Glengarry

“ A single glance around the room, and again raising his battle-cry, "Glengarry!" he seized the nearest shrinking Frenchman, lifted him high, and hurled him smashing into the bottles behind the counter. His men, following him, bounded like tigers on their prey. A few minutes of fierce, eager fighting, and the Glengarry men were all freed and on their feet, all except Black Hugh, who lay groaning in his corner. "Hold, lads!" Macdonald Bhain cried, in his mighty voice. "Stop, I'm telling you." The fighting ceased.
"Dan Murphy!" ”

“ In a deed of 1728 we find Old Glengarry already remarried to a daughter of Gordon of Glenbucket, who in 1724 was nearly murdered by evicted Macphersons. The stepmother of Young Glengarry was a managing woman, and ‘factrix’ of her husband’s estates. Now, in 1738 Old Glengarry pawned or ‘wadsetted’ his lands of Cullachy to his kinsman Lochgarry. The wadsetter paid 2,000 merks in money and gave bills for the rest. But in January 1745, when Alastair was in Scotland on furlough from his French regiment, Old Glengarry formally ‘disponed’ his estates to his eldest son. ”

“ She put her face in her pillow to hide the red that she knew was flaming in her cheeks, and for a few moments gave herself up to the joy that was flooding her whole heart and soul and all her tingling veins. Oh, how happy she was. For long she had heard of the Glengarry lad from Maimie and more from Harry till there had grown up in her heart a warm, admiring interest. And now she had come to know him for herself! How little after all had they told her of him. What a man he was! How strong and how fearless! How true-hearted and how his eyes could fill with love! She started up. Love? Love? ”

“ This last is the property of Glengarry, and the most mountainous, craggy, and coarse of all the Highlands: the roads [Pg 81] are so eminently bad that there is no thought of riding in it, and in some places so steep and rocky, that they have ropes of withs tied to trees to take hold of, lest passengers should fall and break their bones. The people all Papists and mostly thieves. ’Tis a part of the parish of Glenelg, but they never give the minister any trouble, except in collecting his Stipend. ”

“ On September 14, Forbes of Culloden congratulated Old Glengarry on his return home, and regretted that so many of his clan were out under Lochgarry, a kinsman. [150c] Old Glengarry had written to Forbes ‘lamenting the folly of his friends.’ He, like Lovat, was really ‘sitting on the fence.’ His clan was out; his second son Æneas led it at Falkirk. Alastair was in France. At the close of 1745, Alastair, conveying a detachment of the Royal Scots, in French service, and a piquet of the Irish brigade to Scotland, was captured on the seas and imprisoned in the Tower of London. ”

“ The MacKenzies had all risen, it is true. Nay, some of them had even moved a step forward in defence of their chief. But they marked the gigantic figure of Glengarry; and seeing that the iron strength he possessed gave him as much power over Lord Kintail as an ordinary man has over a mere child, and that any movement on their part must instantly seal his doom, each man of them stepped back and paused, and an awful and motionless silence once more reigned for some moments throughout the hall.
“Let any man but stir a finger!” ”

“ The family of Glengarry are descended from Alister, second son of Donald, who was eldest son of Reginald or Ranald (progenitor also of the Clanranald) , youngest son of John, lord of the Isles, by Amy, heiress of MacRory. Alexander Macdonnell, who was chief of Glengarry at the beginning of the 16th century, supported the claims of Sir Donald Macdonald of Lochalsh to the lordship of the Isles, and in November 1513 assisted him, with Chisholm of Comer, in expelling the garrison and seizing the Castle of Urquhart in Loch Ness. ”

“ I wished to make thee fully aware of the whole state of matters before I go to Eilean Donan to swell, as in regard to my own safety I must needs do, that majority which he looks for to strengthen his hands against thee.”
“Thou hast proved thyself a friend indeed,” said Glengarry, after ruminating a few seconds. “Thou hast proved thyself to be that old and steady friend of mine which I always have believed, and ever will believe thee to be. ”

“ One thing is to be observed about Glenevis’s doubts of Young Glengarry. In this year, 1751, and onwards, that hero was allowed by Government to live in London, in Beaufort Buildings, Strand, whence he communicated with Charles and James, as a strenuous Jacobite agent. ”

“ But, believers in personation may say, ‘Pickle had carefully studied and adroitly copied Glengarry’s orthography, as, ex hypothesi, he wished to pass for that Chief.’
Then why did he not also imitate Glengarry’s handwriting?
Glengarry wrote two hands; one is a sprawling scrawl, sloped much to the right, in his rough drafts of letters, preserved in his Letter Book; the other is merely the same hand written smaller, closer, not so sloped, in his letters, for example, to James and Edgar. ”

“ For real courage and bravery few in the Highlands could excel them. I remember once hearing a story of young 'Glen,' in which, perhaps, is exhibited the finest example of daring ever recorded in the annals of our country. Once upon a time Old Glengarry was very unpopular with all the northern chiefs in consequence of his many raids and spoliations among the surrounding tribes; but although he was now advanced in years and unable to lead his clan in person none of the neighbouring chiefs could muster courage to beard him in his den single-handed. ”

