Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση

he came forth to meet them, with looks and gestures, which did not at all indicate a cordial welcome. It was a fine moonlight night, and they could easily observe his actions. Poor Clashneckd was now sorely afraid of the great ghost. Apprehending instant destruction from his fury, she exclaimed to James Gray, that they should be both dead people, and that immediately, unless James could hit with an arrow the noble mole which covered Ben Baynac's heart. This was not so difficult a task as James had hitherto apprehended it. The mole was as large as a common bonnet, and yet nowise disproportioned to the natural size of his body, for he certainly was a great and a mighty ghost. Ben Baynac cried out to James Gray, that he would soon make eagle's meat of him; and certain it is, such was his intention, had not James Gray so effectually stopped him from the execution of it. Raising his bow to his eye within a few yards of Ben Baynac, he took an important aim; the arrow flew it hit -a yell from Ben Baynac announced its fatality. A hideous howl reechoed from the surrounding mountains, responsive to the groans of a thousand ghosts, and Ben Baynac, like the smoke of a shot, vanished into air.* Clashneckd, the ghost of Aulnaic, now found herself emancipated from the most abject state of slavery, and restored to freedom and liberty, through the invincible courage of James Gray. Overpowered with gratitude, she fell at James Gray's feet, and vowed to devote the whole of her time and talents towards his service and prosperity. Meanwhile, being anxious to have her remaining goods and furniture removed to her former dwelling, whence she had been so iniquitously expelled by Ben Baynac, the great ghost, she requested of her new master the use of his horses to remove them. James observing on the adjacent hill a flock of deer, and wishing to have a trial of his new servant's sagacity or expertness, told her those were his horses-she was welcome to the use of them,

* To the refined reader, can any thing appear more surprising, than that a human being, possessing the rational faculties of human nature, could for a moment entertain so preposterous an idea, of an immortal spirit being killed, or rather annihilated, by an arrow, dirk, or sixpence? It was, however, the opinion of the darker ages, that such an exploit as killing a ghost was perfectly practicable. A spirit was supposed to be material in its nature, quite susceptible of mortal pain, and liable to death or annihilation from the weapon of man. Such an opinion is repeatedly expressed in several passages of the poems of Ossian, and in the doctrine of the Sennachy down to the present day.

desiring when she had done with them, that she would enclose them in his stable. Clashneckd then proceeded to make use of the horses, and James Gray returned home to enjoy his night's rest.

Scarce had he reached his arm-chair, and reclined his cheek on his hand, to ruminate over the bold adventure of the night, when Clashneckd entered, and with her breath in her throat,' and venting the bitterest complaints at the unruliness of his horses, which had broken one half of her furniture, and caused more trouble in them than their services are worth. 'Oh! they are stabled then ?' enquired James Gray. Clashneckd replied in the affirmative. Very well,' rejoined James, they shall be tame enough to-morrow.'

6

[ocr errors]

From this specimen of Clashneckd the ghost of Craig Aulnaic's expertness, it will be seen what a valuable acquisition her service proved to James Gray and his young family: of which, however, they were too speedily deprived by a most unfortunate accident. From the sequel of the story, and of which the foregoing is but an abstract, it appears, that poor Clashneckd was but too deeply addicted to those lushing propensities, which at that time rendered her kin so obnoxious to their human neighbours. She was consequently in the habit of visiting her friends much oftener than she was invited, and, in the course of such visits, was never very scrupulous in making free with any eatables that fell within the circle of her observation. One day, while engaged on a foraging expedition of this description, she happened to enter the mill of Delnabo, which was inhabited in those days by the miller's family. She found the miller's wife engaged in roasting a large gridiron of savoury fish, the agreeable effluvia proceeding from which perhaps occasioned her visit. With the usual inquiries after the health of the miller and his family, Clashneckd proceeded, with the greatest familiarity and good humour, to make herself comfortable at the expense of their entertainment. But the miller's wife enraged at the loss of her fish, and not relishing such unwelcome familiarity, punished the unfortunate Clashneckd rather too severely for her freedom. It happened that there was a large cauldron of boiling water suspended over the fire, and this cauldron the beldam of miller's wife overturned in Clashneckd's bosom! Scalded beyond recovery, she fled up the wilds of Craig Aulnaic, uttering the most melancholy lamentations, nor has been ever heard of to the present day.

The forest of Glenmore, in the northern Highlands, is believed to be haunted by a spirit, called Llham Dearg, in the array of an ancient warrior having a bloody hand, from which he takes his name. He insists upon all those he meets doing battle with

him.

The admixture of Christianity with the ancient religion of the Gael, created infinite confusion of ideas, with respect to the state of departed souls. Heaven and hell were sometimes fulminated from the pulpit; but the nurse spoke daily of Flath-inis, and the hills of their departed kindred, to the children at her knee, and ancient tales of those who had been favoured with visions of the state of the dead, prevented the Christian idea of heaven and hell from ever being properly established. It was supposed that only the souls of the supremely good and brave were received into Flath-inis, and those only of the very base and wicked were condemned to the torments of Ifrin. The hills of their fathers were in an intermediate state, into which the common run of mankind were received after death. They had no notion of an immaterial being; but supposed that each spirit, in departing from this mortal habitation, received a body subject to no decay, and that men in a future state enjoyed such pleasures as had been most congenial to their minds in this, without being subject to any of the evils "that flesh is heir to.”

