Duncan Campbell

“ A Sir Duncan Campbell of Lochow, known in the Highlands by the name of Donacha Dhu nan Churraichd, that is, Black Duncan with the Cowl, it being his pleasure to wear such a head-gear, is said to have been peculiarly successful in those acts of spoliation upon the clan MacGregor.
The devoted sept, ever finding themselves iniquitously driven from their possessions, defended themselves by force, and occasionally gained advantages, which they used cruelly enough. ”

“ Duncan Campbell, a Scot like Kidd, had been a bookseller in Boston, and was now postmaster there. John Dunton describes him (1686) as "a brisk young Fellow, that dresses All-a-mode, and sets himself off to the best Advantage; and yet thrives apace. ”

“ Unfeeling woman, said he; but heaven may yet restore that son to protect the grey hairs of his old father and lay his head in an honoured grave.—The old man’s spirits were quite gone—he cried like a child his lady mimicked him—and, at this, his daughter and the servants raised a laugh. Inhuman wretches said Duncan, starting up, and pushing them aside, thus to mock the feelings of an old man even although he were not the lord and master of you all ”

“ The knife fell from my mother’s hand: she looked him steadily in the face for the space of a minute.—‘Duncan,’ said she, her voice faultering, and the tears dropping from her eyes, ‘Duncan, I never durst ask you before, but I hope you will not leave us altogether?’ Duncan thrust the plate from before him into the middle of the table—took up a book that lay on the window, and looked over the pages—Mary left the room. ”

“ Duncan felt this a deliverance so great, that all his other distresses vanished; and as soon as the man was out of his sight, he arose from his covert and ran over the moor, and ere it was long, came to a shepherd’s house, where he got some whey and bread for his breakfast, which he thought the best meat he had ever tasted, yet shared it with Oscar. ”

“ No, said he, fathers, by your leave, they will only prove me a good magician by that oath, and themselves more plainly witches. They will prove their love to torment good folks, and only show their hatred to me, an innocent man, but wise enough to torment them by hindering them from tormenting others. The fathers were well pleased with the shrewdness of the answer; but Duncan Campbell had a mind to exert his genius a little farther with the good friar, who thought likewise he had put him a very shrewd question ”

“ The halls and cottages of Glenellich were filled with feasting, joy, and gladness.
It was not so at my father’s house. Misfortune seldom comes singly. Scarcely had our feelings overcome the shock, which they received by the loss of our beloved Duncan, when a moro terriblo misfortuno overtook. My father, by the monstrous ingratitude of a friend whom we trusted, lost at once the greater part of his hard earned fortune. ”

“ The surprise of seeing a young man so happy amidst the general concurring favours of the fair, made me be for awhile lost in a kind of delightful amazement, and the consideration of what bliss he was possessed made me scarce believe my own eyes, when they told me it was Duncan Campbell, who I had left an unhappy orphan at Edinburgh. ”

“ During two months of each summer, the hilly countries of the Lowlands were inundated by hundreds of woman from the Highlands, who bartered small articles of dress, and of domestic import, for wool; these were known by the name of norlan’ netties; and few nights passed, during the wool season, that some of them were not lodged at my father’s house. It was from two of these that Duncan learned one day that he was laird of Glenellich’s only son and heir, and that a large sum had been offered to any person that could discover him. ”

“ If a beautiful young virgin languished for a husband, or a widow's mind was in labour to have a second venture of in [Pg 37] fants by another spouse; if a housekeeper had lost anything belonging to her master, still little Duncan Campbell was at hand; he was the oracle to be applied to, and the little chalked circle, where he was diverting himself with his play-fellows near the cross at Edinburgh, was frequented with as much solicitation, and as much credit, as the tripos of Apollo was at Delphos in ancient times. ”

“ Nature is powerful Duncan could not think of ought to detain him; and being desirous of seeing how matters went on about the house, thought it best to remain some days incog. He went into the fore-kitchen, conversed freely with the servants, and soon saw his stepmother and sister appear. ”

