissy was all this time.
I often recollect her with us, and then I miss her for
long whiles. Though my father's house was nominally her
home she was perfectly independent, being now of age,
and inheriting all that would have been her mother's
property by the will of her grandfather Raper. She
had Twyford House, near Thorley Hall, in Hertfordshire,
and a considerable sum of money from the savings
during her minority. I have always heard her income
called about £800 a year. She was not pretty, short,
thick-set, plain features, with an agreeable expression
and clear skin, and quiet manners. She was possessed
of a good understanding, her temper was charming, yet
she and my mother never got on well together. She
had odd, quaint old-maidish ways adopted from old
Raper relations, with whom she lived very much. She
had also continued an acquaintance with school friends,
the results of which appeared again. She certainly did
not go with us this year to the Highlands.

We set off some time in July, my father and mother,
William and I, Mrs Lynch and Mackenzie, in a new
carriage — a sociable — with a cane body, a roof on four
supports hung round with leather curtains, which we were
continually letting down or tying up according to the
weather, which we never managed to arrange in time
for either wet or dry, and which, in spite of hooks
and buttons let in the rain when the showers were
heavy. A superior description of horses replaced the
Smiler and Blackbird of former years, and the four
bloods which formed the present team — two bays and
two greys, cross-cornered — were driven by the smart
coachman, William Millar, from the box. These horses
for beauty were each a picture ; they had cost pro-
portionate sums, and they did their work, as the coach-
man said, "like jewels," never giving in nor shirking
when once started — but to make the start was the
difficulty. Mr Coxe, named after his last master, and
the most sedate of the set, merely indulged in a few

40 SCENES ON THE NORTHERN ROAD [1804

plunges ; but Highflier, the other bay, regularly lay down,
and it took all the hostlers and half the post-boys at
every inn, with plentiful applications of William Millar's
long whip, to bring him to his feet again. He was
cured of this trick afterwards by having lighted straw
put under him. The two greys were merely awkward.
Such a crowd as used to gather round us ! To add to
the tumult, my mother, the most nervous woman in the
world, kept screaming at the top of her voice all the
time, standing up in the carriage and entreating all the
collected mob to have pity on her and open the door.
This scene continued during the journey, till we got quite
accustomed to what had at first frightened William and
me. We were pleased with the queer new carriage,
glad to see our landlady acquaintance, the boats at
Boroughbridge, and other recollected objects; but we
were not happy. We missed our little sisters, we
talked over and over again when we were put to bed at
night of all the tears shed on both sides at parting,
particularly by poor Jane, who was a most affectionate
little creature. William was long before he became
reconciled to the want of his favourite companion, and
I regretted equally dear Mary, my live doll. It was
not till we reached the Doune that we at all got over
this painful separation. We were a less time than
usual upon the road, as we did not go to Houghton, and
were but a short time in Edinburgh.

On this journey I first remember old Neil Gow
being sent for to play to us at the inn at Inver — not
Dunkeld — that little village we passed through, and
went on to the ferry at Inver, which we crossed the
following morning in a large boat. It was a beautiful
ferry, the stream full and deep and dark, the banks
overhung by fine timber trees, a glimpse of a newly-
planted conical hill up the stream, only thick wooding
the other way. I don't know whether this did not
make more impression upon me than Neil Gow's
delightful violin, though it had so over-excited me
the night before that my father had had to take me a
little walk by the river-side in the moonlight before I

1804] THE DUCHESS OF GORDON 41

was rational enough to be left to sleep. We were odd
children, " full of nonsense," my mother said. Left to
her, a good scold and a slap would have apparently
quieted her little daughter, though a sleepless night
would have left her but a poor object for the morrow.
My father understood my temperament better. As for
William, he took all in an easy Ironside way, remarking
nothing but the peat reek, which neither he nor I had
noticed before.

We passed a very happy season at the Doune. We
did no lessons ; we had a Jock Mackenzie to play with
us in the stead of George Ross, who had been made a
groom of. We rode on the old grey pony ; we paid
quantities of visits to our friends all through Rothie-
murchus, and we often had a brace of muir-fowl for our
dinner, each carving our bird. A dancing-master
taught us every variety of wonderful Highland step —
that is, he taught me, for William never could learn
anything, though he liked hopping about to the fiddle —
and we did " Merrily dance the quaker's wife " together,
quite to the satisfaction of the servants who all took
lessons too, in common with the rest of the population,
the Highlanders considering this art an essential in the
education of all classes, and never losing an opportunity
of acquiring a few more flings and shuffles. The
dancing-master had, however, other most distinguished
pupils, the present Duke of Manchester and his elder
sister, Lady Jane Montague, who were then living in
our close neighbourhood with their grandmother, the
Duchess of Gordon.

This beautiful and very cultivated woman had
never, I fancy, lived happily with her duke. His
habits and her temper not suiting, they had found
it a wise plan to separate, and she had for the last few
years spent her summers at a little farm on the
Badenoch property, a couple of miles higher up the
Spey than our Doune, and on the opposite side of the
water. She inhabited the real old farmhouse of
Kinrara, the same our good cousin Cameron had lived
in, and where I have heard my mother say that the

42 HER LIFE AT KINRARA [1804

Duchess was happier and more agreeable, and the
society she gathered round her far pleasanter, than it
ever was afterwards in the new cottage villa she built
about a mile nearer to us. It was a sort of backwoods
life, charming to young people amid such scenery, a
dramatic emancipation from the forms of society that
for a little while every season was delightful, particularly
as there was no real roughing in it. In the " but " and
the " ben," constituting the small farm cabin it was, she
and her daughter Lady Georgina dwelt. By the help
of white calico, a little whitewash, a little paint, and
plenty of flowers they made their apartment quite pretty.
What had been kitchen at one end of the house was
elevated by various contrivances into a sitting-room ; a
barn was fitted up into a barrack for ladies, a stable ior
gentlemen ; a kitchen was easily formed out of some of
the out-offices, and in it, without his battery, without
his stove, without his thousand-and-one assistants, and
resources, her French cook sent up dinners still talked
of by the few remaining partakers. The entries were all
prepared in one black pot — a large potato chaudron,
which he had ingeniously divided within into four
compartments by means of two pieces of tin-sheet
crossed, the only inconvenience of this clever plan
being that the company had to put up with all white
sauces one day and all brown the next. Her favourite
footman, Long James, a very handsome, impudent
person, but an excellent servant for that sort of wild life,
able to put his hand to any work, played the violin
remarkably well, and as every tenth Highlander at least
plays on the same instrument tolerably, there was no
difficulty in getting up a highly satisfactory band on
any evening that the guests were disposed for dancing.
Half the London world of fashion, all the clever people
that could be hunted out from all parts, all the north
country, all the neighbourhood from far and near
without regard to wealth or station, and all the kith
and kin of both Gordons and Maxwells, flocked to
this encampment in the wilderness during the fine
autumns to enjoy the free life, the pure air, and the

1804] KINRARA AND THE DOUNE 43

wit and fun the Duchess brought with her to the
mountains.

Lady Georgina Gordon, the youngest of the fair
sisters of that, the last generation of the noble name,
and the only one then unmarried, was much liked ; kind-
hearted she has all through her life shown herself to be ;
then, in her early youth, she was quiet and pleasing as
well as lively. Unchangeable in amiability of manner,
she was variable in her looks ; one day almost beautiful,
the next, almost plain ; so my mother described her
when she spoke of those merry doings in the old
cottage at Kinrara in days quite beyond my memory.
Lady Georgina had been some years married to the
Duke of Bedford, and the Duchess of Gordon was
living in her new house in this summer of 1804 when I
first recollect them as neighbours. Our two dwellings
were little more than a mile apart, but as I have said,
the river was between us, a river not always in the
mood for assisting intercourse. There were fords
which allowed of carriage and pony communication at
several points, but only when the water was low. At
flood times passengers had to go down the stream to
Inverdruie, or up the stream to near Loch Inch to the
big boats, when they carried their vehicles with them ;
those who walked could always find a little boat near
every residence, and our ferries were in constant
requisition, for no day passed without a meeting
between the Doune and Kinrara. When the Duchess
had miscalculated her supplies, or more guests arrived
than she could possibly accommodate, the overplus as
matter of course came over to us. Morning, noon, and
night there was a coming and going. All our spare
rooms were often filled even to the many beds in the
barrack, and at Kinrara shakes-down in the dining-room
and the sofas in the drawing-room were constantly
resorted to for gentlemen who were too late for a
corner in the " wooden room," a building erected a short
way from the house in the midst of the birch thicket
upon the banks.

Many changes had happened in our house since my

44 SUMMER GAIETIES [1804

baby recollections. Old Donald was dead, old Christy
was pensioned and settled with some relations in
Duthil ; Miss Jenny was married, my uncle Sandy's
five sons were all sent about the world, and my father's
first cousins, Logie and Glenmoriston, who used to be a
good deal with us as bachelors, were both married and
fixed in their beautiful homes. There were still the
Captain and Mrs Grant at Inverdruie, and the Colonel
at the Croft, and Mr Cameron at Kinapol, and there
were at a little distance, up in Badenoch, old Invereshie
and his wife, and young Belleville and his bride. Cluny
beyond in Laggan ; down the Spey, Castle Grant,
Ballindalloch, Arndilly and Altyre; Moy, Burgie,
etc., in Morayshire ; parties from which houses were
frequently with us — all except our Chief. I do not
remember my father and mother going much from home
this season, or indeed at all, except to Kinrara ; they
had not time, for so many English travellers were in
the habit of making hotels of the houses of the Highland
proprietors, there was a sort of running stream of
them during the latter part of summer. Mrs Thrale
and her daughters, and Mr and Mrs Murray Aust, my
mother afterwards continued an acquaintance with. In
general, these chance guests were hardly agreeable
enough to be remembered.

William and I joined in all the fun of this gay
summer. We were often over at Kinrara, the Duchess
having perpetual dances, either in the drawing-room or
the servants' hall, and my father returning these
entertainments in the same style. A few candles
lighted up bare walls at short warning, fiddles and
whisky punch were always at hand, and the gentles and
simples reeled away in company until the ladies thought
the scene becoming more boisterous than they liked
remaining in — nothing more, however — a Highlander
never forgets his place, never loses his native inborn
politeness, never presumes upon favour. We children
sometimes displayed our accomplishments on these
occasions in a prominent manner, to the delight, at any
rate of our dancing-master. Lady Jane was really

1804] A DIFFERENCE WITH THE CHIEF 45

clever in the Gillie Callum and the Shean Trews, I
little behind her in the single and double fling, the
shuffle and heel-and-toe step. The boys were more
blundering, and had to bear the good-natured laugh of
many a hard-working lass and lad who, after the toil of
the day, footed it neatly and lightly in the ball-room
till near midnight. Lord Huntly was the life of all
these meetings ; he was young, gay, handsome, fond of
his mother, and often with her, and so general a
favourite, that all the people seemed to wake up when
he came amongst them.

There had been some coolness between my father
and Castle Grant about election matters ; the Chief and
Chieftain differed in politics, and had in some way been
opposed to each other, a difference that very foolishly
had been allowed to influence their social relations.
Many and many a family jar was caused in those times
by the absurd violence of party feeling.

CHAPTER III
1805-1807

WE were now to travel back to London in the sociable,
rather cold work in cold autumn weather. We had to
drive unicorn, for one of the grey horses was gone ; the
other therefore had the honour of leading, a triangular
style not then common, which ensured us an abundant
amount of staring during our journey, a long one, for
we made a round by the west country in order to pay
two visits. My uncle Leitch had bought a pretty place
near Glasgow, and made a handsome house out of the
shabby one he found there by adding to the front a
great building in very good taste. We two were quite
astonished at the first aspect of Kilmerdinny. Large,
wide steps led to a portico, a good hall, and then a
circular saloon the height of the house, out of which all
the rooms opened, those on the upper floor being
reached by a gallery which ran round the saloon.
Fine gardens, greenhouse, hothouses, hot walls, plenty
of fruit, a lake with two swans on it — and butter at our
breakfast — made us believe ourselves in Paradise!
There was a beautiful drawing-room and a sunny little
parlour, and a window somewhere above at which our
handsome aunt appeared and threw out pears to us.
We were sorry to go away, although there were no
children to play with. The house was full of company,
but they did not interfere with us, and when we did see
any of these strangers they were very kind to us. But
the day of departure came, the sociable was packed,
and we set off for Tennochside in Lanarkshire, near

46

1805-6] TENNOCHSIDE 47

the Clyde, near Hamilton, and about eight miles from
Glasgow.

Uncle Ralph, my mother's second brother, had been
bred to the law ; he had entered the office of a friend,
Mr Kinderley, an attorney of repute in London, but he
never liked the business, and on one of his visits to
aunt Leitch, an acquaintance of old standing with the
heiress of Tennochside suddenly blazed up into a love-
fit on her side, which he, vain and idle, could not resist,
and they were married. My poor aunt Judy, a good
excellent woman, not the very least suited to him, plain
in person, poor in intellect, without imagination or
accomplishment, had not money enough to make up
for the life of privation such a man had to lead with
her. He was certainly punished for his mercenary
marriage. Still, in an odd way of their own they got
on, each valuing the other, though not exactly agreeing,
save in two essential points — love for Tennochside and
for their two children. Eliza, the elder, was at this
time exactly five years old, Edmund, still in arms, a
mere baby. Here we had no fine house, but a very
comfortable one, no finery, but every luxury, and the
run through the woods or by the river-side was some-
thing like our own home to us. We did not like our
cousin Eliza, though she was a pretty child, and seem-
ingly fond of us ; she was so petted, and spoiled and
fretful, that she teased us. The night that I danced
my Shean Trews — in a new pair of yellow (!) slippers
bought at Perth on our way — she cried so much
because she could not do the same, that she had to be
sent to bed. Next day therefore I was sent for to help
my aunt Judy in the storeroom, where she made the
sweet things for the second course at dinner, and she
had a great cry again ; a lesson that did neither of us
any good, for I was conceited enough without any
additional flatteries, and she only ran away to the old
parlour where her great-aunt old Miss Jopplin always
sat, who petted her up into a sort of sulky good humour
again. We did not leave Tennochside with as much
regret as we had quitted Kilmerdinny.

48 RETURN TO LONDON [1805-6

Aunt Mary and our two little sisters were in
Lincoln's Inn Fields to receive us; how we flew to
them ! Jane and William were in ecstasies ; they had
always been inseparable play-fellows, and were over-
joyed to be together again. Mary did not know us, at
which I cried. She was amazingly grown, quite a large
child, almost as tall as Jane and stouter, quiet, silent,
and yet loved by all of us. Jane and William had a
deal to say ; she really was a boy in all her tastes ; she
played top, bat, leap-frog, fought, climbed trees, rode
astride on the rocking-horse, and always put on her
spencers and pinafores the wrong way to make believe
they were jackets. I was forced to turn to Mary, who
understood my quiet plays with my doll, her dress, and
meals, and visitors. I daresay we were as happy as
were our more boisterous companions, who, indeed,
sometimes tamed down to associate with us. We were
loving and happy children.

For the next three years we lived entirely in
England ; my father went north during this time once,
if not twice, to look after various matters ; none of us
went with him. Our winters were passed in Lincoln's
Inn Fields, our summers at Twyford, which place my
father rented of my aunt Lissy, having let his own,
Thorley. We were also one spring at Tunbridge
Wells for my mother, whom I never remember well for
long together. It must have been often dull for her.
When she was well enough she diversified her sober
life by taking us to the play, and me to the Hanover
Square and other concerts. She very rarely went out
to private parties. Once I remember sitting up to help
her toilette on a grand occasion — a rout at the Duchess
of Gordon's ; the hours were then more rational than
they are now, she was dressed and off by nine o'clock,
very little later than my bedtime. Her appearance has
often recurred to me, for she was very lovely; her
gown was white satin trimmed with white velvet, cut in
a formal pattern, then quite the rage, a copy from some
of the Grecian borders in Mr Hope's book; she had
feathers in her hair and a row of pearls round her neck,

JANE IRONSIDE (LADY GRANT).

[To face page 48.

1805-6] AN ABSORBING BOOK 49

from which depended -a large diamond locket; the
gown was short-waisted and narrow-skirted, but we
thought it beautiful ; a touch of rouge finished matters ;
and then Mrs Lynch, taking a candle, preceded her
lady downstairs. My mother stooped to kiss me as
she passed, and to thank me for holding the pins so
nicely. The candle carried away, there remained
another lit, which had been moved to a small table
close to the wardrobe where Mrs Lynch had been
searching for something wanted ; a book lay near it, I
took it up. It was the first volume of the Letters of
Lady Hertford and Lady Pomfret, the old edition,
good-sized print and not over many lines on the
octavo page. I read a line, some more lines, went on,
sat down ; and there, Heaven knows how long after-
wards, I was found tucked up in the arm-chair absorbed
in my occupation, well scolded of course — that followed
as a matter of necessity for wasting the candle when
every one supposed me to be in bed; why my nurse
did not see that I was safe there she did not explain.
I was half afraid to allude to my book in the morning,
but finding no complaints had been made, took
courage and asked permission to read it, which being
readily granted, many a happy hour was spent over
those delightful volumes. They were read and read
again, and my father, finding I understood them, and
could give a good reason for preferring Lady Hertford's
charming way of telling her home news to the more
exciting letters of her travelling correspondent, gave
me Lady Mary Wortley Montague. We were also
introduced this spring of 1805 or 6, I am not sure
which, to Miss Edgeworth's Parent's Assistant, and
the Arabian Tales. I somehow mix up the transactions
of these three years, recollecting only the general
progress we made and confusing the details ; the three
winters in London are all jumbled up together, the
summers stand out more prominently.

Our principal London pleasure was the play, to
which we went frequently, generally to Covent Garden,
which we soon learned to consider as more decidedly

D

50 TUNBRIDGE WELLS [1805-6

our house. We had the Duke of Bedford's private
box, sometimes meeting the Duchess of Gordon there,
which we liked above all things, for then we had ices,
fruits, and cakes in the little ante-room adjoining. In
spite of all these amusements, the first note of prepara-
tion for the country caused a sort of delirium in our
nursery ; it was as if we had been prisoners expect-
ing freedom, so much more natural to the young are
green fields and shady lanes than the confinement of
a city.

In the spring of 1805 we went for a few weeks to
Tunbridge Wells, while some of the servants were
getting Twyford ready. We lodged in a gloomy
house near the Pantiles, with no garden, only a court-
yard before it, which got very slippery in showery
weather ; but M. Beckvelt, our good old French master,
was with us, and took us long wandering walks over
the heath, and to the rocks, and up to Sion Hill, as
happy as we were ourselves, as much a child too. He
laughed and chattered French, and ran and climbed
and gathered flowers as we did, always in the tight
nankins, with the snuff-box and the powdered hair.
I know not what he had been before the Revolution in
his own country — only a bourgeois he told us — but he
was a dear, kind old man, like the good fathers or
tutors we read about in LArni des Enfants. He
brought some Contes de FJes down with him to Tun-
bridge, with which we got on very quickly ; we made,
however, greater progress in Le Boulanger, which we
danced on the heath like witches, screaming out the
chorus like possessed things ; the people must have
thought us crazy when any passed our magic circle.

The remainder of this summer, and the two
summers following, 1806 and 1807, we spent entirely
at Twyford, the winters in London, as I said before,
never all this time going near the Highlands. My
father took a run to the north when he thought it
necessary, but my mother was glad to remain quiet
with her children in the south, which part of the world,
I think, she had begun to prefer to her more romantic

1806] TWYFORD 51

home, now that the novelty of her Highland life had
worn off a little.

Twyford was one of the most comfortable, modern-
ised old residences that any one need wish to live in.
It was ugly enough on the outside, a heavy, square, red
brick building with little windows and dumpy
chimneys; a small, squat dome upon the top, within
which was a great church clock, and an observatory
stuck up at one end like an ear, or a tall factory
chimney, ending in a glass lantern. In front was a
small bit of shrubbery hardly hiding the road, and
beyond a short double avenue of lime trees stretching
across a green field ; behind was a more extensive
shrubbery and flower-garden, divided by a light railing
from pretty meadows dotted over with fruit trees. On
one side was a walled garden and the farm offices, on
the other the kitchen court, stables and stable-yard, and
an Immense flour mill, all upon the river Stort, a
sluggish stream moving along, canal fashion, close to
the premises. Barges heavily laden plied all day long
backwards and forwards on this dingy water, and as
there was a lock just underneath the laundry windows,
scenes as merry as those in the broom island took place
on the flat banks of the lazy Stort among the barge-,
men, the dusty millers, and the men and maids of the
kitchen court. To the elder part of the family all this
commotion must have been a nuisance, to us children
such noisy doings were a delight. We had a post of
observation contrived by ourselves in the middle of the
wide yew hedge which bounded the back shrubbery on
the river-side, and there, from what we called our
summer parlour, we made many more observations
than were always agreeable to the observed. There
was a large establishment of servants, and no very
steady head over them, for Lynch had married
Mackenzie, and they had gone to keep the inn at
Aviemore, a melancholy change for us little people ;
but we had to bear a worse.

In the summer of 1806 aunt Lissy married. Her
particular friend was a Miss Susan Frere, who had

52 AUNT LISSY'S COURTSHIP [1806

been her favourite companion at the school in Queen's
Square where she had been educated. Miss Frere's
father, a gentleman of consideration in the county of
Norfolk, had seven sons, and it was his fourth son,
George, who was lucky enough to gain the heart of one
of the best of women. The courtship had begun by
means of letters through the sister ; it had been carried
on at the Hanover Square concert rooms at rare
intervals, for no one was aware of the progress of this
seldom-noticed lover till the engagement was
announced. My mother thought the pair had met in
Wimpole Street, and Mrs Raper was sure he visited at
Lincoln's Inn Fields, and both houses felt amazed at
such an affair having been managed unknown to either.
The first time that I became aware of what was going
on was one day in the spring before our removal to
Twyford in 1806. I was sitting near an open window
in the front drawing-room beside my aunt Lissy, who
had been ill, and was only sufficiently recovered to be
nursed up carefully. Some humble friend had called to
see her, and while they were conversing on their charity
affairs, I was amusing myself watching the progress
along the dead wall which supported the terrace walk
of the Lincoln's Inn gardens, of the tall Mr Frere who
had lately begun to come among us, and whose nankins
always attracted me. As I expected, he was lost to
sight for a moment only to emerge the brighter, for he
soon appeared round the corner of the Griffin Wilsons'
garden, and across our courtyard up to the door. His
knock brought the colour into my aunt's pale face ; she
also dismissed the humble friend, and then, forgetting
me, she rose briskly to receive Mr Frere, and told
him laughing how she had sent away an inconvenient
third. Of course my turn soon came, but I was so
busy arranging all my conjectures that they had to tell
me twice to run away and play before I recollected to
obey. When I reached the nursery I announced
without more ado the impending marriage, which soon
after was officially proclaimed. Both bride and bride-
groom set about the preparations for their change of

1806] HER HOUSE-FURNISHING 53

condition in a quiet, straightforward, business-like
manner that much amused my mother and my aunt
Mary. Mr Frere took a house in Brunswick Square,
which aunt Lissy went with him to see. After due
consideration they decided on buying all the furniture
left in it by the late proprietor, to which my aunt added
a great deal belonging to her from the stores at
Twyford of beautiful Indian wares, and all that she had
gathered together for her own comfort while her home
was with us. Her bedroom looked very bare when all
in it belonging to her had left it ; and the back drawing-
room we always lived in, deprived of pictures, flower-
stands, bookcases, china and other pretty things, with
a really nice collection of books, was nearly empty, and
it never quite recovered the loss, for my mother had no
turn for adornments ; she kept a clean house, a good
table, a tidy room, always putting in the stitch in time,
but she did not care for knick-knacks, at least she did
not care to buy them ; parting with them was a
different affair ; she was angry at the loss of what she
had been used to see around her, and while my
imperturbable aunt Lissy day by day continued her
dismantlings and her careful packings, my mother's
surprise grew to indignation, as Jane and I were quick
enough to find out by means of certain mysterious
conversations between her and aunt Mary. They
fancied that the low tone in which they spoke and the
curious language they employed effectually veiled the
meaning of their gossip ; instead, therefore, of sending
us away when they had private communications to
make, they merely bid us go to some other part of the
room, while they tried to conceal the subject of their
whisperings by the ingenious addition of " vus " to
every word they spoke, as " Didvus youvus evervus
hearvus ofous" etc. At first we supposed this was
another continental language different from French,
which we were ourselves learning, but the proper names
sometimes used instead of hez^.y shevus gave us a clue
to the cypher, which soon enabled us to translate it.
Our first summer at Twyford had been very happy,

54 LIFE AT TWYFORD [1806

both our aunts, Mary and Lissy, were with us, and
cousin James Griffith, who was a great favourite. The
queer old house particularly pleased us ; there was the
long garret under the roof, a capital place for romping,
and such hiding-places 1 — the great clock chamber,
turrets and turret stairs, observatory and crooked
corners, and odd closets, all charming ! then such a yew
hedge! a famous gravel-walk beside it, a garden so
well stocked, such an orchard, fruits hardly known by
more than sight showering down their treasures when
we shook the trees. Another amusement of that first
year was bat-hunting ; the house had been so long shut
up, so little looked after, that the cellars and even the
kitchen offices were actually swarming with bats ; they
hung down from the rafters in hundreds, and were
infinitely more hard to dislodge than the mice in the
Highlands. We were so used to them flapping about
our ears within and* without after dark, that even the
servants gave up complaining of them, and only that
they were unpleasant to the sense of smell, vigorous
war would hardly have been waged against them. We
had merry walks, too, through the fields, a firm path-
way, and stile after stile all the way to Bishop's Stort-
ford ; and in the autumn such nutting parties, the
hedges full of blackberries, sloes, nuts, and bullaces;
and then the walnuts ! we were stained to the colour of
gipsies. The second summer was even happier, for
good M. Beckvelt came for a month or more. He took
us long walks all over the country, to Thorley Wood
and Thorleyhurst, and among the pretty shady lanes
abounding in every direction. We prefeired him to
the nursery-maids, for he really had no pleasure but ours.
The peasantry were uninteresting, so after a few
cottage visits we gave up any attempt at acquaintance
in that sphere, but the fields were charming. We went
to church at Thorley always, sitting in the old Raper
pew, and so pretty was that old church, so very pretty
the old Raper Hall in which my father's tenant Mr
Voules lived, that we used to wonder we did not live
there ourselves. Mr Frere came frequently to see us,

1806] HARDSHIPS 55

and sometimes a tall brother with him. These were
our gala days, for they played bat and ball, battledoor
and shuttlecock, cricket, hunt the slipper, puss in the
corner, and a hundred other games, which they had the
knack of making every one, young and old, join in out
on the lawn in the back shrubbery, under the shade of
a fine chestnut tree. They seldom came either without
a cargo of presents for the children ; the clan Frere
therefore was so much in favour that we hardly
regretted the parting from our kind aunt, little under-
standing then how much our childish happiness had
depended on the little quiet woman who seemed to be
of no account.

Our dear aunt Lissy had never interfered with the
baby, little Mary. She was now at three years of age
Mrs Millar's principal charge and my mother's pet.
We three elder ones had been her care, and how she
had managed us we only found out by comparing it
with the mismanagement that followed. Having few
lessons and no employment but such as we contrived
for ourselves, our play-hours were so many as to tire us,
our tempers suffered, and Mrs Millar, not possessing
the best herself, sadly annoyed ours. I was active, pert,
violent, Jane indolent and sulky, William impracticable,
never out of humour, but quietly and thoroughly self-
willed. One mode was applied to all ; perpetual fault-
finding, screams, tears, sobs, thumps, formed the staple
of the nursery history from this time forward. We
were as little upstairs as we could help, though we were
not always much better off below, for if my mother or
aunt Mary were not in the vein for hearing our lessons,
they had little patience with our mistakes or our
questions; my mother would box our ears with her
pretty white hand, and aunt Mary had a spiteful fillip
with the thimble-finger which gave a painful sting ;
bursts of crying, of course, followed, when the delin-
quents were despatched to dark closets, where they
were sometimes forgotten for hours. There was no
kind Mrs Lynch to watch us, steal to our prison door
and carry us off to her room to be employed and kept

56 SEVERITIES [1806

from mischief. She was as great a loss as aunt Lissy,
in one particular — a serious matter to me, my breakfast
— a greater. Our nursery breakfast was ordered,
without reference to any but Houghton customs, to be
dry bread and cold milk the year round, with the
exception of three winter months, when in honour of
our Scotch blood we were favoured with porridge ; the
meal came from Scotland with the kegs of butter and
barrels of eggs and bags of cheese, etc., but it was
boiled by the English maids in any but north country
fashion. Had we been strong children this style of
food might have suited us, many large healthy families
have thriven on the like ; but though seldom ailing, we
inherited from my father a delicacy of constitution
demanding great care during our infancy. In those
days it was the fashion to take none ; all children alike
were plunged into the coldest water, sent abroad in the
worst weather, fed on the same food, clothed in the
same light manner. From the wintry icy bath aunt
Lissy had saved us ; our good nurse Herbert first, and
then Mrs Lynch, had always made us independent of
the hated milk breakfast ; but when they were gone and
the conscientious Mrs Millar, my mother's "treasure,"
reigned alone, our life was one long misery, at least to
William and me who were not favourites. In town, a
large, long tub stood in the kitchen court, the ice on the
top of which had often to be broken before our horrid
plunge into it ; we were brought down from the very
top of the house, four pair of stairs, with only a cotton
cloak over our night-gowns, just to chill us completely
before the dreadful shock. How I screamed, begged,
prayed, entreated to be saved, half the tender-hearted
maids in tears beside me ; all no use, Millar had her
orders (so had our dear Betty, but did she always obey
them?). Nearly senseless I have been taken to the
housekeeper's room, which was always warm, to be
dried ; there we dressed, without any flannel, and in
cotton frocks with short sleeves and low necks. Revived
by the fire, we were enabled to endure the next bit of
martyrdom, an hour upon the low sofa, so many yards

1806] REBELLION CRUSHED 57

from the nursery hearth, our books in our hands, while
our cold breakfast was preparing. My stomach entirely
rejecting milk, bread and tears generally did for me, a
diet the consequences of which soon manifested them-
selves. From being a bright, merry, though slight,
child, I became thin, pale and peaky, and woefully
changed in disposition, slyness being added to my
natural violence, as I can recollect now with shame.
William told fibs by the dozen, because he used to be
asked whether he had done, or not done, so and so, and
did not dare answer truthfully on account of the severity
of the punishments to which he was subjected. We
began all our ill -behaviour soon after aunt Lissy's
marriage. On my father's return from his canvass in
Morayshire he received bad accounts of our misconduct.
The recapitulation of all our offences to my father drove
us to despair, for we loved him with an intensity of
affection that made his good opinion essential to our
happiness ; we also dreaded his sternness, all his
judgments being £ la Brutus, nor did he ever remit a
sentence once pronounced. The milk rebellion was
crushed immediately; in his dressing-gown, with his
whip in his hand, he attended our breakfast — the tub at
this season we liked, so he had no occasion to super-
intend the bathing — but that disgusting milk! He
began with me ; my beseeching look was answered by a
sharp cut, followed by as many more as were necessary
to empty the basin ; Jane obeyed at once, and William
after one good hint. They suffered less than I did ;
William cared less, he did not enjoy this breakfast, but
he could take it; Jane always got rid of it, she had
therefore only hunger to endure ; I, whose stomach was
either weaker or stronger, had to bear an aching head,
a heavy, sick painful feeling which spoilt my whole
morning, and prevented any appetite for dinner, where
again we constantly met with sorrow. Whatever was
on the table we were each to eat, no choice was allowed
us. The dinners were very good, one dish of meat with
vegetables, one tart or pudding. On broth or fish days
no pudding, these days were therefore not in favour ;

58 IMPROPER DIET [1806

but our maigre days, two in the week during summer,
we delighted in, fruit and eggs being our favourite
dishes. How happy our dinner hour was when aunt
Lissy was with us ! a scene of distress often afterwards.
My mother never had such an idea as that of entering
her nursery, when she wanted her children or her maids
she rang for them ; aunt Mary, of course, had no busi-
ness there ; the cook was pretty sure of this, the broth
got greasy, the vegetables heavy with water, the
puddings were seldom brown. Mrs Millar allowed no
orts, our shoulders of mutton — we ate all the shoulders
— were to be cut fair, fat and lean, and to be eaten fair,
a hard task for Jane and me. The stomachs which
rejected milk could not easily manage fat except when
we were under the lash, then indeed the fat and the
tears were swallowed together ; but my father could not
always be found to act overseer, and we had sometimes
a good fight for it with our upright nurse, a fight ending
in victory as regarded the fat, though we suffered in
another way the pains of defeat, as on these occasions
we were deprived of pudding ; then, if I were saucy, or
Jane in a sulky fit, the scene often ended in the dark
closet, where we cried for an hour or more, while
William and little Mary finished the pudding.

This barbarity lasted only a short time, owing to
my ingenious manufacture of small paper bags which
we concealed in our laps under the table, and took
opportunities of filling with our bits of fat ; these we
afterwards warily disposed of, at Twyford through the
yew hedge into the river, in town elsewhere.

Another serious grief we had connected with our
food. We could refuse nothing that was prepared for
us ; if we did we not only got nothing else, but the dish
declined was put by to appear again at the next meal,
and be disposed of before we were permitted to have
what else there was. Jane greatly disliked green
vegetables, spinach or cabbage in particular ; it was
nature speaking (poor nature ! so unheeded in those
times), for these plants disagreed with her, yet she must
eat them. I have known a plate of spinach kept for her

1806] SPARTAN DISCIPLINE 59

from dinner one day to supper the next, offered at each
meal and refused, and not even a bit of bread substituted
all those long hours, till sheer hunger got the better of
her dislike, and she gave herself a night of sickness by
swallowing the mess. Fancy a young child kept thirty
hours without food and then given poison 1 the
dungeons of feudal times were in their degree not more
iniquitous than these proceedings.

Of course under this regime the rhubarb bottle
became a necessity in the nursery. I had my French
beans antipathy, and it was to be overcome in the same
way, followed by the same cure for its effects. In
addition to the dose of rhubarb, nauseous enough in
itself, our breakfast on medicine mornings was water
gruel — I can see it now, unstrained, thick, black, and
seasoned with salt ; this frightful bowl gave me an
obstinate fit in Jane's style, from which I suffered in the
same way ; breakfast, dinner, and supper passed, and
the cold gruel remained untouched ; faint from hunger
I lay down in the evening on the floor of the closet
where I had passed the summer's day, and sobbed out
that I wished to die I One of the housemaids on her
tour of window-shutting, a Hertfordshire girl named
Sally Withan, whom I remember with gratitude to this
hour, unturned the key which kept me prisoner, and
threw beside me some red-streaked apples. I have
loved apples ever since. Good-humoured, rosy-cheeked
Sally Withan I She said if she could find that nasty
gruel, it should not plague her sweet young lady no more,
she'd answer for it ! I was not slow to give the hint,
and certainly on being called to bed, whither I went
without a kiss or a good-night or even appearing down-
stairs, fresh gruel, better it seemed to me, warm at any
rate, and a slice of bread, were thankfully received after
the miserable day of fasting.

Even poor little Mary did not escape the Spartan
rules of my father's discipline ; for her baby errors she
had to bear her punishment. She used to be set on the
lowest step of the stair at " naughty times," and not be
allowed to move from there till permission was given.

60 HAPPY HOURS [1806

One night my father forgot her, so, I suppose, had every
one else, for on ringing for wine and water at midnight,
the footman who brought it up found the poor little
thing lying there asleep. She had sat there since
dinner. We used to comfort one another in our
troubles when we could manage it, and many a
" goody " the good children secreted and carried to be
given with kisses and hugs to the poor desolate culprit,
who all the time believed him or herself to be disgrace-
fully guilty.

This is the dark side of the picture ; we had very
happy hours as well ; despotically as we were ruled in
some respects, we were left in other ways to our own
devices. We disposed of our time very much according
to our own fancies, subject to certain rules. We were
always to appear at the breakfast-table of our father and
mother some time between ten and eleven o'clock ; the
last of the three regular ringings of my father's
dressing-room bell was our signal for leaving our plays ;
we ran off to brush our hair, wash our hands, and seize
our books, with which provided we repaired to the
breakfast-room, where our duties were to run messages ;
in summer to amuse ourselves quietly till called upon to
stir ; in winter to make the toast. Breakfast over, we
said our few lessons to my mother, and read in turns.
I was supposed to have practised the pianoforte early.
If we were wanted again during the day we were sent
for, though frequently we spent the whole morning in
the drawing-room, where we employed ourselves as we
liked, provided we made no noise. The prettily-wound
cotton balls had already superseded the skeins, so that
we were saved that piece of business. In the hot
summer days aunt Mary often read to us fairy tales, or
bits from the Elegant Extracts, latterly Pope's Homer,
which with her explanations we enjoyed extremely, all
but the Shield of Achilles, the long description of which
I feared was never to end. When my father was away
my mother dined with us early, and in the evenings we
took long drives in the open landau and four. When he
was at home, and the late dinner proceeded in full form

1806-7] FUN WITH FATHER 61

— and what a tedious'ceremony it was ! — we all appeared
at the dessert, or rather at the second course, in full
dress like the footmen. We sat in a row — we four,
little Mary and all, on four chairs placed against the
wall — trained to perfect quiet ; we were to see and to
smell, but to taste nothing, to hear and not to speak ;
but on the dessert appearing we were released, called
forward to receive a little wine, a little fruit, and a
biscuit, and then to have our game at romps ; the riot
generally forced our nervous mother to retire, and then
quite at ease, in good earnest began the fun.

Sometimes my father was an ogre groping about for
little children, whom he caught and tickled nearly into
fits; sometimes he was a sleeping giant whom we
besieged in his castle of chairs, could hardly waken, and
yet dreaded to hear snore. Whatever the play was it
was always charming, and redeemed all troubles. We
looked forward to this happy hour as to a glimpse of
heaven ; milk, cabbage, fat, rhubarb, and gruel were all
forgotten, and the whippings too ; he was no longer the
severe master, he was the best of play-fellows. We
dreaded hearing of his absence, as all our joy went with
him ; we hailed his return as our chief blessing. He
soon found out that no punishment had such effect
upon any of us as exclusion from the romping hour.
Once or twice it was my fate to remain upon my chair
in that row against the wall, while the romp went on
around me ; to be told to remain there as unworthy of
my share in the fun. I don't think I ever needed a
third lesson, although the faults had not been very
heinous ; the most flagrant was my having provided
myself with a private store of apples, gathered only
from underneath the trees, but concealed in one of the
queer little triangular cupboards scattered up and down
the turret stairs, and intended to furnish out our play
banquets up in the haunted attic. The summer of 1807
was the last we spent at Twyford.

Just before leaving town we had seen our dear aunt
Lissy's little boy, poor John Frere, a fine plain, healthy
baby, when as a secret I was told to expect a little

62 INDIAN PATRONAGE [1807

brother or sister shortly at home, for whose arrival
many preparations were making. Jane hemmed some
new soft towels for it — very badly — and I made all the
little cambric shirts so neatly, that I was allowed to
begin a sampler as a reward, and to go to Bishop's-
Stortford to buy the canvas and the coloured worsteds
necessary.

My father had been in the north. Parliament had
been dissolved, and he had set up for Morayshire ; his
opponent was Colonel Francis Grant, the second son of
his Chief, who had all the Tory interest and a deal of
clannish help besides ; feudal feeling being still strong
in the Highlands, although personally there was no
doubt as to the popularity of the two candidates. My
father ran up to within two votes of his cousin ; all the
consolation he had for setting the county in a flame,
losing his time, wasting his money, and dividing
irremediably the House of Grant against itself. Years
before he had canvassed Inverness, Sir James giving all
his interest to the East India Director, Charles Grant,
who ito secure his seat promised my father unlimited
Indian appointments if he would give in. This was the
secret of my father's Indian patronage, through which he
provided ultimately for so many poor cadets. How
much each of such appointments cost him unluckily he
never calculated. He was very little cast down by his
ill success.

My father turned the remainder of his time in the
Highlands to farming account, for he was exceedingly
interested in agriculture, particularly anxious to open
the eyes of the Hertfordshire people, who at that time
pursued the most miserable of the old-fashioned English
systems. The first year we went to Twyford he had
established a Scotch grieve there ; he built a proper set
of offices, introduced rotation crops, deep ploughing,
weeding, hay made in three days, corn cut with a
scythe, and housed as cut, cattle stall-fed; and I
remember above all a field of turnips that all, far and
near, came to look and wonder at — turnips in drills, and
two feet apart in the rows, each turnip the size of a

1807] SCOTCH FARMING IN HEREFORDSHIRE 63

man's head. It was the first such field ever seen in
those parts, and so much admired by two-footed
animals that little was left for the four-footed. All the
lanes in the neighbourhood were strewn with the green
tops cut off by the depredators. The Scotch farming
made the Hertfordshire bumpkins stare, but it produced
no imitators during the short period it was tried by us.
The speculation did not enrich the speculator. We ate
our own mutton, poultry, and vegetables in town, as well
as in the country, the market-cart coming to Lincoln's
Inn Fields weekly with all supplies ; we had a cow, too,
in the London stables, changed as required. But Mr
Reid got to drink too much gin, Mrs Reid lay in bed in
the mornings and saw company in the evenings. The
laundry-maids also entertained a large acquaintance
with the dairy produce, for they united the two condi-
tions ; so that though we lived in luxury we paid well for
it, made no friends, and were cheated by our servants,
for besides the liberal way in which they helped
themselves they neglected their master's business.

My father had gone to the Trysts after losing Moray,
and bought a large drove of fine young black cattle, for
no small penny. These were sent south under the care
of two Highland drovers. The fine field of turnips
during the winter and the rich grass of the Hertford-
shire meadows being expected to feed such beef for the
London market as, to say the truth, the English
people of that day had little notion of. There were
above a hundred head ; they were put to rest in the
small paddock between the orchard and the river
bordered on the shrubbery side by the yew hedge.
Poor beasts ! I forget how many survived ; it was
heart-breaking to see them next day lying about the
field dying from the effects of the poison.

This unfortunate business disgusted my father with
his English improvements ; at least after this summer
we never saw Twyford again. He sold Thorley Hall to
Lord Ellenborough for £20,000, I have heard, ;£ 10,000
of which bought Kinloss near Forres, the remainder
helping off the accounts of the Morayshire canvass.

CHAPTER IV

1701-1808

THE Rapers are an old Buckinghamshire family of
Norman descent, as their name anciently spelt Rapier
attests. Where they came from, or when they came, or
what they were, I really do not know, but so strong a
leaven of Puritanism pervaded the Christian names of
the family, that I cannot but think they were known in
the days of the Commonwealth for more stirring deeds
than suited them in after-times ; they descended to us
as scientific men, calm, quiet, retired, accomplished
oddities. How any of them came to settle in Hertford-
shire was not explained, but it so happened that two
brothers established themselves in that county within
a mile of one another ; Matthew at Thorley Hall, John at
Twyford. Matthew never married, John took to wife
Elizabeth [Hale, daughter of Elizabeth] Beaumont,
descended in the direct line from Sir John Beaumont,
the author of Bosworth Field and the elder brother of
the dramatist. I remember mentioning this with no
little pride to Lord Jeffrey, when he answered quietly
he would rather himself be able to claim kindred with
Fletcher ; and soon after he announced in one of his
reviews that Beaumont was but the French polish upon
the fine sound material of Fletcher — or something to
that effect ; which may be true, though at this distance
of time, I dont see how such accurate division of labour
could be tested ; and what would the rough material
have been unpolished ? I myself believe that Beaumont
was more than the varnish, he was the edge-tool too,

1778-84] JOHN RAPER OF TWYFORD 65

and I am proud of such parentage, and value the red
bound copy of Bosworth Field with my great [great]
grandmother's name in it, and the little silver sugar-
basket with the Lion of England in the centre of it,
which she brought with her into the Raper family.

She must have been a person of acquirements too,
for her death so affected her husband that he was
never seen out of his own house afterwards. I do not
know how he managed the education of his only child,
my grandmother ; for she was well educated in a higher
style than was common then, and yet he lived on at
Twyford alone almost, except for visits from a few
relations.

His horses died in their stables, his carriages
decayed in their coach-houses, his servants continued
with him till their marriage or death, when the super-
numeraries were not replaced, and he lived on year after
year in one uniform round of dulness till roused by the
arrival of his grandchildren.

Aunt Lissy did not remain long with him, but my
father was his charge till his death. He did not appear
to have devoted himself to him, and yet the boy was
very constantly his companion within doors, for all the
old man's queer methodical ways had impressed them-
selves vividly on his grandson's mind. When altering
the house my father would permit no change to be made
in the small room on the ground-floor of the hall, which
had been his grandfather's dressing-room, and which
was now his own.

We often attended on my father towards the end of
his toilet, on the third ringing of that bell — a sound that
acted through our house like the " sharp " in the royal
palaces, sending every one to his duty in all haste — and
there we found the same oddly contrived wardrobe
which had been made so many years ago. Two or three
broad shelves were below, and underneath the lowest
one a row of small pegs for hanging boots and shoes on ;
at the top were a number of pigeon-holes, employed by
my father for holding papers, but which in Raper days
had held each the proper supply of linen for one day ;

E

66 A USEFUL LESSON [1778-84

shirt, stock, stockings, handkerchief, all along in a row,
tier after tier. My great-grandfather began at No. I and
went regularly through the pigeon-holes, the washer-
woman refilling those he had emptied. This methodical
habit pervaded all his actions ; he walked by rule at stated
times, and only in his garden, and for a definite period ;
so many times round the formal parterre, bounded by
the yew-tree hedge. He did not, however, interrupt his
thoughts to count his paces, he filled a pocket of his
flapped waistcoat with so many beans, and each time
that he passed the door he dropped a bean into a box
placed upon the sill of the window for the purpose of
receiving them ; when the beans had all been dropped
the walk was done.

He was a calm and placid man, and acted like oil on
waves to the impatient spirit he had to deal with.
Some baby fury had excited my father once to that
degree, he took a fine handkerchief that had been given
to him and threw it angrily upon the fire, then seeing
the flames rise over it, he started forward as suddenly to
rescue it. " No, Jack," said his grandfather, " let it burn,
the loss of a handkerchief is little, the loss of temper is
much ; watch it burning and try to remember what
irremediable mischief an uncontrolled temper works."
My father said this scene often recurred to him and
checked many a fit of passion, fortunately, as his High-
land maid Christy and others did their best to spoil
him.

The Thorley brother, Matthew, was quite as eccentric
as my great-grandfather ; they were much together, and
he it was who built the observatory at Twyford, that
when he dined there and took a fancy to consult the
stars, he need not have to return home to spend an hour
with them. He was a true lover of learning ; he had
built a large room to hold his books at Thorley. The
best of those we loved so much at the Doune came from
thence, and the maps and prints and volumes of rare
engravings, coins, mathematical instruments, and
curiosities.

He played on both violin and violoncello. Our poor

1748-79] MATTHEW RAPER 67

cousin George Grant took possession of the violoncello,
on which he was a proficient. The violin was lent to
Duncan Macintosh, who enlarged the sound-holes, as
he thought the tone of this Cremona too low for the
proper expression of Highland music !

There was an observatory at Thorley too, from
whence my great-uncle surveyed the earth as well as
the heavens; a favourite occupation of his being the
care of some grass walks he was very particular in
defending from the feet of passengers.

He had planted a wood at a short distance from his
house, laid out a kind of problem in action ; an oval
pond full of fish for centre, and gravel walks diverging
from it at regular intervals towards an exterior square ;
the walks were bordered by very wide turf edging, and
thick plantations of young trees were made between.
It was a short cut through this mathematical plantation
from one farmhouse to another, and in rainy weather
the women in their pattens destroyed the grass borders
when they disobeyed the order to keep to the gravel
path.

From his tower of observation Matthew Raper
detected every delinquent, and being provided with a
speaking-trumpet, no sooner did a black gipsy bonnet
and red cloak beneath it appear on the forbidden
edge, than " Of with your pattens " echoed in rough
seaman's voice to the terror of the sinners.

These two old brothers, the one a bachelor, the
other a widower, had their hearts set upon the same
earthly object, the only child of the one, my grand-
mother. To judge of her from the fragments of her
journals, her scraps of poetry, some copied, some
original, her pocket-books full of witty memoranda,
her receipt-books, songs, and the small library, in each
volume of which her name was beautifully written, she
must have been an accomplished woman and passing
clever, with rather more than a touch of the coarseness
of her times.

She had a temper ! for dear, good Mrs Sophy used
to tell us, as a warning to me, how every one in her

68 MISS RAPER'S MARRIAGE [1732-78

household used to fly from her presence when it was up,
hiding till the brief storm was over. She was not hand-
some, short in figure, with the Raper face, and undecided
complexion ; but she had lovers. In early youth a
cousin Harry figured in her private MS., he must have
been the Admiral's father ; and after came a more
serious business, an engagement to Bishop Horsley;
there was an illness, and when the heiress recovered she
married her Doctor ! — my grandfather — whether with
or without the consent of her family I do not know ; it
certainly was not with their approbation, for they looked
on my grandfather as a mere adventurer, and did not
thoroughly forgive my grandmother for years ; not till
my great-uncle Rothie, with his graceful wife, came to
London to visit their brother the Doctor, when the
Raper connection was relieved to see that the honour
of the alliance was at least mutual.

Although my grandfather lived to get into great
practice as a physician, his income at the time of his
marriage was not considerable ; the Raper addition to
it was extremely welcome. Her father allowed Mrs
Grant a guinea a day, paid punctually to herself in
advance on the first of the month in a little rouleau of
gold pieces ; as I understood, this was never promised,
but never failed The uncle at Thorley, too, kindly
assisted the housekeeping. On New Year's Day he
regularly gave or sent his niece a piece of plate and a
hundred pounds, so regularly that she quite reckoned
on it, unwisely ; for one day the uncle, talking with her
confidentially upon the Doctor's improved ways and
means, trusting matters were really comfortable ; " Oh
dear, yes," replied she ; " fees are becoming plenty, and
the lectures bring so much, and my father gives so much,
and then, uncle, there is your hundred pounds." " True,
niece," answered the odd uncle, and to the day of his
death he never gave her another guinea ! He saved all
the more for my father, little thinking all his hoards were

destined for that odious S G and the electors

of Great Grimsby.

My grandfather and grandmother were married

M1S8 RAPEU (AFTERWARDS WIKE OF DR WILLIAM GRANT).

[To face page 68.

1762-78] HER VISIT TO ROTHIEMURCHUS 69

twelve years before they had a child, then came my father,
and four years after, in giving birth to my aunt Lissy,
her mother died. The Highlanders saw the hand of a
rewarding providence in the arrival of these children to
a lonely home, my grandmother having signally
approved herself in their eyes by her behaviour on a
memorable occasion ; I don't know how they accounted,
on the same principles, for her early death in the midst
of these blessings.

The visit that the Laird and the Lady of Rothie-
murchus had paid to Doctor and Mrs Grant at their
large house in Lime Street was to be returned, but,
after repeated delays, his professional business prevent-
ing the Doctor from taking such a holiday, his wife was
to go north without him, but with his younger brother,
Alexander the clergyman, who was then curate at
Henley, where he had been for some time with his
wife and her sister Miss Neale. Besides his clerical
duties, he at this time took pupils, who must have
been at home for the holidays, when he could pro-
pose to take his wife and his sister-in-law to the
Highlands.

My great-uncle Rothie was unluckily living at
Elgin, his delicate wife having found the mountain air
too keen for her, but the object of the journey being
principally to see Rothiemurchus, the English party
proceeded there under the charge of their cousin, Mr
James Cameron, of Kinrara, Kinapol, and latterly, in
my remembrance, of the Croft.

My grandmother rode up from Elgin on a pillion
behind Mr Cameron. She wore high-heeled, pointed-
toed shoes, with large rosettes, a yellow silk quilted
petticoat, a chintz sacque or fardingale bundled up
behind, and a little black hat and feather stuck on one
side of her powdered head. She sang the Beggar's
Opera through during the journey with a voice of such
power that Mr Cameron never lost the recollection of
it. One of the scenes they went to view was that from
the churchyard ; the old church is beautifully situated
on a rising ground in a field not far from the house of

70 THE DOCTOR'S GRIEF [1778

the Doune, well backed by a bank of birch wooding,
and commanding a fine prospect both up and down the
valley of the Spey. My grandmother looked round in
admiration, and then, turning to Mr Cameron, she
lamented in simple good faith that the Laird had no
son to inherit such a property. " Both a loss and a
gain," said Mrs Alexander in a blithe voice, "the
parson and I have five fine sons to heir it for him."
Poor woman ! she outlived them all, and the following
year my grandmother produced the delicate boy, whose
birth ended their expectations.

The Doctor and his rather eccentric true Raper
wife lived happily together, save for a slight occasional
coolness on his part, and some extra warmth now and
then on hers. From the time of her death, Mrs Sophy
told us, he never entered her drawing-room, where all
remained precisely as she had left it ; her harpsichord
on one side of the fireplace, and her Japan cabinet on
the other, both remained locked : her bookcases were
undisturbed; a small round table that held a set of
egg-shell china out of which her favoured guests had
received their tea, had been covered with a cambric
handkerchief by his own hand, and no one ventured to
remove the veil. All her wardrobe, which was rich,
and her trinkets, were left as she had left them, never
touched till they were packed in chests when he left
London, which chests were not opened till aunt Lissy
came of age, and then the contents were divided
between her and my father.

More than all, he laid aside his violin: they had
been long married before she knew he played. She
had seen the violin in its case, and wondered what it
did there. At last she asked, and was surprised and
pleased to find him no mean performer. How very
odd, how individualised were the people of those old
days ! On the death of her whom he had never
seemed to care to please, he laid aside the instrument
he had really loved, nor ever resumed it till he retired
to the Doune, when my father remembered his often
bringing sweet music from it in an evening. I can't

1807] BIRTH OF JOHN 71

tell why, but I was always much interested in those
old-world days.

My father never liked speaking of his childhood, it
had probably not been happy ; he was reserved, too,
on matters of personal feeling. Not till I had nearly
grown up did I hear much from him of his boyhood,
and even then it was drawn from him by my evident
pleasure in the answers this cross-questioning elicited.
He had only one recollection of his mother, seeing her
in long diamond earrings on some company occasion,
and sleeping with her by an accident when, tired out
with his chattering (my silent father !), she invented a
new play — a trial of who should go to sleep first. Her
voice, he said, was like aunt Lissy's, low and sweet.
Aunt Lissy was a Raper, and she loved Twyford, and
after her marriage tried to live there, but before the
railway crossed the orchard, the distance was great
from chambers for so complete a man of business as
uncle Frere.

Early in November 1807 we removed to town, and
before the end of the month my brother John was born,
the youngest, and most talented of us all. He was a
small, thin, ugly baby, and he remained a plain child,
little of his age for many years, no way remarkable.
In the spring of 1808 William was sent to Eton, not
ten, poor child ! very unfit for the bufferings of that
large public school, where the little boys were utterly
neglected by the masters, and made mere slaves and
drudges by the elder boys, many of whom used their
fags unmercifully. William was fortunate in this
respect, his first master was the present Duke of
Leinster, a very good-natured lad ; his dame, too, Mrs
Denton, was kind to all her boys in a sort of way ; but
poor William was far from happy, he told us in confi-
dence at midsummer, though it would have been
incorrect to allow this publicly. We were proud of
having a brother at Eton then, now I look back with
horror on that school of corruption, where weak
characters made shipwreck of all worth.

We passed a very happy winter. My mother was

72 PLAYFELLOWS [1807-8

more out in society than usual, having Harriet to
introduce. We had hardly any lessons except such as
we chose to do for our masters, M. Beckvelt, Mr
Thompson, and Mr Jones, which very often was little
enough; we were a great deal in Brunswick Square
with uncle and aunt Frere, we had the two babies to
play with, John Frere and our own Johnnie, and we
had now a large acquaintance in the Square. We had
great games of " Tom Tiddler," " Thread the Needle,"
" Follow the Leader," " Hen and Chickens," and many
more, our merry laughter ringing round the gardens,
where we were so safe, so uncontrolled, and so happy,
though we were not among the tlite of our little world.
An elder set kept itself quite distinct from the younger
ones, and a grander set walked in stately pride apart
from either. Sir John Nicholls' daughters and Mr
Spencer Perceval's never turned their exclusive looks
upon meaner neighbours, while Justice Park's, with
Daniels, Scarletts, Bennets, and others growing up,
would only smile upon the children they passed
occasionally. We, all unknowing and equally uncar-
ing, romped merrily on in our gleesome play-hours,
Tyndales, Huttons, Grants, Williams, Vivians. Besides,
we had a grade or two below ourselves with which on
no account were we to commingle ; some coarse-shoed,
cotton-gloved children, and a set who entered with
borrowed keys, and certainly appeared out of their
proper place. Home was quite as pleasant as the
Square, the baby made us so merry. I worked for him
too ; this employment was quite a passion with me ;
from very early days down to this very hour genera-
tions of little people might have thanked my busy
fingers for their outfit. My box of baby clothing has
never been empty since I first began to dress my doll.
Many a weary hour has been beguiled by this useful
plain work, for there are times when reading, writing,
or more active employments only irritate, and when
needlework is really soothing, particularly when there
is an object in the labour. It used as a child to give
me a glow of delight to see the work of my fingers on

1807-8] A MASQUERADE 73

my sisters and brothers, and on the Rothiemurchus
babies ; for it was only for our own poor that I busied
myself, everybody giving me scraps for this purpose,
and sometimes help and patterns. My sisters never
worked from choice ; they much preferred to the quiet
occupations, the famous romps in Brunswick Square,
where, aunt Lissy having no nerves, her tall brothers-in-
law, who were all uncles Frere to us, made perfect
bedlam in her drawing-room, and after dinner made for
us rabbits of the doyleys, cut apples into swans and
wells, and their pips into mice.

Uncle John, the ambassador, was rather stately ;
but uncle Bartle, his secretary, was our grand ally ;
William, the sergeant, came next in our esteem ;
Edward was quieter; the two younger, Hatley and
Temple, were all we could wish. The two sisters we
hardly knew, Lady Orde was in the country, and Miss
Frere, my aunt's friend Susan, was generally ill. There
was a friend, however, Sir Robert Ainslie, whom we
thought charming, and a Lady Laurie and her brother,
Captain Hatley, who were very likeable. We were
pretty well off for friends at home ; Captain Stevenson
and his brother Colonel Barnes were famous play-
fellows, and our cousin Harry Raper, and the old set
besides. Also we helped to dress my mother and
Harriet Grant of Glenmoriston, my father's ward, for
their parties, and had once great fun preparing them
for a masquerade, when, with the assistance of some
friends, they all went as the country party in the
Journey to London, my mother being such a pretty
Miss Jenny. Another time Harriet went as a Highland
girl, in some fantastic guise of Miss Stewart's invention,
and meeting with a kilted, belted, well-plumed High-
lander, had fun enough to address him in Gaelic, and
he, not understanding one word of what should have
been his native tongue, retreated confounded, she
following, till he turned and fled, to the delight of the
lookers-on who somehow always seem to enjoy the
discomfiture of a fellow-creature. It was Harriet's last
exploit in London. She went north to some of her

74 VISIT TO SEAHAM [1808

Highland aunts, in company with her brother Patrick
the laird this spring.

Early in the summer of 1808, we all started together
for the Highlands. The greater part of the furniture
had been sent from Twyford to the Doune, where, truth
to say, it was very much wanted. The servants all
went north with it by sea, excepting those in immediate
attendance on ourselves. A new barouche landau was
started this season, which served for many a year, and
was a great improvement upon either the old heavy
close coach or the leather-curtained sociable. Four
bays in hand conducted us to Houghton, where after a
visit of a few days my father proceeded on his circuit,
and my mother removed with the children to Seaham,
a little bathing hamlet on the coast of Durham, hardly
six miles from Houghton. She had often passed an
autumn there when a child, with some of her numerous
brothers and sisters, and she said it made her feel young
again to find herself there once more, wandering over
all the ground she knew so well. She was indeed in
charming spirits during the whole of our sojourn at this
pretty place. We lived entirely with her, she bathed
with us, walked with us, we gladly drove in turn with
her. We took our meals with her, and she taught us
how to make necklaces of the seaweed and the small
shells we found, and how to clean and polish the large
shells for fancy works she had done in her own child-
hood, when she, our grave, distant mother, had run
about and laughed like us. How very happy parents
have it in their power to make their children ! We
grew fat and rosy, required no punishments, hardly
indeed a reprimand ; but then Mrs Millar had left us,
she had gone on a visit to her friends at Stockton,
taking the baby with her, for as far as care of him was
concerned she was quite to be trusted.

We lived in a little public-house, the only inn in
the place. We entered at once into the kitchen, bright
and clean, and full of cottage valuables ; a bright " sea-
coal " fire burned always cheerily in the grate, and on the
settle at one side generally sat the old grandfather of

1808] THE INN AT SEAHAM 75

the family, with his pipe, or an old worn newspaper, or
a friend. The daughter, who was mistress of the
house, kept bustling about in the back kitchen where
all the business went on, which was quite as clean,
though not so handsomely furnished, as the one where
the old man sat. There was a scullery besides for dirty
work, such as baking, brewing, washing, and preparing
the cookery. A yard behind held a large water-butt
and several outhouses; a neatly-kept flower-garden, a
mere strip, lay beneath the windows in the front, open-
ing into a large kitchen garden on one side. The sea,
though not distant, could only be seen from the upper
windows ; for this and other reasons we generally sat
upstairs. Roses and woodbine clustered round the
lattices, the sun shone in, the scent of the flowers, and
the hum of the bees and the chirp of the birds, all
entered the open casements freely; and the polished
floors and furniture, and the clean white dimity hang-
ings, added to the cheerfulness of our suite of small
attics. The parlour below was dull by comparison. It
could only be reached through the front kitchen; tall
shrubs overshaded the window, it had green walls, hair-
bottomed chairs set all round by them ; one round table
in the middle of the room oiled till it was nearly black,
and rubbed till it shone like a mirror ; a patch of
carpet was spread beneath this table, and a paper net
for catching flies hung from the ceiling over it; a
corner cupboard full of tall glasses and real old china
tea-cups, and a large china punch-bowl on the top, and
a corner-set arm-chair with a patch-work cover on the
cushion, are all the extras I remember. We were very
little in this " guest-chamber," only at our meals or on
rainy days. We were for ever on the beach, strolling
along the sands, which were beautiful ; sitting on the
rocks or in the caves, penetrating as far into them as
we dared. When we bathed we undressed in a cave
and then walked into the sea, generally hand in hand,
my mother heading us. How we used to laugh and
dance, and splash, and push, anything but dip, we
avoided that as much as possible ; then in consideration

76 THE RECTORY FAMILY [1808

of our cold bath we had a warm tea breakfast and felt
so light. It was a very happy time at Seaham. Some
of the Houghton cousins were often with us, Kate and
Eliza constantly. We had all straw bonnets alike,
coarse dunstables lined and trimmed with green, with
deep curtains on the neck, pink gingham frocks and
holland pinafores, baskets in our hands, and gloves in
our pockets. We did enjoy the seashore scrambles.
On Sundays we were what we thought very fine, white
frocks all of us ; the cousins had white cambric bonnets
and tippets, and long kid gloves to meet the short
sleeves. We had fine straw bonnets trimmed with
white, and black silk spencers. My mother wore gipsy
hats, in which she looked beautiful ; they were tied on
with half-handkerchiefs of various colours, and had a
single sprig of artificial flowers inside over one eye.
We went to church either at Seaham or Houghton, the
four bays carrying us quickly to my uncle Ironside's,
when we spent the remainder of the day there always,
our own feet bearing us to the little church on the
cliffs when it suited my mother to stay at home.

The name of the old Rector of Seaham I cannot
recollect ; he was a nice kind old man, who most good-
naturedly, when we drank tea at the parsonage, played
chess with me, and once or twice let me beat him. He
had a kind homely wife too, our great ally. She had
many housekeeping ways of pleasing children. The
family, a son and two or three daughters, were more
aspiring ; they had annual opportunities of seeing the
ways of more fashionable people, and so tried a little
finery at home, in particular drilling an awkward lout of
a servant boy into a caricature of a lady's page. One
evening, in the drawing-room, the old quiet mamma
observing that she had left her knitting in the parlour,
the sprucest of the daughters immediately rose and
rang the bell and desired this attendant to fetch it,
which he did upon a silver salver ; the thick grey woollen
stocking for the parson's winter wear, presented with a
bow — such a bow ! to his mistress. No comments that
I heard were made upon this scene, but it haunted me

1808] MISS MILBANKE'S COMPANION 77

as in some way incongruous. Next day, when we were
at our work in the parlour, I came out with, " Mamma,
wouldn't you rather have run down yourself and brought
up that knitting?" " You would, I hope, my dear,"
answered she with her smile — she had such a sweet
smile when she was pleased — "you would any of you."

Except the clergyman's family there was none of
gentle degree in the village, it was the most primitive
hamlet ever met with, a dozen or so of cottages, no
trade, no manufacture, no business doing that we could
see : the owners were mostly servants of Sir Ralph
Milbanke's. He had a pretty villa on the cliff surrounded
by well-kept grounds, where Lady Milbanke liked
very much to retire in the autumn with her little
daughter, the unfortunate child granted to her after
eighteen years of childless married life. She generally
lived quite privately here, seeing only the Rector's
family, when his daughters took their lessons in high
breeding ; and for a companion for the future Lady
Byron at these times she selected the daughter of our
landlady, a pretty, quiet, elegant-looking girl, who bore
very ill with the public-house ways after living for
weeks in Miss Milbanke's apartments. I have often
wondered since what became of little Bessy. She
liked being with us. She was in her element only with
refined people, and unless Lady Milbanke took her
entirely and provided for her, she had done her
irremediable injury by raising her ideas beyond her
home. Her mother seemed to feel this, but they were
dependants, and did not like to refuse "my lady."
Surely it could not have been that modest graceful
girl, who was " born in the garret, in the kitchen bred " ?
I remember her mother and herself washing their
hands in a tub in the back-yard after some work they
had been engaged in, and noticing sadly, I know not
why, the bustling hurry with which one pair of red,
rough hands was yellow-soaped, well plunged, and then
dried off on a dish-cloth; and the other pale, thin
delicate pair was gently soaped and slowly rinsed,
and softly wiped on a towel brought down for the

78 DRESS TURBANS [1808

purpose. What strangely curious incidents make an
impression upon some minds! Bessy could make
seaweed necklaces and shell bags and work very
neatly. She could understand our books too, and was
very grateful for having them lent to her. My mother
never objected to her being with us, but our Houghton
cousins did not like playing with her, their father and
mother, they thought, would not approve of it ; so when
they were with us our more humble companion retired
out of sight, giving us a melancholy smile if we chanced
to meet her. My mother had no finery. She often let us,
when at Houghton, drink tea with an old Nanny
Appleby, who had been their nursery-maid. She lived
in a very clean house with a niece, an eight-day clock,
a chest of drawers, a corner-set chair, and a quantity of
bright pewter. The niece had twelve caps, all beautifully
done up, though of various degrees of rank ; one was on
her head, the other eleven in one of the drawers of this
chest, as we counted, for we were taken to inspect them.
The aunt gave us girdle cakes, some plain, some spiced,
and plenty of tea, Jane getting hers in a real china cup,
which was afterwards given to her on account of her
possessing the virtue of being named after my mother.
There were grander parties, too, at Houghton, among
the aunts and the uncles and the cousins. At these
gayer meetings my great-aunts Peggy and Elsie
appeared in !the very handsome headgear my mother
had brought them from London, which particularly
impressed me as I watched the old ladies bowing and
jingling at the tea-table night after night. They were
called dress turbans, and were made alike of rolls of
muslin folded round a catgut headpiece and festooned
with large loops of large beads ending in bead tassels,
after the most approved prints of Tippoo Sahib. They
were considered extremely beautiful as well as fashion-
able, and were much admired. We also drove in the
mornings to visit different connections, on one occasion
going as far as Sunderland, where the iron bridges so
delighted Jane and me, and the shipping and the busy
quays, that we were reproved afterwards for a state of

1808] UNCLE SANDY'S DISAPPOINTMENT 79

over-excitement that prevented our responding properly
to the attentions of our great-aunt Blackburn, a remark-
ably handsome woman, though then upwards of eighty.

It was almost with sorrow that we heard circuit was
over ; whether sufficient business had been done on it to
pay the travelling expenses, no one ever heard, or I
believe inquired, for my father was not communicative
upon his business matters; he returned in his usual
good (Spirits. Mrs Millar and Johnnie also reappeared ;
aunt Mary packed up ; she took rather a doleful leave
of all and started.

At Edinburgh, of course, my father's affairs detained
him as usual ; this time my mother had something to
do there. Aunt Mary had been so long rusticating at
Houghton — four months, I think — that her wardrobe
had become very old-fashioned, and as there was always
a great deal of company in the Highlands during the
shooting season, it was necessary for her to add
considerably to it Dressmakers consequently came to
fit on dresses, and we went to silk mercers, linen-drapers,
haberdashers, etc. Very amusing indeed, and no way
extraordinary ; and so we proceeded to Perth, where,
for the last time, we met our great-uncle Sandy. This
meeting made the more impression on me, not because
of his death soon after, for we did not much care for
him, but for his openly expressed disappointment at my
changed looks. I had given promise of resembling his
handsome mother, the Lady Jean Gordon, with her fair
oval face, her golden hair, and brilliant skin ; I had
grown into a Raper, to his dismay, and he was so
ungallant as to enter into particulars — yellow, peaky,
skinny, drawn up, lengthened out, everything disparag-
ing ; true enough, I believe, for I was not strong, and
many a long year had to pass before a gleam of
the Gordon beauty settled on me again. It passed
whole and entire to Mary, who grew up an embodiment
of all the perfection of the old family portraits. Jane
was a true Ironside then and ever, William ditto, John
like me, a cross between Grant and Raper.

They did not understand me, and they did not use

80 MISUNDERSTOOD [1808

me well. The physical constitution of children nobody
thought it necessary to attend to then, the disposition
was equally neglected, no peculiarities were ever studied ;
how many early graves were the consequence ! I know
now that my constitution was eminently nervous ; this
extreme susceptibility went by many names in my
childhood, and all were linked with evil. I was affected,
sly, sullen, insolent, everything but what I really was,
nervously shy when noticed. Jealous too, they called
me, jealous of dear good Jane, because her fearless
nature, fine healthy temperament, as shown in her
general activity, her bright eyes and rosy cheeks, made
her a much more satisfactory plaything than her timid
sister. Her mind, too, was precocious; she loved
poetry, understood it, learned it by heart, and expressed
it with the feeling of a much older mind, acting bits
from her favourite Shakespeare like another Roscius.
These exhibitions and her dancing made her quite a
little show, while I, called up on second thoughts to
avoid distinctions, cut but a sorry figure beside her;
this inferiority I felt, and felt it still further paralyse me.
Then came the unkind, cutting rebuke, which my loving
heart could ill bear with. I have been taunted with
affectation when my fault was ignorance, called sulky
when I have been spirit-crushed. I have been sent
supperless to bed for not, as Cassius, giving the cue
to Brutus, whipped by my father at my mother's
representation of the insolence of my silence, or the
impudence of the pert reply I was goaded on to make;
jeered at as the would-be modest, flouted as envious.
How little they guessed the depth of the affection thus
tortured. They did it ignorantly, but how much after-
grief this want of wisdom caused ; a very unfavourable
effect on my temper was the immediate result, and
health and temper go together.

CHAPTER V

1808-1809

ON reaching the Doune a great many changes at first
perplexed us. The stables in front of the house were
gone, also the old barn, the poultry-house, the duck-
pond ; every appurtenance of the old farmyard was
removed to the new offices at the back of the hill ; a
pretty lawn extended round two sides of the house, and
the backwater was gone, the broom island existed no
longer, no thickets of beech and alder intercepted the
view of the Spey. A green field dotted over with trees
stretched from the broad terrace on which the house
now stood to the river, and the washing-shed was gone.
All that scene of fun was over, pots, tubs, baskets, and
kettles were removed with the maids and their
attendants to a new building, always at the back of
the hill, better adapted, I daresay, to the purposes of
a regular laundry, but not near so picturesque, although
quite as merry, as our beloved broom island. I am
sure I have backwoods tastes, like my aunt Frere, whom
I never could, by letter or in conversation, interest in
the Rothiemurchus improvements. She said the whole
romance of the place was gone. She prophesied,
and truly, that with the progress of knowledge all the
old feudal affections would be overwhelmed, individu-
ality of character would cease, manners would change,
the Highlands would become like the rest of the world,
all that made life most charming there would fade
away, little would be left of the olden time, and life
there would become as uninteresting as in other little-
si F

82 FOREST SCENERY [1808

remarkable places. The change had not begun yet,
however. There was plenty of all in the rough as
yet in and about the Doune, where we passed a very
happy summer, for though just round the house were
alterations, all else was the same. The old servants
were there, and the old relations were there, and the
lakes and the burnies, and the paths through the forest,
and we enjoyed our out-of-door life more this season
than usual, for cousin James Griffith arrived shortly
after ourselves with his sketch-book and paint-boxes,
and he passed the greater part of the day wandering
through all that beautiful scenery, Jane and I his
constant companions. Mary was a mere baby, but
William, Jane, and I, who rode in turns on the grey
pony, thought ourselves very big little people, and
expected quite as matter of right to belong to all the
excursion trains, were they large or small. Cousin
James was fond of the Lochans with their pretty fringe
of birchwood, and the peeps through it of the Croft,
Tullochgrue, and the mountains. A sheep path
running along by the side of the burn which fed these
picturesque small lochs was a favourite walk of aunt
Mary's, and my father had christened it by her name.
It started from the Polchar, and followed the water to
the entrance of the forest, where, above all, we loved to
lose ourselves, wandering on among the immense roots
of the fir trees, and then scattering to gather cran-
berries, while our artist companion made his sketches.
He liked best to draw the scenery round Loch-an-
Eilan ; he also talked to us if we were near him,
explaining the perspective and the colouring and the
lights and shadows, in a way we never forgot, and
which made these same scenes very dear to us after-
wards. It was, indeed, hardly possible to choose amiss ;
at every step there lay a picture. All through the
forest, which then measured in extent nearly twenty
square miles, small rivers ran with sometimes narrow
strips of meadowland beside them ; many lochs of
various sizes spread their tranquil waters here and
there in lonely beauty. In one of them, as its name

1808] SUMMER COMPANY 83

implied, was a small island quite covered by the ruins
of a stronghold, a momento of the days of the Bruce,
for it was built by the Red Comyns, who then owned
all Strathspey and Badenoch. A low square tower
at the end of the ruin supported an eagle's nest.
Often !the birds rose as we were watching their eyrie,
and wheeled skimming over the loch in search of the
food required by the young eaglets, who could be
seen peeping over the pile of sticks that formed their
home. Up towards the mountains the mass of fir
broke into straggling groups of trees at the entrance of
the glens which ran far up among the bare rocky crags
of the Grampians. Here and there upon the forest
streams rude sawmills were constructed, where one or
at most two trees were cut up into planks at one time.
The sawmiller's hut close beside, a cleared field at hand
with a slender crop of oats growing on it, the peat-
stack near the door, the cow, and of course a pony,
grazing at will among the wooding. Nearer to the
Spey the fir wood yielded to banks of lovely birch, the
one small field expanded into a farm ; yet over all hung
the wild charm of Nature, mountain scenery in
mountain solitude beautiful under any aspect of the
sky.

Our summer was less crowded with company than
usual, very few except connections or a passing stranger
coming to mar the sociability of the family party.
Some of the Gumming Gordons were with us, the
Lady Logic, and Mrs Cooper, with whom my mother
held secret mysterious conferences. There were
Kinrara gaieties too, but we did not so frequently
share in them, some very coarse speeches of the
Duchess of Manchester having too much disgusted
cousin James to make him care for such company too
often repeated. He had a very short time before been
elected Head of his college in Oxford. As Master of
University with a certain position, a good income, a
fine house, and still better expectations through his
particular friends Lord Eldon the Chancellor, and his
brother Sir William Scott, he was now able to realise a

84 AUNT MARY'S MARRIAGE [1808

long-cherished hope of securing his cousin Mary to
share his prosperous fortunes. They were going
together in middle age, very sensibly on both parts,
first loves on either side, fervent as they were, having
been long forgotten, and they were to be married and
to be at home in Oxford by the gaudy day in October.
The marriage was to take place in the Episcopal chapel
at Inverness, and the whisperings with Mrs Cooper had
reference to the necessary arrangements. It was on the
i pth of September, my brother William's birthday, that
the bridal party set out; a bleak day it was for
encountering Slochd Mor ; that wild, lonely road
could have hardly looked more dreary. I accompanied
the aunt I was so very much attached to, in low enough
spirits, having the thought of losing her for ever,
dreading many a trial she had saved me from, and
Mrs Millar, who feared her searching eye. My
prospects individually were not brightened by the
happy event every one congratulated the family on.
Cousin James was to take his wife by the coast road to
Edinburgh, and then to Tennochside. Some other
visits were to be paid by the way, so my aunt had
packed the newest portion of her wardrobe, much that
she had been busied upon with her own neat fingers all
those summer days, and all her trinkets, in a small
trunk to take with her on the road ; while her heavy
boxes had preceded us by Thomas Mathieson, the
carrier, to Inverness, and were to be sent on from
thence by sea to London. We arrived at Grant's
Hotel, the carriage was unpacked, and no little trunk
was forthcoming ! It had been very unwisely tied on
behind, and had been cut off from under the rumble by
some exemplary Highlander in the dreary waste named
from the wild boors. My poor aunt's little treasures !
for she was far from rich, and had strained her scanty
purse for her outfit. Time was short, too, but my
mother prevailed on a dressmaker — a Grant — to work.
She contributed of her own stores. The heavy trunks
had luckily not sailed ; they were ransacked for linen,
and on the 2Oth of September good Bishop Macfarlane

1808] NURSE MILLAR'S CRUELTY 85

united as rationally happy a pair as ever undertook the
chances of matrimony together.

We all loved aunt Mary, and soon had reason to
regret her. Mrs Millar, with no eye over her, ruled
again, and as winter approached and we were more in
the house, nursery troubles were renewed. My father
had to be frequently appealed to, severities were
resumed. One day William was locked up in a small
room reserved for this pleasant purpose, the next day
it was I, bread and water the fare of both. A review
of the volunteers seldom saw us all collected on the
ground, there was sure to be one naughty child in prison
and at home. We were flogged too for every error, boys
and girls alike, but my father permitted no one to strike us
but himself. My mother's occasional slaps and boxes
on the ear were mere interjections taken no notice of.
It was upon this broken rule that I prepared a scene to
rid us of the horrid termagant, whom my mother with
a gentle, self-satisfied sigh announced to all her friends
as such a treasure. William was my accomplice, and
this was our plan. My father's dressing-closet was
next to our sitting nursery, and he, with Raper
regularity, made use of it most methodically, dressing
at certain stated hours, continuing a certain almost
fixed time at his toilet, very seldom indeed deviating
from this routine, which all in the same house were as
well aware of as we were, Mrs Millar among the rest.
The nursery was very quiet while he was our neighbour.
It did sometimes happen, however, that he ran up from
his study to the dressing-room at unwonted hours, and
upon this chance our scheme was founded. William
was to watch for this opportunity ; as soon as it
occurred he secretly warned me, and I immediately
became naughty, did something that I knew would be
particularly disagreeable to Mrs Millar. She found
fault pretty sharply, I replied very pertly, in fact as
saucily as I could, and no one could do it better ; this
was followed as I expected by two or three hard slaps
on the back of my neck, upon which I set up a scream
worthy of the rest of the scene, so loud, so piercing,

86 INGRATITUDE IN THE NURSERY [1808

that in came my father to find me crouching beneath
the claws of a fury. " I have long suspected this,
Millar," said he, in the cold voice that sunk the heart
of every culprit, for the first tone uttered told them that
their doom was sealed. " Six weeks ago I warned you
of what would be the consequences; you can go and
pack up your clothes without delay, in an hour you
leave this for Aviemore," — and she did. No entreaties
from my mother, no tears from the three petted
younger children, no excuses of any sort availed. In
an hour this odious woman had left us for ever, I can't
remember her wicked temper now without shuddering
at all I went through under her charge. In her
character, though my father insisted on mentioning
the cause for which she was dismissed, my mother had
gifted her with such a catalogue of excellences, that
the next time we heard of her she was nurse to the
young Duke of Roxburghe — that wonder long looked
for, come at last — and nearly murdered him one day,
keeping him under water for some childish fault till he
was nearly drowned, quite insensible when taken out by
the footman who attended him. After this she was
sent to a lunatic asylum, where the poor creature ended
her stormy days ; her mind had probably always been
too unsettled to bear opposition, and we were too old
as well as too spirited to have been left so long at the
mercy of an ignorant woman, who was really a tender
nurse to an infant then. In some respects we were
hardly as comfortable without her, the good-natured
Highland girl who replaced her not understanding the
neatnesses we had been accustomed to; and then I,
like other patriots, had to bear the blame of all these
inconveniences ; I, who for all our sakes had borne
these sharp slaps in order to secure our freedom, was
now complained of as the cause of very minor evils ;
my little brothers and sisters, even William my
associate, agreeing that my passionate temper had
aggravated " poor Millar," who had always been " very
kind" to them. Such ingratitude! "Kill the next
tiger yourselves," said I, and withdrew from their

1808-9] WILLIAM'S JOURNEY FROM ETON 87

questionable society for half a day, by which time Jane
having referred to the story of the soldier and the
Brahmin in our Evenings at Home, and thought the
matter over, made an oration which restored outward
harmony ; inwardly, I remained a little longer angry —
another half-day — a long period in our estimate of time.
My mother, however, discovered that the gardener's
young daughter would not do for us undirected, so the
coachman's wife, an English Anne, a very nice person
who had been nurse before she married, was raised
from the housemaid's place to be in Millar's, and it
being determined we were all to stay over the winter
in the Highlands, a very good plan was suggested for
our profitable management. We were certainly
becoming not a little wild as it was. It was arranged
that a Miss Ramsay, an English girl from Newcastle,
who had been employed as a school teacher at Duthil,
should remove to the Doune, a happy change for her
and a very fortunate hit for us. She was a kind, cheerful
creature, not capable of giving us much accomplishment,
but she gave us what we wanted more, habits of order.

The autumn and winter passed very happily away,
under these improved arrangements. The following
summer of 1809 was quite a gay one, a great deal of
company flocking both to the Doune and Kinrara, and
at midsummer arrived William ; the little fellow, not
quite eleven years old then, had travelled all the way
south after the summer holidays from Rothiemurchus
to Eton, by himself, paying his way like a man ; but
they did not put his courage to such a proof during the
winter. He spent both his Christmas and his Easter with
the Freres, and so was doubly welcome to us in July.
He took care of himself as before on this long journey,
starting with many companions in a post-chaise,
dropping his friends here and there as they travelled,
till it became more economical to coach it. At Perth
all coaching ended, and I don't remember how he could
have got on from thence to Dalwhinnie, where a
carriage from the Doune was sent to meet him.

