When his grandmother had it trimmed to her taste, she threw it on the ground, spread it out, and commanded her grandson: ‘Lie down.’ And when he placed himself prone upon it, so that it reached from his ankles to well beyond his head, she showed him how to roll about and dress himself in it, not rising to his knees until it was properly fitted, and then to a full standing position so that he could fasten the overage about his waist, to be unwound when needed. A Scots Highlander dressed in such a kilt carried twenty pounds of tartan, a kind of ambulatory tent, which kept him safe in all weathers.
When he stood before her, wrapped in this cloak of honor, she thought: What a handsome lad he is, with the flashing blue eyes of his clan. And his youthful eyes did have that fire, for in the eighth and ninth centuries the Vikings of Norway had guided their longships to the fjords of western Scotland, raiding and ravishing, and many Highlanders carried the strain of those heroic days: stalwart bodies, placid dispositions until aroused, and always, scintillating eyes like those of the Macnabs.
‘You’re ready,’ his grandmother said.
Toward the end of August the first drovers appeared in the glen, and all stopped by the home of Macnab of Dunessan to exchange greetings and information. They were from the Outer Islands mostly, men from Lewis and Harris and the Uists who had shipped their cattle by boat across the Minch to the Isle of Skye, and then through the perilous open fjord which separated Skye from the mainland. Any drover from the Outer Isles who reached Glen Lyon with his herd intact was already a hero.
These Islanders were an uncouth band, speaking Gaelic with just enough words of mainland Scots to enable them to function. Short, dark, somber in mien and rude in manner, they terrified the normal mainland Scot, who said: ‘Two Skye men passing through a glen are worse than three floods or four thunderstorms. And a Uist man is worse.’ They stole cattle, robbed cottages, terrorized daughters, and left scars wherever they touched. They were the scourge of Scotland, the Island drovers who knew not God.
But in Glen Lyon they met their match, for the various Macnabs, long inured to battle, were themselves some of the most polished cattle thieves in Scottish history. It was said of the present Macnab, that sanctimonious, churchgoing scoundrel, that ‘he loves animals so tenderly that he feels it his responsibility to take into his care any strays that wander his way.’ Many a Skye drover entering Glen Lyon with one hundred and twenty-one animals departed with only one hundred and eighteen, and it was frequently remarked at how good a cowman Macnab was, since his own herd increased so steadily.
‘A good dog and a quick eye make the drover,’ Macnab often said, and he had both, plus an ingredient he did not specify: he was fearless in the prosecution of his trade and took great risks in augmenting his herd. On the cattle trails he had lived with two dirks hidden in the folds of his kilt, and he had never been afraid to use them. He now quietly handed a pair to his grandson, with the admonition: ‘If you ever touch your dirk in a fight, be prepared to use it all the way.’
He would be placing eighty-one head of cattle in his grandson’s care, perhaps more if things went well before departure, and since it would have been idiotic to trust so much of value to so young a lad, even though he was a husky fellow well able to care for himself, he was sending along a helper, Macnab of Corrie, who, with his two dogs, had made the trip many times before. They would be twelve days on the trail, up hill and down, and they would expect to deliver to Falkirk Tryst a full eighty-one head, plus such others as they might casually acquire en route.
In the meantime, Ninian Gow instructed young Finlay as to what he must do when the cattle had been delivered and sold: ‘You are to leave Falkirk and walk directly to Dunfermline, keeping your money well hidden in your kilt without mentioning it to anyone. From Dunfermline, head straight to Glenrothes and then to Cupar, from which it will be an easy walk to St. Andrews and the university, where you will inquire for Eoghann McRae, with whom you will live and who will tutor you for entrance to the university. Above all, lad, be prudent, for this is your entry into the world of learning. Make it a good one.’
