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The barometer has fallen
somewhat since last night, and there are ominous clouds looming here and
there in the west; but the sky is clear blue overhead, the white road is
dry and dazzling, and the sun as hot as could be wished. Out to the
eastward the way turns along the top of the quaint fisher town, with its
narrow lanes and throng of low thatched roofs, till at a sudden dip the
little bridge crosses the river. Sweet Nairn! The river has given its name
to the town. A hundred and forty years have passed since these clear
waters, wimpling now in the sun, brought down from the western moors the
life-blood of many a wounded Highlander fallen on dark Culloden. The sunny
waters keep a memory still of the flight of the last Prince Charles.
Like a crow-flight eastward
the road runs straight, having on the left, beyond the rabbit warren, the
silver sand-beach and the sea, and on the right the fertile farm lands and
the farther woods. The white line glistening on the horizon yonder, far
along the coast to the east, is a glimpse of the treacherous hillocks of
the Culbin shifting sands. They are shining now like silver in the calm
forenoon; but, as if restless under an eternal ban, they keep for ever
moving, and, when stirred by the strong sea-wind, they are wont yet to
rise and rush and overwhelm, like the dust-storm of the Sahara. For two
hundred years a goodly manor and a broad estate have lain buried beneath
those wastes, and what was once called the Garden of Moray is nothing now
but a desolate sea of sand. They say that a few years ago an apple-tree of
the ancient manor orchard was laid bare for some months by a drift, that
it blossomed and bore fruit, and again mysteriously disappeared. Curious
visitors, too, in the open spaces where the black earth of the ancient
fields is exposed, can still see the regular ridges and furrows as they
were left by the flying farmers; and the ruts of cart-wheels two hundred
years old are yet to be traced in the long-hidden soil. Flint arrowheads,
bronze pins and ornaments, iron fish-hooks and spear-points, as well as
numerous nails, and sometimes an ancient coin, are to be picked up about
the mouldered sites of long-buried villages; but the manor of Kinnaird,
the only stone house on the estate, lies yet beneath a mighty sandhill, as
it was hidden by the historic storm which in three days overwhelmed
nineteen farms, altered by five miles the course of a river, and blotted
out a prosperous country-side. Pray heaven that yonder terrible white line
by the sea may not rise again some night on its tempest wings to carry
that ruin farther!
Over the firth, looking
backward as the highway at last bends inland, the red cliffs of Cromarty
show their long line in the sun, and, with the yellow harvest-fields above
them, hardly fulfil sufficiently the ancient name of the "Black Isle." Not
a sail is to be seen on the open firth, only the far-stretching waters,
under the sunny sky, bicker with the "many-twinkling smile of ocean."
Here, though, two miles out of Nairn, where the many-ricked farmhouses lie
snug among their new-shorn fields, the road rises into the trim village of
Auldearn.
Neat as possible are the
little gardens before the cottages, bright yet with late autumn flowers.
Yellow marigolds are glistening there within the low fences beside dark
velvety calceolarias and creamy stocks; while the crimson flowers of
tropeola cover the cottage walls up to the thatch, and some pale monthly
roses still bloom about the windows. A peaceful place it is, and little
suggestive of the carnage that it saw just a hundred years before
Culloden. Yet here it was that in 1645 the great Montrose, fighting
gallantly for the First Charles, drove back into utter rout the army of
the covenanting Parliament. Over on the left, among sheepfolds and
dry-dyke inclosures, lay his right wing with the royal standard; nearer,
to the right, with their backs to the hill, stood the rest of his array
with the cavalry; and here in the village street, between the two wings,
his few guns deceived the enemy with a show of force. It was from the
church tower, up there in front, that Montrose surveyed the position; and
below, in the little churchyard and church itself, lie many of those who
fell in the battle. They are all at peace now, the eastern Marquis and the
western, Montrose and Argyle: long ago they fought out their last great
feud, and departed.
The country about has
always been a famous place for witches, and doubtless the three who fired
Macbeth with his fatal ambition belonged to Auldearn. Three miles beyond
the village the road runs across the Hardmuir where the awful meeting took
place. It is planted now with pines, and the railway runs at less than a
mile’s distance; but even when the road is flooded with sunshine, there is
a gloom among the trees, and a strange feeling of eeriness comes upon the
intruder on their solitude. On the left the gate opens into the wood, and
the witches’ hillock lies at some distance out of sight. Utterly silent
the place is! Not a breath of air is moving, and the atmosphere has become
close and sultry. There is no path, for few people follow their curiosity
so far. Dry ditches and stumps of old trees make the walking difficult;
withered branches of the pines crackle suddenly sometimes under tread; and
here and there the fleshy finger of a fungus catches the eye at a tree
root.
And here is the hillock. On
its bald and blasted summit it is that in the lurid corpse-light,
The weird sisters, hand in hand,
Posters of the sea and land,
Thus do go about, about,
when Macbeth, approaching
the spot with Banquo on their return to King Duncan at Forres, after
victory in the west over Macdonald of the Isles, exclaims:
So foul and fair a day I
have not seen!
and the hags, suddenly
confronting the general, greet him with the triple hail of Glamis, Cawdor,
and King. The blasted hillock was indeed a fit spot for such a scene: not
a blade of grass grows upon it; the withered needles and cones of the
pines lie about, wan and lifeless and yellow; and on one side, where the
witches emptied their horrid caldron, and the contents ran down the hill,
the earth is bare and scorched and black. Even the trees themselves which
grow on the hillock are of a different sort from those on the heath
around. Less than seven miles from the spot, the moated keep of Cawdor,
where tradition says that the last awful prophecy was fulfilled by
Macbeth’s murder of King Duncan, frowns yet among its woods.
But what is this? The air
has grown suddenly dark; the gloom becomes oppressive; and in the close
heat it is almost possible to imagine a smell of sulphur. A flash of
lightning, a rush of wind among the tree-tops, and a terrible crash of
thunder just overhead! A moment’s silence, a sound as if all the pines
were shaking their branches together, a deluging downpour of rain, and the
storm has burst. The spirits of the air are abroad, and the evil genius of
the place is awake in demoniac fury. The tempest waxes terrific. The awful
gloom among the trees is lit up by flash after flash of lightning; the
cannon of thunder burst in all directions; and the rain pours in torrents.
The ghastly hags might well revisit the scene of their orgies at such a
moment. It is enough. The powers of the air have conquered. It is hardly
safe, and by no means pleasant, to remain among the pines in such a storm.
So farewell to the deserted spot, and a bee-line for the open country. To
make up for the wetting, it is consoling to think that few enthusiasts
have beheld so realistic a representation of the third scene of Macbeth. |
