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THE period of my
ministry at Achness, however, was drawing fast to its close. The
reckless lordly proprietors had resolved upon the expulsion of their
long-standing and much-attached tenantry from their widely-extended
estates, and the Sutherland Clearance of 1819 was not only the
climax of their system of oppression for many years before, but the
extinction of the last remnant of the ancient Highland peasantry in
the north. As violent tempests send out before them many a deep and
sullen roar, so did the advancing storm give notice of its approach
by various single acts of oppression. I can yet recall to memory the
deep and thrilling sensation which I experienced, as I sat at the
fireside in my rude, little parlour at Achness, when the tidings of
the meditated removal of my poor flock first reached me from
head-quarters. It might be about the beginning of October, 1818. A
tenant from the middle of the Strath had been to Rhives, the
residence of Mr. Young, the commissioner, paying his rent. He was
informed, and authorised t•o tell his neighbours, that the rent for
the half-year, ending in May, 1819, would not be demanded, as it was
determined to lay the districts of Strathnaver and Upper Kildonan
under sheep. This intelligence when first announced was indignantly
discredited by the people. Notwithstanding their knowledge of former
clearances they clung to the hope that the "Ban-mhorair-Chatta"
would not give her consent to the warning as issued by her
subordinates, and thus deprive herself of her people, as truly a
part of her noble inheritance as were her broad acres. But the
course of a few weeks soon undeceived them. Summonses of ejectment
were issued and despatched all over the district. These must have
amounted to upwards of a thousand, as the population of the Mission
alone was 1600 souls, and many more than those of the Mission were
ejected. The summonses were distributed with the utmost preciseness.
They were handed in at every house and hovel alike, be the occupiers
of them who or what they might—minister, catechist, or elder,
tenant, or subtenant, out-servant or cottar—all were made to feel
the irresponsible power of the proprietor. The enormous amount of
citations might also be accounted for by the fact that Mr. Peter
Sellar had a threefold personal interest in the whole matter. He
was, in the first place, factor on the Sutherland estate at the
time; then, he was law agent for the proprietors; and, lastly, the
lessee or tacksman of more than a third of the country to be cleared
of its inhabitants. It may easily be conceived how such a
three-plied cord of worldly interest would bind him over to greater
rigour, and even atrocity, in executing the orders of his superiors
on the wretched people among whom he was thus let loose like a beast
of prey. But the effects produced by these decided measures I now
distinctly remember. Having myself, in common with the rest of my
people, received one of these notices, I resolved that, at the
ensuing term of Martinmas, I would remove from Achness, and go once
more permanently to reside under my father's roof, although I would
at the same time continue the punctual discharge of my pastoral
duties among the people till they also should be removed. I could
not but regard the summoning of the minister as tantamount to the
putting down of the ministration of the word and ordinances of
religion in that part of the country. And, indeed, it is a fact
that, although this desolate district is still occupied by
shepherds, no provision has, since that time, been made for their
spiritual wants. I left Achness, therefore, about the middle of
November, 1818, sold my cow at the Ardgay market, and got my
furniture conveyed to Kildonan by my father s horses and my own. The
people received the legal warning to leave for ever the homes of
their fathers with a sort of stupor—that apparent indifference which
is often the external aspect of intense feeling. As they began,
however, to awaken from the stunning effects of this first
intimation, their feelings found vent, and I was much struck with
the different ways in which they expressed their sentiments. The
truly pious acknowledged the mighty hand of God in the matter. In
their prayers and religious conferences not a solitary expression
could be heard indicative of anger or vindictiveness, but in the
sight of God they humbled themselves, and received the chastisement
at His hand. Those, however, who were strangers to such exalted and
ennobling impressions of the gospel breathed deep and muttered
curses on the heads of the persons who subjected them to such
treatment. The more reckless portion of them fully realised the
character of the impenitent in all ages, and indulged in the most
culpable excesses, even while this divine punishment was still
suspended over them. These last, however, were very few in
number—not more than a dozen. To my poor and defenceless flock the
dark hour of trial came at last in right earnest. It was in the
month of April, and about the middle of it, that they were all—man,
woman, and child—from the heights of Farr to the mouth of the Naver,
on one day, to quit their tenements and go—many of them knew not
whither. For a few, some miserable patches of ground along the
shores were doled out as lots, without aught in the shape of the
poorest hut to shelter them. Upon these lots it was intended that
they should build houses at their own expense, and cultivate the
ground, at the same time occupying themselves as fishermen, although
the great majority of them had never set foot on a boat in their
lives. Thither, therefore, they were driven at a week's warning. As
for the rest, most of them knew not whither to go, unless their
neighbours on the shore provided them with a temporary shelter; for,
on the day of their removal, they would not be allowed to remain,
even on the bleakest moor, and in the open air, for a distance of
twenty miles around.
