I began to be sorry of my plan to go to the top end of Scotland but Alick rushed to the depot and we were off. Great Eastern and Caledonian through train to Edinburgh. Here were coaches like the ones at home with compartments and general layout similar. Traffic was very heavy just then and standing room only was about all that was available on that train. I remember a sailor on leave to London from the fleet in the Cromartry Firth and on his way back to his ship. He was several sheets in the wind and had the big black neckerchief (a relic of Nelson’s Time) filled full of winkles or periwinkles and was seated in the centre of the coach isle hailing all comers (Hi! Mitey, Have a winkle Mitey)? It was interesting to see him fish the meat out of the shells with a bent pin. I tried one but lost interest at that.
Scotland
We had a glimpse of old Edinburgh Castle and some of the city and went on to Inverness. This town was more like a town in eastern Canada than any place I saw in Europe. Alick went out during the evening and being lonely I tried to pick up conversation with some folk at the hostelry where we put up. That must have been an ungodly thing to do, for I can still remember the icy stare that rewarded my efforts at sociability. (Unheard-of-you-know). Really I can see through it now but was puzzled at the time. I know of one G. R. Gibson of Hollinger Mines who went on leave from the trenches to Edinburgh in a private’s uniform. His own sisters would not be seen in public with him because of his low degradation and visible proof of same in his raiment. Class!! The Caledonian Railway and away north again to the mists and the Heathered hills awa “away”. Firth of Forth and its bridge Cromartry Firth, and the Fleetmore Hills “seven hills” and old castles and mist and Brora a (wee bit) fishing village at the mouth of a burn. Greetings from Alick’s ain folk and real folk too. A drive in a wee pony cart, two wheeled, with one seat facing front and one back, for 8 miles up the glen following the north side of the brawling burn. What kind of a factory is that Alick? What? Yon? It’s a distillery. This question was asked and answered a couple of times in route. But there was white birch and pine in the gullies and I spotted deer tracks across the road ahead. I could see the real heilands “highlands” with their blue purple heads lost in drifting sheets of cloud mist. McRea senior was Gardner and general caretaker at a hunting lodge. Alick’s brother helped the old man and also ran a power plant on the burn that supplied electric light for the lodge and the village.
Hospitality is here and the guest is put to bed at night with a bowl of hot punch, his buttons are polished, ditto his shoes, and his socks are washed and warmed for his use in the morning. He is awakened in the morning by the daughter of the house bearing a tray with 1st grade Scotch and glasses for a (wee bit) eye opener.
I happened to be about the first Canuck to arrive in those parts and become quite an object of interest to the local folk. Most of the neighbors are gamekeepers and old friends of Alick. We had to make the rounds and visit them all and drink with them. It is a deadly insult to refuse a drink in a Heilanman’s Hoose “Scotchman’s House” in the holiday season. I had not been accustomed to much liquor and it did tax my ability to go the full rounds, but I made it with honors and firm on the two pins at the finish.
Alick’s brother was a piper and we were treated to a concert in the little stone cottage with its low ceilings. The piper marched up and down the length of the hoose “house” and the old man kept time with his walking stick and criticized when a note was dropped or a false one played. The noise in that small place was terrific and I had to plead guilty to not knowing much about piping.
The Wee-Hoose “ Wee-House” had an open fireplace with all the old time fixings, irons and suspended hooks for the cooking pots. There was a big brick and stone bake over built into the side of the kitchen entrance and in it the bread was baked. Oval shaped loaves similar to the ones in the rural districts of France.
A dance was put on for our benefit and a number of the Lads and Lassies of the Glen gave a sample of their dancing ability. They can dance too and it was worth the trip to Scotland to see it. I was grabbed and taken into the whirl, and being well fortified I did not mind though it must have interfered badly with the dance. Lassies were plenty here but the lads, sad to say, were beginning to be very scarce there about and war has yet only begun. War has always taken a brave sad toll in Scotland and you will always find them to be among the first in any field.
The first dead I saw between the front lines at Ploegstreert were Kilties fallen in the autumn of 1915 still lying as they fell.
The game keepers told us of four barren does that were to be killed on the hills for venison. The meat of two was to go to the master and two to the keepers. The first two had all ready been shot and Alick and I were taken out with the keeper to look for the others. We went up among the Heather Broom and Gorse to where there were no trees. Here we put up some big dark-colored mountain grouse that roared off in fine style making a clucking noise. They are similar to our prairie chicken except that they were larger and very dark in color. The keeper carried a telescope and presently we began to crawl on our stomachs through a small depression or fold in the ground and came out at last at a point on the west side over looking a basin or saucer-shaped depression in the hills about 600 yards. in diameter. On the skyline eastward was a small gully or depression filled with stunted spruce. On the far slope immediately in front of this gully lay the band of deer with a stag up on sentry. These are real wild deer and good strategists for the wind was straight out of the stunted spruce. They could hear or smell any approach from there and could see clear around the rest of the circle. We got to within about 450 yards, but not without being seen for another stag rose to his feet and stood facing directly our way. One or two does also rose and stamped impatiently. We froze and studied them with the glass. They have the habits and actions of our woodland caribou and remind me of them very much. We drew beads on them with the rifles and the range was known by the keeper nearly to a yard. There was little wind and a good light and I think we could have made a couple of kills with little difficulty. The keeper was undecided about the two particular does wanted, or gave that impression. I for one did not relish the idea of slinging deadly lead into that brave looking band, and was more interested in studying them for comparison with our deer at home. The sweep of their antlers is a little different from our deer and the beams are dark, almost black, with white tips on the tines. The body looks darker in color and this I found later by close inspection of a dead one, is caused by the inner hair being of a bluish-slate color instead of white as in the case of our red deer. I don’t think they will average any larger than our deer and are about the build of what we know as the Virginia deer in Canada. The hair is the same stiff stuff and loses all its gloss after death.
We met a real old highland sheepherder in the hills about six foot three in height, raw-boned and spare of flesh over a mighty frame. He gave me a hearty greeting and extended a hand about the size of a ham. His voice was a treat and the burrrr-r was 13 Karat. I had to get Alick to act as interpreter as I could not master the combination of burr and dialect.
The time had come to go back to our unit, the Wee Pony Cart was brought out again and adieus were said all around but there is one scene that still sticks hard in my throat. It was Alick’s mother as she stood alone outside the wee-hoose clasping her hands and watching him go out of sight around the bend in the road. I can’t help but think there was premonition in that look. How many highland mothers have had to stand thus and watch their lads out of sight and out of their lives.
The brave hearts are not all in kilts behind the pipes and drums. Some of them stay in the wee stone hooses. Half way to the village we passed a cottager in front of his home dancing reels in the roadway all by himself. The holiday spirit of the New Year was strong in that old “Heilanman”. Maybe he had no sons left to help him celebrate, but there he was spinning with no mean ability and doubtless with no mean load under his belt. Back to Inverness. We waited there overnight to make train connections south again. I met a tall dark Lassie who taught school in a kindergarten on the outskirts of Edinburgh. She also was going south and eventually inquired if I was traveling light. On account of the crush of traffic I had to travel