“ As soon as I was able to walk, I left Dewar, and for a long time durst never sleep alone during the night, nor stay by myself in the day time.’
The superstitious ideas impressed upon Duncan’s mind by this unfortunate encounter with the ghost of the piper, seem never to have been eradicated; a strong instance of the power of early impressions, and a warning how much caution is necessary in modelling the conceptions of the young and tender mind, for of all men I ever knew, he is the most afraid of meeting with apparitions. ”

“ In the year 1710, a gentlewoman lost about six pounds' worth of Flanders lace, and inasmuch as it was a present made to her husband, she was concerned as much as if it had been of twenty times the value; and a lady of her acquaintance coming to visit her, to whom she unfolded, among other things in discourse, this little disaster, the lady, smiling, replied with this question, Did you never hear, madam, of Mr. Duncan Campbell? It is but making your application to him, things that are lost are immediately found; the power of his knowledge exceeds even the power of laws ”

“ My mother cam hame to my house the next day. Tibby did everything to mak her comfortable-a’ the bairns ran at her biddin’—and, frae that day to this, there isna a happier man on this wide world than Patie Crichton, the bicker-maker o’ Birgham.”
DUNCAN CAMPBELL.
By James Hogg, the “Ettrick Shepherd.” Duncan Campbell came from the Highlands, when six years of age, to live with an old maiden aunt in Edinburgh, and attend the school. His mother was dead; but his father had supplied her place by marrying his housekeeper. ”

“ But consider his years, said Duncan, and besides, he may have met with crosses and losses sufficient to sour the temper of a young man. You should at all events, pity and reverence, but never despise your father. The old lady now joined them. You have yet heard nothing, young man, said the old laird, if you saw how my heart is sometimes wrung. Yes, I have had losses indeed. You losses! said his spouse, No; you never had any losses that did not in the end turn out a vast profit. Do you then count the loss of a loving wifo and son nothing? ”

“ Often have Mary, and he, and I, lain under the same plaid, by the side of the corn or meadow, and read chapter about on the Bible for hours together, weeping over the failings and fall of good men, and wondering at the inconceivable might of the heroes of antiquity. Never was man delighted as Duncan was when he came to the history of Samson, and afterwards of David and Goliath ”

“ Duncan spent his youth in the sports of the moor and the river until 1745, when the Young Chevalier ('Tearlach MacSheumais ) arrived in the highlands. Whatever his private predilections, Maclntyre, under the pressure of the chief of the district, John Campbell, second earl of Breadalbane, undertook, for the sum of three hundred marks Scots (16l. 17s. 6d.) ”

“ Campbell does are surprising after all; they would be apt to incline one to a belief that he is a wonder of a man; for one would imagine the things he does impossible: why, then, a prude, with an assumed, supercilious air and a scornful tihee, would, in order to seem more wise than she was, reply; Laud, madam, it is more a wonder to me that you can be imposed upon so. I vow to Gad, madam, I would as soon consult an almanack maker, and pin my faith upon what he pricks down; or believe, like my creed, in the cross which I make upon the hand of a gipsy. ”

“ Campbell has predicted in that second-sighted way terminates with moral advice, and the profit of the consulter, and without the violation of justice to others, as the book [Pg 181] shows all throughout; if he can relieve from witchcraft, as it seems oath is to be had he can, which no one that deals in black art can do, why then I need not draw the conclusion, every reader will do it naturally; they will avow all the strictest laws of casuistry and morality to be in favour of Mr. Campbell and his consulters. ”

“ That my heart would break if he left his nest,
And dwelt in the strange land down by the sea.
A SONG.
’Tis autumn and down in the fields
The buckwheat is browning still:
Gather yourself in your cloak,
The winter is over the hill. ”

“ Campbell, will lay what wager you will apiece with you all round. Hereupon, Mr. Barnard, who had known him a great many years, was the first that laid, and many more, to the number of five or six, followed his example; the decision of the matter was deferred till next day at the return of the old man to the inn, they being about to break up that night and go to bed.
The next day being Sunday, the landlord carried his guests to see the country, and after a handsome walk, they came through the churchyard. They were poring upon the tombs; no delight can be greater to Mr. Campbell than that ”