On the Sabbath, a
fortnight previous to the fated day, I preached my valedictory
sermon in Achness, and the Sabbath thereafter at Achna-h'uiaghe.
Both occasions were felt, by myself and by the people from the
oldest to the youngest, to be among the bitterest and most
overwhelming experiences of our lives. In Strathnaver we assembled,
for the last time, at the place of Langdale, where I had frequently
preached before, on a beautiful green award overhung by Robert
Gordon's antique, romantic little cottage on an eminence close
beside us. The still-flowing waters of the \aver swept past us a few
yards to the eastward. The Sabbath morning was unusually fine, and
mountain, hill, and dale, water and woodland, among which we had so
long dwelt, and with which all our associations of "home" and
"native land " were so fondly linked, appeared to unite their
attractions to bid us farewell. My preparations for the pulpit had
always cost me much anxiety, but in view of this sore scene of
parting they caused me pain almost beyond endurance. I selected a
text which had a pointed reference to the peculiarity of our
circumstances, but my difficulty was how to restrain my feelings
till I should illustrate and enforce the great truths which it
involved with reference to eternity. The service began. The very
aspect of the congregation was of itself a sermon, and a most
impressive one. Old Achoul sat right opposite to me. As my eye fell
upon his venerable countenance, bearing the impress of eighty-seven
winters, I was deeply affected, and could scarcely articulate the
psalm. I preached and the people listened, but every sentence
uttered and heard was in opposition to the tide of our natural
feelings, which, setting in against us, mounted at every step of our
progress higher and higher. At last all restraints were compelled to
give way. The preacher ceased to speak, the people to listen. All
lifted up their voices and wept, mingling their tears together. It
was indeed the place of parting, and the hour. The greater number
parted never again to behold each other in the land of the living.
My adieu to the people of Ach-na-h'uaighe was scarcely less
affecting, although somewhat alleviated by the consideration that I
had the prospect of ministering still to those among them who had
leases of their farms, and whom Air. Sellar, the factor and
law-agent, had no power to remove.
The middle of the
week brought on the day of the Strathnaver Clearance (1819). It was
a Tuesday. At an early hour of that day Mr. Sellar, accompanied by
the Fiscal, and escorted by a strong body of constables,
sheriff-officers and others, commenced work at Grummore, the first
inhabited township to the west of the Achness district. Their plan
of operations was to clear the cottages of their inmates, giving
them about half-an-hour to pack up and carry off their furniture,
and then set the cottages on fire. To this plan they ruthlessly
adhered, without the slightest regard to any obstacle that might
arise while carrying it into execution.