During the winter my father had been very much

88 HIGHLAND VOLUNTEERS [1809

occupied with what we considered mere toys, a little
box full of soldiers, painted wooden figures, and tin
flags belonging to them, all which he twisted about over
the table to certain words of command, which he took
the same opportunity of practising. These represented
our volunteers, about which, ever since I could
remember, my father, whilst in the Highlands, had been
extremely occupied. There was a Rothiemurchus
company, his hobby, and an Invereshie company, and I
think a Strathspey company, but really I don't know
enough of warlike matters — though a Colonel's leddy—
to say whether there could be as many as three. There
were officers from all districts certainly. My father
was the Lieutenant-Colonel ; Ballindalloch the major ;
the captains, lieutenants, and ensigns were all Grants
and Macphersons, with the exception of our cousin
Captain Cameron. Most of the elders had served in the
regular army, and had retired in middle life upon their
half-pay to little Highland farms in Strathspey and
Badenoch, by the names of which they were familiarly
known as Sluggan, Tullochgorm, Ballintomb, Kinchurdy,
Bhealiott. Very soldierly they looked in the drawing-
room in their uniforms, and very well the regiment
looked on the ground, the little active Highlander
taking naturally to the profession. There were fugle-
men in those days, and I remember hearing the
inspecting general say that tall Murdoch Cameron the
miller was a superb model of a fugleman. I can see
him now in his picturesque dress, standing out in front
of the lines, a head above the tallest, directing the
movements so accurately followed. My father on field
days rode a beautiful bay charger named Favourite,
covered with goat-skins and other finery, and seemingly
quite proud of his housings. It was a kilted regiment,
and a fine set of smart well-set-up men they were, with
their plumed bonnets, dirks, and purses, and their low-
heeled buckled shoes. My father became his trappings
well, and when, in early times, my mother rode to the
ground with him, dressed in a tartan petticoat, red
jacket gaudily laced, and just such a bonnet and

1809] FEAR OF INVASION 89

feathers as he wore himself, with the addition of a huge
cairngorm on the side of it, the old grey pony might
have been proud in turn. These displays had, however,
long been given up. I recollect her always quietly in
the carriage with us bowing on all sides.

To prepare himself for command, my father, as I
have said, spent many a long evening manoeuvring all
his little figures ; to some purpose, for his Rothiemurchus
men beat both Strathspey and Badenoch. I have
heard my uncle Lewis and Mr Cameron say there was
little trouble in drilling the men, they had their hearts
in the work ; and I have heard my father say that the
habits of cleanliness, and habits of order, and the sort of
waking up that accompanied it, had done more real
good to the people than could have been achieved by
many years of less exciting progress. So we owe
Napoleon thanks. It was the terror of his expected
invasion that roused this patriotic fever amongst our
mountains, where, in spite of their distance from the
coast, inaccessibility, and other advantages of a hilly
position, the alarm was so great that every preparation
was now in train for repelling the enemy. The men
were to face the foe, the women to fly for refuge to
Castle Grant. My mother was all ready to remove
there, when the danger passed ; but it was thought
better to keep up the volunteers. Accordingly
they were periodically drilled, exercised, and inspected
till the year '13, if I remember rightly. It was a very
pretty sight, either on the moor of Tullochgorm or the
beautiful meadows of Dalnavert, to come suddenly on
this fine body of men and the gay crowd collected to
look at them. Then their manoeuvres with such
exquisite scenery around them, and the hearty spirit of
their cheer whenever "the Leddy" appeared upon
the ground ; the bright sun seldom shone upon a more
exhilarating spectacle. The Laird, their Colonel,
reigned in all hearts. After the " Dismiss," bread and
cheese and whisky, sent forward in a cart for the
purpose, were profusely administered to the men, all of
whom from Rothiemurchus formed a running escort

90 HAPPY DAYS OUT OF DOORS [1809

round our carriage, keeping up perfectly with the four
horses in hand, which were necessary to draw the heavy
landau up and down the many steeps of our hilly roads.
The officers rode in a group round my father to the
Doune to dinner, and I recollect that it was in this year
1809 that my mother remarked that she saw some of
them for the first time in the drawing-room to tea — and
sober.

Miss Ramsay occupied us so completely this summer,
we were much less with the autumn influx of company
than had been usual with us. Happy in the schoolroom,
still happier out in the forest, with a pony among us to
ride and tie, and our luncheon in a basket, we were
indifferent to the more dignified parties whom we some-
times crossed in our wanderings. To say the truth, my
father and mother did not understand the backwoods,
they liked a very well cooked dinner, with all suitable
appurtenances in their own comfortable house ; neither of
them could walk, she could not ride, there were no
roads for carriages, a cart was out of the question, such
a vehicle as would have answered the sort of expeditions
they thus seldom went on was never thought of, so with
them it was a very melancholy attempt at the elephant's
dancing. Very different from the ways of Kinrara.
There was a boat on Loch-an-Eilan, which was regularly
rowed over to the old ruined castle, then to the pike
bay to take up the floats that had fish to them, and
then back to the echo and into the carriage again ; but
there was no basket with luncheon, no ponies to ride
and tie, no dreaming upon the heather in pinafores all
stained with blaeberries ! The little people were a
great deal merrier than their elders, and so some of
these, elders thought, for we were often joined by the
" lags of the drove," who perhaps purposely avoided the
grander procession. Kinrara was full as usual. The
Duke of Manchester was there with some of his children,
the most beautiful statue-like, person that ever was seen
in flesh and blood. Poor Colonel Cadogan, afterwards
killed in Spain, who taught us to play the devil, which I
wonder did not kill us ; certainly throwing that heavily-

1809] MISS BAILLIE'S ADVENTURE 91

leaded bit of wood from one string to the opposite, it
might have fallen upon a head by the way, but it never
did. The Cummings of Altyre were always up in our
country, some of them in one house or the other, and
a Mr Henville, an Oxford clergyman, Sir William's
tutor, who was in love with the beautiful Emilia, as was
young Charles Grant, now first seen among us, shy and
plain and yet preferred ; and an Irish Mr Macklin, a
clever little, flighty, ugly man, who played the flute
divinely, and wore out the patience of the laundry-maids
by the number of shirts he put on per day ; for we
washed for all our guests, there was no one in all Rothie-
murchus competent to earn a penny in this way. He
was a " very clean gentleman," and took a bath twice a
day, not in the river, but in a tub — a tub brought up
from the wash-house, for in those days the chamber
apparatus for ablutions was quite on the modern French
scale, Grace Baillie was with us with all her pelisses,
dressing in all the finery she could muster, and in every
style ; sometimes like a flower-girl, sometimes like Juno ;
now she was queen-like, then Arcadian, then corps de
ballet, the most amusing and extraordinary figure stuck
over with coloured glass ornaments, and by way of
being outrageously refined ; the most complete contrast
to her sister the Lady Logie. Well, Miss Baillie coming
upstairs to dress for dinner, opened the door to the left
instead of the door to the right, and came full upon
short, fat, black Mr Macklin in his tub ! Such a
commotion! we heard it in our schoolroom. Miss
Baillie would not appear at dinner. Mr Macklin, who
was full of fun, would stay upstairs if she did ; she
insisted on his immediate departure, he insisted on their
swearing eternal friendship. Such a hubbub was never
in a house before. " If she'd been a young girl, one
would a'most forgive her nonsense," said Mrs Bird, the
nurse. " If she had had common sense," said Miss
Ramsay, " she would have held her tongue ; shut the
door and held her tongue, and no one would have been
the wiser." We did not forget this lesson in presence
of mind, but no one having ventured on giving even

92 COLONEL GORDON [1809

an idea of it to Miss Baillie, her adventure much annoyed
the ladies, while it furnished the gentlemen with an
excuse for such roars of laughter as might almost have
brought down the ceiling of the dining-room.

Our particular friend, Sir Robert Ainslie, was
another who made a long stay with us. He brought
to my mother the first of those little red morocco cases
full of needles she had seen, where the papers were all
arranged in sizes, on a slope, which made it easy to
select from them.

This was the first season I can recollect seeing a
family we all much liked, Colonel Gordon and his
tribe of fine sons. He brought them up to Glentromie
in a boat set on wheels, which after performing coach
on the roads was used for loch-fishing in the hills.
He was a most agreeable and gentlemanly man, full
of amusing conversation, and always welcome to every
house on the way. He was said to be a careless
father, and not a kind husband to his very pretty wife,
who certainly never accompanied him up to the Glen.
He was a natural son of the Duke of Gordon's, a great
favourite with the Duchess ! much beloved by Lord
Huntly whom he exceedingly resembled, and so might
have done better for himself and all belonging to him,
had not the Gordon brains been of the lightest with
him. He was not so flighty, however, as another
visitor we always received for a few days, Lovat, the
Chief of the Clan Fraser, who was indeed a connection,
The peerage had been forfeited by the wicked lord in
the last rebellion, the lands and the chieftainship had
been left with a cousin, the rightful heir, who had
sprung from the common stock before the attainder.
He was an old man, and his quiet, comfortable-looking
wife was an old woman. They had been at Cluny, the
lady of the Macpherson chieftain being their niece, or
the laird their nephew, I don't exactly know which ;
and their servants told ours they had had a hard
matter to get their master away, for he was subject to
strange whims, and he had taken it into his head when
he was there that he was a turkey hen, and so he made

1809] LOVAT'S STRANGE FANCIES 93

a nest of straw in his carriage and filled it with eggs
and a large stone, and there he sat hatching, never
leaving his station but twice a day like other fowl, and
having his supplies of food brought to him. They had
at last to get Lady Cluny's henwife to watch a proper
moment to throw out all the eggs and to put some
young chickens in their place, when Lovat, satisfied he
had accomplished his task, went about clucking and
strutting with wonderful pride in the midst of them.
He was quite sane in conversation generally, rather an
agreeable man I heard them say, and would be as
steady as other people for a certain length of time ;
but every now and then he took these strange fancies,
when his wife had much ado to bring him out of them.
The fit was over when he came to us. It was the year
of the Jubilee when George III. had reigned his fifty
years. There had been great doings at Inverness,
which this old man described to us with considerable
humour. His lady had brought away with her some
little ornaments prepared for the occasion, and kindly
distributed some of them among us. I long kept a
silver buckle with his Majesty's crowned head some-
where upon it, and an inscription commemorating the
event in pretty raised letters surrounding the medallion.
By the bye it was on the entrance of the old king upon
his fiftieth year of reign that the Jubilee was kept, in
October I fancy 1809, for his state of health was such
he was hardly expected to live to complete it ; that is,
the world at large supposed him to be declining.
Those near his person must have known that it was the
mind that was diseased, not the strong body, which
lasted many a long year after this, though every now
and then his death was expected, probably desired, for
he had ceased to be a popular sovereign. John Bull
respected the decorum of his domestic life, and the
ministerial Tory party of course made the best of him.
All we of this day can say of him is, that he was a
better man than his son, though, at the period I am
writing of, the Whigs, among whom I was reared, were
very far indeed from believing in this truism.

94 A TOUR OF VISITS [1809

It was this autumn that a very great pleasure was
given to me. I was taken on a tour of visits with my
father and mother. We went first to Inverness, where
my father had business with his agent, Mr Cooper.
None of the lairds in our north countrie managed their
own affairs, all were in the hands of some little writer
body, who to judge by consequences ruined most of
their clients. One of these leeches generally sufficed
for ordinary victims. My dear father was preyed on
by two or three, of which fraternity Mr Arthur Cooper
was one. He had married Miss Jenny and made her
a very indulgent husband ; her few hundreds and the
connection might have been her principal attractions,
but once attracted, she retained her power over him to
the end. She was plain but ladylike, she had very
pretty, gentle manners, a pleasing figure, beautiful hand,
dressed neatly, kept a very comfortable house, and
possessed a clear judgment, with high principles and a
few follies ; a little absurd pride, given her perhaps by
my great-aunt, the Lady Logic, who had brought her
up and was very fond of her. We were all very fond
of Mrs Cooper, and she adored my father. While we
were at Inverness we paid some morning visits too
characteristic of the Highlands to be omitted in this
true chronicle of the times ; they were all in the Clan.
One was to the Misses Grant of Kinchurdy, who were
much patronised by all of their name, although they had
rather scandalised some of their relations by setting up
as dressmakers in the county town. Their taste was
not perfect, and their skill was not great, yet they
prospered. Many a comfort earned by their busy
needles found its way to the fireside of the retired
officer their father, and their helping pounds bought
the active officer, their brother, his majority. We next
called on Mrs Grant, late of Aviemore, and her
daughters, who had set up a school, no disparagement
to the family of an innkeeper although the blood they
owned was gentle, and last we took luncheon with my
great-aunt, the Lady Glenmoriston, a handsome old
lady with great remains of shrewdness in her counten-

1809] NAIRN AND BURGIE 95

ance. I thought her cakes and custards excellent;
my mother, who had seen them all come out of a
cupboard in the bedroom, found her appetite fail her
that morning. Not long before we had heard of her
grandson our cousin Patrick's death, the eldest of my
father's wards, the Laird ; she did not appear to feel
the loss, yet she did not long survive him. A clever
wife, as they say in the Highlands, she was in her
worldly way. I did not take a fancy to her.

We left Inverness nothing loth, Mrs Cooper's small
house in the narrow, dull street of that little town not
suiting my ideas of liberty ; and we proceeded in the
open barouche and four to call at Nairn upon our way
to Forres. At Nairn, comfortless dreary Nairn, where
no tree ever grew, we went to see a sister of Logic's, a
cousin, a Mrs Baillie, some of whose sons had found
31 Lincoln's Inn Fields a pleasant resting-place on the
road to India. Her stepson — for she was a second wife
— the great Colonel Baillie of Bundelcund and of Leys,
often in his pomposity, when I knew him afterwards,
recalled to my mind the very bare plenishing of this
really nice old lady. The small, cold house chilled our
first feelings. The empty room, uncurtained, half
carpeted, with a few heavy chairs stuck formally against
the walls, and one dark-coloured, well-polished table
set before the fireplace, repressed all my gay spirits.
It took a great deal of bread and marmalade, scones
and currant wine, and all the kind welcome of the little,
brisk old lady to restore them ; not till she brought out
her knitting did I feel at home — a hint remembered
with profit. Leaving this odious fisher place very near
as quick as King James did, we travelled on to dine at five
o'clock at Burgie, a small, shapeless square of a house,
about two miles beyond Forres, one of the prettiest of
village towns, taking situation into the account. There
is a low hill with a ruin on it, round which the few
streets have clustered ; trees and fields are near,
wooded knolls not far distant, gentlemen's dwellings
peep up here and there ; the Moray Firth, the town and
Sutors of Cromartie, and the Ross-shire hills in the

96 DUNBAR OF BURGIE [1809

distance; between the village and the sea extends a
rich flat of meadowland, through which the Findhorn
flows, and where stand the ruins of the ancient Abbey
of Kinloss, my father's late purchase. I don't know
why all this scene impressed me more than did the
beautiful situation of Inverness. In after-years I did
not fail in admiration of our northern capital, but at
this period I cannot remember any feeling about
Inverness except the pleasure of getting out of
it, while at Forres all the impressions were vivid
because agreeable ; that is I, the perceiver, was in a
fitting frame of mind for perceiving. How many
travellers, ay, thinkers, judges, should we sift in this
way, to get at the truth of their relations. On a bilious
day authors must write tragically.

The old family of Dunbar of Burgie, said to be
descended from Randolph, Earl of Moray — though all
the links of the chain of connection were far from being
forthcoming — had dwindled down rather before our day
to somebody nearly as small as a bonnet Laird ; his
far-away collateral heir, who must have been a most
ungainly lad, judging from his extraordinary appear-
ance in middle age, had gone out to the West Indies to
better his fortunes, returning to take possession of his
inheritance a little before my father's marriage. In
figure something the shape of one of his own sugar
hogsheads, with two short thick feet standing out
below, and a round head settled on the top like a picture
in the Penny Magazine of one of the old English
punishments, and a countenance utterly indescribable —
all cheek and chin and mouth, without half the proper
quantity of teeth; dressed too like a mountebank in
a light blue silk embroidered waistcoat and buff satin
breeches, and this in Pitt and Fox days, when the dark
blue coat, and the red or the buff waistcoat, according
to the wearer's party, were indispensable. So dressed,
Mr Dunbar presented himself to my father, to be
introduced by him to an Edinburgh assembly. My
father, always fine, then a beau, and to the last very
nervous under ridicule! But Burgie was a worthy

THE DUNBAR BRODIES 97

man, honest and upright and kind-hearted, modest as
well, for he never fancied his own merits had won him
his wealthy bride ; their estates joined, " and that," as
he said himself, "was the happy coincidence." The
Lady Burgie and her elder sister, Miss Brodie of
Lethen, were co-heiresses. Coulmonie, a very pictur-
esque little property on the Findhorn, was the principal
possession of the younger when she gave her hand to
her neighbour, but as Miss Brodie never married, all
their wide lands were united for many a year to the
names and titles of the three contracting parties, and
held by Mr and Mrs Dunbar Brodie of Burgie, Lethen,
and Coulmonie during their long reign of dulness ;
precedence being given to the gentleman after some
consideration. They lived neither at very pretty
Coulmonie, nor at very comfortable Lethen, nor even in
the remains of the fine old Castle of Burgie, one tall
tower of which rose from among the trees that sheltered
its surrounding garden, and served only as storehouse
and toolhouse for that department ; they built for them-
selves the tea-canister-like lodge we found them in, and
placed it far from tree or shrub, or any object but the
bare moor of Macbeth's witches. My spare time at
this romantic residence was spent mostly in the tower,
there being up at the top of it an apple-room, where
some little maiden belonging to the household was
occupied in wiping the apples and laying them on the
floor in a bed of sand. In this room was a large chest,
made of oak with massive hasps, several padlocks, and
a chain ; very heavy, very grand-looking, indeed awful,
from its being so alone, so secured, and so mysteriously
hidden as it were. It played its part in after-years,
when all that it did and all that was done to it shall
take the proper place in these my memoirs, if I live to
get so far on in my chroniclings. At this time I was
afraid even to allude to it, there appeared to be some-
thing so supernatural about the look of it.

Of course we had several visits to pay from Burgie.
In the town of Forres we had to see old Mrs Provost
Grant and her daughters, Miss Jean and Miss — I

G

98 MISS JEAN PRO [1809

forget what — but she, the nameless one, died. Miss
Jean, always called in those parts Miss Jean Pro,
because her mother was the widow of the late Provost,
was the living frontispiece to the "world of fashion."
A plain, ungainly, middle-aged woman, with good
Scotch sense when it was wanted, occupied every
waking hour in copying the new modes in dress; no
change was too absurd for Miss Jean's imitation, and
her task was not a light one, her poor purse being
scanty, and the Forres shops, besides being dear, were
111 supplied. My mother, very unwisely, had told me
her appearance would surprise me, and that I must be
upon my guard and show my good breeding by looking
as little at this figure of fun as if she were like other
people ; and my father repeated the story of the
Duchess of Gordon, who received at dinner at Kinrara
some poor dominie, never before in such a presence ; he
answered all her civil inquiries thus, "'Deed no, my
Lady Duchess ; my Lady Duchess, 'deed yes," she look-
ing all the while exactly as if she had never been other-
wise addressed — not even a side smile to the amused
circle around her, lest she might have wounded the
good man's feelings. I always liked that story, and
thought of it often before and since, and had it well on
my mind on this occasion ; but it did not prevent my
long gaze of surprise at Miss Pro. In fact, no one
could have avoided opening wide eyes at the caricature
of the modes she exhibited ; she was^#£, too, very fine,
mincing her words to make them English, and too good
to be laughed at, which somehow made it the more
difficult not to laugh at her. In the early days, when
her father, besides his little shop, only kept the post-
office in Forres, she, the eldest of a whole troop of
bairns, did her part well in the humble household,
helping her mother in her many cares, and to good
purpose ; for of the five clever sons who out of this rude
culture grew up to honour in every profession they
made choice of, three returned " belted knights" to lay
their laurels at the feet of their old mother ; not in the
same poor but and ben in which she reared them ; they

1809] MOY 99

took care to shelter her age in a comfortable house, with
a drawing-room upstairs, where we found the family
party assembled, a rather ladylike widow of the eldest
son (a Bengal civilian) forming one of it. Mrs Pro was
well born of the Arndilly Grants, and very proud she
was of her lineage, though she had made none the
worse wife to the honest man she married for his
failure in this particular. In manners she could not
have been his superior, the story going that in her
working days she called out loud, about the first thing
in the morning, to the servant lass to "put on the
parritch for the pigs and the bairns," the pigs as most
useful coming first.

From Burgie we went back a few miles to Moy, an
old-fashioned house, very warm and very comfortable,
and very plentiful, quite a contrast, where lived a
distant connection, an old Colonel Grant, a cousin of
Glenmoriston's, with a very queer wife, whom he had
brought home from the Cape of Good Hope. This old
man, unfortunately for me, always breakfasted upon
porridge ; my mother, who had particular reasons for
wishing to make herself agreeable to him, informed him
I always did the same, so during the three days of
this otherwise pleasant visit a little plate of porridge
for me was placed next to the big plate of porridge for
him, and I had to help myself to it in silent sadness, for
I much disliked this kind of food as it never agreed
with me, and though at Moy they gave me cream with
it, I found it made me just as sick and heavy after-
wards as when I had the skimmed milk at home.
They were kind old people these in their homely
way.

From Moy we went straight to Elgin, where I
remember only the immense library belonging to the
shop of Mr Grant the bookseller, and the ruins of the
fine old Cathedral. We got to Duffus to dinner, and
remained there a few days with Sir Archibald and
Lady Dunbar and their tribe of children. Lady
Dunbar was one of the Cummings of Altyre — one
of a dozen — and she had about a dozen herself, all

100 GORDONSTOWN [1809

the girls handsome. The house was very full. We
went upon expeditions every morning, danced all the
evenings, the children forming quite a part of the
general company, and as some of the Altyre sisters
were there, I felt perfectly at home. Ellen and
Margaret Dunbar wore sashes with their white frocks,
and had each a pair of silk stockings which they
drew on for full dress, a style that much surprised
me, as I, at home or abroad, had only my pink
gingham frocks for the morning, white calico for the
afternoon, cotton stockings at all times, and not a
ribbon, a curl, or an ornament about me.

One day we drove to Gordonstown, an extra-
ordinary palace of a house lately descended to Sir
William, along with a large property, where he had to
add the Southron Gordon to the Wolf of Badenoch's
long-famed name, not that it is quite clear that the
failing clan owes allegiance to this branch particularly,
but there being no other claimant Altyre passes for
the Comyn Chief. His name is on the roll of the
victors at Bannockburn as a chieftain undoubtedly.
I wonder what can have been done with Gordonstown.
It was like the side of a square in a town for extent
of fagade, and had remains of rich furnishings in it,
piled up in the large deserted rooms, a delightful bit
of romance to the young Dunbars and me. Another
day we went greyhound coursing along the fine bold
cliffs near Peterhead, and in a house on some bleak
point or other we called on a gentleman and his sister,
who showed us coins, vases, and spear-heads found on
excavating for some purpose in their close neighbour-
hood at Burghead, all Roman ; on going lower the
workmen came upon a bath, a spring enclosed by
cut-stone walls, a mosaic pavement surrounding
the bath, steps descending to it, and paintings on
the walls. The place was known to have been a
Roman station with many others along the south side
of the Moray Firth. We had all of us great pleasure
in going to see these curious remains of past ages thus
suddenly brought to light. I remember it all perfectly

1809] ROTHIEMURCHUS TIMBER-YARD 101

as if I had visited it quite lately, and I recollect
regretting that the walls were in many parts defaced.

On leaving Duffus we drove on to Garmouth to see
Mr Steenson, my father's wood agent there ; he had
charge of all the timber floated down the Spey from
the forest of Rothiemurchus where it had grown for
ages, to the shore near Fochabers where it was sorted
and stacked for sale. There was a good-natured wife
who made me a present of a milk-jug in the form of
a cow, which did duty at our nursery feasts for a
wonderful while, considering it was made of crockery
ware ; and rather a pretty daughter, just come from
the finishing school at Elgin, and stiff and shy of
course. These ladies interested me much less than
did the timber-yard, where all my old friends the logs,
the spars, and the deals and my mother's oars were
piled in such quantities as appeared to me endless.
The great width of the Spey, the bridge at Fochabers,
and the peep of the towers of Gordon Castle from
amongst the cluster of trees that concealed the rest
of the building, all return to me now as a picture of
beauty. The Duke lived very disreputably in this
solitude, for he was very little noticed, and, I believe,
preferred seclusion.

It was late when we reached Leitchison, a large
wandering house in a flat bare part of the country,
which the Duke had given, with a good farm attached,
to his natural son Colonel Gordon, our Glentromie
friend. Bright fires were blazing in all the large
rooms, to which long passages led, and all the merry
children were jumping about the hall anxiously waiting
for us. There were five or six fine boys, and one
daughter, Jane, named after the Duchess. Mrs Gordon
and her two sisters, the dark beautiful Agnes, and fat,
red-haired Charlotte, were respectably connected in
Elgin, had money, were well educated and so popular
women. Mrs Gordon was pretty and pleasing, and
the Colonel in company delightful ; but somehow they
did not get on harmoniously together ; he was eccentric
and extravagant, she peevish, and so they lived very

102 LOGIE [1809

much asunder. I did not at all approve of the ways
of the house after DufTus, where big and little people
all associated in the family arrangements. Here at
Leitchison the children were quite by themselves, with
porridge breakfasts and broth dinners, and very cross
Charlotte Ross to keep us in order. If she tried her
authority on the Colonel as well, it was no wonder if he
preferred the Highlands without her to the Lowlands
with her, for I know I was not sorry when the four bays
turned their heads westward, and, after a pleasant day's
drive, on our return through Fochabers, Elgin, and
Forres, again stopped at the door at Logic.

Beautiful Logie ! a few miles up the Findhorn, on
the wooded banks of that dashing river, wooded with
beech and elm and oak centuries old ; a grassy holm on
which the hideous house stood, sloping hills behind, the
water beneath, the Darnaway woods beyond, and such
a garden ! such an orchard ! well did we know the
Logie pears, large hampers of them had often found
their way to the Doune ; but the Logie guignes could
only be tasted at the foot of the trees, and did not my
young cousins and I help ourselves ! Logie himself,
my father's first cousin, was a tall, fine-looking man,
with a very ugly Scotch face, sandy hair and huge
mouth, ungainly in manner yet kindly, very simple in
character, in fact a sort of goose ; much liked for his
hospitable ways, respected for his old Cumming blood
(he was closely related to Altyre), and admired for one
accomplishment, his playing on the violin. He had
married rather late in life one of the cleverest women of
the age, an Ayrshire Miss Baillie, a beauty in her youth,
for she was Burns' " Bonnie Leslie," and a bit of a
fortune, and she gave herself to the militia captain
before she had ever seen the Findhorn ! and they were
very happy. He looked up to her without being afraid
of her, for she gave herself no superior wisdom airs,
indeed she set out so heartily on St Paul's advice to be
subject to her husband, that she actually got into a
habit of thinking he had judgment ; and my mother
remembered a whole room full of people hardly able to

18W] THE LOGIE FAMILY 103

keep their countenances, when she, giving her opinion
on some disputed matter, clenched the argument as she
supposed, by adding, " It's not my conviction only, but
Mr Gumming says so." She was too Southron to call
the Laird " Logie." Logie banks and Logie braes !
how very lovely ye were on those bright autumn days,
when wandering through the beech woods upon the
rocky banks of the Findhorn, we passed hours, my
young cousins and I, out in the pure air, unchecked of
any one. Five sons and one fair daughter the Lady
Logie bore her Laird ; they were not all born at the
time I write of. Poor Alexander and Robert, the two
eldest, fine handsome boys, were my companions in
these happy days ; long since mourned for in their
early graves. There was a strange mixture of the
father's simplicity and the mother's shrewdness in all
the children, and the same in their looks; only two
were regularly handsome, May Anne and Alexander,
who was his mother's darling. Clever as she was she
made far too much distinction between him and the
rest ; he was better dressed, better fed, more considered
in every way than the younger ones, and yet not
spoiled. He never assumed and they never envied, it
was natural that the young Laird should be most
considered. A tutor, very little older than themselves,
and hardly as well dressed, though plaiding was the
wear of all, taught the boys their humanities ; he ate
his porridge at the side-table with them, declining the
after-cup of tea, which Alexander alone went to the
state-table to receive. At dinner it was the same
system still, broth and boiled mutton, or the kain fowl
at the poor tutor's side-table. Yet he revered the
Lady ; everybody did ; every one obeyed her without
a word, or even, I believe, a thought, that it was
possible her orders could be incorrect. Her manner
was very kind, very simple, though she had an affected
way of speaking ; but it was her strong sense, her
truthful honesty, her courage — moral courage, for the
body's was weak enough — her wit, her fire, her
readiness that made her the queen of the intellect of

104 THE PASSAGE OF THE SPEY [1809

the north countrie. Every one referred to her in
their difficulties ; it was well that no winds wandered
over the reeds that grew by the side of the Lady Logie.
Yet she was worldly in a degree, no one ever more truly
counselled for the times, or lived more truly up to the
times, but so as it was no reproach to her. She was
with us often at the Doune with or without the Laird,
Alexander sometimes her companion, and he would be
left with us while she was over at Kinrara, where she
was a great favourite. I believe it was intended by the
family to marry Alexander to Mary, they were very
like and of suitable ages, and he was next heir of entail
presumptive to Rothiemurchus after my brothers. It
had also been settled to marry first Sir William
Gumming and afterwards Charles, to me. Jane oddly
enough was let alone, though we always understood her
to be the favourite with everybody.

My father had a story of Mrs Gumming that often
has come into my head since. He put her in mind of
it now, when she declined going on in the carriage with
him and my mother to dine at Relugas, where we were
to remain for a few days. She had no great faith in
four-in-hands on Highland roads, at our English
coachman's rate of driving. She determined on walking
that lovely mile by the river-side, with Alexander and
the "girlie" — me — as her escort; her dress during the
whole of our visit, morning, noon, and night, was a
scarlet cloth gown made in habit fashion, only without
a train, braided in black upon the breast and cuffs, and
on her head a black velvet cap, smartly set on one side,
bound with scarlet cord, and having a long scarlet
tassel, which dangled merrily enough now, as my father
reminded her of what he called the " Passage of the
Spey." It seemed that upon one occasion when she
was on a visit to us, they were all going together to
dine at Kinrara, and as was usual with them then,
before the ford at our offices was settled enough to use
when the water was high, or the road made passable
for a heavy carriage up the bank of the boyack, they
were to cross the Spey at the ford below Kinapol close

1809] RELUGAS 105

to Kinrara. The river had risen very much after heavy
rain in the hills, and the ford, never shallow, was now
so deep that the water was up above the small front
wheels and in under the doors, flooding the footboard.
My mother sat still and screamed. Mrs Gumming
doubled herself up orientally upon the seat, and in a
commanding voice, though pale with terror, desired the
coachman, who could not hear her, to turn. On
plunged the horses, in rushed more water, both ladies
shrieked. My father attempted the masculine consola-
tion of appealing to their sense of eyesight, which would
show them "returning were as tedious as going o'er,'*
that the next step must be into the shallows. The
Lady Logie turned her head indignantly, her body she
could not move, and from her divan-like seat she thus
in tragic tones replied — "A reasonable man like you,
Rothiemurchus, to attempt to appeal to the judgment
of a woman while under the dominion of the passion of
fear 1 "

At Relugas lived an old Mrs Cuming, with one m,
the widow of I don't know whom, her only child her
heiress daughter, and the daughter's husband, Tom
Lauder. He had some income from his father, was to
have more when his father died, and a large inheritance
with a baronetcy at an uncle's death, Lord Fountainhall.
It had been a common small Scotch house, but an
Italian front had been thrown before the old building,
an Italian tower had been raised above the offices, and
with neatly kept grounds it was about the prettiest
place ever lived in. The situation was beautiful, on a
high tongue of land between the Divie and the
Findhorn — the wild, leaping, rocky-bedded Divie and
the broader and rapid Findhorn. All along the banks
of both were well-directed paths among the wooding,
a group of children flitting about the heathery braes,
and the heartiest, merriest welcome within. Mr and
Mrs Lauder were little more than children themselves,
in manner at least; really young in years and gifted
with almost bewildering animal spirits, they did keep
up a racket at Relugas ! It was one eternal carnival :

106 A MERRY SET [1800

up late, a plentiful Scotch breakfast, out all day, a
dinner of many courses, mumming all the evening, and
a supper at the end to please the old lady. A Colonel
Somebody had a story — ages after this, however — that
having received an appointment to India, he went to
take leave of his kind friends at Relugas. It was in the
evening, and instead of rinding a quiet party at tea,
he got into a crowd of popes, cardinals, jugglers, gipsies,
minstrels, flower-girls, etc., the usual amusements of the
family. He spent half a lifetime in the East, and
returning to his native place thought he would not pass
that same hospitable door. He felt as in a dream, or
as if his years of military service had been a dream —
there was all the crowd of mountebanks again ! The
only difference was in the actors ; children had
grown up to take the places of the elders, some children,
for all the elders were not gone. Sir Thomas Dick
Lauder wore as full a turban, made as much noise, and
was just as thin as the Tom Lauder of twenty years
before, and his good lady, equally travestied and a
little stouter, did not look a day older with her grown-
up daughters round her, than she did in her own girlish
times. It was certainly a pleasant house for young
people. Sir Thomas, with all his frivolity, was a very
accomplished man ; his taste was excellent, as all his
improvements showed ; no walks could have been
better conducted, no trees better placed, no views better
chosen, and this refinement was carried all through, to
the colours of the furniture and the arrangement of It.
He drew well, sketched very accurately from nature,
was clever at puzzles, bouts-rinUs^ etc. — the very man
for a country neighbourhood. Her merit was in
implicitly following his lead ; she thought, felt, saw,
heard as he did, and if his perceptions altered or varied,
so did hers. There never was such a patient Grizzel ;
and the curious part of their history was that being
early destined by their parents to go together, they
detested one another, as children did nothing but
quarrel, agreed no better as they grew, being at one on
one only point, that they never would marry. How to

1809] RETURN HOME 107

avoid such .a catastrophe was the single subject they
discussed amicably. They grew confidential upon it
quite, and it ended in their settlement at Relugas.

This merry visit ended our tour. We drove home
in a few hours over the long, dreary moor between the
Spey and the Findhorn, passing one of the old strong-
holds of the Grants, the remains of a square tower
beside a lonely lake— a very lonely lake, for not a tree
nor a shrub was near it ; and resting the horses at the
Bridge of Carr, a single arch over the Dulnam, near
which had clustered a few cottages, a little inn amongst
them sheltered by trees ; altogether a bit of beauty in
the desert I had been so good all this tour, well
amused, made of, and not worried, that Miss Ramsay
was extremely complimented on the improvement she
had effected in my naturally bad disposition. As if
there were any naturally bad dispositions ! Don't we
crook them, and stunt them, and force them, and break
them, and do everything in the world except let them
alone to expand in pure air to the sun, and nourish
them healthfully ?

We were now to prepare for a journey to London.
I recollect rather a tearful parting from a companion to
whom we had become much attached, Mr Peter of
DuthiPs youngest son — or only son, for all I know, as I
never saw any other. Willie Grant was a fine hand-
some boy, a favourite with everybody and the darling of
his poor father, who had but this bright spot to cheer
his dull home horizon. All this summer Willie had
come to the Doune with the parson every third Sunday ;
that is, they came on the Saturday, and generally
remained over Monday. He was older than any of us,
but not too old to share all our out-of-door fun, and he
was full of all good, really and truly sterling. We were
to love one another for ever, yet we never met again.
When we returned to the Highlands he was in the East
India Military College, and then he sailed, and though
he lived to come home, marry, and settle in the High-
lands, neither Jane nor I ever saw him more. How
many of these fine lads did my father and Charles Grant

108 HIGHLAND LADDIES [1809

send out to India ! Some that throve, some that only
passed, some that made a name we were all proud of,
and not one that I heard of that disgraced the homely
rearing of their humbly-positioned but gentle-born
parents. The moral training of those simple times bore
its fair fruits : the history of many great men in the last
age began in a cabin. Sir Charles Forbes was the son
of a small farmer in Aberdeenshire. Sir William
Grant, the Master of the Rolls, was a mere peasant — his
uncles floated my father's timber down the Spey as long
as they had strength to follow the calling. General
William Grant was a footboy in my uncle Rothie's
family. Sir Colquhoun Grant, though a woodsetter's
child, was but poorly reared, in the same fashion as Mrs
Pro's fortunate boys. Sir William Macgregor, whose
history was most romantic of all, was such another.
The list could be easily lengthened did my memory
serve, but these were among the most striking examples
of what the good plain schooling of the dominie, the
principles and the pride of the parents, produced in
young ardent spirits ; forming characters which, how-
ever they were acted on by the world, never forgot
home feelings, although they proved this differently.
The Master of the Rolls, for instance, left all his
relations in obscurity. A small annuity rendered his
parents merely independent of hard labour ; very
moderate portions just secured for his sisters decent
matches in their own degree ; an occasional remittance
in a bad season helped an uncle or a brother out of a
difficulty. I never heard of his going to see them, or
bringing any of them out of their own sphere to visit
him. While the General shoved on his brothers,
educated his nephews and nieces, pushed the boys up,
married the girls well — such as had a wish to raise
themselves — and almost resented the folly of Peter the
Pensioner, who would not part with one of his flock
from the very humble home where he chose to keep
them. Which plan was wisest, or was either quite
right ? Which relations were happiest — those whose
feelings were sometimes hurt, or those whose frames

1809] MISS RAMSAY LEAVES 109

were sometimes over-wearied and but scantily re-
freshed? I often pondered in my own young mind
over these and similar questions ; but just at the time of
our last journey from the Doune to London less
puzzling matters principally occupied my sister Jane
and me.

We were not sure whether or no Miss Ramsay were
to remain with us ; neither were we sure whether or no
we wished it. We should have more of our own way
without her, that was certain ; but whether that would
be so good for us, whether we should get on as well in
all points by ourselves, we were beginning to be
suspicious of. She had taught us the value of constant
employment, regular habits, obliging manners, and we
knew, though we did not allow it, that there would be
less peace as well as less industry should we be again
left to govern ourselves. However, so it was settled.
Miss Ramsay was dropped at Newcastle amongst her
own friends, and for the time the relief from restraint
seemed most agreeable.

CHAPTER VI
1809-1810

HAVING got so far in these memorials of past life, the
pleasure of the many half-forgotten incidents now
revived induces me to proceed in stringing together
such recollections of our generation as can hardly fail,
dear children, to be interesting to you. The feebleness
of my health at present confines me so much to my
room that I am neglecting nothing else while thus
employing myself, so, though I have lost one listener to
the chapters as they are concluded, dear Janie Gardiner
being no longer among us, on I go as at Avranches,
feeling that if any of you are like me, this history will
be a curious family legend to refer to.

We left the Highlands, then, late in the autumn of
1809, and reached London in about three weeks from
the time we set out. During the winter, and the spring
of 1810, we were occupied as usual with our several
masters, under whom we could not fail to make a
certain degree of progress, because we were quick
children and they were clever instructors, but we by no
means duly improved our time, or conscientiously
worked out the value of my father's money and
kindness. For want of a steady director we got into
habits of dawdling, idling, omitting, and so on, and we
were very irregular in our hours, setting the authority
of our maid, Margaret Davidson, at defiance.

We were extremely fond of a visit to Brunswick
Square ; the baby cousins there of whom there were now
three, John, Lizzy, and George, were charming play-
no

1809-10] MOTHER'S FRIENDS 111

things, and all our aunt's tall brothers-in-law were so
fond of us, so very kind to us. Another particular friend
was Mrs Sophy Williams, my father's old governess,
who very often came to see us and never empty-
handed, and we used to go to visit her where she then
lived at Kensington as companion to old Mrs Anguish,
the mother or the aunt of the Duchess of Leeds, and
a relation of Mrs Raper's. It was one of those old-
fashioned households now hardly remembered, where
the fires were all put out, the carpets all taken up, and
curtains down upon the ist of May, not to be replaced
in those shivery rooms until the 1st of October; where
the hard high-backed chairs were ranged against the
wall, and a round, club-legged, darkly-polished table
stood quite bare in the middle ;of the room. In one
window was a parrot on a perch, screaming for ever,
" How d'ye do ? " In the other the two old ladies with
their worsted work, their large baskets, and their fat
spaniel. Mrs Anguish talked a great deal of scandal to
my mother about the court of the good Queen Charlotte,
the Prince and the Duchess of Devonshire, the Duke of
Devonshire and Lady Elizabeth Foster, sundry irregu-
larities among the nobles of past and present days ;
while dear Mrs Williams described Twyford and
Thorley, told of my grandmother's warm heart and
warmer temper, of my father's quaint sayings, and aunt
Lissy's goodness. We used also to visit Mrs Thrale
(Dr Johnson's), who was then Mrs Piozzi — her house
a sort of museum — and Lady Keith, her daughter, and
in a beautiful villa looking on Rotten Row, Mrs Murray
Aust, whose tour in the Highlands had made her rather
celebrated ; and dear old Mrs Raper in her melancholy
back drawing-room in Wimpole Street, where I never
yet found her doing anything whatever, though her
mind must have been well filled at some former time,
for she drew upon its stores in conversation most
agreeably ; and Mrs Charles Ironside, and old Mrs
Maling I remember. What other acquaintances my
mother called on I do not know, for we were always left
in the carriage except at the foregoing houses. She

112 SHOPPING [1809-10

generally drove out every day, and some of us were
always with her. On the week-days she made her visits
and went shopping — to Green the glover's in little
Newport Street, next door to such beautiful dolls, a
whole shop of no other toy, some the size of life, opening
and shutting their eyes, as was then a rare virtue ; to
Roberts and Plowman ; to Gray the jeweller ; to
Rundall and Bridge, so dirty and shabby without, such
a fairy palace within, where on asking a man who was
filling a scoop with small brown-looking stones what he
was doing, he told me he was shovelling in rubies ; to
Miss Stewart, our delight, cakes and flattery and
bundles of finery awaiting us there ; and then the three
or four rooms full of hoops before the court days,
machines of whalebone, very large, covered with silk,
and then with lace or net, and hung about with festoons
of lace and beads, garlands of flowers, puffings of ribbon,
furbelows of all sorts. As the waists were short, how
the imprisoned victims managed their arms we of this
age can hardly imagine. The heads for these bodies
were used as supports for whole faggots of feathers, as
many as twelve sometimes standing bold upright
forming really a forest of plumage; the long train
stretched out behind, very narrow, more like a prolonged
sash end than a garment. Yet there were beauties who
wore this dress, and in it looked beautiful. We went to
Churton's for our stockings, to Ross for my mother's
wigs — this was another queer fashion — every woman,
not alone the grey and the bald, wore an expensive wig
instead of her own hair ; to Lowe for shoes, to St Paul's
Church corner for books. I don't remember half the
places.

On Sundays we went to Lincoln's Inn Chapel in the
morning, Sir William Grant looking kindly down upon
us from his window. We dined, said our Catechism,
and then all set out for Rotten Row, where the amuse-
ment consisted in one long file of carriages at a foot's
pace going one way, passing another long file of
carriages at a foot's pace going the other, bows gravely
exchanged between the occupants, when any of the busy

1809-10] AMUSEMENTS 113

starers were acquainted. All London was engaged in
this serious business. We sometimes prevailed on my
mother to make a diversion round the ring, that we
might see the swans on the water, but she only now
and then obliged us, much preferring that long proces-
sion up and down a mile of dusty road — the greater the
crowd, the slower the move, the greater the pleasure.
" Delightful drive in the park to-day " meant that there
was hardly a possibility of cutting into the line, or
moving much above a yard in a minute. " Most
dreadfully stupid in the park to-day " meant that there
was plenty of room for driving comfortably.

On Sunday evenings my father took his tea upstairs.
Other evenings we carried him down a large breakfast
cup full of very strong tea to his study, where he was
always seated immersed in papers with his secretary,
little horrid Sandy Grant, whose strange voice sounded
as if he spoke through a paper-covered comb. It was
not law business that occupied them ; the poor clerk in
the outer room had an idle time. Law-suits of his own,
dreams of political influence, money loans, and all the
perplexities and future miseries consequent on these
busy evenings were being prepared in that study where
we carried the cup of tea. How kindly my father
smiled on his young messengers, how bright his room
looked, how warm his fire ! We liked to go there, and
we loved to linger.

We were very seldom allowed to go to children's
parties, nor did my mother ever give any for us at home.
We went very often to the play, we three elder ones,
and to Sadler's Wells and Astley's, and to some of the
Concerts. Also this spring for the first time in my life
I went to the Opera. We were all in the Square one
afternoon, at a grand game of Tom Tiddler's ground,
when one of my playmates told us that the little white
flag, our homeward signal, was flying from our high
windows. We ran off at once and were met at the
gate by the footman, who said that I only was wanted.
I was to dress as quick as possible in my best white
frock to go to the Opera. How old was I that happy

H

114 ILLNESSES [1810

night ? — thirteen within a week or two. My dress was
a plain white frock with plenty of tucks, a little
embroidery on the waist, white calico long gloves, and a
cropped head, the hair brushed bright with rose oil,
which to me made the toilet complete. The Opera
was " II Fanatico." Naldi the father, with his full low
notes, Mrs Billington his pupil daughter. She sang her
solfeggi, all the exercises, and " Uno trillo sopra la" —
nothing ever was so beautiful, even the memory of those
sounds, so clear, so sweet, so harmonious, that voice
that ran about like silver water over pearls ! There is
no enjoyment like good music, simple or complicated,
so as it be truthfully and earnestly given ; it has ever
afforded to me the most intense pleasure I am capable
of receiving, and how little I have heard, and how vilely
I made it !

We had a great fright this year by the very severe
series of illnesses that attacked poor William. He
brought the whooping-cough with him from Eton at
Christmas, which we all caught from him, and a pleasant
time we had, condemned to one side walk in the Square,
from any approach to which all other children were
strictly forbidden. It was not very bad with us, and
towards the end we became rather attached to our
visitor, for we had no lessons, no milk, delicious tea
breakfasts, and dinners of puddings and such good
things, with long daily drives far out into the country.
William had not long been returned to school when he
took the measles ; this turned to scarlet fever, and my
mother went down to nurse him, with very faint hopes
at one time of bringing him through. When he could
be moved he was taken to Kensington to be under the
care of Mrs Mary Williams, the elder sister of Sophy,
who, with a blind sister, Anne, lived in a very neat
house not far from the gardens. My mother went every
day to see him, taking care to take off the dress she
wore before allowing any of the rest of us to come near
her, while any risk of infection was supposed to remain ;
and yet both Jane and I got, not the measles, but the
scarlet fever ; the younger ones escaped.

1810] A VISIT TO TUNBRIDGE 115

It was about this time that I began to take more
notice of any remarkable persons occasionally dining at
my father's. The three eccentric brothers, Lord
Buchan, Lord Erskine, and Harry Erskine (by far
the most brilliant of the three) stand out foremost. It
was a real treat to the whole family when this last with
his agreeable wife came for a few weeks from Scotland,
as we always saw a good deal of them. The Duchess
of Gordon I remember with her loud voice, and Lady
Madelina Sinclair, talking of Rothiemurchus and
Kinrara. Lord Gillies and Mrs Gillies, in his advocate
days, when appeal cases brought him to London. The
Redfearns, whom / never saw, the sight of me recalling
her lost boy (with the drum) so vividly that she could
not bear the shock. There were the Master of the
Rolls and some few English lawyers, Mr Ward
(Tremaine), Sir Griffin Wilson, and William Frere ; and
upon one occasion his intended wife Miss Gurdon, who
sang with a voice and in a style only equalled by
Catalani.

This year, after all the sickness, we went early to
Tunbridge, my mother having suffered herself severely
in consequence of her fatigue and anxiety. A large
dull house, but a very comfortable one, was taken for
us at the top of Sion Hill. It belonged to Mr Canning's
mother, and had a really good garden, with a fine clump
of shady trees in it, under which we children used to
pass our days. My mother had some dislike to this
place which suited all the rest of us so admirably, so, in
the fiery month of June, we removed from this quiet,
roomy, old-fashioned house to a smartened-up Grosvenor
Lodge, a new bow-windowed villa on the London road,
a full mile from the Wells, where the sun shone on us
unmolested till we in the attics were nearly grilled ; but
we were in the world, as well as in the sunshine and the
dust besides.

Aunt Leitch spent a short time with us at Grosvenor
Lodge, and Annie Grant and Miss Maling. Aunt
Leitch had been for some time a widow. She had
given up Kilmerdinney to her husband's heir for a

116 LIFE AT THE WELLS [1810

consideration, and had joined in housekeeping with
uncle Ralph, who had determined on letting Tennoch-
side and coming south for a few years, in order better
to educate his two children. We had our Highland
neighbours, Belleville and Mrs Macpherson, also here ;
of them we saw a great deal, having from first to last
been always on the most friendly terms with them.
My brother John, then Johnnie, a little creature in a
nankin frock, and Belleville were so inseparable, that
people soon began to look for them as one of the
shows of the place, for they walked together in rather
a singular manner. Belleville went first with his hands
crossed behind his back, holding out his long stick, the
end of which was taken by the child, who trotted on
thus for hours, few words passing between the pair.
Mrs Macpherson, who preferred the carriage, generally
went an airing with us, my mother calling for her
at her lodgings near the pantiles. We were really
very happy this season at Tunbridge Wells, and so set
up by the fine air that we could not have looked more
healthy had we been in our own Duchus.

Upon looking over the doings of this year so far, I
find I have forgotten to mention quite a remarkable
circumstance. Mrs Charles Grant, the old director's
wife, invited us three little girls to accompany my
father and mother to a great party she was giving in
Russell Square — a rout — and we all went. It was to
meet the Persian ambassador, the same who was Mr
Morier's friend, and who got on in every way so well
in this country that many years afterwards he was sent
here again. I cannot at this moment recollect his
name; he was a tall handsome man, not very dark.
He spoke English quite well enough to be understood,
and turned all the women's heads with his beautiful
Eastern dress and flatteries. He was remarkably fond
of children, always liked to have some in the room with
him, which was the reason we had been distinguished
by this invitation. There was wonderful commotion in
the green room which Jane and I shared in common,
little Mary venturing to show herself there, as she had

1810] THE PERSIAN AMBASSADOR 117

been included among the company. Our dancing
shoes, drab jean, were to do quite well, and cotton
stockings, but we got new frocks of soft clear muslin,
very full, with several deep tucks. All the three heads
were fresh cropped and oiled, and as our toilets were
being completed my mother entered, so beautifully
dressed in white spotted muslin over straw-coloured
silk, holding in her hands three pairs of white kid
gloves, and three cairngorm crosses dangling to gold
chains. Duncan Macintosh had given us the stones —
found on our own hills — and she had had them set for
us purposely to wear this evening. The Persian
ambassador took a great deal of notice of us and of
our sparkling crosses. Jane, of course, he most
distinguished, her bright eyes and her rosy cheeks, and
her lively natural manner equally free from forward-
ness or shyness, always ensured her the attention of
strangers. Both she and I behaved extremely well,
we were told next day, papa and mamma quite satisfied
with us, and with our propriety in the cake line, just
helping ourselves once, as we had been told, and no
more. Mary was suspected of more frequent helpings,
also she tired and fell asleep on Belleville's knee, for he
and Mrs Macpherson were there. Mrs Macpherson
said laughingly to my mother when the great Mirza (I
am sure now that was one of his names) was occupied
so much with Jane, not very far from where sat an
elderly Miss Perry, another director's daughter, with
an enormous turban on her head, and a fine cashmere
on her shoulders : " What would she give to be the
object of such attention ? " the shawl and turban having
been adopted, it was said, to attract the stranger, who
had a wife and one little girl at home.

Aunt Mary had invited me to be present at a great
solemnity at Oxford, the Installation of Lord Grenville
as Chancellor of the University, which ceremony was
to take place in the month of July of this summer, 1810.
It was quite an era in my life, the first indeed of any
moment, and it filled my young heart with a tumultuous
pleasure I was for some days unable to control. It

118 AN EXCITING INVITATION [1810

was lucky for me that my father was from home, as he
would have been very likely to have kept me there for
showing myself so unfit to be trusted with my own
conduct. We were never to annoy others with any
excess of emotion, probably a good rule for such very
excitable children, and yet it might have made us
artificial, and it did afterwards make me appear affected,
the struggle between feeling and fearing. I certainly
did run a little wild on receiving aunt Griffith's letter
(she liked us to call her by her husband's name). To
visit alone ! To go to the Theatre ! Concerts !
Inaugurations! See degrees conferred ! Among such
a crowd of great and noble, in classic Oxford, where
stood Great Tom 1 It really half turned a head not
then very steady. We had been reading Miss Porter's
Scottish Chiefs, to initiate us into the realities of life
and the truth of history ; and such visions of display
had been brought before us, of plumed helmets, coats of
gilded mail, kings, queens, trains, escorts, etc., that, my
aunt indulging a little in poetical anticipations of the
splendid scenes she was asking me to witness, I took
my seat beside my father in his post-chariot, with some
idea that I had grown suddenly six feet high, twenty
years older, and was the envy of every one. My father
had come to us for a week's holiday after my first
transport had cooled a little. The parting with them
all made me grave enough, and it was soon quite
unnecessary to caution me about expressing any
exuberance of spirits. The first disappointment in
this dream of pleasure was the conveyance we travelled
in. I was accustomed to the barouche and four, the
liveried servants, and all the stir of such an equipage ;
my father's plain post-chaise, pair of horses, and only
one man, made no sensation along the road, neither at
the inns nor in the villages. No one stared at so plain
a carriage, nor was there any bustle in the inn-yards
on our changing horses.

Arrived in London, the large empty house in
Lincoln's Inn Fields was intolerable, not a creature
there but the housemaid in charge of all the displaced

1810] ALONE IN LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS 119

furniture, so that I wandered from one bare melancholy
room to another in very tearful mood. In the Square
it was no better, few of our young companions having
remained in town — none that I cared for. Aunt Lissy
was in Norfolk, my father occupied the whole day, so
that except at meals I never saw him. There were
plenty of books, however, and the pianoforte, and I had
always work with me, but it was very lonely. One new
delight reconciled me in some measure to this dull
week. My mother had trusted me to buy myself
shoes, gloves, ribbons, etc., required as additions to my
moderate equipment, and I had the satisfaction of
purchasing these supplies myself, entering the shops in
Fleet Street, in great state, in front of my attendant
the housemaid, asking for what I wanted, choosing and
paying like a grown-up young lady. I was thirteen,
Annie's age, but how far behind what she is in some
respects, so ignorant of all useful things, so childish, so
affected, so bewildered at having to act for myself; all
our wants having been hitherto supplied without any
trouble to us. Aunt Leitch had made me a present of
a pound note to spend as I liked without question. I
parted with it for a parasol with a plated stick and a
carved ivory handle and a pagoda summit, of a pea-
green silk with a dazzling fringe, altogether big enough
to have acted as an umbrella, and under this canopy
I strutted away with the dignity of a peacock, to
the amusement, I should suppose, of every one that
passed me.

I and my Chinese parasol were one morning in the
Square, figuring before the nursery-maids, when an
unusual sound yelled up from a corner of the gardens —
the Searle Street corner — and a mob of dirty-looking
men tumbled in over one another to the amount of
hundreds. They had hardly rushed on as far as Lord
Kenyon's high house, when from the Long Acre corner
a troop of dragoons rattled in all haste, advancing
towards the Surgeons' Hall, with gleaming sabres.
The mob retreated steadily enough and slowly and
unwillingly, but the horses moving on in their peculiar

120 A MOB IN THE SQUARE [1810

way, turning their hind legs to the multitude occasion-
ally, made good their determined pressure on the
crowd, amid yells and shouts and many hisses. But
the dragoons prevailed, as the imposing cavalry
advanced so did the great unwashed retire, and soon
the whole pageant vanished, the noise even gradually
dying away in the distance. As quickly as we could
recover our composure, all who had been sauntering in
the Square regained their houses. At the corner gate
I flew to, I and my precious parasol, I found my
father's man, Mr Sims, waiting to escort me home.
All the windows of the two lower storeys of all the
houses in the Square were immediately closed, and the
housemaid and I had to mount up to the very top of
ours, to the barred windows of the nursery, to study the
horse-tailed helmets of our patrol. Early next morning
I was taken to Sandy Grant's chambers in Sergeant's
Inn, the iron gates of which retirement were kept fast
closed till Sir Francis Burdett had left the Tower, for
he had been the cause of all this commotion. He was
then the perfect idol of the people, their ideal of an
English country gentleman. He supported this
character in breeches and top-boots, and having a fair
handsome person and good-humoured manners, he
remained for many a year the king of the fiddlers.
What his crime had been on this occasion, I forget,
some disrespect to the House of Commons, I think, for
they ordered him into custody, and sent him to the
Tower by water to avoid ill consequences, his friends
being above all things excitable. On the day of his
release they had him to themselves, and had all their
own way, filling the streets from end to end. Never
was there such a pack of heads wedged close together,
like Sir Walter Scott's description of the Porteous mob.
Every window of the long, tall row of houses on either
side was filled with women waving handkerchiefs and
dark blue flags, the Burdett colour. The roar of voices
and the tread of so many feet sounded awful even in
the enclosed court ; it penetrated to the back room
where Mrs Sandy Grant and I were sitting.

1810] TO OXFORD IN A POST-CHAISE 121

I was to travel to Oxford with two friends of my
uncle Griffith, Dr and Miss Williams. They accord-
ingly called for me in a hack post-chaise, the first I had
ever entered, and when I found myself seated in it,
bodkin, my feet on straw, my little trunk corded on out-
side, the lining dirty, the windows rattling, the whole
machine so rickety, and began to jolt along the paved
streets with these very uninviting strangers, I could not
help having rather melancholy regrets for Grosvenor
Lodge, sunny as it was, my brothers and sisters and
their merry ways, the open landau and four skimming
over the roads, my mother's silk dresses, the well-bred
servants, the polished luxury of home. I was indeed
subdued, I sat quiet and silent, looking vacantly out at
all the ugliness we travelled through. Dr Williams
was reading a pamphlet, I am sure I wondered how he
could keep his eyes steady on the lines ; he made
notes from time to time with a pencil on the pages of a
pocket-book he kept open on his knee, then he would
lie back as if in deep thought, and begin to read and
write again ; that was my left hand. Miss Williams
had a squeaky voice, quite an irritant to a sensitive ear ;
she did not speak much, which was well, but what she
did say was very kindly meant; I daresay I was a
great bore to her and all her bags and parcels; that
was my right. Straight before was a Humphrey
Clinker whipping on two much-abused horses, very
very unlike the four bays. At last we stopped at a
pretty country inn near a wood, where we had luncheon,
and then we all went out to gather wild-flowers, for Dr
Williams was a botanist and had gone this, not the
usual, road for the purpose of collecting specimens.
We grew much more companionable ; when he took
my nosegay from me he seemed much pleased, he told
me a great deal that I never forgot, showing me the
form and the beauty of the simple flower and telling me
what valuable qualities it sometimes lost when cultiva-
tion rendered it more lovely to the eye. He pressed
among the leaves of a thick packet of blotting-paper
such flowers as he had selected from our gatherings,

122 ARRIVAL AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE [1810

and then we resumed our journey in, I thought, a very
much more comfortable chaise; the Doctor read less,
the sister, though she still squeaked, talked more, and I
chattered away very merrily. The latter part of the
journey therefore passed pleasantly to me, while both
answering and asking questions. A little packet of
change with a memorandum of my share of the
expenses was put into my hands as we were about
entering Oxford, and in a few minutes, late in the
evening, we stopped at my uncle's door — not the grand
door opening on one of the quadrangles, approached by
broad steps up to great gates kept by a porter in his
lodge, all grand as a college should be, but a back door
in a narrow lane, letting me in to the kitchen passage,
up a stair to the hall, and so to the kindest welcome
from both aunt and uncle v/ho were standing there to
receive me. I was just in time, they said, the house
was to be full of company in a day or two, when the
little housekeeper would find herself extremely useful.
In the meanwhile I was introduced to all the apart-
ments, made acquaintance with the different closets and
their various keys, and was established myself in my
aunt's dressing-room with a sofa bed to sleep on, and
two drawers in her chest and my own trunk for my
clothes, she taking charge of my balance of cash,
remarking that it was very shabby of Dr Williams to
have charged me with my expenses, as he must have
had the chaise for himself and his sister at any rate, and
he might have treated me to my luncheon, just
eighteenpence, without any violent liberality. My
Highland pride preferred having paid my share, but I
said nothing, and I was silent about the balance too,
which I knew my father had intended I should have
kept in my own pocket; not that I wanted money,
we had never been accustomed to have any.

The Master's lodgings at University College formed
two sides of a quadrangle — no, not quite, one side and
the half of another. The other half of the second side
and the third were occupied as students' rooms; the
fourth was the high wall of the Master's garden. It

1810] AUNT'S COSTUMES 123

was a large house containing a great many rooms of a
good size, but inconveniently planned, several of them
opening one out of another with no separate entrances
and not proportioned properly, the whole of the one
long side being wedge-shaped, the space twenty feet
wide at the street end, and only ten at the garden end,
the outer wall humouring the lane, instead of the lane
having been made to follow the wall. The private
apartments were on this side and very comfortable,
though oddly shaped. There were on the other side
two spare bedrooms with dressing-rooms for company,
and at the head of the front staircase a nice cheerful
room which was afterwards mine, but wanted at this
time for Sir William Scott. Besides this great man a
cousin Horseman arrived, and aunt Leitch and uncle
Ralph and aunt Judy. Both ladies had been dressed
by Miss Stewart for the occasion. Aunt Leitch always
wore black, a Scotch fashion when a widow is no longer
young; besides, it suited her figure, which had got
large, and her rather high colour. She had good taste
and looked extremely well, never wearing what did not
become her, and choosing always what was plain and
rich and fresh and well-fitting. A white chip bonnet
and feathers made a great impression on me just now,
so did a straw-coloured silk of my aunt Judy's, as she
altered it to please herself. It was to be worn with
handsomely embroidered white muslin gowns and a small
cloak of like material trimmed with lace, and all the
broad hem round lined with straw-coloured satin
ribbon ; the shape of the bonnet was such as was worn
at the time, rather a close cottage, if I remember, with
a long feather laid across it very prettily. My uncle
had chosen the whole dress and spared no expense to
have his oddity of a little wife made to look somewhat
like other people. The first day it was all very well,
but the second no one would have known her ; both
cloak and bonnet were so disfigured by the changes she
had made in them, that their singularity and her high-
heeled shoes — for she had never yet been persuaded to
lay her stilts aside — really made us all feel for my uncle,

124 INSTALLATION GAIETIES [1810

who was certainly very angry, though he was prepared
for the exhibition, she never having then nor since
received any article of any description from any person,
however celebrated, without altering it, if it could be
done; her own taste being, according to her, unim-
peachable, and all these lower natures requiring the
finishing touch of her refinement to make her the most
perfect object that ever vexed a sensitive husband.

I have a much more distinct recollection of this
affair, of nipping the sugar, setting out the desserts,
giving out the linen, running all the messages, than I
have of all the classic gaieties of the week, though I was
kindly taken to all of them. In fact I fancy they had
disappointed me, read me another lesson, for, as far as
I remember, hope never intoxicated me again ; I never
felt again as I had felt at Grosvenor Lodge, on the day
of receiving my aunt's invitation. The theatre, for one
thing, had been a shock, where I had expected to be
charmed with a play, instead of being nearly set to
sleep by discourses in Latin from a pulpit. There
were some purple and some gold, some robes and some
wigs, a great crowd and some stir at times, when a deal
of humdrum speaking and dumb show was followed by
the noisy demonstrations of the students as they
applauded or condemned the honours bestowed ; but in
the main I tired of the heat and the mob, and the worry
of these mornings, and so, depend upon it, did poor
Lord Grenville, who sat up in his chair of state among
the dignitaries, like the Grand Lama in his temple
guarded by his priests. The concerts, though, were
delightful. There, for the first and only time in my life,
I heard Catalani. I don't think her singing, her Rule
Britannia, above all her " Gott safe the King," will ever
go out of my head. She was the first Italian woman I
had noticed, and much her large, peculiarly set eyes,
her open forehead, pale dark complexion and vivacity
of countenance struck me. She was very handsome.
We had Braham, too, with his unequalled voice and fine
bravura style, and my old acquaintance from the
Hanover Square Rooms ; Mrs Bianchi indeed always

1810] INTERNAL DECORATIONS 125

went about with Catalan! to teach her her songs, the
great singer not knowing a note of music ; indeed her
ear was defective, it was a chance her gaining the pitch
of the accompaniment ; if she did, all was right, for she
kept on as she set out, so it was generally sounded for
her by her friend, and then off she went like nobody
else that ever succeeded her.

Well, all this over, the company gone, the actors and
the spectators departed, the term over, Oxford deserted,
my regular life there began. In the morning I read
both in French and in English to my aunt, took one
walk a day with old Anne, who dressed herself in a
black mode cloak that had arm-holes to let the arms
through, and a small black bonnet, to attend upon me.
I gave out the good things from the storeroom, some-
times naughtily helping myself, played in the garden at
walking like a lady with a phantom companion, to whom
I addressed some very brilliant observations, went visit-
ing sometimes with my aunt, and helped her to patch,
for that favourite work still continued although the
whole house was decorated with her labours. Borders
of patchwork went round all the sofa and chair covers,
and my room went by the name of the patchwork room
because the bed and the window curtains were all
trimmed with this bordering. My aunt kept her house
very neat and clean, as it deserved to be kept, for my
uncle and the college together had fitted it up hand-
somely. The woodwork was all dark oak highly
polished and carved. The chimney-pieces were of
stone, of antique form, suited to a college of Alfred's (?)
days, and then with my uncle's ingenious turn for
nick-nackities of his own production it was filled with
ornamental trifles, all in keeping with the grave air of
his college residence. The walls of some rooms were
hung with his poker-paintings, pictures burned on wood
by hot irons ; others had his drawings framed ; the
plants were in pots painted Etruscan ; some windows
screened by transparencies. He was never idle, sketch-
ing or finishing his sketches filling up any unoccupied
time. They had three old servants, a man and two

126 JANE'S ARRIVAL [1810

maids, who did all the work of that large house.
William and old Anne had lived with my uncle at his
living of Whitchurch in his bachelor days. Nanny
was added on his marriage, and the three remained with
him till his death, when William was made porter to
the college, and Anne and Nanny accompanied my
aunt to her small house in Holywell.

I was beginning to tire of being " burd alane," kind
and indulgent as were my aunt and uncle, when a letter
arrived from my mother that caused a number of
mysterious consultations. Though I was never admitted
to the secret tribunal in the study, I heard afterwards
up in my aunt's boudoir most of all that had been
discussed. The question was concerning a proposition
made by my mother to this effect, that instead of
reclaiming me, my sister Jane should be sent to bear
me company. My father found it necessary to proceed
immediately to the Highlands, and not intending to
remain there long, it being now late in the season, he
did not wish to encumber his party with all his children
and a governess, for we elder ones could not well be let
to run wild any longer ; and if our uncle Griffith would
let us stay with him and my aunt would take the
trouble to look a little after us, and choose us good
masters, we were anxious enough to learn to ensure our
making good profit of such instruction. A delay of two
or three days resulted in an answer such as was
expected. I had a peep of father, mother, brothers, and
little sister, for William's holidays enabled him to travel
with them, and then Jane and I were left by ourselves
to make the best of it It was a great trial, this
arrangement, to have to give up the Highlands, to be
separated, we who were all so happy together, and
whose hearts were in Rothiemurchus. Many a passion
of tears our little patchwork room witnessed for the first
week. Afterwards our young spirits revived, and we
set ourselves to work in earnest to be busy and happy
in our new circumstances.

CHAPTER VII
1810-1811

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE is said to be the most ancient of
all the Colleges in Oxford, as may be supposed from
King Alfred getting the credit of being its founder.
The two quadrangles which form the principal part of
the edifice occupy a considerable space in the High
Street ; each quadrangle is entered through large
arched gateways approached by flights of broad steps.
The line of building separating the two quadrangles
extends sufficiently behind to separate the Master's
gardens from the Fellows'. It is appropriated to the
kitchen offices principally. My uncle's lodgings
forming a larger house than he required, he let some of
the upper rooms of the side looking to the street,
retaining on the ground-floor a dining-room, drawing-
room and pantry, two bedrooms, with two dressing-
closets above. The upper storey he let. The other
side, the wedge, contained on the ground-floor the hall
and staircase, back passage and back staircase, the
study, and through the study the library, a very long
room filled with old dusty books in cases all round,
reaching from the floor to the ceiling ; most of these
books were unreadable, being a collection of divinity
from very ancient times, belonging to the College, and
not of late much added to. In this room there was no
furniture, neither curtains, nor carpet, nor fireplace ; but
three chairs, one table, and a pianoforte were put into it
for us, and this was our schoolroom. Through this
library was a small room with a fireplace, used by my

127

126 OUR LESSONS [1810

uncle to heat his irons for his poker-painting ; this little
room opened into a pretty garden, where our happiest
hours were spent. Over this suite were the private
apartments of my uncle and aunt, and our patchwork
room. Above again were the servants' .rooms, storeroom,
and lumber rooms. The kitchens were underground.
It was all very nice, except that long melancholy library,
which was always like a prison to us ; there was no view
from the windows, no sun till quite late in the day, not
an object to distract our attention from our business.
A judicious arrangement perhaps ; we lost no time
there certainly. Mr Vickery, the organist of Magdalen,
taught us music, he was clever, but perfectly mad ; half
his lesson he spent in chattering, the other half in
dancing. So except my aunt came in, or he thought
she was coming, we got very little instruction from him.
Our writing master was an elderly man of the name of
Vincent, much in the same style as our old friend Mr
Thompson ; he, however, taught nothing beyond writing
and arithmetic and the mending of pens, which last
accomplishment we found about as useful an art as any
of the many we learned. Our aunt was so kind as to
keep us up in history, geography, French, etc., and our
uncle, with his refined tastes and his many accomplish-
ments, was of the utmost use to us in fixing our attention
on wiser things than had hitherto chiefly employed us.
For one thing, he opened to us what had been till then
a sealed book — the New Testament. He taught us to
make its precepts a rule of life, showed us that part of
our Saviour's mission here on earth was to be to us an
example, and he explained the Catechism so clearly
that we, who had always just learned it by rote every
Sunday most grudgingly, now took pleasure in repeating
what we understood and found was to be of use. My
little artifices and equivocations were never passed by
him, but they were so kindly checked, so reproved as a
duty, that I soon disliked to pain him by employing
them. Neither did I find such subterfuges necessary.
No one punished me for accidental faults, nor was a
harsh word ever addressed to me, I therefore insensibly

1810] WALKS ABOUT OXFORD 129

lost the bad habits given by our nursery miseries.
Truly this visit to Oxford was one of the fortunate
chances of my life.

My uncle was invariably good to me, but Jane was
his favourite, honest, natural, truthful Jane. Her love of
reading, drawing, gardening, and poetry, kept them
constantly together, while I was more my aunt's com-
panion. Still, we were often dull, for they were a good
deal out at dinner with the other Heads of Houses, and
then we had long evenings alone in the study, Anne
popping up every now and then to look after us. We
were allowed to make tea for ourselves, and we had tea to
breakfast, and butter upon our bread, and a small glass
of ale — College home-brewed ale — at dinner. How fat
we got! Our regular walk was our only grievance.
Neither my aunt nor Anne would let us run, it was not
considered correct to run in Oxford, not even in the
parks nor in the Christ Church meadows ; we were to
move sedately on, arm in arm, for our arms were not
allowed to fall naturally ; they were placed by my aunt
in what she called a graceful position, and so they were
to remain, and when we remonstrated and said mamma
had never stiffened us up so, we were told that my
mother was by no means a model of elegance, a sort of
heresy in our ears, we being persuaded she was as near
perfection as mortal woman could be. We were quite
shocked to find her not appreciated. How we skipped
upstairs for our bonnets when my uncle proposed to
walk out with us ! No graceful arm in arm for him !
The moment we were out of the town, away we raced
just as we liked, off to Joe Pullen's tree, or along the
London roadway, round the Christ Church meadows. If
old Anne could but have seen us ! We told her of our
doings though, which was some satisfaction. Sometimes
our walks with him were quieter. He took us into the
different colleges, to show us the Hall of one, the
stained-glass windows of another, the chapel of a third.
He told us of the histories of the founders, with the
dates of their times, and he gave us short sketches of
the manners of those days, adverting to the events then

I

130 UNCLE GRIFFITH'S RECREATIONS [1810

passing, the advance of some arts since, the point at
which a certain style of architecture, for instance, had
stopped. We went over the Bodleian and the Radcliffe
Libraries, and to the museum and the theatre and the
schools, and very often we returned to the chapel
window at New College, and the picture over the
communion table at Magdalen — Christ bearing the
Cross — supposed to be Spanish, and perhaps by
Velasquez ; it had been taken in a ship that had sailed
from a port in Spain. Sometimes he made us write
little essays on different subjects in prose, and try to
rhyme, beginning with bouts-rim^s, at which my aunt
beat us all. I cannot say that my versifying ever did
him or me much credit, but I poetised capitally in prose,
while Jane strung off couplets by the hundred with very
little trouble beyond writing them down. My uncle
could versify by the hour.

He had an immensity of fun in him besides this
readiness, and was the author of many satirical
pleasantries and political squibs called forth by the
events of the day, some of which found their way into
the newspapers, as —

Sir Arthur, Sir Arthur, Sir Hew and Sir Harry
Sailed boldly from England to Spain,

But not liking long there to tarry,
They wisely sailed all back again.

" Sir Arthur " was the Duke of Wellington. His
second sailing did better. Then there was —

The city of Lisbon.

The gold that lay in the city of Lisbon.

which in our volume had little coloured vignettes all
down the page, representing the subject of each new
announcement " The Court of Enquiry," with little
officers in regimentals seated all round a table ; the
"Fraternal Hug" of the French ally to the poor
overwhelmed Portuguese, etc. His caricatures were
admirable, particularly of living characters, the like-

1810] HIS SKETCHES 131

nesses were so perfect. Some of these he composed on
the common playing-cards, the hearts and diamonds
being most humorously turned into faces, hands, furni-
ture, etc. He began a series from Shakespeare, which
are really fine as compositions. His graver style, whether
in water-colours, chalks, reeds, or burnt in, are considered
to have shown great genius, his many sketches from
nature being particularly valuable, from their spirit and
truthfulness. There were portfolios full of these in their
ruder states, hundreds finished, framed, and dispersed
among his friends. We had a great many at the Doune
taken in Rothiemurchus, Dunkeld, and the West High-
lands. My aunt's little boudoir was hung round with
others. In his dining-room were more ; there were
some at the Bodleian, and the altar-piece in his own
College chapel — Christ blessing the Bread — was of his
own poker-painting. In the museum was a head, I
think of Leicester ; and while we were with him he was
busy with a tiger the size of life, the colouring of the
old oak panel and the various tints burned on it so
perfectly suiting the tiger's skin. Jane was his great
assistant in this work, heating the irons for him in the
little end room, and often burning portions of the picture
herself. A print was taken from his water-colour draw-
ing of part of the High Street, in which his own College
figures conspicuously. They are rare now, as he sold
none. One was afterwards given to me, which we have
framed and hung in our entrance hall.

Two facts struck me, young as I was, during our
residence at Oxford ; the ultra-Tory politics and the
stupidity and frivolity of the society. The various
Heads, with their respective wives, were extremely
inferior to my uncle and aunt. More than half of the
Doctors of Divinity were of humble origin, the sons of
small gentry or country clergy, or even of a lower
grade ; many of these, constant to the loves of their
youth, brought ladies of inferior manners to grace what
appeared to them so dignified a station. It was not a
good style ; there was little talent and less polish and
no sort of knowledge of the world, and yet the ignorance

132 COLLEGE EDUCATION [1810

of this class was less offensive than the assumption of
another, where a lady of high degree had fallen in love
with her brother's tutor and got him handsomely
provided for in the church that she might excuse herself
for marrying him. Of the lesser clergy there were young
witty ones, odious, and young learned ones, bores, and
elderly ones, pompous ; all, of all grades, kind and
hospitable. But the Christian pastor, humble and
gentle, and considerate and self-sacrificing, occupied
with his duties, and filled with the " charity " of his
Master, had no representative, as far as I could see,
among these dealers in old wines, rich dinners, fine
china, and massive plate. The religion of Oxford
appeared in those days to consist in honouring the king
and his ministers, and in perpetually popping in and
out of chapel. All the Saints' days and all the eves of
Saints' days were kept holy, every morning and every
evening there were prayers in every College chapel,
lengthened on Wednesdays and Fridays by the addition
of the Litany. My uncle attended the morning prayers
regularly, Jane and I with him, all being roused by the
strokes of a big hammer, beaten on every staircase half
an hour before by a scout. In the afternoons he
frequently omitted this duty, as the hour, six o'clock,
interfered with the dinner-parties, the company at that
time assembling about five. The education was suited
to the divinity. A sort of supervision was said to be
kept over the young riotous community, and to a
certain extent the Proctors of the University and the
Deans of the different Colleges did see that no very
open scandals were committed. There were rules that
had in a general way to be obeyed, and there were
lectures that must be attended, but as for care to give
high aims, provide refining amusements, give a worthy
tone to the character of responsible beings, there was
none ever even thought of it. The very meaning of the
word education did not appear to be understood. The
College was a fit sequel to the school. The young men
herded together, they lived in their rooms, or they lived
out of them in the neighbouring villages, where many

1810] UNDERGRADUATES 133

had comfortable establishments. Some liked study,
attended the lectures, and read up with their tutors,
laughed at by the others who preferred hunting, gaming,
supper parties, etc. The chapel-going was felt to be
"an uncommon bore," and was shirked as much as
possible, little matter, as no good could possibly follow
so vain a ceremony. All sorts of contrivances were
resorted to, to enable the dissipated to remain out at
night, to shield a culprit, to deceive the dignitaries. It
was a drive at random of a low and most thoughtless
kind ; the extravagance consequent on which often
ruined parents who had sacrificed much to give a son the
much-prized university education. The only care the
Heads appeared to take with regard to the young minds
they were supposed to be placed where they were and
paid well to help to form, was to keep the persons
of the students at the greatest possible distance.
They conversed with them never, invited them to their
homes never, spoke or thought about them never. A
perpetual bowing was their only intercourse ; a bow of
humble respect acknowledged by one of stiff condescen-
sion limited the intercourse of the old heads and the
young, generally speaking. Of course there were excep-
tional cases, and the Deans and the tutors were on more
familiar terms with the students, but quite in the
teacher and pupil style, very little of the anxious
improver on one side, and the eager for knowledge on
the other. I do not know what encouragement was given
to the " excelsior " few, but I well remember the kind
of punishment inflicted on the erring many, sufficient
perhaps for the faults noticed. Too late out, not at
chapel, noise at lecture — these delinquencies doomed
the perpetrators to an " imposition." A certain number
of pages from a classic author transcribed, that was all,
in a legible hand. A task that really was of some use,
though no one would think it, for several decent young
men belongingkto the town made a livelihood by writing
them at so much a page. There was a settled price,
and when the clean-looking leaves had been turned over
by my uncle, for it was into the study of the Head

134 DINNER-PARTIES [1810

that these mockeries had to be delivered, my aunt
claimed them, as she found them invaluable for patch
papers. Mr Rowley, the Dean, had drawn for her, with
a great array of compasses, a small hexagon, which
she had had executed in tin, and after this pattern she
cut up all these papers, sitting between dinner and tea,
while my uncle finished his port wine.

Our breakfast hour was at nine o'clock ; dinner was
at four, except on company days, when it was half an
hour later, and such dinners ! The College cook
dressed them. The markets were ransacked for
luxuries, the rich contents of the cellar brought out,
port, sherry, and madeira of vintages most prized some
twenty years before ; beautiful plate, the best glass and
china and table linen ; desserts of equal costliness ; big
men in wide silk cassocks that would have'stood alone,
scarves besides, and bands; one or two of the older
men in powdered wigs. Sixteen the table held. The
ladies were very fine, quite as particular about their
fashions, and as expensive too, as the husbands were
about the wines, very condescending too in manner to
one another. Mr Moises used to say that the two little
girls in white frocks were the only live creatures that
looked real amongst them all. It was certainly an
unnaturally constrained life that these people passed at
Oxford. To us the dulness was intolerable ; we were
often oppressed by it even to tears, as our pillows and
a large red mulberry tree in the garden could have
testified, for to the garden we generally repaired to
recover from these occasional fits of melancholy and to
read over and over again our mother's letters from the
Doune.

We were one sunny afternoon sitting under the
mulberry tree, tired with searching on the grass round
its trunk for the fine ripe fruit which had fallen thickly
there, and which, after all, we thought, came next to
guignes, when a window at that side of the quadrangle
to which the College kitchens were attached opened,
and a curly head was thrust out, to which belonged
very bright eyes and very blooming cheeks, and a

1810] ROUND THE MULBERRY TREE 135

mouth wide opened by laughter. It was an upper
window belonging to a suite of rooms let to the students.
" Little girl," said the head, " how do you sell your
mulberries?" "They are not ours, sir," said Jane —
she was always the spokeswoman — " we cannot sell
them." " You can only eat them, eh ? " said the head
again, and many voices from behind joined in the
laughter. " Jane," said I, " don't go on talking to that
young man, my aunt would not like it." " Nonsense,"
said Jane, " where's the harm of answering a question ? "
" Well, little girls, won't you sell me some mulberries ?
I'll give you a tune on the French horn for them."
And thereupon our new acquaintance began to play,
we thought beautifully, upon an instrument that we
thought charming. " A basket full of mulberries for a
tune, eh? My aunt won't be angry." A basket with
a string to it dangled from the window. But we were
firm ; we refused to fill it. And because we were such
very good, honest little girls, we had a great many
tunes on the French horn played to us for nothing, till
I, who was always a coward, coaxed Jane away. It was
getting near the dinner hour. My uncle's man William,
regularly as old Anne began to dish, crossed the garden
to the private door of the buttery, where he went daily
for ale. We thought it best, therefore, to retire from
this first interview with our musical acquaintance,
although we were not sufficiently modest to avoid the
chances of succeeding ones. Indeed that corner of the
garden was so shady, so out of the way of my aunt's
windows and so near the mulberry tree, that we
naturally preferred to amuse ourselves there ; the head
and the horn as naturally continued to appear, till at
length we grew so friendly as to take their acquaint-
ances into the alliance, and we found ourselves chatting
and laughing merrily with about a dozen commoners.

" Pray, Mr Rowley," said my uncle the Master one
day to the Dean, "who plays the French horn here
in College? No very studious young gentleman, I
should think." " Mr So-and-So," said Mr Rowley. (Is
it not strange that I should have completely forgotten

136 DARNING AND DRAMA [1810

our friend's name ?) " He is no bad performer, I
believe, and a very quiet young man," etc. etc. We
were crimson, we bent over our work in very shame,
certain that our highly improper flirtation had been
discovered, and that this conversation was meant as a
hint for us to behave ourselves. I daresay neither my
uncle nor Mr Rowley had the least notion of our
musical propensities, and were only mentioning a
simple fact, but conscience terrified us too much to
allow of our ever haunting the buttery steps again.