That was the miracle of Scotland. From the most impoverished hovels, from the farthest glen, dedicated ministers and schoolteachers identified boys of promise and goaded them into getting an education at the universities in Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh and, above all, St. Andrews, those centers of learning whose scholars down through the centuries have done so much to alter and improve the English-speaking world. Unable to find employment in Scotland, they emigrated to London and Dublin and New York. They made Canada and Jamaica and Pennsylvania civilized places in which to live; they started colleges in America and universities in Canada. A thousand enterprises in England would have failed without the assistance of the bright lads from Glen Lyon and the Moor of Rannoch and lone shielings on Skye. They would govern India and South Africa and New Hampshire, and wherever they went they would leave schools and hospitals and libraries, for they were the seeds of greatness and of civilization.
There was no sensible reason in the world why a grandson of Macnab of Dunessan, drover and cattle thief extraordinary, should aspire to St. Andrews to study Latin, except that for two thousand years the men who governed the world, making it in each century just a little better, had known Latin. And from the moment Gow had first seen young Finlay he had suspected that here was a lad with the potential to become such an individual.
At about this time various women in the glen remarked that the minister had come to them begging for curious ingredients: ‘He asked for raisins. Wanted to know who had currants. Was especially eager for some orange peel, and who has such in Glen Lyon?’ He borrowed also, with no promise ever to pay back, spices, flour, suet, a dozen eggs, a healthy dram of whiskey and two pounds of butter. When all was assembled he went to a young Widow Macnab whose husband had recently died fighting the Campbells and asked her help in sewing a heavy cloth bag, and when this was done he sought permission to use her kitchen: ‘But first we must find some treacle, for without treacle it would be nothing.’ Then he was ready.
‘In my home near the Grampian Hills we called it a clootie dumplin’, a dumpling made within a cloth,’ and when the ingredients were properly mixed and spiced, he and the widow stuffed them into this cloth, sewed it up, and pitched it into a pot of boiling water, where it seethed for six hours, no less. When it was done, heavy as stone, Ninian Gow told her: ‘My mother boiled me one when I set out for college. It will keep twelve days, maybe sixteen, and give the parting lad a kiss of love as he eats each morsel.’
Finlay celebrated his thirteenth birthday at the end of August. Next morning he rose early, eager to head south with his eighty-four cattle, his grandfather having acquired by usual means three additional head. While Rob barked at his heels, his grandmother, with tears in her eyes, gave him his bundle of dried beef, his grandfather handed him a stout walking stave, and Reverend Gow appeared with a heavy gift which he described as a clootie dumplin’: ‘Eat it sparingly, lad. It should keep you in good health to St. Andrews.’ And the dominie, a man who always stood at the edge of poverty, offered the only present he could afford: a notebook he had used in his schooling from which a third of the pages had been torn.
‘Keep healthy, lad,’ his grandmother called, for she might not see her grandson again for a dozen years.
‘Keep mindful, son,’ his grandfather shouted, tapping his own waist where his dirks were kept.
‘Keep honest,’ the minister said.
‘Keep to your books’ was the dominie’s admonition, and the boy was on his way.
• • •
His route was eastward down Glen Lyon, a marvelously quiet beginning with hills lining the way, but he was soon joined by a rough Skye man coming across the hills from the dark Moor of Rannoch to the north. Finlay, afraid there might be trouble, drew close to Macnab of Corrie, then said boldly to the Skye man: ‘These are the cattle of Macnab of Dunessan,’ and when the Skye man finally led his cattle off on their own route, he left b
ehind, unknowingly, a fine animal that Finlay had taken under his protection. His herd was now eighty-five.
At midpoint in the glen Macnab of Corrie said: ‘It’s best we go boldly over the hills,’ so they forded the little stream that defined the glen, their cattle lowing in protest, and climbed steeply into what Corrie warned was dangerous ground: ‘This is Campbell country, and when a man droves cattle across such land he does so at his peril, for Campbells will sweep down at any moment and steal half his herd.’
This theft and countertheft among the Highland clans was not judged in the harsh manner it would have been in England, where misappropriation of another man’s horse or cow could mean a hanging. Highlanders stole each other’s cattle in a kind of game, a test of gallantry and intelligence, with always the chance that one clan might rise up in desperation and launch a general slaughter—not of the other clan’s cattle but of the clan itself. It was heroic competition, and none were more cruel at it than the Campbells, or more sly and self-protective than the Macnabs. There was a saying among the drovers from Skye: ‘To avoid the Macnabs in Glen Lyon takes twenty more miles, but it could save you twenty animals.’