“ Campbell perform those wonderful things he is so deservedly famous for, as these cavillers say, by holding intelligence with infernal powers, or by any unjustifiable means, I am of opinion he would find very few, in this atheistical age, who would open their mouths against him, since none love to act counter to the interest of that master they industriously serve. ”

“ With their white thunder harnessed in the mills,
Turning one wealth to another wealth perpetually;
Spinning the lightning with dynamic spindles,
Till some far city dowered with fire enkindles.
The land of fruit, fine-flavoured with the frost,
Land of the cattle, the deep-chested host,
The happy-souled, that contemplate the hours,
Their dew-laps buried in the grass and flowers. ”

“ Sorrow is come like a swallow to nest,
Winging him up from the wind and the foam;
Mine is the heart that he loves the best,
He dreams of it when he dreams of home.
Strange! in the daylight off he flies,
Swift to the south away to the sea ”

“ With a song of mine in her heart?
SONG.
The wind is wild to-night,
In the dark he turns and stirs,
Or he falls into dream and quiet,
In the gloomy heart of the firs.
He springs upon the trees,
And he shakes the sleeping nest ”

“ The first thing done at the tavern, was Mr. Campbell's saluting him upon a piece of paper by his name, and drinking his health. The next paper held a discourse of condolence for a disaster that was past long since; namely, a great and considerable loss that happened to his family, in the dreadful conflagration of the city of London. In the third little dialogue which they had together, he told the merchant that losses and advantages were general topics, which a person unskilled in that art might venture to assign to any man of his profession ”

“ Where the sheeted wraiths like ghosts go
Through the gloomy rift.
Sing me a song of the ringing blade,
Of the snarl and shatter the light ice makes,
Of the whoop and the swing of the snow-shoe raid
Through the cedar brakes. ”

“ Beside him the old gray horse, that Philippe has set apart for his service, crops the grass or stands for hours patiently. Down in the shallow valley the Blanche runs, glistening; the mowers sway and bend; on the horizon shafts of smoke rise, little clouds break away from the masses and drop their quiet shadows on the fields. And through his glass Charles watches the moving shadows, the shafts of smoke, and the swaying mowers, watches the distant hills fringed with beech-groves. ”

“ On the dawn of the seventh morn;
For 'tis they who re-create the world
Whenever a child is born.
Give, Poet, give!
Give them songs that charm and fill
The soul with an alluring pleasure,
Prelusive to a deeper thrill,
A richer tone, a fuller measure ”

“ And all the smoky gold turned into cloud wrack.
Akoose slept forever amid the poplars,
Swathed by the wind from the far-off Red Deer
Where dinosaurs sleep, clamped in their rocky tombs.
Who shall count the time that lies between
The sleep of Akoose and the dinosaurs?
Innumerable time, that yet is like the breath
Of the long wind that creeps upon the prairie
And dies away with the shadows at sundown. ”

“ Storm strikes the world with lightning and with hail;
West—like the thought of a seraph that is dreaming,
Venus leads the young moon down the vale.
Through the lake furrow between the gloom and bright'ning
Firm runs our long canoe with a whistling rush,
While Potàn the wise and the cunning Silver Lightning
Break with their slender blades the long clear hush ”

“ Cresting the hill, brimming the level plain,
The miracle of the flower and milk and kernel,
Nurtured by sun-fire and frost-fire supernal,
Until the farmer turns it in his hand,
The million-millioned miracle of the land.
And yet with all these pastoral and heroic graces,
Our simplest flowers wear the loveliest faces ”

“ Time will repeat his miracles of passion;
O turn once more.
O turn once more!
What heart is worth the longing for, the winning,
That is not moved by currents of surprise;
Who never breaks the silken thread in spinning,
Shows a bare spindle when the daylight dies;
The constant blood will yet flow full and tender ”