This recreation being at an end, we began another.
My aunt obliged us to darn our stockings every week
when they came from the washing, up in our own room.
That is, obliged me to darn them, for Jane couldn't
work and wouldn't work, — the only specimen of her
abilities in this feminine accomplishment during our
Oxford visit being the rather singular piece of patch-
work which always stays on the chimney-piece in my
room, and which I use as a kettle-holder. She read to
me while I worked, and this made the time pass more
pleasantly. My uncle's lodgings, as I have mentioned,
occupied two sides of the square of buildings forming
the inner quadrangle. Our room was close to the
corner, at right angles with the spare apartments he
had let for college rooms. The nearest set to us was
occupied by a Mr Coxe, a very tall young man from
Yorkshire, with a remarkably loud voice, as we knew
by the tone in which it was his habit to read aloud, for
the weather being warm and the windows open, we
could hear him distinctly spouting from book or from
memory as he paced up and down his study. We could
see him too, for we were very close neighbours, when
either he or we looked out of our casements, and as he
acted the parts he was speaking with much emphasis,
I found it much more amusing to watch Mr Coxe's
antics than to fill up the great holes Jane thumped out
in the heels of her stockings. Down therefore went my
hands, and forward stretched my neck, intent as I was
on the scene enacting, when Mr Coxe, finding himself
noticed, so increased the force with which he ranted,

1810] A FOX HUNT 137

that I could not contain my laughter. At this he
humbly bowed, his hand upon his heart. I laughed the
more. He shook his head ; he clasped his hands ; he
threw his arms here and there, starting, stamping, and
always roaring. In short, the pantomime proceeded
with vigour to a most amusing height before Jane, who
was sitting below me faithfully reading through the
pages of the Spectator, perceived what was going on.
Some one else must have perceived it too, probably Mr
Rowley, who was always prowling about, for though
neither he, nor my uncle, nor my aunt ever mentioned
•the subject to us, muslin blinds were fastened to our
windows next day, which we were on no account to
displace, and we were ordered in future to take all our
mendings down to that horrid and most melancholy
library, where my aunt said that we were more within
her reach should she want us. Mr Coxe was really
very diverting, I regretted losing his theatricals
extremely.

The young men had a hundred ways of amusing
themselves, quite independent of the Master's childish
nieces. Mr Rowley having made himself disagreeable
to some of his pupils who found it suit their health to
take long rides in the country, they all turned out one
night to hunt the fox under his window. A Mr Fox,
in a red waistcoat and some kind of a skin for a cap,
was let loose on the grass in the middle of the
quadrangle, with the whole pack of his fellow-students
barking around him. There were cracking whips,
shrill whistles, loud halloos, and louder hark-aways,
quite enough to frighten the dignitaries. When those
great persons assembled to encounter this confusion,
all concerned skipped off up the different staircases, like
so many rats to their holes, and I don't believe any of
them were ever regularly discovered, though suspected
individuals were warned as to the future. Mr Fox, I
remember, was found quietly reading in his room,
undisturbed by all the tumult, although a little flurried
by the authoritative knocks which forced him, at that
hour of the night, to unlock his door ! My uncle was

138 SHELLEY AT OXFORD [1810

very mild in his rule; yet there were circumstances
which roused the indignation of the quietest colleges.

The ringleader in every species of mischief within
our grave walls was Mr Shelley, afterwards so cele-
brated, though I should think to the end half-crazy.
He began his career by every kind of wild prank at
Eton, and when kindly remonstrated with by his tutor,
repaid the well-meant private admonition by spilling
an acid over the carpet of that gentleman's study, a
new purchase, which he thus completely destroyed.
He did no deed so mischievous at University, but he
was very insubordinate, always infringing some rule,
the breaking of which he knew could not be overlooked.
He was slovenly in his dress, and when spoken to
about these and other irregularities, he was in the
habit of making such extraordinary gestures, expres-
sive of his humility under reproof, as to overset first the
gravity, and then the temper, of the lecturing tutor.
Of course these scenes reached unpleasant lengths,
and when he proceeded so far as to paste up atheistical
squibs on the chapel doors, it was considered necessary
to expel him, privately, out of regard for Sir Timothy
Shelley, the father, who, being written to concerning
his wayward son, arrived in much anxiety, had a long
conference with my uncle in the study, to which
presently both the young man and Mr Rowley were
admitted, and then Sir Timothy and his son left Oxford
together. Quiet was restored to our sober walls after
this disturber of its peace had been got rid of, although
some suspicious circumstances connected with the
welfare of a principal favourite of my aunt's still
required to be elucidated, as Mr Rowley said, and at
once checked.

Our inner quadrangle had buildings on only three
of its sides, the fourth side was a wall, a high wall, the
wall of the Master's garden. The centre part of this
wall was raised a few feet higher than the lengths on
either hand, carved in a sort of scroll. Against this
more elevated portion on the garden side was trained a
fruit-tree, a baking pear, very old and very sturdy,

1810] A DOOMED PEAR-TREE 139

with great branching arms spread regularly at equal
distances from bottom to top, a perfect step-ladder!
The defences of the garden on the stable side next the
lane were of no moment, very easily surmounted, and
the vigilant eyes of Mr Rowley had discovered, on the
College side of the high pear-tree wall, certain indica-
tions of the pear-tree's use to those tenants, steady or
unsteady, who returned from their rambles later than
suited the books of the porter's lodge. The pear-tree
must come down, beautifully as it was trained, splendid
as the fruit was — large brown pears on which my aunt
reckoned for her second course dishes. The wall, too,
looked so bare without it. My aunt never thoroughly
forgave Mr Rowley for this extreme of discipline, and,
like Mr Balquhidder's cow, the pears grew so in size
and flavour, and the tree became so wonderfully fruitful
after its decease, that my uncle, after enduring a fair
allowance of lamentations for it, had to forbid the
subject. I have often thought since when on my hobby
— as my brother John calls my educating mania — that
if we were to make wise matters more lovable, young
ardent spirits would not waste the activity natural to
their age on follies. Too much work we hardly any
of us have, but work too dry, work too absorbing, work
unsuitable, is the work cut out for and screwed on to
every young mind of every nature that falls under the
iron rule of school or college. Learning is such a
delight, there must be some error in the teaching when
the scholars shirk it and debase themselves to merely
sensual pleasures, of a low order too, drinking, gamb-
ling, and the like pursuits, which caused the destruction
of the pear-tree.

I am setting down all my Oxford experiences
together, without regard to vacation or term time, an
unclassical proceeding, which, if I had thought about it,
I would not have done. The long vacation began soon
after the Commemoration was over in July, and lasted
till October, and though some reading men remained
to study, and some of the Fellows came and went,
Oxford was empty for the time of all the hubbub I had

140 A VISIT TO CHELTENHAM [1810

gone to form a part of till close upon Gaudy day. My
uncle and aunt, however, remained there till the month
of September, when they went to Cheltenham for a few
weeks on account of my uncle's health, and took us
with them. William, the man-servant, attended us,
but neither of the maids ; we were to wait on our aunt
and on each other. Our lodgings were small but very
neat, as every lodging was at Cheltenham. We had a
good drawing-room and small dining-room over a
cabinetmaker's shop, and bedrooms above. We were
just opposite to a chemist's, beside whose house was the
paved alley which led past the old church to the walk
up to the old Wells at the end of the avenue. We all
drank the waters and we all ate famous breakfasts
afterwards, and Jane and I, out most of the day with
my uncle, were so happy wandering about the outskirts
of what was then only a pretty village, that we much
regretted remaining here so short a time. My aunt,
who walked less, and who could patch away anywhere,
preferred, of course, her comfortable home, for she had
found few acquaintances in Cheltenham ; only old Mrs
Colonel Ironside, the widow of the Indian cousin in
whose gay London house she had spent such happy
times in her young days, and Admiral Ricketts, Mrs
Ironside's nephew, with his kind Irish wife. We saw
very little of any of them ; I fancy morning calls had
been the extent of the civilities. What I recollect of
Cheltenham is the beautiful scenery. The long turning
High Street, the rich well-wooded plain the town was
settled in, the boundary of low hills, Malvern in the
distance, and that charming Well walk, always shady,
where we were told the King and Queen had appeared
by seven o'clock in the morning, when His Majesty
King George the Third had been ordered by his
physicians to try the waters. Half a lifetime after-
wards, when I returned married from India and
revisited this pretty place, I remembered it all as it had
been, even found my way about it, though so altered,
and I must say I regretted that the lovely rural village
had grown into a large town, beautiful still with its

1810-11] OXFORD SOCIETY 141

hundreds of handsome villas and long streets of
excellent houses, but not half so pleasing to me as it
was in the " olden time." I hear now that they have
cut down the fine avenue that shaded the old Well
walk, built rows of shops from the Crescent up to the
old pump-room, and that the town extends through the
fields beyond. The children of these times will be tired
before getting to their country walks. Jane and I had
green fields to run in.

On returning to Oxford we all resumed our graver
habits. Jane and I had that odious library and our
masters ; my uncle and aunt the duties of society. All
the great people having reassembled, they had all to
interchange their calls and then to invite one another
to dinner. In the evenings sometimes there were routs
— thirty or forty people to tea and cards, refreshments
handed round before separating. Jane and I were
spared appearing at the desserts ; we were found in the
drawing-room by the ladies, dressed in the fine muslin
frocks bought for the Persian ambassador, with the
gold chains and the cairngorm crosses, of course ; we sat
up as late as the company stayed, and were much
noticed ; luckily the home parties were not many.
The ladies were really all so commonplace, they made
little impression. The Principal of Jesus College, Dr
Hughes, a most huge mountain of a Welshman, was
our particular favourite among the gentlemen, I believe
because he let each of us sit in the large silver punch-
bowl belonging to his Headship. It held Jane easily.
Dr Williams never got into my good graces, nor Mr
Rowley, he was such a little ugly and very pompous
man. Mr Moises we were very fond of. A particular
friend of my uncle's, the son of that Newcastle school-
master who educated Lord Eldon and Lord Stowell,
Mr Collins, then rather a beau, was another great ally
of ours. They were all clergymen, as were most of the
travellers who paid passing visits. Lord Eldon never
happened to come to my uncle's when I was there,
though they were so intimate as to correspond. Lord
Chancellors have not much time for travelling ; besides,

142 LADY ELDON AND LADY SCOTT [1810-11

the King was in very uncertain health just then, giving
everybody about him a good deal of uneasiness. Lord
Stowell, then Sir William Scott, was often with us, and
a very agreeable old man he was.

What strange women those two clever brothers
married ! Lady Eldon's was a runaway affair and she
had not a penny, but she was very beautiful, and to
the last hour of her life retained her husband's affec-
tions, in spite of her eccentricities. Latterly she was
never seen but by him. She lived up in her own rooms
dressed in a hat and habit, and was called too much of
an invalid to see visitors. But she got up to make his
breakfast every morning, however early he required it,
as she had done from the day of their marriage ;
nothing ever prevented this but her two or three con-
finements; on other occasions, when indisposed with
colds or headaches, she still waited on him, and
returned to bed when he went off to court or chambers.
She never learned that they were rich. When he was
making thousands at the bar, and later when his official
salary was so large, she continued the careful manage-
ment of their early struggling days, locking up stores
and looking after remains, and herself counting the
coal-sacks, making the carters hold up the bags and
shake them as they were emptied into the cellars, she
standing at the window of her lord's handsome house
in her hat and habit, giving a little nod as each empty
sack was laid upon the pavement

Lady Scott was still more thrifty, at least we heard
a great many more stories concerning her oddities.
She had money and no beauty ; and if there ever had
been any love it did not last long, for they were little
together. He was said to be miserly too, but he was
not miserable. She grudged him his clean shirt daily,
and used to take a day's wear out of the cast one herself,
putting it on instead of a bed-gown, thereby saving
that article in her own wardrobe. Then she allowed
him but one towel a week, and Mr Collins had a story
of her, that on closing a visit to a friend of his, she
entered her hostess's presence before taking leave, laden

1811] GREAT TOM 143

with a pile of towels, which she thought it her duty to
bring to view, in order to expose the extravagance of
the servants who had supplied them so profusely,
priding herself on having used but; two, one for herself
and one for Sir William 1 There were tales of her
serving up chickens reheated, and having wings and
legs of some fictitious kind skewered on in place of the
real ones which ,had been eaten; of a leg of mutton
doing duty all the week ; of her cutting a turkey in two
when she found her son dined out, and on his returning
unexpectedly, sewing the turkey up again. Mr Collins
and Mr Moises, both north-countrymen, used to keep
us laughing by the hour at all the oddities they told of
her. She died at last, but long after this, and he made
a second unlucky venture. Old Lady Sligo, the
dowager of her day, was a worse wife than this first one.
Why they married at their advanced age no one could
fancy. She was near seventy, and he was past it. He
had both a son and a daughter, the daughter very
agreeable. She was often at Oxford as Mrs Townsend,
and occasionally after becoming Lady Sidmouth; and
as she had been at school with aunt Lissy, we imputed
this also as a merit to her.

We remained at Oxford until the spring of'iSn.
It was in the month of March that my father and
mother arrived from Scotland for us. Whether my
father travelled with his own horses this time I forget.
I daresay he did, and had kept them all four and the
coachman all this time at the hotel in Edinburgh. He
did not hurry away as was his usual habit everywhere,
he stayed a few days to show the beauties of Oxford to
Miss Balfour. Amongst other sights they went to see
Great Tom, which I had no mind to do ; hearing him
every night booming so grandly over the quiet around
quite satisfied me, for the sound was very fine, coming
in too just after the little " merry, merry Christ Church
bells." Jane, who was of an inquisitive turn, decided
upon mounting up all :those long stairs fin order to
understand the real size of the monster. Once up, she
would go in and under it, and remain in it just to hear

144 JANE'S ACCIDENT [1811

one toll. Poor child ! she dropped as if shot, was
carried out into the air, brought home still senseless,
laid in bed, Dr Williams sent for, the whole house in
despair. Doctor Williams recommended her being left
to nature, he apprehended no danger ; the nerves had
received a shock and they must be left to recover, and
they did recover. She wakened next morning as if she
had merely had a good night's sleep, recollecting
nothing, however, beyond her last-expressed wish to
see the great tongue moved by the men who pulled it
with a rope, so very differently from the ringing of the
other bells.

We were sorry to leave our kind uncle and aunt,
but we were not sorry to resume the freedom of our
home life, after the restraint in fashion at University.
We found the house in Lincoln's Inn Fields in great
order, which was strange, considering that the servants
had had nothing to do but to clean it up for months
back. A great pleasure was preparing for us. Annie
Grant came to live with us, and as the changes
consequent upon this agreeable addition to our home-
party had much influence over the well-being of the
younger members of the family, I will make a pause in
this particular era — draw one of the long strokes between
this and more trifling days, and begin again after this
resting-point.

CHAPTER VIII
1811-1812

ANNIE GRANT was the " accidental " daughter — to use
a very delicate expression a very refined lady once
used to me, when compelled to employ some term of
this sort — of old Colonel William Grant with the long
queue, my father's half great-uncle, my great-grand-
uncle, who had long lived at the Croft. The first time
my mother saw her she was herding some cows in the
Lochan Mor (a boggyswamp, afterwards drained by Mr
Cameron), standing beneath the shelter of a high bank
of hanging birch, no shoes upon her feet nor hat upon
her head, her knitting in her hands, her short dark
petticoat, white jacket, and braided snooded hair
combining to present a perfect model of Highland

beauty. I wonder if Mrs General N when the

great lady at Cawnpore, the most favoured guest at
Newstead Abbey, the honoured of Kensington Palace,
where more than once fshe dined with the Duke of
Sussex — did she ever wander back in thought to the
days of her simple youth ? In those early days she was
not taught to expect much notice, neither did she receive
much; her mother was her father's housekeeper, and
brought up her children, Annie and her brother Peter,
in her own station, sending them to the parish school,
and never obtruding them or herself on any of "the
family." After the old Colonel's death she, still a very
beautiful woman, married his grieve, and went to settle
in another part of the country. The Colonel had
been married in middle life to an Irishwoman, a Mrs

145

146 ANNIE GRANT'S EARLY CAREER [isn

Dashwood ; they had never had any children, so he left
his savings — these Highlanders have always savings —
to Annie and her brother, some £2000 or better. My
father as head of the house was their guardian. Peter
was sent to a better school. Annie was taken by
Captain Lewis Grant and his odd wife to keep the keys
of their small establishment, an office regularly filled in
every household then by such stray maidens of the
race as were in want of a home. When Mrs Grant died
the Lady Logic took charge of Annie, who seemed
never to be lost sight of among her kith and kin,
however irregularly she had arrived among them. The
Lady Logic "had her to school" iat Forres, where
she received a good plain education, and as much
instruction in music as, assisted by the ear of her race,
enabled her to play the airs of her own country, grave
and lively, with an expression very delightful. On the
death of the Lady Logic (my father's aunt) it was
determined the poor girl should earn a home for
herself. She was accordingly brought to London to our
house, and after being a few weeks with us she was
bound apprentice to the Miss Stewarts, the celebrated
dressmakers. Maybe, in their workroom, she well
remembered her free hours in the Lochan Mor. For
her own happiness, herself and her little fortune would
probably have been better bestowed on some young
farmer in her native north, but this was an age
of unnatural notions ; accomplished girls, portionless
and homeless, were made into governesses, and for the
less instructed there was nothing dreamed of but the
dressmaking, a trade never over-stocked, its victims
dying off quite as quickly as the vacant places were
demanded. For some years all went smoothly. Annie
was a favourite, and never overworked except at special
busy times. Every Sunday while we were in town she
spent with us, often coming to us on the Saturday.
Every summer she had her holiday, which all of us
enjoyed as much as she did, for not only we, but all
who came to our house, were fond of her. At length
came the time when the two old Miss Stewarts were to

1811] HER HAPPY INFLUENCE 147

resign the business, as had been agreed on, to Annie
Grant 'and Jessie Stewart, on terms which had been
previously settled. A word of dissatisfaction had never
been uttered on their part, till out came the astounding
news that they had sold their house and business more
advantageously. Jessie Stewart had no refuge but the
arms of a lover, to whom through many years of poverty
she made the most exemplary wife, bearing severe trials
with patience and afterwards an exalted position meekly.
Her husband has long been a leading man, living in the
best society.

Annie Grant was received by my father and mother,
I may say, gladly, for they had begun to grudge her to
needle and thread. Very early (for her) one morning
my mother drove to Albemarle Street, and brought
back a great blessing to our home. Without, as far as
we knew, any regular arrangement, Annie Grant slid
somehow into the charge of us. She took lessons with
all our masters, was so attentive while with them, so
diligent in working for them, so anxious to improve,
that we caught her spirit. There was no more idling in
our dining-room; when the prescribed lessons were
over other occupations started up; she and I read
history together daily, Goldsmith, Robertson, Rollin.
We also had Shakespeare given to us, and some good
novels, all Miss Edgeworth's Fashionable Tales ; and
we walked a great deal, sometimes taking the carriage
to the Green Park or Kensington Gardens, and taking a
turn there. We were really busy, and so happy, for
Annie's gentle, steady rule was just what we all wanted ;
she soothed me, encouraged Jane, and coaxed Mary.
Her great art was removing from us all that was
irritating; we had no occasion to "set up our backs."
We actually forgot to feel angry. Upon the phreno-
logical system of influences, could we have been under
better ? Had she been carefully trained in physiological
principles she could not have acted more wisely than her
mere kindly nature prompted. In the matter of our
breakfast she gained for us quite a victory, persuading
my mother that now she had no cow in the stable weak

148 MARY'S PECULIARITIES [1811

tea was cheaper than milk, and a small bit of butter
good for the chest, so that we began our day so pleasantly
all went smoothly on. In the evenings we reeled away
for an hour to her spirited strathspeys, the big people
often joining the little, and turning with us to magic
music and other games before confined to our own more
particular sphere. Everybody seemed happier since
Annie lived with us. My spirits were at times quite
flighty, nothing ever sobered them down to usefulness
except the kind reproving glance of Annie Grant. She,
however, failed with Mary ; the stupidity of that strange
heavy child had hitherto rendered every attempt to
rouse her vain. She was eight years old, and she could
not read, she would not try to count, writing she did on
a slate in her own way, but not in the least in Mr
Thompson's. She even romped listlessly, would not
dance, liked sitting quiet with her doll cutting up cakes
and apples into dinners for it. When she washed the
old block of wood without arms or legs which she
preferred to any wax baby, she seldom dried and never
dressed it, but called to me to render these services ;
and if I were out of the way would roll a pinafore
round the beauty and be content. She was tall,
large, and fair, as big nearly as Jane, and looked
as old. I was excessively fond of her; so was my
mother.

My mother was very ill again this spring, confined
for many weeks to her room, and then ordered off to
the seaside as soon as she had recovered strength
enough for the long journey to the coast. Those were
not railroad days. To prepare her for her travels she
took constant evening drives with us, getting out
beyond Southwark, beyond the parks, towards Epping,
etc., occasionally making a day of it to Kew, Richmond,
and even Windsor. I had once been at Windsor
before to see William, as I have, I think, mentioned,
when we went to Eton Chapel, and afterwards met
the King and Queen and the band of the Blues upon
the Terrace. We did some of this again, went to
the King's private chapel and saw him say his prayers

1811] DAYS AT WINDSOR 149

in his little bob wig, his short wife in a black silk cloak
and plain straw bonnet beside him. We also this time
saw the castle thoroughly, private apartments and all,
for the Queen and the Princesses had gone for the
day to Frogmore. My father's tenant at Thorley Hall
was a Mr John Vowles, who had a brother William
a cornfactor at Windsor ; they were of German extrac-
tion, in some way connected with some of the personal
attendants of the Queen. Mrs William Vowles, indeed,
was a German born, and had been brought up by her
parents in the Palace ; she had been educated and
portioned by Her Majesty, and had not been thrown
off on her marriage. She it was who took us up the
back-stairs and showed us through most of the rooms
in common use by the family, when for the first time
my mind wakened up to the fact that real kings and
queens were not like the royalties of fairy tales, always
seated upon thrones receiving homage and dispensing
life and death, but quiet, simple, actively-industrious
human beings. I could have made myself quite at
home in Queen Charlotte's bedroom, and should have
made myself very comfortable in the business-like
morning-room occupied by herself and her daughters.
Books, music, painting, works plain and fine, filled the
apartment in which were but two easy-chairs, each
with a small table beside it ; these were for " Mr and
Mrs Guelph," as they called themselves in the happy
privacy of their family. Another time that we were
at Windsor we dined early with Mr and Mrs Vowles,
and went over to Frogmore in the evening — the
Queen's hobby, her garden-house. It was a pretty
villa in pretty grounds, too low for health, I should
say, were people to have lived there, at least till the
mere or pond was drained, but it did perfectly for the
royal amusement by day. The walls of one room
were painted by one Princess ; all cabinets and tables
of another were japanned by a second ; carpets, stools,
and rugs were the work of a third ; while the knitting,
knotting, and netting of the old Queen, if she did it all
herself, must have ensured her a busy life.

150 LADY AUGUSTA MURRAY [1811

By the middle of July my mother was able to be
removed to Ramsgate, where she very soon recovered
her looks and health ; she was very fond of the sea,
and throve near it. Mrs Peter Grant had taken a
house for us on the East Cliff, a very fine situation
with a splendid sea-view. We were at some distance
from the town, a sort of common all round us, and one
house only near; it was indeed attached to ours, the
two stood together alone, out of the way of all the rest
of Ramsgate. Our neighbour was Lady Augusta
Murray, called by her friends the Duchess of Sussex,
although her marriage to the Duke, which really did
take place abroad, was null in this country. She had
been created Baroness D'Ameland, and had a pension
settled on her of £3000 a year, on which to bring up
her two children, a boy and a girl, fine, large, handsome
young people, unduly imbued with the grandeur of
their birth. She never committed herself by calling
herself or them by any title : " My boy, my girl," she
always said in speaking of or to them. The servants,
however, mentioned them as the Prince and Princess,
as did all the acquaintances who visited at the house.
Prince Augustus was about seventeen, extremely good-
looking, though rather inclined to be stout ; very good-
natured he was too, amiable and devoted to his mother.
He was going into the army under the name of D'Este,
a bitter pill to the Duchess, although it was one of the
royal surnames, and had been chosen for his son by
the Duke himself. Princess Augusta was some years
younger than her brother. She was but twelve, and
particularly handsome on a large scale, a fine figure,
and fine features, with a charming expression of
countenance. The Duchess's house was small, though
larger than ours, for she had turned the whole ground
floor into one room, a library, and built a large dining-
room out behind. The drawing-room floor was her
own apartment, containing bedroom, sitting-room, and
her maid's room ; the floor above was equally divided
between her son and daughter. She kept no horses,
for she never drove out. She passed most of her time

1811] THE FAMILIES MAKE ACQUAINTANCE 151

in a very large garden, well walled in, which covered
a couple of acres or more, and extended all down the
slope of the cliff to the town. Our two families soon
became intimate, the younger ones especially passing
the greater part of the day together, a friendship which
never entirely ceased while opportunity served to bring
any of us together. The advances, however, were
amusing. The Duchess, as a royal personage, must
be waited on. My mother, who was very retiring,
would not take such a step forward as the leaving her
name at the great lady's door. My father, who had
bowed, and been spoken to when gallantly opening
gates, could do no more without his wife ; so all came
to a full stop. Meanwhile, Jane and J, who had made
acquaintance out on the free common of the downs
with the little Princess, untroubled by any notions
of etiquette, enjoyed our intercourse with our new
acquaintance amazingly ; Jane and she soon becoming
fast friends. One evening she approached the paling
which separated our two gardens just as my mother
was stepping over the gravel towards the carriage to
take an airing. I shall never forget the picture ; she
leaned on the top rail, her large-leaved Tuscan hat
thrown back off her dark close-cropped hair, and her
fine countenance brightened by the blush of girlish
modesty, while she held up a small basket full of fine
peaches, an offering from her mother. A visit of
thanks was of course necessary, and found agreeable.
A few days after the Duchess bade Jane tell her
mamma that she had returned her call when her
mamma was unluckily out, and that she hoped they
would be good neighbours. On this hint we all acted.
My mother occasionally went in there with some of us,
my father constantly, indeed he soon became her
confidential adviser in many of her difficulties, trying
to get her through some of the trials which harassed
her existence. We were all made very happy by this
addition to our Ramsgate pleasures; we liked the
place itself and our life there, and above all we liked
our neighbours.

152 LIFE AT RAMSGATE [1811

We all breakfasted together, then studied for three
hours, dined early with my father and 'mother, and
drank tea with them late. In the intervals we were
either next door, or on the downs, or on the sands.
Annie and I used to take books down to the sands
and sit on the rocks with them in our hands, but we
never read ; watching the waves, listening to them,
looking at the crab-hunters and the shrimpers, and far
out at sea straining our eyes after the shipping, little
boats, larger craft, huge merchantmen, all moving over
the face of the waters, and the downs in the distance-
all this was book enough. Mary and Johnnie were
often with us, and sometimes my mother, who, how-
ever, rather objected to such idling j and as Jane was
almost always with the Princess, quite as great a
favourite with the Duchess as with her daughter, a
plan was struck out for the better employment of my
time, which was immediately acted on. Mrs Peter
Grant, the widow of one of my great-uncle Sandy's
sons, who had had charge of Anne Grant of Glen-
moriston, and lived in a small house at Ramsgate,
had been found so competent to the task of super-
intending the education of young ladies, that she had
been prevailed on by first one friend and then another
to receive their delicate children. At last her family
became too large for her small house. She took a
larger one in Albion Place, engaged a clever governess,
to whom she was shortly obliged to give an assistant,
and had soon a flourishing school. She limited the
number of pupils to eighteen, and generally had
applications waiting for a vacancy.

To Mrs Peter Grant's school I was to be sent every
day for so many hours, ostensibly to learn flower-paint-
ing, and be kept up in French and singing; but in
reality to take down a good deal of conceit which
unavoidably sprang up in the quick mind of a girl who
had not the means of fairly testing her abilities by an
equal standard. Jane was so much younger, and
naturally so slow, her attempts in all our occupations
were of course inferior to mine, and as we had no

1811] RAMSGATE SOCIETY 153

companions except at play-hours, I could not find out
that, clever as I thought myself, there were girls of my
own age very much more advanced. This I learned
very quickly at Albion Place, where three or four of my
new friends were very much beyond me.

While at Ramsgate we were introduced to Colonel
and Mrs Glossipp from Canterbury, he a fine soldierly-
looking man, she a plain woman, but so nice, kind,
gentle, merry, clever, quite a soldier's wife. She had
four healthy, happy boys, and three gowns, a " heightem,
a tightem, and a scrub," with which she perambulated
the world, none of the wardrobe department likely to
be hurt by her travels if we were to judge of the inferior
degrees by a comparison with the " heightem," the one
always exhibited at Ramsgate. But no matter what
Mrs Glossipp wore she always looked like a lady, and
she was so lively and agreeable it was always a white
day when the Colonel's dog-cart drove up to the door
of our small house on Albion Cliff. Mrs Glossipp was
full of fun, and to please her a party was made, includ-
ing the handsome Miss B,, to attend a ball at Margate,
at that time the summer retreat of all the city of
London, and holding more wealth than any place out
of it. Miss Louisa B. was quite wrong in carrying her
pink cotton satin, though covered with muslin of her
own embroidery, to such an assemblage as she found
there. Lace dresses and lace flounces of fabulous value
fluttered all round the room. Velvets and satins,
feathers and jewels ! such jewels as would have graced
the Queen's drawing-room were in profusion. Large,
fat, dowager Aldermanesses, with a fortune in Mechlin
and diamonds on them, sat playing cards with tumblers
of brandy and water beside them ; the language used
possessed a grammar of its own; the dancing was
equally original, a Miss St George, the belle of the ball
and six feet high, cutting capers up to the moon. The
extravagances of this "fashionable" resort formed one
of the sights to be seen from aristocratic Ramsgate.
How different now! That race of civic dignitaries
sleeps with its fathers. It would be hard to know the

154 TEMPTATIONS OF SMUGGLING [1811

tradesman from the noble now, at a glance at any rate.
My father said the finery of the Margate ladies had
excited my mother's envy, for she set about smuggling
vigorously at this time, very much to his annoyance;
bargain-making and smuggling were his aversion. He
always said, " What is wanted get of the best quality at
the best place, and take care of it. What is not wanted,
don't get, however cheap ; it is wasting money, in fact
real extravagance ; and have nothing to do with
rogues." Wise preaching — 'tis so easy for the man who
lavishes thousands on his whistle, to lift his eyebrows at
the cost of his wife's. My dear mother found it hard to
resist those melodramatic sailors with their straw hats
smartly bound with ribbon, the long curled love-lock
then generally worn by the more dashing among the
seamen, the rough, ready, obligingly awkward manner,
and all their silks, laces, gloves, and other beautiful
French goods so immeasurably superior to any in those
days fabricated at home. She was not to be deterred
by the seizures now and then made of all these
treasures, miles and miles away ; carriages stopped and
emptied, ladies insulted, fined, and so on, as really
frequently happened when their transactions were too
daring. She could not resist a few purchases, though
half believing my father's assertion that the smugglers
were all in league with the Custom-house authorities,
themselves giving information of any considerable
purchaser. However, her doings were never thus
brought to light.

Meanwhile, we young people had our occupations.
The Duchess of Sussex, to amuse herself, got up the
tragedy of Macbeth. She was a Scotchwoman, one of
the Dunmore Murrays, and very national ; she was,
besides, intellectual and intelligent, as all her pursuits
evidenced, and she was very proud of the beauty of her
daughter. It was all to be amongst ourselves, we four,
the little Princess, and two quiet little girls sometimes
our companions, whose father lived in Ramsgate and
was the Duchess's man of business. We all therefore
" played many parts," which necessity we considered a

1811] THE ACTING OF MACBETH 155

pleasure, as it kept us in one character or another
continually on the stage. During the preparations we
were incessantly rehearsing either at one house or the
other, each, for the benefit of the rest, learning the
whole play ; thus impressing on our young memories,
never to be effaced, some of the finest poetry in the
language ; the sentiments actually became endeared to
us, wise trains of reflection following the pains of learn-
ing those favourite passages by heart. Jane was
Macbeth and a second Roscius, my father, who had a
good idea of acting, having been taught to read by
Stephen Kemble, taking great pains with her. Lady
Macbeth was ranted a little by the Princess, yet she
looked the part well ; I was a shocking stick in Banquo,
but a first-rate witch, a capital Hecate. The Duchess
painted one scene for us, which did for all — a bit of an
old tower and some trees — and Deddy, as we called
the elderly maid, Mrs Deadman, superintended the
dresses. My father was the prompter, the library was
the theatre, and a very respectable audience of dowager
peeresses and other visitors and residents applauded
every speech we made. The music-master played
martial airs on an old wretched pianoforte between the
acts, and there was a grand supper, followed by a good
merry dance at the end, all having gone off well. Yet
that crowning night was nothing near the enjoy-
ment of all the busy hours we had preparing for it.
" Dreamer, dream not the fruition," etc., as the wise of
all ages have repeated, none of them in prettier lines
than these, written by my father to the music of
Rousseau's Dream, composed as he was walking round
the Ord Bain many a day after this.

This was the year of the great comet ; night after
night we watched it rising over the town of Ramsgate,
spreading its glorious train as it rose, and thus passing
slowly on, the wonder of all, and terror of some, a grand
sight only equalled by the Northern lights as we used
to see them in the Highland winters. And this was
the season of the return of the China fleet, single
merchantmen not daring in those war times to venture

156 RETURN TO LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS [1811

out to sea as in these happier, peaceful times. The
East India shipping therefore made sail together under
the convoy of a couple of frigates, an imposing evidence
of the strength and wealth of the country, which had
the most beautiful effect on the wide sea-view they
entirely filled that ever could have been gazed at from
any shore. The Downs, always beautiful because never
deserted, and often very crowded, were on this occasion
closely packed with huge Indiamen, their tall masts
seeming to rake the skies ; and when the anchors were
weighed, and the dark mass moved out to sea, each
vessel carrying all her canvas to catch the breeze, all
distinctly seen from the balcony of our house, I do not
think a grander sight ever met wondering eyes. The
frigates, much smarter-looking ships, kept outside as
convoy, and on they moved like some fine pageant in a
scene, till, hours after we had seen them leave the roads
at Deal, the last of the long line was lost to us behind
the North Foreland, or the South I fancy it must have
been as nearer to us, although it was the lesser projec-
tion of the two.

About the middle of November we returned to
Lincoln's Inn Fields, and then Annie Grant and Jane
and I set to work in earnest with all our old masters,
and this winter really made good progress. As for Mary,
there seemed to be no use in trying to teach her any-
thing, for she would not learn, even to read ; she was
therefore, by the advice of old Dr Saunders, a friend of
my grandfather Grant's, left to amuse herself as she liked
with our baby brother Johnnie, and they were generally
kept out in the Square all the fine hours of the day.
This year our very handsome cousin, Ursula Launder,
married William Norton, the natural son of Lord
Grantley, a mere boy compared to her, for he was not
more than two-and-twenty and she was at least twice
his age. Her large fortune was her charm, but her
young husband treated her with marked attention
during her whole life, long after every vestige of her
remarkable beauty had left her. Aunt Mary was one
of the bridesmaids, Lord Dursley the groomsman, and

1811-12] UNCLE FRERE'S ILLNESS 157

soon after came on the great Berkeley case, which was
decided by stripping him of name and fame and giving
that old title to a third brother. Uncle Frere was the
solicitor employed to get up the case for the defendant,
and so overworked was he by it, between fatigue and
anxiety, that he took a fever before it was over, and
frightened us all seriously. It was a brain fever, and in
his delirium he kept calling for little Eli to sing him
" Crochallan," so I was sent for, to sit by his bedside
and "gently breathe" all the plaintive Scotch and
Gaelic airs I could remember, thus soothing him when
most excited. He would insist on sending messengers
here, and there, and everywhere, on writing letters, and
consulting on law points with me and the bedclothes,
and he was never to be thwarted, but I was to sing the
airs he liked best. At last one day he fell asleep to
" Crochallan," the oft-repeated " Hanouer ma vourgne "
having quite composed him. My aunt, who was always
watching, sat down and wept. " Even children can be
of use," she said as she kissed me, though I was no
child, but very near fifteen ; too old, my mother
thought, to be again exhibited in Macbeth, which,
having succeeded so well at Ramsgate, the Duchess was
determined to get up again in Arklow Place.

Jane and I were very much with the Princess.
Her mother's handsome house looking into the Park
near Cumberland Gate was a very agreeable change to
us, and we were so at home there we were quite at ease
among the family circle. Jane was still the favourite.
Prince Augustus was with his regiment in Jersey,
from whence he had sent a box of little French
curiosities to his mother ; two of the toys were marked
for Jane and me, so good-naturedly. Jane's was an
ivory knife-grinder, mine a Frenchwoman in a high cap,
spinning. It is at the Doune now. Instead of the
Prince we had our friend Lord Archibald Hamilton,
who spent most of his time with his cousin " Augusta,"
and his son Henry Hamilton, a fine boy then, though
" accidental." Well, the play went on without me. I
was only dresser and prompter. Lucy Drew replaced

158 FASHIONABLE ACQUAINTANCE [1812

me as Banquo, and Georgia Drew was Hecate; the
other characters remained the same. Our scenery was
borrowed from the theatre, our dresses were very
superior, as was our orchestra, and our audience was
half the peerage. Jane outdid herself, but William's
Macduff outdid her Macbeth. We had waited for the
Easter holidays in order to secure him. I remember
that old Lady Dunmore, who had, like a Frenchwoman,
taken to religion in her old age by way of expiating the
sins of her youth, would not attend our play in public —
her principles condemned the theatre — but she saw it
in private. We all went to her small house in Baker
Street dressed, and acted before her, and a capital good
dinner she gave us afterwards, all her plate out, and
lots of fruit. She must have been very beautiful in
her day ; quite a picture she was now, in a high cap
like that in the prints of the Duchess of Argyle, the
Irish beauty. Lord Dunmore was very nice, and his
wife too — a Hamilton, a cousin ; Fincastle and Charley
Murray were charming boys. Many others there were,
too, whom I forget I just remember Lady Georgina
Montague being there one day — a handsome, very
dark, and very thin girl in a black frock, put on for the
first time for her grandmother the Duchess of Gordon,
whose funeral procession had that morning left London
for the Highlands. My mother would hardly believe
that the child could have been allowed to go out to
spend a merry day with young companions at such a
time, and attributed it to the ignorance of the governess
who had charge of this poor deserted family. The
Duke of Manchester was repairing his fortunes abroad
as Governor of Jamaica; the Duchess had left home
years before with one of her footmen. Both my father
and mother grieved sincerely for the death of their old
friend and neighbour with whom they had spent so
many happy hours. Indeed, the whole of the
Highlands mourned for her, as with all her oddities she
was the soul of our Northern society.

The remaining events of this, our last season in
London, come but hazily back to me. We acted our

1812] MRS SIDDONS' FAREWELL 159

Macbeth in Brunswick Square, I taking Lady Macbeth
badly enough, I should think, on this mere family
occasion. Duncan Macintosh, the Rothiemurchus
forester, came to town on some of my father's law-suits,
and was a perfect delight to everybody, with his
shrewdness, his simplicity, his real astonishment, and
the Highland idea of good breeding which precluded
the expression of wonder at any novelty. Aunt Leitch,
who was on a visit to us, seized^on him as her beau, and
treated him and herself to the play two or three times
a week, for it was the last appearance of Mrs Siddons ;
she went through all her great parts, and took her leave
of the stage as Lady Macbeth.

Uncle Ralph ventured to Covent Garden that night ;
he did get in, but came out again, returning to us
nearly exhausted, his hat crushed, his coat torn, his face
so pale that he frightened us. Never had there been
such a crush at the doors of the pit ; it had so overcome
even his strength, that he was unable to endure the
heat of the closely-packed house. We heard next day
that the audience would listen to no other performer.
When she was on the stage a pin could have been
heard to fall ; when she was off, all was uproar, Kemble
himself even unattended to, and when she walked away
at the last from her doctor and the waiting gentle-
woman, they would bear no more ; all rose, waving hats
and handkerchiefs, shouting, applauding, making such
a din as might have brought the house down. All
passionless as was that great actress's nature in private
life, she was overcome. Uncle Ralph ever regretted
being unable to remain to see the last of fine acting.
She has had no successor. I am quite sure that we,
we young people I mean, owed more to Covent Garden
than to any other of our teachers. We not only learned
Shakespeare by heart, thus filling our heads with
wisdom, our fancy with the most lovely imagery, and
warming our hearts from that rich store of good, but
we fixed, as it were, all these impressions ; John
Kemble and Mrs Siddons embodying all great qualities,
becoming to us the images of the qualities we admired.

160 POLITICS [1812

An excuse this for the statues and pictures in the
churches of infant times.

In May or June poor Mr Perceval was shot, our
neighbour in the Square, whose three daughters, dis-
daining other associates, walked only with the three
Miss Nicholls, Sir John Nicholls' equally exclusive
young ladies. Lady Wilson ran in to tell my mother,
shelhaving just had an express from Sir Griffin, who
was in Westminster Hall. It was a great shock to
every one, though he had been an unpopular man ; the
suddenness of the blow and the insufficiency of the
cause making the deed the more afflicting. It set all
the politicians to work again, but nothing came of all
the commotion. The Prince Regent went on with the
same Tory party amongst whom he had thrown himself
as soon as he became head of the Government. One
place was easily supplied ; his former friends were just
as far from power as before. They might and did
abuse him, and the man deserved abuse, whatever the
Regent did. Moore enchanted the town with his witty
newspaper squibs, looked for as regularly every
morning as breakfast was. Whigs blamed and Tories
could not praise, but they all ate their leek thankfully,
and on went the world with its generalities and
individualities, its Buonaparte and its Wellington, " the
most profligate Ministry that ever existed," holding the
whip-hand over at least an equally profligate Opposition.
Whatever sins were going on we three little girls had
worn mourning for all. While we were at Ramsgate
the old king's delirium had become so alarmingly
violent it was supposed his bodily strength must give
way under the continual paroxysms ; his death was
therefore daily expected, so my careful mother, fearing
that black would rise in price, bought up at a sale a
quantity of bombazine. The king calmed, recovered
his strength, but his mind was hopelessly gone, in
which state properly attended to he might live for
years. What was to be done with all the bombazine ?
We just had to wear it, and trimmed plentifully with
crimson it did very well.

1812] A GOVERNESS ENGAGED 161

But now a great change was to come over the
family. The English bar had never answered well, and
was now to be given up. It remained to be seen how
Parliamentary business would answer, for my father
was elected member for the thoroughly rotten borough
of Great Grimsby, at an expense he and the electors,
and his agent little Sandy Grant, were not one of them
fully able to acknowledge ; to meet some of the
difficulties thus produced, economical measures were to
be resorted to, which in a couple of years would set
everything to rights. Thorley Hall had been sold some
time before to Lord Ellenborough, and Kinloss bought
with part of the purchase money. The house in
Lincoln's Inn Fields was to go now and all the furniture
not wanted to make the Doune more comfortable, for,
to our delight, it was there we were to spend these two
years of retirement. My father was to run up to town
for the session at a very trifling expense. We were a
little disturbed at the news that Annie was not to go
North with us. My mother hoped that before the
winter she would settle herself in some house of business,
but in the meantime she was to pay a visit to a Mrs
Drury, a rich widow, the sister of Mr William Hunter,
who had been married to one of the Malings, and who
had taken a great fancy to our dear Annie. Next came
worse tidings. We were to have a governess; and
very great pains our poor mother took to choose one.
I could not count the numbers she saw, the notes she
wrote, the references she visited ; at last she fixed upon
a little bundle of a woman recommended by Lady
Glenbervie. It all seemed satisfactory ; a high salary
bribed Miss Elphick to engage for one year to go to so
remote a country, and she came every other day to sit
with us from the time she gave her consent to the
bargain, that she might learn our ways and we get
accustomed to her. My father also engaged a little
French girl, a prote'ge' of M. Beckvelt and about Jane's
age» to go North as our schoolroom companion. We
were in great grief when we said farewell in Brunswick
Square. All the pretty presents waiting for us there

L

162 PARTINGS [1812

could not pacify either Jane or me. To me my aunt
Lissy was inexpressibly dear, and the little cousins, of
whom there were then four, John, Lissy, George, and
Susan, were great pets with us. It required to have
Rothiemurchus in prospect.

CHAPTER IX
1812

EARLY in July of the year 1812 my mother set out
with her children for the Doune, bidding a final adieu,
though she knew it not, to England. I cannot re-
member whether my father travelled with us or not.
Yes, he must — for he read Childe Harold to us ; it had
just come out, and made its way by its own intrinsic
merit, for popular prejudice set strong against the
author. " To sit on rocks," etc., arrested the attention
even of me. I was not given to poetry generally ; then,
as now, it required " thoughts that rouse, and words
that burn " to affect me with aught but weariness ; but
when, after a second reading of this passage, my father
closed the pamphlet for a moment, saying, " This is
poetry ! " I felt that he was right, and resolved to look
the whole poem over some day at leisure. We had also
with us Walter Scott's three first poems, great favourites
with us, The Seven Champions of Christendom,
Goldsmith's History of England, and his Animated
Nature, and in French, Adele et Theodore. This was
our travelling library, all tumbled into a brown holland
bag kept under the front seat of the barouche. At the
inns where we had long rests, our own horses doing but
few stages in the day, we amused ourselves in spouting
from these volumes, Jane and I acting Macbeth, singing
operas of our own invention, and playing backgammon,
a style of thing so repugnant to the school ideas of
propriety befitting the reign of the new governess, that
she got wonderfully grave with her unfortunate pupils.

163

164 MISS ELPHICK'S BEWILDERMENT [1812

We had picked her up as we left town, and thinking
more of ourselves than of her felt quite disposed to
quarrel with any one who wept so bitterly at leaving
London and her own friends, when she was going to
the Highlands amongst ours. She was a little fat
dumpling of a woman, with fine eyes, and a sweet-toned
voice in speaking, strangely dressed in a fashion peculiar
to the middle classes in England in that day, when the
modes were not studied all through society as they are
now, nor indeed attainable by moderate persons, as the
expense was quite beyond the means of poorer people.
Her provision for the long journey was a paper of cakes,
and a large thick pocket-handkerchief, which was soon
wetted through; not an auspicious beginning where
two such monkeys as Jane and I were concerned.
Mary and Johnnie ate the cakes. Poor Miss Elphick !
she had troubled times. Her first grand stand was
against the backgammon, " shaking dice-boxes in a
public inn ! " We were very polite, but we would not
give in, assuring her we were always accustomed to
shake dice-boxes where we liked out of lesson hours.
Next she entreated to be spared Macbeth's dagger!
Hamlet's soliloquies ! Hecate's fury ! " So masculine
to be strutting about and ranting in such loud tones,"
etc. etc. We were amazed ; our occupation gone ! the
labour of months to be despised after all the applause
we had been earning ! What were we to do ? sit silent
with our hands before us ? Not we indeed ! We pitied
her, and left her, thinking that our mother had made a
most unfortunate choice in a governess.

We entered Scotland by the Kelso Road, we passed
the field of Flodden ; neither of us remembered why it
should be famous. " Miss Elphick will tell us, I am
sure," I remarked ; pert unfeeling child that I was. I
had taken her measure at once, and knew full well she
knew less of Flodden field than I did. " Decidedly
not," said my father, " take the trouble to hunt out all
the necessary information for yourself, you will be less
likely to forget it ; I shall expect the whole history a
week after we get home." Whether suspecting the

1812] FRENCH PRISONERS 165

truth, he had come to the rescue of the governess, or
that he was merely carrying out his general plan of
making us do all our work ourselves, I cannot say, and
I did not stop to think. My head had begun to
arrange its ideas. The Flowers o* the Forest and
Marmion were running through it. " Ah, papa," I said,
" I need not hunt, it's all here now, the phantom, the
English lady, the spiked girdle and all ; I'm right, ain't
I ? " and I looked archly over at our governess, who,
poor woman, seemed in the moon altogether. The
family conversation was an unknown language to her.
" What could have made mamma choose her ? " said
Jane to me.

We went to see Melrose, dined at Jedburgh, passed
Cowdenknowes, Tweedside, Ettrick Shaws, Gala Water,
starting up in the carriage in ecstasies, flinging our-
selves half out at the sides each time these familiar
names excited us. In vain Miss Elphick pulled our
frocks. I am sure she feared she had undertaken the
charge of lunatics, particularly when I burst forth in
song at either Tweedside or Yarrow braes. It was not
so much the scenery, it was the " classic ground " of all
the Border country.

A number of French prisoners, officers, were on
parole at Jedburgh. Lord Buchan, whom we met
there, took us to see a painting in progress by one of
them ; some battlefield, all the figures portraits from
memory. The picture was already sold, and part paid
for, and another ordered, which we were all very glad
of, the handsome young painter having interested us
much. The ingenuity of the French prisoners of all
ranks was amazing, only to be equalled by their
industry ; those of them unskilled in higher arts earned
for themselves most comfortable additions to their
allowance by turning bits of wood, bones, straw, almost
anything in fact, into neat toys of many sorts, eagerly
bought up by all who met with them. We rested a
few days in Edinburgh and then journeyed leisurely
by the Highland road home, still crossing the Queens-
ferry in a miserable sailing boat, and the Tay at Inver

166 ON THE ROAD TO THE HIGHLANDS [1812

for the last time in the large flat boat. When next we
passed our boundary river the handsome bridge was
built over it at Dunkeld, the little inn was done up, a
fine hotel where the civillest of landlords reigned, close
to the bridge, received all travellers; and Neil Gow
was dead, the last of our bards — no one again will ever
play the Scotch music as he did. His sons in the quick
measures were perhaps his equals, they gave force and
spirit and fine execution to strathspeys and reels, but
they never gave the slow, the tender, airs with the real
feeling of their beauty their father had. Nor can any
one now hope to revive a style passing away, A few
true fingers linger amongst us, but this generation will
see the last of them. Our children will not be as
national as their parents — reflections made like some
puns, ct loisir, for at the time we last ferried over the
Tay I was only on the look-out for all the well-
remembered features of the scenery. We baited the
horses at Moulinearn, not the pretty country inn of the
rural village which peeps out on the Tummel from its
screen of fine wooding now, but a dreary, desolate,
solitary stone house, dirt without and smoke within, and
little to be had in it but whisky. The road to Blair
then passed over the summit of the hills, over-looking
the river and the valley in which nestled Fascally, and
allowing of a peep at Loch Rannoch in the far distance ;
then on through Killiecrankie, beautiful then as now,
more beautiful, for no Perth traders had built villas on
its sheltered banks, nor Glasgow merchant perched a
castle on the rock. Hardly a cabin broke the solitude
in those days, to interrupt the awe we always felt on
passing the stone set up where Dundee fell, Bonny
Dundee, whom we Highlanders love still in spite of
Walter Scott. Miss Elphick, poor soul, was un-
doubtedly as innocent of any acquaintance with him
as she had been with James IV., but there had been
something in my father's manner on the Flodden field
day which prevented any further display of my ill-
breeding. I therefore contented myself with a verse of
the song, and a little conversation with my mother, who

1812J DISCOMFORTS OF THE JOURNEY 167

was a perfect chronological table of every event in
modern history.

The old inn at Blair was high up on the hill, over-
looking the Park, the wall of which was just opposite
the windows. We used to watch through the trunks of
the trees for the antlered herds of deer, and walk to a
point from whence we could see the Castle far down
below, beside the river, a large, plain, very ugly building
now, that very likely looked grander before its battle-
ments were levelled by order of the Government after
the rebellion. Here we were accustomed to a particu-
larly good pudding, a regular souffl£ that would have
done no discredit to a first-rate French cook, only that
he would have been amazed at the quantity of whisky
poured over it. The German brandy puddings must
be of the same genus, improved, perhaps, by the
burning. The " Athole lad " who waited on us was
very awkward, red-haired, freckled, in a faded, nearly
threadbare tartan jacket. My father and mother had a
bedroom, Johnnie and the maid a closet, but we three
and our governess slept in the parlour, two in a bed,
and the beds were in the wall shut in by panels, and
very musty was the smell of them. So poor Miss
Elphick cried, which we extremely resented as a
reflection on the habits of our country. Next day
was worse, a few miles of beauty, and then the dreary
moor to Dalnacardoch, another lone house with very
miserable steading about it, and a stone-walled sheep-
fold near the road ; and then the high hill-pass to
Dalwhinnie very nearly as desolate. Nothing can
exceed the dreariness of Drumochter — all heather, bog,
granite, and the stony beds of winter torrents, unrelieved
by one single beauty of scenery, if we except a treeless
lake with a shooting-box beside it, and three or four
fields near the little burn close to which stands the
good inn of Dalwhinnie. We felt so near home there
that we liked the lonely place, and were almost sorry
we were to sleep at Pitmain, the last stage on our long
journey. We never see such inns now ; no carpets on
the floors, no cushions in the chairs, no curtains to the

168 ROTHIEMURCHUS AT LAST [1812

windows. Of course polished tables, or even clean ones,
were unknown. All the accessories of the dinner were
wretched, but the dinner itself, I remember, was
excellent; hotch-potch, salmon, fine mutton, grouse,
scanty vegetables, bad bread, but good wine. A mile
on from Pitmain were the indications of a village — the
present town of Kingussie — a few very untidy-looking
slated stone houses each side of a road, the bare heather
on each side of the Spey, the bare mountains on each
side of the heather, a few white-walled houses here and
there, a good many black turf huts, frightful without,
though warm and comfortable within. A little farther
on rose Belleville, a great hospital-looking place pro-
truding from young plantations, and staring down on
the rugged meadow-land now so fine a farm. The
birch woods began to show a little after this, but
deserted the banks about that frightful Kincraig where
began the long moor over which we were glad to look
across the Spey to Invereshie, from whence all the
Rothiemurchus side of the river was a succession of
lovely scenery. On we went over the weary moor of
Alvie to the loch of the same name with its kirk and
manse, so singularly built on a long promontory,
running far out into the water ; Tor Alvie on the right,
Craigellachie before us, and our own most beautiful
"plain of the fir trees" opening out as we advanced,
the house of the Doune appearing for a moment as we
passed on by Lynwilg. We had as usual to go on to
the big boat at Inverdruie, feasting our eyes all the way
on the fine range of the Cairngorm, the pass of the
Larrig between Cairngorm and Brae-Riach, the hill of
Kincairn standing forward to the north to enclose the
forest which spread all along by the banks of the Spey,
the foreground relieved by hillocks clothed with birch,
fields, streams, and the smoke from the numerous
cottages. Our beloved Ord Bain rose right in front
with its bald head and birch-covered sides, and we
could point out our favourite spots to one another as we
passed along, some coming into sight as others receded,
till the clamour of our young voices, at first amusing,

1812] CHANGES AT THE DOUNE 169

had to be hushed. We were so happy ! we were at last
come home ; London was given up, and in our dearly
loved Rothiemurchus we now fully believed we were to
live and die.

We found the Doune all changed again, more of the
backwater, more of the hill, and all the garden gone.
This last had been removed to its present situation in
the series of pretty hollows in the birch wood between
the Drum and the Milltown muir ; a fashion of the day,
to remove the fruit and vegetables to an inconvenient
distance from the cook, the kitchen department of the
garden being considered the reverse of ornamental.
The new situation of ours, and the way it was laid out,
was the admiration of everybody, and there could not
well have been anything of the sort more striking to
the eye, with the nicely-managed entrance among the
trees, and the gardener's cottage so picturesquely
placed ; but I always regretted the removal. I like to
be able to lounge in among the cabbages, to say
nothing of the gooseberries ; and a walk of a quarter of
a mile on a hot summer's day before reaching the
refreshment of fruit is almost as tormenting to the
drawing-room division of the family as is the sudden
want of a bit of thyme, mint, or parsley to those in
authority in the offices, with no one beyond the swing-
door idle enough to have half an hour to spare for
fetching some. A very enjoyable shrubbery replaced
the dear old formal kitchen garden, with belts of
flowering trees, and gay beds of flowers, grass plots,
dry walks, and the Doune Hill in the midst of it, all
neatly fenced from the lawn ; and so agreeable a retire-
ment was this piece of ornamental ground, that I can't
but think it very bad taste in my brother John and the
Duchess of Bedford to take away the light green paling
and half the dressed ground, and throw so large an
open space about that ugly half-finished house: for I
am writing now after having been with my husband
and my children and three of my nephews in the
Highlands, a few really happy weeks at Inverdruie;
finding changes enough in our Duchus, as was to be

170 AN ERA IN LIFE [1812

expected after an absence of twenty years ; much to
regret, some things to praise, and many more to wish
for. In my older age it was the condition of the
people that particularly engaged me; in 1812 it was
the scenery.

It has always seemed to me that this removal to
Rothiemurchus was the first great era in my life. All
our habits changed — all connections, all surroundings.
We had been so long in England, we elder children,
that we had to learn our Highland life again. The
language, the ways, the style of the house, the visitors,
the interests, all were so entirely different from what
had been latterly affecting us, we seemed to be starting
as it were afresh. I look back on it even now as a
point to date up to and on from ; the beginning of a
second stage in the journey. Our family then consisted
of my father and mother, we three girls and our
governess, and our young French companion Caroline
Favrin, William during the summer holidays, Johnnie,
and a maid between him and my mother, poor Peggy
Davidson. Besides her there were the following
servants : Mrs Bird the coachman's wife, an English-
woman, as upper housemaid and plain needlewoman ;
under her Betty Ross, the gardener's youngest
daughter ; Grace Grant, the beauty of the country, only
daughter of Sandy Grant the greusiach or shoemaker,
our schoolroom maid ; old Belle Macpherson, a soldier's
widow who had followed the Q2nd all over the world,
and had learned to make up the Marquis of Huntly's
shirts remarkably well at Gibraltar, box-plaiting all the
frills — he never wore them small-plaited, though my
father did for many a long day after this ! She was the
laundrymaid. The cook and housekeeper was an
English Mrs Carr from Cumberland, an excellent
manager; a plain cook under her from Inverness; and
old Christie as kitchenmaid. The men were Simon
Ross, the gardener's eldest son, as butler, and an
impudent English footman, Richard, with a bottle-nose,
who yet turned all the women's heads; William Bird
the coachman, and George Ross, another son of the

1812] SERVANTS AND RETAINERS 171

gardener's, as groom. Old John Mackintosh brought in
all the wood and peats for the fires, pumped the water,
turned the mangle, lighted the oven, brewed the beer,
bottled the whisky, kept the yard tidy, and stood
enraptured listening to us playing on the harp "like
Daavid " ! There was generally also a clerk of Mr
Cooper's, my father requiring assistance in his study,
where he spent the greater part of his time managing
all his perplexed affairs.

At the farm were the grieve, and as many lads as he
required for the work of the farm under him, who all
slept in a loft over the stables, and ate in the farm
kitchen. Old George Ross No. I — not the gardener —
had a house and shop in the offices; he was turner,
joiner, butcher, weaver, lint-dresser, wool-comber, dyer,
and what not ; his old wife was the henwife, and had
her task of so many hanks of wool to spin in the winter.
Old Jenny Cameron, who had never been young, and
was known as Jenny Dairy, was supreme in the farm
kitchen ; she managed cows, calves, milk, stores, and
the spinning, assisted by an active girl whom I never
recollect seeing do anything but bake the oaten bread
over the fire, and scour the wooden vessels used for
every purpose, except on the washing and rinsing days
(called by the maids ranging), when Jenny gave help in
the laundry, in which abode of mirth and fun the under-
housemaid spent her afternoons. Besides this regular
staff, John Fyffe, the handsome smith, came twice a
week to the forge with his apprentices, when all the
maids were sure to require repairs in the ironworks ;
and the greusiach came once a week for the check he
carried in his bosom to the bank at Inverness, walking
the thirty-six miles as another man, not a Highlander,
would go three, and the thirty-six back again, with the
money in the same safe hiding-place. My father at
this time paid most of the wages in cash. There were
also the bowman, who had charge of the cattle, named,
I suppose, from the necessity of arming him in ancient
times with the weapon most used, when he had to
guard his herd from marauders. John Macgregor was

172 MISS ELPHICK [1812

our bowman's name, though he was never spoken of but
as John Bain or John the Fair, on account of his com-
plexion. He was married to George Ross the orraman's
daughter (orraman means the jobber or Jack-of-all-
trades), and, like almost all the rest of them, lived with
us till he died. The gardener, and those of his family
who were not married or in our service, lived in the
pretty cottage at one entrance of the new garden, which
also served as lodge to the White Gate. The game-
keeper, tall, handsome John Macpherson, had an ugly
little hut at the Polchar, The fox-hunter, little, active
Lewie Gordon, had part of the Kinapol house; the
principal shepherd, John Macgregor, known as the
muckle shepherd from his great stature, had the
remainder ; the under-shepherd, also a Macgregor, lived
nearer the mountains. The carpenter, Donald Maclean,
had another part of Kinapol ; he had married my
mother's first cook, Nelly Grant, she who could make so
many puddings, ninety-nine, if I remember right. The
Colleys, the masons, were at Riannachan ; far enough
apart all of them, miles between any two, but it little
mattered ; we were slow coaches in our Highlands ;
time was of little value, space of no account, an errand
was a day's work, whether it took the day or only an
hour or two. Three or four extra aids. Tarn Mathieson
the carrier, Tarn MTavish the smuggler, and Mary
Loosach and the Nairn fisherwives, with their creels on
their backs, made up the complement of our Highland
servitors.

Poor Miss Elphick ! nothing could reconcile her at
first to the wild country she had got into. Between
the inns and bleak moors and the Gaelic she had been
overpowered, and had hardly articulated since we
crossed Drumochter. She had yet to awake to the
interest of the situation, to accommodate herself besides
to manners so entirely different from any she had been
accustomed to. How our mother could have taken a
fancy to this strange little woman was ever an enigma
to Jane and me ; she was uneducated, had lived
amongst a low set of people, and had not any notion

1812] FATHER ENTERS PARLIAMENT 173

of the grave business she had undertaken. Her
temper was passionate and irritable; we had to
humour, to manage her, instead of learning from her to
discipline ourselves. Yet she was clever, very warm-
hearted, and she improved herself wonderfully after
being with us a little time. Her father, of German
extraction, had been bailiff to the Duke of Clarence
at Bushley Park; he lived jollily with a set of persons
of his own station, spending freely what was earned
easily, and so leaving nothing behind him. His son
succeeded him in his place ; his elder daughters were
married poorly ; this one, the youngest, had nothing for
it but the usual resource of her class, go out as a
governess, for which responsible situation she had
never been in the least prepared. Her childhood had
been chiefly passed under Mrs Jordan's eye, among all
her Fitz-Clarences ; she then went to a third-rate
school, and at eighteen went to keep her rather
dissipated brother's house during the interval between
his first and second marriage. We got on better with
her after a while, but at first her constant companion-
ship made us very miserable. Oh, how we regretted
Annie Grant !

It was the intention of my father and mother to
remain quietly at the Doune for the next two years,
that is, my father intended the Doune to be the home
of his wife and children. He could himself be with us
only occasionally, as he had to carry his election, and
then in the proper season take his place in Parliament.
I cannot bring to mind whether he wrote M.P. after
his name this year or the next, but in either the one or
the other Great Grimsby was gained — at what cost the
ruin of a family could certify. Whether he were with
us or no, visitors poured in as usual ; no one then ever
passed a friend's house in the Highlands, nor was it
ever thought necessary to send invitations on the one
part, or to give information on the other; the doors
were open literally, for ours had neither lock nor bolt,
and people came in sure of a hearty welcome and good
cheer. The Lady Logie I remember well; I was

174 VISITORS AT THE DOUNE [1812

always fond of her, she was so fond of me; and her
old father, and her sister Grace Baillie, whom I over-
heard one morning excusing my plain appearance to
my mother — "pale and thin certainly, but very lady-
like, which is always sufficient" No Mr Macklin with
his flute — he was in India, gone as a barrister to
Bombay, and recommended to the good graces of my
uncle Edward. Burgie and Mrs Dunbar Brodie paid
their regular visit. She measured all the rooms, and
he played the flageolet in the boat upon the lake not
badly, though we young people preferred hearing Mrs
Bird, the coachman's wife, sing the " Battle of the Nile "
in that situation. Then we had poor Sir Alexander
Boswell, not a baronet then, Bozzy's son, his wife, wife's
sister and quiet husband, Mr Conyngham — new
acquaintances made through the Dick Lauders, who
lived near them ; they were also with us, and all the
old set. Amongst others, Sir William Gordon-
Gumming, newly come to his title and just of age;
some of his sisters with him. He was the queerest
creature, ugly, yet one liked his looks, tall and well
made, and awkward more from oddity than ungrace-
fulness ; extraordinary in his conversation between
cleverness and a kind of want of it. Everybody liked
Sir Willie, and many years afterwards he told me that
at this time he very much liked me, and wanted my
father to promise me to him in a year or two ; but my
father would make no promises, only just a warm
welcome on the old footing when this oddity should
return from his continental travels. He was just
setting out on them, and I never heard of this early
conquest of mine, for he fell in love with Elizabeth
Campbell at Florence ; " And ye see, Lizzy, my dear,"
said he to me, as he was driving me in his buggy round
the beautiful grounds at Altyre, " Eliza Campbell put
Eliza Grant quite out of my head ! " We had no
Kinrara; that little paradise had been shut up ever
since the death of the Duchess of Gordon, except just
during a month in the shooting season, when the
Marquis of Huntly came there with a bachelor party.

1812] SCHOOLROOM LIFE 175

We girls saw little of all this company, old friends
as some of them were, as, except at breakfast where
Miss Elphick and I always appeared, we never now left
our own premises. We found this schoolroom life very
irksome at first, it was so different from what we had
been accustomed to. Governess and pupils slept in
one large room up at the top of the new part of the
house, the barrack-room where I so well remembered
Edwina Gumming combing her long yellow hair. We
had each of us a little white-curtained bed, made to fit
into the slope of the roof in its own corner, leaving
space enough between the bedstead and the end wall
for the washing-table. The middle of the room with
its window, fireplace, toilettes, and book table, made
our common dressing-room ; there were chests of
drawers each side of the fireplace, and a large closet in
the passage, so that we were comfortably lodged.
Miss Elphick began her course of instruction by
jumping out of bed at six o'clock in the morning, and
throwing on her clothes with the haste of one escaping
from a house on fire ; she then wiped her face and
hands, and smoothed her cropped hair, and her toilet
was over. Some woman, I forget who, telling Sir
William Gumming, who was seated next her at break-
fast, that she never took more than ten minutes to
dress in the morning, he instantly got up, plate and
cup in hand, and moved off to the other side of the
table. He would not then have sat beside me, for Miss
Elphick considered ten minutes quite sufficient for any
young lady to give to her toilet upon week-days.
We could " clean ourselves " properly, as she did, upon
Sundays. She could not allow us time for such
unnecessary dawdling. We must have an hour of the
harp or the pianoforte before breakfast, and our papa
chose that we should be out another; therefore, we
must give ourselves a "good wash" on Sundays, and
make that do for the week. We were thoroughly
disgusted. Her acquirements were on a par with this
style of breeding ; she and I had a furious battle the
first week we began business, because during a history

176 MISS ELPHICK'S INCOMPETENCE [isia

lesson she informed dear Mary that Scotland had been
conquered by Queen Elizabeth, and left by her with
her other possessions to her nephew, King James ! I
was pert enough, I daresay, for the education we had
received had given us an extreme contempt for such
ignorance, but what girl of fifteen, brought up as I had
been, could be expected to show respect for an illiterate
woman of very ungovernable temper, whose ideas had
been gathered from a class lower than we could
possibly have been acquainted with, and whose habits
were those of a servant ? She insisted also that there
never had been a Caliph Haroun al Raschid — our most
particular friend — that he was only a fictitious character
in those Eastern fairy tales ; and when, to prove his
existence, we brought forward the list of his presents to
Charlemagne, we found she did not believe in him
either ! Yet she could run off a string of dates like
Isabella in The Good French Governess. I thought of
her historical knowledge a good many years afterwards,
when visiting General Need's nephew, Tom Walker,
at Aston Hall, in Derbyshire ; we had known him very
well in Edinburgh when he was in the Scots Greys.
He was public-school and college bred, had been a
dozen years in the army, was married to a marquis's
grand-daughter, and had a fortune of £3000 a year.
He was showing us a collection of coins, some of them
of the reign of Elizabeth, and after calling our attention
to them, he produced some base money which she had
coined on some emergency — in plain terms, to cheat
the public. " And here, you see," added he, picking up
several other base pieces, " Philip and Mary, following
her bad example, cheated the public too."

It was not to be supposed that we could get on very
comfortably with poor Miss Elphick; we were
ungovernable, I daresay, but she was totally unfit to
direct us ; and then, when we saw from the windows of
our schoolroom, a perfect prison to us, the fine summer
pass away, sun shining, birds singing, river flowing, all
in vain for us ; when we heard the drawing-room party
setting out for all our favourite haunts, and felt our-

1812] MOTHER'S REPRIMANDS 177

selves denied our ancient privilege of accompanying it,
we, who had hitherto roamed really " fancy free," no
wonder we rebelled at being thus cooped up, and
detested the unfortunate governess who thus deprived
us of liberty. Miss Elphick determined to leave ; she
felt herself quite unequal to the Highlands and the
Highland children, so she went to make her complaint
to my mother. She returned after a long conference,
seemingly little improved in temper by the interview.
However she had fared, we fared worse; she was, to
all appearance, civilly treated, which we were not I
was first sent for, and well reproved, but not allowed to
speak one word to excuse myself; called impudent,
ignorant, indolent, impertinent, deprived of all indul-
gences, threatened with still heavier displeasure, and
sent back to my duties in such a state of wrath that I
was more decided than ever on resisting the governess,
and only regretted my powers of annoyance could not
be brought to bear also on my mother. Jane then had
her maternal lecture, which gave her a fit of tears, so
bitter that she had to be sent to bed ; she was silent as
to what had passed, but she was more grieved than I
was. My father had been from home during this
commotion, but I suppose he was informed on his
return of what had taken place, for an entire reform in
every way was the result of this " agitation." Until he
came back we were miserable enough; Miss Elphick
never spoke to Jane or me, threw our books, pens,
and pencils at us, contradicted our every wish, to make
us know, she said, that she was over us. She doubled
our lessons, curtailed our walks, and behaved altogether
with vulgarity. My mother soon forgave Jane ; I, who
was never a favourite, was rather unjustly kept out
of favour — not an improving treatment of a naturally
passionate temper.

My father met us with his usual affection, but next
day his manner was so stiffly dignified we were pre-
pared for a summons to attend him in the study. I
was first ordered to appear. I had determined with
Jane to tell my father boldly all our grievances, to

M

178 FATHER'S ADMONITIONS [1812

expose to him the unsuitability of our governess, and to
represent to him that it could not be expected we
would learn from a person whom we felt ourselves
fitted to teach. Alas, for my high resolves! There
was something so imposing about my father when he
sat in judgment that awe generally overcame all who
were presented to him. Remonstrances besides would
have been useless, as he addressed me very differently
from what I expected as I stood before him, all my
courage gone, just waiting my doom in silence. I
forget the exact words of his long harangue ; he was
never very brief in his speeches, but the purport is in
my head now, for he told me what I knew was the
truth. He said Miss Elphick was not exactly the sort
of governess he could have wished for us, but that she
was in many respects the best out of many my mother
had taken the trouble to inquire about. She had great
natural talents, habits of neatness, order, and industry, in
all of which we were deficient ; all these she could teach
us, with many other equally useful things. A more
correct knowledge of history, a more cultivated mind,
would have been a great advantage certainly, but we
could not expect everything ; what he did expect,
however, was that his children should act as became
the children of a gentleman, the descendants of a long
line of gentlemen, and not by rude unfeeling remarks,
impertinence, and insubordination put themselves on a
par with their inferiors. Gentlemen and gentlewomen
were studious of the feelings of all around them ; they
were characterised by that perfect good-breeding which
would avoid inflicting the slightest annoyance on any
human being.

This lecture had considerable effect on me. I
dreaded compromising my gentle blood ; I also believed
in the difficulty of procuring a suitable governess. My
conduct therefore improved in politeness, but I cannot
say that I ever learned to esteem poor Miss Elphick.
Jane's private interview ^vith my father did not last so
long as mine ; she had never been so pert nor so
intractable as I had been, therefore she had less to

1812] SCHOOLROOM AFFAIRS IMPROVE 179

reform. She said my father had quite failed to convince
her that they had got a suitable governess for us, she
was therefore sure that he had some doubts on the point
himself; but as there seemed a determination not to
part with her we had to make the best of it ; and from
this time Miss Elphick and Jane got on very well
together ; I think, at last, Jane really liked her. She
improved wonderfully. Her conversation in the study
lasted an hour or more, and she left it much more
humble than she had entered it. What passed never
transpired, but her manner became less imperious, her
assertions less dogmatic. Dictionaries, biographies,
gazetteers, chronologies were added to our bookcase,
and these were always referred to afterwards in any
uncertainty, though it was done by way of giving us the
trouble of searching in order to remember better.

Schoolroom affairs went on more smoothly after this
settlement. We were certainly kept very regularly at
work, and our work was sufficiently varied, but the heads
were properly rested for the most part, and we had
battled out a fair amount of exercise.

In the summer we rose at six, practised an hour,
walked an hour, and then the younger ones had break-
fast, a plan Dr Combe would have changed with
advantage. Miss Elphick and I had often to wait two
hours longer before our morning's meal was tasted, for
we joined the party in the eating-room, and my father
and mother were very late in appearing. We each took
a bit of bread before the early walk, a walk that tired
me greatly. Studies went on till twelve, when we went
out again. At two we dined, and had half an hour to
ourselves afterwards. We studied again till five, and
spent the rest of the evening as we liked, out of doors
till dark in summer, or in the drawing-room, for we had
" agitated " to get rid of learning lessons overnight and
had succeeded. In winter we rose half an hour later,
without candle, or fire, or warm water. Our clothes
were all laid on a chair overnight in readiness for being
taken up in proper order next morning. My mother
would not give us candles, and Miss Elphick insisted on

180 WINTER HARDSHIPS [1812

our getting up. We were not allowed hot water, and
really in the Highland winters, when the breath froze
on the sheets, and the water in the jugs became cakes of
ice, washing was a very cruel necessity. As we could play
our scales in the dark, the two pianofortes and the harp
began the day's work. How very near crying was the
one whose turn set her at the harp I will not speak of;
the strings cut the poor cold fingers. Martyr the first
sat in the dining-room at the harp, martyr the second
put her poor blue fingers to the keys of the grand piano-
forte in the drawing-room, for in these two rooms the
fires were never lighted till near nine o'clock. Mary
was better off. She being a beginner practised under
Miss Elphick's superintendence in the schoolroom,
where, if Grace Grant had not a good fire burning
brightly by seven o'clock, she was likely to hear of it.
Our alfresco playing below was not of much use to us ;
we had better have been warm in our beds for all the
good it did us. As we had no early walk in winter, we
went out at half after eleven, and at five we had a good
romp all over the old part of the house, playing at hide-
and-seek in the long garret and its many dependencies,
till it was time for Miss Elphick, who dined in the
parlour, to dress. We had a charming hour to ourselves
then by the good fire in the schoolroom, no candle
allowed, till we had to dress ourselves and take our work
down to the drawing-room, where I had tea ; the rest
had supped upstairs on bread, Johnnie and Caroline
Favrin alone being able to take the milk. Poor, dear
Jane, how I longed to give her one of the cups of tea I
was allowed myself; she was too honest to go into the
nursery and get one from Peggy Davidson.

We really soon got to like the regularity of our life.
Once accustomed to the discipline we hardly felt it as
such, and we got very much interested in most of our
employments, anxious to show our father that we were
making good use of our time. We generally played to
him in the evening whether there were guests or no, and
once a week we had each to give him something new, on
the execution of which he passed judgment, not unspar-

1812] PARENTS' OCCUPATIONS 181

ingly, for he was particular to a fault in finding fault.
Once a week we had a French evening when there was
no company, and we read aloud occasionally after tea,
in turns, such bits as he had himself selected for us out
of good authors, the same passage over and over till we
had acquired the proper expression. He often read
aloud himself any passage that struck him, either from
books, reviews, or newspapers. We had a good
command of books, a fair library of our own, and a
really good one collected by my father. My father
always commented on the passages selected, ever in
a spirit of liberality and kindness ; I never heard an ill-
natured remark from his lips, on either dead or living,
nor noticed the very slightest interest in gossip of any
sort ; he meddled in no man's business, was charitable,
in St Paul's sense of the word, in all his judgments. It
was no common privilege to grow up under such a
mind.

My mother, when in health, was an example of
industry. She kept a clean and tidy house, and an
excellent table, not doing much herself, but taking care
to see all well done. She was very kind to the poor,
and encouraged us to visit them and work for them, and
attend to them when sick. She was a beautiful needle-
woman, and taught us to sew and cut out, and repair all
our own, our father's, brothers', and family linen. She
had become Highland wife enough to have her spinnings
and dyeings, and weavings of wool and yarn, and flax
and hanks, and she busied herself at this time in all the
stirring economy of a household " remote from cities,"
and consequently forced to provide its own necessities.
Her evening readings were her relaxation ; she was very
well read, thoroughly read in English classics, and she
possessed a memory from which neither fact nor date
ever escaped. When idle, we used to apply to her, and
never found her wrong. She used to employ us to go
her errands among the people, and we got Miss Elphick
broken in at last to like the long wanderings through
the fir wood. We had two ponies, which we rode in
turn ; a tent in the shrubbery in summer, the garden in

182 ROMANTIC SURROUNDINGS [1812

autumn, the poultry-yard in spring, the farm-yard at all
times, with innumerable visits to pay to friends of all
degrees. Such was our Highland home; objects of
interest all round us, ourselves objects of interest to all
round, little princes and princesses in our Duchus, where
the old feudal feelings still reigned in their deep
intensity. And the face of Nature so beautiful —
rivers, lakes, burnies, fields, banks, braes, moors, woods,
mountains, heather, the dark forest, wild animals, wild
flowers, wild fruits ; the picturesque inhabitants, the
legends of our race, fairy tales, raids of the clans,
haunted spots, cairns of the murdered — all and every-
thing that could touch the imagination, there abounded
and acted as a charm on the children of the chieftain
who was adored ; for my father was the father of his
people, loved for himself as well as for his name.

CHAPTER X
1556-1813

ROTHIEMURCHUS at this period contained four large
farms — the Doune, where we lived ourselves, to which
my father was constantly adding such adjoining scraps
as circumstances enabled him now and then to get
possession of; Inverdruie, where lived his great-uncle
Captain Lewis Grant, the last survivor of the old race ;
the Croft, where now was settled his cousin James
Cameron; and the Dell, occupied by Duncan Mac-
intosh, the forester, who had permission to take in as
many acres of the adjacent moors as suited his
husbandry. Quantities of smaller farms, from a mere
patch to a decent steading, were scattered here and
there among the beautiful birch woods, near swiftly
running streams, or farther away among the gloom of
the fir forest, wherever an opening afforded light enough
for a strip of verdure to brighten the general carpet of
cranberries and heather. The carpenter, the smith, the
fox-hunter, the saw-millers, the wheel-wright, the few
Chelsea pensioners, each had his little field, while
comparatively larger holdings belonged to a sort of
yeomanry coeval with our own possession, or even some
of them found there by our ancestor the Laird of
Muckerach, the second son of our Chief, who displaced
the Shaws, for my father was but the seventh laird of
Rothiemurchus ; the Shaws reigned over this beautiful
property before the Grants seized it, and they had
succeeded the Comyns, lords not only of Badenoch but
of half our part of the north besides. The forest was

183

184 GRANTS OF ROTHIEMURCHUS [1556

at this time so extensive there was little room for
tillage through the wide plain it covered. It was very
pretty here and there to come upon a little cultivated
spot, a tiny field by the burn-side with a horse or a
cow upon it, a cottage often built of the black peat
mould, its chimney, however, smoking comfortably, a
churn at the door, a girl bleaching linen, or a guid-wife
in her high white cap waiting to welcome us, miles
away from any other spot so tenanted. Here and there
upon some stream a picturesque saw-mill was situated,
gathering its little hamlet round ; for one or two held
double saws, necessitating two millers, two assistants,
two homes with all their adjuncts, and a larger wood-
yard to hold, first the logs, and then all they were cut
up into. The wood manufacture was our staple, on it
depended our prosperity. It was at its height during
the war, when there was a high duty on foreign timber ;
while it flourished so did we, and all the many depend-
ing on us ; when it fell, the Laird had only to go back
to black cattle again " like those that were before him."
It was a false stimulus, said the political economists.
If so, we paid for it.

Before introducing you, dear children, to our
Rothiemurchus society, we must get up a bit of
genealogy, or you would never understand our relation-
ships or our manners or connections in the north
country. In the reign of the English popish Mary and
of the Scotch regencies, in the year 1556, I think, but
am not quite certain, the Chief of the clan Grant
presented his second son Patrick with the moor of
Muckerach in Strathspey, on which he built a tower.
The mother of Patrick was a Lady Margaret Stewart,
daughter of the Earl of Athole, and cousin to the
Queen. Whom he married I forget He had been a
clever enterprising man, for the Shaws having dis-
pleased the Government by repeated acts of
insubordination, a common offence in those times,
their lands were confiscated, and the Rothiemurchus
portion presented to the Laird of Muckerach — "gin he
could win it" — which without more ado he did, and

MUCHRACH CASTLE.

[To face page 184.

1651] OLD STORIES 185

built himself a house at the Dell, the door stone of
which he brought from his tower on the moor, and to
this day there it is, with the date cut deep into it. The
Shaws, though removed, remaining troublesome, he
repaired the ruins of an old castle of the Comyns on
an island in Loch-an-Eilan in case of any extraordinary
mishap, and he pulled down and quite destroyed
an old fort of the Shaws on the Doune Hill,
leaving his malediction to any of his successors
who should rebuild it. He must have had stirring
times of it, yet he died peaceably in his bed, and was
succeeded by sons, for some generations of no great
note, a Duncan, a James, a Patrick, etc., none of them
remarkable except Duncan, who was surnamed " of the
Silver Cups " from possessing two silver cups, probably
a rare piece of splendour in a Highland household in
those days. A second James inherited more of the
qualities of the first Laird ; his father, whose name I am
not sure of, but called in the Gaelic the Foolish Laird,
was but a poor body ; he let the Shaws get rather
ahead again, married badly, and was altogether so
unfit to rule that his rather early death was not
regretted. He either fell over a rock or was drowned
in a hunting party — nobody inquired into particulars.

