Ossian Collection > Romance of the Highlands

X . THE ROMANCE OF THE HIGHLANDS.
was very little difference beween tiie Highlanders as a
mass and the Lowlanders as a body. It was, historically,
absolutely untrue that the Highlanders were always eager
for war and booty, and it was time that that lie was killed
for ever.
Once a falsehood has got a start, and as long a start
as has this fiction regarding the Gael, it is no easy matter
to remove it. If it were not for ignorance it would have
been done long ago. Few people will believe, for
instance, that the Highlander was generally an
educated person, that at the time of the Jacobite rebellion
every village innkeeper in Northern Perthshire could
converse in Latin with the commanders of the Hessian
troops, and that within the Highland barrier, and
particularly in Skye, the Latin language was acquired for
education's sake alone.
The Highland people established and supported
schools at their own expense in every glen. A country
devoted to war and pillage does not think of those things.
In matters of religion they showed an example of
toleration. Catholic and Protestant could live together
in perfect amity in the north. Martin, Pennant and other
early travellers admired the moderation of the
congregations, and related how they sometimes attended
impartially the ministrations of either priest or clergy-
man. They were too good Christians to persecute their
neighbours. "The religion of the Highlanders," says
one writer, "was founded on the simplest principles of
Christianity and cherished by strong feeling." A
people who believed that punishment for evil-doing