At Grumbeg lived a
soldier's widow, Henny Munro. She had followed her husband in all
his campaigns, marches and battles, in Sicily and in Spain. Whether
his death was on the field of battle, or the result of fever or
fatigue, I forget; but his faithful helpmeet attended him to his
last hour, and, when his spirit fled, closed his eyes, and followed
his remains to their last resting-place. After his death she
returned to Grumbeg, the place of her nativity, and, as she was
utterly destitute of any means of support, she was affectionately
received by her friends, who built her a small cottage and gave her
a cow and grass for it. The din of arms, orders and counter-orders
from head-quarters, marchings and counter-marchings and pitched
battles, retreats and advances, were the leading and nearly
unceasing subjects of her winter evening conversations. She was a
joyous, cheery old creature; so inoffensive, moreover, and so
contented, and brimful of good-will that all who got acquainted with
old Henny Munro could only desire to do her a good turn, were it
merely for the warm and hearty expressions of gratitude with which
it was received. Surely the factor and his followers did personally
not know old Henny, or they could not have treated her as they did.
After the cottages at Grummore were emptied of their inmates, and
roofs and rafters had been lighted up into one red blaze, Mr. Sellar
and his iron-hearted attendants approached the residence of the
soldier's widow. Henny stood up to plead for her furniture—the
coarsest and most valueless that well could be, but still her
earthly all. She first asked that, as her neighbours were so
occupied with their own furniture, hers might be allowed to remain
till they should be free to remove it for her. This request was
curtly refused. She then besought them to allow a shepherd, who was
present and offered his services for that purpose, to remove the
furniture to his own residence on the opposite shore of the loch, to
remain there till she could carry it away. This also was refused,
and she was told, with an oath, that if she did not take her
trumpery off within half-an-hour it would be burned. The poor widow
had only to task the remains of her bodily strength, and address
herself to the work of dragging her chests, beds, presses, and
stools out at the door, and placing them at the gable of her
cottage. No sooner was her task accomplished than the torch was
applied, the widow's hut, built of very combustile material,
speedily ignited, and there rose up rapidly, first a dense cloud of
smoke, and soon thereafter a bright red flame. The wind
unfortunately blew in the direction of the furniture, and the flame,
lighting upon it, speedily reduced it to ashes.
In their progress
down the Strath, Ceann-na-coiIle was the next township reached by
the fire-raising evictors. An aged widow lived there who, by
infirmity, had been reduced to such a state of bodily weakness that
she could neither walk nor lie in bed. She could only, night and
day, sit in her chair; and having been confined for many years in
that posture, her limbs had become so stiff that any attempt to move
her was attended with acute pain. She was the mother-in-law of
Samuel Matheson, and had, with her family, been removed by Mr.
Sellar from Rhimisdale some time before. His treatment of her and
others on that occasion had brought Mr. Sellar into trouble as we
have seen, but now, in the Providence of God, she was once more in
his power, "Bean Raomasdail," or "the good wife of Rhimisdale," as
she was called, was much revered. In her house I have held diets of
catechising and meetings for prayer, and been signally refreshed by
her Christian converse. When the evicting party commenced their
operations in her township, the aged widow's house was among the
very first that was to be consigned to the flames. Her family and
neighbours represented the widow's strong claims on their
compassion, and the imminent danger to her life of removing her to
such a distance as the lower end of the Strath, at least ten miles
off, without suitable means of conveyance. They implored that she
might be allowed to remain for only two days till a conveyance could
be provided for her. They were told that they should have thought on
that before, and that she must immediately be removed by her
friends, or the constables would be ordered to do it. The good wife
of Rhimisdale was, therefore, raised by her weeping family from her
chair and laid on a blanket, the corners of which were held up by
four of the strongest youths in the place. All this she bore with
meekness, and while the eyes of her attendants were streaming with
tears, her pale and gentle countenance was suffused with a smile.
The change of posture and the rapid motion of the bearers, however,
awakened the most intense pain, and her cries never ceased till
within a few miles of her destination, when she fell asleep. A
burning fever supervened, of which she died a few months later.
During these
proceedings, I was resident at my father's house; but I had occasion
on the week immediately ensuing to visit the manse of Tongue. On my
way thither, I passed through the scene of the campaign of burning.
