An Comunn Gàidhealach Publications > Gaidheal > Volume 41, October 1945--September 1946

AN GAIDHEAL.
hoarded petrol ration. The luncheon basket with its gay
green cups was tucked in the boot, and the macintoshes
followed, with a pious hope that we should never need them.
Our kind host and hostess, my sister and myself, climbed in.
The doors slammed, the engine purred to life. We edged
carefully out, swung clear of the grey gate-posts, and the car
picked up speed, running east steadily in the eye of the sun.
People cried a friendly good morning from cottage doors.
King’s House halt, with its noble view towards Loch Voil,
was high in front. We swung left, going north now between
long green hills, high already, but soft and friendly in their
outline. Lochearnhead, and the long high pass of Glen Ogle,
with the ghost of Wade’s road below, where the other ghosts
of a long dead regiment march in winter nights. I had seen
the Glen last in driving phantom rain, but this morning it was
a jewellery of colour. Killin : we swung west now, above the
green strath of Glen Dochart, where long ago in the black
months after Methven a king and queen had tramped fugitive
in the heather, and Good Lord James of Douglas had guddled
trout, e Towering ahead, the lovely peaks of Stobinian and
Ben More watched our approach serenely, unchanged by ages.
Crianlarich then, and Strathfillan ; and I wondered, as
we passed the strewn relics of St. Lilian’s Chapel, whether
Bruce’s known devotion to that saint went back to those wild
marches among these hills. (Has any king in history ever
known the soil and the folk of his country as he knew them—
or demanded more from either, and received it ?). Tyndrum,
and a glimpse of the mighty head of Ben Lui: I knew we were
passing near the springs of Tay, though the river goes far
before it bears that name. There are many rivers all about
that road : I thought of David’s rivers in the south; but
these were northern, of clear brown hill water, whose foam
caught the sunlight, white in the foam of the corries. The
hills were growing greater and fiercer now—Beinn Odhar,
Beinn a’ Chaisteal, and rising splendid, mighty Beinn Dorain,
Beinn Dorain of the song.
They swept back, in grouped magnificence behind us as
we passed Bridge of Orchy and climbed steadily to the vast
table-land of the Muir of Rannoch, a huge and lonely expanse
of loch and heather, more grimly desolate in the clear morning
sun than on that blind day of February fog when Young
Elrigmore stumbled unhappy across it from Inverlochy. The
mountains had grown remote and strangely small, crouched
at far distances. Even the great fierce heads of the Black-
Mount seemed to withdraw from us. But we came at last to
where Buachaill Etive herds his flock of giants. They are
grim, those huge hills that chain the deep of Glencoe : as
grim as its story of a king’s treachery—fierce, swiftly changing
shapes, piled like great music in strange symmetries that reach
to something far underneath the mind, and terrible in the sun
of that placid weather.
Down on Levenside, then, and by the stacked slate debris
of Ballachulish. Why a country that can produce such
lovely roofing should import, to foul its own beauty, red
asbestos. . . . But we had halted at last beside the loch,
to be neatly manoeuvred on to the little ferry, among foot-
passengers with soft Highland voices. To sit high in the car
with the lapper of little waves as we moved, instead of our own
familiar purr, was a little uncanny. Then we were across, and
running by kindher hills along Loch Linnhe, blue and shim¬
mering beneath a compact and douce white light-house.
Then a plunge by a long string of gardened villas into the
cramped and dismal streets of Fort William : the Highlander
has not the gift of towns, and Fort William seemed as alien
to that country as the foreign domination that had first
built it.
We swung across the haughs that were the end of
Montrose’s incredible march to Inverlochy that not
even our own Desert Rats have overpassed. The historian
almost fell out of the car window trying to gauge the route
of that battered army as it came down from the vast flanks
of Beinn Nevis, that was growing steadily more huge behind
us as we bowled across the flat loch head to Banavie and turned
up Locheil for the last stretch of our road. We ate our lunch
in the heather of Kinlocheil, watched by grey fighting ships—
three Mackenzies badged with holly, and one Macleod, old
feuds forgotten in common memories. Then again we took
An Dkmhar, 1945.
the road. It was after noon. The colours, soft in the sof*
West Highland light, were unbelievable—the flower of the
heather, the deep sky, and ahead the sword gleam of Loch
Shiel.
The high lonely pillar rose, watching the Loch, a crowd
of folk already about its base. We left the car in the fragrance
of a saw-mill, the work of newer war, and went down on foot,
taking our places on the low circling wall. The pipes sounded
again to the hills at the head of Loch Shiel, to tell them that a
dead king once landed in Moidart.
Agnes Mure Mackenzie.
PROPAGANDA NOTES.
Northern Area.
The fifth series of Concerts in aid of The Central Fund was
quite successful, the sum of £78 5/- being added to the Fund
as a result of four Concerts held in August last. The Northern
Organiser presided at Newtonmore and Kingussie, Mr. Duncan
McLeod at Aviemore, and Mr. A. M. Carmichael (Mr. Macphail’s
predecessor) at Corpach. Sincere thanks are due to the local
Secretaries who made all the arrangements and they received
useful assistance from Branch Committees. Neil MacLean and
Jenny M. B. Currie were the Star Artistes.
With peace reigning once more throughout the land, it
is hoped to get Branches going again with a view to organising
Provincial Mods wherever there is a reasonable chance of
success. But it will be some time yet before demobilisation
will be felt in many districts and in addition, the over 18’s
are still being called up.
The clamant need is to get school choirs going again as
very few children, indeed, have ever attended a Gaelic Mod.
A good sign however, is that from several districts enquiries
are being made re Gaelic music sheets for juniors.
Another major Savings Drive is to be held in Ross-shire,
from 22nd to 29th September—“ Thanksgiving Week,” and,
in his dual capacity, the Organiser is assisting in the Western
parts of that County.
The Inverness Burgh and County “Week” has been*
fixed for 6th to 13th October, and with a target for £400,000
intensive propaganda lies ahead, especially in such a large
and scattered County.
Noted Gaelic Scholar to Retire—
Dr. D. J. MacLeod.
Dr. D. J. MacLeod, who is retiring, is a native of Lewis.
He had a distinguished career at Aberdeen University where
he specialised in modem languages. He held teaching appoint¬
ments in Perthshire and in Inverness-shire. From Staffin
he was appointed a Sub-Inspector under the Scottish Education
Department. He was promoted to H.M. Inspector in 1921,
and in 1938 he was appointed Chief Inspector in charge of
the Highland Division, from which position he has just retired.
Dr. MacLeod received his D.Litt. from the University of
Rennes for his work in translating Donnchadh Ban’s poems
into French. In the Oral examination in this connection,
such was his excellence that he gained this high degree with
Honours. It has been said by a Frenchman that Dr. MacLeod
talked French without an accent. Great as is his scholarship,
he carries it very lightly. He is the friend of everyone, young
and old, who are privileged to know him. In fact, it is not an
exaggeration to say that Dr. D. J. is one of the best loved men in
the Highlands and Islands.
He has been a tower of strength to the Gaelic Movement
generally over a long period of years and has frequently acted
as principal adjudicator at the National Mods of An Comunn
Gaidhealach. He has been Hon. President of Ceilidh nan
Gaidheal an Inbhir Nis since its formation eleven years ago
and still holds this post with becoming dignity. His work for
The Gaelic Society of Inverness has been invaluable.
Possibly there is no other man living to-day who is more
conversant with the people of the Highlands than Dr. MacLeod,
and what a fund of lore he has gathered during his visits to
schools and Clachans throughout the Area. As a narrator