Memorials of John Geddes

Early Dav$-C»e environment.
being in early time famous haunts of the smuggler.
Beyond these last rose the gloomy ridge of Groamach,
where snow always first appeared, gloomy, as its Gaelic
name signifies, and gloomy by nature, adjoining the sub-
alpine parish of Cabrach,* the cradle of the young Deveron.
This panorama of billowy hills, viewed from Bodylair,
might well recall the Border minstrel's words :
And westward hills on hills you see,
Even as wild Ocean's mightiest sea
Heaves high her waves of foam ;
Dark and snowridged from Cutsfeld's wold
To the proud foot of Cheviot roll'd,
Earth's mountain billows come.
Substitute, for Cutsfeld, Corsmaul, and for Cheviot, Groa-
mach, and the transferred picture will suit the scene in
the uplands of Deveronside.
Toward the south-east, where the river could be seen
* Cabrach, or as it is in the vernacular, the Cabrach, as if a province like
the Mearns or the Boyne, is a Highland parish, though now with no Gaelic
spoken within its borders, yet notable for its hardihood, its music, and its
hospitality. Some fine airs of Scottish song have come out of it, or at least
are inseparably connected with it, notably "Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch " ; its
firesides glow with hospitality, but the scenery as well as the climate is grim
and far from inviting, even in a summer's day. A shuddering traveller, hailing
from the South, who passed through the Heigh Cabrach, was asked to describe
it. "Describe the Cabrach," was the reply, "Na, sirs, I canna liken it to
onything but the ill place, w{ the fire oot." The Spartan fare, however, and
bracing air evolve a sturdy race of honest folks in the Cabrach people.