The spectacle presented was hideous and ghastly! The banks of the
lake and the river, formerly studded with cottages, now met the eye
as a scene of desolation. Of all the houses, the thatched roofs were
gone; but the walls, built of alternate layers of turf and stone,
remained. The flames of the preceding week still slumbered in their
ruins, and sent up into the air spiral columns of smoke; whilst here
a gable and there a long side-wall, undermined by the fire burning
within them, might he seen tumbling to the ground, from which a
cloud of smoke, and then a dusky flame, slowly sprang up. The sooty
rafters of the cottages, as they were being consumed, filled the air
with a heavy and most offensive odour. In short, nothing could more
vividly represent the horrors of grinding oppression, and the extent
to which one man, dressed up in a "little brief authority," will
exercise that power, without feeling or restraint, to the injury of
his fellow-creatures.
The Strathnaver
Clearance of 1819 dissolved my connection with my first
congregation, and extinguished a ministerial charge in that part of
the Highlands. The Assembly's committee for the Royal Bounty, on
being certified of the removal not only of their missionary but of
his whole congregation along with him, withdrew the stipend and
dissolved the mission. [The Free Church of Scotland sanctioned a
regular charge, with an ordained minister, at Altnaharra in
Strathnaver, in 1871. The congregation consists of a few shepherds,
gamekeepers, and summer visitors.—Ed.]
The space of time
intervening between the demission of my charge at Achness and my
appointment to the Gaelic Chapel at Aberdeen might have been about
three months. The various events which took place during the
interval I may briefly record.
During the last year
of my ministry at Achness I assisted, along with Mr. David Mackenzie
of Farr, at a communion at Thurso. Mr. William Mackintosh,
afterwards my father-in-law, was minister of that parish. I preached
on the Thursday, and intended to engage in the services of Sabbath
and Monday as well. But, late on Saturday evening, an express
arrived from Mr. Phin, minister of Wick, who administered the
sacrament on the same day, very earnestly craving assistance„as
those whom he had engaged to officiate had taken ill.
rode to Wick on Sabbath morning and arrived there to breakfast.
After Mr. Phin had, very ably indeed, preached the action sermon I
served the tables alternately with him, when he concluded with an
exhortation. I preached also on Monday both in the forenoon and
afternoon. The services of the Sabbath and week days on that
occasion at Wick were conducted in the open air, as the parish
church was then in a ruinous state, the foundation having some years
before given way, and rents having appeared in several parts of the
back wall. The church itself was comparatively new, having been
erected, after a long litigation with the heritors, during the
incumbency of Mr. Phin's immediate predecessor, Mr. Sutherland. [Mr.
W. Sutherland, A.M. (whose father and grandfather were eminent
ministers in Ross-shirel, was ordained minister of Wick lot May,
1765. lie got the parish church rebuilt in 1799. He was a man of
great tact and unbounded hospitality, but had considerable trouble
with obdurate heritore. In public prayer he used to intercede "for
the magistrates of Wick, such as they are." He died 23rd June, 1816,
in the 79th year of his age and 52nd of his ministry. His son, the
Hon. Jas. Sutherland, became judge and member of Council, Bombay,
where he lived in princely style. His daughter Elizabeth was married
to James miller, Esgre., merchant in Leith and St. Petersburg; their
son was the late Sir William Miller, Bart. of Manderton; his
daughter Christian was married to Sir. Mackintosh, minister of
Thurso. His wife, Catherine Anderson, by whom he had a large family,
died 3rd October, 1813.—Ed.] The foundation, however, was unsound,
and the building soon gave way. The consequence of which was, that
the heritors were under the necessity, very soon thereafter, of
erecting a new church at an enormous expense. Mr. Phin was then
married and had two of a family, a son and a daughter. [Mr. Robert
Phin was ordained assistant and successor to Mr. Sutherland 13th
March, 1813. He was a man of energy, and had a hew parish church
erected in 1830; he died 22nd March, 1810, aged 63 years. Dr.