[ocr errors]

The belief in the "hill of spirits" began, in general, to give way soon after the reformation, and in some parts of the Highlands it soon disappeared altogether. Others, however, proved more tenacious of it, and among some clans and branches of clans, it lingered until very lately. The one, a high conical hill in Inverness-shire, was regarded by the house of Crubin, of the clan Macpherson, as their future inheritance; and the house of Garva, of the same race, believed that their spirits should inhabit Tom-mor. On the entrance of every new inhabitant, those hills were seen by persons at a certain distance, in a state of illumination. Tom-mor, it is believed, was seen on fire, for the last time, some thirty years ago; and it was confidently asserted that some member of the house of Garva was passing from this to a better state of existence. But no death being heard of in the neighbourhood for some days, an opinion, already on the decline, was on the eve of being consigned to utter attempt, when, to the

confusion of the sceptics, news arrived that a daughter of the house of Garva had expired at Glasgow, at the very moment Tom-mor had been seen in a blaze. But in whatsoever state the departed spirit passed, it had, for a time, to return to perform a sacred duty on earth. This was Faire Chloidh (the grave watch). It was the duty of the spirit of the last person interred, to stand sentry at the grave-yard gate, from sun-set until the crowing of the cock, every night, until regularly relieved. This, sometimes, in thinly inhabited parts of the country, happened to be a tedious and severe duty; and the duration of the Faire Chloidh gave the deceased's surviving friends sometimes much uneasiness.

Some thirty years ago a young man had an interview with the ghost of a neighbour's wife, while she watched at the gate of the old Luggan Church-yard. She was clothed in a comfortable mantle of snow-white flannel, adorned with red crosses, and appeared now, though a very old woman at her decease, in the full bloom of youth and beauty. She told him that she enjoyed the felicity of Flath-inis, and they exchanged snuff-mulls. She directed him to a hidden treasure she had hoarded, and desired it might be added to the fortune of her daughter, who, she said, was to be married on a certain day, which she named, and, strange to say, though the girl was not then courted, she became a wife on the day foretold.

It was a vulgar opinion that the spirits of such as were burned in foreign countries, were obliged to perform a nightly pilgrimage to their native hills, in order to commune with the spirits of their kindred. To obviate this posthumous inconvenience, when a Highlander happened to die at a distance, his family, though, perhaps, at the expense of their last shilling, esteemed it a sacred duty to have his remains carried home, and deposited by those of his ancestors. The corpse was all the way borne on the shoulders of men, who found it requisite sometimes to lay down their burden, by the way-side, to rest themselves. On such occasions, a cairn or heap of stones, was raised on the spot, and it was customary for every person that passed, as long as any could be found in the vicinity, to augment it by a stone. Cairns were sometimes raised on other occasions. Before the Highlanders entered the pass of Druimuacar (1689), on their way to join Dundee, they erected a cairn, by each man putting

in a stone. As many of them as returned, after their victory at Raon-Ruari,-Killy-Crankie, raised a second cairn in the same manner; but, alas! it was not above half the size of the first. The Highlanders thought the unproductive victory dearly purchased by the loss of so many brave men, and, above all, by the death of Lord Dundee, or, as he was emphatically called, Clavers, their general, who, it is believed, was shot from behind by a fanatic, who, by feigning different principles, contrived, with a view to his destruction, to become his servant.

HIGHLAND SCENERY.

The romantic scenery of some parts of the Highlands of Scotland is universally and deservedly admired; and it is not a little surprising that so many having travelled into these romantic wilds, the knowledge even of the existence of some of the greatest natural curiosities in the island, should still be confined to the few neighbouring inhabitants. "Of this being the case," says our authority, "I had lately a striking instance, when at Ballachelish, in the western part of Inverness-shire, in the neighbourhood of which I saw some of the most striking scenery any where to be met with. As I have never seen any description of the beauties of that place, the following account of the adventures of a day spent there may be useful to future travellers.

"I had stopped all night at Ballachelish, and intended early in the morning to proceed southward through the celebrated valley of Glencoe. On looking out, however, I found that it rained a good deal, and that the hills were quite covered with mist, which would have rendered travelling alone in a country almost uninhabited very disagreeable. While hesitating whether to set out or not, I walked a short way along the banks of Lochleven (an arm of the sea), to see some of the slate quarries for which Ballachelish is celebrated. At one of these I found a man who spoke tolerable English, and who informed me that there were some waterfalls at the head of Lochleven more interesting than those of Foyers. Being in doubt whether I could depend on his account or not, I went and asked the landlord if he knew any thing of such falls. He confirmed the account I had received,

« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »