the father’s side “came over” (as he delighted to recall) with the Conqueror, he was not less proud to remember that his mother was of one of the best families of the “Gay Gordons,” and that for over three centuries her people had possessed Gight. He went to Aberdeen in 1790, when but two years old; here he stayed till 1798, and during that time he visited again and again most of the finest spots on the Dee. Those mighty hills, those clear, flowing streams, were the earliest things he remembered, and he never failed to acknowledge how deep was the impression they made on him. “From this period I date my love of mountainous countries.” Near the end of his life he sings, in “The Island”—
“The infant rapture still survived the boy,
And Lochnagar with Ida look’d o’er Troy.”
His mention of Lochnagar—“dark Lochnagar”—reminds us how peculiarly his name is connected with that Deeside mountain of which he is the laureate. Here, too, sprang the strange child-love of the precocious boy for Mary Duff, with whose beauty the beauty of the country where he came to know her was indissolubly linked in his mind. The scenes in Greece, he says, carried him back to Morven (his own “Morven of snow”), and many a dark hill in that classic land made him “think of the rocks that o’ershadow Colbeen;” whilst the very mention of “Auld Lang Syne” brings to his mind the river Dee and
“Scotland one and all,
Scotch plaids, Scotch snoods, the blue hills and clear streams.”
In Moore’s biography there are needlessly ingenious arguments to prove that it was not the Dee scenery that made Byron a poet. Of course not. Poeta nascitur non fit, to quote the old Latin saying, which puts the matter much more pithily than Moore. But scenery and early impressions determine the course of a poet’s genius as surely as the nature of the ground determines the course of the stream. How much Celtic magic there is in all Byron’s verses—the love of the wild and terrible and impressive in scenery, as in life! Byron’s poetry is before all romantic, and so is Deeside scenery. In his revolt against conventionalities, and even (it must be said) against the proprieties and decencies, we can clearly trace a true Celtic revolt against the dull, hard, prosaic facts of life. Can it be said that if Byron had passed his early years among the Lincolnshire fens or the muddy flats of Essex, “Don Juan” or “Childe Harold” would have been what they are—if, indeed, they had ever existed?
Moore under-estimated the influence of such scenes on Byron because he under-estimated the scenes themselves. “A small bleak valley, not at all worthy of being associated with the memory of a poet,” says he. At this the local historian, good Mr. James Brown, who, having first driven a coach till he knew every inch of a large stretch of the country, then wrote an excellent Deeside guide, waxes very wroth. “It is really to be wished that Mr. Thomas Moore would not write upon subjects which he knows nothing about. Deeside a small bleak valley! Who ever heard tell of such nonsense!” Moore, however, did after his kind. He who sang the “sweet vale of Avoca” cared little for “dark Lochnagar.” Indeed, there are some northern folk very much of Moore’s opinion. Does not the old proverb tell us that
“A mile of Don’s worth two of Dee,
Except for salmon, stone, and tree”?
But it is for those who love the stone and tree, the wild forests, the wilder hills, that Dee has its surpassing attraction. It adds a fine charm to the enthusiast’s enjoyment of such scenery to know it is not everyone who can appreciate it.
But we turn now to interest of another kind, for at Castleton of Braemar we touch successive strata of historical events. There is Craig-Koynoch, where Kenneth II., too old for hunting himself, used to watch his dogs as they chased some noble stag, whilst his ears drank in the music of horn and hound. Here, too, in the old castle of Braemar, of which but a few remains are left, Malcolm Canmore, last of Scotland’s Celtic kings, had a hunting seat in the midst of the mighty forest of which we still see the remains. There are still great herds of deer to be hunted, though the wolves and wild boars have long since vanished. Here, too, were the great possessions of the Mar family. It was to this place that John Erskine, thirty-ninth Earl of Mar, summoned the Highland clans under pretence of a great hunting party in Braemar forest, and began the rebellion of 1715. The standard was formally set up on the 6th of September, when the gilt ball which ornamented the top fell down, much to the consternation of the superstitious Celts.
A famous Jacobite song gives us the names of the leaders and the clans:—
“I saw our chief come up the glen
Wi’ Drummond and Glengarry,
Macgregor, Murray, Rollo, Keith,
Panmure and gallant Harry;
Macdonald’s men, Clan Ronald’s men,
Mackenzie’s men, Macgillivray’s men,
Strathallan’s men, the Lowlan’ men,
O’Callander and Airly.”
The hunting party, it should be noted, was not all a pretence. It took place on a magnificent scale, as Taylor the Water Poet, who was there (how or why it would take too long to explain), tells us. After he lost sight of the old castle, he was twelve days before he saw either house, or cornfield, or habitation for any creature but deer, wild horses, wolves, and such-like creatures. Taylor goes on to describe how a great body of beaters, setting out at early morning, drove the deer, “their heads making a show like a wood,” to the place where the hunters shot them down. As we all know, the ’15 was a disastrous failure—less terrible, it is true, but less glorious, than the ’45. Mar turned out to be neither statesman nor soldier (“Oh for one hour of Dundee!” said the old officer at Sheriffmuir). He escaped with the Pretender to France, his vast estates were forfeited, and for a time there was no Earldom of Mar. His poor followers suffered more than their lord. All the houses in Braemar were burnt, save one at Corriemulzie. It was only the seclusion of that narrow glen, so beautiful with its birch-trees and its linn, that saved the lonely habitation. There are memories of the ’45 about the district too. For instance, a little way down the river from Castleton is Craig Clunie, where Farquharson of Invercauld lay hid for ten months after Culloden, safe in the devotion of his clan, though his enemies were hunting for him far and near.
BRAEMAR.
Ten miles or so below Castleton, we come upon another royal residence, which we all know as Balmoral, the Highland home of Queen Victoria. This place is now one of the most famous spots in Britain, and though its celebrity is of recent date, yet it has an old history of its own. As far back as 1451 it was royal property. In 1592 James V. gave it to the then Earl of Huntly. In 1652, on the downfall of the family, it came into the possession of the Earl of Moray. Enough of these dull details, which are best left in the congenial seclusion of the charter chest. In 1852 the Crown again—and let us hope finally—acquired Balmoral.
VIEW FROM THE OLD BRIDGE, INVERCAULD, BRAEMAR.
If anyone wonders why the Queen is so fond of her Highland home, it must be because the questioner has never seen it, since of all the dwelling-places of men it is surely the most desirable. It stands on a slight eminence near the Dee, which winds round it in a great bend. Swiftly the beautifully clear water rolls past. The low ground, richly fertile, is green in summer-time with various leafage. Behind the castle rises the graceful height of Craig-na-gow-an,