The reign of his son opened unpleasantly; the
Shaws were very troublesome, and Laird James had to
fight them ; the Shaws, of course, got the worst of it,
though they lived through many a fight to fight again.
At last their chief was killed, which sobered this
remnant of a clan, but they had to bury him, and no
grave would suit them but one in the kirkyard of
Rothiemurchus beside his fathers. With such array as
their fallen fortunes permitted of, they brought their
dead and laid him unmolested in that dust to which we
must all return. But oh, what horrid times ! His
widow next morning on opening the door of her house
at Dalnavert caught in her arms the corpse, which had
been raised in the night and carried back to her. It
was buried again, and again it was raised, more times
than I care to say, till Laird James announced he was

186 MACALPINE [1651-1711

tired of the play. The corpse was raised but carried
home no more. It was buried deep down within the
kirk, beneath the Laird's own seat, and every Sunday
when he went to pray he stamped his feet upon the
heavy stone he had laid over the remains of his enemy.
Laird James took to wife a very clever woman, the
daughter of Mackintosh of Killachy, nearly related to
the Mackintosh Chief (Sir James Mackintosh, the famed
of our day, is that Killachy's descendant). Her name
was Grace, but on account of her height, and perhaps
of her abilities, she was always called in the family
Grizzel Mor. I do not know what fortune she brought
beyond herself and the contents of a great green chest,
very heavy, with two deep drawers at the bottom of it,
which stood in the long garret as far back as my
recollection reaches, and held the spare blankets well
peppered, and with bits of tallow candles amongst
them. She was the mother of Macalpine — Patrick
Grant, surnamed Macalpine, I don't well know why, the
great man of our line, who would have been great in
any line. He removed from the Dell to the Doune,
built what was then thought a fine house there, and had
the family arms sculptured and coloured set over the
door. I remember regretting the shutting up of that
door, and the dashing over of the coat-of-arms with
yellow mortar and stones. His brothers were Colonel
William Grant, who married in 1711 Anne, a daughter
of Ludovic Grant of Grant, and was the founder of the
Ballindallochs, and Mr John Grant, who died unmarried.
He had plenty of sons and daughters by his wife, who
was a grand-daughter of the Laird of Grant, his Chief,
one of whose sisters was married to Lovat. Macalpine
ruled not only his own small patrimony, but mostly
all the country round. His wisdom was great, his
energy of mind and body untiring. He must have
acted as a kind of despotic sovereign, for he went about
with a body of four-and-twenty picked men, gaily
dressed, of whom the principal and the favourite was
his foster-brother, Ian Bain or John the Fair, also a
Grant of the family of Achnahatanich. Any offences

1677-1743] HIS SONS 187

committed anywhere this band took cognisance of.
Macalpine himself was judge and jury, and the sentence
quickly pronounced was as quickly executed, even when
the verdict doomed to death. A corpse with a dagger
in it was not infrequently met with among the heather,
and sometimes a stout fir branch bore the remains of a
meaner victim. I never heard the justice of a sentence
questioned. Macalpine was a great man in every sense
of the word, tall and strong made, and very handsome,
and a beau ; his trews (he never wore the kilt) were
laced down the sides with gold, the brogues on his
beautifully-formed feet were lined and trimmed with
feathers, his hands, as soft and white as a lady's and
models as to shape, could draw blood from the finger-
nails of any other hand they grasped, and they were so
flexible they could be bent back to form a cup which
would hold a tablespoonful of water. He was an
epicure, as indeed are all Highlanders in their own way.
They are contented with simple fare, and they ask no
great variety, but what they have must be of its kind
the best, and cooked precisely to their fancy. The well
of which Macalpine invariably drank was the Lady's
Well at Tullochgrue, the water of which was certainly
delicious. It was brought to him twice a day in a
covered wooden vessel, a cogue or lippie.

There is no end to the stories of Macalpine's days —
was none rather, for old-world tales are wearing out in
the Highlands as everywhere else, and since we, the old
race, have had to desert the spot where our forefathers
dwelt, there is less going to keep alive those feudal
feelings which were concentrated on the Laird's family.

Macalpine had by his first wife, Lady Mary, several
sons — James who succeeded him, Patrick who went into
the army, married some one whose name I forget, and
retired after some years of service to Tullochgrue, and
John, surnamed Corrour, from having been born at the
foot of the rock of that name up in the hill at Glen
Ennich. The young cattle were always sent up in the
summer to eat the fine grass in the glens, and the lady
having gone up at this time to the sheiling (a mere but

188 HIS SECOND MARRIAGE [1677-1743

and ben which the herds inhabited), either to bleach her
linens or for mere change of air, was suddenly taken ill
in that wilderness. Without nurse or doctor she got as
suddenly well, and brought her fine young son back
with her to the Doune. The army was Corrour's
destination of course ; he saw a good deal of service,
and I believe died somewhere abroad, a distinguished
officer, though he began life by fighting a running duel,
that is, challenging two or three in succession, rather
than acknowledge his ignorance. He had brought with
him to the south, where he joined his regiment, a horse
accoutred ; the horse died, and John Corrour went
looking about for another to fit the saddle, which he
insisted was the correct method of proceeding, and any
one who questioned this had to measure swords with
him. He had never seen asparagus ; some being offered
to him he began to eat it at the white end, which
provoking a laugh at the mess table, he laid his hand on
that terrible sword, and declared his undoubted right to
eat what best pleased him. It is said that to his" dying
day he always put aside the tender green points of this
vegetable. What marriages all the daughters of
Macalpine made I never heard ; one I know married
Cameron of Glenevis. A few years after the death of
Lady Mary, when her family had long been grown up
and settled, Macalpine, then in his 78th year, took as
his second bride a handsome woman, the daughter of
Grant of Tullochgorm, a respectable tacksman. She
bore him four sons, who were younger than some of his
grandsons, Colonel William Grant, Captain Lewis
Grant, George who was a sailor (a very uncommon
profession for a Highlander), and died at sea, and
Alexander who died young. Colonel William was a
good deal abroad, he had been in the West Indies,
Canada, etc. ; he married in Ireland a widow of the
name of Dashwood, who died childless, and the Colonel
soon after retired to the Croft, where he lived happily,
but not altogether respectably, to a good old age. His
very handsome housekeeper, Jenny Gordon, bore him
two children, our dearly-loved Annie and her brother

1743-1814] COL. WILLIAM AND CAPT. LEWIS 189

Peter Macalpine Grant, whom my father sent out to
India as a cadet. Being the eldest living member of
the family, Colonel William was tacitly elected to
conduct my mother to the kirk on her arrival as a bride
in Rothiemurchus, and on this occasion he dressed
himself in full regimentals, and wore a queue tied with
very broad black ribbon which nearly reached down to
his chair when he was seated. With cocked hat beneath
his arm, he led her by the point of a finger, and walking
backwards on tiptoe up the aisle in the face of the
congregation, relinquishing her with a bow so low as
made her feel much smaller than the little man who
thus honoured her. He was the man of fashion of the
circle, excelling in those graces of manner which
belonged to the beau of his day. He piqued himself
on the amount of noise he made when rinsing out his
mouth after dinner, squirting the water back into his
finger-glass in a way that alarmed his neighbours. I
have no recollection of the Colonel, he must have died
when I was very young. Captain Lewis I remember
perfectly.

He had fought at the siege of Gibraltar, and was I
daresay an excellent officer, a little, handsome, dapper
man, very gentlemanly, gay in manner, neat in habits,
and with all the pride and spirit of his race. He had
been given Inverdruie when my father resolved to make
the Doune his own residence, and there I remember
him from my earliest days till the autumn of 1814,
when we lost him. His first wife, a Duff from
Aberdeenshire, a pretty little old lady, had lived very
unhappily with him, particularly since the death of their
only child, a son, who had also gone into the army.
They lived together for many years without speaking,
though occupying the same rooms and playing back-
gammon together every night; when either made a
disputed move the adversary's finger was silently
pointed to the mistake, no word was ever spoken. My
mother and my aunts rather liked the Captain's lady.
She was the picture of a little old gentlewoman, riding
every Sunday to church in a green Joseph and black

190 A JACOBITE LADY [1743-45

bonnet, her pony led by a little maiden in a jacket and
petticoat, plaid and snood. She also wore the hat
perpetually, inside the house and out of it. The Joseph
was the habit of ceremony, put on when she made her
calls or dined with the Laird. She wore a sort of shirt
beneath the Joseph with neatly plaited frills and ruffles.
The Captain made a much happier second choice, Miss
Grace Grant, Burnside, an elderly and a plain woman
who had for some years kept house for her uncle,
Macpherson of Invereshie, and whom the Captain had
always liked and had toasted^ as was the fashion of his
day, whenever after dinner he had proceeded beyond
his second tumbler. She was installed at Inverdruie
when we came back in 1812 to make our real home of
Rothiemurchus ; and at the Croft, instead of the Colonel
was the cousin James Cameron, the grandson of
Macalpine, his mother having been the Lady Glenevis ;
and he had married his cousin, a granddaughter of
Macalpine, her father being Patrick Grant of Tulloch-
grue, brother of Laird James.

But we must return to Macalpine himself, who died
at the age of ninety -two, of some sore in his toe which the
doctors wished to amputate ; but the Laird resolved to
go out of the world as he had come into it, perfect, so the
foot mortified. His eldest son James succeeded him ;
he was called the Spreckled Laird on account of being
marked with the smallpox ; he had some of the stern-
ness of his grandfather James, the Cruel Laird, and some
of the talent of his father, for in very troubled times he
managed to steer clear of danger and so transmit his
property unimpaired. He had married highly, a
Gordon, a relative of the Duke's, who brought him a
little money, and a deal of good sense, besides beauty.
She was of course a Jacobite, sent help to Prince
Charlie, secreted her cousin Lord Lewis (the Lewie
Gordon of the ballad) in the woods, and fed him and his
followers secretly, setting out with her maid in the night
to carry provisions up to the forest, which, while she
was preparing, she persuaded the Laird were for other
purposes. Mr Cameron showed us the very spot near

1745-1813] MAC ALPINE'S WIDOW 191

Tullochgrue where the rebels were resting when an
alarm was given that the soldiers were in pursuit ; they
had just time to go through the house at Tullochgrue,
in at one door and out at the other, and so got off to a
different part of the forest, before the little pursuing
detachment came up to the fire they had been seated
round. The Lady Jean, though so fast a friend, could
be, Highland like, a bitter enemy. She was systematic-
ally unkind to the widowed Lady Rachel, whose
marriage indeed had been particularly disagreeable, not
only to the family but also to the people ; and she upon
every occasion slighted the four young sons of
Macalpine's old age. Poor Lady Rachel, not the
meekest woman in the world, bore this usage of her
children with little placidity. Once after the service in
the kirk was over she stepped up with her fan in her
hand to the corner of the kirkyard where all our graves
are made, and taking off her high-heeled slipper she
tapped with it on the stone laid over her husband's
grave, crying out through her tears, " Macalpine !
Macalpine ! rise up for ae half-hour and see me richted ! "
She had indeed, poor body, need of some one to protect
her if all tales be true of the usage she met with. Her
sons, however, were honourably assisted by their half-
nephews, and helped on in the world by them.

Three sons and two daughters were born to the
Spreckled Laird and the Lady Jean ; Patrick, called
the White Laird from his complexion, always known
to us as our uncle Rothie ; he married a daughter of
Grant of Elchies, a good woman and a pretty one,
though nicknamed by the people the " yellow yawling,"
their name for the yellow-hammer, because her very
pale skin became sallow as her health gave way ; they
had no children. The second son, William, the doctor,
was my grandfather. Alexander, the third, and quite
his mother's favourite, with his Gordon name, was a
clergyman, married to an English Miss Neale ; she
bore him seven sons, who all died before their parents.
Grace, the eldest daughter, married Gumming of Logic,
Henrietta, the younger, and a great beauty, married

192 THE CROFr AND THE DELL [1813

Grant of Glenmoriston ; both had large families, so that
we had Highland cousins enough ; but of the elder set,
all that remained when we were growing up were Mr
Cameron, his wife, and her sister Mary, and our great-
grand-uncle Captain Lewis. Mr Cameron, though only
a lieutenant, had seen some service ; he had been at the
battle of Minden, and had very often visited my
grandfather in London. Poor Mrs Cameron was
nearly blind, worn down too by the afflicting loss of all
her children save one, a merchant in Glasgow. Miss
Mary, therefore, managed the establishment, and kept
the household from stagnating, as very likely would
have been the case had the easy master and mistress
been left to conduct the affairs of the Croft.

The Dell was after a very different style, the largest
farm of any, but tenanted only by the forester, a
handsome, clever, active little man of low degree. He
had gained the heart of one much above him, the very
pretty daughter of Stewart of Pityoulish, a tacksman on
the Gordon property, and of some account in the
country ; the father made many a wry face before he
could gulp down as son-in-law, the thriving Duncan
Macintosh. The marriage turned out very happily ;
she was another Mrs Balquhidder for management —
such spinnings, and weavings, and washings, and
dyeings, and churnings, and knittings, and bleachings,
and candle-makings, and soap-boilings, and brewings,
and feather-cleanings, never are seen or even written of
in these days, as went on in those without intermission
at the Dell. And this busy guid-wife was so quietly
gentle, so almost sleepy in manner, one could hardly
suppose her capable of thinking of work, much less of
doing an amount of actual labour that would have
amazed any but a Scotchwoman.

I have written these memoirs so much by snatches,
never getting above a few pages done at a time since
the idle days of Avranches, that I cannot but fear I
often repeat myself, so many old recollections keep
running in my head when I set about making notes of
them, and not always in the order of their occurrence

1812] LOCAL SOCIETY 193

either. The two years and a half we spent in
Rothiemurchus after giving up England don't always
keep clear of the summer visits to the dear old place
afterwards, and about dates I am sure I am sometimes
incorrect, for there are no sort of memoranda of any
kind to guide me, and with such a long life to look back
through now, the later years passed in such different
scenes, I can only hope to give you a general impres-
sion of my youth in the Highlands. It was well we
were so very happy within ourselves, had so large an
acquaintance of all ranks of our own people, for except
during the autumn months, when we were extremely
in a bustle of gaiety, we had not much intercourse with
any world beyond our own. Up the river there was
Kinrara deserted ; Mr Macpherson Grant, afterwards
Sir George, who had succeeded his uncle at Invereshie,
never lived there ; Kincraig, where dwelt Mr and Mrs
Mackintosh of Balnespick, we had little intercourse
with ; they had a large family, he was a zealous farmer,
and she a very reserved woman. Belleville and Mrs
Macpherson were in England, Miss Macpherson in
Edinburgh, Cluny and his wife nobody knew. Down
the river Castle Grant was shut up, the old General
Grant of Ballindalloch dead, and his heir, also the heir
of Invereshie, we were never very cordial with, although
he was married to the sister of Mrs Gillies. Having
almost none, therefore, of our own degree to associate
with, we were thrown upon the " little bodies," of whom
there was no lack both up and down the Spey. They
used to come from all parts ostensibly to pay a morning
visit, yet always expecting to be pressed to stay to
dinner, or even all night. The Little Laird, for so my
father was called — in the Gaelic, Ian Beag — and his
foreign lady were great favourites ; my mother, indeed,
excelled in her entertainment of this degree of
company, acted the Highland hostess to perfection,
suited her conversation to her guests, leading it to such
topics as they were most familiar with, as if she had
primed herself for the occasion. Betty Campbell used
to tell us that at first the people did not like their
Little Laird bringing home an English wife, but when

N

194 HOME PRODUCE [1812-13

they saw her so pretty, so tall, so gentle, they softened
to her ; and then when came the chubby boy (for I was
not accounted of, my uncle Rothie's deed of entail
cutting me and my sex off from any but a very distant
chance of the inheritance), a fine healthy child, born at
the Doune, baptized into their own faith, my mother
soon grew into favour ; and when, in addition to all
this, she set up wheels in her kitchen, learned to count
her hanks, and dye her wool, and bleach her web,
"young creature as she was," she perfectly delighted
them. At this time in the Highlands we were so
remote from markets we had to depend very much on
our own produce for most of the necessaries of life.
Our flocks and herds supplied us not only with the
chief part of our food, but with fleeces to be wove into
clothing, blanketing, and carpets, horn for spoons,
leather to be dressed at home for various purposes, hair
for the masons. Lint-seed was sown to grow into
sheeting, shirting, sacking, etc. My mother even
succeeded in common table linen ; there was the
"dambrod" pattern, supposed to be the Highland
translation of dame-board or backgammon, the " bird's
eye," "snowdrop," "chain," and "single spot," beyond
which the skill of neither old George Ross nor the
weaver in Grantown could go. We brewed our own
beer, made our bread, made our candles ; nothing was
brought from afar but wine, groceries, and flour, wheat
not ripening well so high above the sea. Yet we lived
in luxury, game was so plentiful, red-deer, roe, hares,
grouse, ptarmigan, and partridge; the river provided
trout and salmon, the different lochs pike and char;
the garden abounded in common fruits and common
vegetables; cranberries and raspberries ran over the
country, and the poultry-yard was ever well furnished.
The regular routine of business, where so much was
done at home, was really a perpetual amusement. I
used to wonder when travellers asked my mother if
she did not find her life dull.

You will now be able to follow us in our daily
rambles, to understand the places and people whom in

1812-13] DAILY RAMBLES 195

our walks we went to see. On rainy days we paced
about the shrubbery, up the river to the Green or West
Gate, over the Drum, back again to the White Gate
and so home or out at the White Gate and along
Tomnahurich to turn at the burn of Aldracardoch. In
fine weather we wandered much farther afield ; when we
went to Inverdruie we passed the burn at Aldracardoch,
over which a picturesque wooden bridge for foot-
passengers was thrown. The saw-mill and the miller's
house were close to the road, too close, for the mill when
going had often frightened horses fording the stream.
The miller's name was again Macgregor, that dispersed
clan venturing now to resume the name they had been
constrained to drop. They had, as was usual on such
occasions, assumed the patronymic of whatever clan
adopted them, remembering always that loved one which
was their own. James Macgregor's father had been
known as Gregor Grant, so the son slid the easier back to
that of right belonging to him. The road held on under
high banks of fine fir trees, then came the lighter birch, and
then a turn brought us to the Loist Mor, a swampy field of
some size backed by the forest — the view of which, as
he drained it year by year, was so pleasant to the
Captain that he had built himself a covered seat among
the birch in front of it, which used to be the extent of
his walk on a summer's evening. Ten minutes more
brought us up a rugged brae and past the offices upon
the moor at Inverdruie, in the midst of which bare
expanse stood the very ugly house my uncle Rothie
had placed there. It was very comfortable within, and
the kind welcome, and the pleasant words, and the
good cheer we found, made it always a delight to us to
be sent there.

The Captain and Mrs Grant lived in the low parlour
to the left of the entrance, within which was a light
closet in which they slept ; the hall was flagged, but a
strip of home-made carpet covered the centre, of the
same pattern as that in the parlour, a check of black and
green. The parlour curtain was home-made too, of
linsey-woolsey, red and yellow. A good peat fire

196 INVERDRUIE [1812-13

burned on the hearth ; a rug knit by Mrs Grant kept
the fireplace tidy. A round mahogany table stood in
the middle of the room ; a long mahogany table was
placed against the wall, with a large japanned tray
standing up on end on it ; several hair-bottomed chairs
were ranged all round A japanned corner-cupboard
fixed on a bracket at some height from the floor very
much ornamented the room, as it was filled with the
best tall glasses on their spiral stalks, and some china
too fine for use ; a number of silver-edged punch-ladles,
and two silver-edged and silver-lined drinking-horns
were presented to full view on the lowest shelf, and
outside upon the very top was a large china punch-bowl.
But the cupboard we preferred was in the wall next the
fire. It was quite a pantry; oatcakes, barley scones,
flour scones, butter, honey, sweetmeats, cheese, and
wine, and spiced whisky, all came out of the deep
shelves of this agreeable recess, as did the great key of
the dairy ; this was often given to one of us to carry to
old Mary the cook, with leave to see her skim and whip
the fine rich cream, which Mrs Grant would afterwards
pour on a whole pot of jam and give us for luncheon.
This dish, under the name of " bainne briste," or broken
milk, is a great favourite wherever it has been intro-
duced. In the centre of the ceiling hung a glass globe
to attract the flies; over the chimney-piece was the
Captain's armoury, two or three pairs of pistols safely
encased in red flannel bags very dusty from the peats,
several swords of different sorts in their scabbards
crossed in various patterns, and a dirk or two. On the
chimney-slab was a most curious collection of snuff-boxes
of all sorts and shapes and sizes intermixed with a few
large foreign shells. The Captain, in a wig, generally
sat in a corner chair with arms to it, never doing
anything that ever I saw. He was old and getting
frail, eighty-five or eighty-six, I believe. Sometimes
when he was not well he wore a plaid cloak, and a
nightcap, red or white, made by his industrious wife in
a stitch she called shepherd's knitting ; it was done with
a little hook which she manufactured for herself out of

1812-13] THE RIVER DRUIE 197

the tooth of an old tortoise-shell comb, and she used to go
on looping her home-spun wool as quick as fingers could
move, making not only caps, but drawers and waistcoats
for winter wear for the old husband she took such care
of. She was always busy when in the house, and out
of doors she managed the farm, and drove the Captain
out in a little low phaeton I remember my father
buying for them in London. Occasionally this first
summer they dined with us, and then the old great-
grand-uncle looked very nice in his best suit. Mrs
Grant was really charming, full of Highland lore, kind
and clever and good, without being either refined or
brilliant, and certainly plain in person. She had a fine
voice, and sang Gaelic airs remarkably well. My
mother was extremely attached to this excellent woman,
and spent many a morning with her ; we used to watch
them convoying each other home after these visits,
turning and returning upon the Tomnahurich road ever
so many times as each lady neared her own premises,
wondering which would be first to give in and take final
leave of the other.

It was a good mile beyond Inverdruie to the Dell,
and we had to cross five streams of rapid running water
to reach it, for into so many channels did the river
Druie divide about a couple of miles below the bridge of
Coylam. The intervening strips of land were all thickets
of birch, alder, hazel, and raspberries, through which the
well-trodden paths wound leading to the simple bridges
of logs without a rail that crossed the water, a single
log in all cases but one, where the span being very wide
two were laid side by side. We skipped over them
better than I at least could do it now, but poor Miss
Elphick ! to get her over the one with two logs was no
easy matter, the others she did not attempt for many a
day unless assisted by some of the saw-miller's lads who
obligingly waded the water by her side. One day we
had a charming adventure on Druie side ;) just as we
were preparing to cross the bridge an old woman in
a high-crowned cap, a blanket plaid, and a bundle on
her back, stepped on to it on the opposite side. We

198 THE DELL FARM [1812-13

were generally accompanied by an immense Newfound-
land dog called Neptune, an especial favourite; he
happened to be marching in front and proceeded to
cross the log; on he stepped, so did the old woman,
gravely moved the dog, and quietly came on the old
woman, till they met in the middle. To pass was
impossible, to turn back on that narrow footway equally
so; there they stood, the old woman in considerable
uncertainty. The dog made up his mind more quickly,
he very quietly pushed her out of the way ; down she
fell into the stream, and on he passed as if nothing
extraordinary had happened. She was a good old
creature, just as much amused as we were, and laughed
as heartily, and she spread the fame of Neptune far and
near, for everybody had the story before the day
was over.

The Dell was an ugly place, a small low house, only
two or three stunted trees in the garden behind it, and
a wide, sandy, stony plain all round, never a bit the
more fertile for the regular inundation at the Lammas
tide, when the Druie always overflowed its banks.
Here the first lairds of Rothiemurchus had lived after a
fashion that must have been of the simplest It then
became the jointure house, and in it the Lady Jean
passed her widowhood with a few fields and £100 a
year. Mrs Macintosh was a tidy guid-wife, but
nothing beyond the thriving farmer's helpmate. She
and her husband lived mostly in the kitchen, and each
in their own department did the work of a head servant.
The cheer she offered us was never more than bread
and cheese and whisky, but the oaten bread was so
fresh and crisp, the butter so delicious, and the cheese —
not the ordinary skimmed milk curd, the leavings of
the dairy, but the Saturday's kebbock made of the
overnight and the morning's milk, poured cream and all
into the yearnin tub ; the whisky was a bad habit, there
was certainly too much of it going. At every house it
was offered, at every house it must be tasted or offence
would be given, so we were taught to believe. I am
sure now that had we steadily refused compliance with

1812-13] THE CROFP 199

so incorrect a custom it would have been far better for
ourselves, and might all the sooner have put a stop to so
pernicious a habit among the people. Whisky-drinking
was and is the bane of that country; from early
morning till late at night it went on. Decent gentle-
women began the day with a dram. In our house the
bottle of whisky, with its accompaniment of a silver
salver full of small glasses, was placed on the side-table
with cold meat every morning. In the pantry a bottle
of whisky was the allowance per day, with bread and
cheese in any required quantity, for such messengers
or visitors whose errands sent them in that direction.
The very poorest cottages could offer whisky ; all the
men engaged in the wood manufacture drank it in
goblets three times a day, yet except at a merry-
making we never saw any one tipsy.

We sometimes spent an evening at the Dell. Duncan
Macintosh played admirably on the violin, it was
delightful to dance to his music. Many a happy hour
have we reeled away both at the Doune and at the
Dell, servants and all included in the company, with
that one untiring violin for our orchestra.

A walk to the Croft led us quite in another direction.
We generally went to the White Gate, and through the
new garden on to the Milltown muir past Peter the
Pensioner's wooden house, and then climbing over the
wooden railing wandered on among the birch woods till
we reached the gate at the Lochan Mor ; that passed,
we got into the fir wood, refreshed ourselves in the
proper season with blackberries and cranberries, then
climbing another fence re-entered the birch wood, in
the midst of which nestled the two cottages called the
Croft. The houses were not adjoining ; the upper one
connected with the farm offices was the family dwelling,
the lower and newer one at a little distance was for
strangers. Old Mrs Cameron, who was by this time
nearly blind, sat beside the fire in a bonnet and shawl
as if ready for walking, talking little, but sighing a great
deal. Miss Mary bustled about in her managing way
as kind as her nature would let her be ; there was little

200 THE CAMERONS [1812-13

fear of any one getting a Saturday's kebbock at the
Croft ! a little honey with a barley scone was the extent
of Miss Mary's hospitality. They had always a good
fire and a kind welcome for the Laird's children. We
liked going to see them, and when Mr Cameron was
not too busy with his farm and could stay within and
play on the Jew's harp to us, we were quite happy. He
played more readily and better at the Doune, the tender
airs which suited the instrument affecting his poor
melancholy wife, of whom he was passionately fond.
He was a constant visitor at the Doune, dining with us
at least three times a week, but no weather ever
prevented his returning to the old wife at night ; well
wrapped in his plaid he braved all weathers, walking his
two or three miles in the dark winter weather as if he
had been thirty-six instead of seventy-six. He was
thoroughly a gentleman ; no better specimen of a
Highlander and a soldier ever adorned our mountains.
Old and young, gentle and simple, all loved Mr
Cameron. He and Mrs Grant, Inverdruie, were two
flowers in the wilderness ; other society could well be
dispensed with when theirs was attainable. Almost all
my stories of the ' olden time were learned either at
Inverdruie or the Croft; they never wearied of telling
what I never wearied of listening to. John Grant of
Achnahatanich was also one of the chroniclers of the
past, but he never interested me so much in his more
fanciful stories as did my old aunt and my old cousin in
their apparently accurate relations. They may have
insinuated a little more pride of race than was exactly
suited to the " opening day," yet it did no harm so far
as I was concerned, and the younger ones had no turn
for these antiquities. Jane in childhood was more taken
up with the scenery than the people.

The small farms in Rothiemurchus lay all about in
various directions, most of them beautifully situated ;
the extent of the old forest was said to be sixteen
square miles, and it was reckoned that about ten more
were growing up, either of natural fir, or my father's
planted larch. The whole lay in the bosom of the

1812-13] THE SCENERY 201

Grampians in a bend of a bow, as it were, formed by
the mountains, the river Spey being the string and our
boundary. The mountains are bare, not very pictur-
esquely shaped, yet imposing from their size. Many
glens run up them all richly carpeted with sweet grass
peculiarly suited to the fattening of cattle, one or two
of these ending in a lake dropped at the bottom of a
screen of precipices. One pass, that of Larrig, leads
to Braemar, Lord Fife's country, with whose lands and
the Duke of Gordon's ours march in that direction.
Several rapid streams run through the forest, the
smaller burnies rattling along their rocky beds to join
the larger, which in their turn flow on to be lost in the
Spey. The Luinach and the Bennie are quite rivers,
the one rises north from Loch Morlich in Glenmore,
the other south from Loch Ennich in Glen Ennich ;
they join just above the bridge of Coylam and form the
Druie, an unmanageable run of water that divides,
subdivides, and sometimes changes its principal channel
and keeps a fine plain of many acres in a state of stony
wilderness. The vagaries of the Druie were not alone
watched by the crofters on its bank with anxiety.
There was a tradition that it had broken from its old
precincts on the transference of the property to the
Grants from the Shaws, that the Grants would thrive
while the Druie was tranquil, but when it wearied of its
new channel and returned to its former course, the
fortune of the new family would fail. The change
happened in 1829, at the time of the great Lammas
floods so well described, not by our pleasant friend
Tom Lauder, but by a much greater man, Sir Thomas
Dick Lauder of Fountainhall, the Grange, and Relugas,
author of Lochandhu and the Wolf of Badenoch.
We used to laugh at the prediction I

Besides the streams, innumerable lochs lay hid
among the pine trees of that endless forest. On one
of these was the small island completely occupied by
the ruins of the Comyn fortress, a low long building
with one square tower, a flank wall with a door in it
and one or two small windows high up, and a sort of

202 HIGHLAND MOSS-TROOPING [1812-13

house with a gable end attached, part of which stood
on piles. The people said there was a zigzag causeway
beneath the water, from the door of the old castle to
the shore, the secret of which was always known to
three persons only. We often tried to hit upon this
causeway, but we never succeeded.

A great number of paths crossed the forest, and one
or two cart-roads; the robbers' road at the back of
Loch-an-Eilan was made by Rob Roy for his own
convenience when out upon his cattle raids, and a
decayed fir tree was often pointed out as the spot
where Laird James, the Spreckled Laird, occasionally
tied a bullock or two when he heard of such visitors in
the country ; they were of course driven away and
never seen again, but the Laird's own herds were not
touched. It has been the fashion to father all moss-
trooping throughout the Highlands on Rob Roy, but
there was a Macpherson nearer to us, and a Mackintosh
equally clever at the gathering of gear — Mackintosh of
Borlam, of whom I shall have more to tell anon.

In a country of such remarkable beauty, and with
so many objects of interest to add to the mere pleasure
of exercise, our long walks became delightful even to
such a Cockney as Miss Elphick ; she was a clever
woman, and soon came to appreciate all the worth of
her new situation. She studied up to it, and though an
innate vulgarity never left her, the improvement in her
ideas was very perceptible. She corresponded occa-
sionally with her only surviving sister, and regularly
with a Mr Somebody, a builder ; when she became
more sociable she used to read to us her letters descrip-
tive of the savage land she had got into, and what was
worse for us, she recounted her love adventures. No
beauty, no heiress, ever had been the heroine of more
romances than had fallen to the share of this little
bundle of a body, by her own account. It never
entered our young heads to doubt the catalogue. Mr
Somebody's replies did not come very frequently from
the beginning, neither were they very long, and by
degrees they ceased She did most of the writing. I

1812-13] FORMER MINISTERS 203

remember her description of her first kirk Sunday was
cleverly and truthfully and most amusingly told ; it
must have astonished a Londoner.

The unadorned but neat small kirk is very different
now, when hardly any one sits in it, from what it was
then, when filled to overflowing. It was much out of
repair; neither doors nor windows fitted, the plaster
fallen from the roof lay in heaps about the seats, the
walls were rough, the graveyard overgrown with nettles,
even the path from the gate was choked with weeds
in many places. Far from there being any ceremony
about this Highland style of worship, there was hardly
even decency, so rude were all the adjuncts of our
"sermon Sunday." Mr Stalker was dead — the good
man who drank so many cups of tea, whom my wicked
aunt Mary used to go on helping to more, cup after
cup, till one evening they counted nine, always pressing
another on him by repeating that his regular number
was three ! It was a luxury that probably in those dear
times the poor Dominie could seldom afford himself at
home, for he had a wife and children, and his income
must have been economically managed to bring them
all through the year. He had £$ from Queen Anne's
bounty, a house and garden and a field and £10 from
my father, and he taught the school. My mother got
his wife £4. additional for teaching sewing, which they
hailed as a perfect godsend. Well, he was gone, and
he had not been replaced, so we had sermon only every
third Sunday in our own kirk ; the devout attended the
neighbouring parishes on the blank days, some of the
kirks being at no great distance, speaking Highlandly,
two to five or six miles. Good Mr Peter of Duthil was
gone, he had died in the winter; his widow and her
school removed to Inverness, and another Grant had
succeeded him, for of course the patronage was very
faithfully kept in the clan. The new minister was a
perfect contrast to his predecessor ; he was fat, thickset,
florid, with a large cauliflower wig on his large head.
Within the head was more learning than maybe half a
dozen professors could boast of among them, but it was

204 THE NEW MINISTER'S SERMONS [1812-13

not in the divinity line ; his turn was acutely satirical ;
he had been both a poet and an essayist, what he was
now it would be hard to say; he seemed to have no
particular employment; his wife managed the glebe,
the parishes managed themselves, and he certainly gave
himself little trouble about his sermons. What he did
in Gaelic I cannot say; in English he had but two,
although he altered the texts to give them an air of
variety ; the text did not always suit the discourse, but
that was no matter. The sermons were by no means
bad, though from constant repetition they grew tire-
some ; it was lucky we had six weeks to forget each
of them in. One was against an undue regard for the
vanities of life, and always contained a sentence on the
lilies of the valley, and Solomon's glory; the other
was on charity. A violent Tory, detesting the House
of Hanover, yet compelled to pray for the reigning
family, he cut the business as short as possible — " God
bless the King, and all the Royal Family; as Thou
hast made them great make them GOOD," with great
emphasis, and then he hurried on to more agreeable
petitions. The kirk was very near our house, on a
height in the field below the Drum, prettily sheltered
by planting, and commanding from the gate a fine view
of the valley of the Spey. The bell tolled from time to
time, and as the hour for the service approached the
crowd began to pour in from either side, the white caps
and the red plaids gleaming through the birch woods
on the bank between the kirk field and the Drum,
through which the path lay. Our farm people moved
up from the low grounds to join them, and such of the
house servants as understood the Gaelic ; the rest
followed us an hour or more later to the English portion
of the ceremony. We generally walked from the house
along the flow-dyke by the only piece left of the back-
water, under the shade of natural alder to the right and
a thriving plantation of larch to the left ; a small gate
painted green opened on the road to the West lodge ;
we had to cross it into the field and then step up the
long slope to the kirkyard. My father opened the

1812-13] THE KIRK 205

gate to let my mother pass ; Miss Elphick next, we
three according to our ages followed, then he went in
himself. We sat in a long pew facing the pulpit, with
two seats, one in front for the laird, and one behind for
the servants. There was a wooden canopy over it with
a carved frieze all round and supporting pillars flat but
fluted, and with Ionic capitals like moderate rams'
horns. Macalpine's seat was at the end, nothing to
mark it but his scutcheon on a shield ; the Captain, his
surviving son, sat there. There were one hundred and
sixty years between the birth of that father and the
death of that son, more than five generations.

The stir consequent on our entrance was soon
hushed, and the minister gave out the psalm ; he put a
very small dirty volume up to one eye, for he was near-
sighted, and read as many lines of the old version of the
rhythmical paraphrase (we may call it) of the Psalms of
David as he thought fit, drawling them out in a sort of
sing-song. He stooped over the pulpit to hand his
little book to the precentor, who then rose and calling
out aloud the tune— "St George's tune," "Auld
Aberdeen," " Hondred an' fifteen," etc. — began himself
a recitative of the first line on the key-note, then
taken up and repeated by the congregation ; line by
line he continued in the same fashion, thus doubling
the length of the exercise, for really to some it was no
play — serious severe screaming quite beyond the
natural pitch of the voice, a wandering search after the
air by many who never caught it, a flourish of difficult
execution and plenty of the tremolo lately come into
fashion. The dogs seized this occasion to bark (for
they always came to the kirk with the family), and the
babies to cry. When the minister could bear the din
no longer he popped up again, again leaned over,
touched the precentor's head, and instantly all sound
ceased. The long prayer began, everybody stood up
while the minister asked for us such blessings as he
thought best : with closed eyes it should have been,
that being part of the " rubric " ; our oddity of a parson
closed but one, the one with which he had squinted at

206 THE CONGREGATION [1812-13

the psalm-book, some affection of the other eyelid
rendering it unmanageable. The prayer over, the
sermon began ; that was my time for making observa-
tions, " Charity " and " Solomon's Lilies " soon requir-
ing no further attention. Few save our own people
sat around ; old grey-haired rough-visaged men that
had known my grandfather and great-grandfather,
black, red, and fair hair, belonging to such as were in
the prime of life, younger men, lads, boys — all in the
tartan. The plaid as a wrap, the plaid as a drapery,
with kilt to match on some, blue trews on others, blue
jackets on all. The women were plaided too, an
outside shawl was seen on none, though the wives wore
a large handkerchief under the plaid, and looked
picturesquely matronly in their very high white caps.
A bonnet was not to be seen, no Highland girl ever
covered her head; the girls wore their hair neatly
braided in front, plaited up in Grecian fashion behind,
and bound by the snood, a bit of velvet or ribbon
placed rather low on the forehead and tied beneath the
plait at the back. The wives were all in homespun,
home-dyed linsey-woolsey gowns, covered to the chin
by the modest kerchief worn outside the gown. The
girls who could afford it had a Sabbath day's gown of
like manufacture and very bright colour, but the throat
was more exposed, and generally ornamented with a
string of beads, often amber ; some had to be content
with the best blue flannel petticoat and a clean white
jacket, their ordinary and most becoming dress, and
few of these had either shoes or stockings ; but they all
wore the plaid, and they folded it round them very
gracefully.

They had a custom in the spring of washing their
beautiful hair with a decoction of the young buds of
the birch trees. I do not know if it improved or hurt
the hair, but it agreeably scented the kirk, which at
other times was wont to be overpowered by the com-
bined odours of snuff and peat reek, for the men snuffed
immensely during the delivery of the English sermon ;
they fed their noses with quills fastened by strings to

1812-13] PARSON JOHN OF ABERNETHY 207

the lids of their mulls, spooning up the snuff in quanti-
ties and without waste. The old women snuffed too,
and groaned a great deal, to express their mental
sufferings, their grief for all the backslidings supposed
to be thundered at from the pulpit ; lapses from faith
was their grand self-accusation, lapses from virtue were,
alas ! little commented on ; temperance and chastity
were not in the Highland code of morality.

The dispersion of the crowd was a pretty sight ; the
year I write of dreamed of no Free Kirk doings ; the
full kirk nearly filled the field with picturesque groups,
so many filing off north, south, east, and west, up the
steep narrow road to the Drum, by the path through
the bank of birchwood to the garden gate, along the
green meadow beneath the guigne trees to the Doune
farm offices — the servants by the green gate under the
crooked beech tree to the house ; the family, after
shaking hands and speaking and bowing and smiling
all round, returning by the flow-dyke and the alders.
The minister dined with us, and thus ended our
Sunday, but not our acquaintance with him. We got
to like this eccentric man, his head was so well filled,
and his heart, in spite of the snarl, so kindly, that old
and young we took to him, and often prevailed on him
to spend a few days with us. He was a disappointed
man, equal to a very different position, and he was lost
in the manse of Duthil, far from any mind capable of
understanding his, and not fitted to go actively through
the duties of his calling.

Far different, yet no truer or better divine, in one
sense of the word, was his neighbour, our prime
favourite, the minister of Abernethy, known through
all the country as Parson John. He was a little merry
man, fond of good eating, very fond of good drinking,
no great hand at a sermon, but a capital hand at the
filling or the emptying of a bowl of punch. He was no
scholar ; his brother of Duthil used to wonder how he
ever got through the University, he had so little skill
in the humanities — of learning. For good practical
sense, honesty of purpose, kindness of heart, tender

208 MR MACDONALD OF ALVIE [1812.13

feeling combined with energetic action, Parson John
could hardly have been surpassed. He found his
parish a nest of smugglers, cattle-stealers, idlers, every
sort of immorality rife in it. He left it filled by the
best-conducted set of people in the country. He was
all the more respected for the strictness of his discipline,
yet a sly joke against the minister was much relished
by his flock.

There was no very deep religious feeling in the
Highlands up to this time. The clergy were reverenced
in their capacity of pastors without this respect extend-
ing to their persons unless fully merited by propriety
of conduct. The established form of faith was deter-
minately adhered to, but the kittle questions^ which had
so vexed the Puritanic south, had not yet troubled the
minds of their northern neighbours. Our mountains
were full of fairy legends, old clan tales, forebodings,
prophecies, and other superstitions, quite as much
believed in as the Bible. The Shorter Catechism and
the fairy stories were mixed up together to form the
innermost faith of the Highlander, a much gayer and
less metaphysical character than his Saxon-tainted
countryman.

The other clergyman of our acquaintance was Mr
Macdonald of Alvie, our nearest neighbour of the
three. He was a clever worldly man, strictly decorous,
not unfriendly, though most careful in his management,
particular in ascertaining the highest price of meal,
his stipend depending on the fluctuation of the
market, the ministers being paid in kind, so many
"bolls of victual" — meaning corn. He preached well,
rather at length, and made very fervent tiresome
prayers and immensely long graces, and of all people
in the world he was detested most heartily by our
friend the minister of Duthil ; his very name was an
abomination, why we could never find out. He had
been twice married, in neither case happily, both wives
having become invalids. It never struck any one that
the situation of his manse, nearly surrounded by water,
could have affected the health of women not naturally

1812-13] PARSON JOHN IN THE DAIRY 209

strong. The second Mrs Macdoriald was dying at this
time. We often sent her delicacies, but never saw
her; indeed we rarely saw any of the parsons' wives,
they seemed to keep quietly at home, like Mrs
Balquhidder, "making the honey."

We heard plenty, however, of the wife of Parson
John, an excellent, managing woman, who kept her
husband in great order. They had a large family, the
bolls of victual were not many, and the glebe lands
were small. She had to keep her eyes open, and water
the ash tree betimes in the morning. One of her most
prolific sources of income was her dairy. She piqued
herself on what she made of it, and was accused by
the minister of a very economical use of its produce
in the house, in order to send the more to market.
Now, of all simple refreshments Parson John loved
best a drink of fine milk, well coated with cream ; this
luxury his wife denied him, the cream must go into
the churn, skimmed milk was fittest for the thirsty.
In spite of her oft-repeated refusals and her hidden
key she suspected that the minister contrived to visit
the dairy, sundry cogues of set milk at times having the
appearance of being broken into. She determined to
watch ; and she had not long to wait before she detected
the culprit in the act, met him face to face in the passage
as he closed the door. She charged him stoutly with
his crime, he as stoutly denied it, hard words passed ;
but the poor minister ! he had forgotten to take ofT his
hat, he had put his mouth to the cogue, the brim of
the hat had touched the cream — there it was fringed
with her treasure before her eyes, an evidence of his
guilt, and he denying it ! What Highland wife could
bear such atrocity ? " Man," said the daughter of
Dalachapple (ten acres of moor without a house on
it), " how daur ye, before the Lord 1 and ye his graceless
minister ! see there 1 " He told the story himself, with
remarkable humour, over the punch-bowl.

The Captain had another story of him ; his sermons
were mostly practical, he was unskilled in scholastic
learning, and sometimes when he had gone his round

O

210 INCIDENT AT A WAKE [1812-13

of moral duties he would, for lack of matter, treat his
congregation to a screed from the papers. They were
stirring times, revolutions and battles by sea and land.
The minister was a keen politician, his people by no
means unwilling to hear the news, although they very
earnestly shook their heads after listening to it. False
intelligence was as largely circulated then as now, it
came and it spread, and then it was to be contradicted.
The parson gave it as he got it, and one Sunday
delivered a marvellous narrative of passing events.
Finding out during the week his error, he hastened
honestly to correct it, so, on the following Sunday,
after the psalm and the prayer and the solemn giving
out of the text, he raised his hands and thus addressed
his flock, "My brethren, it was a' lees I told ye last
Sabbath day." How the minister of Duthil enjoyed
this story !

The next incident that comes back on memory is
the death of old George Ross, the henwife's husband ;
he caught cold, and inflammation came on ; a bottle of
whisky, or maybe more, failed to cure him, so he died,
and was waked, after the old fashion, shaved and partly
dressed and set up in his bed, all the country-side
collecting round him. After abundance of refreshment
the company set to dancing, when, from the jolting of
the floor, out tumbled the corpse into the midst of the
reel, and away scampered the guests screaming, and
declaring the old man had come to life again. As the
bereaved wife had not been the gentlest of helpmates,
this was supposed to be " a warning " — of what was not
declared; all that was plain was that the spirit of the
deceased was dissatisfied ; many extraordinary signs
were spoken of, as we heard from my mother's maid.

Before winter our cousin Patrick Grant of Glen-
moriston died suddenly, while walking on the banks
of his own beautiful river, of disease of the heart. I
learnt a lesson from this event; some one told it to
me, and I, very sorry, for Patrick had been kind to us,
went straight to the drawing-room with my sad news.
My mother immediately went into hysterics, was

1812-13] MACPHERSONS OF BELLEVILLE 211

carried to bed, and lost her baby; all which was
represented to me by my father as a consequence of
my want of consideration. I had no nerves then (like
the famous Duchess of Marlborough), and could not
comprehend the misery caused by their derangement.

Our neighbour Belleville was the son of Ossian, the
Mr Macpherson who pretended to translate Ossian, and
who made a fine fortune out of the Nabob of Arcot's
debts. Ossian Macpherson, Highland to the very
heart, bought land round his birthplace, and built the
fine house on the heights near Kingussie, which for
many a year looked so bleak, and bare, and staring,
while the planting on the hillsides was young. He
had four children. To his eldest son, James, our friend,
he left his large estates. The second, Charles, he sent
in the Civil Service to India, where he died. His two
daughters he portioned handsomely. Our Belleville,
who had also been in India, returned to take possession
of his Highland property about the year 1800. He
married the summer my sister Mary was born, and
brought a young Edinburgh wife home to the two
London sisters. Juliet Macpherson, the younger sister,
very pretty and very clever, soon married Dr, after-
wards Sir David, Brewster. Anne lived through many
a long year with her brother and his somewhat despotic
wife until he died, and she herself became the Lady
Belleville. Our Belleville inherited many vexations.
Ossian had got entangled in some law-suits, and his
son knowing little of business left too much to his law-
agents, and so it happened that after living handsomely
for some years, he found it necessary to shut up
Belleville, let the farm, and remove to the neighbour-
hood of London, where they watched the unravelling
of their tangled skeins. Almost all their difficulties
were over in this year of which I am writing. They
had returned to Belleville, and from this time they
were our kindest neighbours, living like ourselves,
winter and summer, in their Highland home. We
became naturally dependent on the resources of each
other ; never a shadow of disagreement came between

212 HARVEST HOMES [1812-13

us. The intimacy had the most favourable effect upon
us young people ; Belleville was thoroughly a gentleman,
his tastes were refined, his reading extensive, his kind-
ness unfailing. There was a harshness in the character
of Mrs Macpherson that we could have wished to
soften ; her uncompromising integrity was applied
sternly to weaker mortals. Her activity, her energy,
and her industry, all admirably exerted in her own
sphere of duties, rose up against any tolerance of
the shortcomings in these respects of less vigorous
temperaments. She measured all by her own rigid
rules, her religious feelings partaking of this asperity.
She was own sister to old Mause in the strength and
the acrimony of her puritanism. I used so to wish her
to say to herself, " God be merciful to me, a sinner," but
she had no idea that there was a doubt of her being
justified. She was right in principle, though ungentle,
almost unchristian, in practice. This fault apart, a
better woman never existed, anxious to help all around
her of all degrees. She had a clear understanding,
good quick abilities, and a warm heart. We owed
much in many ways to Mrs Macpherson, and we ended
the year with her, my father and mother, Jane and I,
spending the Christmas — New style — with these good
neighbours. We ourselves, who did everything High-
land fashion, kept the Old style at home.

We had three harvest-homes to keep in Rothie-
murchus : a very small affair at the Croft ; luncheon in
the parlour for us children only, and a view of the barn
prepared for the dinner and dance to the servants. It
was a much merrier meeting at the Dell ; my father
and mother and all of us, stuffed into or on the carriage,
drove there to dinner, which was served in the best
parlour, my father at the head of the table, Duncan
Macintosh at the foot, and those for whom there was
not room at the principal board went with at least equal
glee to a side table. There was always broth, mutton
boiled and roasted, fowls, muir-fowl— three or four pair
on a dish — apple-pie and rice pudding, such jugs upon
jugs of cream, cheese, oatcakes and butter; thick

1812-13] AT THE DELL 213

bannocks of flour instead of wheaten bread, a bottle of
port, a bottle of sherry, and after dinner no end to the
whisky punch. In the kitchen was all the remains of
the sheep, more broth, haggis, head and feet singed,
puddings black and white, a pile of oaten cakes, a kit of
butter, two whole cheeses, one tub of sowans, another of
curd, whey and whisky in plenty. The kitchen party,
including any servants from house or farm that could be
spared so early from the Croft, the Doune, or Inverdruie,
dined when we had done, and we ladies, leaving the
gentlemen to their punch, took a view of the kitchen
festivities before retiring to the bedroom of Mrs
Macintosh to make the tea. When the gentlemen joined
us the parlour was prepared for dancing. With what
ecstasies we heard the first sweep of that masterly bow
across the strings of my father's Cremona ! The first
strathspey was danced by my father and Mrs Macintosh ;
if my mother danced at all, it was later in the evening.
My father's dancing was peculiar — a very quiet body,
and very busy feet, they shuffled away in double quick
time steps of his own composition, boasting of little
variety, sometimes ending in a turn-about which he
imagined was the fling ; as English it was altogether as
if he had never left Hertfordshire. My mother did
better. She moved quietly in Highland matron fashion,
" high and disposedly " like Queen Elizabeth and Mrs
Macintosh, for however lightly the lasses footed it,
etiquette forbade the wives to do more than " tread the
measure." William and Mary moved in the grave style
of my mother; Johnnie without instruction danced
beautifully ; Jane was perfection, so light, so active, and
so graceful ; but of all the dancers there, none was
equal to little Sandy — afterwards Factor — the son of
Duncan Macintosh, but not of his wife.

Some years before his marriage the forester had been
brought into our country by what was called the Glen-
more Company, a set of wood-merchants from Hull,
who had bought the forest of Glenmore from the Duke
of Gordon for, I think, £20,000. They made at least
double off it, and it had been offered to my uncle Rothie,

214 SANDY MACINTOSH [1812-13

wood and mountain, glen and lake, for £10,000, and
declined as a dear bargain. Mr Osborne, the gentleman
superintending the felling of all this timber, brought
Duncan Macintosh from Strathspey as head of the
working gangs, and left him in that wild isolated place
with no companion for the whole winter but a Mary, of
a certain age, and not well favoured. The result was
the birth of Sandy, a curious compound of his young
handsome father and his plain elderly mother. It was
this Mary who was the cook at Inverdruie, and a very
good one she was, and a decent body into the bargain,
much considered by Mrs Macintosh. There was no
attempt to excuse, much less to conceal her history ; in
fact, such occurrences were too common to be com-
mented on. She always came to the Dell harvest-home,
and after the more stately reels of the opening of the
dance were over, when the servants and labourers and
neighbours of that class came by turns into the parlour,
Mary came among the others, and I have seen her
figuring away in the same set with Mr Macintosh, his
good wife looking on with a smile : too pretty and too
good she was to fear such rivalry. At her marriage she
had brought little Sandy home and as much as lay in
her power acted a mother's part by him ; her children
accused her even of undue partiality for the poor boy
who was no favourite with his father ; if so, the seed
was sown in good ground, for Sandy was the best son
she had. It was a curious state of manners ; I have
thought of it often since.

We were accustomed to dance with all the company,
as if they had been our equals ; it was always done.
There was no fear of undue assumption on the one side,
or low familiarity on the other ; a vein of good-breeding
ran through all ranks influencing the manners and
rendering the intercourse of all most particularly
agreeable. About midnight the carriage would take
our happy party home. It was late enough before the
remainder separated.

The Doune harvest-home was very like that at the
Dell, only that the dinner was at the farm kitchen and

1812-13] CHRISTMAS EVE AT BELLEVILLE 215

the ball in the barn, and two fiddlers stuck up on tubs
formed the orchestra. A sheep was killed, and nearly a
boll of meal baked, and a larger company invited, for
our servants were numerous and they had leave to invite
relations. We went down to the farm in the carriage
drawn by some of the men, who got glasses of whisky
apiece for the labour, and we all joined in the reels for
the hour or two we stayed, and drank punch made
with brown sugar and enjoyed the fun, and felt as little
annoyed as the humbler guests by the state of the
atmosphere.

We had no other ploy till Christmas Eve, when we
started for Belleville. Even now, after all these years
of a long life, I can bring to mind no house pleasanter
to visit at. At this time the drawing-room floor had
not been refurnished ; they lived in their handsome
dining-room and the small library through it. The
company, besides ourselves, was only one or two of the
young Clarkes and a " Badenoch body," but we had so
kind a welcome ; Belleville was a host in a hundred,
Mrs Macpherson shon« far more in her own house than
she did in any other. Her lively conversation, her
good music, and her desire to promote amusement
made her a very agreeable hostess. We young people
walked about all the mornings, danced and laughed all
the evenings till the whist for the elders began, Belleville
liking his rubber ; and what particularly delighted Jane
and me, we sat up to supper, a sociable meal, one we
never saw at home where the dinner was late. At
Belleville they dined at five o'clock, and as the card-
playing was seldom over before midnight, the appearance
of a well-filled tray was not mistimed. Roasted
potatoes only, fell to our share, and a bit of butter with
them. We were quite satisfied, so much so, indeed, that
we privately determined, when talking over our happy
evenings up at the top of that large house in one of the
attic rooms no amount of peats could warm, that when
we had houses of our own we would introduce the
supper tray, and roasted potatoes should, as at Belleville,
be piled on the centre dish.

216 CHRISTMAS, OLD STYLE [1812-13

Miss Macpherson, who liked all of us, was in great
good-humour during our visit. We remained till after
the New Year, and then returned home to make
preparations for the passing of our Christmas-time — Old
style — the season of greatest gaiety in the Highlands.
It was kept by rejoicings and merry-makings amongst
friends, no religious services being performed on any
day but Sunday.

CHAPTER XI
1813

CHRISTMAS, Old style, 1813, Belleville and Mrs Mac-
pherson spent with us. They were easily entertained.
She worked and gossiped with my mother all the
mornings, till the regular hour for her duty walk, a task
she performed conscientiously as soon as it was too
dark to thread her needle. He had one or two strolls
during the day, and plenty of old plays and newspapers
to read. In the evenings they enjoyed our merry
games and a little music, before we young ones were
sent to bed, as much as they did the rubber of whist
afterwards. We had two dinner-parties for our guests.
Balnespick and Mrs Mackintosh were with us one day ;
she was a really beautiful woman, fair, tall, slight, and
graceful, but very still and silent. How little did we
dream then that one of the sons of this couple would be
married to a granddaughter of my father's. Balnespick
was a clever man, very useful in the neighbourhood,
respected by all ranks. He had married the beauty of
Inverness, and was very proud of her. Her sister ran
off from a Northern Meeting, which my father and aunt
Mary attended, with a young subaltern of the regiment
in garrison at Fort George, a crime quite excusable in
him, for she was just as handsome a brunette as her
sister was a lovely blonde; and the stolen wedding
turned out, romance-like, quite a hit — the poor
lieutenant was the heir of Rokeby. Balnespick's sister
was married to William Cameron, the only remaining
child of our dear old cousins at the Croft.

217

218 THE FLOATERS' BALL [1812

The great event of the Christmas time was the
Floaters' ball. As the harvest-home belonged to the
farm, this entertainment was given to the forest — all
engaged in the wood manufacture, their wives and
families, being invited. The amusements began pretty
early in the day with a game at " ba," the hockey of the
low country, our Scotch substitute for cricket. It is
played on a field by two parties, who toss a small ball
between them by means of crooked sticks called clubs.
The Highlanders are extremely fond of this exciting
game, and continue it for hours on a holiday, exhibiting
during its progress many feats of agility. There were
always crowds of spectators. Our people kept up the
game till dark, when all the men — above a hundred —
went to dinner in the barn, a beef and some sheep
having been killed for them. The kitchens of both
house and farm had been busy for a couple of days
cooking for the entertainment. The women, as they
arrived, were taken into the grieve's house for tea, a
delicate attention, fully appreciated. We delighted in
the Floaters' ball, so large a party, so many strangers,
some splendid dancers from Strathspey, the hay-loft,
the straw-loft, and the upper floor of the threshing-mill
all thrown open en suite ; two sets of fiddlers playing,
punch made in the washing-tubs, an illumination of
tallow dips ! It is surprising that the floors stood the
pounding they got ; the thumping noise of the many
energetic feet could have been heard half a mile off.
When a lad took a lass out to dance, he led her to her
place in the reel and " pree'd her mou " — kissed her —
before beginning, she holding up her face quite frankly
to receive the customary salute, and he giving a good
sounding smack when the lass was bonnie.

The number of people employed in the forest was
great. At this winter season little could be done beyond
felling the tree, lopping the branches, barking the log,
while the weather remained open, before the frost set
in. Most of this work indeed was done in the autumn,
and was continued while practicable. This was not a
severe winter, but it set in early. We had a deep fall

1813] THE WORK IN THE FOREST 219

of snow, and then a degree of frost felt only among the
mountains, putting a stop while it lasted to all labour.
It was not unpleasant, for it was dry, and the sun shone
brightly for the few hours of daylight, and after the first
slap in the face on going out, sharp exercise made our
walks very enjoyable. We bounded on over the hard
ground for miles, indeed the distances people are able
to walk in weather of this sort would not be believed by
those who had not tried it. Five weeks of frost and
snow brought us over the worst of the winter, and then
came a foretaste of spring which set us all to work
again. The spade and the plough were both busy, and
in the wood the great bustle of the year began.

The logs prepared by the loppers had to be drawn
by horses to the nearest running water, and there left
in large quantities till the proper time for sending them
down the streams. It was a busy scene all through the
forest, so many rough little horses moving about in
every direction, each dragging its load, attended by an
active boy as guide and remover of obstructions. The
smack of the whip used to sound quite cheerful in those
otherwise solitary spots, and when we met, the few
Gaelic words interchanged seemed to enliven us all.
This driving lasted till sufficient timber was collected to
render the opening of the sluices profitable. Formerly
small saw-mills had been erected wherever there was
sufficient water-power, near the part of the forest where
the felling was going on, and the deals when cut were
carted down to the Spey. It was picturesque to come
suddenly out of the gloom of the pine-trees, on to a
little patch of cultivation near a stream with a cottage
or two, and a saw-mill at work, itself an object of
interest in a rude landscape. A concentration of labour
was, however, found to be more advantageous to the
wood-merchant ; they were finding out that it answered
better to send the logs down nearer to the Spey by
floating them, than the deals by carting them. The
prettily-situated single saw-mills were therefore gradu-
ally abandoned, and new ones to hold double saws built
as wanted, within a more convenient distance from the

220 FLOATING THE LOGS [1813

banks of the river where the rafts were made. In order
to have a run of water at command, the sources of the
little rivers were managed artificially to suit floating
purposes. Embankments were raised at the ends of
the lakes in the far-away glens, at the point where the
different burnies issued from them. Strong sluice-
gates, always kept closed, prevented the escape of any
but a small rill of water, so that when a rush was
wanted the supply was sure.

The night before a run, the man in charge of that
particular sluice set off up the hill, and reaching the spot
long before daylight opened the heavy gates; out
rushed the torrent, travelling so quickly as to reach the
deposit of timber in time for the meeting of the wood-
men, a perfect crowd, amongst whom it was one of our
enjoyments to find ourselves early in the day. The
duty of some was to roll the logs into the water ; this
was effected by the help of levers — like Harry Sand-
ford's snowball, as Johnnie screamed out the first time
we took him with us. The next party shoved them off
with long poles into the current, dashing in often up to
the middle in water when any case of obstruction
occurred. They were then taken in charge by the most
picturesque group of all, the youngest and most active,
each supplied with a clip, a very long pole thin and
flexible at one end, generally a young tall tree ; a sharp
hook was fixed to the bending point, and with this,
skipping from rock to stump, over brooks and through
briers, this agile band followed the log-laden current,
ready to pounce on any stray lumbering victim that was
in any manner checked in its progress. There was
something graceful in the action of throwing forth the
stout yet yielding clip, an exciting satisfaction as the
sharp hook fixed the obstreperous log. The many light
forms springing about among the trees, along banks
that were sometimes high, and always rocky, the shouts,
the laughter, the Gaelic exclamations, and above all, the
roar of the water, made the whole scene one of the most
inspiriting that either actors or spectators could be
engaged in.

1813] THE SPEY FLOATERS 221

One or two of these streams carried the wood
straight to the Spey, others were checked in their
progress by a loch ; when this was the case, light rafts
had to be constructed, and paddled or speared over by
a man standing on each raft. The loch crossed, the
raft was taken to pieces, some of the logs left at a saw-
mill, the rest sent down the recovered stream to the
Spey; there the Spey floaters took charge of them;
our people's work was done.

The Spey floaters lived mostly down near Ballin-
dalloch, a certain number of families by whom the
calling had been followed for ages, to whom the wild
river, all its holes and shoals and rocks and shiftings,
were as well known as had its bed been dry. They
came up in the season, at the first hint of a spate, as a
rise in the water was called. A large bothy was built
for them at the mouth of the Druie in a fashion that
suited themselves; a fire on a stone hearth in the
middle of the floor, a hole in the very centre of the roof
just over it where some of the smoke got out, heather
spread on the ground, no window, and there, after their
hard day's work, they lay down for the night, in their
wet clothes — for they had been perhaps hours in the
river — each man's feet to the fire, each man's plaid
round his chest, a circle of wearied bodies half-stupefied
by whisky, enveloped in a cloud of steam and smoke,
and sleeping soundly till the morning. They were a
healthy race, suffering little except in their old age from
rheumatism. They made their large rafts themselves,
seldom taking help from our woodmen, yet often giving
it if there were an over-quantity of timber in the runs.

Mr Macintosh, who often dined at the Doune,
usually contrived to come the day before a log-run, our
particular delight, so we were sure of appearing in the
very height of the business before the noontide rest.
When the men met in the morning they were supposed
to have breakfasted at home, and perhaps had had their
private dram, it being cold work in a dark wintry dawn,
to start over the moor for a walk of some miles to end in
standing up to the knees in water; yet on collecting,

222 WHISKY-DRINKING [1813

whisky was always handed round ; a lad with a small
cask — a quarter anker — on his back, and a horn cup in
his hand that held a gill, appeared three times a day
among them. They all took their "morning" raw,
undiluted and without accompaniment, so they did the
gill at parting when the work was done ; but the noon-
tide dram was part of a meal. There was a twenty
minutes' rest from labour, and a bannock and a bit of
cheese taken out of every pocket to be eaten leisurely
with the whisky. When we were there the horn cup
was offered first to us, and each of us took a sip to the
health of our friends around us, who all stood up.
Sometimes a floater's wife or bairn would come with a
message ; such messenger was always offered whisky.
Aunt Mary had a story that one day a woman with a
child in her arms, and another bit thing at her knee,
came up among them ; the horn cup was duly handed
to her, she took a " gey guid drap " herself, and then
gave a little to each of the babies. "My goodness,
child," said my mother to the wee thing that was
trotting by the mother's side, " doesn't it bite you ? "
" Ay, but I like the bite," replied the creature.

There were many laughable accidents during the
merry hours of the floating; clips would sometimes
fail to hit the mark, when the overbalanced clipper
would fall headlong into the water. A slippery log
escaping would cause a tumble, shouts of laughter
always greeting the dripping victims, who good-
humouredly joined in the mirth. As for the wetting,
it seemed in no way to incommode them ; they were
really like water-rats. Sometimes the accident was
beyond a joke. I know we were all sobered by
one that befell us. Just below the bridge on the
Loch-an-Eilan road, over the burn that flows out of
the loch, a small basin of water had been allowed to
form during a run, for the purpose of holding together
a large quantity of logs to prevent them from going
down too quickly, as from this point the stream was
conveyed by a narrow conduit of wood, across the
Milltown muir, on down a steep bank into the first of

1813] AN ACCIDENT 223

a set of miniature lochs, concealed by the birch wood
on one side and the fir trees on the other, known as
the Lochans. This conduit, called the Spout, was in
particular favour with us, as along its course the fun
was always at its height, it was so difficult in that rush
of water to keep the great hulking logs in order, and
send them singly on in regular succession. One would
rise up here over a lazy leader, another there ; above,
two or three would mount up on end and choke the
passage, stopping all progress and wasting the water.
The clips were busy here, the men jumping about
hooking this log and sending it forward, hooking that
log and keeping it back, screaming to each other
as they skipped over the Spout.

All of a sudden, Mary, not in general an active
child nor given to exertion of any kind, made a spring
and cleared the conduit. The shouts of applause which
greeted this daring action inspired her afresh, and
laughing she prepared to spring back. This time she
miscalculated the distance and fell plump into the
stream, along which she was carried more rapidly than
we could follow her. Did she escape being crushed by
the logs she must have been drowned in that rushing
torrent before being tossed down the steep bank into
the loch.

The presence of mind of one person often saves
a life ; to save Mary's it required the presence of mind
of two.

A tall Murdoch Murray stood by a narrow outlet
with his clip. He had the wisdom to draw one log
quite across the mouth of the outlet so that none could
move, and thus all danger of her being followed by one
and so crushed was at an end. A lad, whose name I
forget — he died, poor fellow, of consumption, carefully
tended by us all while he lived — leaped from his place,
waited for her a little lower down, seized her
clothes, and dragged her out She was insensible.
Mr Macintosh then came up, carried her into a saw-
miller's house close by — it was Sandy Colley's — had
her undressed, rubbed, laid in the bed wrapped in warm

224 A TRAGICAL EVENT [1813

blankets, and when she opened her eyes gave her a
glass of whisky. Jane, as the sensible one of the party,
was sent home to order up dry clothes, without going
near my mother. Johnnie and I sat by Mary, doing
whatever Duncan Macintosh told us, and Miss Elphick
cried.

As soon as it was known that the "bonny burd" was
living, grand cheering rent the air, and a dram all
round, an extra, was given in honour of her rescuers.
That dram was the Highland prayer, it began, accom-
panied, and ended all things. The men wanted to
make a king's cushion and carry her home, but Mr
Macintosh thought it better for her to walk. We were
abundantly cheered on setting forth, and well scolded
on getting home, though none of us but poor little
Mary herself had any hand in the accident.

A more tragical event than most happily this
"vaulting ambition" of poor Mary's had turned out,
had occurred a year or two before at this same season.
The only child of a poor widow, Christian Grant, a fine
young man named Allan, had charge of the Loch
Ennich sluice-gates. A quantity of timber being
wanted at Druie mouth for the Spey floaters who had
come up to make their rafts, a run was determined on,
and this lad was sent up to the Glen to open the sluice.
It was a wild night, wind and hail changing to snow,
and he had eleven or twelve miles to go through the
forest, full of paths, and across the heath that was
trackless. Poor old Christy 1 she gave him a hot
supper, put up a bannock and a little whisky for him,
and wrapped his plaid well round him. She looked
after him as he left the house in the driving sleet ; such
risks were common, no one thought about them. Early
in the morning down came the water, the weather had
taken up, and the floating went merrily on, but Allan
did not return. He had reached the loch, that was
plain ; where then had he wandered ? Not far. When
evening came on and no word of him, a party set out
in search, and they found him at his post, asleep
seemingly, a bit of bannock and the empty flask beside

1813] THE FLOATER'S MOTHER 22§

him. He had done his duty, opened the water-gate,
and then sat down to rest. The whisky and the storm
told the remainder. He was quite dead.

The mother never recovered her reason ; the shock
brought on brain fever, and that left her strangely
excited for a while. Afterwards she calmed, was always
harmless, sometimes restless, but never either wiser or
sillier than the half-simple state in which she existed
to extreme old age. She had always been a tidy body,
and had been called in often by Betty Campbell to
help at the farm when there was a press of business.
Once or twice at company times she had assisted in the
scullery at the House.

The first sensible action she did after her long
months of darkness was to arrive at the Doune one
morning and set herself to pluck the fowl. Of course
every one was kind to her, so she came the next day,
and from that time never failed to arrive regularly
when the family was at home, about the breakfast hour,
and remain until after dinner when the kitchen was put
in order. She would never stay all night, preferring
her little cabin on Druie side, to which she returned
cheerfully except on stormy nights, when the maids
said she would shake her head sadly, and sometimes
let fall tears. She never mentioned her son.

My mother did not let her want for anything ;
clothes, tea, snuff, all she wished for was supplied
whether we were at home or absent, till the good-
hearted Duchess of Bedford succeeded us at the Doune,
when she took charge of Christy, gave her just what
she had been accustomed to, and reinstated her as head
of the scullery. I can see her now, with her pale
anxious face, her linsey gown, check apron, and white
cap bound by a black ribbon, seated beside the old
japanned clock in our cheerful kitchen, at some of her
easy work. She had very little English, just enough
to say " my dear " or " my jewel " when any of us
children passed. She always rose when my mother
entered and kissed her hand, sometimes saying
" bonnie " when she saw how white it was. Poor

226 SAD TALE OF A SHEPHERD [1813

old Christy! We used to work for her, helping the
maids to make her caps and aprons and handkerchiefs.
It was Johnnie's privilege to carry to her the week's
supply of snuff.

After this misfortune the men were sent up the
hill in pairs, for it had not come alone. The shepherds
had their mournful tales to tell as well as the floaters,
and here is one of them.

The young people of whom I have to speak were
not of Rothiemurchus. They lived up in Glen Feshie,
a great way from our march, and they had not long
been married. He was either a small farmer, or the
son of one, or merely shepherd to a more wealthy man,
I am not sure which, but his business was to mind
a large flock that pastured on the mountains. During
the summer when their charge strayed up towards the
very summit of the high range of the Grampians, the
shepherds lived in bothies on the hill, miles from any
other habitation, often quite alone, their collie dog their
only companion, and with no provisions beyond a bag
of meal. This they generally ate uncooked, mixed with
either milk or water as happened to suit, the milk or
water being mostly cold, few of these hardy moun-
taineers troubling themselves to keep a fire lighted in
fine weather. This simple food, called brose, is rather
relished by the Highlanders ; made with hot water or
with good milk they think it excellent fare ; made with
beef broo — the fat skimmings of the broth pot — it is
considered quite a treat. Beef brose is entertainment
for any one. The water-brose must be wholesome ;
no men looked better in health than the masons, who
ate it regularly, and the shepherds. These last came
down from their high ground to attend the kirk some-
times, in such looks as put to shame the luxurious
dwellers in the smoky huts with their hot porridge and
other delicacies.

In the winter the flocks feed lower down, and the
shepherd leaves his bothy to live at home, but not at
ease. A deep snow calls him forth to wander over
miles of dreary waste, in case of drifts that overwhelm,

1813] HIS YOUNG WIDOW 227

or cold that paralyses. In spring there come the early
lambs, on whose safety depends the profit of the sheep-
owner, and our Highland springs retain so much of
winter in them that the care of a flock at this harsh
season entails about the hardest of all lives on labouring
men.

It was at this critical time, at the beginning of a
heavy snowstorm, that our young husband departed on
his round of duty.

The wife was preparing for her first baby ; she was
also busy with her wheel, the first work of a newly-
married notable Highland girl being the spinning and
the dyeing of a plaid for her husband. She baked the
bread, she trimmed her fire, and she busked her house,
then took her wheel, and by the light of a splinter of
quick fir laid on a small projecting slab within the
chimney, she wore away the long dark hours of that
dreary winter's night. Ever as the storm lulled for a
while, she bent to listen for the voice she expected at
the door, which, poor young thing, she was never to
hear again, for he never returned from those wild
mountains. They sought him for days; no trace of
him could be discovered.

When the snow melted, and the summer flowers
burst into bloom, party after party set out in quest of
his remains, all unsuccessfully. It was not till late in
autumn, when our gamekeeper was on the Brae-Riach
shooting grouse, that he saw on a shelf of rock midway
down a precipice a plaided figure. It was all that was
left of the missing shepherd, and his collie lay dead
beside him. Deceived by the snow he had wandered
miles away from his own ground, and must have died
from exhaustion after a fall on to this sheltered spot.

His widow was past all knowledge of his fate ; her
anxiety had brought on premature childbirth, fever
ensued, and though she recovered her strength, her
mind was gone. She lived in the belief of the speedy
return of her husband, went cheerfully about her usual
work, preparing things for him, going through the same
routine as on the day she lost him ; baking, sweeping,

228 THE SPEY FLOAT [1813

putting on fresh peats, and ending with her wheel by
the side of the clean hearth in the evening. She would
show her balls of yarn with pride to the kind neighbours
who looked in upon her, and the little caps she was
trimming for the baby that was lying alongside the
bones of its father in the kirkyard.

Sometimes in the evening, they said, she would look
wearily round and sigh heavily, and wander a little in
her talk, but in the morning she was early up and busy
as ever. She was never in want, for every one helped
her ; but though she was so much pitied, she was in
their sober way much blamed. The Highlanders are
fatalists ; what is to be, must be ; what happens must
be borne patiently. We must " dree our weird," all of
us, and 'tis " a flying in the face of Providence " to break
the heart for God's inflictions. They feel keenly too ;
all their affections are warm and deep ; still, they are
not to be paraded. A tranquil manner is a part of
their breeding, composure under all circumstances
essential to the dignity of character common to all the
race. How would a matron from Speyside be
astonished, scandalised, at the impulsive nature and
consequent exhibitions of her reputed kindred in dear
Ireland !

I have wandered very far away from the floating.
The forest work did not end with the arrival of the logs
at their different destinations. Those that went
straight to Spey were seized on by the Ballindalloch
men, bored at each end by an auger, two deep holes
made into which iron plugs were hammered, the plugs
having eyes through which well-twisted wattles were
passed, thus binding any given number together.
When a raft of proper size was thus formed it lay by
the bank of the river awaiting its covering ; this was
produced from the logs left at the saw-mills, generally
in the water in a pool formed to hold them. As they
were required by the workmen, they were brought
close by means of the clip, and then by the help of
levers rolled up an inclined plane and on to the
platform under the saw ; two hookb attached to cables

1813] THE LADY'S PERQUISITE 229

kept the log in its place, the sluice was then opened,
down poured the water, the great wheel turned, the
platform moved slowly on with the log, the saw-frame
worked up and down, every cut slicing the log deeper
till the whole length fell off. The four outsides were
cut off first ; they were called " backs," and very few of
them went down to Garmouth ; they were mostly used
at home for country purposes, such as fencing, out-
offices, roofing, or firing ; out-houses even were made
of them. The squared logs were then cut up regularly
into deals and carted off to the rafts, where they were
laid as a sort of flooring. Two rude gears for the oars
completed the appointments of a Spey float. The men
had a wet berth of it, the water shipping in, or, more
properly, over, at every lurch ; yet they liked the life,
and it paid them well. Then they had idle times great
part of the year, could live at home and till their little
crofts in their own lazy way, the rent being made up by
the floating.

Near Arndilly there was a sunken rock difficult
sometimes to pass ; this furnished a means of livelihood
to several families living on the spot. It was their
privilege to provide ropes, and arms to pull the ropes,
and so to help the floats through a rapid current
running at high floods between this sunken rock and
the shore. The dole they got was small, yet there was
hardly more outcry raised in Sutherland when the
Duke wanted his starving cottars to leave their turf
huts on the moors and live in comfortable stone houses
by the sea, than my father met when some years later
he got leave to remove this obstacle by blasting.

The oars were to my mother the most important
items of the whole manufacture. She had discovered
that in the late Laird's time, when the sales of timber
were very small — a dozen of rafts in each season, worth
a few hundreds annually — the oars had been the
perquisite of the Lady. A little out of fun, partly
because she had begun to want money sometimes, she
informed good Mr Steenson that she meant to claim
her dues. He used to listen quietly, and answer

230 WINTER FUELLING [1813

blandly that next time he came up her claims should
be remembered, but never a penny she got.

Mr Steenson fell ill and died. A new wood-agent
had to be appointed, and he being an old friend, my
mother applied to him with more confidence. This
new agent was Dalachapple, Mr Alexander Grant of
Dalachapple, nephew to the thrifty wife of Parson John.
He not only listened to my mother about the oar
money, but he acted in accordance with the old usage,
and with a delicacy quite amusing. In a mysterious
manner, and only when she was alone, did he approach
her with her perquisite in the form of a bank-note
folded small. The oars were sold for half-a-crown
apiece, a pair to each float, and one season he gave her
upwards of forty pounds ; this was long before the great
felling. She opened her eyes wide, and certainly found
the money a great comfort, though it was of little use
in the Highlands ; all we did not produce ourselves was
ordered in large quantities on credit and paid for by
drafts on a banker. We had no shops near us but one
at Inverdruie, kept by a Jenny Grant, who made us pay
very dear for thread and sugar-plums. Our charities
were given in the form of meal or clothing ; fuel every
one had in plenty for the mere gathering, the loppings
all through the forest were turned to no other account.
They made a brilliant fire when well dried, owing to the
quantity of turpentine in the fir timber ; still, those who
could afford it laid in a stock of peats for the winter.

My father had an objection to peat, and would not
burn it up at the house even in the .kitchen. Coals
were not thought of; they could be had no nearer than
Inverness, were dear enough there, and the carriage
thence — thirty-six miles — would have made them very
expensive ; yet the wood fires were very costly ; the
wood itself was of no value, but it had to be carted
home, cross-cut by two men, split up by two more, and
then packed in the wood-sheds. It was never-ending
work, and must have been very costly when we lived
the year round at the Doune. In the huge kitchen
grate, in the long grates with dogs in them made

1813] PEAT FIRES 231

expressly for the purpose of supporting the billets,
the cheerful wood fires were delightful ; but in our part
of the house, where my mother in her English tidiness
had done away with the open hearth and condemned us
to small Bath grates, we were really perished with cold ;
three or four sticks set on end, all that the small space
would hold, either smouldering slowly if wet, or blazing
up to the danger of the chimney if dry, gave out no
heat equal to warm the frozen fingers and toes during
a Highland winter. We held a council in the school-
room and decided on taking steps to make ourselves
more comfortable.

On returning from our walks we visited the farm
offices, and there from the famous peat-stacks provided
for the farm-servants we helped ourselves, each
possessing herself of as much as she could carry. We
got old John Mackintosh to chop our long billets in
two, and thus we contrived a much better fire ; the
grate was not suitable, but we made the best of it

When we told our dear old great-grand-uncle of our
bright thought, he started up, angry, but not with us ;
and forthwith sent down for special schoolroom use two
carts of the fine hard peats from the far-off famous
Rhinruy Moss; they burned almost like coal, having
but one fault, very light red ashes. We made some
dusters, enjoyed our fires, and had to keep good watch
over our store of fuel to prevent any from being stolen
by the kitchen, never failing daily to take an accurate
measurement of our own peat-stack, built neatly by the
Captain's men in one of the wood-houses. And so our
winter glided away.

In the spring, as soon as the hill was open, my
father went to London to attend his duties in Parlia-
ment. My mother then changed our arrangements
a little. We did not get up till seven, dark of course at
first, but a whole hour gained on a cold morning was
something. Miss Elphick, Jane, and I breakfasted with
her at half-past nine. We used to hear her go
downstairs punctually ten minutes sooner, opening her

232 FAVOURITE STORY BOOKS [1813

bedroom door at the end of the passage with a deal of
noise, and then making a resounding use of her pocket-
handkerchief — our signal call, we said.

We all dined with her at four o'clock. After that
there were no more lessons ; we passed the evening
beside her reading and working. The work was the
usual shirting, sheeting, towelling, etc., required in the
family, the stock of linen of all kinds being kept up to
the statutory number by a regular yearly addition ; the
whole was then looked over, some mended to serve
a time, some made up for the poor, the rest sorted into
rag-bundles constantly wanted where accidents among
the labourers were frequent.

We read through all Miss Edgeworth's works,
Goldsmith's histories, most of the Spectator, and a few
good standard novels from the dusty shelves in the
study.

On Saturday nights we were allowed a fire in the
barrack-room, after which indulgence my hair was
admitted to shine more brightly ! After dinner, in an
hour we had to ourselves, Jane and I generally
read to the "little ones." Mary was hammering
through Parent's Assistant herself, two pages a day for
her lesson, enough as she slowly spelt her way along
the lines, but not enough to interest her in the stories,
so she was pleased to hear them to an end with
Johnnie. We often had to repeat a favourite tale, so
much approved were Lazy Laurence, The Little
Merchants, The Basket Woman, and others. When we
demurred to going over them again we were so assailed
by our listeners that we began Evenings at Home,
leaving out "the Tutor, George, and Harry." What
excellent books for children ! Yet it was not while I
was young that I was fully aware of the value of the
library chosen for us. It was when I was again
reading these old favourites to childish listeners —
to you, my own dear children — that the full extent of
their influence struck me so forcibly. They have not
been surpassed by any of our numerous later authors
for the young.

1813] A FIRE AT THE CROFT 233

This was a very happy time for us, even though
William was away. We saw him only at midsummer,
the journey being too long for his Christmas holidays
to be spent with us ; he spent them always with the
Freres.

One April morning Grace Grant, the greusiach's
daughter, the pretty girl who waited on us, drew aside
the white curtains of my little bed and announced that
Mr Cameron's two houses were in ashes. A fire had
broken out in the night at the Croft in the new house
occupied by Mr and Mrs William Cameron ; it had
spread to the stack-yard and offices, and even to the
upper house in which the old people lived, and when
my mother reached the scene — for she had been roused
by the news, had got up, dressed, and walked off those
two or three miles, she who seldom went farther than
her poultry-yard — she found the homeless party on the
green watching the destruction of their property.
About half of this news was true ; the fire had broken
out and the lower house was burnt to the ground, some
of the corn-stacks were destroyed, and one young horse
was injured, but the rest of the stock and the better
part of the crop and the old cottage were safe. My
mother ^/gone up, but before her bedtime, the tidings
having been brought to her while she was reading as
usual after we had left her, and she brought back with
her the two eldest of William Cameron's sons, who
lived with us for the next eighteen months, there being
no room for them at home.

The loss to their parents was great; all the
handsome Glasgow furniture was gone, as well as
sundry little valuables saved by poor Mrs Cameron
from the wreck of her city splendour. It was melan-
choly to see the blackened ruins of that little lovely
spot ; much of the offices had fallen, and the heaps of
scorched timber and broken walls we had to pick our
way through on our first visit made us feel very sad.
The old people received us as if nothing had happened.
Miss Mary was neither more nor less fussy, more nor
less cross than usual. Mrs Cameron sat in her chair by

234 CROCHALLAN [1813

the fire in her bonnet and shawl, and with her green
shade over her eyes just as she had ever done; a
monument of patience in idleness, sighing in her
accustomed manner, no change whatever in her. I am
certain she had been equally immovable on the night of
the fire. Mr Cameron talked to us cheerfully of all
matters going, the fire among the rest, as if he and his
had no particular concern in it, except when he raised
his fine head to the sky in humble gratitude that there
had been no lives lost ; he even played the Jew's harp
to us; "Lochaber," which we called his own tune, for
he came from that part of the country, and " Crochallan,"
beautiful " Crochallan," which we considered more
peculiarly our own, for we had all been sung to sleep by
it in our infancy. I had learned from Mr Cameron to
pronounce the Gaelic words with the pretty, soft
Lochaber accent, so different from the harsh, guttural
Strathspey. Years after at Hampstead, my uncle
Frere, who remembered my childish crooning of it
when he had his fever, made me sing it again not once,
but for ever; and one day that Francis Cramer was
there my uncle made me sing it to him ; never was
musician more delighted ; over and over again was it
repeated till he had quite caught this lovely Gaelic air,
and when he went away he bade me farewell as
" Crochallan Mavourgne," little suspecting he was
addressing a young lady as the favourite cow of one
Allan !

