Topographical, statistical, and historical gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 1

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Though there was abundance of stones ready at
hand, and well-calculated for building on any plan,
yet, to suit the grandeur and elegance of the design,
vast numbers of large freestone were brought from,
the shore, at the distance of 8 miles. This carriage
was attended with great labour and expense in the
then state of the roads, and occasioned, it is said, the
death of several men and horses. The failure of funds
also, and in short, all things put together, speedily
effected a total miscarriage of the undertaking, and
left this piece of work as a standing monument of the
undertaker's great spirit, but of his great folly also.
It was begun by John Sinclair, one of the Earls of
Caithness, distinguished by the mock appellation of
"John the Waster," but in what year is not known.
— The next piece of antiquity worthy of notice is
Dirlet castle. It stands in a very beautiful romantic
place, called Dirlet, on a round high rock, almost
perpendicular on all sides. The rock and castle hang
over a very deep dark pool in the river Thurso,,
which runs close by its side. On each side of the
river and the castle,, are two other rocks much
higher, looking down over the castle with a stately
and lowering majesty, and fencing it on these sides.
The last inhabitant was a descendant of the noble
family of Sutherland. He was called in Erse the
Ruder derg, that is, ' the Red knight.' Having
been denounced a rebel for his oppressive and violent
practices, he was apprehended by Mackay of Farr, his
own uncle, and died while on his way to Edinburgh
— some say to Stirling — to be tried for his life Loch-
More castle, 8 miles above Dirlet, is situated on the
banks of Loch-More, hanging over the point where
the first current of the river of Thurso issues out of
it. It is said, by report, to have been built and in-
habited by a personage called Morrar na Shean, that
is, ' the Lord of the Game,' because he delighted in
these rural sports.* — At a place called Achnavarn,
near the loch of Cathel, there are the remains of a
building of great strength. Population, in 1801,
2,545; in 1831, 2,847; in 1836, 3,085, of whom
about 150 were resident in the kirk-town. Houses,
in 1831, 515 This parish is in the presbytery of
Caithness, and synod of Sutherland and Caithness.
Patron, Sir James Colquhoun, Bart. Stipend £205
19s. Id.; glebe £8. Unappropriated Crown teinds
£302 Is. 9d. Church built in 1753; enlarged in
1833; sittings 858 There is a Mission-house at
Acharainey on the property of Sir George Sinclair ;
sittings 403. Stipend £95 There were 8 private
schools, besides the parish-school, in this parish in
* It is said that there was a chest, or some kind (if machine,
fixed in the mouth of the stream, below the cattle, for catching
salmon in their ingress into the loch, or their egress out of it;
and that, immediately on tbe fish being; entangled in the ma-
chine, the capture was announced to the whole family by tbe
ringing of a hell, which the motion and struggles of the fish set
ngoing, by mcaus of a fine cord, fixed at one end to the bell in
the middle of an upper room, and at tbe other end to the ma-
chine in the stream below. This Morrar na Shean, according
to report, was very anxious and impatient to have a sun to in-
herit his estates and honours ; but he had three daughters suc-
cessively, at which he was greatly disappointed and enraged.
The mother, dreading more and more her hubband's displea-
sure, and ill-usage of herself and the infant?, sent them pri-
vately to a place where, without his knowledge, they were
reared up into very beautiful and accomplished young ladies,
all along amusing the barbarian husband and parent with the
pretext that they were dead. Morrar na Shean, at last despair-
ing of having any more children, and makinga vast regret that he
had no child at all, his lady suddenly presented his three daugh-
ters to him, and thereby converted his rage and discontentment
into a transport of joy aud surprise. The young Indies were
soon disposed of in marriace ; the eldest to a Sinclair from the
Orkneys, the second to a Keith, and the last to one of another
name but of some rank. '• Tins story," adds the writer of the
Old Statistical Account, "is wild and romantic, but it is by no
means irreconcileable to the savage notions and barbarous
usages of these dark and superstitious times. It may not he
altogether according to tbe original fact, but it is exactly the
current tradition of the neighbourhood* 1 '
1834. Salary of parish-schoolmaster £36 14's. 4k!.,.
with about £15 fees.
HALlVAILS (The), two mountains in the par-
ish of Kilmuir, isle of Skye, elevated about 2,000
feet above the level of the sea. These mountains are
situated within a mile of each other, are of an equal
height, and exactly, resemble each other. On the
top of each is a flat or table-land ;. and they afford
an excellent land-mark for these coasts..
_ HALLADALE (The)> a river which takes its
rise at the base of the Ben-Griam mountains,, in the
parish of Kildonan, and, taking a northerly direc-
tion, after a course of 20 miles, falls into the Pent-
land frith at the Tor on Bighouse-bay, 5 or 6 miles,
south-east of Strathyhead.. It is a rapid stream, and
receives many tributary rivulets from the neighbour-
ing mountains to Golval, whence it flows through
level ground to the sea.. The tide flows about 2 1
miles up the river, hut it is only navigable by boats.
Strath-halladale is under the ecclesiastical charge of
the same missionary who officiates at Acharainey
mentioned in Halkirk.
HALLYARDS, a barony in the parish of West
Calder in Mid-Lothian. John Graham of Hallyards
succeeded to the office which Sir Archibald Napier
had held, of justice-depute to the Earl of Argyle ;,
and at the trial of Morton, in 1581,. he presided in
that capacity. On the trial of Gowrie in 1584, he
was appointed justice by special commission ; and
immediately thereafter obtained the place of an or-
dinary Lord-of-session in the room of Robert Pont„
who was then removed under a peremptory act, in-
capacitating ' all persouns exercising functions of
ministrie within the kirk of God to bear or exerce
any office of civil jurisdiction.' David Moyse — who
has left a very curious journal of his time — records:-
that in June 1590, " the Lordis of Sessioun wer in—
tendit to be altered, and sum accusatioun past be-
twix Mr. John Grahame and Mr. David M'Gill,
baithe Lordis of the Sessioun, ather of thame ac-
cusing utheris of bryberie and kneaverie." But
Graham afterwards became involved in a matter
yet more serious, and which proved fatal to him..
" The estate of Hallyards consisted of Temple-
lands, [see article West Caldeb,] which Graham,
had obtained through his wife, the widow of Sir
James Sandilands of Calder. That lady held them,
upon a title granted by her first husband, whose ten-
ants in those lands had a preferable right of posses-
sion. To defeat this, a deed was forged by a notary,,
at the suggestion of William Graham, a brother of
the Lord-of-session,. by which it was made to ap-
pear that these tenants had yielded their preferable
right ; and consequently, they were cast in an action
raised to establish it. But the forgery was dis-
covered, and the notary hanged ; upon which John
Graham raised another action against the minister of
Stirling, who, he alleged,, had extoited a false con-
fession from the unfortunate notary. This proceed-
ing brought the General Assembly of the Church and
the Court-of-session into violent collision. The
Assembly cited Graham to appear before it,, and
answer for his scandal against the church.. The
Court-ofsession stood up for the independence of
their own jurisdiction and members ; and sent their
president Lord Provand, with the Lords Culross and
Barnbarrach, as a deputation to the ecclesiastical
court, disclaiming the Assembly's right to interfere
in the matter. Both jurisdictions were obstinate,,
and the dispute was quashed without being properly
adjusted. The result was, that the tenants of the
Temple lands pursued the young heir of the original
proprietor, whose tutor and uncle, Sir James Saudi-
lands, took up the matter with all the vindictive