Kenneth Macleay Phin, minister of Galashiels, who became, latterly,
a conspicuous ecclesiastic in the present Established Church of
Scotland, was his son.—Ed.] His wife was a daughter of Bailie
Macleay of Wick, a native of Invergordon, and in his younger years
ferryman there. From this humble sphere he rose rapidly to wealth
and distinction, after having emigrated to Caithness. Mr. Phin, his
son-in-law, was a popular preacher, and popularity he very much
affected. His sermons were very excellent, but the best of them were
said to be borrowed; the people of Wick said, ”He's a quid man, oor
minister, an' a' the things we hear frae him on the Sawbath we can
read in godly authors when we come hame."
Some months before my
departure from Achness, a young man, Robert Sutherland, a native of
Loth, but then employed in Aberdeen, came north to be married to
Evan MacPherson's eldest daughter Christian, an amiable and handsome
young woman. They were married by my father at Dalcharn, but as this
young man was expressly deputed by the congregation at Aberdeen to
make enquiries after me in the prospect of a vacancy occurring, by
the appointment of their minister, Mr. Duncan Grant, to the parish
of Alves, the young couple came on the Sabbath to hear sermon at
Ach-na-h'uaighe. I knew nothing of this at the time, but Robert
Sutherland's report was the first stop towards my settlement in
Aberdeen in the September following.
On the 8th day of
June, 1819, Mr. Cook and my sister Elizabeth were married at
Kildonan. I performed the marriage rite. It was in the nether
bedroom, where my beloved stepmother lay. She was then very low, but
at her special request the ceremony was performed in her presence.
Mr. Cook arrived at Kildonan on the evening of the preceding day,
accompanied by Robert Sutherland from Scoriclate, an eminently pious
man, and extremely attached to Mr. Cook, his minister. Mr. Cook and
my sister were married about 3 o'clock, p.m., my father and mother
and the servants only being present. The married pair remained at
Kildonan that night, and next day set off "through the hill" to
their residence at Dirlot. The parting between my sister and her
stepmother was deeply affecting. "God bless you, my dear Betty,"
said she, "I shall never see you more." I accompanied them till
about two miles to the north of Cnoc-an-Eireanaich. In other
circumstances I would certainly have gone all the way with them; but
I had, about three weeks previously, received a call from the
congregation at Aberdeen to preach as a candidate on the ensuing
Sabbath, and I was under the necessity of setting out by the
mail-coach from Inverness that same week. I had therefore only a day
or two to remain at Kildonan before my departure for the south, and
this very limited time I can never forget. My stepmother was sinking
fast. She often called for me, and her distress seemed alleviated
when she knew I was there. The bitter moment at last came when I was
to part with her, never again to behold her. With my heart like lead
within me I dragged myself to her bedside. Awaking out of a feverish
slumber, she looked up at me. That look and the pallid countenance
are at this moment, after the lapse of twenty-six years, before me.
"Farewell, my dear mother, for the present," I said, "I hope very
soon to see you again." "No, no," said she, "I shall never see you
more, my dear Donald; this is the parting hour on the earth;
farewell, may we meet in that place of rest where there is no
separation!" I was completely overwhelmed; I bent over her, and
bathed her pallid face with my tears, then tore myself away, and
rushed out of the room.
I arrived in Aberdeen
on Saturday morning. I found my friend Robert Sutherland waiting my
arrival at the inn where the coach stopped in Union Street, together
with a few other members of the Gaelic congregation. They conducted
me to lodgings in Frederick Street. I called upon my predecessor,
Mr. Grant, and found him engaged in packing up his furniture and
arranging his secular matters previous to his departure for his new
charge at Alves. He told me that he was to preach his valedictory
sermon in Gaelic in the forenoon of the ensuing day, and, from the
general conversation which we had respecting the congregation, it
seemed to me that he and his flock had quarrelled, and were to part
in something like a huff. The event justified my suspicions. On the
Sabbath he preached as he had intended, and his sermon, particularly
the practical part of it, was one of the most perfect scolds I ever
heard. He was naturally a warm-hearted man, but very choleric;
besides that, he was at the time afflicted with a stomach complaint
which affected his nervous system, and fomented his irascibility.