My father, immediately on his return from London,
began to plan the present pretty two-storeyed cottage,
as I may well remember, for I had to make all the
drawings for it architecturally from his given dimen-
sions; inside and outside working plans, and then a
sketch of its future appearance in the landscape. I
was so unskilful, so awkward, and he was so very
particular, required all to be so neatly done, so accurate
and without blemish of any sort, that I could not tell
how many sheets of paper, how many hours of time,
how many trials of temper were gone through before
the finished specimens were left to be tied up with other

1813] THE SCHOOL 235

equally valuable designs, in a roll kept in the lower
closed book-shelves to the left of the library fireplace,
docketed by his saucy daughter " Nonsense of Papa's."

The new house was placed a little in advance of the
old in a situation very well chosen. It looks particularly
well from aunt Mary's favourite walk round the
Lochans. My father cut down some trees at one point
to give a full view of it, and we made a rough seat
there, as we did in many a pretty spot besides, where a
summer hour could be dreamed away by lake, or
stream, or bank, or brae, and mountain boundary, the
birch leaves and the heather scenting the air.

They were stupid boys those sons of William
Cameron. James, the elder, was a real lout, there was
no making anything of him, though Caroline the
French girl, true to the coquettish instincts of her
nation, tried all her fascinations on him, really toiled to
elicit a single spark of feeling from this perfect log ;
in vain. Jane was more successful with the second boy,
Lachlan. Both brothers went daily to the school at
the bridge of Coylam, the common parish school, and a
very good one, where all the boys in the place were
taught, and could learn Latin if they wished. The
present master piqued himself on his English. He came
from Aberdeen, and was great in the English classics ;
whole pages from our best poets, first read out by him
and then learnt by heart by the pupils, formed part of
the daily lessons of the more advanced classes.
Lachlan Cameron, taught privately by Jane, quite
electrified the master by his fine delivery of the
Deserted Village at the rehearsal previous to the
examination.

My father examined the school ; I don't know
what there was my father did not do ; so busy a man
could hardly have been met with. He did his work
well while the whim lasted for that particular employ-
ment ; the misfortune was that there were too many
irons in the fire; fewer of them he would have
managed perfectly. Poor Sir Alexander Boswell,
Bozzy's clever son, wrote a brilliant Tory squib once

236 SAWYERS1 STUDIES [1813

ridiculing the Edinburgh Whigs, and my father's share
of it ended thus — "Laird, lawyer, statesman, J. P.
Grant in short''

We always went with my father and mother to the
examination of the school — no short business ; my
father was methodical, no flash pupil could have
imposed on him. Backwards and forwards he cross-
examined, requiring the reasons for all things, much as
is the National system now, but as was not practised
then. I have heard him say the boys were fair scholars,
but beaten by the girls. The Latin class was respect-
able, the arithmetic very creditable, the recitations had
of course to be applauded, and Lachlan Cameron was
rewarded for action as well as emphasis — Jane having
John Kembled him to the utmost of her ability — by
receiving a handsome copy of Goldsmith's works.

The prizes were wisely chosen, indeed almost any
standard work would have been appreciated. Mrs
Gillies, during a visit to us at the circuit time, taking a
walk with my mother one morning, went to rest a bit
in a saw-mill ; the saw was at work grinding slowly up
and down, while the log it was slitting moved lazily on,
the man and boy reading till they were wanted. The
boy's book was Cornelius Nepos in the original, the
man's Turner's Geography.

These forensic displays of Lachlan had turned our
thoughts back to our nearly forgotten theatricals. We
amused ourselves in the shrubbery re-acting several of
our favourite scenes in Macbeth. My father coming
upon us one day proposed that, as we were so well
acquainted with Shakespeare in tragedy, we should try
his comedy, and if we liked he would prepare for us
his own favourite As You Like It. We were delighted.
He set to work, and leaving out objectionable passages
and unnecessary scenes, made the prettiest three-act
drama of this pretty play. We learned our parts out
among the birch-wooding on the Ord Bain, selecting for
our stage, when we had made progress enough to arrive
at rehearsals, a beautiful spot upon a shoulder of the
hill not far from Kinapol, about a couple of miles from

1813] THEATRICALS 237

the Doune, so that we had a good walk to it all along
the river-side, through the planting.

Still, though charmed with Rosalind and Celia, we
could not bear giving up our older friends ; we therefore
persuaded my father to curtail Macbeth, and allow us to
act both, before him and a select audience, as soon as
William should come home ; we could not have got on
without him, he and Jane being our stars. Little fat
Miss Elphick, too, must play her part; she had
gradually abandoned the strict disciplinarian style, and
had become in many respects as latitudinarian as her
Celtic-nurtured pupils could desire. In this case, more-
over, personal vanity had a large share in her gracious
demeanour ; she imagined herself handsome, graceful,
and an actress — Mrs Jordan beautified ! and from
having heard tier read she had caught, my mother said,
some of the tone of that wonderful woman's style.

The part she chose in As You Like It was Rosalind,
and a vulgar Rosalind she made, exaggerating the very
points an elegant mind would have softened, for
Rosalind is somewhat more pert than even a "saucy
lacquey " need have been, a little forward, and not over
delicate. Mrs Harry Siddons refined her into the most
exquisite piece of gay impulsive womanhood, a very
Princess of romance. Poor Miss Elphick brought her
up from the servants' hall. We thought her queer-
looking in her doublet and hose, but Belleville, who was
a good judge of such matters, declared that she was
finely limbed, had a leg fit for the buskin, with an eye
and a voice that might have made her fortune had she
followed the profession. She was very much pleased
with herself, took a deal of trouble about her dress and
her hair — a crop — and the placing of her hat and
feather, and she knew her part perfectly.

Jane was a gentlemanly Orlando, William a first-rate
Jaques ; he looked the character and felt it, for in his
young days William was cynical, turned his nose up
habitually, very different from his later pleased tran-
quillity. I did both the Duke and Celia, was a stiff
Duke and a lively Celia ; we gave her no lover, left out

238 AS YOU LIKE IT [1813

all that. But the actor in this pretty comedy was Mary
— dull, listless Mary; she chose the part herself, and
would have no other, and anything better than her
Touchstone my father and Belleville declared they had
never seen; her humour, her voice, her manner, her
respectful fun to her ladies, her loving patronage of
Audrey (Anne Cameron), the whole conception of the
character was marvellous in a child of ten years of age ;
and she broke upon us suddenly, for at all our
rehearsals she had been stupid. She had acted like a
lump of lead, she never knew her part, every other word
she was prompted, and when my father tried to put
some life into her by reading to her as he wished her to
speak, he made little of it ; but on the night of the play
her acting was perfect. Johnnie said it was the port
wine, a large jug of which mixed with water stood in our
green-room (the upper part of the thrashing-mill), and
was dispensed in proper quantities by Miss Elphick
between the acts. Johnnie affirmed that of this jug
Touchstone had more than his share, as he, in his
capacity of third lord attending on the forest Duke, had
opportunities of discovering during his retirement behind
the fanners, as he was seldom required on the stage.
The other lords were represented by Jane Macintosh,
James and Lachlan Cameron, and Caroline ; by the
help of caps and feathers and long boar-spears they
grouped remarkably well.

We grew so fond of our comedy, Macbeth was less
thought of. We acted it first, Jane and William
surpassing themselves. Mary was Banquo, Miss Elphick
the king, Mary was Hecate, and the witches and the
company at the banquet were the same as did the forest
lords, for we had each to play many parts. They were
obliged to make me Lady Macbeth, a part I don't
think it possible I could have done well, though my
father took infinite pains with me. They said I looked
handsome in black velvet and point lace — a dress the
real Lady Macbeth would have opened her eyes at.
The people called out " briach, briach " (pronounced
bre-ach) when, thus arrayed and with a long train, the

1813] MACBETH 239

Thane's wife came forward with her letter ; a gratifying
sound to me, who had been thought always the plain
one of the family ; even Grace Baillie, the most obliging
creature in the world, could only force herself to say,
when contemplating the pale thin object presented to
her, " Eliza will be very lady-like !"

I was vain of my briach (bonnie), and our High-
landers were good judges of both beauty and merit;
they were charmed with William's MacdufT and
applauded him vehemently, many of the women
bursting into tears; Jenny Dairy soaked her apron
through "to see puir Mr William greeting for his wife
and family." We had a large audience. All our
particular friends, Belleville, Mrs and Miss Macpherson,
Camerons from the Croft, Macintoshes from the Dell,
and Mr Alexander Grant from Garmouth ; these were
the select, on the front benches ; at the back were John
and Betty Campbell from the Dell of Killiehuntly up in
Badenoch — the farm they had taken on leaving our
service — Mackenzie and Mrs Mackenzie, once Mrs
Lynch, from their inn at Aviemore, and all our own
servants. Our theatre was part of the granary, decorated
by ourselves with old carpets and curtains, green boughs,
and plenty of candles. We made our own dresses,
Anne Cameron and Jane Macintosh assisting ; and tas
the old black trunk in the long garret was made over to
us, we had my grandmother's blue and silver, and yellow
satin, and flowered silks, and heaps of embroidered
waistcoats, scarfs and handkerchiefs, all of which were
turned to account. One peculiarity of this acting was
that we became so attached to the characters we could
not bear to think ill of them. We excused everybody
for every act, with the exception of Lady Macbeth ; we
could in no way get her out of the scrape of the murder,
till we stumbled in Holinshed's Chronicles on the story
as told in his times. Even then we could not approve
of her, but judging of her by the morals of her age, we
almost justified her for getting rid of a wicked cruel
king, whose conduct to her and hers had been so
ferocious. We forgot we were only shifting the saddle.

240 MEASLES [1813

We were like the biographers who become so enamoured
of their subjects that they can never see their faults.
We had also to make out the locality of the forest of
Arden, and we settled it to our perfect satisfaction near
Hainault ; the principality or duchy from which the two
Dukes came eluded our researches.

The next stirring event was another alteration — a
final one it proved — of the principal staircase, the
painting and papering of the new part of the house, and
the fitting up of the drawing-room as a library. We had
lived so long with doors and shutters of plain deal, cane-
backed chairs and sofas, common Scotch carpeting, etc.,
that the chilly air of our half- furnished apartments
never struck us as requiring improvement. My mother
had long wished for more comfort around her, and the
books having accumulated quite beyond the study
shelves my father determined on removing them ; he
gave himself great credit for his taste in the choice of
his bookcases ; they were made of the fir from his
forest, picked pieces of course, highly varnished and
relieved by black mouldings. The room was large and
lofty, and really looked well when finished, but it was a
work of time. All summer and all autumn and part of
the winter the various jobs were going on, and in the
middle of the bustle we caught the measles, one after
the other, we four who had hitherto escaped — and no
doctor in the country ! Tall Mr Stewart from Grantown,
eighteen miles off, who used to attend every one on
Speyside, was dead. He was a retired army surgeon
who had settled in Strathspey on the chance of practice,
skilful enough for ordinary cases in his line, medical aid
being little wanted. Herbs and such simples cured the
generality, and we had my grandfather's medicine chest
administered sagaciously by my father. He did not like
undertaking the measles, then considered a serious
complaint, so he sent to Inverness for Doctor Ponton.
He paid two very expensive visits, and we all got
well.

Just at this time there appeared in the village of

1813] A NEW DOCTOR 241

Kingussie a miserable-looking man in a well-worn
tartan jacket, with a handsome wife, somewhat older
than himself, and several children. They arrived from
Lcchaber in an old gig, a small cart following with
luggage and a short supply of furniture ; they hired the
room over Peter Macpherson's new shop. This man
announced himself as Dr Smith, brother to a clever
man of the same name near Fort William. He had
been some weeks there, creeping into a little practice
among the neighbours, before we heard of him.

A poor woman in Rothiemurchus had died for want
of skilful aid ; the woman employed on these occasions
had not been equal to the circumstances. This unhappy
event decided my father to look out for a doctor, and
he went to consult Belleville about it. An inquiry had
been held into the causes of the accident, and Dr Smith
had been brought forward to give his professional
testimony ; his intelligence, his general information,
astonished them ; here was the very man they wanted.
Accordingly it was resolved to try him for a year. The
Marquis of Huntly, the Duke of Gordon, and Ballin-
dalloch were written to. Poor Balnespick was away ;
he had gone to Cheltenham, where he died. The
regular subscription for the care of the poor being
immediately provided, this clever man was relieved from
the fear of starvation, and had the hope besides of cases
among the richer classes that would pay him better.
He began with us, for we all took ill again, an illness no
one could understand ; all the symptoms of measles,
and measles we had just recovered from ; yet measles
it was. Mary and I had it very severely ; her cough,
with winter approaching, gave great anxiety. Dr
Ponton was again sent for, but his grave pomposity
suggested no change from Dr Smith's treatment, so
with another heavy fee he took leave of us.

After the measles Dr Smith appeared no more in
the old tartan jacket, and though he still preferred
walking to any other exercise — twenty or even thirty
miles a day being a common thing with him — he looked
neither so pale nor so thin as when he had first shown

Q

242 PAINTING AND PAPERING [1813

himself at the inquest. He was quick at the uptak, fond
of reading, a good listener, and a pleasant talker. Even
Belleville's well-stored memory seldom found a quota-
tion thrown away.

When my father had set all his various hands to
work — Donald Maclean and his half-dozen men to the
staircase, a cabinetmaker and his assistants from Perth
to the new library, Grant the painter from Elgin with
his men to their papering and oil-brushes — he set off
himself to be re-elected for Great Grimsby, a dissolu-
tion of Parliament having made this necessary. An
immensity of money was spent on this occasion, another
candidate having started, the rich Mr Fazakerly ; out of
four two only could succeed, and my unfortunate father
was one of them.

My mother had had all the bedrooms in the new
part of the house painted and papered to please herself.
In the old part she had painted, but had not ventured
on papering, the old walls not having been studded ;
they were therefore done in distemper, as were those
of the dining-room. The colours were not happily
chosen, buff and grey, and the dining-room pea-green;
all the woodwork white, very cold-looking. The dining-
room was relieved by the Thorley pictures, mostly by
Dutch or Flemish artists, a small well-chosen selection.
There was a Berghem, two Boths, a Watteau, a Jan
Stein, a small Wouvermann, and several more
undoubted originals, though by painters of less note.
One w e admired was one of the three authorised copies
of Raphael's " Giardiniera " — the Virgin and Child and
little dark St John — made by a favourite pupil. Castle
Howard has another, Russborough claims the third.
The subject, however, was so in favour that many
pencils were tried on it, each possessor claiming of
course to hold one of the three valuables. There were
two coloured chalk sketches by Rembrandt of himself
and a friend ; a piece of fruit, fish, and game considered
very fine ; — in all about fifteen paintings, including two
nearly full-length portraits, a Raper ancestor and his

THE SPEECKLED LAIRD.

[To face page 242.

1813] THE DOUNE PICTURES 243

friend Sir Christopher Wren. A court beauty by Sir
Peter Lely was sent up to a bedroom, she was not
dressed enough to be downstairs ; and a James the
Sixth style sort of man was promoted to the library, the
only picture allowed in the room. A few old landscapes,
not so well preserved, were hung about in the bedrooms.
One portrait, unframed, in bad preservation, always
riveted my attention ; we called it the dying nun,
because of the style of the accessories. It must, I think,
have been the work of no pretender, whether his name
be known to fame or not.

Our Grant ancestors were spread over the walls of
the staircase : the Spreckled Laird and some of his
family, himself in armour, his brother Corrour in ditto,
his wife the Lady Jean in a very low-cut red velvet
gown, with her yellow hair flowing over her shoulders,
their little boys, my uncle Rothie and one who died
young, of whom my brother Johnnie was the image, in
court-like suits, holding out birds and nosegays ; Lord
Elchies in his ermine, and some others unknown. They
made a better show after they were framed by my
brother John when he was home on leave from India.

The library was long in being completed ; there was
a good deal of work in the bookcases, as they entirely
surrounded the room. My mother had made the
upstairs drawing-room so pretty, and the view from its
windows was so very beautiful, that no one entering it
could wish for any other ; it looked up the Spey to the
Quaich range of mountains, Tor Alvie on the one hand,
the Ord Bain on the other, and the broom island, now a
pretty lawn covered with sheep, just in front between us
and the river. The grand pianoforte was there, and the
harp and a writing-table, the fireplace filled with balsams,
other plants in the small light closets opening out of the
room, and sofas and chairs in plenty. Angelica Kauf-
mann's prints were pinned on the walls. Altogether it
was cheerful and summery, and many a pleasant hour
was spent in this pretty apartment.

Amongst other visitors there came Tom Lauder and
his friend, henceforward our dear friend, Dr Gordon ;

244 IMPROVED HYGIENE [1813

my father and mother had known him before, but to us
young people he was a stranger. He was hardly hand-
some, and yet all his friends thought him so ; not very
tall, slight, fair ; it was the expression of his countenance
that was charming, and his manner, so gay, so simple, so
attractive. He was very clever, had made his own way
and was getting on rapidly. He had married, not well,
I think, though he was happy, and it had been a long
attachment. It was a bad connection, and she, to my
mind, was not an agreeable woman — dawdling, untidy,
grave. She was very useful to him, having a good head
for languages.

Two results followed our new friendship. Dr
Gordon explained to my father the evil of our early rising
and late breakfasting ; he assured him also that those
stomachs that disliked milk, milk was not good for ; the
consequence was that we went back in rising to my
mother's hour of seven, and that I had orders to make
breakfast every morning at nine, and Mary partook of
it ; Caroline preferred joining James Cameron, Lachlan,
and Johnnie, who all throve on porridge or bread and
milk.

The other result was that William, who was now
fifteen, was to return no more to Eton. He was to
remain at home till the College met in Edinburgh in
October, when Dr Gordon consented to take charge of
him. Great rejoicings followed this decision ; the south
of England was so far away, letters were so long on the
road ; and though we had franks at command, so could
write as often as we pleased, that did not lessen the
distance, for the post used to go round by Aberdeen to
Inverness and on to Grantown by a runner, where
another runner received our bag and brought it three
times a week to the Doune.

This summer a great improvement took place in our
postal arrangements ; a stage-coach was started to run
three days a week between Perth and Inverness. Our
bag was made up at Perth and dropped at Lynwilg at
Robbie Cumming's, whose little shop soon became a
receiving-house for more bags than ours. It was quite

1813] WARLIKE NEWS 245

an event ; we used to listen for the horn ; on still days
and when the wind set that way we could hear it
distinctly, as we walked on the flow-dyke round the farm.
At one or two breaks in the wooding we could see the
coach, a novel sight that made us clap our hands, and
set poor Miss Elphick crying. She took to walking in
that direction, it was so gay, so like what she
remembered.

The bridge of Alvie was passed by the new coach at
about five o'clock, and we had to hurry home to dress
for dinner. During the second course, or later on a bad
evening, the boy sent for the bag returned ; the butler
brought it in and delivered the contents. One evening
late in autumn it came; Miss Elphick and I dined
downstairs now, and we were all sitting round the fire
on which fresh logs had been thrown, the dessert and
wine were on the horse-shoe table, when the bag came
in. Such startling news ! the Dutch revolt, the signal
for rousing Europe ! There had been a dearth of war-
like news after the Spanish campaigns were over, and
this unexpected turn of affairs in Holland excited every
one. How eagerly the papers were watched for many a
day after.

I do not recollect any other matter of importance
happening during the remainder of this year. Lord
Huntly and a set of grouse-shooting friends came to
Kinrara, but we did not see much of them. Some of
them dined with us once or twice ; Lord Huntly often
came over in the morning, and he had William with him
a great deal more than was good for an idle boy of his
age.

I never like to think of the style of education given
by the higher classes to their sons ; home indulgence,
school liberty, college license, and no ennobling pursuits ;
we are then surprised that the low gratification of the
senses should almost entirely supersede with our young
men the higher pleasures of an exercised intellect. In
one very important^ particular, the management of
themselves, they are never in the very least instructed.
At Eton the boys had too much money, not to be laid

246 ETON "POUCHINGS" [1813

out by themselves for themselves, in necessaries first and
indulgences afterwards ; but all that they could possibly
want being provided for them at a cost of which they
knew not one item, their " pouches " were extra, to be
wasted on nonsense, or worse ; some of these pouches
were heavy, boys carrying back with them from ten
guineas upwards according to the number of rich friends
they had seen in the holidays, everybody " pouching "
an Eton boy. William departed for Edinburgh really as
ignorant as his little brother of how ,far his allowance
would go, or what it would be wisest to do with it.

CHAPTER XII
1813-1814

THE winter of 1814 set in extremely cold ; we had the
Spey frozen over early in January. The whole country
was hung with frost, the trees looking like so many
feathers sparkling with diamonds in the sunshine. The
harvest-homes, and the forest ball, and the Christmas at
Belleville, and the Christmas at the Doune had all
taken place in due order ; our fete being remarkable by
the opening of the library, now at last completed. The
bookcases, finished by handsome cornices, and very
high, looked very comfortable when quite filled with
books ; all along the top were busts, vases, etc. The
old Puritan in the ruff was over the mantelpiece.
There were the Thorley telescope, microscope, theo-
dolite, and other instruments of scientific value ; a
large atlas, portfolios of prints, and a fair collection of
books amounting to three or four thousand volumes ;
there was not a subject on which information could not
be gathered amongst them. There were some little old
Elzevirs, Aldines, Baskervilles, and a Field Bible, to
rank as curiosities. A shelf of huge folios, the architec-
ture of Italy, Balbec, Palmyra, and other engravings, as
I may well know, for I wrote the catalogue.

My father and I were months at this pleasant work,
during the progress of which I think that my frivolous
mind learned more of actual worth to me than it had
taken in during all the former years of my young life.

We were still in the middle of our books when the
poor old Captain died. He had been subject for many

247

248 THE CAPTAIN'S DEATH [1813-14

years to violent attacks of tic in some of the nerves of
the face. He had had teeth drawn, had been to
Edinburgh to undergo treatment both surgical and
medical, to no purpose. Twice a year, in the spring
and fall, violent paroxysms of pain came on. The only
relief he got was from heat ; he had to live in a room
like an oven. His good wife was so tender of him at
these times ; what a mass of comforts she collected
round him !

He had been longer than usual without an attack ;
we were in hopes he was to be relieved during his
decline from such agony, and so he was — but how ? by
a stroke of paralysis. It took him in the night, affected
one whole side, including his countenance and his
speech. He never recovered, even partially, and was a
piteous spectacle sitting there helpless, well-nigh sense-
less, knowing no one but his wife, and not her always,
pleased with the warmth of the fire and sugar-candy ;
the state of all others he had had the greatest horror of
falling into. He always prayed to preserve his faculties
of mind whatever befell the failing body, and he lost
them completely ; not a gleam of reason ever again
shot across his dimmed intellect. This melancholy
condition lasted some months, and then the old man
died gently in the night, either eighty-four or eighty-
six years of age.

The news was brought to the Doune early in the
morning, and my father and mother set out immedi-
ately for Inverdruie. They remained there the greater
part of the day. In the evening my father and I were
occupied writing the funeral letters, and the orders to
Inverness for mourning. Next day Jane and I were
taken to Inverdruie. We had never seen a corpse, and
the Captain had died so serenely, his vacant expression
had disappeared so entirely, giving place to a placidity
amounting to beauty, that it was judged no less start-
ling first view of death could be offered to young people.
The impression, however, was fearful; for days I did
not recover from it. Jane, who always cried abund-
antly when excited, got over it more easily. The

1813-14] FIRST SIGHT OF DEATH 249

colour — the indescribable want of colour, rather — the
rigidity, the sharp outline of the high nose (he had
prided himself on the size and shape of this feature),
the total absence of flexibility, it was all horror — him,
and not him. I longed to cry like Jane, but there came
only a pain in my chest and head. My father preached
a little sermon on the text before us. I am sure it was
very good, but I did not hear it He always spoke well
and feelingly, and the people around seemed much
affected ; all my senses were absorbed by the awful
image on that bed. We were led away, and then,
while conversation was going on in the chamber of the
widow, my mind's eye went back to the scene we had
left, and things I had not seemed to notice appeared as
I must have seen them.

The body lay on the bed in the best room ; it had
on a shirt well ruffled, a night-cap, and the hands were
crossed over the breast. A white sheet was spread
over all, white napkins were pinned over all the chair
cushions, spread over the chest of drawers and the
tables, and pinned over the few prints that hung on
the walls. Two bottles of wine and a seed-cake were
on one small table, bread, cheese, butter, and whisky on
another, offered according to the rank of the numerous
visitors by the solitary watcher beside the corpse, a
natural daughter of the poor Captain's married to a
farmer in Strathspey.

A great crowd was gathered in and about the
house; the name of each new arrival was carried up
immediately to Mrs Grant, who bowed her head in
approbation ; the more that came the higher the
compliment. She said nothing, however; she had a
serious part to play — the Highland widow — and most
decorously she went through it. Every one expected
it of her, for when had she failed in any duty? and
every one must have been gratified, for this performance
was perfect. She sat on the Captain's cornered arm-
chair in a spare bedroom, dressed in a black gown, and
with a white handkerchief pinned on her head, one side
pinned round the head, all the rest hanging over it like

250 A HIGHLAND WIDOW'S PART [1813-14

the kerchief on the head of Henry of Bolingbroke in
some of the prints. Motionless the widow sat during
the whole length of the day, silent and motionless ; if
addressed, she either nodded slowly or waved her head,
or, if an answer were indispensable, whispered it. Her
insignia of office, the big bright bunch of large house
keys, lay beside her, and if required, a lady friend,
first begging permission, and ascertaining by the
nod or the wave which was the proper key to use,
carried off the bunch, gave out what was wanted, and
then replaced it.

All the directions for the funeral were taken from
herself in the same solemn manner. We were awe-
struck, the room was full, crowded by comers and goers,
and yet a pin could have been heard to drop in it ; the
short question asked gravely in the lowest possible tone,
the dignified sign in reply, alone broke the silence of
the scene — for scene it was. Early in the morning,
before company hours, who had been so busy as the
widow? Streaking the corpse, dressing the chamber,
settling her own, giving out every bit and every drop
that was to be used upstairs and down by gentle and
simple, preparing the additional supplies in case of
need afterwards so quietly applied for by the friendly
young lady, there was nothing, from the merest trifle to
the matter of most importance, that she had not, her
own active self, seen to.

I shall never forget her on the day of the funeral,
the fifth day from the death. Her weeds had arrived,
and remarkably well she looked in them. She, a plain
woman in her ordinary rather shabby attire, came out
in her new " mournings " like an elderly gentlewoman.
She sat in the same room, in the same chair, with the
addition of just a little more dignity, and a large white
pocket-handkerchief. All her lady friends were round
her, Miss Mary and Mrs William from the Croft, Mrs
Macintosh from the Dell, Mrs Stewart from Pityoulish,
two Miss Grants from Kinchurdy, her own sister Anne
from Burnside, Miss Bell Macpherson from Invereshie,
my mother, Jane, and I. There was little said ; every

1813-14] THE DAY OF THE FUNERAL 251

gig or horse arriving caused a little stir for a moment,
hushed instantly.

The noise without was incessant, for a great con-
course had assembled to convoy the last of Macalpine's
sons to his long home.

A substantial collation had been set out in the
parlour, and another, unlimited in extent, in the
kitchen ; people coming from so far, waiting for so
long, required abundance of refreshment. They were
by no means so decorous below as we were above
in the lady's chamber, though we had our table of good
things too ; but we helped ourselves sparingly and
quietly.

At length my father entered with a paper in his
hand ; it was the list of the pall-bearers. He read it
over to Mrs Grant, and then gave it to her to read
herself. She went over the names without a muscle
moving, and then, putting her finger upon one, she
said, " I would rather Ballintomb, they were brothers
in arms." My father bowed, and then offered her his
hand, on which she rose, and every one making way
they went out together, a few following.

They passed along the passage to the death-
chamber, where on trestles stood the coffin, uncovered
as yet, and with the face exposed. The widow took
her calm last look, she then raised a small square of
linen — probably put there by herself for the purpose —
and dropping it over the countenance, turned and
walked away. It was never to be raised. Though
Jane and I had been spared this solemnity, there was
something in the whole proceedings that frightened us.
When Mrs Grant returned to her arm-chair and lay
back in it, her own face covered by a handkerchief, and
when my father's step sounded on the stairs as he
descended, and the screws were heard as one by one
they fastened down the coffin lid, and then the heavy
tramp of the feet along the passage as the men moved
with their burden, we drew closer to each other and to
good Mrs Mackenzie from Aviemore, who was among
the company.

252 FUNERAL CEREMONIES [1813-14

Hundreds attended the funeral. A young girl in
her usual best attire walked first, then the coffin borne
by four sets of stout shoulders, extra bearers grouping
round, as the distance to the kirkyard was a couple of
miles at least. Next came the near of kin, and then
all friends fell in according to their rank without being
marshalled. Highlanders never presume, their innate
good-breeding never subjecting them to an enforced
descent from a too honourable place; there is even a
fuss at times to get them to accept one due to them.
Like the bishops, etiquette requires them to refuse at
first the proffered dignity. What would either say if
taken at his word ?

The Presbyterian Church has no burial ceremony.
It is the custom, however, for the minister to attend,
generally speaking, and to give a lengthy blessing
before the feast, and a short prayer at the grave. Mr
Grant of Duthil did his part better than was expected ;
no one, from the style of his sermons, anticipated the
touching eulogy pronounced over the remains of the
good old Captain — not undeserved, for our great-grand-
uncle had died at peace with all the world. He was
long regretted, many a kind action he had done, and
never a harsh word had he said of or to any one.

My father gave the funeral feast at the Doune ; most
of the friends of fit degree accompanied him home to
dinner. All sorts of pleasant stories went the round
with the wine-bottles, and very merry they were, clergy
and all ; the parsons of Alvie and Abernethy were both
there, coming in to the library to tea in high good-
humour. The rest of the people, who had been
abundantly refreshed at Inverdruie, dispersed.

The funeral over, there came on a marriage. Lord
Huntly, now in the decline of his rackety life, over-
whelmed with debts, sated with pleasure, tired of
fashion, the last male heir of the Gordon line — married.
What would not the mother who adored him have given
to have seen his wedding-day? What regrets she
caused to herself and to him for preventing the love of
his youth from becoming her daughter-in-law! She

1814] LORD HUNTLY'S MARRIAGE 253

actually carried this beautiful girl away with her to
Paris and married her to an old merchant, while her
son was away with his regiment. His bride was young,
and good, and rich, but neither clever nor handsome.
She made him very happy, and paid his most pressing
debts, that is her father did, old Mr Brodie of the Burn,
brother to Brodie of Brodie, who either himself or some-
body for him had had the good sense to send him with
a pen to a counting-house instead of with a sword to
the battle-field. He made a really large fortune ; he
gave with his daughter, his only child, one hundred
thousand pounds down, and left her more than another
at his death. Really to her husband her large fortune
was the least part of her value ; she possessed upright
principles, good sense, and when by and by she began
to feel her powers and took the management of his
affairs, she turned out a first-rate woman of business.
In her later years she got into the cant of the
Methodists. At the time of her marriage she was very
young, and too unformed to be shown as the bride of
the fastidious Marquis, so while all the North was a
blaze of bonfires in honour of the happy event, her lord
carried her off abroad.

The minister of Alvie made what was thought a
very indelicate allusion to "coming rejoicings closely
connected with the present " in a speech to the crowd
round the blazing pile on Tor Alvie ; and as no after-
events justified the prophecy, this incorrect allusion was
never forgotten. The marriage was childless ; Lord
Huntly was the last Duke of Gordon.

Miss Elphick's mother having had a serious illness
during the winter, and wishing to see her daughter, it
was determined that we should have holiday for six
weeks, and that our governess should travel to town
under my father's escort, Caroline the French girl going
with them. She was not to return ; she had been very
useful to us in naturalising her language amongst us.
People may read a foreign language well, understand it
as read, even write it well, but to speak it, to carry on
the affairs of daily life from mere grammar and

254 READING ALOUD [1813-14

dictionary learning, I do not believe to be possible. A
needle full of thread was my first example in point. We
were all at work, and I asked for " du fil pour mon
aiguille" "Ah," said Caroline, "une aiguille'e de fil;
tenez, mademoiselle ; " and so on with a thousand other
instances never forgotten, for those eighteen months
during which her Parisian French was our colloquial
medium for the greater part of the day made us all
thoroughly at home in the language ; and though rusted
by years of disuse, a week in France brought it back so
familiarly to my sister Mary and me that the natives
could not believe we had not been brought up in the
country. My father was much pleased at his plan
having succeeded so well; he however forbade any
mixture of tongues ; when we wrote or spoke English
no French words were to be introduced; English, he
said, was rich in expletives, there could be no difficulty
in finding in it fit expressions to convey any meaning.
He would send us to Dryden, Milton, Bolingbroke, and
Addison in proof of this ; were we to alter any sentences
of theirs by changing an English for a French word we
should enfeeble the style.

One of his favourite exercises for us was making us
read aloud passages from his favourite authors ; he
himself had been taught by Stephen Kemble, and he
certainly read beautifully. Jane was an apt pupil ; she
sometimes mouthed a little, but in general she in her
clear round voice gave the music, as it were, to the
subject, expressed so perfectly by the gentle emphasis
she employed. William was not bad ; I was wretched,
they did nothing but make fun of me. They used to
tell an abominable story of me — how Jane, having got
grandly through the mustering of all the devils in hell,
alias fallen angels, and ended magnificently with " He
called so loud that all the hollow deep Of hell re-
sounded " (as did our library ! ), I began in what
William called my " childish treble," " Princes, Potent-
ates," in a voice that a mouse at the fireside could have
imitated !

Milton did not suit me, but Sterne was worse;

1814] MISS ELPHICK'S HOLIDAY 255

nobody could read Sterne, I am certain. My father
could not ; that ass, and the Lieutenant's death, and
the prisoner — who could read them aloud, or without
tears ?

To return from this episode. My father, Miss
Elphick, and Caroline happily off, we bade adieu to the
restraints of the schoolroom. We did not neglect our
studies, but we shoved them aside sometimes, and we
led an easy sort of half-busy merry life, more out of
doors than in, all the fine bright weather of the spring-
tide. Jane looked after Mary's lessons, I carried
Johnnie through his; we all four agreed that the
governess was quite a supernumerary! Yet we owed
her much; with Mary she had done wonders; by
methodical perseverance she had roused her mind to
exertion; Touchstone had been a great help. Jane
and I were surprised to find the child who a year before
could not count, able to work any sum in the simple
rules. She gave great expression to the simple airs
she had learnt on the pianoforte, and she had wakened
up to ask questions, and to be merry and enjoy her
walks, and though, from her great size for her age, her
intellect remained slow till her growth of body was over,
she was never again so inert as Miss Elphick had found
her.

Johnnie was so easy to teach that he and I worked
in sunshine. He was the dearest little fellow ever was
in the world, not pretty except for fine eyes, small,
slight, very quiet and silent, but full of fun, full of
spirit, clever in seeing and hearing and observing and
understanding all that went on around him, preferring
to learn in this practical way rather than from books.
He grew fond of reading, but he had found the master-
ing of the mere mechanical part so difficult that he had
rather a distaste for the labour then.

We had two ponies at our command, William's
pretty and rather headstrong Black Sally, and the old
grey my mother used to ride to the reviews, now grown
milk-white. He was large, but so quiet that Mary, who
was a coward, was mounted on him. She never liked

256 TWO SORROWING HOUSEHOLDS [1814

riding, and went but seldom. Johnnie, besides being so
little, was much of her mind; Jane and I therefore had
our steed to ourselves, and plenty of use we made of it.
We rode to Belleville, to the Dell of Killiehuntly, and
all over the country up and down the Spey, a fat
coachman on one of the carriage horses behind us.

At the Dell of Killiehuntly lived John and Betty
Campbell, doing well, but alas ! not happy. His brother
shared the farm, a good managing man with whom it
was easy to live — but he had a wife with whom it was
not easy to live. The two ladies soon disagreed, and
though they parted household — John and Betty living
in the farmhouse, Donald and Mary in rooms they fitted
up in the offices — perfect harmony never subsisted until
sorrow came to both.

Donald and Mary had a fine son drowned in the
Spey; John and Betty lost their only child, my god-
daughter, in the measles. Neither bereaved mother
ever " faulted " the other after these events. Each had
shown so much heart on the occasion of the grief of the
other, that some bond of kindness, at least of forbear-
ance, existed evermore between them. Betty never got
over her " puir Eliza's " death ; she never alluded to her,
never replied when any one else did, nor did she appear
altered outwardly, yet it had changed her. Her hair
turned grey, her manner became restless, and from that
day she never called me anything but Miss Grant, my
Christian name she never uttered, nor the pet name
"burdie" by which she had oftenest called us both. It
altered John Campbell too. What had brought that
pair together was a problem not to be solved. John
had but very few words of English, it was difficult to
make out his meaning when he tried to explain himself
in that foreign language ; to the end of his life he never
got beyond the smattering he began with. Betty, a
Forres woman, spoke broad, low-country Scotch, pure
Morayshire, and never anything else to her husband or
to any one ; she never attempted the Gaelic. The
language she did speak was all but incomprehensible,
any English the Highlanders acquire being real good

1814] BETTY CAMPBELL 257

English such as they are taught by books at school, and
in conversation with the upper classes ; Betty's was
another tongue, the Low Dutch would have compre-
hended it as easily as did the Highlander, yet she and
John managed to understand each other and to get on
together lovingly, the grey mare taking the lead.

Both husband and wife loved us dearly ; few events
made either of them happier that the sight of our ponies
picking their steps cannily down the brae a little piece
away from their good farmhouse. All that they had of
the best was brought out for us, our steeds and our fat
attendant faring equally well for our sakes ; and then
Betty would promise to return the visit, and she would
not forget her promise either, but walk her eight or nine
miles some fine day, and pay her respects all through
the Duchus. She always reminded me of Meg Merrilies,
a tall, large-framed, powerfully-made woman, with dark
flashing eyes and raven hair, eminently handsome,
though resolute-looking. Her dress, though of a
different style from the gipsy's, was picturesque ; a
linsey gown, white neckerchief, white apron, a clear
close-fitting cap with a plaited lace-edged border, and a
bright satin ribbon to bind it on the head, and over this
a high steeple cap of clearer muslin, set farther back
than the underneath one so that the borders did not
interfere. A red plaid of the Campbell tartan, spun and
dyed by herself, was thrown round her when she went
out.

She spun the wool for stockings too, and knitted
them ; at fine needleworks she was not expert, indeed she
was too active to sit to them. She was a stirring wife,
in and out, but and ben, cooking, washing, cleaning,
keeping a quick eye over all, warm-tempered and kind-
hearted. In her old age, when husband and child were
gone, Betty grew fond of money. She was free-handed
in happier days.

Miss Elphick returned before my father. She came
by sea to Inverness, stayed a day or two with the
Coopers, and then came on in the gig with Mr Cooper,
who had business with William Cameron and such a dose

R

258 COUNTRY GOSSIP [1812

of north country gossip for my mother ! She liked a little
gossip, and she got abundance. I like gossip too, I
suppose we all do, clever gossip, but not Mr Cooper's :
" The laird of this, his bills flying about ; the lady of
that, too sharp a tongue to keep a servant. Everything
under lock and key at Glen here; open house to all
comers at Rath there. Fish bought at extravagantly
high price by Mrs So-and-So of New Street, while the
children of Some-one in Church Lane often came to Mrs
Cooper for a ' piece.' " He was a kind good-natured
man, and his home was very happy. Miss Elphick
admired him extremely, " his coats fitted so beautifully."
She had brought for her own wear from London
a bottle-green cloth surcoat, much braided, quite
military-looking, and a regular man's hat, a Welsh style
of dress she fancied particularly becoming and suited to
her, as tartans were to us, her mother being a Welsh-
woman. In this guise she went in the month of May,
or June indeed, to pay her visit of condolence to the
widow at Inverdruie ; a farewell on our part, Mrs Grant
having determined to give up her farm arid return to
Burnside to keep house with her very old mother and
her bachelor brother. We were coming back, and had
reached the turn in the road under the bank of fir trees
near James Macgregor's, when a disastrous piece of
news reached us. What we called " the widows' house "
at Loch-an-Eilan was burnt to the ground.

My father had always had a turn for beautifying
Rothiemurchus with cottages ; it was more that, at first,
than the wish to improve the dwellings of the people,
consequently his first attempts were guiltless of any
addition to the family comfort. A single room,
thatched, with a gable end battened down at top, like a
snub nose, had been stuck on the hill at the Polchar for
the gamekeeper, on the bank at the ferry for the boat-
man, at the end of the West gate as a lodge. They
were all as inconvenient as any old turf hut, and a great
deal more ugly, because more pretending.

Searching through our drawing-books for a model

1812] COTTAGE-BUILDING 259

for the Croft improved his ideas of cottage architecture ;
also, he now better understood the wants of a household.
He picked out a number of pretty elevations, suggested
the necessary changes, and left it to Jane and me to
make correct drawings and working plans.

We had to try perhaps a dozen times before a
sketch was sufficiently good to be accepted. We
became attached to the subjects; it was no wonder
that the new cottages became of such importance to us.
The West gate was the first improved. It was
lengthened by a room, heightened sufficiently to allow
of a store loft under the steep roof, the snub nose
disappeared, the heather thatch was extended by means
of supporting brackets, and a neat verandah ran along
the side next the road and round the gable end. We
trained Ayrshire roses on the walls, honeysuckle on the
verandah, and we planted all sorts of common flowers
in a border between the cottage and the road. It was
a pretty cottage, particularly suited to the scenery, and
when neatly kept was one of the shows of the place.

The next attempt was the Polchar, a more
ambitious one, for there were a front and a back door,
a long passage, staircase, pantry, kitchen, parlour, and
two bedrooms above. It was very picturesque with its
overhanging heather-thatched roof, its tall chimneys,
and its wide latticed windows. There was no border of
flowers, only a small grass plot and a gravel walk, but
there was an enclosed yard fronted by the dog kennels,
and a path led to a good kitchen garden laid out in a
hollow close by. Another path went down to the edge
of the first of the chain of Lochans, and on through the
birch wood to the Croft. Another path skirted these
little lochs by James Macgregor's to the fir forest — aunt
Mary's walk. It was a model for the dwelling of a
Highland gamekeeper.

Next came a cottage for four aged widows ; they
had been living apparently in discomfort, either alone
in miserable sheilings, far from aid in case of sickness,
and on such dole as kind neighbours gave helped by a

260 THE WIDOWS' HOUSE [1812-14

share of the poor's box, or in families weary enough of
the burden of supporting them.

My father thought that by putting them all
together he could lodge them cheaply, that they might
be of use to one another in many ways, and that the
help given to them would go farther when less sub-
divided. It was a really beautiful home that he built
for them ; there were the cantilever roof of heather,
the wide latticed windows, the tall chimneys, but he
made it two storeys high, and he put the staircase
leading to the upper rooms outside. It had quite a
Swiss look. Sociable as were his intentions regarding
the widows, he knew too well to make them live
together except when they were inclined. Each was to
have a room and a closet for herself. Two of them
were to live on the ground floor with a separate
entrance to their apartments, one door opening from
the front, the other from the back of the house ; the
two above reached their abode by the hanging stair-
case, a balcony landing each beside her door-window.

We were charmed with this creation of our united
fancies, and had grand plans for suitable fittings,
creeping plants, flower borders, rustic seats, and
furniture. The loch was on one hand; the meal-mill
at the foot of the Ord, with the burnie, the mill-race, a
few cottages and small fields, on the other; the grey
mountains and the forest behind ; all was divine but
the spirit of woman. The widows rebelled ; old,
smoke-dried, shrivelled-up witches with pipes in their
mouths, and blankets on their backs, they preferred
the ingle-nook in their dark, dirty, smoke-filled huts to
this picture of comfort. Stone walls were cold, light
hurt the eyes, deal floors got dirty and had to be
scrubbed ! The front door complained of the outside
stair, it was so much in the way and noisy ; the back
door objected to entering at the back, she had as good
a right as her neighbour to the exit of honour ; her
windows looked on the burn, there was no road that
way, she could see nothing; she equally detested the
stairs though they were not near her ; both ground

1812-14] BURNT DOWN 261

floors said that people going up and coming down, for
ever crossing them in all ways, forced them to spend
a great deal of valuable time at the foot of this
annoyance, expostulating with the upper windows for
the ceaseless din they made. These more exalted
ladies felt themselves quite as ill used as those beneath
them. Their backs were broken carrying burdens up
those weary stairs; no one could come to see them
without being watched from below. In short, they
were all in despair, agreeing in nothing but hatred of
their beautiful home. The fact is that they were* not
fit for it ; it is not at threescore and ten that we can alter
habits and the feelings grown out of them. It was very
little understood then where to begin, and how slowly
it was necessary to go on in order to reach the first
even of the many resting-places on the road to better
ways.

The poor Captain sealed the fate of the widows*
house. One day after he had come in from his drive
in the old pony phaeton with the long-tailed black
pony, somebody asking which way he had been, he
replied, "By Rothie's poorhouse at Loch-an-Eilan."
Of all things on earth this name is most repugnant to
the feelings of the Highlander; to be paraded as
inmates of a recognised almshouse was more than
the pride of any clanswoman could bear, and so it fell
out that by accident the heather thatch took fire, and
although neighbours were near, and a stream ran
past the door, and the widows were all alive during
the burning, active as bees removing their effects — the
stairs being no hindrance — the flames raged on. In
the morning only blackened walls remained.

We could not help being so far uncharitable as to
believe that whether or no they had lit the spark that
threw them homeless on the world, they had at least
taken no trouble to extinguish it.

My father was much annoyed at this misfortune;
he would do nothing towards any further arrangements
for the comfort of these old bodies. Perhaps they
lived to repent their folly. He did not, however, give

262 A NEW TOY [1812-14

up his building; the next cottage he undertook was
given to more grateful occupants. He had intended
it as a toy for my mother, but the amusement of fitting
it up not suiting her tastes, it was eventually made
over to us, and became one of the principal delights of
our happy Rothiemurchus life.

We will pause before describing it. Dalachapple
once conversing with my mother concerning some firm
in Glasgow the partners in which had been her
acquaintance in her dancing day, "They failed, did
not they ?" said she. "They paused? said he; and so
will we.

CHAPTER XIII
1814

IN years long gone by a certain William Grant had
enlisted as a soldier and gone off to foreign parts,
never to return in his former station among his people.
He rose early from the ranks, and during a prosperous
career in India won for himself fame, and rupees to
balance it. A curious kind of narrow-minded man, he
had, however, the common virtue of his race — he never
forgot his relations ; in his advancement he remembered
all, none were neglected. There was a deal of good
sense, too, in the ways he took to provide for them.
One brother was never more nor less than a common
soldier ; we knew him as Peter the Pensioner, on
account of sixpence a day my father got him from
Greenwich, in lieu of an eye he had lost in some
engagement. He lived in one of the cottages on the
Milltown muir, with a decent wife and a large family
of children, all of whom earned their bread by labour.
We had a son in the wood-work and a daughter as
kitchenmaid during the time their uncle the General
was paying a visit to us. The next brother rose to be
a major, and retiring from the army in middle life,
settled on the farm of Craggan some miles down
Speyside. His two sons, educated by the uncle, were
both lieutenant-colonels before their death. The
daughter, to whom he was equally kind, he took out
to India, where she married a civilian high in the
service. The rest of his relations he left in their own
place, merely befriending them occasionally ; but for
his mother, when she became a widow and wished to

368

264 LOCH-AN-EILAN COTTAGE [1814

return to Rothiemurchus, where she was born, he built
a cottage in a situation chosen by herself, at the foot of
the Ord Bain, surrounded by birch trees, just in front
of the old castle on the loch. Here she lived many
years very happy in her own humble way on a little
pension he transmitted to her regularly, neither " lifted
up" herself by the fortunate career of her son, nor
more considered by the neighbours in consequence.
She was just the Widow Grant to her death.

After she was gone, no one caring to live in so
lonely a spot, the cottage fell to ruin; only the walls
were standing when my father took a fancy to restore
it, add to it, and make it a picture of an English
cottage home. He gave it high chimneys, gable ends,
and wide windows. Within were three rooms, a
parlour, a front kitchen boarded, and a back kitchen
bricked. He hoped my mother would have fitted it
up like to her Houghton recollections of peasant
comfort, but it was not her turn. She began indeed
by putting six green-painted Windsor chairs into the
front kitchen, and hanging a spare warming-pan on
the wall, there being no bedroom in the cottage ; there
her labours ended. The shutters of those cheerful
rooms were seldom opened, stones and moss lay
undisturbed around its white-washed walls, hardly any
one ever entered the door; but it had a good effect
in the scenery. Coming out of the birch wood it
struck every eye, and seen from the water when we
were in the boat rowing over the loch, that single
habitation amid the solitude enlivened the landscape.
We young people had the key, for it was our business
to go there on fine days to open the windows, and
sometimes when we walked that way we went in to
rest. How often we had wished it were our own, that
we might fit it up to our fancy.

This spring I was furnished with a new occupation.
My mother told me that my childhood had passed
away; I was now seventeen, and must for the future
be dressed suitably to the class " young lady " into
which I had passed. Correct measurements were taken

1814] A YOUNG LADY OF SEVENTEEN 265

by the help of Mrs Mackenzie, and these were sent to
the Miss Grants of Kinchurdy at Inverness, and to
aunt Leitch at Glasgow. I was extremely pleased ;
I always liked being nicely dressed, and when the
various things ordered arrived, my feelings rose to
delight. My sisters and I had hitherto been all dressed
alike. In summer we wore pink gingham or nankin
frocks in the morning, white in the afternoon. Our
common bonnets were of coarse straw, lined with green,
and we had tippets to all our frocks. The best bonnets
were of finer straw, lined and trimmed with white, and
we had silk spencers of any colour that suited my
mother's eye. In the winter we wore dark stuff frocks,
black and red for a while — the intended mourning for
the king. At night always scarlet stuff with bodices of
black velvet and bands of the same at the hem of the
petticoat. While in England our wraps were in pelisse
form and made of cloth, with beaver bonnets ; the
bonnets did in the Highlands, but on outgrowing the
pelisses they were replaced by cloaks with hoods, made
of tartan spun and dyed by Jenny Dairy, the red dress
tartan of our clan, the sett originally belonging to the
Grants. Our habits were made of the green tartan,
now commonly known by our name, and first adopted
when the Chief raised the 42nd regiment ; it was at
first a rifle corps, and the bright red of the belted plaid
being too conspicuous, that colour was left out in the
tartan woven for the soldiers ; thus it gradually got
into use in the clan, and still goes by the name of the
Grant 42nd tartan.

I now burst out full-blown into the following
wardrobe. Two or three gingham dresses of different
colours very neatly made with frills, tucks, flounces, etc.
Two or three cambric muslins in the same style with
embroidery upon them, and one pale lilac silk, pattern
a very small check, to be worn on very grand occasions
— my first silk gown. A pink muslin and a blue
muslin for dinner, both prettily trimmed, and some
clear and some soft muslins, white of course, with
sashes of different colours tied at one side in two

266 A NEW WARDROBE [1814

small bows with two very long ends. In the bright,
glossy, pale auburn hair no ornament was allowed but
natural flowers. The gowns, very much flounced some
of them, were not unlike what we wear now, only the
petticoats were scanty and the waists short, so short as
to be most extremely disfiguring. The best bonnet
was white chip trimmed with white satin and very
small, very pale, blush roses, and the new spencer was
of blush-rose pink. Then there were pretty gloves,
neat shoes, silk neckerchiefs, and a parasol. Fancy my
happiness — I that had been kept so completely a child,
was in fact so young for my age ! It might have
turned my head but for two or three circumstances.
The drawing-room was so dull that, after a few stately
days passed there in my new dignity, I slid back to
my sisters in the schoolroom, undeterred from pursuing
such studies as I liked by the foolish sneers and taunts
of poor Miss Elphick, who, with the weak jealousy of
an inferior mind, chafed extremely at losing a pupil ;
and after all, it was losing only the unlimited authority
over her. Next, it was not easy to dress myself in my
finery up in my corner of the barrack-room, and it was
very difficult to carry myself and my flounces safely
down the narrow turning stair which led to the passage
opening on the front staircase. Also, having no
wardrobe, my dresses were kept in a trunk ; the one
I wanted seemed generally somehow at the bottom of
it, and so troublesome to get at.

A good deal of quiet gaiety took place this autumn.
We had our usual relay of guests. Glenmoriston
married this year ; he and his bride were with us nearly
a week on their way to Invermoriston after the
wedding. Logie and Mrs Gumming were not with us ;
Alexander was for some time ; he rode up on his pony,
a fine boy, in deep mourning for his father, who had
died suddenly under painful circumstances.

A public meeting had been held at Nairn, to be
followed by a dinner; Logie was expected, and not
arriving, the meeting had to proceed without him, and
so had the dinner. The master of the hotel was a

1814] LORD AND LADY HUNTLY 267

capital cook, famous for dressing ' mushrooms well.
This was a favourite dish of Logic's, and Logie him-
self being a favourite, the landlord reserved a portion
for him, keeping it hot in the copper skillet he had
cooked it in. Logie did come, accounting in some way
for his delay ; he ate the mushrooms, was taken ill,
every symptom that of poison, and he died in agony
before the morning. His head was no great loss, but
his heart was, for he was kind to everybody, and was
long regretted by his neighbourhood.

Mr and Mrs Dunbar Brodie came as usual from
Coulmonie, she riding on her grey pony, he driving all
the luggage in a gig, flageolet included ; and we went
to the loch and rowed on the water and played to the
echo, and then she measured all the rooms.

The Marquis and Marchioness of Huntly arrived at
Kinrara. We gave them a few days to settle before
calling, but might have spared our delicacy, for the
following morning a great racket was heard at the
ferry close to the house, and presently the peculiar
laugh of the Marquis ; soon he appeared at the window
in his old shabby shooting-dress and one of his queer
hats, without gloves, calling to my father and mother to
come out, he had brought his wife to visit them ; and
there she was, like another Cinderella, in a beautiful
baby phaeton drawn by four goats. The pretty animals
were harnessed with red ribbons, and at every horned
head there ran a little foot-page, these fairy steeds
being rather unruly.

The whole equipage had been brought over in our
small passenger boat. No sylph stepped out of this
frail machine, but a stout bouncing girl, not tastefully
attired, and with a pale broad face, fair — which he never
liked — and stiff — which he could not endure. He grew
very fond of her, and so did I ; the rest of the family
never took to her, and my father and mother remem-
bering her predecessor, the beautiful brilliant Duchess,
could not avoid making disadvantageous comparisons.

Kinrara too was different, a more elevated and very
stupid society, dull propriety, regularity, ceremony.

268 LADY HUNTLY'S MUSIC [1814

There was a feast of food, but not of reason ; a flow
of wine, but not of soul. I cannot wonder that they
sighed over the change and thought with regret over the
bright spirits departed.

They came and dined with us ; we were alone. She
was very timid. She never had the gift of conversa-
tion ; she could talk well on a subject that interested
her, and with a person she liked, otherwise she was
silent. Buonaparte would not have chosen her for the
wife of one of his marshals ; she did not shine in her
reception rooms. We did not get on well at this
dinner, we ladies by ourselves in the drawing-room.
I was of no use, having only just been brought out of
the schoolroom ; besides, it was not then the custom for
young persons to speak unless spoken to. At last
Lady Huntly proposed music, and on the pianoforte
being opened she sat down to it to let us hear some
Swiss airs she had picked up in her travels. The first
chord was sufficient, the touch was masterly. In every
style she played well, but her Scotch music, tender or
lively, was perfection. Sir Walter Scott immortalised
this delightful talent of hers in his Halidon Hill, and
she merited his highest praise. I have never heard her
surpassed or even equalled, as I do not reckon that
wonderful finger-work now in fashion as worth listening
to. Her lord, who was very little sensible of the power
of harmony, was always pleased with her music,
listening to it with evident pleasure and pride,
particularly when she gave him the reels and strath-
speys he danced so well, when he would jump up gaily
and crack his fingers, and ask did any one ever hear
better playing than that.

Of course we were to dine at Kinrara, a visit the
idea of which frightened me out of my wits. I was not
afraid of Lord Huntly, I knew him well and he was my
cousin besides ; but she was so stiff, and I knew there
would be company, strangers, and I had never dined
out Young people did not slide into society then.
They strode at once from pinafores, bread and butter,
and the governess, into long petticoats and their silent,

1814] COMPANY MANNERS 269

young-lady place. They did not add to the general
sociability, most of them could not ; unpractised as they
were in all that was going and doing and saying, their
little word would most likely have been put in out of
season. In the ordinary run of houses company was
anything but pleasant. Everybody seemed to assume
an unnatural manner; they did not follow their
customary employments ; the books, and the drawings,
and the needlework were all put carefully out of sight.
All were put out of their way too by a grand fatigue
day of best glass, best china, best linen, furniture
uncovered, etc., making everything look and feel as
unlike home as possible. It was not a welcome we gave
our friends, but a worry they gave us.

In great houses there were skilful servants to take
all this trouble and to prevent mistakes or fuss; in
lesser houses it was annoying. There was little of this
sort of troublesome preparation in our house, but there
was a degree of formality, it was the manner of the
day; and happily and easily as we lived with our
parents when alone, or when only intimate friends were
with them, we knew we were to keep at a respectful
distance from company; it was a distasteful word, and
the having to encounter all it meant in a strange house
among strangers was far from agreeable.

After dressing myself in the blue muslin frock, with
wild roses in my hair, I should have felt more at ease
had not my mother thought it necessary to read me a
lecture on proper behaviour, so depriving me of all self-
possession ; I was thoroughly uncomfortable during an
evening that might have afforded me pleasure. Lord
Huntly, too, increased this agitation by calling attention
to me most unpleasantly. It was during dinner, that
great long table filled with guests, covered with plate,
brilliantly lighted, and a servant behind every chair.
He was the greatest fidget on earth. He had a set of
rules for his household, any infringement of which was
visited by rigorous punishment. He used to be up
himself to call the maids in the morning, in the kitchen
at odd times to see what was doing ; at no hour of the

270 A FIRST DINNER-PARTY [1814

day, or the night indeed, was the family safe from the
bright — very bright — eyes of my lord, peering here,
there, and everywhere. So during the dinner he was
glancing about all round the room, talking, laughing,
apparently only intent on being agreeable; yet he
knew all that was going on at the sideboard behind him
better than Wagstaffe who presided there. The gentle-
men-sportsmen between whom I was placed found very
little to interest them in the shy replies made by a
young girl, hardly beyond childhood, to their few civil
speeches. They busied themselves elsewhere and left
me to the use of my eyes, and for them there was
abundant amusement. I was accustomed to long
dinners with all their tiresome courses, therefore bore
the tedium of this very patiently. At last we reached
the " sweets," and I took some jelly ; not rinding a fork
beside my plate I asked my attendant for one, very
gently too — I hardly heard my own voice. But Lord
Huntly heard it right well — out he burst : " No fork
for Miss Grant! A fork for Miss Grant Rothiemurchus
directly ! Wagstaffe, pray who attends to these things ?
Who sees the covers laid? Great inattention some-
where ! This must not happen again. Lizzy, have you
got your fork ? Now for the jelly, ha ! ha ! ha ! "
How I wished I had made shift with the spoon. I
would gladly have sunk under the table, for the storm
had hushed every voice and turned every eye on poor
me. I hardly ever remember feeling more miserable.
Certainly bashfulness is very near akin to vanity. Jane
would have gone through the whole unmoved, and
would have thought Wagstaffe and suite fully deserving
of the reproof they got.

My next public appearance was much happier. It was
the house-warming at the Croft. The family had already
taken possession of the pretty new cottage, and the old
had been turned into offices. Mr Cameron had
promised us a dance to commemorate the change ; he
now determined to give a dinner first, a dinner super-
intended by Mrs William, who had been invested by her
father-in-law with all power over the new premises.

1814] THE CROFT HOUSE-WARMING 271

My father and mother and William went to the dinner,
the rest of us followed to the tea in our favourite
equipage, a cart filled with hay. We always went in a
cart to the Dell when we could, because of the seven
streams of the Druie we had to ford; it was so
charming to be close to the water and to hear ourselves
rumble over the stones ; the hay prevented our being
hurt by the jolting, and plenty of plaids kept us warm.
Even Miss Elphick enjoyed this manner of visiting.
We generally sang all the way, bursting into screams
of laughter when a big stone under the wheel cut short
a holding note. We had a rough enough road to the
Croft, a mere cart-track past the Fairy's Knowe to the
Moss Riachan, and so on into the birch wood. William
Cameron afterwards made a good approach to his house
by this route, admired by every one but me ; I had
something of my aunt Lissy in me, and liked it all in
the wild state. The gates were all open for us — a lucky
thought, as they had no hinges ; they were merely tied
by two withes on one side and one on the other, and
had to be pulled back by a strong arm.

Between parlour, kitchen, and barn we had nearly
all Rothiemurchus at the Croft house-warming;
Duncan Macintosh playing his best, his son Johnnie in
tartan, and our Johnnie in his frightful short-waisted
nankin frock and trousers, dancing the fling with all
their hearts and cracking their small fingers. Old Mr
Cameron danced too, and called for his tune The Auld
Wife ayont the Fire, and instead of kissing his partner
went up and kissed the old lady where she sat by the
hearth in the old chair, and in the bonnet and shawl
and green shade as usual. We were all so merry
except her ; she was neither graver not gayer than was
her wont.

This merry dance there was the end of the old
times. Whether the old lady had caught cold when
moving, or whether her ailing frame had simply been
worn out, she never seemed to thrive after leaving the
little " but and ben " she had so long lived in. Before
the winter set in Mrs Cameron died without any

272 YOUNG CHARLES GRANT [1814

suffering. She was buried with the rest of us in the
small enclosure in the kirkyard, her husband appearing
at the funeral, in the house, and at the refreshment
table, just as if it had been any other person's. He
came in to visitors afterwards with his calm manner
unaltered ; there was no change in him to common
eyes, nor in the proceedings of the family. There was
only her chair empty, and a shade over his benignant
countenance that never left it. Before the spring he
was laid beside her. We were far away when we lost him.
Many many years have passed since I last heard him try
Crochallan — he never touched the "trump" after his
wife's death — but I shall never forget Mr Cameron, a
real Highland gentleman, loving us with the love of kin,
teaching us all wisdom, piety and a lively fancy glowing
through his clear, sound sense.

Before these melancholy events, we proceeded this
pleasant autumn with the usual merry-makings. There
was more company at the Doune, though I cannot
remember who they were, and there were more dinners
at Kinrara, no longer formidable, and a party at Belle-
ville during some days, when for the first time to my
recollection I saw him whom by courtesy for many
years we continued to call young Charles Grant.
Writing that once familiar name again is pleasant to
me, recalling so much that was enjoyable, although
some little that awakens regret. He was no ordinary
man, and to be so thoroughly estranged from one who
had been quite a son of the house, a dear elder brother,
is cause for grief in a world where few of us ever suit
sufficiently for intimacy. There was no fault on either
part, it was merely that our paths through life lay
differently. His father had been with us most summers ;
he was our county member, so had to come to look
after political interests. He was now intending to
introduce his son to the electors against the time when
he should himself, from age or weariness, disincline to
continue in Parliament. The north country owed him
much ; we got canals, roads, bridges, cadetships, and
writerships in almost undue proportion. My father, his

1814] THE PITMAIN TRYST 273

firm friend and most useful supporter, seldom applied
in vain for anything in the old Director's power to give.
We had reason to be grateful for all his many kind-
nesses, but he was never to any of us the delightful
companion that we found his son.

Young Charles was at this time deeply in love with
Emilia Gumming. She was a lovely-looking woman —
not a regular beauty, but more attractive than many
handsome persons. Old Charles Grant had reasons for
forbidding a marriage between them, and they were good
ones, acquiesced in by his son, who yet had not the
resolution to avoid her society. Year after year he
dangled about her till her youth and her beauty went, and
he found absence no longer a difficulty. Neither of
them married.

Mrs Macpherson, who had known him from a child,
was really absurdly attached to him. She was anxious
we should make an agreeable impression on each other.
I do not remember that he spoke ten words to me, nor
looked a second time at the childish girl quite over-
praised to him. On my part, half a look was enough ;
I thought him hideous, tall, thin, yellow, grave, with
sandy hair, small light eyes, and a shy awkward manner,
though nearly as old as my father and already of some
note among clever men. These were the dear friends
of after-days ! We have often laughed over our
introduction.

Then came the Pitmain Tryst. It was an old
custom to hold a cattle market yearly in the month of
September on a moor between Kingussie and Pitmain.
Instead of, as in Ireland, the farmers flying about on
cars to fairs, dressed in old clothes and with bank-notes
in an inside pocket, to buy a lot of beasts from the small
rearing farmers, choosing them here and there accord-
ing to their fitness for the quality of grass they are
destined to fatten on, our Highland proprietors reared
large stocks of young cattle, disposed of regularly once
a year at the current price. Belleville had a hundred
cows, thus he had every year a hundred stots, sold
generally for from £7 to £8 apiece. If any died during

s

274 THE CATTLE TRADE [1814

their period of growth he made up his number by
buying from the cottar farmers, the only way these little
bodies had of disposing of their single beast Balnespick
kept up fifty store cows, my father thirty. There was

treat emulation among them as to which reared the
nest cattle. I must confess that though my father
boasted of his superior breeding, great pains being taken
to improve the stock, Belleville generally got the top
price at the Tryst. The buyers were drovers, such men
as Walter Scott most faithfully describes in Rob Roy.
It was a separate trade. The drovers bought, and paid
for, and carried off their purchase in large herds to the
south, either to be privately disposed of or resold at
Falkirk for the English market.

A few substantial yeomen farmers were gradually
establishing themselves in the country, some of whom
were also drovers, who tried hard by patient industry
to rival the produce of the laird's fuller purse. They
probably made more of the business in the end. Our
fine Staffa bull was choked by an uncut turnip. His
price swallowed up a deal of profit.

After the market in the morning, there was a
dinner in the evening, drovers, farmers, and lairds all
meeting in the large room at Pitmain to enjoy the
best good cheer the county afforded. Lord Huntly
presided, and sent a stag from Gaick forest. My father
was croupier, and very grand speeches he and others
made after the punch began to circulate.

This year it was proposed that the ladies should
be invited to shine on the assemblage — not at the
dinner, but to prepare tea in another room, which
would break up the punch party earlier, and allow of
the larger apartment being meanwhile prepared for
dancing. Both Lord Huntly and my father were
promoters of this sort of mixed meeting, so consonant
to the spirit of feudalism still cherished throughout our
mountains. They themselves were the life and soul
of such gatherings, courteous to all, gay in manner,
and very gallant to the fair. The ball was received
with much favour, and in future always followed the

1814] FESTIVITIES AT PITMAIN 275

Tryst, doing more in the way of improving the country
than any one at first sight would suppose. Besides
the renewal of intercourse between the ranks, leading
to a continuance of kind feeling, a sort of stimulus was
given to the spirits of those whom Belleville called the
bodies. They had hardly finished talking over the
pleasure of the one meeting before the preparations
for the next had to be begun. Husbands were proud
of producing handsome wives nicely dressed ; mothers
looked forward to bringing with them pretty daughters
to be introduced to grander friends. The dress and
the manners of the higher portion of the company had
a sensible effect on the lower. Mrs John Macnab's first
cap was greatly moderated on her second appearance,
and Janet Mitchell's boisterous dancing fined down
into a not unbecoming sprightliness of movement.

All this is over now. The few grandees shut
themselves up rigorously in their proud exclusiveness.
Those who could have perpetuated a better tone are
gone, their places know them no more. Our former
wise occasional reunions are matters of history ; each
section appears now to keep apart, unnoticed by the
class above, and in turn not noticing the class below.

Lady Huntly did not do her part with all the
charming kindness of her lord. She kept up at the
head of the room among her own Kinrara guests,
laughing so frequently that nothing could persuade the
Laggan and Badenoch farmers that she was not
ridiculing them. Her dancing did not quite redeem
her character, though it was good, in the old reel and
strathspey style. The sort of thing did not suit her, it
was plain her being there at all was an effort.

The Lady Belleville was known of old to keep
herself very distant, but she was a Southron, and little
was expected from her. She sat up in her big red
turban amid the great, and there she, and such as she,
were allowed to sit ; all the rest of the room were in
high glee, dancing, old and young, almost without
a rest.

One of the ladies most in repute as a partner was a

276 MRS MACINTOSH Of BORLAM [1814

very old Mrs Macintosh of Borlam, who lived in the
village of Kingussie with her daughter, the widow of a
Major Macpherson, and a comely widow too. The
Leddy Borlam was said to be not far from ninety years
of age, upright, active, slender, richly dressed for her
station, and with a pleasant countenance. Her hand-
some silks caused many a sly remark. She was the
widow of a celebrated freebooter whom Sir Thomas
Lauder endeavoured to portray as " Lochandhu."
There were many tales current of his doings in our
part of the country. A cave he hid his treasures in
was still open on the hill at Belleville, for he did not
deal in black cattle only; no traveller was safe when
Borlam wanted. His wife was said to have been
frequently occupied in picking out the marks in the
fine holland ruffled shirts it was his especial coxcombry
to appear in, and it was more than whispered that he
had given her braws enough to last beyond a lifetime ;
seemingly a true suspicion, for the Lady Borlam's silks
would stand alone, and she had plenty of them. With
them she wore the Highland mutch (the high clear cap
of fine muslin, trimmed, in her case with Flanders lace),
and then, calm as a princess, she moved about in her
ill-gotten gear. She was a wonderful old woman, keen,
merry, kindly, and as cute as an Irishwoman, never
tripping in her talk, or giving the remotest hint of the
true character of her lamented husband.

The Northern Meeting was to all of our degree as
important a gathering as was the Badenoch Tryst to
our humbler acquaintance. It had been set agoing
soon after my birth by her who was the life of all circles
she entered, the Duchess of Gordon. She had per-
suaded all the northern counties to come together once
a year about the middle of October, and spend the
better part of a week at Inverness. There were dinners
and balls in the evenings ; the mornings were devoted
to visiting neighbouring friends and the beautiful
scenery abounding on all sides. She had always
herself taken a large party there, and done her utmost
to induce her friends to do likewise — stray English

1814] OFF TO THE NORTHERN MEETING 277

being particularly acceptable, as supposed admirers of
our national beauties ! while enacting the part of lion
themselves. No one with equal energy had replaced
her ; still, the annual meeting went on, bringing many
together who otherwise might not have become
acquainted, renewing old intimacies, and sometimes
obliterating old grudges.

New dresses had come for my decoration, and
beautiful flowers chosen by dear Annie Grant, her last
kind office for a while for any of us. There were white
muslin with blue trimmings, shoes to match, and roses ;
white gauze, pink shoes and trimmings, and hyacinths ;
pearl-grey gauze and pink, and a Bacchus wreath of
grapes and vine leaves, for we had three balls, dinners
before the first two, and a supper after the last. With
what delight I stepped into the barouche which was to
carry us to this scene of pleasure! I had no fears
about partners, Pitmain had set me quite at ease on
that score. We went through the ford at Inverdruie,
every one we met bidding us godspeed, and looking
after us affectionately — for it was an era in the annals
of the family, this coming out of Miss Grant — and we
stopped at Aviemore to have a few pleasant words
with Mrs Mackenzie. It had been a beautiful drive so
far, all along by the banks of the Spey, under the shade
of the graceful birch trees, the well-wooded rock of
Craigellachie rising high above us to the left after we
had crossed the river. Just at the foot of this, our
beacon-hill, there lies, quite close to Aviemore, a little
loch shrouded in the wood, and full of small sweet
trout, which during the earthquake at Lisbon was
strangely agitated, dashing about in its small basin in
a way not soon to be forgotten. It is the last bit of
beauty on the road for many a long mile. A bare
moor, with little to mark on it or near it, leads on to
the lonely inn at Freeburn, a desolate dirty inn, where
never was found a fire, or anything comfortable. A
short way from this abode of despair, a fine valley far
below opens on the view, containing a lake of some
extent, the banks artificially wooded, a good stretch of

278 THE JOURNEY TO INVERNESS [1814

meadowland, and a new house built by the Laird of
Mackintosh, the Chief of his Clan, " my uncle Sir
Eneas." The planting was then so young that even in
that wilderness this solitary tract of cultivation was
hardly worthy of much praise. Later on it grew into
a fine place — roads were made, and shrubberies and
gardens, and the trees grew to a goodly size, but the
succeeding Mackintosh did not live there ; he preferred
Divie Castle near Inverness, and Moy, the ancient
residence of his family, was let to sportsmen. From
Freeburn the moor extends again, another dreary waste
till we reached a wild scene I always admired. The
Findhorn, an unsheltered, very rocky stream, rises
somewhere beyond the ken of travellers, and tumbles
on through a gully whose high banks give only an
occasional glimpse of fair plains far off. A new road
has been engineered along the sides of this " pass of the
wild boars," Slochd Mor, thought a wonder of skill
when viewed beside the narrow precipitous pathway
tracked out by General Wade, up and down which one
could scarcely be made to believe a carriage, with
people sitting in it, had ever attempted to pass. My
mother had always walked those two or three miles, or
the greater part of them, the new route not having been
completed till some years after her marriage. A third
now puts to shame that much-praised second, and the
planting, the cottages with gardens, and the roadside
inns have all given a different character to this once
bare region. There is no change, however, near
Inverness ; there could be no improvement. It breaks
upon the eye weary of the monotony of the journey as
a fairy scene on drawing up a curtain. On rising the
hill at the Kirk of Divie — where the curious belfry is
ever so far from this desolate place of worship — the
whole of the Moray Firth, with the bounding Ross-
shire hills, the great plain of Culloden, Loch Ness, the
mountains beyond that fine sheet of water, the broad
river, and one of the prettiest of towns scattered about
its banks just as it meets the sea, open before wonder-
Ing eyes. That vale of beauty must have been a

1814] THE FIRST BALL 279

surprise to the first discoverer — no Roman ; their
legions crept along the coast to reach their fort at
Euchlass, they never tried the Grampians.

We put up at' Mr Cooper's good house in Church
Street, where we were made very welcome and very
comfortable ; and being tired with our day's work, we
enjoyed a quiet evening with Mrs Cooper and her girls.
We had come purposely the day before the first ball
for the rest. The next morning I was sent with some
of the children to Castle Hill, a very pretty farm of Mr
Cooper's three miles from Inverness. We came back
in time for me to get my toilet laid out ready, and my
mother's too, with help, and to have my hair dressed by
Mr Urquhart.

Probably all young girls have felt once in their
lives, at least, as I felt on mounting the broad, handsome
staircase of the Northern Meeting rooms on my father's
arm. The hall was well lit, the music sounded joyously,
and my heart beat so high, it might have been seen to
palpitate ! My mother and I passed into a suite of
waiting-rooms, where poor Peggy Davidson's aunt
attended to take care of the wraps, then rejoining my
father we entered, through the large folding-doors, our
fine assembly rooms. All was noise and blaze and mob.
I could neither see nor hear distinctly. A pleasant
voice sounded near, it was Glenmoriston's ; he was there
with his wife, and his sisters, and her sisters, and their
husbands and cousins, a whole generation of us. A
little farther on we encountered relations I did not
know, Colonel and Mrs Rose of Holme, just returned
from India ; she was a little plain woman loaded with
diamonds ; he was delightful, although he did introduce
to me a very ugly small, pock-marked man, the captain
of the Indiaman who brought them home, and with this
remarkable partner I joined the long country dance
then forming. My captain danced well ; he was very
pleasant too, and much amused at the shaking of hands
that took place between me and half the room. We
were really acquainted with almost everybody, and of
kin to a great number.

280 A DECIDED SUCCESS [1814

Lord and Lady Huntly were there with a large
party. Old Lady Saltoun ditto, dancing away in an
open frock almost as lightly as her pretty daughter
Eleanor — who afterwards married young Mr Grant of
Arndilly — and she near eighty. Charlotte Rose, now
Lady Burgoyne, was very pretty, and danced beautfully ;
but the beauties of the room, I thought, were the two
Miss Duffs of Muirtown — tall, graceful girls with a
pensive air that made them very attractive. My next
partner was Culduthel — poor Culduthel! — a fine, gay,
good-natured, rattling young man. Then Lord Huntly
in a reel vis-a-vis to his wife, then Sir Francis Mackenzie
of Gairloch, then one or two of the Kinrara gentlemen,
and all the rest of the evening Applecross — Mackenzie
of Applecross, the last of his clever line. He was the
catch of the north country from the extent of his
property, and though very plain, sickly, and no great
use as a dancing partner, he would have been, without
a penny, a catch for any one worthy of him. Had he
lived, he would have ably filled his position, but he and
his only sister both died of consumption a few years
after this, and before their parents. A writer in
Edinburgh, with a large family, succeeded to that fine
Ross-shire property.

Mr Cooper told us at breakfast that my first
appearance had been a decided success. I was
perfectly aware of it, and not one bit elated, though my
mother was, and her maternal anxieties had gone
farther than mine; I had stopped at abundance of
dancing.

This evening's ball was pleasanter than the first;
the third and last, with the supper, was best of all, even
in spite of a drawback. Every joy has its attendant
sorrow, every rose its thorn, and I had the persevering
assiduities of a good-natured and rather vulgar person
quite unable to see that his company was disagreeable.
In no way could I escape two or three dances with this
persistent young man, to my extreme annoyance, and,
as it seemed to me, the unreasonable amusement of my
new friend, Mr Mackenzie of Applecross.

1814] MRS ROSE OF KILRAVOCK 281

The mornings had hung heavy to many, but not to
me. Most people lounged about the narrow ill-paved
streets, paid each other visits, or congregated in our
northern emporium of fashion, Mr Urquhart the hair-
dresser's shop. My father took my mother, Mrs
Cooper, one of the girls, and me for charming drives in
several directions ; it was impossible to turn amiss, the
whole surrounding scenery is so enchanting. We had
visitors too, people calling early, before luncheon ; Mrs
Rose of Kilravock, the dowager, was one of them.
An extraordinary woman, once a beauty and still a wit,
who was matronising two elderly young ladies, West
Indians of large fortunes, and amusing them and every
one else with her clever eccentricities and tales of her
brilliant youth. She had been often at Kinrara in
former days with Jacky Gordon, the particular friend of
the Duchess.

It was after our return home that Mrs Cameron of
the Croft died,

CHAPTER XIV
1814-1815

I HAVE always looked on my appearance at the
Inverness Meeting as the second era in my life,
although at the time I was hardly aware of it. Our
removal to the Highlands, our regular break-in under
the governess, the partial opening of young minds, had
all gone on in company with Jane, who was in many
respects more of a woman than I who was by three
years her elder. I was now to be alone, my occupations,
habits, ideas were all to be different from, indeed
repudiated by, the schoolroom. Miss Elphick thought
me — and she was right — a year too young for the trials
awaiting me, for which I was in no way prepared. She
was annoyed at not having been consulted as to the
fitness of her pupil for commencing life on her own
account, and so she would neither help my inexperience
nor allow me to take shelter under my usual employ-
ments.

I felt very lonely wandering about by myself, or
seated in state in the library, with no one to speak to.
My mother was little with me, her hours were late, her
habits indolent ; besides, she was busily engaged with
my father revolving several serious projects for the
good of the family, none of them proper for us to be
acquainted with till they were decided on.

My father's Scotch friends were anxious that he
should return to their Bar, and the state of his affairs,
though none of us young people knew it, rendered some

282

1814] A FIRE AT THE DOUNE 283

such step necessary. Also my brother William had to
look for a home while he remained in college. Mrs
Gordon had had another baby, and in her small house
there was no longer room for a lodger. Then there
was the beautiful daughter ! The pale thin girl had
blossomed into beauty, and hopes were raised of the
consequences of her being seen beyond the wilderness
she had hitherto bloomed in.

So Edinburgh was decided on, and Grace Baillie
was written to, to engage us a house.

When we went to take leave of Mr Cameron, he
followed us down to the gate at the Lochan Mor ; and
there laying a hand on each young head, he bade God
bless us with a fervour we recollected afterwards, and
felt that he must have considered it as a final parting.
Then wrapping his plaid round him and drawing his
bonnet down over his eyes, he turned and moved away
through the birch wood. He died during the winter,
upwards of seventy-eight, young for a Highlander.
Rothiemurchus altered after all that old set were gone.

We were in great glee over our preparations for
Edinburgh, when one night we got a fright ; one of the
chimneys in the old part of the house took fire, a
common occurrence — it was the way they were
frequently cleaned ! but on this occasion the flames
communicated some sparks to a beam in the nearest
ceiling, and soon part of the roof was in flames. None
of us being in bed the house was soon roused, the
masons sent for, and a plentiful supply of water being
at hand all danger was soon over. My mother was
exceedingly frightened, could not be persuaded to retire
to her room, and kept us all near her to be ready for
whatever might befall. At last, when calmer, we
missed Miss Elphick ; she was not to be found, and we
feared some mischance had happened to her. After a
good search she was discovered as far from the house as
she could well get, dancing about on the lawn in her
night-dress, without a shoe or a stocking on her; by
which crazy proceeding she caught so severe a. cold as
was nearly the death of her. Jane said the whole scene

284 SETTLED IN EDINBURGH [1814-15

made a beautiful picture, and while the rest of us were
trembling for the fate of the poor old house, she was
admiring the various groups as they moved about in the
flickering light of the blazing chimney.

We had no more adventures before we started on
our journey, nor any incidents deserving of notice during
our three days' travel, save indeed one, the most splendid
bow from my odious partner, who, from the top of the
Perth coach as it passed us, almost prostrated himself
before the barouche. It was cold wretched weather,
snow on the hills, [frost in the plains, a fog over the
ferry. We were none of us sorry to find ourselves
within the warm cheerful house that Miss Baillie had
taken for us, No. 4 Heriot Row. The situation was
pleasant, though not at all what it is now. There were
no prettily laid-out gardens then between Heriot Row
and Queen Street, only a long strip of unsightly grass,
a green, fenced by an untidy wall and abandoned to
the use of the washerwomen. It was an ugly prospect,
and we were daily indulged with it, the cleanliness of
the inhabitants being so excessive that, except on
Sundays and " Saturdays at e'en," squares of bleaching
linens and lines of drying ditto were ever before our
eyes. Our arrival was notified to our acquaintance and
the public by what my father's brethren in the law called
his advertisement, a large brass plate on which in letters
of suitable size were engraved the words —

MR GRANT, ADVOCATE.

My father established himself with a clerk and a
quantity of law-books in a study, where he soon had a
good deal of work to do. He went every morning to
the Parliament-house, breakfasting before nine to suit
William, who was to be at Dr Hope's chemistry class at
that hour, and proceed thence to Dr Brown's moral
philosophy, and then to Mr Play fair's natural philosophy.
A tutor for Greek and Latin awaited him at home, and
in the evenings he had a good three hours' employment
making notes and reading up. Six masters were

1814-15] DAILY ROUTINE 286

engaged for us girls, three every day ; Mr Penson for
the pianoforte, M. Elouis for the harp, M. L'Espinasse
for French, Signer something for Italian, and Mr I
forget who for drawing, Mr Scott for writing and
ciphering, and oh 1 I was near forgetting a seventh, the
most important of all, Mr Smart for dancing. I was to
accompany my father and mother occasionally to a few
select parties, provided I promised attention to this
phalanx of instructors, and never omitted being up in
the morning in time to make breakfast. It was hoped
that with Miss Elphick to look after us, such progress
would be made as would make this a profitable season
for everybody. An eye over all was certainly wanted.
My mother breakfasted in bed, and did not leave her
room till mid-day. As I was not welcome in the school-
room, my studies were carried on in the drawing-rooms,
between the hours of ten, when breakfast was over, and
one, when people began to call. It was just an hour for
each master, and very little spare time at any other
period of the day, invitations flowing in quick, resulting
in an eternal round of gaieties that left us no quiet
evening except Sunday.

