John Splendid | Page 6

the glen
when the tide was out on Loch Firme. I was never so keen-scented as
that, but when I awakened next day in a camceiled room in Elrigmore,
and put my head out at the window to look around, I smelt the heather
for a second like an escapade in a dream.
Down to Ealan Eagal I went for a plunge in the linn in the old style,
and the airs of Shira Glen hung about me like friends and lovers, so
well acquaint and jovial.
Shira Glen, Shira Glen! if I was bard I'd have songs to sing to it, and all
I know is one sculduddry verse on a widow that dwelt in Maam! There,
at the foot of my father's house, were the winding river, and north and
south the brown hills, split asunder by God's goodness, to give a sample
of His bounty. Maam, Elrigmore and Elrigbeg, Kilblaan and Ben
Bhuidhe--their steep sides hung with cattle, and below crowded the
reeking homes of tacksman and cottar; the bums poured hurriedly to
the flat beneath their borders of hazel and ash; to the south, the fresh
water we call Dubh Loch, flapping with ducks and fringed with

shelisters or water-flags and bulrush, and farther off the Cowal hills; to
the north, the wood of Drimlee and the wild pass the red Macgregors
sometimes took for a back-road to our cattle-folds in cloud of night and
darkness. Down on it all shone the polished and hearty sun, birds
chinned on every tree, though it was late in the year; blackcock whirred
across the alders, and sturdy heifers bellowed tunefully, knee-deep at
the ford.
"Far have I wandered," thought I to myself, "warring other folk's wars
for the humour of it and small wages, but here's the one place I've seen
yet that was worth hacking good steel for in earnest!"
But still my heart was sore for mother, and sore, too, for the tale of
changed times in Campbell country my father told me over a breakfast
of braddan, fresh caught in a creel from the Gearron river, oaten
bannock, and cream.
After breakfast I got me into my kilt for town. There are many
costumes going about the world, but, with allowance for every one, I
make bold to think our own tartan duds the gallantest of them all. The
kilt was my wear when first I went to Glascow College, and many a St
Mungo keelie, no better than myself at classes or at English language,
made fun of my brown knees, sometimes not to the advantage of his
headpiece when it came to argument and neifs on the Fleshers' Haugh.
Pulling on my old breacan this morning in Elrigmore was like donning
a fairy garb, and getting back ten years of youth. We have a way of
belting on the kilt in real Argile I have seen nowhere else. Ordinarily,
our lads take the whole web of tartan cloth, of twenty ells or more, and
coil it once round their middle, there belting it, and bring the free end
up on the shoulder to pin with a brooch--not a bad fashion for display
and long marches and for sleeping out on the hill with, but somewhat
discommodious for warm weather. It was our plan sometimes to make
what we called a philabeg, or little kilt, maybe eight yards long,
gathered in at the haunch and hung in many pleats behind, the plain
brat part in front decked off with a leather sporran, tagged with thong
points tied in knots, and with no plaid on the shoulder. I've never seen a
more jaunty and suitable garb for campaigning, better by far for short

sharp tulzies with an enemy than the philamore or the big kilt our
people sometimes throw off them in a skirmish, and fight (the coarsest
of them) in their gartered hose and scrugged bonnets.
With my kilt and the memory of old times about me, I went walking
down to Inneraora in the middle of the day. I was prepared for change
from the complaints of my father, but never for half the change I found
in the burgh town of MacCailein Mor. In my twelve foreign years the
place was swamped by incomers, black unwelcome Covenanters from
the shires of Air and Lanrick--Brices, Yuilles, Rodgers, and
Richies--all brought up here by Gillesbeg Gruamach, Marquis of Argile,
to teach his clans the arts of peace and merchandise. Half the folk I met
between the arches and the Big Barns were strangers that seemingly
never had tartan on their hurdies, but settled down with a firm foot in
the place, I could see by the bold look of them as I passed on the
plain-stanes of the street A queer town this on the edge