When the Macnabs dropped down to beautiful Loch Tay they traveled eastward along its northern shore for many miles, then entered with considerable nervousness the narrow glens leading to Campbell lands, and after they had reached a spot where it was necessary to bring the cattle into an orderly ring for the night’s rest, both Finlay and Corrie felt uneasy. They slept fitfully while their three dogs watched the cattle, and as they had feared, at dawn a loud, ferocious man challenged them: ‘This is Campbell land, and who might you be, trespassing upon it?’
Finlay was about to say proudly that these were cattle of Macnab of Dunessan, but Corrie, mindful of the fact that the Macnabs had always sided with the Macdonalds in wars with the Campbells, said deceitfully: ‘We drove for Menzies of that Ilk.’
‘A good man,’ the Campbell henchman grunted, ‘but the fee for passing here is two of your beasts,’ and when Finlay started to protest, he growled: ‘No beasts, no passage.’
Corrie, sweatingly eager to maintain peace, said quickly: ‘I’ll find you two,’ but the Campbell said: ‘I’ll do the picking,’ and he sorted out two of the best.
When the huge guardian started to leave with the animals, Finlay was so outraged that he reached for his dirks, and although he was only a lad and pitifully smaller than the Campbell, he would have tried to stab him from behind had not Corrie restrained him: ‘Laddie, sheath your dirks. There’s a better way.’ And the big man departed, not realizing how close he had been to death.
The two Macnabs made as if they were leaving the glen, but that night, in the silvery glow that passed for darkness in these high summer latitudes, Corrie, Finlay and the dog Rob circled back to where the Campbell cattle rested, and there, with the subtlest whispers, Corrie instructed the boy as to what his dog must do: ‘Send him to the far end. Tell him to fetch us three. But make no noise.’
To one not acquainted with the Highland sheepdog, it might seem preposterous to expect Rob to understand such a thieving mission, but the dog was an enthusiastic conspirator and something of a thief himself, so quietly he ran to the grazing beasts, separated five, then turned two loose when Finlay whistled softly in the darkness.
Edging the cattle southward to where his master waited, Rob delivered them without a sound to the boy, who swiftly joined them to the Macnab herd and even more swiftly spirited the whole group out of the Campbell domain.
When all were safe, Corrie, not a demonstrative man, leaped in the air, and in the light of the newly risen moon, grasped Finlay’s hands and cried: ‘The Campbells stole two of ours but we rescued three of theirs!’
To celebrate, Finlay cut open his clootie dumplin’, and he had never before tasted anything so good as this grainy mixture of wheat, fruit, spices and honey, nor had he ever before feasted with such mixed emotions: to have outsmarted a Campbell, to have watched his dog steal the cattle so skillfully, and now to eat in remembrance of his kind minister and mentor Ninian Gow … This was a day not to be forgotten, and at its close, when he and Corrie spread their tartans on the bare earth, when Rob and his two helping dogs circled the Glen Lyon cattle, he somehow passed from boyhood to young manhood. With his claymore at his belt and his herd now augmented to eighty-six, he felt ready for the great Falkirk Tryst. He had become an accomplished drover on the route and he would become an equally accomplished trader when the throng of English buyers pressed down upon him, seeking to stampede him into an early sale to their advantage, not his.
But he could not sleep. This day had been too eventful, especially that dreadful moment when he thought he might have to leap at the Campbell with his dirk. As the August night waned and the stars wheeled overhead, Rob became aware that his master was uneasy, so the dog left the care of the cattle to the other two dogs and came to lie with Finlay, and when dawn broke they were still lying there, both asleep, both exhausted from the previous day’s excitements.