Our visiting began with dinners from the heads of
the Bar, the Judges, some of the Professors, and a few
others, nearly all Whigs, for the two political parties
mixed very little in those days. The hour was six, the
company generally numbered sixteen, plate, fine wines,
middling cookery, bad attendance and beautiful rooms.
One or two young people generally enlivened them.
They were mostly got through before the Christmas
vacation. In January began the routs and balls ; they
were over by Easter, and then a few more sociable
meetings were thinly spread over the remainder of the
spring, when, having little else to do, I began to profit
by the lessons of our masters. My career of dissipation
was therefore but four months thrown away. It left me,
however, a wreck in more ways than one ; I was never
strong, and I was quite unequal to all we went through.
Mrs Macpherson, who came up with Belleville in March
for a week or two, started when she saw me, and

286 EDINBURGH GAIETIES [1815

frightened my mother about me. She had observed no
change, as of course it had come imperceptibly. She
had been surprised and flattered by my success in our
small world of fashion. I was on the list of beauties ; it
was intoxicating, but not to me, young and unformed as
I was, and unused to admiration, personal beauty being
little spoken of in the family. I owed my steadiness
neither to native good sense nor to wise council. A
happy temper, a genuine love of dancing, a little
Highland pride that took every attention as due to my
Grant blood, these were my safeguards.

The intimate friends of my father were among the
cleverest of the Whigs ; Lord Gillies and his charming
wife, John Clerk and his sister, Sir David and Lady
Brewster — more than suspected of Toryism, yet ad-
mitted on account of the Belleville connection and his
great reputation — Mr and Mrs Jeffrey, John Murray,
Tommy Thomson, William Clerk. There were others
attached to these brighter stars, who, judiciously mixed
among them, improved the agreeability of the dinner-
parties; Lady Molesworth, her handsome sister Mrs
Munro, Mrs Stein, Lady Arbuthnot, Mrs Grant of
Kilgraston, etc. We had had the wisdom to begin the
season with a ball ourselves, before balls were plenty.
All the beaux strove for tickets, because all the belles
of the season made their first appearance at it. It was
a decided hit, my mother shining in the style of her
preparations, and in her manner of receiving her
company. Every one departed pleased with the degree
of attention paid to each individually.

The return to the Bar had answered pretty well ;
fees came in usefully. We gave dinners of course, very
pleasant ones, dishes well dressed, wines well chosen,
and the company well selected. My dress and my
mother's came from London, from the little Miss
Stewarts, who covered my mother with velvet, satin, and
rich silks, and me with nets, gauzes, Roman pearl
trimmings and French wreaths, with a few substantial
morning and dinner dresses. Some of the fashions
were curious. I walked out like a hussar in a dark

1815] A ROUT AND A DISTURBANCE 287

cloth pelisse trimmed with fur and braided like the coat
of a staff-officer, boots to match, and a fur cap set on
one side, and kept on the head by means of a cord with
long tassels. This equipment was copied by half the
town, it was thought so exquisite.

We wound up our gaieties by a large evening party,
so that all received civilities were fully repaid to the
entire satisfaction of everybody.

This rout, for so these mere card and conversation
parties were called, made more stir than was intended.
It was given in the Easter holidays, or about that time,
for my father was back with us after having been in
London. He had gone up on some appeal cases, and
took the opportunity of appearing in his place in the
House of Commons, speaking a little, and voting on
several occasions, particularly on the Corn Law Bill, his
opinion on which made him extremely unpopular with
the Radical section of his party, and with the lower
orders throughout the country, who kept clamouring for
cheap bread, while he supported the producer, the
agriculturist. His name as a Protectionist was remarked
quickly in Edinburgh where there was hardly another
member of Parliament to be had, and the mob being in
its first excitement the very evening of my mother's
rout, she and her acquaintance came in for a very
unpleasant demonstration of its anger against a former
favourite.

Our first intimation of danger was a volley of stones
rattling through the windows, which had been left with
unclosed shutters on account of the heat of the crowded
rooms. A great mob had collected unknown to us, as
we had music, and much noise from the buzz of
conversation. By way of improving matters, a score of
ladies fainted. Lady Matilda Wynyard, who had her
senses always about her, came up to my mother and
told her not to be frightened ; the General, who had had
some hint of the mischief, had given the necessary
orders, and one of the company, a Captain Macpherson,
had been already despatched for the military. A violent
ringing of the door bell, and then the heavy tread of

288 MISS BAILLIE'S PARTY [1815

soldiers' feet announced to us that our guard had come.
Then followed voices of command outside, ironical
cheers, groans, hisses, a sad confusion. At last came
the tramp of dragoons, under whose polite attentions
the company in some haste departed. Our guard
remained all night and ate up the refreshments provided
for our dismayed guests, with the addition of a cold
round of beef which was fortunately found in the larder.

Next day quiet was restored, the mob molested us
no more, and the incident served as conversation for a
week or more.

The last large party of the season was given by
Grace Baillie in her curious apartments on the ground
floor of an old-fashioned corner house in Queen Street.
The rooms being small and ill-furnished, she hit upon
a strange way of arranging them. All the doors were
taken away, all the movables carried off, the walls were
covered with evergreens, through the leaves of which
peeped the light of coloured lamps festooned about
with garlands of coarse paper flowers. Her passages,
parlours, bedrooms, cupboards, were all adorned en suite^
and in odd corners were various surprises intended for
the amusement of the visitors ; a cage of birds here, a
stuffed figure in a bower there, water trickling over
mossy stones into an ivy-covered basin, a shepherdess,
in white muslin a wreath of roses and a crook, offering
ices, a Highland laddie in a kilt presenting lemonade,
a cupid with cake, a gipsy with fruit, intricacies
contrived so that no one might easily find a way
through them, while a French horn, or a flute, or a
harp from different directions served rather to delude
than to guide the steps "in wandering mazes lost" It
was very ridiculous, and yet the effect was pretty, and
the town so amused by the affair that the wits did it all
into rhyme, and half a dozen poems were written upon
this Arcadian entertainment, describing the scenes and
the actors in it in every variety of style. Sir Alexander
BoswelPs was the cleverest, because so neatly sarcastic.
My brother's particular friend wrote the prettiest. In
all, we beauties were enumerated with flattering

1815] A SHORT ROMANCE 289

commendation, but in the friends the encomium on me
was so marked that it drew the attention of all our
acquaintance, and unluckily for me opened my mother's
eyes.

She knew enough of my father's embarrassments to
feel that my " early establishment " was of importance
to the future well-being of the rest of us. She was not
sure of the Bar and the House of Commons answering
together. She feared another winter in Edinburgh
might not come, or might not be a gay one, a second
season be less glorious than the first. She had been
delighted with the crowd of admirers, but she had
begun to be annoyed at no serious result following all
these attentions. She counted the admirers, there was
no scarcity of them, there were eligibles among them.
How had it come that they had all slipped away ?

Poor dear mother 1 while you were straining your
eyes abroad, it never struck you to use them at home.
While you slept so quietly in the mornings you were
unaware that others were awake ; while you dreamed
of Sheffield gold, and Perthshire acres, and Ross-shire
principalities, the daughter you intended to dispose of
for the benefit of the family had been left to enter upon
a series of sorrows which she never during the whole of
her after-life recovered from the effects of.

It is with pain — the most extreme pain — that I even
now in my old age revert to this unhappy passage of
my youth. I was wrong ; my own version of my tale
will prove my errors ; but at the same time I was
wronged — ay, and more sinned against than sinning.
I would pass the matter over if I could, but unless
I related it you would hardly understand my altered
character ; you would see no reason for my doing and
not doing much that had been better either undone or
done differently. You would wonder without compre-
hending, accuse without excusing ; in short, you would
know me not. Therefore, with as much fairness as can
be expected from feelings deeply wounded and ill-
understood, I will recall the short romance which
changed all things in life to me.

T

290 FIRST LOVE [1815

The first year William was at college he made the
acquaintance of a young man a few years older than
himself, son of one of the professors. His friend was
tall, dark, handsome, engaging in his manners, agreeable
in conversation, and considered to possess abilities
worthy of the talented race to which he belonged. The
Bar was to be his profession, more by way of occupation
for him in the meanwhile than for any need he would
have to practise law for a livelihood. He was an only son,
his father was rich, his mother had been an heiress, and he
was the heir of an old, nearly bedrid bachelor uncle who
possessed a landed property on the banks of the Tweed.

Was it fair, when a marriage was impossible, to let
two young people pass day after day for months
together? My brother, introduced by his friend to the
professor's family during the first year he was at
college, soon became intimate in the house. The father
was very attentive to him, the mother particularly liked
him, the three sisters, none of them quite young,
treated him as a relation. William wrote constantly of
them, and talked so much about them when at the
Doune for the summer vacation that we rallied him
perpetually on his excessive partiality, my mother
frequently joining in our good-humoured quizzing. It
never struck us that on these occasions my father never
entered into our pleasantry.

When we all removed to Edinburgh William lost no
time in introducing his friend to us ; all took to him ;
he was my constant partner, joined us in our walks, sat
with us in the morning, was invited frequently, and
sometimes asked to stay for the family dinner. It
never entered my head that his serious attentions would
be disagreeable, nor did it enter my mother's, I believe,
that such would ever grow out of our brother-and-sister
intimacy. I made acquaintance with the sisters and
exchanged calls as young ladies did then in Edinburgh ;
and then I first thought it odd that the seniors of each
family, so particularly obliging as they were to the
junior members of each other's households, made no
move towards an acquaintance on their own parts.

1815] COLD WATER 291

The gentlemen, much occupied with their affairs, were
excusable, but the ladies — what could prevent the
common forms of civility between them? I had by
this time become shy of making any remarks on them,
but Jane, who had marvelled too, asked my mother the
question. -My mother's answer was quite satisfactory.
She was the latest comer, it was not her place to call
first on old residents. I had no way of arriving at the
reasons on the other side, but the fact of the non-
intercourse annoyed me, and caused me frequently a
few moments more of thought than I was in the habit
of indulging in. Then came Miss Baillie's/^, and the
poem in which I figured so gracefully. It was in every
mouth, for in itself it was a gem. None but a lover
could have mingled so much tenderness with his
admiration.

On the poet's next visit my mother received him
coldly. At our next meeting she declined his attend-
ance. At the next party she forbade my dancing with
him : " after the indelicate manner in which he had
brought my name before the public in connection with
his own, it was necessary to meet such forwardness
with a reserve that would keep his presumption at a
proper distance." I listened in silence, utterly dismayed,
and might have submitted sorrowfully and patiently,
but she went too far. She added that she was not
asking much of me, for " this disagreeable young man
had no attaching qualities; he was not good-looking,
nor well-bred, nor clever, nor much considered by
persons of judgment, and certainly by birth no way the
equal of a Grant of Rothiemurchus ! "

I left the room, flew to my own little attic (what a
comfort that corner all to myself was then !), I laid my
head upon my bed, vainly trying to keep back the
tears. The words darted through my brain, " all false,
quite false — what can it be ? what will become of us ? "
Long I stayed there till a new turn took me, the turn of
unmitigated anger. Were we puppets, to be moved
about by strings ? Were we supposed to have neither
sense nor feeling? Was I so poor in heart as to be

292 ROMEO AND JULIET [1815

able to like to-day, to loathe to-morrow ? so deficient as
to be incapable of seeing with my own eyes? This
long familiar intimacy permitted, then suddenly broken
upon false pretences ! " They don't know me," thought
I ; alas ! I did not know myself. To my mother
throughout that memorable day I never articulated one
syllable. My father was in London.

My first determination was to see my poet and
inquire of him whether he were aware of any private
enmity between our houses. Fortunately he also had
decided on seeking an interview with me in order to
find out what it was that my mother had so suddenly
taken amiss in him. Both so resolved, we made the
meeting out, and a pretty Romeo and Juliet business it
ended in.

There was an ancient feud, a college quarrel
between our fathers which neither had ever made a
movement to forgive. It was more guessed at from
some words his mother had dropped than clearly
ascertained, but so much he had too late discovered,
that a more intimate connection would be as distasteful
to the one side as to the other.

We were young, we were very much in love, we
were hopeful ; life looked so fair, it had been latterly so
happy, we could conceive of no old resentments between
parents that would not yield to the welfare of their
children. He remembered that his father's own
marriage had been an elopement followed by forgiveness
and a long lifetime of conjugal felicity. I recollected
my mother telling me of the Montague and Capulet
feud between the Neshams and the Ironsides, how my
grandfather had sped so ill for years in his wooing, and
how my grandmother's constancy had carried the day,
and how all parties had "as usual" been reconciled.
Also when my father had been reading some of the old
comedies to us, and hit upon the Clandestine Marriage,
though he effected to reprobate the conduct of Miss
Fanny, his whole sympathy was with her and her friend
Lord Ogleby, so that he leaned very lightly on her
error. He would laugh so merrily too at the old ballads,

1815] LORD GILLIES INTERVENES 293

" Whistle and I'll come to ye, my lad," " Low doun i'
the broom," etc. These lessons had made quite as
much impression as more moral ones. So, reassured
by these arguments, we agreed to wait, to keep up our
spirits, to be true to each other, and to trust to the
chapter of accidents.

In all this there was nothing wrong, but a secret
correspondence in which we indulged was certainly not
right. We knew we should meet but seldom, never
without witnesses, and I had not the resolution to
refuseMhe only method left us of softening our separa-
tion. One of these stray notes from him to me was
intercepted by my mother, and some of the expressions
employed were so startling to her that in a country like
Scotland, where so little constitutes a marriage, she
almost feared we had bound ourselves sufficiently to
cause considerable annoyance, to say the least of it.
She therefore consulted Lord Gillies as her confidential
adviser, and he had a conference with Lord Glenlee, the
trusted lawyer on the other side, and then the young
people were spoken to, to very little purpose.

What passed in the other house I could only guess
at from after-circumstances. In ours, Lord Gillies was
left by my mother in the room with me ; he was always
gruff, cold, short in manner, and no favourite with me,
he was therefore ill selected for the task of inducing a
young lady to give up her lover. I heard him respect-
fully, of course, the more so as he avoided all blame of
either of us, neither did he attempt to approve of the
conduct of our elders ; he restricted his arguments to
the inexperience of youth, the insurmountable aversion
of the two fathers, the cruelty of severing family ties,
dividing those who had hitherto lived lovingly together,
the indecorum of a woman entering a family which not
only would not welcome her, but the head of which
repudiated her. He counselled me, by every considera-
tion of propriety, affection, and duty, to give "this
foolish matter up."

"Ah, Lord Gillies," thought I, "did you give up
Elizabeth Carnegie ? did she give you up ? When you

294 THE LOVER'S MOTHER [1815

dared not meet openly, what friend abetted you
secretly ? " I wish I had had the courage to say this,
but I was so abashed, so nervous, that words would not
come. I was silent.

To my mother I found courage to say that I had
heard no reasons which would move me to break the
word solemnly given, the troth plighted, and could only
repeat that we were resigned to wait.

Lord Glenlee made as little progress ; he had had
more of a storm to encounter, indignation having
produced eloquence. Affairs therefore remained at a
standstill. The fathers kept aloof — mine indeed was
still in London ; but the mothers agreed to meet and
see what could be managed through their agency.
Nothing satisfactory. I would promise nothing, sign
nothing, change nothing, without an interview with my
betrothed to hear from his own lips his wishes. As if
my mind had flown to meet his, he made exactly the
same reply to similar importunities. No interview
would be granted, so there we stopped again.

At length his mother proposed to come and see me,
and to bring with her a letter from him, which I was to
burn in her presence after reading, and might answer,
and she would carry the answer back on the same terms.
I knew her well, for she had been always kind to me and
had encouraged my intimacy with her daughters ; she
had known nothing of my greater intimacy with her son.
The letter was very lover-like, very tender to me, very
indignant with every one else, very undutiful and very
devoted, less patient than we had agreed on being, more
audacious than I dared to be. I read it in much
agitation — read it, and then laid it on the fire. " And
now before you answer it, my poor dear child," said this
sensible and excellent woman, " listen to the very few
words I must say to you," and then in the gentlest
manner, but rationally and truthfully, she laid before me
all the circumstances of our unhappy case, and bade me
judge for myself on what was fitting for me to do. She
indeed altered all my high resolves, annihilated all my
hopes, yet she soothed while she probed, and she called

1815] A DECISIVE INTERVIEW 295

forth feelings of duty, of self-respect, of proper self-
sacrifice, in place of the mere passion that had hitherto
governed me. She told me she would have taken me to
er heart as a daughter, for the good disposition that
shone through some imperfections, and for the true love
I bore her son, but her husband would never do so, nor
endure an alliance with my father's child. They had
been friends, intimate friends, in their college days ;
they had quarrelled, on what grounds neither had been
known to give to any human being the most distant
hint ; but in proportion to their former affection was the
inveteracy of their after-dislike. All communication
was over between them, they met as strangers, and were
never known to allude to each other. My father had
written to my mother that he would rather see me in
the grave than the wife of that man's son. Her husband
had said to her that if that marriage took place he
would never speak to his son again, never notice him,
nor allow of his being noticed by the family. She told
me her husband had a vindictive as well as a violent
temper, and that she suspected there must be a touch of
the same disposition in my father, or so determined an
enmity could not have existed. They felt that they
were wrong, as was evidenced by the extra attention
each had paid the other's children. At their age she
feared there was no cure. She came to tell me the
whole truth, to show me that, with such feelings active
against us, nothing but serious unhappiness lay before
us, in which distress all connections must expect to
share. She said we had been cruelly used, most
undesignedly ; she blamed neither so far, but she had
satisfied her judgment that the peculiar situation of the
families now demanded from me this sacrifice ; I must
set free her son, he could not give me up honourably.
She added that great trials produced great characters,
that fine natures rose above difficulties, that few women,
or men either, wedded their first love, that these
disappointments were salutary. She said what she
liked, for I seldom answered her; my doom was
sealed ; I was not going to bring misery in my train to

296 THE ENGAGEMENT BROKEN OFF [1815

any family, to divide it and humiliate myself, destroy
perhaps the future of the man I loved. The picture of
the old gentleman too was far from pleasing, and may
have affected, though unconsciously, the timid nature
that was now so crushed. I told her I would write what
she dictated, sign Lord Glenlee's " renunciation,"
promise to hold no secret communication with her son.
I kept my word ; she took back a short note in which,
for the reasons his mother would explain to him, I gave
him back his troth. He wrote, and I never opened his
letter ; he came and I would not speak, but as a cold
acquaintance. What pain it was to me those who have
gone through the same ordeal alone could comprehend.
His angry disappointment was the worst to bear ; I felt
it was unjust, and yet it could not be explained away, or
pacified. I caught a cold luckily, and kept my room
awhile. I think I should have died if I had not been
left to rest a bit.

My father on his return from London never once
alluded to this heart-breaking subject; I think he felt
for me, for he was v more considerate than usual. He
bought a nice pony and took me rides, sent me twice a
week to Seafield for warm baths, and used to beg me off
the parties, saying I had been racketed to death, when
my mother would get angry and say such affecta-
tion was unendurable — girls in her day did as they were
bid without fancying themselves heroines. She was
very hard upon me, and I am sure I did not provoke
her ; I was utterly stricken down. What weary days
dragged on till the month of July brought the change to
the Highlands I

Had I been left in quiet to time, my own sense of
duty, my conviction of having acted rightly, a natural
spring of cheerfulness, with occupation, change, etc.,
would have acted together to restore lost peace of mind,
and the lesson, severe as it was, would have certainly
worked for good, had it done no more than to have
sobered a too sanguine disposition. Had my father's
judicious silence been observed by all, how much happier
would it have been for every one ! Miss Elphick

181ft] UNKIND TREATMENT 297

returned to us in June, and I fancy received from my
mother her version of my delinquencies, for what I had
to endure in the shape of rubs, snubs, and sneers and
impertinences, no impulsive temper such as mine could
possibly have put up with. My poor mother dealt too
much in the hard-hit line herself, and she worried me
with another odious lover. Defenceless from being
blamable, for I should have entered into no engagement
unsanctioned, I had only to bear in silence this never-
ending series of irritations. Between them, I think
they crazed me; my own faults slid into the shade
comfortably shrouded behind the cruelties of which I
was the victim, and all my corruption rising, I actually
in sober earnest formed a deliberate plan to punish my
principal oppressor — not Miss Elphick, she could get a
slap or two very well by the way. My resolve was to
wound my mother where she was most vulnerable, to
tantalise her with the hope of what she most wished for,
and then to disappoint her. I am ashamed now to
think of the state of mind I was in ; I was astray
indeed, with none to guide me, and I suffered for it ;
but I caused suffering, and that satisfied me. It was
many a year yet before my rebellious spirit learned to
kiss the rod.

In journeying to the Highlands we were to stop at
Perth. We reached this pretty town early, and were
surprised by a visit from Mr Anderson Blair, a young
gentleman possessing property in the Carse of Cowrie,
with whom our family had got very intimate during the
winter. William was not with us, he had gone on a
tour through the West Highlands with a very nice
person, a college friend, an Englishman. He came to
Edinburgh as Mr Shore, rather later than was
customary, for he was by no means so young as
William and others attending the classes, but being
rich, having no profession, and not college-bred, he
thought a term or two under our professors — our
University was then deservedly celebrated — would be
a profitable way of passing idle time. Just before he
and my brother set out in their tandem with their

298 PERTH AND DUNKELD [1815

servants, a second large fortune was left to this favoured
son of a mercantile race, for which, however, he had to
take the ridiculous name of Nightingale.

Mr Blair owed this well-sounding addition to the
more humble Anderson, borne by all the other branches
of his large and prosperous family, to the bequest of an
old relation. Her legacy was very inferior in amount to
the one left to Mr Nightingale, but the pretty estate of
Inchyra with a good modern house overlooking the Tay,
was part of it, and old Mr John Anderson, the father,
was supposed to have died rich. He was therefore a
charming escort for my mother about the town ; we had
none of us ever seen so much of Perth before. We were
taken to sights of all kinds, to shops among the rest,
and Perth being famous for whips and gloves, while we
admired Mr Blair bought, and Jane and I were desired
to accept each a very pretty riding-whip, and a packet
of gloves was divided between us. Of course our gallant
acquaintance was invited to dinner.

The walk had been so agreeable, the weather was so
extremely beautiful, it was proposed, I can hardly tell
by whom, to drive no farther than to Dunkeld next
morning, 5 and spend the remainder of the day in
wandering through all the beautiful grounds along the
miles and miles of walks conducted by the river-side
through the wood and up the mountains. " Have you
any objection to such an arrangement, Eli ? " said my
father to me. " I, papa ! none in the world." It just
suited my tactics ; accordingly so it was settled, and a
very enjoyable day we spent. The scenery is exquisite,
every step leads to new beauties, and after the wander-
ings of the morning it was but a change of pleasure to
return to the quiet inn at Inver to dine and rest, and
have Neil Gow in the evening to play the violin. It
was the last time we were there ; the next time we
travelled the road the new bridge over the Tay at
Dunkeld was finished, the new inn, the Duke's Arms,
opened, the ferry and the inn at Inver done up, and Neil
Gow dead.

Apropos of the Duke's Arms, ages after, when our

1816] BACK AT THE DOUNE 299

dear amusing uncle Ralph was visiting us in the High-
lands, he made a large party laugh, as indeed he did
frequently, by his comical way of turning dry facts into
fun. A coach was started by some enterprising
individual to run between Dunkeld and Blair during
the summer season, which announcement my uncle read
as if from the advertisement in the newspaper as follows :
" Pleasing intelligence. The Duchess of Athole starts
every morning from the Duke's Arms at eight o'clock.
. . ." There was no need to manufacture any more
of the sentence.

Our obliging friend left us with the consolatory
information that we should meet again before the I2th
of August, as a letter from Mr Nightingale had brought
his agreement to a plan for them to spend the autumn
in the Highlands. They had taken the Invereshie
shootings, and were to lodge at the Dell of Killiehuntly
with John and Betty Campbell.

Our first three weeks at home were very quiet, no
company arriving, and my father being absent at Inver-
ness, Forres, Garmouth, etc., on business. We had all
our humble friends to see, all our favourite spots to visit.
To me the repose was delightful, and had I been spared
all those unkind jibes, my irritated feelings might have
calmed down and softened my temper ; exasperated as
they continually were by the most cutting allusions, the
persuasion that I had been most unjustly treated and
was now suffering unjustly for the faults of others, grew
day by day stronger and stronger, and estranged me
completely from those of the family who so perpetually
annoyed me. Enough of this ; so it was, blame me
who will.

After this quiet beginning our Highland autumn set
in gaily. The loth of August filled every house in the
country in preparation for the I2th. Kinrara was full,
though Lord Huntly had not come with the
Marchioness ; some family business detained him in
the south, or he made pretence of it, in order that his
very shy wife might have no assistance in doing the
honours, and so rub off some of the awkward reserve

300 RIVAL BODACHS [1815

which so much annoyed him. Belleville was full, the
inns were full, the farm-houses attached to the shootings
let were full, the whole country was alive, and Mr
Nightingale, Mr Blair, and my brother arrived at the
Doune. Other guests succeeded them, and what with
rides and walks in the mornings, dinners and dances in
the evenings, expeditions to distant lochs or glens or
other picturesque localities, the Pitmain Tryst and the
Inverness Meeting, a merrier shooting season was never
passed. So every one said. I do not remember any
one person as very prominent among the crowd, nor
anything very interesting by way of conversation. The
Battle of Waterloo and its heroes did duty for all else,
our Highlanders having had their full share of its
glories.

We ladies went up for the first time this year to
Glen Ennich, our shooting friends with us. The way
lay through the birch wood to Tullochgrue, past
Macalpine's well and a corner of the fir forest and a wide
heath, till we reached the banks of the Luinach, up the
rapid course of which we went till the heath narrowed
to a glen, rocks and hills closed in upon us, and we
came upon a sheet of water terminating the cut de sact
fed by a cataract tumbling down for ever over the face
of the precipice at the end of it. All the party rode on
ponies caught about the country, each rider attended by
a man at the bridle-head.

A very pleasant day we passed, many merry
adventures of course taking place in so singular a
cavalcade. We halted at a fine spring to pass round a
refreshing drink of whisky and water, but did not unload
our sumpter-horses till we reached the granite-pebbled
shore of the Loch. Fairy tales belong to this beautiful
wilderness ; the steep rock on the one hand is the
dwelling of the Bodach of the Scarigour, and the castle-
like row of precipitous banks on the other is the domain
of the Bodach of the Corriegowanthill — titles of honour
these in fairyland, whose high condition did not however
prevent their owners from quarrelling, for no mortal ever
gained the good graces of the one without offending the

1816] AN OLD PROPHECY FULFILLED 301

other, loud laughing mockery ever rilling the glen from
one potentate or the other, whenever their territories
were invaded after certain hours. Good Mr Stalker the
dominie had been prevented from continuing his fishing
there by the extreme rudeness of the Corriegowanthill,
although encouraged by his opposite neighbour and
fortified by several glasses of stiff grog. We met with
no opposition from either ; probably the Laird and all
belonging to him were unassailable. We had a stroll
and our luncheon, and we filled our baskets with those
delicious delicate char which abound in Loch Ennich,
and returned gaily home in safety.

The Inverness Meeting was a bad one, I recollect,
no new beauties, a failure of old friends, and a dearth of
the family connections. My last year's friend, the new
member for Ross-shire, Mr Mackenzie of Applecross,
was at this Meeting, more agreeable than ever, but
looking extremely ill. I introduced him by desire to
my cousin Charlotte Rose, who got on with him
capitally. He was a plain man, and he had a buck
tooth to which some one had called attention, and it
was soon the only topic spoken of, for an old prophecy

ran that whenever a mad Lovat, a childless , and an

Applecross with a buck tooth met, there would be an
end of Seaforth. The buck tooth all could see, the mad

Lovat was equally conspicuous, and though Mrs

had two handsome sons born after several years of
childless wedlock, nobody ever thought of fathering
them on her husband. In the beginning of this year
Seaforth, the Chief of the Mackenzies, boasted of two
promising sons; both were gone, died within a few
months of each other. The Chieftainship went to
another branch, but the lands and the old Castle of
Brahan would descend after Lord Seaforth's death to
his daughter, Lady Hood — an end of Caber-Feigh.
This made every one melancholy, and the deaths of
course kept many away from the Meeting.

CHAPTER XV
1815-1817

WE put all our home affairs in order for our long
absence, and then we set out for Edinburgh. My
father had taken there the most disagreeable house
possible; a large gloomy No. n in Queen Street, on
the front of which the sun never shone, and which was
so built against behind that there was no free circulation
of air through it. It belonged to Lady Augusta
Clavering, once Campbell, one of the handsome sisters
of the handsome Duke of Argyll, who had run off from
a masquerade with a lover who made her bitterly repent
she ever took him for a husband. It was comfortable
within, plenty of rooms in it, four good ones on a floor,
but they did not communicate. The drawing-room
was very large, four windows along the side of it.
There were, however, no convenient rooms for refresh-
ments for evening parties, so during our stay in it
nothing could be given but dinners, and very few of
them, for none of us were in very good-humour. It
was well for me that my little bedroom was to the
sunny and quiet back of the house, and on the drawing-
room floor, for I had to spend many a week in it. A
long illness beginning with a cold confined me there
during the early part of the winter, and when I began
to recover I was so weakened that dear and kind Dr
Gordon, who had attended me with the affection of a
brother, positively forbade all hot rooms and late hours.
It was a sentence I would have wished him to
pronounce, for I was sick of those everlasting gaieties,

802

1816] TWO MARRIAGES 303

and with his encouragement and the assistance of a few
other friends I was making for myself, I was able to
find employment for my time infinitely more agreeable
than that round of frivolous company.

We had two pieces of family news to raise our
spirits. Uncle Edward and Annie Grant were married
— not to each other ! He in Bombay, now a Judge of
the Sudder, had married a Miss Rawlins, the daughter
of an old Madras civilian, a highly respectable connec-
tion ; and she in Bengal, had become the wife of

Major-General N , commanding at Cawnpore, a

King's Cavalry officer. I have quite forgot, I see, to
mention that when we left London she had gone on a
visit to Mrs Drury, the sister of Mr Hunter, husband of
one of the Malings. Mrs Drury took such a fancy to
her that she would not part with her, at least not to a
house of business. She proposed to my father to equip
her for India. She went out with Miss Stairs, sister to
Lady Bury and Mrs Vine, and she was received by Mrs
Irwine Maling, from whose house she married.

We were inundated this whole winter with a deluge
of a dull ugly colour called Waterloo blue, copied from
the dye used in Flanders for the calico of which the
peasantry made their smock-frocks or blouses. Every-
thing new was "Waterloo," not unreasonably, it had
been such a victory, such an event, after so many years
of exhausting suffering; and as a surname to hats,
coats, trousers, instruments, furniture, it was very well
— a fair way of trying to perpetuate tranquillity ; but to
deluge us with that vile indigo, so unbecoming even to
the fairest ! It was really a punishment ; none of us
were sufficiently patriotic to deform ourselves by
wearing it. The fashions were remarkably ugly this
season. I got nothing new, as I went out so little, till
the spring, then white muslin frocks were the most
suitable dress for the small parties then given. There
was a dearth of news, too, a lull after the war excite-
ment; or my feeling stupid might make all seem so.
I know my memory recollects this as a disagreeable
winter. The lawyers were busy with a contemplated

304 SERIOUS OCCUPATIONS [1816

change in the Jury Court. Trial by jury in civil cases
had not, up to this date, been the custom in Scotland.
In penal cases the Scotch jury law so far differed from
the English that a majority of voices convicted the
prisoner; unanimity was unnecessary; and this, which
many sagacious lawyers considered the better rule, was
not to be interfered with, it was only to be extended to
civil cases. The machinery of the Courts of Justice had
of course to be slightly altered for this change of system.
If I remember rightly, two new Barons were required,
and a Chief Baron, whom we had never had before.
Sir William Shepherd, from the London Bar, was sent
in this capacity to set it all going. His very English
wife came with him, and amused us more than I can
tell with her cockneyisms. He was very agreeable.
It may seem beyond the range of a girl of my then age
to have entered into so grave a subject, but this sort of
topic was becoming my business. I wrote quickly and
clearly, and seldom made mistakes ; my father, though
he had a clerk, frequently found it suit him to employ
me as his more private secretary. I even helped him
to correct the press for some of his pamphlets, sought
out and marked his references, and could be trusted to
make necessary notes. I delighted in this occupation,
and was frequently indulged in it both in town and
country at such odd times as help was wanted. Indeed
from henceforward I was his assistant in almost all
employments — work much more to my mind than that
eternal " outing."

In July we returned to the Doune. We had not
many visitors, so far as I recollect. The country was
filled with half-pay officers, many of them returned
wounded to very humble homes in search of a renewal
of the health they had bartered for glory. A few
of these had been raised to a rank they were certainly
far from adorning ; very unfit claimants got com-
missions occasionally in those war days. Lord Huntly
had most improperly so advanced one or two of his
servants' sons, and in the German legion there had
been two lieutenants who began life as carpenter's

1816] DUCHESS OF GORDON'S DESCENDANTS 306

apprentices to Donald Maclean. One of these, Sandy
Macbean, who lived the rest of his days at Guislich
under the title of the Offisher, attended the church very
smart, and dined once every season at our table as was
now his due, had helped to alter the staircase with the
same hands that afterwards held his sword.

Kinrara was very full this season, and very pleasant.
The charming Duchess, whose heart was in the High-
lands, had left orders to be buried on the banks of the
Spey in a field she had herself planted out. Lord
Huntly planted a few larch round the enclosure, but
Lady Huntly laid out a beautiful shrubbery and
extended the plantation, making paths through it
The grave was covered by a plain marble slab, but
behind this rose a stunted obelisk of granite, having on
its front by way of inscription the names of all hei
children with their marriages ; this was by her own
desire. Her youngest son, Alexander, died unmarried
before herself; Lord Huntly she left a bachelor. Her
four younger daughters had all made distinguished
connections ; the eldest, and the best bred amongst
them, showed to less effect among the list of great
names, but then she had two husbands to make up for
their being commoners. The first, Sir John Sinclair of
Murkle, was her cousin ; they had one child only, the
merry sailor son whom every one was fond of. The
second husband was a Mr Palmer of Bedfordshire. The
second daughter was Duchess of Richmond, the third
Duchess of Manchester, the fourth Marchioness of Corn-
wallis, the fifth Duchess of Bedford. When the Duchess of
Manchester was driven from the house of the husband
she had disgraced, she left behind her two sons, and six
daughters placed by their father under the care of a
governess to be superintended by the Dowager
Duchess ; the boys were at Eton. The eldest of these
girls, however, Lady Jane Montague, had almost always
lived with her other grandmother, the Duchess of
Gordon. She it was who danced the Shean Trews, and
trotted over to the Doune on her pony as often nearly
as she stayed at home. My father and mother were

U

306 DUCHESS OF GORDON'S DESCENDANTS [1816

dotingly fond of her, for she was a fine natural creature,
quite unspoiled. When our Duchess, as we always
called her, died, Lady Jane was not happy at home
with her younger sisters and their governess ; she went
to live with her aunt the Duchess of Bedford, and was
shortly announced to be on the point of marriage with
the second of the Duke's three sons by his first wife —
Lord William Russell. Next we heard she was very ill,
consumptive — dying — and that kind aunt took her to
Nice, and attended her like a mother till she laid her in
her grave. It was a grief to every one that knew her,
particularly those who had watched the fair show of her
childhood.

The second of these deserted girls was now of an
age to be introduced into society, and Lord and Lady
Huntly brought her with them to Kinrara. No, it was
the third, Lady Susan, a beautiful creature ; the second,
Lady Elizabeth, was just married to a handsome
Colonel Steele, with whom she had become acquainted
through her governess. It was on Lady Susan's
account that Kinrara was made so particularly agree-
able. There were plenty of morning strolls and
evening dances, a little tour of visits afterwards, all
ending in her engagement to the Marquis of Tweed-
dale, a man liked I believe by men, and it was said by
some women — of extraordinary taste, to my mind ; for,
thick-set and square-built and coarse-mannered, with
that flat Maitland face which when it once gets into a
family never can be got out of it, he was altogether the
ugliest boxer or bruiser-looking sort of common order
of prize-fighter that ever was seen out of a ring. Yet
he had a kind manner and a pleasant smile, and he
made a tender husband to this sweet gentle creature,
who accepted him of her own free will and never
regretted the union.

Neither house went to the Tryst this year, nor
to the Meeting. Lady Susan's approaching marriage
prevented any public displays from Kinrara, and my
father having been called to a distance on business the
Doune did not care to exhibit without him.

1816] SOCIETY IN EDINBURGH 307

In November 1816 we travelled back to Edinburgh
to take possession of Sir John Hay's house in George
Street, an infinitely more agreeable winter residence
than Lady Augusta Covering's very gloomy old barrack
in Queen Street. It was an excellent family house,
warm, cheerful, and airy, with abundant accommodation
for a larger party than ours ; but there was the same
fault of only one drawing-room and a small study off it.
Perhaps my father wanted no space for a ball. The
town was much fuller than it had been before, of course
gayer, many very pleasant people were added to our
society. War was over, all its anxieties, all its sorrows
had passed away, and though there must have been
many sad homes made for ever, in a degree, desolate,
these individual griefs did not affect the surface of our
cheerful world. The bitterness of party still prevailed
too much in the town, estranging many who would
have been improved by mixing more with one another.
Also it was a bad system that divided us all into small
coteries ; the bounds were not strictly defined, and far
from strictly kept ; still, the various little sections were
all there, apart, each small set over-valuing itself and
under-valuing its neighbours. There was the fashion-
able set, headed by Lady Gray of Kinfauns, Lady
Molesworth unwillingly admitted, her sister Mrs Munro,
and several other regular party-giving women, seeming
to live for crowds at home and abroad. Lady Moles-
worth, the fast daughter of a managing manoeuvring
mother, very clever, no longer young, ran off with
a boy at college of old Cornish family and large fortune,
and made him an admirable wife — for he was little
beyond a fool — and gave him a clever son, the present
Sir William Molesworth. Within, or beyond this, was
an exclusive set, the Macleods of Macleod, Cumming-
Gordons, Shaw-Stewarts, Murrays of Ochtertyre, etc.
Then there was a card-playing set, of which old Mrs
Oliphant of Rossie was the principal support, assisted
by her daughters Mrs Grant of Kilgraston and Mrs
Veitch, Mr and Mrs Massie, Mr and Mrs Richmond
(she was sister to Sir Thomas Liddell, Lord Ravens-

308 THE LORD PROVOST [1816-17

worth), Miss Sinclair of Murkle the Duchess of Gordon's
first cousin and the image of her, Sam Anderson and
others. By the bye, Mrs Richmond was the heroine
of the queer story in Mr Ward's Tremaine, and she
actually did wear the breeches. Then there was a
quiet country-gentleman set, Lord and Lady Wemyss,
all the Campbells, Lord and Lady Murray, Sir James
and Lady Helen Hall, Sir John and Lady Stewart
Hay, and so forth. A literary set, including college
professors, authors, and others pleased so to represent
themselves ; a clever set with Mrs Fletcher ; the law
set; strangers, and inferiors. All shook up together
they would have done very well. Even when partially
mingled they were very agreeable. When primmed up,
each phalanx apart, on two sides of the turbulent
stream of politics, arrayed as if for battle, there was
really some fear of a clash at times. We were so
fortunate as to skim the cream, I think, off all varieties ;
though my father publicly was violent in his Whiggism
he did not let it interfere with the amenities of private
life, and my mother kept herself quite aloof from all
party work.

The Lord Provost of Edinburgh was seldom in any
of these sets ; he was generally a tradesman of repute
among his equals, and in their society he was content
to abide. This year the choice happened to fall on
a little man of good family, highly connected in the
mercantile world, married to an Inverness Alves, and
much liked. I don't remember what his pursuit was,
whether he was a banker, or agent for the great
Madras house his brother George was the head of, but
he was a kind hospitable man, his wife Mrs Arbuthnot
very Highland, and they were general favourites. He
was chosen Provost again when his three years were
out, so he received the king, George IV., on his
memorable visit, and was made a baronet. Just before
him we had had Sir John Marjoribanks of Lees,
mercantile too. After him, the Town Council went
back to their own degree. The name amongst us for
Sir William Arbuthnot was Dicky Gossip, and richly

1816-17] THE FIRST QUADRILLES 309

he deserved it, for he knew all that was doing every-
where to everybody, all that was pleasant to know ;
a bit of ill-nature or a bit of ill-news he never uttered.
After a visit from him and his excellent wife — they
were fond of going about together — a deal of what
was going on seemed to have suddenly enlightened
their listeners, and most agreeably. A tale of scandal
never spread from them, nor yet a sarcasm. They,
from their situation, saw a great deal of company
and no parties could be pleasanter than those they
gave.

There were very few large balls given this winter.
Lady Gray, Mrs Grant of Kilgraston, Mrs Macleod,
and a few others retained this old method of entertain-
ing. A much more pleasant style of smaller parties
had come into fashion with the new style of dancing.
It was the first season of quadrilles, against the intro-
duction of which there had been a great stand made by
old-fashioned respectables. Many resisted the new
French figures altogether, and it was a pity to give up
the merry country dance, in which the warfare between
the two opinions resulted ; but we young people were
all bit by the quadrille mania, and I was one of the
set that brought them first into notice. We practised
privately by the aid of a very much better master than
Mr Smart. Finlay Dunn had been abroad, and
imported all the most graceful steps from Paris; and
having kept our secret well, we burst upon the world at
a select reunion at the White Melvilles', the spectators
standing on the chairs and sofas to admire us. People
danced in those days ; we did not merely stand and
talk, look about bewildered for our vis-k-vis, return to
our partners either too soon or too late, without any
regard to the completion of the figure, the conclusion
of the measure, or the step belonging to it ; we attended
to our business, we moved in cadence, easily and
quietly, embarrassing no one and appearing to advan-
tage ourselves. We were only eight; Mr White
Melville and Nancy Macleod opposite to Charles
Cochrane and me, Johnnie Melville and Charles

310 BASIL HALL [1816-17

Macleod with Fanny Hall and Miss Melville. So well
did we all perform, that our exhibition was called for
and repeated several times in the course of the evening.
We had no trouble in enlisting co-operators, the rage
for quadrilles spread, the dancing-master was in every
house, and every other style discarded. Room being
required for the display, much smaller parties were
invited. Two, or at most three, instruments sufficed
for band, refreshments suited better than suppers, an
economy that enabled the inviters to give three or
four of these sociable little dances at less cost than one
ball ; it was every way an improvement. My mother
gave several of these small parties so well suited to the
accommodation of our house, and at no cost to my
father, uncle Edward having sent her for the purpose of
being spent in any way she liked upon her daughter, a
hundred pounds.

At our little parties Jane came out amazingly ; she
was never shy, always natural and gay and clever, and
though not strictly handsome, she looked so bright, so
well, with her fine eyes and her rosy lips, she was in
extreme request with all our beaux. To the old set of
the two former winters I had added considerably
during the course of this more sociable one, and Jane
went shares whenever she was seen. She carried one
altogether away from me, the celebrated Basil Hall.
He had this very year returned from Loo Choo, had
published his book, brought home flat needles, and
cloth made from wood, and a funny cap which he put
on very good-humouredly, and chop-sticks with which
he ate very obligingly; in short, he did the polite
voyager to no end. Jane was quite taken with him, so
was Jane Hunter ; Margaret Hunter and I used to be
amused with them and him, and wonder how they
could wait on the lion so perseveringly. He was the
second son of Sir James Hall, a man not actually crazy,
but not far from it ; so given up to scientific pursuits as
to be incapable of attending to his private affairs.
They were in consequence much disordered, and they
would have been entirely deranged but for the care of

1816-17] PROFESSORS AND LAWYERS 311

his wife, Lady Helen. Sir James had lately published
a truly ingenious work, an attempt to deduce Gothic
architecture from the original wigwams made of reeds.
The drawings were beautifully executed, not by himself,
I fancy, and by them he showed clearly the fluted
pillars of stone copied from faggots of osier, groined
arches from the slender shoots bent over and tied
together, buds originating ornaments ; a fanciful theory
maybe, yet with some show of reason in it.

Dr Hope was the professor of chemistry, an old
admirer of my aunt Mary's, and still the flutterer round
every new beauty that appeared. I preferred him to
Professor Leslie because he was clean, but not to
Professor Playfair ; he, old, ugly, and absent, was
charming, fond of the young who none of them feared
him, glad to be drawn away from his mathematical
difficulties to laugh over a tea-table with such as Jane
and me. We were favourites too with Dr Brewster,
who was particularly agreeable, and with John Clerk,
who called Jane, Euphrosyne, and with Mr Jeffrey with
whom we gradually came to spend a great deal of time.
I had Lord Buchan all to myself though, he cared for
no one else in the house. He lived very near us, and
came in most mornings in his shepherd's plaid, with his
long white hair flowing over his shoulders, to give me
lessons in behaviour. If he were pleased he would
bring out some curiosity from his pockets — a tooth of
Queen Mary's, a bone of James the Fifth — imaginary
relics he set great store by. How many flighty people
there were in Scotland ! Neither of his extraordinary
brothers quite escaped the taint. Lord Erskine and
Harry Erskine were both of them excited at times.
At a certain point judgment seems to desert genius.
Another friend I made this year who remembered to
ask about me very lately, Adam Hay, now Sir Adam.
He was Sir John Hay's third son when I knew him.
John died, Robert the handsome sailor was drowned, so
the baronetcy fell to Adam. Are not the memoirs of
the old a catalogue of the deaths of many who were
young with them ? Adam Hay tried to shake my

312 A VISIT FROM COLONEL D'ESTE [1817

integrity ; he advocated, as he thought, the cause of
his dearest friend, whose mother, dear excellent woman,
having died, their sophistry persuaded them so had my
promise. We had many grave conversations on a sad
subject, while people thought we were arranging our
matrimonial excursion. He told me I was blamed,
and I told him I must bear it ; I did add one day, it
was no easy burden, he should not seek to make it
heavier. His own sister, some time after this, succeeded
to my place; lovely and most lovable she was, and
truly loved I do believe. Adam Hay told me of it
when he first knew it, long afterwards, and I said, so
best ; yet the end was not yet.

We had a visitor this spring, Colonel d'Este, whom
we had not seen since the old Prince Augustus days.
He was as natural as ever, asked himself to dinner, and
talked of Ramsgate. He had not then given up his
claim to royalty, therefore there was a little skilful
arrangement on his part to avoid either assumption or
renunciation. He entered unannounced, my father
meeting him at the door and ushering him into the
room, my mother, and all the ladies on her hint, rising
till he begged them to be seated. Otherwise he con-
formed to common usage, and perhaps did not observe
that we had no finger-glasses ; which reminds me that
a year or two after when Prince Leopold was at
Kinrara, Lord Huntly, precise as he was, had forgotten
to mention to his servants that nobody ever washed
before royalty, and from the moment that this omission
struck him, he sat in such an agony as to be incapable
of his usual happy knack of keeping the ball going.
Luckily some of the Prince's attendants had an eye to
all, and stopped the offending crystals on their way.
I don't know what brought Colonel d'Este to Scotland
at that time of year, he was probably going to some of
his mother's relations in the west. I remember Lord
Abercrombie being asked to meet him, and after
accepting, he sent an apology; "an unavoidable
accident which happily would never be repeated " set us
all off on a train of conjectures wide of the truth, the

1817] A VISIT TO LAUDERDALE 313

newspapers next day announcing the marriage of this
grave elderly friend of my father's.

We left Sir John Hay's house in May; he was
coming to live in it himself with his pretty daughters ;
and we went for three months to the house of Mr Allan
the banker, in Charlotte Square, just while we should
be considering where to fix for a permanency. Mrs
Allan was ill, and was going to some watering-place,
and they were glad to have their house occupied.
Before we moved we paid two country visits, my father,
my mother, and I.

Our first visit was to Dunbar, Lord Lauderdale's, a
mere family party, to last the two or three days my
father and my Lord were arranging some political
matters. They were always brimful of party mysteries,
having a constant correspondence on these subjects.
My mother had so lectured me on the necessity of
being anything but myself on this startling occasion
that a fit of Kinrara feel came over me for the first
evening. I was so busy with the way I was to sit, and
the proper mode to speak the few words I was to say,
and the attention I was to pay to all the nods and
winks she was to give me, that a fit of shyness actually
came on, and my spirits were quite crushed by these
preliminaries and the curious state of the household we
fell upon. In the very large drawing-room in which the
family sat there was plenty of comfortable furniture,
including an abundance of easy-chairs set in a wide
circle around the fire. Before each easy-chair was
placed a stool rather higher than would have been
agreeable for feet to rest on, but quite suited to the
purpose it was prepared for — the kennel of a dog. I
don't know how many of these pets the Ladies Maitland
and their mother were provided with, but a black nose
peeped out of an opening in the side of every stool on
the entrance of a visitor, and the barking was incessant.
At this time four daughters were at home unmarried,
and two or three sons. One daughter was dead, and
one had disposed of herself some years before by
running away with poor, silly, and not wealthy Fraser

314 THE LAUDERDALE FAMILY [1817

of Torbreck, then quartered at Dunbar with the
regiment of militia in which he was a captain. This
proceeding of the Lady Anne quite changed the face of
affairs in her father's family.

Lord Lauderdale had rather late in his man-of-
fashion life married the only child of one Mr Antony
Tod, citizen of London ; pretty she had never been ;
she was a nice little painted doll when we knew her, a
cipher as to intellect, but her fortune had been very
large, and she was amiable and obedient, and her lord,
they said, became fond of her and of all the many
children she brought him. He was not vain, however,
either of her or of them, he had no reason ; so he kept
them all living in great retirement at Dunbar, never
taking any of them with him to town, nor allowing
them to visit either in Edinburgh or in their own
neighbourhood, till the elopement of Lady Anne, the
only beauty. From that sore time Lady Lauderdale
and her remaining daughters lived much more in
society. They had begun too to feel their own
importance, and to venture on opposing my Lord, for
Mr Tod was dead, and had left to each of his grand-
children, sons and daughters alike, £15,000; the rest to
his daughter for her life, with remainder to her eldest
son, Lord Maitland. To his son-in-law the Earl Mr
Tod left nothing. Here was power to the weaker side,
exerted, it was said, occasionally, but they were a
united happy family, fondly attached to each other.

The square Maitland face was not improved by the
Tod connection, though the family finances benefited
by it. Sons and daughters were alike plain in face and
short in person. Even Lady Anne, with her really
lovely countenance, was a dwarf in size and ill-propor-
tioned ; but there was a very redeeming expression
generally thrown over the flat features, and they had all
pleasant manners. The second day went off much
more agreeably than the first, although I had to bear
some quizzing on the subject of gambling, and my
horror of it. In the morning the young people drove,
rode, or walked ; before dinner the ladies worked a

1817] HIGH PLAY 315

little, netting purses and knotting bags ; the gentlemen
played with the dogs. All the evenings were spent at
cards, and such high play, brag and loo unlimited. It
was nothing for fifty or a hundred pounds to change
hands among them. I was quite ixrrified. My few
shillings, the first I had called my own for ages, given
me for the occasion in a new purse bought to hold them,
were soon gone at brag, under the management of
Captain Antony Maitland, R.N. He had undertaken to
teach me the game, of which I had no knowledge,
for we never saw cards at home except when a whist
table was made up for Belleville ; and as the eternal cry
" Anty 1 Anty ! " did not repair my losses, and I sturdily
refused to borrow, declining therefore to play, and
composing myself gravely to look on, they could hardly
keep their countenances ; my whole fortune was such a
trifle to them. It was not, however, my loss so much as
what my mother would say to it that disturbed me.
She was very economical in those little ways, and her
unwonted liberality upon this occasion would, I knew,
be referred to ever after as a bar to any further supplies,
the sum now given having been so squandered. I
sought her in her room before we went to bed to make
the confession, fully believing it had been a crime. The
thoughts of the whole scene make me laugh now, though
I slept all the better then on being graciously forgiven
" under the circumstances."

There was no company, only Sir Philip Dirom,
arranging his marriage settlements with Lord Lauder-
dale, the guardian of the bride, the heiress Miss
Henderson. He was a handsome man, gentlemanly,
and rather agreeable, not clever in the least, and very
vain. He had won honours in his profession — the navy
— and his latest acquisition, a diamond star of some
order, was the single object of his thoughts, after Miss
Henderson's acres. Lord Lauderdale laid a bet that
Sir Philip would not be two hours in the house without
producing it; nor was he. In the middle of dinner,
having dexterously turned the conversation on the
orders of knighthood, he sent the servant for it, sure, he

316 REMOVAL TO CHARLOTTE SQUARE [1817

said, that some of the ladies would like to see the pretty
bauble — one of the principal insignia of the Bath I
suppose it was. Lord Maitland received and handed
the little red case round with a mock gravity that
nearly upset the decorum of the company. How little,
when laughing at these foibles, did we foresee that the
vain knight's great-niece was to be my cousin Edmund's
wife, or fancy that he would be so kind, so generous, to
that thoughtless pair I

The other visit was only for the day. We did not
even sleep from home, but returned very late at night,
for Almondell was twelve miles good from Edinburgh.
Harry Erskine had added to a small cottage prettily
situated on the river from which he named his retire-
ment, and there, tired of politics, he wore away time
that I believe sometimes lagged with him, in such
country pursuits as he could follow on an income that
gave him little beyond the necessaries of life. He and
Mrs Erskine had no greater pleasure than to receive a
few friends to an early dinner ; they had a large
..connection, a choice acquaintance, and were in them-
selves so particularly agreeable that, company or no, a
few hours passed with them were always a treat.

In May we removed to Charlotte Square, a house I
found the most agreeable of any we had ever lived in in
Edinburgh ; the shrubbery in front, and the peep from
the upper windows at the back, of the Firth of Forth
with its wooded shores and distant hills, made the look-
out so cheerful. We were in the midst, too, of our
friends. We made two new acquaintance, the Wolfe
Murrays next door, and Sir James and Lady Henrietta
Ferguson in my father's old house, in which Jane and I
were born. Nothing could be pleasanter than our
sociable life. The gaiety was over, but every day
some meeting took place between us young people.
My mother's tea-table was, I think, the general
gathering point. In the mornings we made walking
parties, and one day we went to Rosslyn and Lasswade,
a merry company. Another day we spent at sea.

The Captain of the frigate lying in the roads

1817] JANE'S DEBUT 317

gallantly determined to make a return to Edinburgh for
all the attention Edinburgh had paid him. He invited
all left of his winter acquaintance to a breakfast and a
dance on board. We drove down to the pier at
Newhaven in large merry parties, where now the
splendid Granton pier shames its predecessors, and
there found boats awaiting us, such a gay little fleet,
manned by the sailors in their best suits, and we were
rowed quickly across the sparkling water, for it was
a beautiful day, and hoisted up upon the deck. There
an awning was spread, flags, etc., waving, a quadrille
and a military band all ready, and Jane, who was
in high good looks, soon took her place among the
dancers, having been engaged by the little monkey of a
middy who had piloted us over. The collation was
below, all along the lower deck ; we sat down to it at
four o'clock, and then danced on again till midnight,
plentifully served with refreshments hospitably pressed
upon us by our entertainers. Sailors are so hearty, and
every officer of the ship seemed to feel he had the part
of host to play. There never was a merrier ftte.

Jane always considered this her d£but. She was
nicely dressed, was very happy, much admired, and
danced so well. She and I were never dressed alike ;
indeed there was then so little resemblance between us
that probably the same style of dress would not have
become us. Her figure was not good, yet when any
one with better taste than herself presided at her
toilet, it could be made to look light and pleasing;
her complexion was not good either, at least the skin
was far from fair, but there was such a bright healthy
colour in her rounded cheek, and such a pair of deep
blue brilliant eyes, and such a rosy mouth which
laughter suited, two such rows of even pearls for teeth,
she well deserved her names, Euphrosyne and Hebe ;
and she was such a clever creature, had such a power of
conversation, without pedantry or blueism, it all flowed
so naturally from a well-stored head and warm honest
heart. The little middy's fancy was not the only one
she touched that day. We were, like the best bred of

318 GIRLS' DRESSES [1817

the company, in half dress, with frocks made half high
and with long sleeves. Jane's frock was abundantly
flounced, but it had no other trimming ; she wore a
white belt, and had a hanging bunch of lilacs with a
number of green leaves in her hair. My frock was
white too, but all its flounces were headed with pink
ribbon run through muslin, a pink sash, and all my load
of hair quite plain. A few unhappy girls were in full
dress, short sleeves, low necks, white satin shoes. Miss
Cochrane, the Admiral's daughter, was the most
properly dressed amongst us ; she was more accustomed
to the sort of thing. She wore a white well-frilled
petticoat, an open silk spenser, and a little Swiss hat,
from one side of which hung a bunch of roses. She and
the dress together conquered Captain Bailing; they
were married a few months after.

JANE.

[To face page SIS.

CHAPTER XVI
1817-1818

EARLY in July we moved to a large house in Picardy
Place, No. 8, with four windows in front, a great many
rooms all of a handsome size, and every accommodation,
as the advertisements say, for a family of distinction.
My father took a lease of it for three years, hiring the
furniture from Mr Trotter. It was a sad change to us
young people, down in the fogs of Leith, far from any
country walk, quite away from all our friends, and an
additional mile from Craigcrook too, measuring both
ways. We had got very intimate with Mr and Mrs
Jeffrey, Jane and I, and we had frequently from
Charlotte Square walked out to their beautiful old
place on Corstorphine Hill, spent the day there, and
returned late when any one was with us, earlier when
alone. Mr Jeffrey was enchanted with Jane, he had
never seen any girl like her ; he liked me too, but he
did not find me out till long after. He left me now
more to Mrs Jeffrey and their little Charlotte, a pretty
child in those days.

We had been at Craigcrook on a visit of some days,
and William had come out to walk home with us to
Picardy Place, looking strangely sad ; on the way he
told us there was very little hope of the life of Dr
Gordon. What a shock it was ! Our intimacy had
continued unbroken from the hour of our first acquaint-
ance, William and I more particularly having been
very much with him. He had got on in his profession
as he deserved to do, and had lately got a Chair in

Bid

320 FATHER IN IRELAND [1817

the University and a full class, and they had left the
old flat in Buccleuch Place in the Old Town off by the
Meadows, and lived in a nice house in Castle Street.
All was prospering with them, but he died. It was
some kind of fever he had neglected the first symptoms
of, and I believe he had injured himself by too exclusive
a meat diet. He was the first physician who had ever
tried checking a certain sort of consumptive tendency
by high feeding ; he had succeeded so well with patients
requiring this extra stimulus that he tried the plan on
himself. Deeply we lamented him; William felt the
loss most sincerely, nor did any other friend, I think,
ever replace him. Mrs Gordon was left with three
children, and only tolerably well off. She was unable
to remain in Castle Street. She therefore removed
soon to some place in Ayrshire, where there was good
and cheap education to be had for her boys. Gogar —
or some such name — her little boy, died ; so, I think,
did her pretty Jane.

We went late to the Highlands and stayed very
quietly there. Kinrara was deserted this season,
Belleville less gay than usual, and we did not go
to the Meeting. My mother was not in spirits, my
father was far away ; he went to Ireland to defend
some rebels, trials that made a great stir at the time,
being made quite a political battlefield. The junior
counsel was Erskine Sandford, the Bishop's son, who
went with us by the name of Portia, as it was his gown
Mrs Henry Siddons borrowed when she acted that
character ; it fitted her well, for he was only about her
size, and she did not look unlike him, as he was hand-
some, though so small. They were some weeks absent.
While in the north of Ireland my father took up his
quarters in the house of an old acquaintance, the
Marquis of Donegal, whose brother, Lord Spencer
Chichester, my mother was once expected to marry.
The Marquis was in some perplexity about his own
marriage; he was ultimately obliged to go to the
serious expense of having an Act of Parliament passed
to legalise it, the Marchioness having been under age

1817] RETURN TO PICARDY PLACE 321

at the time it was celebrated. She was a natural child,
so without a parent, consequently the Chancellor was her
guardian. She had been brought up, indeed adopted, by
a worthy couple somewhere in Wales ; they supposed
their consent sufficient, but it was not.

After a very short stay in the Highlands we all came
up to Picardy Place the end of October 1817, to meet
my father on his return from Ireland. We soon
settled ourselves in our spacious house, making our-
selves more really at home than we had hitherto felt
ourselves to be in town, having the certainty of no
removal for three years. Still we younger ones were
not soon reconciled to the situation, all our habits being
disturbed by the separation from the West End !
Three winters we spent here, none of them worthy of
particular note, neither indeed can I at this distance
of time separate the occurrences of each from the
others. The usual routine seemed to be followed in
all. My father and his new, very queer clerk, Mr Caw,
worked away in their law chambers till my father went
up to London late in spring. The second winter he
lost his seat for Grimsby, a richer competitor carried
all votes, and for a few months he was out of Parlia-
ment. How much better it would have been for him
had he remained out, stuck to the Bar, at which he
really might have done well had he not left ever so
many cases in the lurch when attending the House, at
which he made no figure. He spoke seldom, said little
when he did speak, and never in any way made himself
of consequence. Only once, when all his party censured
the Speaker, he made a little reputation by the polite
severity of his few words, called by Sir Alexander
Boswell his " bit of brimstone and butter," a witticism
that ran through all coteries, almost turning the laugh
against the really clever speech. He dined out every-
where with my mother while he was in Edinburgh, but
hardly ever went out in an evening. He seemed, from
his letters to my mother, to go a good deal into society
while he was in London, dining at Holland House,
Lord Lansdowne's, Lord Grey's, all the Whigs in fact,

x

322 EDINBURGH SOCIETY [1817-18

for he got into Parliament again. The Duke of
Bedford gave him Tavistock till one of his own sons
should be ready for it.

Five or six dinners, two small evening parties, and
one large one, a regular rout, paid my mother's debts
in the visiting line each winter. She understood the
management of company so well, every assembly of
whatever kind always went off admirably at her house.
We dined out a great deal, Jane and I taking the
dinners in turns. We both went out in the evenings
except when I could manage an escape, which was
easier than formerly, my mother having given me up
as a matrimonial speculation, and Jane really delighting
in society. We got into a rather graver set than
we had belonged to while in the sunshine of George
Street and Charlotte Square, not quite giving up our
gayer companions, but the distance from them was so
great our easy sociable intercourse was much broken.
In our own short street we knew only John Clerk, not
then a judge, and his truly agreeable sister Miss Bessy.
William, Jane and I half lived in their house. They
never gave a dinner without one of us being wanted to
fill the place of an apology, and none of us ever shirked
the summons, feeling so at home, and meeting always
such pleasant people ; all the law set of course, judges,
barristers, and writers ; some of the literary, some of
the scientific, and a great many county families. The
drawing-rooms — four of them — were just a picture
gallery, hung with paintings by the " ancient masters,"
some of them genuine ! There were besides portfolios
of prints, clever caricatures, and original sketches, these
last undoubted and very valuable. John Clerk was
a collector; a thousand curiosities were spread about.
He made more of his profession than any man at the
Bar, and with his ready money commanded the market
to a certain extent. The latest purchase was the
favourite always, indeed the only one worth possessing,
so that it almost seemed as if the enjoyment was in
the acquisition, not in the intrinsic merit of the object.
A hideous daub called a Rubens, a crowd of fat children

1817-18] JOHN CLERK OF ELDIN 323

miscalled angels, with as much to spare of " de quoi "
as would have supplied the deficiencies of the whole
cherubim, was the wonder of the world for ever so long ;
my wonder too, for if it was a Rubens it must have
been a mere sketch and never finished. I think I have
heard that at the sale of this museum on Lord Eldin's
death, a great many of his best-loved pictures were
acknowledged to be trash.

I did not like him ; the immorality of his private
life was very discreditable ; he was cynical too, severe,
very, when offended, though of a kindly nature in the
main. His talents there was no dispute about, though
his reputation certainly was enhanced by his eccen-
tricities and by his personal appearance, which was
truly hideous. He was very lame, one leg being much
shorter than the other, and his countenance, harsh and
heavy when composed, became demoniac when illumined
by the mocking smile that sometimes relaxed it. I
always thought him the personification of the devil
on two sticks, a living, actual Mephistopheles. He
spoke but little to his guests, uttering some caustic
remark, cruelly applicable, at rare intervals, treasured
up by everybody around as another saying of the wise
man's deserving of being written in gold, Eastern
fashion. When he did rouse up beyond this, his
exposition of any subject he warmed on was really
luminous, masterly, carried one away. The young
men were all frightened to death of him ; he did look
as if he could bite, and as if the bite would be deadly.
The young ladies played with the monster, for he was
very gentle to us.

In the Parliament House, as the Courts of Justice
are called in Scotland, he was a very tiger, seizing on
his adversary with tooth and nail, and demolishing him
without mercy, often without justice, for he was a true
advocate, heart and soul, right or wrong, in his client's
cause. Standing very upright on the long leg, half-a-
dozen pair of spectacles shoved up over his forehead,
his wickedest countenance on, beaming with energy, he
poured forth in his broad Scotch a torrent of flaming

324 CLERK IN PARLIAMENT HOUSE [1817-18

rhetoric too bewildering to be often successfully opposed.
There was a story went of his once having mistaken a
case, and so in his most vehement manner pleading on
the wrong side, the attorneys (called writers with us) in
vain whispering and touching and pulling, trying in
their agony every possible means of recalling his
attention. At last he was made to comprehend the
mischief he was doing, so he paused for breath, re-
adjusted his notes, probably never before looked at, held
out his hand for the spectacles his old fat clerk Mr
George had always a packet of ready, put them on,
shoved them up over all the series sent up before, and
then turning to the Judge resumed his address thus,
" Having now, my lord, to the best of my ability stated
my opponent's case as strongly as it is possible for even
my learned brother " — bowing to the opposite counsel
with a peculiar swing of the short leg — " to argue it, I
shall proceed point by point to refute every plea
advanced, etc., etc. " ; and so he did, amid a convulsion
of laughter. As a consulting lawyer he was calm and
clear, a favourite arbitrator, making indeed most of his
fees by chamber practice.

The sort of tart things he said at dinner were like
this. Some one having died, a man of birth and fortune
in the west country, rather celebrated during his life for
drawing pretty freely with the long-bow in conversation,
it was remarked that the heir had buried him with much
pomp, and had ordered for his remains a handsome
monument : " wi' an epitaph," said John Clerk in his
broadest Border dialect ; " he must hae an epitaph, an
appropriate epitaph, an' we'll change the exordium out
o' respect. Instead o' the usual Here lies, we'll begin
his epitaph wi' Here continues to lie? I wish I could
remember more of them ; they were scattered broad-
cast, and too many of them fell by the wayside. The
sister who lived with him and kept his house must
in her youth have been a beauty. Indeed she
acknowledged this, and told how to enhance it, she
had when about fifteen possessed herself of her
mother's patch-box, and not content with one or

1817-18] SIR ADAM FERGUSON 325

two black spots to brighten her complexion, had
stuck on a whole shower, and thus speckled, had
set out on a very satisfactory walk, every one she met
staring at her admiringly. A deal of such quiet fun
enlivened her conversation, adding considerably to the
attraction of a well-bred manner. She painted a little,
modelling in clay beautifully, sometimes finishing her
small groups in ivory. She was well read in French
and English classics, had seen much, suffered some, and
reflected a great deal. She was a most charming
companion, saying often in a few words what one could
think over at good length. She was very proud — the
Clerks of Eldin had every right so to be — and the
patronising pity with which she folded up her ancient
skirts from contact with the snobs, as we call them now,
whom she met and visited and was studiously polite to,
was often my amusement to watch. She never dis-
paraged them by a syllable individually, but she would
describe a rather fast family as " the sort of people you
never see in mourning," or " so busy trying to push
themselves into a place and not succeeding."

Sir Adam Ferguson was the son of the " Roman
Antiquities " ; another idler. He was fond in the
summer of walking excursions in two or three localities
where he had friends, in the Perthshire Highlands,
along the coasts of Fife and Forfar, and in the Border
country, the heights along the Tweed, etc. Mark the
points well. His acquaintance were of all ranks. He
had eyes, ears, observation of all kinds, a wonderful
memory, extraordinary powers of imitation, a pleasure
in detailing — acting, in fact — all that occurred to him.
He was the bosom friend of Walter Scott ; he and
William Clerk lived half their time with the great
novelist, and it was ungenerous in him and Mr Lock-
hart to have made so little mention of them in the
biography, for most undoubtedly Sir Adam Ferguson
was the " nature " from which many of those life-like
pictures were drawn. We, who knew all, recognised our
old familiar stories — nay, characters — and guessed the
rich source that had been so constantly drawn on.

326 SIR WALTER SCOTT [1817-18

Waverley came out, I think it must have been in
the autumn of 1814, just before we went first to Edin-
burgh. It was brought to us at the Doune, I know,
by "little Jemmy Simpson," as that good man, since
so famous, was then most irreverently called. Some
liked the book, he said ; he thought himself it was in
parts quite beyond the common run, and the deter-
mined mystery as to the author added much to its
vogue. I did not like it. The opening English
scenes were to me intolerably dull and lengthy, and
so prosy, and the persons introduced so uninteresting,
the hero contemptible, the two heroines unnatural
and disagreeable, and the whole idea given of the
Highlands so utterly at variance with truth. I read it
again long afterwards, and remained of the same
mind. Then burst out Guy Mannering, carrying all the
world before it, in spite of the very pitiful setting the
gipsies, the smugglers, and Dandie Dinmont are
surrounded by. Here again is the copyist, the scenery
Dumfries and Galloway, the dialect Forfar. People
now began to feel these works could come but from one
author, particularly as a few acres began to be added to
the recent purchase of the old tower of Abbotsford, and
Mrs Scott set up a carriage, a barouche landau built in
London, which from the time she got it she was seldom
out of.

I was never in company with Walter Scott ; he went
out very little, and when he did go he was not agreeable,
generally sitting very silent, looking dull and listless,
unless an occasional flash lighted up his countenance.
In his own house, he was another character, especially
if he liked his guests. It was odd, but Sir Walter never
had the reputation in Edinburgh he had elsewhere — was
not the lion, I mean. His wonderful works were looked
for, read with avidity, praised on all hands, yet the
author made far less noise at home than he did abroad.
The fat, vulgar Mrs Jobson, whose low husband had
made his large fortune at Dundee by pickling herrings,
on being congratulated at the approaching marriage of
her daughter to Sir Walter Scott's son, said the young

1817-18] OTHER FRIEN7DS 327

people were attached, otherwise her Jane might have
looked higher ; " it was only a baronetcy, and quite a
late creation."

Another family in the Clerks' set and ours were the
Dalzels ; they lived in a small house just behind Picardy
Place, in Albany or Forth Street. They were a
Professor's widow, her sister, and her sons and
daughters, reduced in the short space of a few years to
the one son and one daughter who still survive. Mary
Dalzel played well on the pianoforte; there was no
other talent among them. The Professor had been a
learned but a singularly simple man. He had been
tutor to either Lord Lauderdale or his eldest son, and they
had a story of him which Lady Mary told us, that at
dinner at Dunbar — a large party — a guest alluding to
the profligacy of some prominent political character, Mr
Dalzel broke in with, (< There has not been such a
rogue unhanged since the days of the wicked Duke of
Lauderdale."

In York Place we had only the old Miss Pringles,
chiefly remarkable for never in the morning going out
together — always different ways, that when they met at
dinner there might be more to say; and Miss Kate
Sinclair ; and two families which, all unguessed by us,
were destined to have such close connection with us
hereafter, Mrs Henry Siddons and the Gibson Craigs.
Mrs Siddons was now a widow, living with her two very
nice daughters and her two charming little boys, quietly
as became her circumstances. She acted regularly, as
main prop of the theatre on which the principal part of
her income depended. She went a little into society.
She had pleasure in seeing her friends in a morning in
her own house, and the friends were always delighted to
go to see her, she was so very agreeable. The girls
were great friends of my sister Mary's ; the little boys
were my mother's passion, they were with us for ever,
quite little pets. The Gibsons, who were not Craigs
then, we got more intimate with after they moved to
a fine large house Mr Gibson was building in Picardy
Place when we went there. There were two sons, and

328 WILLIE GUMMING [1817-18

seven daughters of every age, all of them younger than
the brothers.

Jane and I added to our private list of so-called
friends Mr Kennedy of Dunare, whose sister wrote
Father Clement, whose mother, beautiful at eighty, was
sister to the mother of Lord Brougham, who himself
married Sir Samuel Romilly's daughter and held for
many years a high situation here in Ireland ; Archy
Alison, now Sir Archibald, heavy, awkward, plain, and
yet foredoomed to greatness by the united testimony of
every one sufficiently acquainted with him ; his father,
one of the Episcopal chaplains and author of a work on
Taste, had married Mrs Montague's Miss Gregory, so
there was celebrity on all sides.

It was a great addition to the quiet home society we
were beginning to prefer to the regular gaiety, the
having Mrs Gumming settled near us. Her two elder
sons had already gone out to India, Alexander in the
Civil Service, Robert in the Artillery, both to Bengal.
The three younger it was necessary to educate better,
as it was gradually becoming more difficult to get
passed through the examinations, and all were destined
for the East. George and Willie, intended for army
surgeons, were to study medicine, and were also to have
their manners formed by appearing occasionally in
society. Willie made his entrance into fashionable
life at a large evening party of my mother's. He was
a handsome lad, very desirous of being thought a beau,
so he dressed himself in his best carefully, and noticing
that all the fine young men were scented, he provided
himself with a large white cotton pocket-handkerchief
of his mother's which he steeped in peppermint water,
a large bottle of this useful corrective always standing
on the chimney-piece in her room. Thus perfumed,
and hair and whiskers oiled and curled, Willie, in a
flutter of shyness and happiness, entered our brilliant
drawing-room, when he was pounced on by Miss
Shearer, the very plain sister of Mrs James Grant, an
oldish woman of no sort of fashion and cruelly marked
with the smallpox. " We'll keep together, Willie," said

1817-18] LADY LOGIE'S HOUSEKEEPING 329

Miss Shearer, at every attempt of poor Willie's to shake
himself clear of such an encumbrance in the crowd.
How Dr Gumming laughed at these recollections when
he and I met again after a lifetime's separation ! Up
and down this ill-assorted pair paraded, Miss Shearer
determined to show off her beau. " There's an extra-
ordinary smell of peppermint here," said Lord Erskine
to Mrs Henry Siddons, as the couple turned and
twirled round to pass them, Willie flourishing the large
pocket-handkerchief in most approved style. It was
really overpowering, nor could we contrive to get rid
of it, nor to detect the offending distributor of such
pharmaceutical perfume, till next day, talking over the
party with the Lady Logic, she enlightened us, more
amused herself by the incident than almost any of the
rest of us.

She was right to keep the bottle of peppermint
where it could easily be found, as the sort of house-
keeping she practised must have made a frequent appeal
to it necessary. She bought every Saturday a leg of
mutton and a round of beef; when the, one was finished,
the other was begun ; the leg was roasted, the round was
boiled, and after the first day they were eaten cold, and
served herself, her daughter, her two sons, and her two
maid-servants the week ; there were potatoes, and in
summer cabbage, and peas that rattled, in winter
oranges, and by the help of the peppermint the family
throve. We never heard of illness among them ; the
minds expanded too, after their own queer fashion, even
George, the most eccentric of human beings, doing
credit to the rearing. He was so very singular in his
ways, his mother was really uncertain about his getting
through the College of Surgeons. She made cautious
inquiries now and then as to his studies, attention to
lectures, notes of them, visits to the hospital, preparation
for his thesis and so on, and getting unsatisfactory
replies, grew very fidgety. One day one of the medical
examiners stopped her in the street to congratulate her
on the admirable appearance made by her son George
when he was passed at Surgeons' Hall ; his answers had

330 CLASSES FOR THE HARP [1818

been remarkable, and his thesis, dedicated to my father,
had been No. 2 or 3 out of fifty. She was really
amazed. "George," said she, when they met, "when
did you get your degree? When did you pass your
trials ? " " Eh ! " said George, looking up with his most
vacant expression. " Oh, just when I was ready for
them." " You never told me a word about it." " No ?
Humph ! you'd have heard fast enough if I'd failed."
That was all she could get out of him ; but he told us,
that seeing the door of the Surgeons' Hall open and
finding it was an examining day, it struck him that he
would go in and get the job over; it was very easy
to pass, he added. He has since at Madras risen
high in his profession, been twice publicly thanked
for his care of the troops, made money, married a
wife; yet when he was at home on furlough he acted
more like Dominie Sampson than any other character
ever heard of.

We had an odd family party sometimes — a Carr, a
Goodchild, a Gillio, and Grace Baillie who thrice a week
at least walked in at dinner-time. My brothers' young
men's friends continued popping in morning and eve-
ning, when it suited them. Mary, now grown into a
very handsome girl, did her part well in all home
company. Johnnie also was made a little man of; he
had a tutor for Latin, attended the French and draw-
ing classes, read English History with Jane. We
had given up all masters except the Italian and the
harp, which last taught us in classes, and thereby hangs
a tale.

Monsieur Elouis, the harp master, charged so much
for his private lessons, that my mother suggested to
him to follow the Edinburgh fashion of classes at so
much a quarter, three lessons a week. He made quite
a fortune. There were eight pupils in a class, the lesson
lasting two hours. We three, the two Hunters, Grace
Stein (afterwards Lady Don), Amelia Gillio and
Catherine Inglis were his best scholars. We played
concerted pieces doubling the parts, choruses arranged
by him, and sometimes duets or solos, practising in

1818] AN INTRUDER 331

other rooms. The fame of our execution spread over
the town, and many persons entreated permission to
mount up the long common stair to the poor French-
man's garret to listen to such a number of harps played
by such handsome girls. One or two of the mammas
would have had no objection, but my mother and Lady
Hunter would not hear of their daughters being part of
an exhibition. We went there to learn, not to show off.
Miss Elphick, too, had her own ideas upon the subject.
She always went with us, and was extremely annoyed
by the group of young men so frequently happening to
pass down the street just at the time our class dispersed,
some of them our dancing partners, so that there were
bows and speeches and attendance home, much to her
disgust. She waited once or twice till the second class
assembled, but the beaux waited too. So then she
carried us all off a quarter of an hour too soon, leaving
our five companions to their fate ; and this not
answering long, she set to scold M. Elouis, and called
the Edinburgh gentlemen all sorts of names. In the
midst of her season of wrath the door of our music room
opened one day, and a large fine-looking military man,
braided and belted and moustached, entered and was
invited to be seated. Every harp was silent.
" Mesdemoiselles," said M. Elouis with his most polished
air of command, "recommence if you please; this
gentleman is my most particular friend, a musical
amateur, etc." Miss Elphick was all in a flame ; up she
rose, up she made us rise, gather our music together
and driving us and Amelia Gillio before her, we were
shawled and bonneted in less time than I am writing
of it, and on our way downstairs before poor Monsieur
had finished his apologies to the officer and the other
young ladies. Never was little woman in such a
fury. We never returned to the harp classes,
neither did the Hunters, and very soon they were
given up. It was certainly an unwarrantable liberty,
an impertinence, and the man must either have been
totally unaware of the sort of pupils he was to find,
or else an ill-bred ignorant person. Poor Elouis never

332 MUSIC AT HOME [1818

recovered the mistake ; he had to leave for want of
business.

Mr Loder brought an opera company with him, and
gave, not whole operas — he had not strength enough
for that — but very well got-up scenes from several most
in favour. It was a most agreeable variety in a place
where public amusements were but scantily supplied to
the inhabitants. We had De Begnis and his wife, and
scenes from Figaro, Don Giovanni, etc. ; the rest of
the artists were very fair, but I forget their names.
Going into a music shop we saw on the counter two
numbers of a new work — the opera of Don Juan
arranged for two performers on the pianoforte ; the
first attempt in a kind that had such success, and that
brought good music within the power of the family
circle. We secured our prize, Jane and I, hurried
home, tried the first scena, were delighted, gave a
week to private, very diligent study, and when we had
it all by heart, the first afternoon my father came up
to spend the gloaming napping in an easy-chair, we
arrested his sleepy fit by " Notte e giorno," to his
amazement. He liked our opera better, I think, than
" Sul margine d'un rio," or " Ninetta cara," for we had
so lately heard all the airs we played that we were
quite up to the proper style, and had ourselves all the
desire in the world to give the music we loved the
expression intended by our then favourite composer,
Mozart.

Edinburgh did not afford much public amusement.
Except these operas which were a chance, a stray
concert now and then — catches and glees being the
most popular — and the six Assemblies, there were
none other. The Assemblies were very ill attended,
the small room never half full, the large, which held
with ease twelve hundred people, was never entered
except upon occasion of the Caledonian Hunt Ball,
when the members presented the tickets, and their
friends graciously accepted the free entertainment.
The very crowded dances at home, inconvenient,
troublesome and expensive as they were, seemed to

1818] ASSEMBLY BALLS 333

be more popular than those easy balls, where for five
shillings we had space, spring, a full orchestra, and
plenty of light refreshments. I heard afterwards that
as private houses became more fully and handsomely
furnished, the fashion of attending the Assemblies
revived.

CHAPTER XVII
1818-1819

THE first summer we were in Picardy Place, 1818, we
girls remained there protected by Miss Elphick during
the whole of it. When the fine weather came on in
spring we had resumed our excursions to Craigcrook,
and it was then we got so intimate with Basil Hall.
We could not have been acquainted with him while
we lived in George Street, because he only returned
from his Loo Choo cruise late in the autumn of 1817.
During the following winter we saw a good deal of him
both before he went to London, and after they had
tried to spoil him there, for he was made such a wonder
of there, it was a miracle his head kept steady ; but it
was at Craigcrook that we became such friends. Cruel
Lord Jeffrey limited his two young favourites to friend-
ship; he forbid any warmer feelings, closeting Jane
in his pretty cabinet, and under the shades of the wood
on Corstorphine Hill, to explain all the family par-
ticulars. And then Basil went off to sea.

The Jeffreys generally went out on Friday evenings,
or, at any rate, on Saturdays, to a late dinner at
Craigcrook, and came back to town on Monday
morning, till the I2th of July released him from law
labours. Jane and I frequently went with them, some-
times for only one day, returning in the evening. We
never met any lady there but Mrs George Russell
occasionally; a clever woman, not to my mind agree-
able. The men were John Murray, now and then his
elder brother, Tommy Thomson, Robert Graeme, Mr

884

1818] AT CRAIGCROOK 335

Fullerton till he married, William Clerk very seldom,
Mr Cockburn always, John Jeffrey, the Moreheads now
and then, chance celebrities, and a London friend at
intervals. It was not a big- wig set at all. My father,
Lord Gillies, and such-like dignitaries would have been
quite out of place in this rather riotous crew ; indeed,
the prevailing free-and-easy tone did not altogether
suit me. Individually, almost all of our party were
agreeable, cleverly amusing. Collectively, there was
far too much boisterous mirth for my taste. I preferred
being with Mrs Jeffrey, that naturally charming woman,
not then by any means sufficiently appreciated by
those so much her inferiors. She and I spent our time
gardening — she was a perfect florist — playing with
little Charlotte, to whom all my old nursery tales and
songs were new, preparing for the company, and
chattering to each other. My gentlemen friends were
William Murray of Henderland, and Robert Graeme
of Lynedoch; they used to find Mrs Jeffrey and me
out when we were weeding our borders, and often carry
us off up the hill, Jane remaining queen of the bowling-
green. How much she was admired by all those
clever heads !

