Letters From High Latitudes | Page 5

road in Europe, towards the
country of the world-invading Campbells. A steady pull of three hours
more, up a wild bare glen, brought us to the top of the mica-slate ridge
which pens up Loch Fyne, on its western side, and disclosed what I
have always thought the loveliest scene in Scotland.
Far below at our feet, and stretching away on either hand among the
mountains, lay the blue waters of the lake.
On its other side, encompassed by a level belt of pasture-land and
corn-fields, the white little town of Inverary glittered like a gem on the
sea-shore, while to the right, amid lawns and gardens, and gleaming
banks of wood, that hung down into the water, rose the dark towers of
the Castle, the whole environed by an amphitheatre of tumbled
porphyry hills, beyond whose fir-crowned crags rose the bare blue
mountain-tops of Lorn.
It was a perfect picture of peace and seclusion, and I confess I had great
pride in being able to show my companion so fair a specimen of one of
our lordly island homes--the birthplace of a race of nobles whose
names sparkle down the page of their country's history as
conspicuously as the golden letters in an illuminated missal.
While descending towards the strand, I tried to amuse Sigurdr with a
sketch of the fortunes of the great house of Argyll.
I told him how in ancient days three warriors came from Green Ierne,
to dwell in the wild glens of Cowal and Lochow,--how one of them, the
swart Breachdan, all for the love of blue-eyed Eila, swam the Gulf,
once with a clew of thread, then with a hempen rope, last with an iron
chain, but this time, alas! the returning tide sucks down the over-tasked
hero into its swirling vortex,--how Diarmid O' Duin, i.e. son of "the
Brown," slew with his own hand the mighty boar, whose head still
scowls over the escutcheon of the Campbells,--how in later times,
while the murdered Duncan's son, afterwards the great Malcolm
Canmore, was yet an exile at the court of his Northumbrian uncle, ere
Birnam wood had marched to Dunsinane, the first Campbell i.e.
Campus-bellus, Beau-champ, a Norman knight and nephew of the

Conqueror, having won the hand of the lady Eva, sole heiress of the
race of Diarmid, became master of the lands and lordships of
Argyll,--how six generations later--each of them notable in their
day--the valiant Sir Colin created for his posterity a title prouder than
any within a sovereign's power to bestow, which no forfeiture could
attaint, no act of parliament recall; for though he cease to be Duke or
Earl, the head of the Clan Campbell will still remain Mac Calan
More,--and how at last the same Sir Colin fell at the String of Cowal,
beneath the sword of that fierce lord, whose granddaughter was
destined to bind the honours of his own heirless house round the
coronet of his slain foeman's descendant;--how Sir Neill at
Bannockburn fought side by side with the Bruce whose sister he had
married; how Colin, the first Earl, wooed and won the Lady Isabel,
sprung from the race of Somerled, Lord of the Isles, thus adding the
galleys of Lorn to the blazonry of Argyll;-- how the next Earl died at
Flodden, and his successor fought not less disastrously at Pinkie;--how
Archibald, fifth Earl, whose wife was at supper with the Queen, her
half-sister, when Rizzio was murdered, fell on the field of Langside,
smitten not by the hand of the enemy, but by the finger of God; how
Colin, Earl and boy-General at fifteen, was dragged away by force,
with tears in his eyes, from the unhappy skirmish at Glenlivit, where
his brave Highlanders were being swept down by the artillery of
Huntley and Errol,--destined to regild his spurs in future years on the
soil of Spain.
Then I told him of the Great Rebellion, and how, amid the tumult of the
next fifty years, the Grim Marquis-- Gillespie Grumach, as his squint
caused him to be called-- Montrose's fatal foe, staked life and fortunes
in the deadly game engaged in by the fierce spirits of that generation,
and losing, paid the forfeit with his head, as calmly as became a brave
and noble gentleman, leaving an example, which his son--already twice
rescued from the scaffold, once by a daughter of the ever-gallant house
of Lindsay, again a prisoner, and a rebel, because four years too soon to
be a patriot--as nobly imitated;-- how, at last, the clouds of misfortune
cleared away, and honours clustered where only merit had been before;
the martyr's aureole, almost become hereditary, being replaced in the
next generation by a ducal coronet, itself to be regilt in its turn with a

less sinister lustre by him--
"The State's whole thunder