[Mr. Grant usually preached in English on Sabbath evenings in the
Gaelic Chapel, which, on some occasions, was crowded by Aberdeen
people. At their request, he proposed that the afternoon service
should be conducted in the some language. This the Highlanders
strongly opposed. They appealed to the Presbytery, which gave them a
constitution according to their wishes. This occurred in 1819. .air.
Grant, who knew Gaelic imperfectly, was a powerful and popular
English preacher. He was translated front Alves to Forres 27th
September, 1827, and in 1843 became minister of the Free Church
congregation of that town. He died 17th March, 1866, in the 76th
year of his age and 62nd of his ministry.—Ed.] I preached in Gaelic
in the afternoon, and in English in the evening at six o'clock, to
most attentive audiences. During the course of the week my election
and call as minister were harmoniously entered into by the
congregation. Returning to my lodgings one evening I found a letter
on the table addressed in my father's handwriting. My heart bounded
between hope and fear. I eagerly snatched it up and looked at the
seal. It was large and black. I anticipated its contents. My poor
mother was no more. My letter communicated the sad intelligence
that, after a short but severe struggle, she had departed this life
on the 25th of June, eight days after I had parted from her. 'These
heavy tidings completely stunned me. The congregation entreated of
me to remain for two Sabbaths more, but I could not, so, after
preaching on the Sabbath following, I returned home by the coach on
the Monday. The north mail-coach had not previously run further than
Tain. But by an arrangement entered into between the
Postmaster-General and the proprietors of Sutherland and Caithness,
it had been agreed to continue it all the way to Thurso, round by
Wick. On my return from Aberdeen I was one of the passengers with
the first mail from Tain to Thurso. I took my seat only to
Helmisdale. It was rather a dangerous mode of travelling, the danger
arising, however, not from the state of the roads, but solely from
the welcome given to the newly-started conveyance by all the
proprietors, tacksmen, towns and villages on the line of road by
which the coach passed. Every one of them must treat the passengers,
guard and drivers, with glasses of whisky, with which the drivers in
particular so regaled themselves as at length to be totally unfit to
manage the horses. The coach at different times therefore made many
hairbreadth escapes from being overturned.
I rode from
HeImisdale to Kildonan, and instead of taking the short road through
the township to the manse, I went round by the churchyard. There,
behind the church wall to the north, a new-made grave smote upon my
eye. It was my beloved stepmother's. I sat by it for a while
overwhelmed by emotion. I then went up to the manse, where my
widowed father met me at the threshold, and we mingled our tears
together. Not feeling very well next day, I mentioned it to my
father, when he replied, "She lies low who would have cured you."
The words so penetrated my heart that I welt the whole night. My
dear father, from the day of his wife's death to his own, lived the
life of a hermit. All his family had left him, and the township, and
indeed the whole parish of Kildonan, were depopulated, so that,
except his own servants, male and female, the schoolmaster George
MacLeod and his family, and Muckle Donald and his wife, he had not a
human being to converse with for many miles around. My stepmother
died in her 64th year, and he survived her about six years.
Before I returned to
my charge at Aberdeen I paid a visit to my friends at Dirlot,
accompanied by Muckle Donald. We set out early in the morning, and,
after a tedious ride across the hills by Morven and Strathmore, we
arrived at my brother-in-law's at seven in the evening.
I returned to
Kildonan from Dirlot after a stay of two days, and on the succeeding
Sabbath I attempted, but with much pain and anxiety, to preach the
funeral sermon from the words, "Enter thou into thy chamber." I met
with some individuals of my former congregation from the heights of
the parish during the time I remained at Kildonan, among others poor
old Breacachadb, who shed tears at parting with me.
Having gifted my
furniture at Achness to my sister at Dirlot, and left my faithful
dun pony to be sold to any one who would take care of him, and
having taken an affectionate leave of my only surviving parent, I
went to Aberdeen about the latter end of July to enter on the duties
of my new charge. |