The dinners were delightful, so little form, so much
fun, real wit sometimes, and always cheerfulness; the
windows open to the garden, the sight and the scent
of the flowers heightening the flavour of repasts
unequalled for excellence; wines, all our set were
famous for having of the best and in startling variety —
it was a mania; their cellars and their books divided
the attention of the husband ; the wife, alas ! was more
easily satisfied with the cookery. Except in a real
old-fashioned Scotch house, where no dish was attempted
that was not national, the various abominations served
up as corner dishes under French names were merely
libels upon housekeeping. Mrs Jeffrey presented nothing
upon her table but what her cook could dress ; her
home-fed fowl and home-made bread, and fine cream
and sweet butter, and juicy vegetables, all so good,
served so well, the hot things hot, the fruits cream, and

336 PROPER BEHAVIOUR [1818

butter so cold, gave such a feeling of comfort every one
got good-humoured, even cranky William Clerk. They
were bright days, those happy summer days at
Craigcrook.

Another country house we were very much in was
one the Gibsons had a lease of, Woodside. It was six
miles from town, a good ride. We went out early,
stayed all day, and came back in the cool of the
summer evening. They were kind people, the father
and mother very little in our way, the sons not much,
the seven daughters of all ages our great friends. Mrs
Kaye and Jane drew most together, Cecilia and I ; the
little ones were pets, and very pretty ones.

In August my father and mother and William went
to the Highlands. Johnnie accompanied M. L'Espinasse
to France. The little monkey had a turn for languages,
was making good progress in French, so as a reward
this pleasant trip was arranged for him. We three
young ladies were left to amuse ourselves and Miss
Elphick. We were so quiet, so orderly, so very correct
in our whole conduct during the absence of the heads
of the family, that on their return my father was
addressed in the Parliament House by our opposite
neighbour, a writer who lived on a flat, a second storey,
high enough for good observation, and assured by him
of the perfect propriety of our behaviour.

In the early part of the Edinburgh summers a good
many very pleasant, quiet parties went on among such
of us as had to remain in town till the Courts rose in
July. I remember several agreeable dinners at this
season at the Arbuthnots, foreigners generally bringing
their introductions about this time of year. At the
Brewsters they had foreigners sent to them too, and
they entertained them now, not in the flat where we
first found them, but in their own house in Athole
Crescent newly built out of the profits of the Kaleido-
scope, a toy that was ridiculously the rage from its
humble beginning in the tin tube with a perforated card
in the end, to the fine brass instrument set on a stand,
that was quite an ornament to the drawing-room. Had

1818] MRS SIDDONS1 RETURN TO STAGE 337

Sir David managed matters well, this would have
turned out quite a fortune to him ; he missed the
moment and only made a few thousand pounds ; still
they gave him ease, and that was a blessing. The little
dinners at his house were always pleasant. She was
charming, and they selected their guests so well and
were so particularly agreeable themselves, I don't
remember anywhere passing more thoroughly enjoyable
evenings than at their house. He was then, and is
still, not only among the first of scientific men, but in
manners and conversation utterly delightful ; no such
favourite anywhere as Sir David Brewster, except at
home or with any one engaged with him in business ;
nobody ever had dealings with him and escaped a
quarrel. Whether he were ill, the brain over-worked
and the body thus over-weighted, or whether his wife
did not understand him, or did not know and exert
herself, there is no saying.

I think it was about the May or June of this year
that old Mrs Siddons returned to the stage for twelve
nights to act for the benefit of her grandchildren.
Henry Siddons was dead, leaving his affairs in much
perplexity. He had purchased the theatre and never
made it a paying concern, although his wife acted
perseveringly, and all the Kemble family came regularly
and drew good houses. His ordinary company was not
good ; he was a stick himself, and he would keep the
best parts for himself, and in every way managed badly.
She did better after his death ; her clever brother
William Murray conducting affairs much more wisely
for her, and certainly for himself in the end, slow as she
was in perceiving this. Some pressing debts, however,
required to be met, and Mrs Siddons came forward.
We were all great play-goers, often attending our own
poor third-rates, Mrs Harry redeeming all else in our
eyes, and never missing the stars, John and Charles
Kemble, Young, Listen, Mathews, Miss Stephens, etc.
But to see the great queen again we had never dreamed
of. She had taken leave of the stage before we left
London. She was little changed, not at all in appear-

Y

338 LISTON [1819

ance, neither had her voice suffered ; the limbs were
just hardly stifFer, more slowly moved rather, therefore
in the older characters she was the finest, most natural ;
they suited her age. Queen Katherine she took leave
in. To my dying hour I shall never forget the trial
scene ; the silver tone of her severely cold " My Lord
Cardinal," and then on the wrong one starting up, the
scorn of her attitude, and the outraged dignity of the
voice in which she uttered "To You I speak." We
were breathless. Her sick-room was very fine too.
Then her Lady Macbeth, Volumnia, Constance — ah !
no such acting since, for she was nature, on stilts in her
private life. " Bring me some beer, boy, and another
plate," is a true anecdote, blank verse and a tragic tone
being her daily wear.

Once when Liston was down I longed to see him in
Lubin Log ; for some reason I could not manage it, and
Mrs Harry let me go to her private box. He had been
Tony Lumpkin in the play, and we were talking him
over, waiting for his appearance in the farce. " I have
heard," said I, " of his giving a look with that queer face
of his, not uttering a word, yet sending people into
convulsions of laughter not to be checked whilst he
remained in sight." " Hush," said Mrs Harry, " here he
comes." Enter Lubin from the coach with all his
parcels. Between his first two inquiries for his
" numbrella" and his "'at" he threw up at our hidden
box, at me, the look — perfectly over-setting ; there never
could be such another grotesque expression of fun since
the days of fauns and satyrs, and when composure in a
degree returned, a sly twinkle of one squinting eye, or
the buck tooth interrupting a smile, or some indescrib-
able secret sign of intelligence, would reach us and set
us off again. We were ill with laughing. He played
that whole farce to us, to Mrs Harry and me, and every
one agreed he had surpassed himself.

The early part of the next summer, 1819, passed
much in the same way as the one before ; sociable small
parties among our friends in town, and visits to those in
the country ; messages to the Abbey of course, and we

1819] JOHNNIE GOES TO ETON 339

were always the messengers. My mother was very
careful of the servants ; Johnnie declared that one
extremely rainy day when it was proper the Newcastle
Chronicle should be returned to Mrs General Maxwell,
my mother called out to him, " Johnnie, my dear, I wish
you would run to George Street with this ; it's such a
dreadful day I don't like sending out poor Richard " — a
colossus of a footman, weighing heavier every day from
having nothing to do. Poor Johnnie ! this very spring
he maybe thought with regret of even Mrs Maxwell's
newspaper, for my father took him up to town and sent
him to Eton. They first paid a visit to the electors of
Tavistock, and on their way spent a day with Dugald
Stewart, who lived then near the Duke of Bedford's
cottage at Endsleigh. The old philosopher predicted
the boy's future eminence, although we at home had
not seen through his reserve. He was idle, slow, quiet,
passing as almost stupid beside his brilliant brother.
" Take care of that boy, Grant," said Dugald Stewart at
their parting ; " he will make a great name for himself,
or I am much mistaken." And has he not ? Quiet he
has remained, Indolent too, and eccentric, but in his own
field of action who is his parallel ? My mother and I
thought of no honourable future when our pet left us.
We watched him from the window, stepping into the
travelling chariot after my father in the new greatcoat
that had been made for him, the little tearful face not
daring to venture a last glance back to us. He was
small of his age, and from being the youngest he was
childish. We did not see him for sixteen months. He
came back to us an Eton boy ; how much those three
small words imply ! My poor mother, I can understand
now the sob with which she threw herself back upon the
sofa, exclaiming, " I have lost my Johnnie ! " His
cousin John Frere went to Eton at the same time, and
our John spent all short holidays at Hampstead, only
coming home to the Highlands once a year in the
summer. The two cousins remained attached friends
ever, and though widely separated, never lost sight of
one another till poor John Frere died.

340 MISS ELPHICK'S GRIEF [1819

General N had returned home very soon after

his marriage to our dear Annie. They had settled
amidst his rich relations near Nottingham, who had all
received her most kindly. We heard from her constantly
and were always planning to meet, yet never managed
it. My father had seen her with her two nice little
boys, and found her perfectly happy; her general no
genius, but an excellent man.

I cannot recollect much else that is worthy of note
before our little tour upon the Continent. We set out
in August, and were two months and a half away. My
father was not inclined for such a movement at all, it
was probably very inconvenient to the treasury, but my
mother had so set her heart upon it, he, as usual, good-
naturedly gave way. Johnnie was to spend his holidays
with the Freres. Miss Elphick went to the Kirkman
Finlays; her parting was quite a dreadful scene,
screams, convulsions, sobs, hysterics. The poor woman
was attached to some of us, and had of late been much
more agreeable to the rest ; but she was a plague in the
house, did a deal of mischief, and was no guide, no help.
She had been seven years with us, so there was a chain
of habit to loosen at any rate.

CHAPTER XVIII
1820-1822

THE length of time that has passed since we made this
pleasant little tour in the Netherlands has caused
forgetfulness of a thousand details which always add so
much to the interest of any account of the first impres-
sions of a foreign country. In talking over our travels
with our good friend Miss Bessy Clerk, we used to keep
her laughing by the hour at several of our adventures.
This winter in Edinburgh was our last, passed much as
other winters ; the same law dinners before Christmas,
the same balls after it. My mother was very kind to
me and did not press me to go out. Jane, who
delighted in company, and who was the most popular
young lady in our society, was quite pleased to have
most of the visiting. I was a good deal with Miss
Clerk and the Jeffreys and the Brewsters, at whose
house one day at a quiet dinner I met Sir John Hay
and his daughter Elizabeth, looking so very pretty in
the mourning she wore for her betrothed. He had died
of quinsy while on circuit at Aberdeen the year before.
She afterwards married Sir David Hunter Blair.

There were serious riots in the West country this
spring of 1820, the yeomanry called out, troops sent to
Glasgow — a serious affair while it lasted. Jane was out
at dinner, my mother was reading to me, when with a
grand fuss in came William Gibson to tell us the strife
was over, and to show himself in all the bravery of his
yeomanry uniform ; very handsome it was. He and I

841

342 AN EXECUTION IN THE HOUSE [1820

had fallen out before we went abroad, and we never
rightly fell in again. He was a little spoiled, known to
be the heir of his wealthy father and still wealthier
cousin, Mr Craig of Riccarton ; the idea, therefore, of
his studying for the Bar struck us all as absurd. Of
course he did not spend much time on his law books,
and his father determined to send him to travel. My
father and mother were sorry to see him go ; he was a
favourite, and has turned out so as fully to justify their
partiality.

There were many public rejoicings although private
affairs had been gathering gloom. The old Queen
Charlotte had died and George 1 1 1. ditto. The Princess
Charlotte had married and had died with her baby, and
this had set all her royal uncles upon marrying to
provide heirs to the throne. One after the other
German princesses came over, and in this year began
the births, to the supposed delight of a grateful country
We had long tiresome mournings and then the joy-bells
— the old tale. But there were other losses more felt.
Madame de Stael died, to the regret of Europe. We
had heard so much of her through the Mackintoshes
that we almost fancied her an acquaintance. I think
the Duke of York must have died too, and Mrs Canning
— but maybe this was later. I am confused about
dates, having never made any memoranda to guide me.
Altogether my recollections of these few last months in
Edinburgh are rather confused and far from pleasant.

One morning my mother sent Jane and Mary with
a message to the poor Carrs in the Abbey ; William
was out elsewhere ; most of the servants were despatched
on errands ; and then, poor woman, she told me there
was to be an execution in the house, and that I must
help her to ticket a few books and drawings as belonging
to the friends who had lent them to us. We had hardly
finished when two startling rings announced the arrival
of a string of rude-looking men, who proceeded at once
to business, however, with perfect civility, although their
visit could not have been satisfactory, inasmuch as

1820] AN AWAKENED CONSCIENCE 343

nothing almost was personal property ; the furniture
was all hired, there was no cellar, very little plate. The
law library and the pianoforte were the most valuable
items of the short catalogue. I attended them with the
keys, and certainly they were very courteous, not going up
to the bedrooms at all, nor scrutinising anywhere very
closely. When they were gone we had a good fit of
crying, my mother and I, and then she told me for
the first time of our difficulties as far as she herself
knew them, adding that her whole wish now was to retire
to the Highlands ; for, disappointed as she had been in
every way, she had no wish to remain before the public
eye nor to continue an expensive way of living evidently
beyond our circumstances. How severely I reflected on
myself for having added to her griefs, for I had consider-
ably distressed her by my heartless flirtations, entered
on purposely to inflict disappointment. The guilt of
such conduct now came upon me as a blow, meriting
just as cruel a punishment as my awakening conscience
was giving me ; for there was no help, no cure for the
past, all remaining was a better line of conduct for the
future, on which I fully determined, and, thank God,
lived to carry out, and so in some small degree atone
for that vile flippancy which had hurt my own character
and my own reputation while it tortured my poor
mother. I don't now take all the blame upon myself;
I had never been rightly guided. The relations between
mother and daughter were very different then from what
they are now. Our mother was very reserved with us,
not watchful of us, nor considerate, nor consistent. The
governess was an affliction. Thought would have
schooled me ; but I never thought till this sad day ; then
it seemed as if a veil fell from between my giddy spirits
and real life, and the lesson I read began my education.
Mary had also grieved my poor mother a little by
refusing uncle Edward's invitation to India ; Jane, by
declining what were called good marriages ; William, by
neglecting his law studies. A little more openness with
kindness might have done good to all ; tart speeches

344 RETURN TO THE HIGHLANDS [isao

and undue fault-finding will put nothing straight, ever.
We had all suffered from the fretfulness without
knowing what had caused the ill-humour. It was easy
to bear and easy to soothe once it was understood. We
were all the happier after we knew more of the truth of
our position.

It was easy to get leave to spend the summer in
Rothiemurchus ; it was impossible to persuade my
father that he had lost his chance of succeeding at the
Scotch Bar. He took another house in Great King
Street, removing all the furniture and his law books into
it, as our lease of No. 8 Picardy Place was out. My
mother, who had charge of the packing, put up and
carried north every atom that was our own. She had
made up her mind to return no more, though she said
nothing after the new house was taken. Had she been
as resolute earlier it would have been better ; perhaps
she did not know the necessity of the case ; and then
she and we looked on the forest as inexhaustible, a
growth of wealth that would last for ever and retrieve
any passing difficulties, with proper management. This
was our sunny gleam.

In July then, 1820, we returned to the Highlands,
which for seven years remained the only home of the
family. My mother resisted all arguments for a return to
Edinburgh this first winter, and they were never again
employed. She had begun to lose her brave heart, to
find out how much more serious than she had ever
dreamed of had become the difficulties in which my
father was involved, though the full amount of his debts
was concealed for some time longer from her and the
world. Some sort of trust-deed was executed this
summer, to which I know our cousin lame James Grant,
Glenmoriston's uncle, was a party. William was to give
up the Bar, and devote himself to the management of
the property, take the forest affairs into his own hands,
Duncan Macintosh being quite invalided, and turn
farmer as well, having qualified himself by a residence
of some months in East Lothian at a first-rate practical
farmer's, for the care of the comparatively few acres

WILLIAM.

[To face page 344.

1830] FARM MANAGEMENT 345

round the Doune. My father was to proceed as usual ;
London and the House in spring, and such improvements
as amused him when at home.

My mother did not enjoy a country life ; she had
therefore the more merit in suiting herself to it. She
had no pleasure in gardening or in wandering through
that beautiful scenery, neither had she any turn for
schools, nor " cottage comforts," nor the general care of
her husband's people, though in particular instances she
was very kind ; nor was she an active housekeeper.
She ordered very good dinners, but as general overseer
of expenditure she failed. She liked seeing her hanks
of yarn come in and her webs come home ; but whether
she got back all she ought from what she sent, she
never thought of. She had no extravagant habits, not
one ; yet for want of supervision the waste in all depart-
ments of the household was excessive. Indolently
content with her book, her newspaper, or her work, late
up and very late to bed, a walk to her poultry-yard,
which was her only diversion, was almost a bore to her,
and a drive with my father in her pretty pony carriage
quite a sacrifice. Her health was beginning to give way
and her spirits with it.

William was quite pleased with the change in his
destiny. He was very active in his habits, by no means
studious, and he had never much fancied the law. Farm-
ing he took to eagerly, and what a farmer he made. They
were changed times to the Highland idlers : the whole
yard astir at five o'clock in the morning, himself perhaps
the first to pull the bell, a certain task allotted to every
one, hours fixed for this work, days set apart for that,
method pursued, order enforced. It was hard, uphill
work, but even to tidiness and cleanliness it was
accomplished in time. He overturned the old system a
little too quickly, a woman would have gone about the
requisite changes with more delicacy ; the result,
however, justified the means. There was one stumbling-
block in his way, a clever rogue of a grieve, a handsome
well-mannered man, a great favourite, who blinded even
William by his adroit flatteries. He came from Ayr-

346 FOREST MANAGEMENT [1820

shire, highly recommended by I forget whom, and
having married Donald Maclean the carpenter's pretty
daughter, called Jane after my mother, he had a strong
back of connections all disposed to be favourable to him.
He was gardener as well as grieve, for George Ross was
dead, and he was really skilful in both capacities.

The forest affairs were at least equally improved by
such active superintendence, although the alterations
came more by degrees. I must try and remember all
that was done there, and in due order if possible. First,
the general felling of timber at whatever spot the men
so employed found it most convenient to them to put an
axe to a marked tree, was put a stop to. William made
a plan of the forest, divided it into sections, and as far
as was practicable allotted one portion to be cleared
immediately, enclosed by a stout fencing, and then left
to nature, not to be touched again for fifty or sixty
years. The ground was so rich in seed that no other
course was necessary. By the following spring a
carpet of inch-high plants would be struggling to rise
above the heather, in a season or two more a thicket of
young firs would be .found there, thinning themselves as
they grew, the larger destroying all the weaker. Had
this plan been pursued from the beginning there would
never have been an end to the wood of Rothiemurchus.
The dragging of the felled timber was next systematised.
The horses required were kept at the Doune, sent out
regularly to their work during the time of year they
were wanted, and when their business was done
employed in carting deals to Forres, returning with
meal sufficient for the consumption of the whole place,
or to Inverness to bring back coals and other stores for
the house. The little bodies and idle boys with ponies
were got rid of. The mills also disappeared. One by
one these picturesque objects fell into disuse. A large
building was erected on the Druie near its junction with
the Spey, where all the sawing was effected. A coarse
upright saw for slabbing, that is, sawing off the outsides
or backs of the logs, and several packs of saws which cut
the whole log up at once into deals, were all arranged in

1820] THE NEW SAW-MILL 347

the larger division of the mill. A wide reservoir of
water held all the wood floated or dragged to the
inclined plane up which the logs were rolled as wanted.
When cut up, the backs were thrown out through one
window, the deals through another, into a yard at the
back of the mill, where the wood was all sorted and
stacked. Very few men and as many boys got easily
through the work of the day. It was always a busy
scene and a very exciting one, the great lion of the
place, strangers delighting in a visit to it. The noise
was frightful, but there was no confusion, no bustle, no
hurry. Every one employed had his own particular
task, and plenty of time and space to do it in.

The smaller compartment of the great mill was
fitted up with circular saws for the purpose of preparing
the thinnings of the birch woods for herring-barrel
staves. It was a mere toy beside its gigantic neigh-
bour, but a very pretty and a very profitable one, above
;£iooo a year being cleared by this manufacture of what
had hitherto been valueless except as fuel. This
circular saw-mill had been the first erected. It was
planned by my father and William the summer they
went north with my mother and left us girls in
Edinburgh. The large mill followed, and was but just
finished as we arrived, so that it was not in the working
order I have described till some months later. An
oddity, Urquhart Gale, imported a few years before, had
entire charge of it, and Sandy Macintosh gave all his
attention to the woods. He lived with his father at the
Dell, and Urquhart Gale lived on one of the islands in
the Druie, where he had built himself a wooden house
surrounded by a strip of garden bounded by the water.
Having set the staple business of the place in more
regular order than it had ever been conducted in before,
William turned his attention to the farm, with less success,
however, for a year or two. More work was done and all
work was better done, but the management remained
expensive till we got rid of the grieve. In time he was
replaced by a head ploughman from the Lothians, when
all the others having learnt their places required less

348 JOHNNIE'S RETURN [1820

supervision. William indeed was himself always at his
post, this new profession of his being his passion. The
order he got that farm into, the crops it yielded after-
wards, the beauty of his fields, the improvement of the
stock, were the wonder of the country. This first year
I did not so much attend to his doings as I did the
next, having little or nothing to do with his operations.
Jane and I rode as usual. We all wandered about in
the woods and spent long days in the garden, and then
we had the usual autumn company to entertain at home
and in the neighbourhood.

Our first guest was John, our young brother John,
whom we had not seen since he went first to Eton.
My mother, whose anxiety to meet her pet was fully
equal to my sisters' and mine, proposed our driving to
Pitmain, thirteen miles off, where the coach then
stopped to dine. The barouche and four was ordered
accordingly and away we went. We had nearly
reached Kingussie when we espied upon the road a tall
figure walking with long strides, his hat on the back of
his head, his hair blowing about in the wind, very short
trousers, and arms beyond his coat-sleeves — in fact an
object : and this was John 1 grown five inches, or indeed
I believe six — for he had been sixteen months away.
He had carried up very creditable breadth with all this
height, looking strong enough, but so altered, so unlike our
little plaything of a brother, we were rather discomfited.
However, we found that the ways of old had lost no
charms for the Eton boy ; he was more our companion
than ever, promoting and enjoying fun in his quiet way,
and so long as no sort of trouble fell to him, objecting
to none of our many schemes of amusement. Old as
we elder ones were, we used to join in cat concerts after
breakfast ; my mother always breakfasted in her room,
my father had a tray sent to him in the study, or if he
came to us, he ate hurriedly and soon departed. We
each pretended we were playing on some instrument,
the sound of which we endeavoured to imitate with the
voice, taking parts as in a real orchestra, generally

1890] HOME AMUSEMENTS 349

contriving to make harmony, and going through all our
favourite overtures as well as innumerable melodies.
Then we would act scenes from different plays,
substituting our own words when memory failed us, or
sing bits of operas in the same improvisatore style.
Then we would rush out of doors, be off to fish, or to
visit our thousand friends, or to the forest or to the mill,
or to take a row upon the loch, unmooring the boat our-
selves, and Jane and I handling the oars just as well as
our brothers. Sometimes we stopped short in the
garden or went no further than the hill of the Doune, or
maybe would lounge on to the farmyard if any work we
liked was going on there. Jane had taken to sketching
from nature and to gardening. I had my greenhouse
plants indoors, and the linen-press, made over to my
care by my mother, as were the wardrobes of my
brothers. We were so happy, so busy, we felt it an
interruption when there came visitors, Jane excepted;
she was only in her element when in company. She
very soon took the whole charge of receiving and enter-
taining the guests. She shone in that capacity and
certainly made the gay meetings of friends hence-
forward very different from the formal parties of former
times. Our guests this autumn of 1820 were Charles
and Robert Grant (names ever dear to me), Sir David
and Lady Brewster, and Mrs Marcet the clever
authoress, brought to us by the Bellevilles. We gave
her a luncheon in our cottage at Loch-an-Eilan, which
much pleased her. Our cousin Edmund was with us
this summer; he had helped us to fit up the cottage,
whitewashing, staining, painting, etc. One of the
woodmen's wives lived in it and kept it tidy. We had
a pantry and a store-room, well furnished both of them,
and many a party we gave there, sometimes a boating
and fishing party with a luncheon, sometimes a tea with
cakes of our own making, and a merry walk home by
moonlight. Doctor Hooker also came to botanise and
the sportsmen to shoot. Kinrara filled, and uncle
Ralph and Eliza passed the whole summer with us.
Mrs Ironside was at Oxford, watching with aunt Mary

350 AUTUMN GUESTS [isao

the last days of Dr Griffith. Uncle Ralph was the
most delightful companion that ever dwelt in a country
house. Never in the way, always up to everything, the
promoter of all enjoyment, full of fun, full of anecdote,
charming by the fire on a wet day, charming out of
doors in the sunshine, enthusiastic about scenery,
unrivalled in weaving garlands of natural flowers for the
hair, altogether such a prose poet as one almost never
meets with; hardly handsome, yet very fine-looking,
tall and with the manners and the air of a prince of the
blood. He had lived much in the best society and had
adorned it. Eliza was clever, very obliging, and her
playing on the pianoforte was delightful. She had an
everlasting collection of old simple airs belonging to all
countries, which she strung together with skill, and
played with expression. We had great fun this
autumn; pony races at Kingussie and a ball at the
cattle tryst, picnics in the woods, quantities of fine
people at Kinrara, Lord Tweeddale and his beautiful
Marchioness (Lady Susan Montague), the Ladies
Cornwallis, kind merry girls, one of them — Lady Louisa
— nearly killing uncle Ralph by making him dance
twice down the haymakers with her ; Mrs Rawdon and
her clever daughter, Lady William Russell; Lord
Lynedoch at eighty shooting with the young men ;
Colonel Ponsonby, who had gambled away a fine
fortune or two and Lady Harriet Bathurst's heart, and
being supposed to be killed at Waterloo, had his body
while in a swoon built up in a wall of corpses, as a
breastwork for some regiment to shoot over. Mrs
Rawdon, rather a handsome flirting widow, taking
uncle Ralph for a widower, paid him tender attentions
and invited Eliza to visit her in London.

This was the summer of Queen Caroline's trial ; the
newspapers were forbidden to all of us young people ; a
useless prohibition, for while we sat working or drawing,
my uncle and my mother favoured us with full
comments on these disgusting proceedings. In
September the poor creature died. None of the
grandees in our neighbourhood would wear mourning

1820] THE BEGINNING OF TROUBLES 351

for her. We had to put on black for our uncle Griffith,
and the good-natured world said that my father, in his
violent Whiggery, had dressed us in sables, when, in
truth, he had always supported the king's right to
exercise his own authority in his own family. Mrs
Ralph remained at Oxford to assist aunt Mary in
selecting furniture, packing up some, selling the rest,
and giving up the lodgings to the new master, Dr
Rowley, our old friend of the pear-tree days. The two
ladies then set out for Tennochside, where aunt Mary
was to pass her years of widowhood, uncle Ralph and
Eliza hurrying back to meet them as soon as we had
returned from the Northern Meeting in October.

At the end of this year my sisters and I had to
manage amongst us to replace wasteful servants and
attend to my mother's simple wants. The housekeeper
went, in bad health, to the Spa at StrathpefTer, where
she died ; the fine cook married the butler, and took the
Inn at Dalwhinnie, which they partly furnished out of
our lumber room ! My mother placed me in authority,
and by patience, regularity, tact and resolution, the
necessary reforms were silently made without annoying
any one. It was the beginning of troubles the full
extent of which I had indeed little Idea of then, nor had
I thought much of what I did know till one bright day,
on one of our forest excursions, my rough pony was led
through the moss of Achnahatanich by honest old John
Bain. We were looking over a wide, bare plain, which
the last time I had seen it had been all wood ; I believe
I started ; the good old man shook his grey head, and
then, with more respect than usual in his manner, he
told all that was said, all that he feared, all that some
one of us should know, and that he saw " it was fixed
that Miss Lizzy should hear, for though she was light-
some she would come to sense when it was wanted to
keep her mamma easy, try to help her brothers, and not
refuse a good match for herself." Poor, good, wise John
Bain ! A match for me ! that was over, but the rest
could be tried. " A stout heart to a stiff brae " gets up
the hill.

352 ILLNESS [1821-22

I was ignorant of household matters; my kind
friend the Lady Belleville was an admirable econo-
mist, she taught me much. Dairy and farm-kitchen
matters were picked up at the Dell and the Croft,
and with books of reference, honest intentions,
and untiring activity, less mistakes were made
in this season of apprenticeship than could have
been expected. And so passed the year of 1821.
Few visitors that season, no Northern Meeting,
a dinner or two at Kinrara, and a good many
visits at Belleville. William busy with the forest
and farm.

1822 was more lively; William and I had got our
departments into fair working order ; whether he had
diminished expenses, I know not ; I had, beyond my
slightest idea, and we were fully more comfortable than
we had ever been under the reign of the housekeepers.
Sir David and Lady Brewster were with us for a while,
and Dr Hooker, and the Grants of course, with their
quaint fun and their oddities and their extra piety,
which, I think, was wearing away. In the early part of
the year aunt Mary came to us from Tennochside,
escorted by my father on his return from London.
She found me very ill. I had gone at Christmas on a
visit to our cousins the Roses of Holme, where I had
not been since Charlotte's marriage to Sir John, then
Colonel Burgoyne. There had been no company in the
house for some time ; I was put into a damp bed, which
gave me a cold, followed by such a cough that I had
kept my room ever since ; the dull barrack-room, very
low in the roof, just under the slates, cold in winter, a
furnace in summer, only one window in it, and we three
girls in it, my poor sisters disturbed all night by my
incessant cough, Dr Smith, kind little man, took what
care he could of me, and Jane, who succeeded to my
" situation," was the best, the most untiring of nurses,
but neither of them could manage my removal to a
more fitting apartment. Aunt Mary effected it at once.
We were all brought down to the white room and its
dressing-room, the best in the house, so light, so very

1822] HIGHLAND LADDIES 353

cheerful ; I had the large room. The dear Miss
Gumming Gordons sent up from Forres House a cuddy,
whose milk, brought up to me warm every morning,
soon softeneu the cough. Nourishing soups restored
strength. In June I was on my pony ; in August I was
well. How much I owe to our dear, wise aunt Mary !
she never let us return to the barrack-room ; she
prevailed on my father to have us settled in the old
schoolroom and the room through it, which we
inhabited ever after; had we been there before I
should not have been so ill, for my mother lived on
the same floor, and would have been able to look
after us. She was very ill herself, in the doctor's
hands, rose late, never got up the garret stairs,
and was no great believer in the dangers of a mere
cold.

Aunt Mary amused us by her admiration of hand-
some young men. One of the Macphersons of Ralea,
and the two Clarkes of Dalnavert, John and William,
were very much with us ; they were dangerous inmates,
but they did us no harm ; I do not know that they did
themselves much good. It is curious how these High-
land laddies, once introduced to the upper world, take
their places in it as if born to fill them. No young men
school or college bred could have more graceful manners
than John Clarke ; he entered the army from his humble
home at Dalnavert, just taught a little by the kindness
of Belleville. He was a first-rate officer, became A.D.C.,
married a baronet's daughter, and suited well the high
position he won. The brother William, a gentlemanly
sailor, married a woman of family and fortune, and
settled in Hampshire. The sisters, after the death of
their parents, went to an aunt in South America, where
most of them married well, the eldest to a nephew of
the celebrated General Greene. All of them rose as no
other race ever rises ; there is no vulgarity for them to
lose. Then came John Dalzel, a good young man, said
to be clever, known to be industrious, educated with all
the care that clever parents, school, college, a good
society in Lord Eldin's house, could command ; who,

z

354 ROYAL VISIT TO SCOTLAND [1822

grave, dull, awkward, looked of inferior species to the
"gentle Celts."

This autumn King George the Fourth visited
Scotland. The whole country went mad. Everybody
strained every point to get to Edinburgh to receive
him. Sir Walter Scott and the Town Council were
overwhelming themselves with the preparations. My
mother did not feel well enough for the bustle, neither
was I at all fit for it, so we stayed at home with aunt
Mary. My father, my sisters, and William, with lace,
feathers, pearls, the old landau, the old horses, and the
old liveries, all went to add to the show, which they
said was delightful. The Countess of Lauderdale
presented my two sisters and the two Miss Grants of
Congalton, a group allowed to be the prettiest there.
The Clan Grant had quite a triumph, no equipage was
as handsome as that of Colonel Francis Grant, our
acting chief, in their red and green and gold. There
were processions, a review, a levee, a drawing-room,
and a ball, at which last Jane was one of the ladies
selected to dance in the reel before the King, with,
I think, poor Captain Murray of Abercairney, a young
naval officer, for her partner. A great mistake was
made by the stage managers — one that offended all the
southron Scots; the King wore at the leve'e the
Highland dress. I daresay he thought the country all
Highland, expected no fertile plains, did not know the
difference between the Saxon and the Celt. However,
all else went off well, this little slur on the Saxon was
overlooked, and it gave occasion for a laugh at one of
Lady Saltoun's witty speeches. Some one objecting
to this dress, particularly on so large a man, " Nay,"
said she, " we should take it very kind of him ; since
his stay will be so short, the more we see of him the
better." Sir William Curtis was kilted too, and
standing near the King, many persons mistook them,
amongst others John Hamilton Dundas, who kneeled
to kiss the fat Alderman's hand, when, finding out his
mistake, he called, "Wrong, by Jove!" and rising,
moved on undaunted to the larger presence. One

1822] STROLLS WITH AUNT MARY 355

incident connected with this time made me very cross.
Lord Conyngham, the Chamberlain, was looking every-
where for pure Glenlivet whisky ; the King drank
nothing else. It was not to be had out of the
Highlands. My father sent word to me — I was the
cellarer — to empty my pet bin, where was whisky long
in wood, long in uncorked bottles, mild as milk, and
the true contraband gotit in it. Much as I grudged
this treasure it made our fortunes afterwards, showing
on what trifles great events depend. The whisky, and
fifty brace of ptarmigan all shot by one man, went up to
Holyrood House, and were graciously received and
made much of, and a reminder of this attention at
a proper moment by the gentlemanly Chamberlain
ensured to my father the Indian judgeship.

While part of the family were thus loyally employed,
passing a gay ten days in Edinburgh, my dear, kind
aunt and I were strolling through the beautiful scenery
of Rothiemurchus. She loved to revisit all the places
she had so admired in her youth. When attended by
the train of retainers which then accompanied her
progress, she had learnt more of the ancient doings of
our race than I had been able to pick up even from
dear old Mr Cameron. Aunt Mary was all Highland,
an enthusiast in her admiration of all that fed the
romance of her nature, so different from the placid
comfort of her early home. Our strolls were charming ;
she on foot, I on my pony. We went long distances,
for we often stopped to rest beside some sparkling
burnie, and seated on the heather and beside the
cranberries, we ate the luncheon we had brought with
us in a basket that was hung on the crutch of my
saddle. I was much more fitted to understand her
fine mind at this time than I should have been the
year before. My long illness, which had confined me
for many months to my room, where much of the time
was passed in solitude, had thrown me for amusement
on the treasures of my father's library. First I took
to light reading, but finding there allusions to subjects
of which I was nearly ignorant, I chalked out for

356 SERIOUS STUDY [1822

myself a plan of really earnest study. The history of
my own country, and all connected with it, in eras,
consulting the references where we had them, studying
the literature of each period, comparing the past with
the present — it was this course faithfully pursued till
it interested me beyond idea, that made me acquainted
with the worth of our small collection of books. There
was no subject on which sufficient information could
not be got.

I divided my reading time into four short sittings,
varying the subjects, by advice of good Dr Smith, to
avoid fatigue, and as I slept little it was surprising how
many volumes I got through. It was " the making of
me," as the Irish say ; our real mission here on earth
had never been hinted to me. I had no fixed aim in
life, no idea of wasted time. To do good, and to avoid
evil, we were certainly taught, and very happy we were
while all was bright around us. When sorrow came
I was not fit to bear it, and I had to bear it all alone ;
the utmost reserve was inculcated upon us whenever
a disagreeable effect would be produced by an exhibi-
tion of our feelings. In this case, too, the subject had
been prohibited, so the long illness was the consequence,
but the after-results were good.

It was new to me to think ; I often lay awake in the
early morning looking from my bed through the large
south window of that pretty " White room," thinking of
the world beyond those fine old beech trees, taking
into the picture the green gate, the undulating field,
the bank of birch trees, and the Ord Bain, and on the
other side the height of the Polchar, and the smoke
from the gardener's cottage ; wondering, dreaming, and
not omitting self-accusation, for discipline had been
necessary to me, and I had not borne my cross meekly.
My foolish, frivolous, careless career and its punishment
came back upon me painfully, but no longer angrily ; I
learned to excuse as well as to submit, and kissed the
rod in a brave spirit which met its reward.

My wise aunt found me a new and profitable
employment. She set me to write essays, short tales,

1822] AN UNSUSPECTED NEIGHBOUR 357

and at length a novel. I don't suppose they were
intrinsically worth much, and I do not know what may
have become of them, but the venture was invaluable.
I tried higher flights afterwards with success when help
was wanted.

All this while, who was very near us, within a
thought of coming on to find us out, had he more
accurately known our whereabouts? he who hardly
seven years afterwards became my husband. He was
an officer of the Indian army at home on furlough,
diverting his leisure by a tour through part of Scotland ;
he was sleeping quietly at Dunkeld while I was waking
during the long night at the Doune. Uncle Edward,
his particular friend, had so often talked of us to him
that he knew us almost individually, but for want of an
introduction would not volunteer a better acquaintance.
It was better for me as it was. I know, had he come
to Rothiemurchus, Jane would have won his heart ; so
handsome she was, so lively, so kind ; a sickly invalid
would have had no chance. Major Smith and Miss
Jane would have ridden enthusiastically through the
woods together, and I should have been unnoticed.
All happens well, could we but think so; and so my
future husband returned alone to India, and I had to
go there after him !

CHAPTER XIX
1822-1826

AT the close of this autumn my aunt was to leave us
to spend the winter with her old friend Mrs Lawrence
at Studley. I was to go with her, Dr Smith thinking
it would not be safe for me to risk the cold frosts of
the Highlands. Mrs Lawrence very kindly wished me
to remain with her during my aunt's visit, but Annie
N— — had arranged with my father that I was to be her
guest during this winter ; it was a long-promised visit,
so I could give only a month to Studley on my way to
Sherwood Forest.

Before we left the Doune there had been a family
council on weighty affairs. Our cousin Kate Ironside,
the eldest of the Houghton family, who had been sent
for to Bombay in the year 1819, had married well;
her husband, Colonel Barnewell, an excellent man, was
the Resident at Kaira, much considered in the service ;
he had permitted Kate to send for her two next sisters,
Eliza and Mary, and uncle Edward wished my sister
Mary to accompany them. She had been his pet in her
babyhood. My father and mother were rather offended
by the proposal, but left the decision to Mary herself;
she declined of course for the present, leaving the
matter open for future consideration, with the caution
for which she was so remarkable. " There is no saying,"
she said, " but what Bombay might some day prove a
godsend ; life is dull enough here."

At this same time a writership offered by old Charles
Grant to my brother John was refused, to my mother's

1822] A VISIT TO STUDLEY 359

grief, for she had set her heart upon it. She had a
craze for India, and would have despatched every boy
and girl over whom she had any influence to that land
of the sun. My father and William, and our aunt
Mary too, thought that John's great abilities would
ensure him employment at home, so this matter was
postponed.

Towards the end of October my aunt and I set out
upon our travels, escorted by my brother William.
We went in the travelling chariot with our own horses,
sleeping two nights upon the road, and we stayed a
week in Edinburgh in our own house in King Street,
which my father had lent to uncle Ralph.

We proceeded by coach to Carlisle, the first time I
had ever set foot in a public carriage, and very disagree-
able I found it. The country we passed through was
delightful to us who were learned in ballad lore ;
Ettrick Shaws and Gala Water, the Braes of Yarrow
and the Cowdenknowes, all spoke to us, though from a
distance, as we passed on to merry Carlisle, which we
reached too late and too sleepy to look at. Next day
we passed on over the wolds to Greta Bridge and Kirby,
and so on to Studley, where I remained till close on
Christmas. William found the life too dull, so he set off

to the N s, with whom he remained till it was time to

return for me.

At that season of the year old Mrs Lawrence lived
nearly alone ; her open-house style ended with the
autumn. We found only a few intimate friends with
her.

Mrs Lawrence was very kind to me. She sent a
pianoforte to my room that I might practise in quiet ;
she gave me a key to the bookcases in the library, and
often chose me as her companion in her morning rides.
We rode two donkeys, she on Johnny, I on Jack. She
rode first in an old duffle cloak of a grey colour and a
black gipsy hat, encouraging her somewhat slothful
steed with a brisk "Johnny, get on" every now and
then. Jack required no stimulus. Thus we wandered
on for hours through the beautiful grounds of Studley

360 FOUNTAIN DALE [1822-23

Royal. It was one of the lions of Harrogate, and
certainly its extensive old-fashioned gardens deserved a
visit. There were lawns, thickets, laurel banks, lakes,
grottoes, temples, statues, the beautiful old ruins of
Fountains Abbey, kept most incorrectly clean and tidy
as if washed and trimmed daily, and one old manor-
house near it — a gem — now the residence of the game-
keeper. The fruit gardens were large, the offices good,
the house itself, though convenient, with many fine
rooms in it, was hardly worthy of its surroundings.

It was very cold during my stay at Studley, frost and
snow equal to the Highlands. William and I had a very
chilly journey by coach after being set down — I forget
where — out of Mrs Lawrence's comfortable chariot.
Dear Annie was waiting for us at Doncaster, where
William and I parted ; he went back to Edinburgh.
Annie took me to the pleasant jointure house of a Mrs
Walker, where we spent the night, and were amused and
amazed at the Christmas storeroom ; it was as full as
Mrs Lawrence's — blankets, flannels, greatcoats, cloaks,
petticoats, stockings, all the warmth that the poor could
want in the winter season. I did not think such whole-
sale charity wise ; there can be no spirit either of
independence or economy where the expectation of
relief unearned is a habit.

Next day we reached Fountain Dale to dinner. It
was a small house, with tiny, well-kept grounds planted
out from a wide stretch of heath that had once been an
oak forest. A chain of fish ponds, full of well-preserved
fish, carp, tench, and such like, enlivened the scene. But
though all was very tidy, there was no beauty either
there or in the neighbourhood.

Berry Hill, belonging to Mr Thomas Walker, was
the nearest house to Fountain Dale, just about three
miles off across the heath, a climb the whole way. Mr
and Mrs Walker were hospitable people, very kind,
childless, so they surrounded themselves with relations.
Their connections were all among the mercantile
aristocracy of England, a new phase of life to me with
my old Highland blood, and one at which I opened my

1822-23] MERCANTILE SOCIETY 361

eyes with wonder. The profusion of money among all
these people amazed poor me; guineas were thrown
about, as we would not have dreamed of dealing with
shillings. There was no ostentation, no great show any-
where, but such plenty, such an affluence of comforts,
servants well dressed, well fed ; eating, indeed, went on
all day upstairs and downstairs, six meals a day the
rule. Well-appointed stables, delightful gardens, lights
everywhere, fires everywhere, nothing wanting, every-
thing wished for was got ; yet, though good-humoured and
very kindly, they were not really happier one bit than
those who had to consider pennies and could only rarely
gratify their tastes.

Generally speaking, the generation which had made
the money in the mills was more agreeable than the
generation which had left the mills and was spending
the well-earned money. The younger people were well
educated — so-called — the men school and college bred,
gentlemanly, up to the times ; but there was a some-
thing wanting, and there was too much vivacity, too much
noise, no repose. The young women were inferior to
the young men ; they were accomplished, in the
boarding-school acceptation of the word, but mind there
was not, and manners were defective — no ease. They
were good, charitable, and highly pleased with their
surroundings and with one another, and extremely
proud of their brothers.

They had all well-filled purses. I do not remember
hearing the amount of their regular allowances, but I do
remember well the New Year's gifts at one Walker
house. There were four young people of the family,
and on lifting the breakfast plate each found a fifty-
pound note underneath it. William left with me five
pounds for my winter's pocket money. This cut a sorry
figure by comparison.

General and Mrs N were not rich ; they lived

quietly, had a small establishment, and, to the credit of
the rich relations, lived amongst them upon equal
terms. Annie, indeed, was the great lady everywhere,
and extremely beloved.

362 THE STRUTTS AT BELPER [1822-23

To say the truth, it was rather sleepy work this life
in the forest, and yet the time passed happily. Annie
was so bright, her four boys fine little fellows, and once
a fortnight there was an oyster ploy ; the particular
friends were invited to meet a barrel ,of natives and Mr

N , the General's elder brother; by the bye, his

wife was a nice, clever woman, unfortunately very deaf.
At Berry Hill I once met Mr and Mrs Lempriere. He
was a fat little lively man, the son of the " Classical
Dictionary."

One visit I did enjoy ; it was to the Strutts of
Belper and Derby.

The Strutts were silk weavers. The principal
establishment was at Belper, near Derby ; such a pretty
place, wooded banks and a river, and a model village,
the abode of the workmen. Jediah Strutt, who had
married a Walker, niece of the General's, was the
manager and part owner of the Belper mills. He had
an extremely pretty house in the village, with gardens
behind it down to the river, and a range of glass-houses.
There were schools, a hospital, an infirmary, a library, a
chapel, and a chaplain of their own persuasion (they were
Unitarians), all so liberally provided, Mrs Strutt and her
young daughters so busy in all these departments,
assisted by the dear old chaplain, who was really the
soul of his flock. Then there was the mill ; it was the
first of the sort I had ever seen, and it made a great
impression on me. I forget now whether the moving
power was steam or the water of the little river, but the
movements produced by either are not easily forgotten.
It all seemed to me like magic : immense rooms full of
countless rows of teetotums twirling away by themselves,
or sets of cards in hundreds of hands tearing away at
cotton wool of their own accord ; smoothing-irons in long
rows running out of the walls and sliding over quantities
of stockings ; hands without any bodies rubbing away
over wash-tubs, and when people wanted to reach another
storey, instead of stairs they stepped upon a tray, pulled
a string, and up they went, or down, as suited them.

One huge iron-foundry was really frightful ; the

1822-23] COLONEL PENNINGTON 363

Strutts manufactured their own machinery, and in this
Cyclops den huge hammers were always descending on
great bars of iron red hot, and the heat, and the din, and
the wretched-looking smiths at work there made a dis-
agreeable impression. It was a pleasant change to enter
the packing-house. At this time large bales were being
prepared for the Russian market ; the goods were built
up neatly in large piles, high above our heads — a rope
was pulled, a weight came down, and the big bale
shrank into a comfortable seat.

One of the Strutt family, an old uncle, a bachelor
and an oddity, was so enamoured of his machinery that
he had as much " magic " as possible introduced into his
own house ; roasting, baking, ironing, all that it was
practicable so to manage was done by turning pegs ; and
being rather a heavy sleeper, a hand came out of the
wall in the morning at a certain hour and pulled the
bedclothes off him !

This old Mr Strutt was charming, very simple, very
clever, very artistic in all his tastes ; he had lived a great
deal abroad, and at the close of those dreadful Napoleon
wars had picked up gems of price of all kinds. His
house was a museum ; paintings, sculpture, china, inlaid
woods, not too many, and all suitably arranged.

We went from this house next day on our way home
to lunch at Mr Arkwright's, a beautiful little place in a
valley ; such a luncheon, with hothouse fruits. The old
gentleman came out of his mill in his miller's dress and
did the honours gracefully. We paid another visit to
my old friend Tom Walker of the Scots Greys. He had
married a pretty Irish wife, Constantia Beresford, left
the army, and lived in a rather pretty place near Derby.
At his house I met two agreeable young men, an Irish
Mr Bowen, a dragoon, and Count Lapature, an oddity,
but a clever one, though a little fine. Another very
pleasant acquaintance was Colonel Pennington, an old
Indian friend of the General's. He spent a couple of
months at Fountain Dale, and left it to return to Bengal
to make out the two years required to complete his
thirty-two years of service.

364 NEWSTEAD AND H ADDON HALL [1823

He was an artillery officer, had commanded the force
for some years, was thought a great deal of by military
men, and was a clever, agreeable companion, but very
plain, old, little, shabby-looking. We made him some
marmalade, Annie and I, to remind him of his Scotch
lady friends, and he wrote us some amusing verses in
return. He was a furious hunter, and regretted nothing
in England so much as his stud.

I rode once or twice to Newstead with Colonel
Pennington. Colonel Wildman was not then settled
there ; it was undergoing repairs, having only just been
bought from Lord Byron, and was a fine place certainly,
well wooded, with a lake, gardens, and shrubberies, but
flat, too flat.

Haddon Hall was more interesting and less attractive
than Newstead. A large, ugly house, the reception-
rooms on the third storey ; they were small, low, and
scantily furnished ; nobody lived there, and the Duke of
Devonshire's visits were far apart. One thing touched
me : the Duke was childless, unmarried ; beside the bed
on which he lay when at Haddon was a small cot in
which slept the little Cavendish boy who was to be his
heir. I cannot recollect any other incidents of my life
in Nottinghamshire.

In May I went up to London with the General.
We travelled all night, and about 6 o'clock in the
morning I was met on Hampstead Heath by my dear
little aunt Frere in her " demi-fortune." Uncle Frere
had given up his town house, and lived now in a villa
on Hampstead Heath, a comfortable house, standing in
a small square of pleasure-ground enclosed by high
walls, shutting out all view of very pretty scenery ;
London in the distance with its towers and its steeples,
and its wide-spreading streets, and the four or five miles
between the great city and Hampstead Hill, a perfect
confusion of so-called country residences.

Life at Hampstead was pleasant in a quiet way,
everybody was so kind. We got up early, as my uncle
had to go to chambers after breakfast, and we drove

THE FREHES AT HAMPSTEAD 365

into London nearly every day. We went to bed late,
for we were often out at dinner, or at plays and
concerts, and twice while I was there at the opera, a
great treat for me.

My uncle and aunt were all kindness, the children
were dear little things, good and clever. My uncle had
a great reputation as a man of business ; he was a kind,
straightforward man, always intent upon giving pleasure
to every one around him. My dear aunt was one of the
" blessed " who are " pure in heart," and if any of us are
ever to " see God " she will be of them, for her whole life
on earth was a continued preparation for Heaven. Not
a praying, stern, faquir-like life of self-imposed miseries,
hardening the heart and closing it against all the gentle
and beautiful influences created to be enjoyed by us ;
her Christian creed was " to do good and sin not " ;
self she never thought of except as a means of rejoicing
others. She was in truth the minister of comfort to her
circle, the sun of her sphere. She yielded to the habits
she found, and she and all belonging to her were happy.
What can we wish for more ?

She had eight children at this time; John and
George at school, fine boys, and two little men at
school too, a day school, the lessons for which they
sometimes prepared with me while I was with them.
The two elder girls were nearly grown up, pretty, both
of them, the two younger nice little bodies very fond of
play. Anne was very clever.

At the opera I heard Curioni, Pasta, De Begnis,
Camporesi, Madame Vestris, and Velluti. The Messiah
was admirably given at the Hanover Square Rooms.
Cramer, who was giving lessons to Miss Richards,
called, at her request, to hear the Highland girl sing
" Hanouer," took his violin, caught up the air, and then
played lovely music of his own as a return for the
Gaelic " Crochallan," and "Castle Airlie." Sir Robert
Ainslie came often to hear the old Scotch ballads, and
George Rose to get a listener to his translation of
Ariosto, which proceeded but slowly, and never, I
believe, was published.

366 LIFE AT HAMPSTEAD [1823

Mr William Rose occasionally came to dinner, and
that poor, mad poet, Coleridge, who never held his
tongue, stood pouring out a deluge of words meaning
nothing, with eyes on fire, and his silver hair streaming
down to his waist His family had placed him with a
doctor at Highgate, where he was well taken care of.1
A nephew of his, a fine young man, a great favourite
with my uncle, often came to us on a holiday ; he was
afterwards a great lawyer. Miss Joanna Baillie was a
frequent visitor ; a nice old lady. Then we had Mr
Irving of the unknown tongues, the most wonderful
orator, eloquent beyond reason, but leading captive
wiser heads. Men went to hear him and wondered.
Women adored him, for he was handsome in the pulpit,
tall and dark, with long black hair hanging down, a pale
face set off with superb teeth, and a pair of flashing
eyes. The little chapel he served was crammed with all
the titles in London ; it was like a birthday procession
of carriages, and such a crush on entering as to cause
screaming and fainting, torn dresses, etc.

Hatley Frere firmly believed in this man's rhap-
sodies, kept him and his wife and their child in his
house for ever so long, and brought them to us for
a day. We thought them very dirty. He was busy at
this very time calculating the year for the world to end.
Happily the period fixed on passed away, to the exceed-
ing relief of many worthy persons.

At a concert of ancient music to which my uncle and
aunt kindly took me I saw another celebrity — the Duke
of Wellington. He was standing talking with Rogers
the poet, who seized on my uncle as he was passing to
appeal to him on some subject they were discussing,
and for five minutes I stood next the great Duke.

1 As this passage has caused annoyance to some of Coleridge's
family, the editor draws attention to the well-known fact that the
poet's residence with Mr Gillman at Hampstead was purely
voluntary. There are kindred inaccuracies scattered about the
text, such as those on p. 139 relating to Shelley's departure from
Oxford, which it was thought well to leave unnoticed, as being
obvious hearsay and unlikely to mislead, owing to the abundance
of evidence from other sources.

1823] LONDON GAIETIES 367

My father had pleasant lodgings in Duke Street,
where I went when he wished me to see some of his
own friends. He took me to the Mackintoshes, where
I dined. Sir James was not at home ; Lady Mackintosh
was kind and agreeable, her daughter Fanny a nice
girl, and Mrs Rich, Sir James's daughter by his first
wife, both pleasant and clever. My father took me also
to the Vines ; he was a rich merchant, very underbred
I thought ; she, a quiet little woman, very kind to me.
She took me to a grand review at Hounslow, where we
went in Sir Willoughby Gordon's carriage. He was
quartermaster-general, and intimate with Mr and Mrs
Vine ; they were his neighbours in the Isle of Wight.
Of course we were well placed, in the reserve space next
to the Duchess of Kent, a plain, colourless woman, ill
dressed, whose little daughter, wrapped in a shawl, gave
no promise of turning out our pretty queen.

My time for leaving my kind relations was drawing
near. One way or another I had seen a good deal, and
my uncle had been so good as to take me into his
Latin class with the little boys, whose lessons I was thus
able to help. I liked this much, and afterwards found
my Latin very useful.

The Eton holidays were at hand. John Frere and
my brother John were to spend them at the Doune.
They were to travel with my father and me. How
happy they were ! We started by coach again (I was
getting quite used to this vulgarity), passed through
Oxford and thought of my aunt Mary, on to Liverpool
to a good hotel, in the yard of which the boys, to their
great delight, discovered a tank full of live turtle ; a
disgusting sight I thought it, such hideous, apathetic
creatures. Next day we went on board the steamer for
Glasgow.

My mother and my sisters left the Highlands soon
after Christmas, and had been ever since staying with
poor aunt Leitch, who was dying.

My father stayed only two days in Glasgow. Mary
and I and the two boys accompanied him home, leaving
Jane as a help to my mother and Charlotte. We went

368 RETURN TO THE DOUNE [1824-25

by a fast coach that beautiful road past Stirling, Criefif,
and Blair Drummond to Perth, where we got into the
Caledonian coach, and so on by the old familiar road to
our own gate, where a cart was waiting for our luggage.
We walked the mile down the heathery brae to the
boat at the Doune, and crossed our own clear, rapid
Spey at our own ferry.

I was glad to get home ; I was ill. My mother was
shocked at my appearance. Dr Smith and the High-
land air and the quiet life soon restored me. Of course
during my mother's absence for such a cause we saw no
company beyond the Bellevilles or a stray traveller ;
but while the boys were with us we were very happy,
fishing, shooting, boating, riding, out of doors all day,
and I had my flowers to set in order. Mary regretted
Glasgow ; it was a life of variety much more to her
mind than that we led at home. Still she managed to
amuse herself.

I forget exactly when my mother and Jane returned,
not before winter, I think.

The year 1825 was spent happily at the Doune in
the usual way, William busy, John a season at college in
Edinburgh boarded with M. L'Espinasse, and then off
to Haileybury, the Indian College for Civil appoint-
ments, where he made a great name. Robert Grant
got him the appointment, and there was no demur
about it this time. We three girls were a great deal in
Morayshire paying long visits, two of us at a time, to
our many friends there. We were at Altyre, Relugas,
Burgie, Forres House, etc. Altyre was very pleasant,
so very easy. Sir William gave us a ball, which was
extremely well managed, for they had amusing people
staying with them, and they invited all the neighbour-
hood besides. And we had those strange brothers
whose real name I can't remember, but they one day
announced that they were Stuarts, lineally descended
from Prince Charles, out of respect to whose wife, who
never had a child, the elder brother assumed the name
of John Sobieski; the younger brother was Charles.
Nobody was more astonished at this assumption than

1824-25] THE BROTHERS SOBIESKI 369

their own father, a decent man who held some small
situation in the Tower of London. The mother was
Scotch; her people had been in the service of the
unfortunate Stuarts in Italy, and who can tell if she had
not some right to call herself connected with them?
Her sons were handsome men, particularly John
Sobieski, who, however, had not a trace of the Stuart in
his far finer face. They always wore the Highland
dress, kilt and belted plaid, and looked melancholy, and
spoke at times mysteriously. The effect they produced
was astonishing; they were ftted to their hearts'
content ; half the clans in the Highlands believed
in them ; for several years they actually reigned in the
north country. At last they made a mistake which
finished the farce. Fraser of Lovat had taken them up
enthusiastically, built them a villa on an island in the
Beauly Firth, in the pretty garden of which was a small
waterfall. Here Mrs Charles Stuart sat and played the
harp like Flora Mac Ivor, and crowds went to visit them.
They turned Roman Catholic, to please their benefactor,
I suppose, and so lost caste with the public. Poor Mrs
Charles was a meek little woman, a widow with a small
jointure whom the " Prince," her husband, had met in
Ireland. I do not know what had taken him there, for
no one ever knew what his employment had originally
been. Prince Sobieski had been a coach-painter — not
the panel painter, the heraldic painter — and most
beautifully he finished the coats of arms.

Jane paid a long visit to Relugas, a lovely little
place on a wooded bank between the Divie and the
Findhorn, and then Sir Thomas and Lady Lauder, who
were going to Edinburgh to a grand musical festival,
took her with them, afterwards making a tour along the
Border, a new country to Jane. One visit they paid
was to Abbotsford. Jane was in an ecstasy the whole
time. Sir Walter Scott took to her, as who would not ?
They rode together on two rough ponies with the
Ettrick Shepherd and all the dogs, and Sir Walter gave
her all the Border legends, and she corrected his
mistakes about the Highlands. At parting he hoped

2 A

370 VISITORS AT THE DOUNE [1825

she would come again, and he gave her a small ring he
had picked up among the ruins of lona, with a device
on it no one ever could make out.

Mrs Hemans was at Abbotsford, a nice, quiet, little
woman, her two sons with her, fine little boys, quite
surprised to find there was another lion in the world
beside their mother !

The Lauders brought Jane home in great glee and
stayed a week or more, during which time they held
mysterious conferences and went rambles alone, and
went on very queerly. I was sure that some secret
business was in train, but could not make it out, as
I was evidently not to be let into it. At last the
discovery came — Sir Thomas was writing his first novel.
The Hero was Mackintosh of Borlam, and most of his
exploits were laid in the woods of Rothiemurchus and
the plains of Badenoch. " Lochandhu " was really not
bad ; there were pretty bits of writing in it, but it was
just an imitation of Sir Walter Scott. I believe the
book sold, and it certainly made the author and his
wife completely happy during its composition.

Lord Jeffrey, his wife, and Charlotte came to see
us, and Lord Moncrieff, who won my heart, charming
little old man ! We all went to the Northern Meeting,
all five of us ; but without my father and mother.
Glenmoriston took charge of us and his sister Harriet
Fraser, and we went in a very fast style, escorted by
Duncan Davidson, who arrived unexpectedly for the
purpose.

Mary was the beauty of the meeting. She had
grown up very handsome, and never lost her looks ;
she had become lively, and, to the amazement of the
family, outshone us all. She was in fact a genius and
a fine creature — poor Mary !

In the autumn of 1826, besides our usual visitors,
we had Alexander Gumming to bid us good-bye before
returning to India, a fine, very handsome man, whom
on account of the entail it was intended to marry to
Mary, but they did not take to one another. The

1825] JANE AND COLONEL PENNINGTON 371

L'Espinasses came, she very absurd, he a clever
Frenchman ; and Lord Macdonald, six feet four ; and

Annie N ; what a happy summer we spent with

her, all the people so delighted to see the Colonel's
daughter !

Later came her husband the General, and his friend
Colonel Pennington, who had been to India and back
since he and I parted in Sherwood Forest. He was
a very clever man, and very good, and very agreeable,
but old and ugly. How could a young, brilliant
creature like my sister Jane, so formed to be a young
man's pride, fall to be this old man's darling ! But so
it was; she did it of her own free will, and I don't
believe she ever repented the step she was determined
to take. It was an unsuitable marriage, distasteful to
all of us, yet it turned out well ; she was content

The N s left us in October, taking with them

Mary, who was to spend the winter at Fountain Dale.
They intended to steam from Inverness to Glasgow
and Liverpool ; luckily this plan was given up ; the
steamer was wrecked and nearly all on board were
drowned. I don't remember any cabin passenger being
saved except John Peter Grant of Laggan— the only
remaining child of nineteen born to the minister and
his celebrated wife — and young Glengarry. Among
the lost was one of the pretty Miss Duffs of Muirtown,
just married to her handsome soldier husband, and on
their way to join his regiment ; their bodies were found
clasped together, poor things, beside many others
unknown.

Colonel Pennington had outstayed his friends ; he
and Jane wandered all over Rothiemurchus, apparently
delighted with each other. At last he went

It must have been in September 1825 that the

N s and Colonel Pennington left us. Johnnie had

gone back to college, and our diminished party felt
dull enough ; a weight was on all our minds. We were
sitting at dinner on a chill autumn evening, enlivened
by a bright wood fire, and some of the cheerful sallies
of William, who ever did his best to keep the ball up.

372 THEIR ENGAGEMENT [1825

The post came in ; I . gave the key ; Robert Allan
opened the bag and proceeded to distribute its contents,
dropping first one thick letter into a flagon on the side-
board, as William's quick eye noted, though he said
nothing. When we all seemed occupied with our own
despatches he carried this letter to Jane. It was the
proposal from her Colonel. She expected it, turned
pale, but kept her secret for two days, even from me,
who shared her room. She then mentioned her
engagement to my father first, my mother next, and
left it to them to inform William and me. There never
was such astonishment. I could not believe it;
William laughed ; my father made no objection ; my
mother would not listen to the subject. More letters
arrived, to Jane daily, to William and me full of kind
expressions, to my father and mother, hoping for their
consent. My father replied for all ; my mother would
not write ; William and I put it off. Annie wrote to
dissuade Jane, Lord Jeffrey and Miss Clerk to
approve, the lover to announce his preparations. My
father and William went to Edinburgh to draw up
the settlements. It was found that the fortune was
much smaller than had been expected, and from
another source we heard that my father would not
have been sorry to have offended the bridegroom, but
he was not to be offended ; his firm intention was to
secure his wife, and he would have thought the world
well lost to gain her. Her interests were well cared
for, why not? — if old men will marry young women,
young widows should be left quite independent as some
return for the sacrifice, the full extent of which they
are not aware of till too late. Well, the settlements
were made by Sir James Gibson Craig, who well knew
how to second my father in arranging them. After all,
the couple were not badly off — the retiring pay of a
full colonel with the off reckonings, £25,000 in the
Indian funds, and a prospect of Deccan prize-money-
some few hundred pounds which he did not get till the
year before he died.

My mother wrote many letters to Edinburgh; she

1825] THEIR MARRIAGE 373

certainly did not wish to forward matters, but this
spirited pair wanted no help. The bride asked whether
she could be provided with some additions to a rather
scanty wardrobe. The bridegroom set out for the
Highlands and had the banns published in Edinburgh
on his way ; a mistake of his man of business that was
very annoying to all and caused some irritation. How-
ever all got right ; Jane was determined ; she had
argued the point in her own strong mind, decided it,
and it was to be. Perhaps she was not wrong; the
circumstances of the family were deplorable, there did
not appear to be any hope of better days, for the
daughters at any rate, and we were no longer very
young. So a handsome trousseau was ordered, our
great-uncle the Captain, kind old man, having left each
of us £100 for the purpose.

Colonel Pennington announced that he was engaged
to dine with his brother in London on Christmas Day,
so the wedding was fixed for the 2Oth of December
1825.

It was a cold, dull morning. I had been up all
night preparing the breakfast, for our upper servants
were gone, had been gone since the spring. Miss
Elphick, poor soul, had come to be present at the first
marriage amongst us. Since she left us she had been
with the Kirkman Finlays in Glasgow. She assisted
my labours by torrents of tears. The Bellevilles were
the only guests, Mrs Macpherson so sad.

The ceremony was performed in the library by Mr
Fyvie, the young Episcopal clergyman from Inverness.
My mother's whole face was swollen from weeping;
I was a ghost ; William very grave ; my poor father,
the unhappy cause of our sorrow, did look heart-broken
when he gave that bright child of his away. The
bridegroom wore his artillery uniform, which became
his slight figure ; he did not look near his age, and was
so happy and so ugly ! The bride stood beside him in
her beauty, tall, fresh, calm, composed ; it was to be
done, and she was doing it without one visible regret.
" I will " was so firmly said, I started. What happened

374 JANE'S CARE FOR THE DUCHUS [1825-26

after I never felt. Mrs Macpherson just whispered to
me, " Help them, Eliza," and I believe I did ; I tried
I know. Dear, kind Mrs Macpherson, what a friend
she was, never tiring, so wise too !

The breakfast went off well. The Colonel was so
gay, he made his little speeches so prettily, that his
wife looked quite proud of him. He took leave of the
humbler friends in the hall so kindly, and of us so
affectionately, that we all relented to him before we
parted. We went down to the boat ; the gentlemen
crossed the water. On the gravelly shingle beyond
were the London-built chariot and four horses, the man
and the maid, and the two postillions with large favours,
a mob of our people round the carriage raising such
a shout as their " pride " — ay, and their blessing — was
driven away. She never forgot the home of her fathers,
never lost sight of the Duchus. Her protecting hand
has been the one faithfully held over " the great plain
of the fir trees." From that day to the day of her
death she has been the mother to all our people, in weal
or woe their prop. Beloved everywhere, she was
worshipped there. Doing her duty everywhere, she
has taken the duties of others on herself there. She
departed that wintry day the only unmoved person in
the throng. Home, to me at least, never seemed like
home afterwards.

Colonel Pennington had a hunting-box in Leicester-
shire near the village of Normanton, where they lived
till the spring. He then took a pretty, old-fashioned
place called Trunkwell, near Reading, which they were
very sorry to be obliged to leave in a year afterwards,
when they fixed themselves at Malshanger for the rest
of his life. It was near Basingstoke, in the higher part
of Hampshire, an ugly house, but roomy and comfort-
able. The garden was good, the grounds pretty, plenty
of fine trees, the scenery of the neighbourhood inter-
esting. They improved the place much during their
time in it ; both of them had good taste and delighted
in a country life. She liked her garden, her horses, and
her new acquaintance, and was really happy, though

1826] SETTLED AT MALSHANGER 375

her husband was not a good-tempered man, and
certainly often forgot that he had married a girl who
might almost have been his grand-daughter, so that at
first they rather hobbled on at times ; but with so good
and clever a man, and so admirable a character as hers,
these little points soon wore smooth. They were not
at first appreciated ; the disparity between them made
people suppose all could not be right, that she was
mercenary, or the victim of mercenary relations, but as
they were better known they were better understood.
Few have left a fairer fame in any neighbourhood.

CHAPTER XX
1826-1827

THE marriage was over, bride and bridegroom gone,
cake eaten, guests departed, and my father, my mother,
and I were left to spend the remainder of the stern
Highland winter together, for William went to Edin-
burgh on business and could not return. Alas! he
was imprisoned for debt in the gaol on Calton
Hill. The debt was of his own contracting, for in his
college days he had been extravagant; he believed
himself to be the heir of wealth, the son of a rich man,
and he had the name of a handsome allowance which
was never paid.

At the time of the execution of the trust deed, he
had taken all my father's debts upon himself, bound
himself to pay them, and they were upwards of ^60,000.
Had he been arrested for one of them, I think it would
have killed my father ; I never saw him so much affected
by anything ; and my poor mother, who had so gloried
in the noble self-sacrifice of her son, sank under this ;
they were very miserable. The debt could not be paid,
even by degrees ; the sum allowed for the maintenance
of the family and the expenses of the forest work was
very small, and there were other creditors who would
have come forward with their claims had we been able
to satisfy this one. Now I saw the wisdom of Jane's
marriage. She wrote pleasant letters; the post was
our sunlight ; it came but three times a week, but such
a full bag; the franks permitted a frequent correspond-
ence. Jane at Normanton, Mary at Fountain Dale,

876

1826] A REDUCED ESTABLISHMENT 377

meeting frequently at the various houses they visited,
aunt Mary from Oxford, where she was now re-
established in a small house, other letters and the
newspapers, all helped to brighten the long evenings.
Mr Caw always came in on the mail nights with his
little bits of gossip for my mother. He lived at the
Polchar in his capacity as book-keeper, which office he
filled remarkably well.

My mother never went out ; my father and I were
never kept in, for though cold, it was sunny ; hard frost
gave us power to walk miles without fatigue. Yes —
twice there were heavy falls of snow, which blocked up
the hill road ; the mail coach could not run, it and the
unfortunate passengers were dug out of deep wreaths,
and we had no post ; so my father took to reading aloud
while my mother and I worked. We had given up
crossing the hall to the dining-room ; dinner was laid on
a narrow table in the lobby, and wheeled into the
library, my mother being unfit for the change of
apartments. She was well shawled when she went
to bed.

Our establishment consisted of poor Robert Allan,
who was butler and footman and gamekeeper, and never
could be persuaded to leave a falling house. He had a
fault, a serious one, he tippled ; but the man was so
good, so worthy, it had to be borne with to the end,
whisky and all ; he never left the family. The cook was
Nelly, invaluable Nelly; she had been kitchen-maid
under Mrs Watling, and now, by the help of my
Cuisiniere Bourgeoise (the best French cookery book
then known), she and I together turned out little
dinners that really gave an appetite to my poor father
and mother, both of them rather dainty. I always
dressed in the evening; it pleased them. We had a
bright fire, and we made conversation. William, my
brother, wrote cheerfully; his young friends all went
to see him, and the Gibson Craigs provided him
with any amount of luxuries from Riccarton. Before
long he was released ; nothing could be made
of his confinement, so he was allowed to return home

378 A TROUBLED TIME [1826

a little before my father departed for London about
Easter.

It was a great relief to get William back ; I had
done my best to carry out his orders, but the distances,
the wintry weather, and the difficulty of procuring
either money or food, made the position painful.

In the summer of 1826 my father brought Mary
home ; the fine weather revived our spirits, her cheerful
gossip amused our poor mother, and the farm was
selling eggs, and wool, and fruit, to the shooting lodges.
We had no visitors, not even the Grants, this season.
Aunt Mary had married again, Doctor Bourne, a rich
man of great repute as a physician in Oxford. Kind
aunt Mary ! she sent my mother £60. We had, when
my father went to London, three wedders for our supply
of meat ; we bought a score now, so with poultry, the
garden, and the river, we did well till the winter — such
a winter ! our last in the dear Duchus.

We were quite alone, my mother, my sister Mary,
and myself, and William off and on as business required.
My mother kept her room until late in the day ; Mary
was her maid, and such a tender one. I had my tartan
cloak, with a hood and a pair of gaol boots, and trotted
across the yard to the cellar, and down to the farm to
act housekeeper there, then back to the kitchen to
manage the dinner. Fine education this.

We were happy, though our troubles were great.
We had mutton enough, thanks to dear aunt Mary,
and we sold enough of other things to buy our groceries
of Robbie Gumming. Inverness had refused to honour
my orders ; heavy bills were there unpaid. Then there
were the servants' wages; William paid the outsiders,
but there was nothing for the insiders ; how good they
were ! waiting so patiently, asking for their own as if
begging for a favour. There had been good stores in
the house, but they were vanishing. It was hard to
bear up amid such perplexities. In a happy hour I
opened my heart to the very kindest friend any one ever
had, the Lady Belleville. Cold and harsh as the world

1826-29] THE BARRACK-ROOM 379

thought Mrs Macpherson, she had a warm heart, with a
cool judgment, and untiring zeal in the service of those
she loved.

She proposed my writing for the press. I had tried
this the winter before — that heavy winter — wrote what
I thought a lively little paper, "An Old Story," from
hints furnished by the vanity of our poor cousin
Edmund Ironside after a visit of his to the hairdresser
at Inverness, copied it fair, and sent it to Blackwood in
a fictitious name, desiring an answer to be sent to Mr
Sidey the postmaster at Perth, , where our bag was
made up, there being no post-office for years after at
Lynwilg. Day after day did I watch the boy who went
to meet the coach ; no answer ever came. The editor
probably never looked at the paper ; but, ushered into
the literary world afterwards by Belleville, it was favour-
ably received by his friend Mr Fraser, and brought me
£3. It did not go alone, Mary and I between us wrote
a bundle of rubbish for the Inspector^ and received
£40 in return.

We wrote at night in the barrack-room, for we had
been obliged to leave our more comfortable apartments
on account of the state of the roof over that end of the
old house. Whenever it either thawed or rained we
had five or six cascades pouring into tubs set round the
walls to catch the water. The barrack-room was
inconvenient too ; the little crooked staircase which led
up to it was lighted by a large pane of glass in the roof,
a skylight not very tightly fixed. Several times during
the snowstorms we had to wade through a wreath of
snow on the steps beneath it, pretty deep occasionally,
so that we were wetted above the ankles, but we did
not mind, we took off our shoes and stockings, and dried
our feet by a good fire which we had provided for
ourselves. Fuel being scarce, we gathered in the
plantation as many fallen sticks as, assisted by a few
peats taken from the stacks at the farm, gave us a
bright fire for our midnight labours. Bits of candle
stuck in succession on a save-all, manufactured by
ourselves out of a nail and a piece of tin, performed

380 SUCCESSFUL EFFORT [1827

the part of lamp, and thus enlightened, we wrote
away.

In an old patched dressing-gown with a warm shawl
over it, my feet on the hearth-stone, and two or three
potatoes roasting in the ashes, I passed many a happy
hour. We worked late, for the Highland winters have
very dark mornings, so we rose .late. Mary's papers
were very clever, very original, well deserving of the
praise they received.

Dear old barrack -room ! the scene of some sorrow,
and many pleasures. In our younger days, in John's
holidays, we used to give private entertainments there
far away from molestation. We contrived a fire, made
coffee, boiled eggs, had bread and cheese and butter
and porridge. John was the caterer, as nobody ever
refused him anything. How merry we were ! Years
after, when he was Governor of Jamaica, in one of the
few letters he wrote me he recalled the gay doings of
the barrack-room, the more enjoyable from their
mystery.

When Mrs Macpherson sent us our £4.0, she sent us
also by her Macpherson boy, on his shaggy pony called
Rob Roy, a Times newspaper in which was a most
favourable criticism of our contributions to the Inspector,
especially of Mary's " Country Campaign of a Man of
Fashion." We were wild ; first we skipped, then we
laughed, then we sat down and cried. In this state our
only thought was, " We must tell mamma."

She was alone at work in the library ; we laid our
banknotes before her, presented the newspaper and Mrs
Macpherson's note. We had dreaded her anger, for she
was proud. Poor woman ! that was over ; she had
suffered too much. " Dear good children," was all she
said, and then she wept as we had done, but happiness
prevailed. We had all the fun in the world arranging
how to spend our treasure. We were so very badly off
for necessaries, we had difficulty in settling what was
most wanted. We had no walking shoes. It was
amusing to see us in our house shoes — old satin slippers
of all colours patched at the sides, looking a little more

1827] A VISIT TO HUNTLY 381

respectable after we learned to dye them ; shabby dress
gowns, because we had no plainer; the two servant
maids as shabby as ourselves, saying nothing, good
creatures, and very grateful for the share of wages we
were now enabled to give them. We three, my mother,
Mary, and I, kept our secret, for had William known of
it he would have borrowed some, he was so hard up
himself, to keep work going. We thought it best to
put by a little, have a nest egg, for the hour of need
might come again ; but it never came, thank God, and
the kind friends raised up for us — but I am running on
too fast.

My mother thought a few pounds should be spent
on me, to enable me to accept a kind invitation to
Huntly Lodge in the spring. Several pretty dresses
had been sent to me as presents and never made up, and
white muslin was plenty in Robbie Cumming's shop, so
I set out with the Bellevilles for Huntly.

I had always liked Lord Huntly, and he had known
us young people from our birth ; my father and mother
were as intimate with him as they had been with his
mother, the beautiful Duchess, our pleasant neighbour
for so many summers. He had married late in life, the
unfortunate habit of too many men of fashion. Lady
Huntly was an excellent woman ; she brought him a
large fortune, a clear business head, good temper, and
high principles. She soon set straight all that she had
found crooked. She was not handsome, though she
had a good figure, a good skin, and beautiful hands —
the Brodie face is short and broad ; but she suited him,
every one liked her, and she always liked me, so the
fortnight I passed with her was very agreeable. There
were several guests in the house, a large dinner-party
every day, all of the Gordon name. Two of the
Montagues, the Ladies Caroline and Emily, were
staying with their uncle and aunt ; and Lord Charles
Russell. It was an ugly country, the grounds uninter-
esting, nothing particular to do except the sorting
of what became afterwards a very fine collection of
shells and minerals, left by Lady Huntly, with all that

382 THE END COMES [1827

remained of her money, to her first cousin Brodie
of Brodie.

Mary had well filled my place at home. She had a
genius for management, and she amused my mother
with her forest tales. Newstead was a never-failing
subject, for there she got among the great people both
of them liked. Mary had delighted in the sociable life
she had led there. Of course she found the poor old
Doune dull after it ; had we not had our writings to
occupy us her spirits might have got very low, for her
fine mind was not sufficient for itself; with a spur and
a prop she ran lightly through any life, wanting either
she failed ; but now at home she had both, and well she
did her part. She helped me in all my works and
assisted our mother, and then skipped merrily at night
up to the ~" regions of fancy " in the barrack-room.

My poor mother just at this time received a great
shock in the death of her eldest brother, William Iron-
side of Houghton-le-Spring. He was thrown from his
horse and killed on the spot. She was much attached
to all her family, and she felt this much ; but there is a
silver lining to most clouds. My father came back in
the summer, John followed, and for a few weeks time
passed as usual. Then came the end.

The Borough of Tavistock, for which my father had
sat in the last two Parliaments, was now wanted by the
Duke of Bedford for his wonderful son, little Lord John
Russell. This enforced retirement closed the home
world to my father ; without this shield, his person was
not safe. He left us ; he never returned to his Duchus.
When he drove away to catch the coach that lovely
summer morning, he looked for the last time on those
beautiful scenes he dearly loved and most certainly was
proud of, though he never valued his inheritance rightly.
He went first to London and then abroad, taking John
with him. Then came the news of his appointment to
a judgeship in Bombay ; Charles Grant, now Lord
Glenelg, had done it ; and we were desired to proceed
to London immediately to prepare for the voyage. It
was a blessing, and a shock — to me at least ; every one

1827] PREPARATIONS FOR LEAVING 383

else was rejoicing. Letters of congratulation came by
every post ; my mother smiled once more, and set about
her preparations for removal with an alacrity that
surprised us.

There was a good deal to be done, for the house was
to be left in a proper state to be let furnished with the
shootings, a new and profitable scheme for making
money out of the bare moors in the Highlands. We
were to take nothing with us but our wardrobes, all else
was to be left for sale, and lists of the property left
had to be made to prepare the way for the auction.
The stock and crop at the farm, the wine, the
plate, the linen, the books, all and everything that was
not furniture was to go, except a few pet treasures
packed in a small box and left to the care of Mrs
Macpherson. She sent them to me afterwards, and I
have a few still, but what belonged to the Doune I gave
back to John, and my own small collection of coins I
sold during our Irish famine when we were sorely
pressed for money ; they brought only £ 50, very
welcome at that sad time, a time that set me writing
again, and with success.

My mother upset herself by reading old letters
before destroying them ; she was seriously ill. She
warned me not to go through such a trial, and begged
of me to burn all letters. I have done so, and regret it.
Memory remains ever fresh; its recollections are as
painful as the words of a letter.

William would not let the creditors have the little
pony carriage ; I don't know that it was exactly right,
but nothing was ever said about it. It was given with
its two pretty ponies, Sir Peter and Lady Teazle, to
Lady Gibson Craig, by whom it was fully valued. It
was the last remnant of our better days ; when every
other luxury was parted with, that was kept for my
mother's use ; she took no other exercise. When my
father was at home he drove her out in it daily. I see
them now — he in his grey woodman's coat with leather
belt holding a short axe and a saw, breeches and long
leather gaiters, a hat lined with green and turned up

384 DRIVES IN THE PONY CARRIAGE [1827

behind, the shortness of his neck bringing the stiff
collar of the coat too near the brim of it ; she in a drab
greatcoat with a cape, made purposely for all weathers,
and a queer-shaped black straw bonnet. Away they
went all alone, out for hours, the commonest object of
their drive being the pretty hill of Callart, at the end of
Cambus Mor, which had been lately planted by my
mother herself with money left her by her aunt Jane
Nesham. Before Jane married, when my father was
away she was the driver. She wore a large flap straw
hat lined with green, her spectacles on, a plaid thrown
round her; standing up at difficult corners, nodding
and calling out to every passer-by, on she whipped, my
mother, the greatest coward in the world, quite at ease
under her guidance. Dear old days ! happy through all
our troubles. " Isna the heart tough that it winna
break ? " said the unhappy widow Macpherson, who lost
her three fine sons in the Spanish War.

The difficulty now was to provide funds for our
journey. My mother had put by £10 of aunt Mary's
money; we had £$ left of the Inspector. Belleville,
kind Belleville, brought us ^40, part the produce of
another packet of papers already printed, part advanced
by him on some more which had been accepted, and
would be paid for shortly. The old landau was cleaned,
the horses ordered, the heavy trunks packed and sent
off to Inverness to go by sea to London, and we were to
start in the evening to dine and sleep at Belleville.

It was in August, early in the month ; the weather
was beautiful, the country looked lovely, the Spey
sparkled in the sunshine, the wooded hills on either side
stood as they stand now, and we watched the sun
setting behind Tor Alvie on that last day, without a
tear. Mary and I had determined to be brave. We
had called on every one of every degree ; we had taken
leave of none, purposely avoiding any allusion to our
approaching departure. We denied ourselves the
sad pleasure of bidding farewell to favourite scenes.
Once unnerved we feared giving way, so keeping
actively busy, we went on day by day, looking forward

1827] THE LAST WALE IN THE DUCHUS 385

with hope and drawing the veil of resignation over the
past.

My father had been knighted, and was safe in
France, with John. William had been in London and
Edinburgh and I know not where else, and had returned
to take care of us. Poor William ! how broken down
he looked, how wise and thoughtful he was. He said
an honourable recovery was before my father, happiness
and comfort secured to my mother ; we should nourish
no feeling but gratitude.

On this last day, all packing being done by the help
of my mother's old maid, whom we had brought from
her inn at Aviemore to be with her during the night
(the only person in or out of the house who knew how
near was our departure), William and my mother were
in the study sorting papers in the large black cabinet ;
Mary and I went out for a walk to the garden for fruit
— the pretty garden, all banks and braes and little dells,
with hanging birch all round. It was just a step into
the wood at the upper end and then on to the Milltown
burn, chafing and sparkling in its rocky bed as we
followed it along the path under the Ord. We crossed
the wooden bridge ; I had always loved that shady lane
with the old woman in her chair, with her fan, perched
up high above, and the blue Cairngorm at the end. We
went on ; we caught the loch, its dark fir screens, the
cottages near this end, the flour mill, the ruined castle
on its island, our own pretty cottage with its porch
and little flower-garden and small green lawn sloping
down to the loch, our boat tied to the old stump, our
cow grazing ; we did not enter, we could not have sat
down in the parlour our own hands had fitted up. We
passed on into the path along the shore of the loch —
Loch-an-Eilan — we did not go on to Loch Gaun, but
turned off up the hill to the sheep-cote and so round that
shoulder of the Ord by our own walk, to the seat round
the birch tree on the knoll above the river where we had
rehearsed our plays, and where Jane took the sketch of
the Doune which Robson tinted ; then we went down
through the wood to the walk by the Spey, coming out

2 B

386 THE DEPARTURE fi827

at the gate by the church, and in again to the planting
by the backwater and so to the green gate by the beech
tree, with few words, but not a tear till we heard that
green door clasp behind us ; then we gave way, dropped
down on the two mushroom seats and cried bitterly.
Alas for resolution! had we not determined to avoid
this grief? Even now I seem to hear the clasp of that
gate ; I shall hear it till I die ; it seemed to end the
poetry of our existence. We had not meant to take
that round ; we had gone on gradually, enticed by the
beauty of the day, the loveliness of the scenery, the
recollections of the life from which we were parting.
Long after we returned to the memory of this walk,
recalling views, thoughts, words, never to be forgotten,
and which we spoke of at sea, at Pau, and at Avranches
with a tender melancholy which bound my dear sister
Mary and me more firmly together ; we had gone
through so much with none to help us. Everybody has
a life, an inner life ; everybody has a private history ;
everybody, at least almost everybody, has found his own
lot at some particular period hard to bear. The trials
of our house were severe enough. When our young
cheerful spirits felt their bitterness, what must our poor
mother have suffered that last sad day; she so reserved,
so easily fretted, so ill, and so lonely ; hers had been a
thickly shadowed life, little of it really happy.

She had slept well, Mrs Mackenzie said ; all through
the day she was composed, kept busy by William.
About five o'clock he showed us the carriage on the
shingle at the other side of the river, and putting my
mother's arm within his own, he led her out. No one
till that moment knew that we were to go that evening,
there was therefore no crowd ; the few servants from the
farm, joined by the two maids from the house, watched
us crossing in the little boat, to which Mary and I
walked down alone behind the others. Crossing the
hall, William had caught up an old plaid of my father's
to put upon the seat of the boat ; he called old John
Mackintosh to row us over — Robert Allan was with the
carriage. When leaving the boat, my mother threw the

1827] CREDITORS 387

plaid over the bewildered old man's shoulders. He
knew it was the Laird's, and I heard he was buried in it.
We entered the carriage, never once looked back, nor
shed a tear ; very gravely we made out those eight miles
among the hills and woods, and heaths and lochs, and
the dear Spey, all of which we had loved from childhood
and which never again could be the same to any of us.

Belleville and Mrs Macpherson received us so kindly,
so warmly, cheerfully as of old. The dinner was even
pleasant, so skilfully did these best of friends manage
the conversation. No one was with them. Mrs
Macpherson sat a long while with Mary and me at
night, strengthening right feelings with all her powers
of wisdom. She had had two pretty lockets made to
enclose her hair, and she cut in two a long Trichinopoly
chain to hang them on ; these were her parting gifts.
Belleville gave to each of us a writing-case fully
furnished. My mother, who was a beautiful needle-
woman, had been embroidering trimmings broad and
narrow to be left as a remembrance to her friend of
thirty years. We avoided a parting, having arranged to
set off early, before our hosts were up ; the only deceit
we ever practised on them. We travelled on through
the bleak hill road, and posting all the way reached
Perth for dinner. Here an unexpected difficulty met
us : a coachmaker, not paid for some repairs at various
times, seized the carriage for £40. He was inexorable ;
we must pay the bill or lose the carriage. William
came to me ; I never saw him more annoyed ; we were
in despair, knowing how little would upset our poor
mother. It was the last straw — I recollected kind Belle-
ville's £40 for my unfinished " Painter's Progress," very
grieved to give it to such a hard man to pay him all
when others, more deserving, would only get their due
by degrees ; but we had no choice, so after a good
night's rest we entered our redeemed carriage and drove
on to Edinburgh ; there the carriage was seized again
and allowed to go ; we wanted it no longer. We were
much annoyed by hosts of unpaid tradesmen, whom it
was agreed that I should see, as they were likely to be

388 FAREWELL TO EDINBURGH FRIENDS [1827

more considerate with me — I, who could do nothing.
William kept out of the way and we would not allow
my mother to be worried. The only cross creditor
among the crowd was old Sanderson the lapidary ; there
really was not much owing to him, a few pounds for
setting some of uncle Edward's agates ; these few
pounds he insisted on getting, and as there was no
money to be had he kept a set of garnets he had got to
clean. They had been left to me by Miss Neale, the sister
of our great-uncle Alexander's wife, were set in gold, and
though not then the fashion, have been all the rage
since. I was thankful to get rid of even one of those
unfortunate men, whom I was ashamed of seeing daily
at our hotel, Douglas's in St Andrew Square, where
we were comfortably lodged, and where we had to wait
for the sailing of the steamer — which then went but twice
a week from Leith to London — and for a remittance to
provide for our expenses.

At that season very few of our friends were in town,
which was a relief to all, but Lord Jeffrey and Lord
Moncreiff came in from their country houses to take
leave of us. They were much attached to my sisters
and me : it was a truly uncle's kiss and uncle's blessing
each left with us. I never saw Lord Moncreiff again ;
Lord Jeffrey lived to greet me with the old warmth
years afterwards.

One day and night we spent at Riccarton with the
Gibson Craigs ; neither house nor grounds were then
finished. We thought the scale quite suited to the old
place and fine fortune. They were all kind, father,
mother, sons, and daughters. We had been intimate for
so long, so much together. Mary was married, the rest
all at home and very sad at the parting, even William,
though he affected high spirits. His father could not
turn him into a politician, but he became a very useful
and agreeable country gentleman, and he gained great
credit by the reforms he made in the Edinburgh Record
office. I was very sorry to bid him good-bye ; his
brother, afterwards my brother-in-law, was less attrac-
tive, though so worthy.

1837] BY SEA TO LONDON 389

We were two beautiful days and calm nights at sea ;
I recollect the voyage as agreeable. It was so calm we
steamed on in sight of the coast great part of the way ;
the sea was alive with shipping, mostly small craft, and
then we sighted the N. Foreland. We entered the
river, when I was actually startled by the sight of two
large Indiamen outward bound, floating down with the
tide so grandly, moving on their way, their long, long
way, with such a silent dignity. There seemed to be
no one on board but the crew. As we passed the huge
hulls and gazed upon the open cabin windows, our own
destiny, so little liked, seemed to come more certainly
upon us, and I turned away and wept.

We reached London, or rather Blackwall, in the
afternoon, engaged two hackney coaches for ourselves
and our luggage — my poor mother ! there was a fall ;
she did feel it — and on we went to Dover Street,
Piccadilly, where lodgings had been taken for us in the

name of General N . He and dear Annie were

there to welcome us. So began a busy time. It is so
long ago, so much was done, so very much was suffered,
that I can hardly now, at the end of twenty years, recall
the events of those trying days ; the order of them has
quite escaped me. The few friends in or near London
in the month of September gathered round us, dear
aunt Lissy and all her Freres, and good old Sophy
Williams, Jane and Colonel Pennington, Lord Glenelg
and Robert Grant.

A violent ranging disturbed us one day, and a
violent knocking too, by several people all insisting on
being let in, on seeing some one, on finding Sir John
Grant ; he was in these lodgings, they were sure. My
father had come to see Sir Charles Forbes, and he had
been watched and tracked ; he had lodged here before,
during a fit of illness, and it was a mistake that they
were taken for us, but he knew the old maiden landlady
who had been so kind to him would be attentive to his
family, and she was ; he had won her heart, as he won
every one's, and she stood to us well. She said she had
let her rooms to General N , whose wife's trunks

390 AT MALSH ANGER [1827

with her address on them were luckily in the hall, and
so she got rid of this alarm. For fear of another, it
was determined to divide our party. John went to the
Freres, Mary was carried off to Malshanger, my father
and mother went to a lodging in a distant street, the
General returned to his Cat and Fiddle, leaving dear
Annie with me. Margaret Cooper came too now and
then to help me, and Mary having left her measure with
the required trades-people, I got through my work well,
Lord Glenelg lending his carriage, for he would not

allow Mrs N and me to go to the city or the docks

in a hackney coach without a footman. Our imprudent
father could not keep quiet ; he was so well known he
was followed once or twice, and he was so near-sighted
he might easily have been seized, so it was resolved to
send him away, and on a Sunday he and John steamed
from the Tower stairs to Boulogne. William saw them
off and then took my mother to Malshanger. At
rest at last, I got on quickly with the necessary
preparations.

As soon as all was in train, all our assistants at work,
little Christy and I went down by coach to Basingstoke ;
there Jane met us driving quiet old " Goody " in her
basket phaeton, and on we went four miles to that most
comfortable, thoroughly English place, Malshanger,
pretty, in an uninteresting country, being well wooded,
the ground undulating, and the neighbourhood thickly
studded with gentlemen's seats. We spent three most
pleasant weeks at Malshanger — the Colonel seemed so
glad to have us, and he was so good-natured. He rode
with me all over those fine Hampshire downs, miles and
miles away in every direction, he on his hunters in their
turn, I on the " gentle Mortimer," which always carried
his master to covert all through the hunting season.

My mother had gone to Oxford to stay with aunt
Mary in her new home, a very wealthy one. Dr
Bourne, a clever and amiable man, took good care of
my mother, put her into good health, and kept her till
William went to bring her up to London a few days
before we started for Portsmouth, for the parting had to

1827] ON BOARD 391

be borne — poor Jane ! We were very few days in
town ; the outfitter did all the packing. The Govern-
ment gave £2000 for the outfit. The passage money
was of course high ; we had three of the best cabins, and
there were the French expenses, and about £400 passed
through my hands. Good Mrs Sophy Williams
presented Mary and me each with a few yards of lace
neatly folded ; on opening the parcels a five-pound note
was found pinned on the lace.

We had finished all our business with fewer mistakes
than could have been expected, considering all that had
to be done and how little used to management were the
doers, and at 5 o'clock next morning we were picked up
by the Southampton stage coach, with Lewis Grant in
it as our escort; William had gone to France. Sir
Charles Forbes, whose essential kindness was almost
unexampled, had sent one of his head clerks to attend
my mother on her journey. Lewis Grant of Kincorth
and his twin brother had been wards of my father ;
there was an old connection between us.

Was it Southampton, or was it Portsmouth we
sailed from? I think it must have been Portsmouth.
Mrs Gillio was already there with her daughter and her
brother, Colonel Grant. In the evening word was
brought that our ship had moved out to the roads, Spit-
head, and though she would not sail till the following
day, the passengers were ordered on board at once.

It was late in the September day — the 28th in the
year 1827 — nearly dark; we got into a good sailing
boat and proceeded out to sea, Mrs Gillio, her brother,
and Lewis Grant with us. In an hour we reached our
" ocean home " ; down came the chair, we were soon
upon the deck, amid such confusion, noise, hubbub, all a
dream, but not to last long, for the rumour grew in a
moment that the wind had changed ; our captain
ordered the anchors up; our kind friends must go.
Mrs Gillio parted with the last of her daughters, her
youngest child, and with us whom she loved almost as
well. Lewis Grant came up from the cabin, where he
had been comforting my mother. He took leave of my

392 THE SHIP SAILS [1827

sister and me, a quiet leave. Had he not a romance at
the bottom of his honest, warm Highland heart? I
thought so when he and I met again and talked of her
" who had no parallel." He had told my mother of the
arrangement with Captain Henning, she was therefore
watching for my father. We stood out to sea and
beat about till nearly ten o'clock, when a Jersey boat
sighted us, came alongside, and my father and both my
brothers came on deck ; a few moments were allowed
us. My father shut himself up with my mother ; John
remained beside Mary and me. William, in an agony
of grief, burst out of our cabin ; we listened to the
sound of the oars as the Jersey boat bore him from us,
and then said Mary, pale as a corpse, "We are done
with home."

William's story from that period for the next four
years would be a good foundation for a novel; his
struggles were very hard. He bore his trials well, and
was helped by many friends, proving that there were
kind hearts in a world some of us have found it a
mistake to call so hard as it is reputed. I may touch
on his romance again; at present I proceed with my
own.

According to an arrangement with the creditors, Sir John Grant's
debts were ultimately paid by himself and his son William.

CHAPTER XXI
1827-1828

A LONG four months' voyage in a narrow space among
a crowd of strangers. My father and mother were the
principal people ; we had the best accommodation, and
we formed a large party ourselves. My father and
mother had one poop cabin, Mary and I had the other,
Isabella's smaller one opened out of ours ; opposite to
hers was Mr Gardiner's ; the two deck cabins were
occupied by my brother John and the captain. It was
a little circle apart from everybody else ; they were all
below on the main deck.

Lieutenant-Colonel and Mrs Morse were returning
to India ; a little girl with two brothers who had been
at school in England, were going back to their parents
in Ceylon ; a young cavalry officer, a doctor, and I do
not know how many cadets ; altogether, with the three
mates, between thirty and forty at the cuddy table, not
omitting Mr Caw, that clever, good-hearted oddity, who
was going with us to India in the hope of being pro-
vided for, as his long, unwearied services deserved.

Mr Gardiner was very agreeable and soon became
a favourite with my father and Mary. He was a
civilian, not young ; he had been ten years in India,
and was returning there after a two years' leave. He
was about thirty, had held a good appointment, and
expected a better. The family was Irish; the father,
Colonel Gardiner, had inherited money and made more,
and had left a large sum to his five children. A
daughter died, one married a very gallant soldier — Sir

898

394 LANDING IN BOMBAY [1828

Edward Blakeney — two sisters remained unmarried and
lived with an aunt at Twickenham. No difficulties
could occur to render this intimacy undesirable, so while
Isabella and I at the cuddy door were warbling pretty
canzonettes to our light guitars, and listening in our
turn to Mrs Morse, who often brought her harp up on
deck in the evenings, Mr Gardiner and his ladye love
amused us all by the care they took never to be far
asunder.

We landed on the 8th of February 1828 in Bombay.
We entered that magnificent harbour at sunset, a
circular basin of enormous size, filled with islands, high,
rocky, wooded, surrounded by a range of mountains
beautifully irregular ; and to the north on the low shore
spread the city, protected by the fort, screened by half
the shipping of the world. We were standing on the
deck. " If this be exile," said my father musingly, " it
is splendid exile." " Who are those bowing men ? " said
my mother, touching his arm and pointing to a group
of natives with coloured high-crowned caps on some
heads, and small red turbans on others, all in white
dresses, and all with shoeless feet, who had approached
us with extraordinary deference. One of the high caps
held out a letter. It was from uncle Edward, who had
turned the corner round Sir Griffin Wilson's wall so
many years ago with his hat pulled down over such
tearful eyes, and these were his servants come to
conduct us to his country house.

I wish I had preserved a more minute recollection
of my first Bombay impressions ; they were very vivid
at the time, and I remember being struck with surprise
that all accounts of India that had fallen in my way
were so meagre, when materials new and strange were
in such abundance.

At soon as all the dignitaries and all the undignified
had paid their visits my mother and I had to return the
attention. Mary was excused on account of her
approaching marriage, which ceremony indeed inter-
rupted our civilities ; but we got through as many calls
as we could.

18S8] MARY'S MARRIAGE 395

My sister's marriage was a grand affair. I do not
remember how many people my aunt thought it
necessary to invite to the breakfast ; there were about
twenty present at the ceremony in the cathedral. We
had such a cousinhood at the Presidency, and Mr
Gardiner and my uncle had so many friends, and there
were my father's brother judges, etc. Good Mr Carr,
afterwards bishop, married them.

For so very pretty a girl as Mary then was, so
beautiful a woman as she became, there never was a less
interesting bride. Her dress was heavy and unbecom-
ing, and a very large veil, the gift of Mr Norris, hid all
of her face except her nose. She was perfectly self-
possessed all through the ceremony, and she went off
with her husband in her new carriage to Salsette with as
much composure as if she had been going for a drive
with me.

I never pretended to understand Mary; what she
felt, or whether she did feel, nobody ever knew when she
did not choose to tell them. Like Jane, and I believe
like myself, what she determined on doing she did, and
well, without fuss, after conviction of its propriety. One
thing is certain, she married a most estimable man, to
whom she was truly attached ; she made a most happy
marriage, and she valued her husband to the end of her
days as he deserved.

Our lovers returned after a retirement of ten days,
and then began a round of entertainments to the newly
married pair. Every incident was seized on by the
community as excuse for party-giving. An Indian life
then was eventless ; to me it was very dull after Mary
married and John left us. Really, old as I was, I was
quite the fashion — a second season of celebrity, a
coming out again ! Like my father, I have all my life
looked ten years younger than my age ; nobody guessed
me at thirty, and being good-looking, lively, and obliging,
I reigned in good earnest over many a better queen than
myself. Of course everbody was busy marrying me.
" Now, don't mind them, Eliza, my dear," said uncle
Edward; "don't fix yet, wait for Smith, my friend

306 COLONEL SMITH [isas

Smith ; he'll be sure to be down here next season, and
he's the man I have chosen for you." Then my aunt,
" I don't mind your not liking old so-and-so or that
tiresome this, and that ill-humoured that, I had rather
you married Colonel Smith than anybody," Then my
cousins, " Oh you will like Colonel Smith, Eliza, every
one likes Colonel Smith." " My goodness, Miss Grant,"

said Mrs Norris, " is it possible you have refused ?

The best match in the Presidency — will certainly be in
council I Everybody must marry here ; whom do you
mean to marry, pray ? " "I am waiting," said I, " for
Colonel Smith."

One morning I was sitting at work ; the cooler
weather had restored us our needles and I was employ-
ing mine for Mary's expected baby, my mother lying
on the sofa reading, when the chobdar in waiting
announced Colonel Smith. He entered, and, in spite
of all the nonsense we had amused ourselves with, we
liked him. "Well," said Mary, on hearing who had
called, "will he do?" "Better than any of your
civilians," answered I, laughing, and we thought no
more about him.

He had come down from Satara, where he com-
manded, for change of air; he lived with his friend,
Dr Eckford, and we frequently met them in the
evenings driving and sometimes in society, but our
paths did not seem to cross. He paid no particular
attention to me ; nor did he dine in my father's house
till many months after we had become acquainted.
My father and he had got into a sort of pleasant
intimacy ages before he seemed to think of me. We
rode always on the Breach Candy road, which was
close to us and agreeable from its skirting the sea,
and our new companion seemed to like political dis-
cussions, for he and my father rode on in front deep
in the Catholic claims which were then being finally
discussed in Parliament, while I, by myself, had plenty
to do in managing that dreadful Donegal and watching
the Parsees' morning adoration of the sun.

These rides continued all the cold weather, our

1828] BIRTH OF A NIECE 397

party latterly reinforced by my cousin, John Gumming,
who was staying with us, and who sometimes got
twisted out of his usual place by me to the side of
my father, Colonel Smith exchanging with him for
a turn or two, to my father's regret, who on these
occasions observed that the captain had inopportunely
interrupted a very interesting argument on the influence
of the Irish priesthood over their flocks; that poor
Smith was a sad Orangeman, quite benighted, but
honest and worth enlightening 1

So began my happy future to gleam on me,
particularly after a few hints from Dr Eckford, whom
my mother about this time began to talk of as Love's
messenger, and then styled roundly Cupid ; such a
Cupid ! He knew his business well ; threw shafts and
bow away as unsuitable to a staid brigadier and a
maiden past her prime. His object was to touch the
lady's reason, which he did, no matter how. Who
would have thought that a marriage thus systematically
arranged could have turned out so well? It took a
long time, however, for India, and while it was pro-
gressing my mother's first grandchild was born. It
was my brother John's birthday, the 23rd of November,
and all the cousinhood were assembled at the Retreat
to do him honour; Gregor and Mary Grant were
indeed staying with us. Mr Gardiner and Mary were
expected, but just before dinner they sent their excuse ;
she did not feel quite well. On leaving the hall a note
summoned my mother, and after the company departed
I set off to Prospect Lodge, mounting the long, long,
dimly-lighted steps that led up the side of the hill
without a thought of the snakes I used at other times
to be so nervous about

The clock had struck twelve ; it was the 24th.
Five minutes after my arrival my little niece was laid
upon my knees, and I believe for weeks after I thought
of no other existing creature. We sisters had gone
through so much together. This blessed baby opened
another view of life to all.

To me I know that my baby niece was a perfect

398 EXPEDITION TO MAHABLEISHWA [1829

delight all the pleasant cold weather; I walked about
with her in my arms whenever she was brought to the
Retreat or I could contrive a visit to Prospect Lodge.
Before the birth of the baby Mary had been for months
very suffering, first the heat and then the rains incom-
moded her greatly. She never took to Indian life,
never rose to meet the fresh air in the mornings, and
the evening drive was often shirked. The beginning
of March brought a degree of heat which she found
oppressive ; she was ill, and advised to try the cooler
air of the higher land ; so an expedition was arranged
to Khandalla, a beautiful plain at the head of the pass
up the Ghauts on the road to Poonah.

As Mary would be dull alone, I was to go with her
and her husband, a plan I liked. A change was
pleasant, a journey in India new, life in tents delightful !

My letters from Khandalla, and my more vivid
descriptions in conversation quite bit my father with
a wish to change the relaxing air of the seaside for
the freshness of the mountains; but he undertook a
much more daring exploit than a visit to the Poonah
Ghauts. Colonel Smith had inspired him with a wish
to see more of the country, to try a few weeks of the
Mahableishwa Hills during the present hot season,
when Bombay was really too oppressive. These
charming hills were in our new friend's district; he
commanded the brigade at Satara, and Mahableishwa,
though thirty miles distant, was included.

A large double-poled tent of Colonel Smith's was
to be lent to us during our stay on the hills. The
Governor's small bungalow, and the Resident's a little
way off, were the only houses at the station ; every-
body else lived in tents, scattered about anywhere in
groups of from five to six according to the size of the
establishment.

The mountain air was enchanting, the sun hot in
the middle of the day, yet quite bearable, the mornings
and evenings delightful, the nights rather cold. The
society was on the pleasantest footing ; the way of life
most agreeable as soon as we got into it.

1829] ENGAGEMENT TO COLONEL SMITH 399

My Colonel used to meet me most mornings just where
the path from our tents joined the road ; we then went
on together. One morning, either I was later than usual,
or he was earlier, at any rate I arrived and he was not
there. I did not know that I looked disappointed, but I
suppose I looked up and down the road. " The Colonel
Sahib has gone on," said the syce, pointing to the fresh
marks of a horse's feet. I blushed, a little at the man's
sharpness, a little at my cool Colonel's easy way of
taking matters.

And now our time was up, and we were to go back
to Bombay, and it was necessary to acquaint Sir John
and my lady that I thought it wiser to go instead to
Satara. It was but thirty miles, every comfort was
already there in my Colonel's bungalow, most of my
wardrobe was with me, and some furniture ; a clergyman
was at hand — the smiling one — the Judge could grant
the license, and the Resident do all the rest.

My father was delighted, particularly when he heard
about the bachelor brother and the Irish estate. He
was charmed, too, at the idea of the mountain wedding,
so queer, so primitive. Not so my mother ; she had no
wish for any marriage, it would only throw so much
more trouble on her. She did not see that either of my
sisters had done much for herself by her determination
to marry. Jane bound to an old man who might be
her grandfather, ugly, and not rich. Mary given up to
her baby, never seeing a creature, nor of use to any one.
She did not understand this craze for marrying ; pray,
who was to write all the notes ? Colonel Smith was
just a soldier, an Irish lad who went out as a cadet, like
any of our Scotch lads, and a marriage huddled up in
that sort of way, in a desert, on a mountain, without a
church, or a cake, or any preparations, it would be no
marriage at all, neither decent nor respectable ; she, for
one, should never consider people married who had been
buckled together in that couple-beggar fashion ; if there
were to be a marriage at all it should be a proper one,
in the Cathedral at Bombay by the clergyman who

400 RETURN TO BOMBAY [1829

officiated there, friends at the wedding, and everything
as it ought to be.

There was no help for it, she was resolute, so we had
to travel down the ghaut, and along the plains, a
hundred miles, I think, for she would have no more sea,
and travel back again after the ceremony, at the loss of
a month's extra pay, for the Colonel did not receive his
allowances when on leave.

So, a goodly company, we set out, Major Jameson
and the Colonel riding, my father in a palanquin like
the ladies. We travelled long and wearily before
reaching the first halting-place, a comfortable bungalow
where all was ready for a late dinner. The two gentle-
men had ridden on, my mother and I were not long
behind them, but we waited nearly an hour for my
father, who, obliging his bearers to follow some
directions of his own, had gone a long round. Good
claret, well cooled, and some champagne, greatly
enlivened the entertainment.

On we went, arriving in Bombay in high good
humour, all but poor Colonel Smith, whose horse shying
or stumbling at the crossing of the stony bed of a river,
he got a severe fall, and was laid up for some weeks
from a strain, in his friend Dr Eckford's house.

CHAPTER XXII

1829-30

MR GARDINER and Mary had removed to a house
in the Fort in Rampart Row, where they were engaged
in packing up their effects, having determined on going
home to England. We were all distressed at this
strange resolution ; he was in good health, she no
worse in India than at home, and the child was thriving,
so that to throw up the service when he was so near
the top seemed a pity. However, they had decided on
going; they took their passage in a small Liverpool
merchantman, three hundred tons, and waited only
to see me married. The last week of their stay,
having sold all they did not mean to carry home, they
removed to the Retreat, which I was glad of for all their
sakes.

Ten days before our marriage, news arrived of the
death of my Colonel's brother, which made him possessor
of the Irish estate, then valued at £1200 a year. My
Colonel wished me to put on mourning for his brother
on reaching Satara, so my wardrobe had no addition
with the exception of three pretty new gowns sent out
luckily by the London dressmaker for me, with a pelisse
and hat and feathers for my mother, which she, not
fancying, made over to me.

My father gave me twenty gold mohurs on my
wedding morning, and as uncle Edward had also given
me a present, I felt rich for the first time in my life ;
and I never felt poor again, and though circumstances
reduced our future income infinitely below our expecta-

401

402 MARRIED [1829

tions, we so managed it that we have never owed what
we could not pay, nor ever known what it was to be
pressed for money.

My Colonel was married in his staff uniform, which
we thought became him better than his cavalry light
grey. There was a large party of relations, a few friends,
and the good Bishop, then only Mr Carr, married us.
My mother, who had become reconciled to my choice,
outraged all propriety by going with me to the
Cathedral ; both she and I wished it, as I was to proceed
across the bay immediately after the ceremony. So it
all took place, how, I know not, for with the awfulness
of the step I was taking, the separation from my father
and mother, and the parting for an indefinite time from
dear Mary, I was bewildered all that morning, and hardly
knew what I was doing till I found myself in the boat
sailing away among the islands, far away from every
one but him who was to be in lieu of all to me for
evermore.

In the month of October, asthma, to which for many
years my husband had been subject, attacked him
seriously. Night after night he spent in an easy chair
smoking stramonium and appearing to suffer painfully.
As the fit became worse instead of better, Dr Bird,
who had returned to his duties, advised change of air,
not to Poonah but to Bombay, to leave the high ground
at once and descend to the coast for a while. He told
me privately the stomach and liver were deranged from
long residence in a tropical climate and that our best plan
would be to return home. This neither of us wished,
and we suggested the Neilgherries ; he said they were
only a makeshift, present ease, but no remedy. So we
proceeded to Bombay, where we took up our residence
with my father and mother.

Colonel Smith felt better for a day or two, and
then he got ill again. Dr Eckford recommended a
consultation, so Dr M'Adam and Dr Penny were called
in, and they decided for a voyage home. Whether they
were right or wrong, who can say? They were so
uneasy about him that they asked for a private interview

829] ORDERED HOME 403

with me, and told me he was in serious ill-health, had
been too long in that climate, that another season could
not but go very hard with him, that a stay in the Neil-
gherries was only a palliative, not a cure, and that, in
short, were he not to sail for England they could not
answer for the consequences.

My father was unwilling to lose us from India. He
went again to Dr M'Adam, and on returning told me
there was nothing for it but the voyage home. I must
own I was very sorry. We had made up our minds to
remain three years longer, and this sudden retirement
from place and pay was a disappointment.

After many inquiries, visits to many ships in
harbour, and careful search as to their commanders, we
decided to sail in the Childe Harold, a new, swift vessel
beautifully fitted up, commanded by Captain West, an
old experienced lieutenant in the Royal Navy. He was
to make a coasting voyage, which was particularly
recommended for my husband.

This settled, we furnished one of the poop cabins
without much cost, as my father made over to us a good
deal of our former cabin furniture. The small cabin
next ours was taken for little Willy Anderson and his
maid, who was to act as mine. The Colonel engaged a
native male attendant, as when a violent fit of asthma
attacked him he was totally helpless. The small cabin
opposite was taken by Dr Eckford, who had resolved
to pay a short visit to the Cape. We had thus prepared
for as much comfort as a homeward voyage admits of;
it is rarely as pleasant as a voyage out, for, in general,
health and spirits are wanting to those who are leaving
their occupation behind them.

My last sight of my father was in the cabin of the
Childe Harold, where he and my mother left me late on
the evening of the 4th of November ; he lingered behind
her one moment to fold me to his heart again, neither
of us speaking, and then he vanished from my sight for
ever. Long I sat listening to the stroke of the oars
which carried them back in the darkness to their
desolate home. It was a dreary parting.

404 REACH PORTSMOUTH [1830

Very early in the morning of some day towards the
end of April 1830 we anchored in the roads off Ports-
mouth. Most of the gentlemen called boats and went
ashore. Captain West returned with delicious things
for breakfast, fresh eggs, butter, cream, fine bread ; how
we enjoyed the feast 1 It gave us strength for our
preparations.

Our two servants bestirred themselves ; Malek was
to remain on board in charge of our heavy luggage ;
Mary, with the trunks selected, was to land with us.
The Colonel was the difficulty ; for a week past he had
not been able to move hand or foot without bringing on
a spasm. They had said at Bombay that he would not
live to reach home. They said at sea that he would die
on the voyage. It seemed this last day as if we should
never get him safe ashore.

A chair was prepared, he was carried out to it, laid
on it, lowered to the boat, lifted up and settled among
cushions. We were about half an hour rowing in, and we
landed by the same steps on the same quay, and we had
secured rooms at the same hotel looking on the harbour,
from which I had started two years and a half before
for India. The captain had taken the rooms in the
morning as the nearest to the water and so the most
convenient for the poor Colonel. What was our amaze-
ment when the boat struck, to see him rise unassisted,
walk up the steps, and along the quay in his large cloak,
and seat himself in the little parlour without a gasp !
We ordered what seemed to us the most luxurious of
repasts, tea, bread and butter, and muffins ; we even
played whist, and when we went to bed, the Colonel lay
down and slept till morning, the first time he had
ventured on such an indulgence for six weeks. I was
too happy to sleep.

Next day I walked about the town with my Colonel
and found it piercingly cold on the Ramparts. Before
going out I had written to Jane to say we should be
with her next day. Dear Jane, she was watching at the
gate when we reached Malshanger.

1830] FAMILY PARTY AT MALSHANGER 405

The party assembled at Malshanger consisted of
Mary, her husband, and two children, Tom having
been born the previous January, William, aunt Bourne,
and her stepdaughter, Henrietta. Aunt Bourne had
been at Malshanger all along; her rich and happy
marriage had ended in a second widowhood, and she
was left the charge of a stepdaughter, who was to her all
that her own daughter could have been. Henrietta was
particularly attractive in looks and manners, and took
to us all. Poor little Willy Anderson, who cried bitterly
on leaving his "auntie," was to be delivered to Miss
Elphick in Kensington ; she had given up the governess
line, having her mother to provide for, and was trying
to establish a sort of infant boarding-school, which, poor
soul, she never succeeded in making a profitable
speculation.

The Gardiners had taken a cottage at a pretty
village three miles off down the hill, surrounding the
parish church which we attended ; they took it for six
months. It was an old, good-sized farm cottage, with a
porch, and a draw-well, and latticed windows, and a
new front, with large rooms, and large windows looking
on a flower-garden. Their voyage in that little boat
had been very boisterous ; they escaped shipwreck by a
mere chance; instead of landing at Liverpool they
were stranded on the coast of Galloway, landed in
boats, started with half their luggage for London,
in postchaises, and after a London lodging took a
house at Ham, to be near Mr Gardiner's aunt, Miss
Porter; then they tried Cheltenham, and at last
responded to Jane's proposal of this cottage. A few
days sufficed to settle them most comfortably. They
were very happy there, always cheerful, everything
nice about them, the children merry, dear little things.
Jane and I often drove in the basket-carriage with
" Goody," and while she wandered through the
village visiting the poor people who shared her
bounties, I sat by Mary's work-table in the window
opening on the garden, where Mr Gardiner delighted
in being busy, little Janie in her white frock and

406 WILLIAM'S ENGAGEMENT [1830

blue sash trotting about the room, and baby Tommy
on my knee.

All parties were anxious that my Colonel and I
should settle in that neighbourhood ; there was a
desirable place, Tangier, to be let, but we could not take
it. The sharp air disagreed with him, and besides, duty
and his early attachments recalled him to his own green
isle. In London he was comparatively well; asthma
attacked him directly he returned to us. It was plain
he could not stay at Malshanger, so he left us for
Dublin.

My sisters and I had a subject of anxiety In William's
engagement to Sally Siddons; about this time she
came on a visit to Mary, her sister Elizabeth followed to
Malshanger ; William, of course, was with his affianced.
The news of their engagement had not reached Bombay
when we sailed. I met it in England, I must say, with
dismay. I feared my mother would give way to a
violence of disapproval that would make all concerned
very uncomfortable, and that would upset my father.
Very anxiously we all awaited our Indian letters, Jane,
Mary, and I were grave, William in a fever, Sally calm.
Mrs Siddons had written to my father detailing the
progress of the attachment, which she would not sanction
without his consent. She touched on William's faults
of character, but believed them to have been redeemed
by the way in which he had supported adversity.
William was keeping his terms at the Temple, Lord
Glenelg having obtained permission for him to proceed
as a barrister to Bengal. The last paragraph of Mrs
Siddons' letter did probably no harm; it stated that
Sally's fortune would be at least ten thousand pounds.

My father received this letter alone, and alone he
determined to consider it before venturing to inform
my mother. He passed a sleepless night, and when at
dawn he made up his mind to rouse his sleeping partner
with the news, he found he might have saved himself
all perturbation; my mother had heard nothing for a
long while that had given her so much pleasure! A
most cordial invitation to William and his wife accom-

1830] AN END 407

panied the consent to the marriage ; Jane gave a grand
dinner, Colonel Pennington produced champagne, and
an evening of happy family cheerfulness followed.

On the 3rd of July my baby girl was born. I had
a peep of my husband on his way from Dublin to
London, and he returned only to take me away, being
ordered by his doctor to Cheltenham for a course of the
waters. He came back in a pretty britchska that he

and William had chosen for me; Annie N and

these two travelling together In it. After a few days
we packed up and packed off, and then indeed I felt I
was gone out from among my own kindred, and had set
up independently — a husband — a baby — an end indeed
of Eliza Grant.

NOTES

P. 1 8. His wife did not long survive him. — She was killed on
the 2nd of August 1797, in a carriage accident, whilst travelling
from England to Rothiemurchus with her daughter and son-in-
law on a first visit to their northern home. They stopped at
the inn of Feshie to water the horses, and whilst the bits were
out of their mouths, a herd of pigs dashed round the corner of
the inn, and knocking down a ladder leaning against the wall,
startled the horses, who set off at full speed towards the bridge
over the Feshie ; the bridge had no parapets, the wheels went
over the side, and phaeton and all fell over down the steep
rocky banks to the bed of the river. The landlord, who had
rushed after, arrived in time to save the laird by catching hold
of his heel as he was disappearing over the brink; he was
severely injured, but Mrs Ironside was killed on the spot.
Mrs Grant, with her baby, Eliza, was in another carriage, and
witnessed the accident ; it is still remembered in the country-
side how the poor lady scrambled down through the shrubs
and rocks, crying on her mother, to find her lying dead below.

P. 24. A long low hill. — The Doune hill is supposed to
be inhabited by one of the numerous Brownies of tradition.
This one was a friendly little fellow who used to come out
nightly from his hill, and work hard in the kitchen tinkering
the pots and pans in return for "the cream-bowl duly set."
But one unfortunate night the laird was kept awake by the
hammering, and cried out peevishly to the Brownie to stop his
noise and be off with him. The Brownie, in high dudgeon,
retired within his hill, and has never resumed his service at
the Doune, though he is supposed to account for the
occasional disappearance of milk left standing in the offices.

409

410 NOTES

He may still be heard at work inside the hill, and there is a
belief that in time his resentment will subside and he will
return to his former haunts. One of the babies of "the
family," born in 1843, was peculiar-looking as a new-born child
from having marked features and unusually long dark hair ; at
first sight of her one of the old women who had come for the
occasion cried out, "Eh, sirs! it's the Brounie come back
again ! "

P. 64. Where they came from . . . / really do not know.
— In 1701 four brothers Raper, Richard of Langthorne,
Henry, Matthew, and Moses, were entered at Heralds'
College as grandsons of Richard Raper of Bodesley, county of
York, and entitled to bear his arms. Moses married Martha,
daughter of Sir William Billings, Lord Mayor of London, from
whom he bought the manor of Thorley in 1714. Dying
without issue, he left Thorley to his brother Matthew of
Wendover Dean, in the county of Bucks, who married
Elizabeth, sister of Sir William Billings. This Matthew
had seven children, of whom the eldest succeeded him at
Thorley, and is the great-uncle Matthew of the Memoirs;
the fourth was John of Twyford House, ancestor of the
Grants and Freres; the sixth was Henry, father of Admiral
Raper.

P. 64, Descended in the direct line from Sir John
Beaumont. — There is a mistake here. Elizabeth Beaumont,
though of the same stock as the Beaumonts of Grace Dieu,
did not (alas !) descend from them but from an elder branch.
Sir Thomas Beaumont, the second son of John, first Viscount
Beaumont, married Philippa Maureward, heiress of the
Manors of Godesby and Cole Orton. He had two sons, John,
who succeeded him (d. 1459), and Thomas, ancestor of the
Beaumonts of Grace Dieu. The fourth in descent from John
was Sir Nicolas of Cole Orton (d. 1502). The descendants of
his eldest son, Sir Henry, carried on the main Cole Orton line
for a time, when it reverted to the descendants of his second
son, Sir Thomas of Stoughton Grange ; the male line of the
Beaumonts of Cole Orton came to an end with Sir George
Beaumont, the friend of Wordsworth, fifth in descent from Sir
Thomas of Stoughton Grange. Elizabeth Beaumont was
fourth in descent from the same Thomas; she married Dr
William Hale, and died 1726; he died in 1758, aged 84.

NOTES 411

Their only child, Elizabeth, married John Raper of Twyford
House.

P. 68. He must have been the Admirals father. — He was
the Admiral himself, and figures as a boy of ten or twelve in
his cousin's diary. There are, however, various passages in it
concerning "Dick," afterwards Lord Howe, who seems to
have loved and have sailed away. When his sister-in-law, Mrs
Howe, has to inform Miss Raper of Captain Howe's marriage
elsewhere, she enters in her diary : " Thought I should have
died. Cried heartily, damned him as heartily, and went about
loose with neither life nor soul." Another curious entry under
loth October 1758 describes how a largish party of ladies
went to the fair at Blackheath, and continues, " Got out again
safe and sound, a pretty good crowd, got kissed three of us in
coming back." The diary is mostly in cipher.

P. 1 08. Sir William Grant, the Master of the
story goes that on one occasion, when Dr William Grant
arrived from London late at night, he was met at Aviemore by
his brother, the laird, who bade him go at once to the help of
one of the floaters' wives, who was in sore trouble. He did
so, and before morning a lad-bairn, the future Master of the
Rolls, was safely born. Perhaps he owed his fore-name to
this circumstance.

P. 174. — Among the skits of this witty satirist was a
doggerel ballad rhyming all the crack-jaw names of the High-
land clans. One of the verses runs thus :—

Come the Grants of Tullochgorum
Wi' their pipers gaun before 'em,
Proud the mithers are that bore 'em,

Fee fa fudle fum.

Come the Grants of Rothiemurchus,
Ilka ane his sword and dirk has,
Ilka ane as proud as a Turk is,

Fee fa fudle fum.

P. 1 8 1.— The kirkyard at Rothiemurchus contains the
tomb of the Shaw who was captain of the Clan Chattan in the
battle between the clans at the Inch of Perth. On the slab
covering him stand five curious cylinder-shaped stones, one at
each corner and one in the middle, which tradition says
disappear and reappear with the ebb or flow of the fortunes of

412 NOTES

the family in possession of Rothiemurchus. While the Duke
of Bedford rented the Doune, one of his footmen, an English-
man, carried off one of the stones for a frolic, causing great
indignation among the people, not appeased by his being
made to bring it back ; and when, a few days after, the poor
fellow was drowned in fording the Spey, no doubt was enter-
tained that he had brought on his doom by his temerity in
meddling with the Shaw's stone.

P. 184. In the year 1556, / think. — It was in 1570 that
Patrick received from his father a charter of the lands of
Muckerach and others; in 1580, upon his own resignation, he
received another of the same lands, in which he is designed
" of Rothiemurchus."

P. 184. The Shaws having displeased the Government by
repeated acts of insubordination. — Allan Shaw, the last of the
Shaws of Rothiemurchus, was outlawed and his estates
confiscated for the murder of his step-father, Sir John Dallas.
There was bad blood between the two, his mother's marriage
being highly displeasing to the young man. One afternoon,
as Allan was walking along the road, his dog, seeing Dallas
enter the smithy, followed, and was kicked out by him. Allan
drew his sword, entered the smithy, cut off Dallas' head, and
returning to the Doune threw it down at his mother's feet.
The room she was sitting in is still pointed out. The scene
of the murder was a spot now included in the garden, and
every August the scent of blood is said to rise there in
memory of the deed committed in that month. Shaw fled
from justice, and met with his death shortly afterwards.
The Chief of Grant purchased for a large sum his estates,
or rather the right to hold them if he could, and bestowed
them with the same condition on his second son Patrick.
The Mackintosh, as Shaw's chief, considered the defaulter's
property should have fallen to him, and Patrick's possession
was by no means an easy one.

P. 1 86. Grizzel Mor. — During the troubles of 1688 this
lady successfully defended the Castle of Loch-an-Eilan from
an attack made upon it after the Battle of Cromdale, by a
party of the adherents of James II. under General Buchan.

P. 1 86. Surnamed Macalpine, I dorft know why. — He

NOTES 413

was formally adopted into the Clan Alpine, and given the
name, in recognition of his friendliness and good offices to the
unfortunate Clan Macgregor.

P. 1 86. Lovat. — There is a story well known in the north
that Macalpine and Lovat, playing cards together, and
Macalpine hesitating long over his play, Lovat grew impatient
and urged him to go on with the game. "Well, Lovat," said
Macalpine, " the truth is, I have a hand that puzzles me ;
you'd be fitter to play it yourself, for it's a knave between two
kings."

P. 187. Stories of Macalpine' s days. — They are still to be
heard by those who bring an ear for the Gaelic. Here are
one or two.

The Mackintosh set up a mill just outside the Rothie-
murchus west march, and threatened to divert the water from
the Rothiemurchus lands. Macalpine, having received Rob
Roy's promise to back him, sent a haughty letter to the
Mackintosh, who thereupon vowed to march in his men and
burn the Doune. Macalpine was at this time at variance with
his chief, and could not expect assistance from him, and, being
unable to cope alone with so powerful a chief as the
Mackintosh, grew very uneasy as time passed and Rob Roy
made no sign. The Mackintoshes were assembled in force on
the march, and Macalpine sat one night in his room with his
head down on his arms on the table, when he felt 'a heavy
hand on his shoulder, and a voice spoke, " What though the
purse be empty the night, who knows how full it may be in
the morn ? " He started up, and there was Rob Roy, alone,
with no sign of followers. After a hearty greeting, the laird
asked " But where are your men, Rob ? " " Take you no
heed of that," said Rob, and called for his piper. Up and
down in front of the Doune house paced the piper playing the
" Macgregors' Gathering " ; and as he played, on the opposite
side of the Spey in Kinrara appeared two Macgregors, and
then three Macgregors, and then two Macgregors, till at last a
hundred and fifty of the prettiest men in Rob Roy's band were
standing there fully armed. And the piper had orders not to
stop playing till all were out, and it nearly burst him. And as
the Macgregors came out by twos and threes, the Mackintoshes
on the opposite side stole off by fours and fives, until, as the
last Macgregor took his place, the last Mackintosh disappeared.

414 NOTES

Then Rob Roy wrote a letter to the Mackintosh (which is
repeated from beginning to end in the original Gaelic), in
which he threatened to go through his country and leave not
a man alive nor a house unburned if any further displeasure
were offered to Rothiemurchus. And he bade Macalpine send
for him if occasion arose, and he would.come, no matter how far.
"But," said Rob, "it's a far cry to Balquhidder, and no one
here who knows the way " ; so he left behind him two of his
young men, great runners, who would go to hell if he bade
them, to be despatched to fetch him if need were, for they
would do a hundred miles in twenty-four hours. The
Mackintosh's mill was destroyed, and a song was made of it
called " The Burning of the Black Mill." The tune is one of
the best reel tunes in the country-side.

Macalpine had a daughter (natural) called Mairie bhuie,
or yellow-haired Mary. One of the young men left behind by
Rob Roy fell in love with her, and she with him, but
Macalpine would not hear of it So Macgregor and she ran
off together, and hid themselves in a distant part of Rothie-
murchus. About five or six years afterwards the laird was out
hunting and lost his way. Presently he saw a bothie, and
Mairie, looking out, saw him, and bade her husband run
quickly out at the back and hide. And when Macalpine
came in she warmed and comforted him, and gave him good
food and good drink, until, when he was rested and refreshed,
he said to her, "Noo fetch me the guidman's heid in your
apron." "Na, na, Laird," she answered, "I've ower mony
heids at my fireside for me to spare you his heid." " Hoot,
lassie," said Macalpine, "gae 'wa and bid him come ben."
So Macgregor was called in, and Macalpine gave him the
farm of Altdru. They lived there from generation to genera-
tion till the time of Hamish Macgregor, who was the last of
the race. He died in the Doune Square in 1890.

It is said that Macalpine never slept at night without
praying for two men, Rob Roy and the Duke of Gordon.

P. 1 88. His second bride. — The story goes that Macalpine,
being determined to marry, asked Tullochgorm if he had
any marriageable daughters, and was answered two, who
were entirely at hii disposal. So Macalpine went wooing to
Tullochgorm, but the two young ladies, brought in one after
the other, declined the old laird's proposal. Nothing daunted,
Macalpine asked if there was no other daughter of the family,

NOTES 415

and was answered, "Ay, there's a bit lassie rinnin' aboot."
Macalpine bade them send for her. "So Rauchel was fetched
in from the byre, and when she came ben she just made
a graan' curtsey, and said, 'Deed, Macalpine, it's proud I'll
be to be Leddy Rothiemurchus. ' " So they were married,
and she became the mother of several fine sons.

Macalpine's age both at death and at his marriage with
Rachel has been greatly exaggerated by tradition. Their
eldest son, William, received a commission in the Highland
Regiment in 1 742 ; he was probably a year older than his
brother Lewis, who was born in 1728. This would bring
Macalpine's second marriage to 1726 at latest, at which date
he was sixty-one years old. His first wife was the daughter of
Patrick, tutor of Grant, second son of John Grant, sixth of
Freuchie, Chief of Grant.

P. 252. He was long regretted. — "The Captain " is so well
remembered that he is still seen at times looking out of the
upper windows of the house at Inverdruie.

P. 263. A certain William Grant. — It was when Dr
William Grant was living at the Doune that there befell a quarrel
in the kitchen between the cook and the turnspit ; she came
crying to her master that the boy had raised a knife at her and
cut off her hair ; he meanwhile took to his heels, and Dr
William, coming to the door, saw him running down the
avenue at top speed. " Come back, you black thief, till I give
you your wage ! " shouted the Doctor in Gaelic. " Wait you
till I ask for it," called back the boy. This was how General
William Grant came to enlist

P. 369. Sir Walter Scott. — Scott has a reference to one
of the Rothiemurchus traditions in the fourth canto of
Marmion : —

And such a phantom, too, 'tis said,

With Highland broadsword, targe, and plaid,

And fingers red with gore,
Is seen in Rothiemurcus glade,
Or where the sable pine-trees shade
Dark Tomantoul and Auchnaalaid,

Dromouchty, or Glenmore.

The gigantic figure is said to offer battle to the belated
traveller through the woods ; to him who boldly accepts it no
harm is done, but a display of terror is punished by death.

INDEX

ABBOTSFORD, 369
Abercrombie, Lord, 314
Abernethy, Parson John of, 207-

210, 252

Achnahatanich, 351
Acres, Mrs, 31

Ainslie, Sir Robert, 73, 92, 365
Alison, Sir Archibald, 328
Allan, Mr and Mrs, 314

Robert, 372, 377, 386
Almondell, 316
Altyre, 44
Alvie, 22, 168, 243, 245

Mr Macdonald of, 252, 253
Anderson, John, 298

Sam, 308

Willy, 403, 405
Anguish, Mrs, in
Appleby, Nanny, 78
Arbuthnot, Sir William and Lady,

286, 308, 336
Argyll, Duke of, 302
Arkwright, Mr, 363
Arndilly, 44
Augusta, Princess, 150, 151, 152,

155, 157
Augustus, Prince, 150, 157, 313,

Aust, Mr and Mrs Murray, 44,

ill
Aviemore, 22, 51, 239, 277

BADENOCH, 41, 83, 183, 239
Baillie, Colonel, 95

Grace, 91, 92, 174, 239, 283, 284,
288, 291, 330

Joanna, 366

Mrs, 95

Bain, John, 172, 351
Balfour, Mary, 143
Ballindalloch, 44, 221, 228
417

Ballintomb, 88, 251
Balnespick ; see Mackintosh of
Barnes, Col., 73
Barnewell, Colonel, 358

Mrs ; see Ironside
Barrington, Lady, 16
Bathurst, Lady Harriet, 350
Battle Abbey, the field of, 12
Beaumont, Elizabeth, 64 ; notes 410

Sir John, 64

Beckvelt, M., 50, 54, 72, 161
Bedford, Duchess of, 169, 225, 305,
306

Duke of, 43, 50, 322, 339, 382
Bee, Jacky, 18
Belleville, 168, 247, 273, 300; see

Macphersons of
Belper, 362

Bennets, the Missel, 72
Bennie River, the, 201
Beresford, Miss Constantia, 363
Berry Hill, 360, 362
Bhealiott, 88

Bianchi, Mrs, 124 ; see Lacey
Billington, Mrs, 114
Bird, Mrs, 91, 170, 174

William, 170
Bishop's Stortford, 3, 54
Blackburns, the, 19, 79
Blackwood, Mr, 379
Blair, Anderson, 297-300

Sir David Hunter, 341
Blair Athole, 166, 167, 299
Blakeney, Sir Edward, 394
Bombay, 394, 399, 400, 402
Bonner, Mrs, 38
Boswell, Sir Alexander, 174, 235,

288, 321 ; notes 411
Bourne, Dr, 378, 390

Henrietta, 405

Mrs, 6 ; see Ironside
Braemar, 201

2 D

418

INDEX

Brae-Riach, 168, 227
Braham, 124

Brewster, Sir David and Lady, 211,
286, 312, 336, 337, 341, 349,

352
Brodie, Mr, 253

Mrs Dunbar ; see Burgie

of Brodie, 253, 382

of Lethen, Miss, 97
Brougham, Lord, 328
Brown, Dr, 284
Buchan, Lord, 115, 165, 313
Burdett, Sir Francis, I2O
Burghead, loo
Burgie, 44, 95

the Dunbar Brodies of, 96, 97,

174, 267
Burgoyne, Colonel, 352 ; Lady, 280,

301, 352 ; see Holme
Bury, Lady, 303
Byron, Lord, 163, 364

CADOGAN, Colonel, 90
Cairngorm, 168, 385
Cameron, James (cousin), 26, 41,
44, 69, 70, 88, 89, 145, 183,
190, 192, 200, 233, 239, 270-
272,283
Mrs James (cousin), 192, 199,

271,272
Jenny, 171
Mary (cousin), 192, 199, 200,

233, 250
Murdoch, 88
William, 217, 233, 257, 271

his sons, 233, 235, 244
Campbell, Betty, 6, 7, 8, 23, 193,

225, 239, 256, 299
Elizabeth, 174

John, 8, 23, 239, 256, 257, 299
Canning, Mrs, 342
Carnegie, Elizabeth, 293
Carr, Mr, 395
Mrs, 170

the Bridge of, 107
Carrs, the, 330, 342
Castle Grant, 27, 44, 45, 89
Catalani, 115, 124, 125
Caw, Mr, 321, 377, 393
Charlotte, death of Princess, 342

Queen, 342
Cheltenham, visit to, 140

Chichester, Lord Spencer, 320
Clarkes of Dalnavert, the, 353
Clavering, Lady Augusta, 302,

307
Clerk, Bessy, 286, 322, 324, 325,

341, 372
John, Lord Eldin, 286, 313, 322-

334, 353

Wm., 286, 325, 335, 336
Cluny, Macphersons of, 44, 92
Cochrane, Charles, 311

Miss, 318

Cockburn, Mr, 335
Coleridge, S. T., 366
Colleys, the, 29, 172, 223
Collins, Mr, 141, 142, 143
Combe, Dr, 179
Comyns, the, 83, 183, 185
Conyngham, Lord, 355

Mr, 174

Cooper, Mr Arthur, 28, 94, 257,
279, 280

Mrs, 28, 83, 84, 94, 95, 258, 279,

281
Cornwallis, Marchioness of, 305

the Ladies, 350
Corrour, John, 187
Coulmonie, 97, 267
Coxe, Mr, 136, 137
Coy lam, bridge of, 197, 201,

235

Craigcrook, 319, 334, 336
Craigellachie, 1 68, 277
Croft, the, 26, 183, 192, 199, 200,

212, 213, 217, 239, 259, 270,

281, 352
Culduthel, 280
Cuming, Mrs, 105
Gumming, Gordon, of Altyre, Sir

William, 100, 104, 174, 175,

368
Gumming, Gordon? of Altyre, the,

83, 91, 174, 175, 273, 309,

Gumming of Logic, 44, 102, 266,

267
Alexander, 103, 104, 266, 328,

370
Lady (Baillie), 91, IO2-IO5,~I73,

328-330

her sons, 328, 330
Lady (Grant), 94, 146, 191
Curtis, Sir William, 354

INDEX

419

DALLAS, Mr, 26

Bailing, Capt, 319

Dalnacardoch, 167

Dalnavert, 89, 185

Dalwhinnie, 87, 167, 351

Dalzels, the, 327, 353

Daniels, the Misses, 72

Darnaway Woods, the, 102

Dashwood, Mrs, 146, 188

Davidson, Duncan, of Tulloch,

370
Margaret, no, 170, 180

Day, Mrs, 8, 10, n

Deadman, Mrs, 155

Dell, the, 192, 198, 199, 212, 214,
27i, 352

Denton, Mrs, 71

D'Este, Colonel; see Augustus,
Prince

Devonshire, Duke and Duchess of,
111,364

Dirom, Sir Philip, 315

Divie Castle, 278
River, the, 105, 369

Donegal, Marquis of, 320

Doune, the, 5-8, 21-25, 29, 30, 31,
39, 40-43, 70, 74, 81, 82, 87,
90, 102, 107, 109, 157, 161,
163, 168, 169, 173, 183, 188,
189, 194, 199. 200, 213, 214,
225, 230, 237, 242, 244, 247,
248, 252, 272, 290, 300, 304,
305, 326, 345, 346, 349, 358,
367, 368 ; notes 409

Downs, the, 156

Drews, the, 157, 158,

Druie River, the, 197, 198, 201,
221, 346

Drumochter, 167, 172

Drury, Mrs, 161, 303

Duff, the Misses, of Muirtown, 280,

371

Duffus, 99, 102
Dulnain River, the, 107
Dunbar, Sir Archibald and Lady,

99, ioo

Dunbars, the, 99
Dundas, John Hamilton, 354
Dundee, 166

Dunkeld, 40, 166, 298, 299
Dunmore, Lord and Lady, 158

old Lady, 158
Dunn, Finlay, 311

Dursley, Lord, 156
Duthil, 44, 87

EASTBOURNE, 12, 13

Eckford, Dr, 396, 397, 400, 402,

403

Edinburgh, I, 3, 6, 10, 20, 79, 165,
244, 246, 283, 289, 302, 307,
316-320, 329, 321-344, 359,
372, 373, 376, 387
Charlotte Square, I, 5, 6, 8, 316
George Street, 307
Great King Street, 344, 359
Heriot Row, 284
Picardy Place, JI9, 321, 334, 344
Queen Street, 302, 307
the Lord Provost of, 308
Elchies, Lord, 24, 243
Eldin, Lord ; see Clerk
Eldon, Lord Chancellor, 83, 141

Lady, 142

Elgin, 3, 69, 99, 101, 102
Ellenborough, Lord, 63, 161
Elouis, Mons., 330, 331
Elphick, Miss, 161, 164, 167, 170,
172, 173, 175-181, 197, 202,
205, 224, 231, 237, 238, 24.5,
253, 255, 257, 258, 266, 271,
282, 283, 285, 296, 331, 334,
336, 340, 373, 405
Erskine, Harry, 115, 313, 316
Lord, 115, 313, 329
Mrs, 316

FAVRIN, Caroline, 161, 170, 180,
235, 238, 244, 253, 254, 25$ \.%

Fazakerly, Mr, 242

Ferguson, Sir Adam, 325

Sir James and Lady Henrietta,
316

Fincastle, Lord, 158

Findhorn, the, 96, 102, 105, 107,
369

Finlays, the Kirkman, 340, 373'

Fletcher, Mrs, 308

Floaters' ball, the, 218

Flodden, the field of, 164

Fochabers, 101, 102

Forbes, Sir Charles, 108, 389, 391

Forres, 6, 95-99, 102, 146, 256, 346

Fountain Dale, 360, 363, 371

2 D 2

420

INDEX

Fountainhall, Lord, 105

Fountains Abbey, 360

Fox, Mr, 137

Fraser of Lovat, 92, 93, 369 ; notes

413

of Torbreck, 313
Harriet, 370
Freeburn, 277, 278
Frere (uncle George), 52, 53, 54,

71,72, 157, 234, 364-367
(aunt Lissy), 57, 58, 61, 65, 69,
71,72, 73, 75, 81, 112, 119,
143, 150, 154, 157, 161, 241,

365, 366, 383, 384, 389, 405 ;

see Grant
John, 61, 72, 339
Susan, 51, 73
Freres, the, 55, 73, 87, no, 115,

162, 233, 340, 365, 390
Frogmore, 149
Fullerton, Mr, 335
Fyffe, John, 171
Fyvie, Mr, 373

GALE, Urquhart, 306, 347
Gardiner, Miss, 32-35

Janie, no

Mr, 393-395, 397, 398, 400, 405,

406

Garmouth, 101, 229
George III., 93, 140, 149, 160
George IV., visit of, to Scotland,

354, 355

George, Mr, 324
Gibson-Craig, Sir James, 372

Lady, 383

Willum, 341, 388

Gibson-Craigs, the, 322, 336,377,388
Gillies, Lord and Mrs, 115, 193,

236, 286, 293, 335
Gillio, Amelia, 330, 331

Mrs, 391

Glasgow, 2, 3, 367
Glass, Betty ; see Campbell
Glenbervie, Lady, 161
Glenelg, Lord ; see Grant, Charles
Glen Ennich, 187, 201, 300
Glenevis, Cameron of, 188, 190
Glen Feshie, 226
Glenyarry, 371
Glenlee, Lord, 293, 294, 296
Glenmore, 201, 213
Glentromie, 92

Glossip, Colonel and Mrs, 153
Gloucester, Duke of, 9
Goodchilds, the, 19, 330
Gordon Castle, 101
Gordon, Colonel, 92, 101

Dr and Mrs, 243, 244, 283, 302,
319, 320

Duchess of, 41-44, 48, 50, 92,
H5, 158, 174, *67, 276, 305,
306, 308

Duke of, 92, 101, 201, 113, 241

Jenny, 1 88

Lady Georgina, 42, 43

Lady Jane, 45

Lord Lewis, 190

Sir Willoughby, 367
Gordonstown, 100
Gow, Neil, 40, 166, 298
Graeme, Robert, 334, 335
Grant, Allan, 224

Annie, 115, I44-H8, 15*, 156, 161,
173, 277, 303 i see MrsN

Charles, 35, 107, 272, 273, 358

Mrs Charles, 116

Charles, Lord Glenelg, 62, 91,
272, 273, 349, 382, 389, 390

Sir Colquhoun, 108

Colonel, 99

Colonel Francis, 62, 354

George, 67, 188

Grace, 170, 180, 233

Gregor, and Mrs Gregor (see
Mary Ironside), 397

James, 344

Miss Jean (Pro), 98

John, Achnahatanich, 186, 200

John Peter, minister of Duthil,

107, 203-206

Minister of Duthil, 203-206, 252

Peter Macalpine, 145, 189

Peter the Pensioner, 108, 199, 263

Mrs Provost, 97-99, 108

Robert, 349, 368, 389

Sandy, 113, 120, 161

Mrs Sandy, 120

Widow, 264

General William, 108, 263 ; notes

4T5
Sir William, Master of the Rolls,

108, ua ; notes 411
Grants of Ballindalloch, 88, 186,

193, 241
of Congalton, the Misses, 354

INDEX

421

Grants of Dalachapple, Alexander,

230, 262

of Glenmoriston, Patrick, 44, 74,
210, 266, 279, 370

Anne, 152

Harriet, 73, 74

the Lady, 94, 191
of Grant, Sir James, 27, 45, 62

Lady, 27

Miss, 27

Ludovic, 1 86

of Kilgraston, Mrs, 286, 309
of Kinchurdy, 94, 250, 265
of Kincorth, Lewis, 391
of Rothiemurchus, Alexander
(great-uncle Sandy), 21, 26,

69, 79, 152, 191
Mrs Alexander, 69, 70, 191
James (third laird), 185

his wife Grace (Mackintosh),
called Grizel Mor, 1 86 ;
notes 412

James (fifth laird), 187, 190, 243
his wife, the Lady Jean
(Gordon), 21, 79, 190, 191,
198, 243

Jane (sister), Mrs Pennington,
7,8,12,15,19,30,36,48,55,
57, 58, 59, 62, 78, 79, 80, 82,
87, 104, 109, 114, 116, 126,
129, 130, 131, 132, 135, 136,
140, 141, 143, 147, 151, 152,
155,156, 157,158,162, 163,
165, 177, 179, 180, 200, 213,
215, 224, 231, 232, 236, 237,
238,248,250, 251,254, 255,
256, 259, 282, 283, 291, 298,
310, 311, 312, 318-320, 322,
328, 330, 332, 334, 336, 341,
342, 343, 348, 349, 352, 354,
357, 367, 369, 371-375, 376,
384, 389-391, 399, 405-407
John Currour, 187, 188, 243
John Peter (seventh laird)
(father), I-I2, 15, 26, 28,
32, 34, 4i, 49, 50, 57, 6x,
62, 65, 66, 69, 71, 74, 80, 85-
90, 94, 104, 113, 118, 126,
143, 146, 151, 152, 154, 155,
158, 161, 162, 170, 171-173,
177, 178, 180, 181, 183, 193,
197, 212, 213, 229, 230, 231,
234-237, 240, 242, 247, 248,

Grants of Rothiemurchus — contd.

251, 252, 255, 258, 264, 271,
274, 279, 281, 282, 284, 287,
292-296, 298, 299, 303, 304,
307, 308, 310, 313, 32i, 332,
336, 339, 340, 342, 344, 345,
347, 352, 353, 354, 355, 359,
367, 372, 376, 377, 382-385,
389, 403-406, 407
Lady (Ironside) (mother), I-
10, 12, 15, 19, 21, 26,
27, 28, 32, 34, 37, 40,
48-50, 52, 71, 73, 74-8o, 83-
90, 92, 94, U3, 126, 134,
143, 145, 148, 150, 151, 152,
154, 158, 162, 170, 172, 173,
177, 179, 181, 189, 193, 194,

210, 212, 213, 229, 230, 231-

333, 236, 242, 243, 248, 250,

258, 264, 269, 271, 279, 282,
285, 286, 289, 291-294, 297,
310, 313, 315, 321, 322, 336,

339, 341-345, 347-351, 353,
354, 368, 372, 376, 377, 380-
403, 406

John Peter (ninth laird)
(brother), 71, 72, 79, 116,
152, 156, 164, 167, 169, 170,

ISO, 213, 220, 224, 226, 238,

243, 344, 355, 256, 271, 330,
336, 339, 340, 348, 358, 368,
371, 380, 382, 393, 395

Captain Lewis (great-grand-
uncle), 26, 44, 89, 146, 183,
188-190, 192, 195-197, 205,
247-252; notes 415

Mrs Lewis (Miss Duff), 146, 189

Mrs Lewis (Miss Grant, Burn-
side), 190, 195-197, 247-251

Lissy (aunt), 3, 5, 6, n, 12, 26,
27, 33, 39, 48, 51, 52, 54,
55 ; see Mrs Frere

Mary (sister), Mrs Gardiner, 9,
15, 31, 37, 40, 48, 55, 58-6o,
79, 82, 116, 147, 148, 152,
156, 164,176, 180, 213, 223,
224, 232, 238, 241, 244, 254,
255, 327, 330, 342, 343, 370,
371, 376, 379, 38o, 383, 384,
387-398, 401, 405

Patrick of Muckerach, 184

Patrick Macalpine (fourth laird),
1 86

422

INDEX

Grants of Rothiemurchus, Patrick,

called Rothie (sixth laird)

(great-uncle),3, 4, 6, 24, 68, 69,

108, 191, 194, 195, 213, 243

Patrick, in Tullochgrue,i87,i9O

Mrs Peter (cousin's wife), 150,

152

Colonel William (great-grand-
uncle), 16, 44, 145, 186, 188,
189

Dr William (grandfather), 2, 3,
5, 25, 68-70, 156, 191, 240;
notes 411
Mrs ; see Raper
William Patrick (eighth laird)
(brother), 6, 7, 8, 10, II,
12, 15, 17, 23, 25, 30-35,
39-41, 44, 48, 55, 57, 58,
71, 79, 82, 84, 85-87, 114,
126, 158, 170, 213, 233, 237-
239, 244, 245, 246, 254, 283,
284,290,297, 300, 319, 320,
322, 342-348, 352, 354, 359,
360, 368, 371, 372, 376-378,
383-392, 405, 406, 407
of Tullochgorm, 188 ; notes 414
Grants of Rothiemurchus, genealogy

of the, 184-192

Gray of Kinfauns, Lady, 307, 309
Grenville, Lord, 117, 124
Grey, Lord, 321
Griffith, Dr James (cousin), 54, 82-

84, 121-144, 350, 351
Mrs (great-aunt), 19, 20
Gurdon, Miss, 115

HADDON Hall, 364
Hall, Sir James and Lady Helen,
308, 312

Basil, 312, 334

Fanny, 311
Hamilton, Lord Archibald, 157

Henry, 157

Hampstead, life at, 364-367
Hatley, Captain, 73
Hay, Sir Adam, 313

Elizabeth, 313, 341

Sir John, 308, 313, 314, 341

Robert, 313
Hemans, Mrs, 370
Henderson, Miss, 315
Henning, Captain, 392
Henville, Mr, 91

Herbert, Mrs, 56

Holme, Colonel and Mrs Rose of,

279, 352
Charlotte Rose of, 280, 301, 352 ;

see Lady Burgoyne
Hood, Lady, 301
Hooker, Dr, 349, 352
Hope, Dr, 284, 312
Horsemans, the, 19, 123
Horsley, Bishop, 68
Houghton-le-Spring, 17-20, 29, 40,

Hughes, Dr, 141
Hunter, Lady, 331
the Misses, 312, 331
Mr William, 161, 303
Huntly, Lord, 45, 92, 170, 174, 241,
245, 252, 253, 267, 268, 269,
270, 274, 280, 299, 304, 306,
314, 38i
Lady, 252, 253, 267, 268, 275,

280, 299, 306, 381
Hutton, Squire, 20
Buttons, the, 72

INCH, Loch, 43
Inchyra, 298
India, 393-403
Inglis, Miss, 330
Inver, 40, 298

Irjverdruie House, 3, 22, 23, 24, 26,
168, 169, 183, 189, 190, 200,
213, 252, 258

Invereshie, 44, 168, 193, 299
Inverkeithing, 17
Inverness, 84, 93, 170, 240, 300,

301, 346, 378
Ironside, Colonel and Mrs Charles,

ill, 140

Edmund (uncle), 18
Edward (uncle), 14, 18, 35-37,
174, 303, 3io, 343, 357, 358,
394, 401

Elizabeth (aunt) ; see Mrs Leitch
Fanny (aunt), 14, 20, 38
John (uncle), 18

Mary (aunt), Mrs Griffith, after-
wards Mrs Bourne, 6, 13, 14,
27, 33, 37, 38, 48, 53, 54, 55,
60,79,82, 84, 85, 117, 118,

I22-I3I, 139, 144, 203, 221,

235, 259, 312, 349, 351, 352-
356, 378, 405

INDEX

423

Ironside, Mr (grandfather), 4, 18,
292

Mrs (grandmother), 6, 18, 292 ;
notes 409

Patience and Prudence (great-
grand-aunts), 19

Peggie and Elsie (great-aunts),
19, 78

Ralph (uncle), 18, 36, 47, 116,
123, 159, 299. 349, 350, 351,
359
his son Edmund, 47, 349,

379
his daughter Eliza, 47, 349, 350,

35i
Mrs Ralph (aunt Judy), 47, 123,

351
William (uncle), 18, 382

his daughters, Eliza, 76, 358
(see Bax) ; Kate, 76, 358 (see
Barnewell) ; Mary (see Mrs
Gregor Grant), 358
Ironsides, the, I, 3
Irving, Mr, 366

JAMESON, Major, 40x3
Jedburgh, French officers at, 165
Jeffrey, Lord and Mrs, 64, 286, 313,

319, 334, 335, 341, 370, 372,

388

Charlotte, 319, 370
Jobson, Mrs, 326
Jones, Mr, 72
Jopplin, Miss, 47
Jordan, Mrs, 173, 237

KAYE, Mrs, 336
Keith, Lady, ill
Kemble, John, 14, 38, 159, 337

Stephen, 155

Kennedy of Dunare, Mr, 328
Kent, Duchess of, 367
Kenyon, Lord, 119
Khandalla, 398
Killiecrankie, 166
Killiehuntly Dell, 239, 299
Kilmerdinny, 46, 47, 115
Kilravock, Mrs Rose of, 281
Kinapol, 16, 44, 69, 172, 236
Kincairn, 168
Kinchurdy, 88

Kincraig, 1 68

Kinderley, Mr, 47

Kingussie, 168, 21 1, 241, 348,

35<>

Kinloss, 63, 96, 161

Kinrara, 26, 41-4$, 69, 87, 90, 115,
174, 193, 245, 267, 272, 299,
305, 306, 314, 349, 352

Kinross, 21

Kitson, Cuddy, 1 8

LAGGAN, 44

Lansdowne, Lord, 321

Larrig, the Pass of, 201

La"uder, Sir Thomas and Lady

Dick, 105, 106, 174, 201, 243,

276, 369, 370
Lauderdale, Lady, 313, 314, 354

Lord, 313-316, 327
Launder, Ursula, 156
Laurie, Lady, 73
Lawrence, Mrs, 358, 359
Leinster, Duke of, 71
Leitch, Mr, 18, 32, 36, 46
Mrs, 3,4,6, 32,36,47, n$, "9,

123, 159, 265, 367
Leitchison, 101
Lempriere, Mr and Mrs, 362
Leopold, Prince, 314
Leslie, Professor, 312
L'Espinasse, Mons., 285, 336, 368,

371

Liddell, Sir Thomas, 1 6, 307
Listen, 337, 338
Loch-an-Eilan, 82, 90, 185, 202,

222, 258, 349, 385
Lochan Mor, the, 145, 146, 199,

283

Lochans, the, 82, 223, 259
Loch Ennich, 201, 224, 300, 301
Loch Morlich, 201
Lockhart, Mr, 325
Loder, Mr, 332
London, 8, n, 16, 389
Bury Place, 8, 9, 10, 14
Lincoln's Inn Fields, 13, 31, 48,

63, 118, 144, 156, 161
Luinach River, the, 201, 300
Lynch, Mrs, 8, 10, 16, 29, 31, 36,

39, 49, 51, 55 ; see Mackenzie
Lynedoch, Lord, 350
Lynwilg, 22, 168, 244

424

INDEX

MACALPINE, Patrick Grant, of
Rothiemurchus, 186, 189, 205 ;
notes 412, 413, 414
Macbean, Sandy, 305
Macdonald, Lord, 371
of Alvie, 208, 209

Mrs, 209

Macfarlane, Bishop, 84
Macgregor, Sir William, 108
Macgregors, 195, 258, 259

John, 171, 172
Mackenzie, 16, 31, 37, 39, 51, 239,

265

Jock, 41

Mrs, 251, 277, 386 ; see Lynch
of Applecross, 280, 301
of Gairloch, Sir Francis, 280
Mackintosh, Duncan, 67, 117, 159,
183, 192, 199, 213, 214, 221,
223, 224, 239, 271, 344
Mrs, 192, 198, 213, 214, 250
Sir James and Lady, 186, 367
John, 171, 231, 386
of Balnespick, and Mrs, 193, 217,

241
of Borlam, and Mrs, 202, 276,

370

Sandy, 213, 214
Macklin, Mr, 91, 174
Maclean, Donald, 8, 29, 172, 242,

305

Miss, 346

Macleods of Macleod, the, 307, 309
Macpherson, John, 172

Mrs, 275, 379, 38o, 383, 387
Ossian, 21 1

Macphersons of Belleville, the, 44,
116, 117, 193, 211, 212, 215,
216, 217, 237, 238, 239, 242,
273, 274, 285, 286, 349, 352,
373, 376, 379, 384, 387
of Cluny, 44, 92, 193
of Invereshie, 190, 250
of Ralea, 353

Maitland, Captain Antony, 315
the Ladies, 313
Lord, 314
Maling, Miss Bessy, 1 1 5

Mrs, in
Malings, the, 303
Malshangher, 374, 390, 40$
Manchester, Duchess of, 83, 158,
305

Manchester, Dukes of, 41, 90,

158

Marcet, Mrs, 349
Marjoribanks of Lees, Sir John,

308

Massie, Mr and Mrs, 307
Matthews, 337
Maxwells, Mrs, 339
Melvilles, the White, 309
Milbankes, the, 77
Millar, Mrs, 32, 35, 38, 55-58, 74,
84-87

William, 39, 40
Milltown, 169, 199, 263
Moises, Mr, 134, 141, 143
Molesworth, Lady, 286, 307

Sir William, 307
Moncrieff, Lord, 370, 388
Montague, the Ladies, 41, 158, 305,

3o6, 350, 381
Moray Firth, 95
Morayshire election, 62
Moreheads, the, 335
Morses, the, 393, 394
Moy, 44, 99

Muckerach, 107, 183, 184
Munros, the, 286, 309
Murray, Charlie, 158

John, 286, 334

Lord and Lady, 308

Lady Augusta ; see Sussex

Murdoch, 223

of Abercairney, 354

William, 335, 337
Murrays of Ochtertyre, the, 307
Murrays, the Wolfe, 295, 316

NAIRN, 95
Naldi, 114
Neale, 69, 191, 388

N , Mrs, 340, 358-364, 371,

372, 389-390, 407 ; see Annie
Grant

Maj.-General, 176, 303, 340, 361,
363, 371, 388-392

N s, the, 362

Nesham family, 18, 20, 292

Jane (great-aunt), 19, 20, 384
Newstead, 364
Nicholls, the Misses, 72, 160
Nightingale, Mr, 297-299, 300
Normanby, Lady, 16

INDEX

425

Norris, Mr, 395

Northern Meeting, the, 276, 279,

370
Norton, William, 156

OLIPHANT of Rossie, Mrs, 309
Ord Bain, 168, 236, 243, 356
Orde, Lady, 73
Osborne, Mr, 214
Oxford, 122-144, 367, 390

PALMER, Mr, 305

Park, the Misses, 72

Pennington, Colonel, 363, 364, 371-

375, 389, 390
Penson, Mr, 28$
Perceval, death of Mr Spencer,

1 60

Percival, the Misses, 72, 160
Perry, Miss, 117
Persian Ambassador, 1 1 6, 117
Perth, 21, 79, 87, 242, 244, 297
Piozzi, Mrs ; see Thrale
Pitmain, 167, 168, 277, 348
Pitmain Tryst, the, 273, 300
Play fair, Professor, 284, 311
Polchar, the, 82, 172, 258, 356
Ponsonby, Colonel, 350
Ponton, Dr, 240, 241
Porter, Miss, 405
Potters, the, 19
Prince Regent, the, 160
Pringle, the Misses, 327

)UEEN Caroline's trial, 350
}ueen Charlotte, 149
)ueen's Ferry, the, 165

RAMSAY, Miss, 87, 90, 91, 107,

109

Ramsgate, visit to, 150, 160
Raper, Admiral, 68 ; notes 411
John (great-grandfather), 3, 39,

64, 68 ; notes 410
Harry, 73
Matthew (great- grand-uncle), 5,

64, 66-68

Miss (Mrs Grant, grandmother),
3, *5, 67-71

Raper, Mrs, 52
Raper Hall, 54
Rapers, the, 3, 64 ; notes 410
Ravensworth, Lord, 307
Rawdon, Mrs, 350
Rawlins, Miss, 303
Redfearn, Johnny, 6
Redfearns, the, 115
Reid, Mr and Mrs, 63
Relugas, 104, 105, 106, 369
Rhinruy Moss, 231
Riannachan, 172
Riccarton, 377, 388

Mr Craig of, 342
Rich, Mrs, 367
Richmond, visit to, 38

Duchess of, 305

Mr and Mrs, 307
Ricketts, Admiral, 140
Rob Roy, notes 413
Rose, George, 365

William, 366
Ross, Betty, 170

Charlotte, 102

George, 31, 41, 171, 172, 194,

210
his son, 41, 170

Simon, 170

Rothiemurchus, 2, 3, 5, 22, 41,
69, 81, 87, 101, 104, 126, 131,
162, 1 68, 169, 170, 184, 189,
190, 193, 198, 200, 212, 226,
241, 258, 271, 283, 344, 346,
355. 371

Rowley, Mr, 135-141, 35 1
Roxburghe, Duke of, 86
Russell, Lord Charles, 381

Mrs George, 335

Lord John, 382

Lord William, 306

Lady William, 350

ST GEORGE, Miss, 153

Saltoun, Lady, 280, 354

Sandford, Erskine, 320

Saunders, Dr, 156

Scarborough, 15-17, 29

Scarlets, the Misses, 72

Scott, Sir William (Lord Stowell),

83, 123, 141, 142
Lady, 142, 143

426

INDEX

Scott, Sir Walter, 120, 163, 166,
268, 325, 326, 354, 369, 370 ;

Seafield, visit to, 296

Seaham, 74-79

Shaws of Rothiemurchus, the, 183,

184, 185, 201 ; notes 412
Shaw-Stewarts, the, 307
Shearer, Miss, 328, 329
Shelley, Mr, 138

Sir Timothy, 138
Shepherd, Sir William and Lady,

304
Siddons, Mrs, 159, 337, 338

Mrs Henry, 237, 327, 329

Sally, 406

Sidmouth, Lady, 143
Sims, Mr, 120

Sinclair, of Murkle, Sir John, 305
Miss, 307

Sir George, 6

Kate, 327

Lady Madelina, 115
Sligo, Lady, 143
Slochd Mor, 84, 278
Sluggan, 88
Smart, Mr, 310
Smith, Colonel, 357, 395-4°7

Dr, 241, 352, 356, 368
Sobieski, the brothers, 368, 369
Spey, the, 23, 24, 31, 70, 83, 101,
104, 107, 168, 193, 201, 204,
219, 221, 228, 243, 247, 277,
305, 346, 368, 384, 387
Stael, Mme de, 342
Stairs, Miss, 303
Stalker, Mr, 203, 301
Steele, Colonel, 306
Steenson, Mr, 101, 229, 230
Stein, Mr and Mrs, 286

Grace, 330
Stephens, Miss, 337
Stevenson, Captain, 73
Stewart, Dugald, 339

Jessie, 147

the Misses, 73, 146, 286

Mrs, 250

Mr, 240

Stort, the River, 51
Strathspey, 26, 83, 184, 214, 2 1 8,

240

Strutts of Helper, the, 362, 363
Studley, 358-360

Sunderland, visit to, 78

Sussex, Duchess of, Lady Augusta

Murray, 150, 152, 154, 155,

157
Duke of, 145, 150

TAVISTOCK, 322, 339, 382

Tay, the, 165

Tennochside, 46, 47, 84, 351, 35*

Thompson, Mr, 35, 72, 128, 148

Thomson, Tommy, 286, 334

Thorley Hall, 5, 8, 39, 48, 63, 64,

66, in, 149, 161
Thorleyhurst, 54
Thorley Wood, 54
Thrale, Mrs, 44, in
Tod, Mr Antony, 314
Tomnahurich, 195, 197
Torbreck ; ste Eraser
Trotter, Mr, 319
Tullochgorm, 88, 89
Tullochgrue, 82, 190, 300
Tunbridge Wells, 12, 48, 50,

116
Tweeddale, Marchioness of, 350

Marquis of, 306, 350
Twyford House, 3, 39, 48, 50-55,

US,

58,61-66, 71,74, in
rnda

Tyndales, the, 72

UNIVERSITY College, Oxford, 122-

144
Urquhart,Mr, 279, 281

VEITCH, Mrs, 307
Vickery, Mr, 128
Vincent, Mr, 128
Vines, the, 303, 367
Vivians, the, 72
Voules, Mr, 54, 149

Mr and Mrs William, 149

WAGSTAFFE, 270
Walker, Mr and Mis, 360

Tom, 176, 363
Ward, Mr, 115, 308
Wards, the ; see Ironside
Wellington, Duke of, 130, 366

INDEX

427

Wemyss, Lord and Lady, 308
West, Captain, 403, 404
Wildman, Colonel, 364
Williams, Anne and Mary, 114
Mrs Sophy, 3, 26, 67, 70, III,

389, 391
Dr and Miss, 121, 122, 141,

144
Williamson, Lady, 16

Wilson, Sir Griffin and Lady, 37,

52, 115, 160, 394
Withan, Sally, 59
Woodside, 336
Wynyard, Lady Matilda, 287

YORK, Duke of, 342
Young, Mr, 337

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Smith, Elizabeth Grant

Memoirs of a Highland lady