Why had Falkirk been chosen, years ago, as the center for this great cattle exchange? No one knew, except that Scottish drovers had learned that this was about as far south as their animals could travel without beginning to lose weight, and the English buyers knew that this was about as far north as they cared to adventure into a land that was, in their opinion, still uncivilized. Falkirk formed a reasonable compromise, and a happy one, for in this year 1805, with peace in the land and the great Scottish rebellions of 1715 and 1745 only memories, a horde of wanderers not directly associated with the cattle trade had pitched their tents along the edges of the cattle field, and here they offered revelry of a wild and often bawdy nature.
There were mountebanks from Lowland Scotland, magicians from England, actors and singers from Edinburgh, women who cooked warm and delightful dishes and their husbands or companions who sold tots of whiskey under the trees. It was a traveling carnival, policed by dour watchmen who sprang into action only when some Highlander threatened to cut out the gizzard of the Englishman with whom he had been trading: ‘Now, now, laddies! Stop that foolishness!’ And often the drover, the Englishman and the constable, friends again, would repair to one of the trees and get seasonably drunk.
Falkirk Tryst lasted about two weeks, during which the cautious Highlanders tried every trick known to their ancestors, a canny lot to begin with, to lure the Lowlanders into paying a more than favorable price for the cattle, while the Lowlanders hesitated, delayed, and even threatened to leave Falkirk altogether, trying to scare the drovers into sacrificing their beasts at a loss lest they fail to find a buyer.
The two Macnabs had improved their chances considerably by the traditional Glen Lyon process of stealing unwatched cattle from their neighbors, and now their herd numbered ninety-one, and since every beast added to their original lot had been a choice animal, they now had a rather fine selection to offer, and Finlay intended making the most of it.
Seven different English buyers had sought to frighten him into disposing of his animals cheaply, and at the close of the second day Corrie warned: ‘Laddie, you know we canna take these beasties home wi’ us,’ and he replied with a mature wisdom which startled the older man: ‘Aye, and these buyers cannot come so far and return home empty-handed.’
As Corrie watched his young charge he discovered that the boy had a positive affinity for sharp dealing. He actually enjoyed the danger of holding his cattle back despite the risk of being left with no buyers. He relished contact with the shrewd English experts, and although he did not himself drink whiskey at the trees, he found pleasure in joining the men who did. But what surprised Corrie most, this young fellow of his stood wide-eyed when the dancing girls with their many petticoats pranced about.
‘Come away from there,’ the caretaker warned, but Finlay remained, enchanted by the pirouetting.
Now the Tryst became a thrilling test of wills, and on each of those first seven nights Finlay and Corrie sat beside their valuab
le herd, arguing and eating a little more of that delicious clootie dumplin’, until the once-plump cloth bag became as wrinkled as a hag, and on the eighth night, when the dumpling disappeared altogether, Macnab of Corrie said: ‘Laddie, I think tomorrow we must sell,’ and at last Finlay agreed.
The seven potential buyers had dwindled to three, and the one who needed the cattle most noticed that whereas the herd had contained ninety-one beasts at the start of the Tryst, it now numbered ninety-four, and they were choice. Said the would-be buyer to the helper who would drove his purchases south: ‘I’ve always liked doing business with Macnabs. They care for their cattle.’
‘And for other people’s,’ his drover said admiringly.
A deal was struck, and with some regret Finlay watched his precious animals herded south; they had been fine cattle and on the trail they had behaved themselves and grown plump on the good Highland grasses. But now came the painful moment when the Falkirk Tryst drew toward a close. Tents were taken down and the music stopped. Mountebanks joked no more and the dancing ceased. Macnab of Corrie showed Finlay how to tie his coins into a corner of his kilt, then said: ‘I shall take my two dogs and move westward toward Argyll, for I have business in Glen Orchy. You trend eastward toward St. Andrews, and Rob can fend for himself. He’s able.’
So the older Macnab left, with a heavy weight of coins sewn into a corner of his kilt, and his dogs went with him. Now young Finlay was left with a mournful task which certain drovers had been performing at the closing of the Falkirk Tryst for decades. He led Rob to the northern edge of the fairgrounds, and there he tied about his neck a small cloth bag into which had been placed the notation: ‘This is Rob belonging to Macnab of Dunessan in Glen Lyon. Cost of his food guaranteed. Finlay Macnab of Glen Lyon.’
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