but one narrow outlet, over which it foams and struggles, and then falls fifty feet with a great splash into a deep pool. The heights of the precipice are clothed with old fir-trees, which also stick out of the crevasses of the rocks. The Muich rises away up at the foot of Lochnagar in Loch Muich, which means, they say, the Lake of Sorrow—so gloomy and sombre is that far-off recess in the hill. To the west of Lochnagar are the Loch and Glen of Callater—wild enough, too; and beyond is the Breakneck Waterfall, which is positively the last fall I shall mention. A stream makes a bold dart over a precipice. It seems like a thread of silver in the sunlight. Down it falls, with a thundering sound on the rock, scattering its spray around in a perpetual shower. A British admiral, some few years ago, slipped over a precipice near here. His hammer (he was specimen hunting) stuck in a crack, and there he held on for two awful days, and still more awful nights. The whole neighbourhood hunted for him, and at last, the black speck being seen on the cliff, he was rescued. Not a man of the rescuers would accept a farthing for what he had done. The Highlander has his faults, but there is always something of the gentleman about him.
BALLATER.
Nearly due north of Ballater is Morven—the Morven of Byron, and (perhaps) of Ossian, though there are other places and districts in Scotland bearing the name. Morven is the centre of Highland song and legend. But if it is enchanted, it is also uncertain, ground, and must here be left untraced. We are still forty-three miles from Aberdeen; so we glide through Aboyne and Glentanner, leaving the beautiful castle of the one, and the equally, though differently, beautiful valley of the other, unvisited. Then in many a devious turn we wind round the northern boundary of the parish of Birse. “As auld as the hills o’ Birse,” says a local proverb, which shows that even in this land of hills the district is considered hilly. Here are some of their names: Torquhandallachy, Lamawhillis, Carmaferg, Lamahip, Duchery, Craigmahandle, Gannoch, Creaganducy. Grand words those, if you can give them their proper sound. Otherwise leave them “unhonoured and unsung,” and unpronounced. The local chronicler is much perplexed by another somewhat inelegant Aberdeenshire witticism—“Gang to Birse and bottle skate.” With absolute logical correctness he proves that in that inland and hilly parish there are no skate; and that, if there were, to bottle them would be contrary to the principles and practice of any recorded system of fish-curing. We shall not discuss with him this dark saying.
On the other side of the Dee is Lunphanan parish, in the “wood” of which Macbeth—according to Wyntoun, though not according to Shakespeare—met his death. His “cairn” is still to be seen on a bare hill in this district, though another tradition tells us that his dust mingles with the dust of “gracious Duncan” in the sacred soil of Iona. The Dee, now leaving its native county, flows for a few miles through the Mearns or Kincardineshire. It returns to Aberdeenshire in the parish of Drumoak, forming for the remaining fourteen miles of its course the boundary between the two counties.
ABERDEEN.
It is here we come across the most interesting historical memory connected with Deeside, for it is a memory of Queen Mary. On the south side of the Hill of Fare there is a hollow, where the battle of Corrichie was fought in 1562. I do not wish to enter into the history of that troubled time. Suffice it to say that the Earl of Huntly, chief of the Gordons, and head of the Catholics, was intriguing to secure the power which Murray was determined he should not have. The Queen was with Murray, though her heart, they said, was with the Gordons. Anyhow, she dashed northward gaily enough on a horse that would have thrown an ordinary rider. Murray’s diplomacy forced the Gordons into a position of open hostility, and his superior generalship easily secured him the victory at Corrichie. The old Earl of Huntly was taken, it seemed, unhurt, but he suddenly fell down dead—heart-broken at the ruin of himself and his house, said some; crushed by the weight of his armour, said others. They took the body to the Tolbooth in Aberdeen. Knox tells us that the Countess had consulted a witch before the fight, and was comforted by the assurance that her husband would lie unwounded that night in the Tolbooth. The remains, embalmed in some rude fashion, were carried to Edinburgh; for a strange ceremony yet remained ere the Gordon lands were divided among the victors. A Parliament in due time met in Holyrood, and the dead man was brought before his peers to answer for his treasons. A mere formality, perhaps, but an awfully gruesome one. His attainder, and that of his family, together with the forfeiture of his lands, was then pronounced. The battle was a great triumph for the Protestant lords; even the sneering, sceptical Maitland, says Knox, with one of those direct, forcible touches of his, “remembered that there was a God in heaven.” There was one who looked on the matter with other eyes. “The Queen took no pleasure in the victory, and gloomed at the messenger who told of it.” Indeed, there was a tragedy within this tragedy. Among the prisoners taken at Corrichie was Sir John Gordon, Huntly’s second son, “a comely young gentleman,” wild and daring, and, though then an outlaw, one who had ventured to hope for the Queen’s hand. It was whispered that she was not unfavourable to him; some ventured to say “she loved him entirely.” For such a man there was but one fate possible, and that was death. He was executed in the market-place of Aberdeen. Murray looked on at the death of his foe with that inscrutable calm which he preserved in victory and defeat—at his own death, as well as at the death of others. The Queen, too, was forced to be there. Before the axe fell, Gordon professed his unalterable devotion to her. Her presence, he said, was a solace to him, though she had brought him to destruction. The sight was too fearful for Mary, who, in a deadly swoon, was carried to her chamber. Even in her strange life-story there is nothing more terrible. Fotheringay itself is not so tragic. The last four miles of our well-nigh eighty miles’ journey are, as noted, on the border of Aberdeen and Kincardine. Here the river enjoys a peaceful old age, after the wild turmoil of its youth. The water, still beautifully clear, moves placidly along amidst rich meadows; the near hills are low, with soft rounded summits. The dwellings of men give a cheerfulness to the scene. It is the very perfection of pastoral landscape. And then, at last, we come to Aberdeen and the sea. But on the wonders of that famous town I cannot here enter. Suffice it to say that our record of the Highland Dee is finished.
Francis Watt.
BRIDGE OF TAY, KENMORE.
THE TAY.
The Tiber and the Tay—History and Legend—Perthshire and the Tay—The Moor of Rannoch—Blair—Pitlochrie—Killin—Kenmore—The Lyon—The “Rock of Weem”—The “Birks” of Aberfeldy—Dunkeld and Birnam—Invertuthil—The Loch of Clunie—The Isla—Strathmore—Dunsinane Hill—Scone and the Ruthvens—Perth—The Views from Moncrieffe and Kinnoull—Strathearn and the Carse of Gowrie—Dundee—The Tay Bridge, New and Old—View from the “Law”—“Men of Blood” and Men of Business.
“Behold the Tiber!” said the conquering Roman, when from one of the many ’vantage-grounds commanding the noble stream that sweeps past Perth, the Imperial eagles first saw as fair a scene as they had yet reached in their flight. The ardent lovers of the river—meaning all who know its banks well—have ever since felt, with Scott, half flattered by the traditional compliment, half scornful of the comparison of the puny and “drumlie” Roman stream with the broad, clear, and brimming Tay—the dusty Campus Martius with the green “Inches” of Perth—the featureless and desolate Campagna with the glorious stretch of hill and plain, water and woodland, overlooked from Kinnoull Hill
