Blair Collection > Celtic monthly > Volume 5, 1897

THE CELTIC MONTHLY.
2l'9
Eachan, who was out with Prince Charles in the
Forty-Five. A young man is found in South
Uist who has been bred at Douai, and who knows
Greek, Latin, French, Gaelic, and English.
Neil was descended from a sept of Macdonalds
named Mac Eachan, or sons of Hector, sprung
from the house of Clanranald. When Prince
Charles arrived in the Highlands, Neil gave his
services to the Prince as an interpreter and
secretary. After the suppression of the rising
of 1745, he became a lieutenant in Ogilvie's
regiment of the Scots Brigade. He was the
father of Stephen Macdonald, Duke of Tarentum,
one of Napoleon's most brilliant marshals.
The Duke of Tarentum always maintained his
connection with South Uist. He was wont to
remit money to his relatives there. He visited
his father's birthplace in 1825, and took earth
from the floor of the house where he was l>orn,
and iiotatoes from the garden. Having carried
them home to France, he planted the potatoes
in his garden, and ordered that the earth should
be placed in his cothn after his death. The Duke
addressed his relatives in French and broken
Gaelic. They answered in Gaelic for they could
speak no English.
Another curious product of the Franco-High-
land connection was such men as Sergeant Mor
Cameron. He was one of the last to follow the
profession of reiver, and to collect blackmail.
He had been a sergeant in the French army,
and came over to Scotland in 1745. He formed
a party of outlaws between the counties of
Perth, Inverness and Argyle, who lived on their
neighbours in the good old Highland fashion.
He was betrayed by a treacherous friend, and
executed at Perth in 175.3. His name was long
the subject of tale and jest by the winter fireside.
General Stewart of Garth tells a story of him.
" On one occasion he met \yith an officer from the
garrison on the mountains of Lochaber. The officer
told him that he suspected he had lost his way, and
with a large sum of money, and much afraid of
falling in with Sergeant Miir, requested the stranger
would accompany him on his road. The otljer
agreed ; and as they walked on, they talked nuich
of the sergeant and his feats, the officer using
much freedom with his name, calling him robber,
murderer ' Sttip there,' interru)jted his com-
panion, 'he does indeed take the cattle of the Whigs
and the Sassenachs, but neither he nor his cearnachs
ever shed innocent blood, except once,' added he,
' that I was unfortunate at Braeniar, when a man
was killed, but I immediately ordered the creach
(the spoil) to be abandoned, and left to the owners,
retreating as fast as we could after such a misfortune.'
— ' You !' says the officer, 'what had you to do with
the affair I ' — ' I am John du Cameron — I am the
Sergeant Mor ; there is the road to Inverness ; you
and your money are safe. Tell your governor to
send in future a more wary messenger. Tell him
also, that though an outlaw, and forced to live upon
the public, I am a soldier as well as himself, and
would despise takin;,' his gold from ;i defLneeless
man who confided in me.' The otiieer nc\or fort/ot
the adventure, which he frequently related."
The Scotsmen never lost their love of their
native country. " I like France fine, when I'm
there, man," says Allan Breck in Catriona,
"yet I kind of weary for Soots divots and the
Scots peat-reek." The mountains and loch.s, the
songs and tales of their native land were never
forgotten. It is touching to read the account
of the last days of James Mor Macgregor, the
son of Rob Koy. In a letter which he wrote to
his chief, Drummond Macgregor of Bohaldie in
September, 175-1, he speaks of himself as living
in the Rue de Cordier, Paris, in absolute desti-
tution, and as willing to earn a pittance by the
breaking or breeding of horses. He concludes
his epistle by asking the loan of his chief's
bagpipes to " play some melancholy tunes " of
his own native land. He must have played
them on his death-bed, for he died a week after.
Almost equally touching is a story, told by Sir
Walter Scott, of the real Allan Breck Stewart
(for he, like James Mor, was a genuine historical
personage). His later life was .spent in France,
where he lived till the beginning of the French
Revolution. "About 1789," says Scott, "a
friend of mine, then residing at Paris, was
invited to see some procession which was
supposed likely to interest him, from the windows
of an apartment occupieil by a Scottish Benedic-
tine priest. He found sitting by the fire a tall
thin old man, with the jwe^ii croi.c of St Louis
Some civilities in French passed between the
old man and my friend, in the cour.se of which
they talked of the streets and squares of Paris,
till at length the old soldier, for such he seemed,
and such he was, said with a sigh in a sh;irp
Highland accent, " Deil ane o' them a' is worth
the Hie street of Edinburgh." He had not
forgotten his native land. And what true High-
lander ever does forget his native land or ever see.s
any to equal it? Is he not ever conscious of that
feeling so beautifully e.xpressed by Neil Munro?
" If I were King of France, that noble fine land.
And the gold was elbow-deep within my chests.
And my castles lay in scores along the wine land.
With towers as high as where the eagle nests :
If harpers sweet, and swordsmen stout and vaunting.
My history sang, my stainless tartan wore,
Was not my fortune poor, with one thing wanting —
The heather at my door l
A hunter's fare is all I would be craving,
A shepherd's plaid ing and a beggar's pay,
If I might earn them, where the heather waving
Gave fragrance to the day ;
The stars might see me, homeless erne and weary.
Without a roof to fend me from flie dew,
And, still content, I'd find a bedding cheery,
Where'er the heather grew."
J. A. Lovat-Fraser.