Scottish History Without the Boring Bits by Ian Crofton

Author:Ian Crofton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Birlinn

The NINETEENTH Century

1800

THE BLACK OFFICER SUFFERS A WHITE DEATH

Early in January, Captain John Macpherson of Ballachroan and a few fellow hunters and their dogs tramped up Glen Tromie into the heart of the Cairngorms, in pursuit of deer. They planned to stay in a small bothy at Gaick, a remote spot in the valley floor, set between steep slopes. After a few days of constant snowfall the hunters had still not returned to their families, and so a search party was sent out. Eventually arriving at Gaick through the white and icy wilds, the search party found no trace of either men or bothy. Eventually it dawned on the rescuers what had happened: both the bothy and the hunters within had been entirely overwhelmed by a giant avalanche. The rescuers managed to dig four bodies out of the ruins of the bothy, buried deep under the avalanche debris, but the fifth body was not recovered until the spring. The disaster became known as Call Ghàdhaig – ‘the Loss of Gaick’ – and it was said to be a revenge upon Macpherson for his supposed dealings with the Devil, and for his unscrupulous and deceitful methods of recruiting young men for the army – a sinister reputation that earned him the sobriquet ‘the Black Officer’. Over the years, the stories of the dark doings of the Black Officer were more and more elaborated, and it was rumoured, after his body had been recovered from the snow, that ‘it required twelve men, with all their force, to keep down the lid of the coffin whilst it was nailed’.

1801

AN OTTOMAN FROM ARGYLL

En route to take on the French in Egypt, the British fleet called in at Marmaris in southwest Turkey, with which Britain was at that time allied. Among the British regiments on board was the 42nd, the Black Watch, who welcomed an Ottoman general of artillery onto their ship. They were considerably shocked when the man, who was in full Turkish costume and with a white beard flowing down to his girdle, addressed them not only in their native tongue, but in their own accent. It turned out that the general was a Campbell from Kintyre, who in his youth had been so upset when a school friend of his had met with a fatal accident while they played together that he had fled abroad and joined the Ottoman army, in which he had served for 40 years. Now he had come to ask for news of his family, and when he saw the Highlanders in his own native dress, he burst into tears.

1803

IMPRESSED

On their Scottish tour, Wordsworth and Coleridge passed through the remote mining village of Wanlockhead in the hills of Dumfriesshire. There they encountered some barefoot urchins, and were astonished to learn that these children not only attended the local school, but were also studying Homer and Virgil in the original.

NOT IMPRESSED

Visiting the Trossachs and Loch Katrine, Wordsworth described the place as ‘gloomy’, while his companion Coleridge complained that ‘the mountains were all too dreary’.

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