“ The Glengarry men were in the rear that day, and though reckoned by his lordship not the most patient of mortals, he says he “never was better pleased with men in his life,” having done all that was possible for men to do. [1060]
With the exception of the Glengarry regiment, the army passed the night between the 16th and 17th at Shap. [1061] On the morning of the 17th, Lord George received two messages from Charles, ordering him upon no account to leave the least thing, not so much as a cannon ball behind, as he would rather return himself than that any thing should be left. ”

“ Bring them hither.”
“This is well!” said Glengarry, clutching the parchments with his armed hand from the trembling ecclesiastic, and thrusting them hastily into his bosom. “So far this is well. Now sit thee down, reverend sir, and forthwith write out a letter from thy lord to the King, fully clearing me and mine in the eyes of his Majesty from all blame, and setting forth in true colours my own loyalty and that of my brave clan. Most cruelly have we been belied, [212] for before these gentlemen I do here swear that, as God shall be my judge, he hath nowhere more faithful subjects.” ”

“ After the suppression of the rebellion, the chief of Glengarry made his submission to General Cadogan at Inverness. He died in 1724. By his wife, Lady Mary Mackenzie, daughter of the third Earl of Seaforth, he had a son, John Macdonnell, who succeeded him.
In 1745, six hundred of the Macdonnells of Glengarry joined Prince Charles, under the command of Macdonnell of Lochgarry, who afterwards escaped to France with the prince, and were at the battles of Preston, Falkirk, and Culloden. The chief himself seems not to have engaged in the rebellion. He was however arrested, and sent to London. ”

“ Shall not loyal brave Glengarry,
Through her tears feel proud of you
Thou hast fought the sternest battle,
Thou hast met the grimmest foe;
Christ-like stood by the forsaken
Stood till death has laid thee low.
Praise thy sons, dear old Glengarry,
Prompt to do, calm to endure;
And among your very noblest,
Set God's hero Norman Dewar.
THE SHADOW OF THE ALMIGHTY The Rev Mr Young was one stormy day visiting one of his people, an old man, who lived in great poverty in a lonely cottage a few miles from Jedsburg. ”

“ Glengarry says that the blow is aimed at him. Nothing is proved against Leslie, but stories of Glengarry’s intimacy with Murray the traitor, and the spy Samuel Cameron, called Crookshanks, are anonymously brought by Blair and Holker. In October 1751 Samuel’s brother, Glenevis and Downan, arrested for their share with Glengarry in the matter of the French gold, accuse Glengarry of informing against them. They lie in gaol in Fort William; Glengarry (though the Government know him to be their accomplice) lives freely in London, and travels where he pleases. ”

“ The hypothesis of a personation of Glengarry by Pickle has been proved absurd and impossible. Recent research, after the publication of ‘Pickle the Spy,’ has added to the original evidence proof of Glengarry’s insincerity as a Jacobite; the Glenevis affair; the promises made to Glengarry, as to Pickle, by Henry Pelham; the identification of ‘Cromwell’ (Bruce) ; the relations of Glengarry with Pickle’s friend, Baron Kennedy; a few new similarities of Pickle-Glengarry spelling; the identity of their handwriting; and their simultaneous desire to raise a regiment. ”

“ The tavern was full of Murphy's gang, a motley crew, mostly French Canadians and Irish, just out of the woods and ready for any devilment that promised excitement. Most of them knew by sight, and all by reputation, Macdonald and his gang, for from the farthest reaches of the Ottawa down the St. Lawrence to Quebec the Macdonald gang of Glengarry men was famous. They came, most of them, from that strip of country running back from the St. Lawrence through Glengarry County, known as the Indian Lands—once an Indian reservation. ”

“ Thus Glengarry undeniably frequented the old Earl Marischal, no less than Pickle did, and the English Government knew it. Yet they did not arrest him, as they arrested Glenevis, Downan, Fassifern, Archy Cameron, and tried to arrest Lochgarry, on all of whom Pickle had informed. Moreover Glengarry, in Paris, is not starving, but has a servant out of livery, and two in livery, keeps or hires a carriage, or uses that of the Earl Marischal. ”

“ By this means he managed to produce the most bitter prejudice against Glengarry and his clan; but all of them being convinced of the folly and futility of meeting the 'Black Raven,' as he was called, man to man and clan to clan, Mackenzie invited them to meet him at a great council in Eilean-donnan Castle the following week to discuss the best means of protecting their mutual interests, and to enter into a solemn league, and swear on the 'raven's cross' to exterminate the hated Glengarry and his race, and to raze, burn, and plunder everything belonging to them. ”

“ In 1772, the new Glengarry wedded Miss Marjory Grant, eldest daughter of Sir Ludovick Grant of Dalvey. Mr. Fraser Mackintosh says that ‘regardless of sufferings, she strove with success to clear off the debts, to raise the rents, and generally to aggrandise the position of the Glengarry family.’
The wadsetts were paid off: the wadsetters must now be tenants, on increased rents, or go. Most of them emigrated to the New England States. Bad years came: the small tenants fell into arrears. In 1782, a year of famine, arrived the first sheep farmer from the Border. ”

“ They were all intensely loyal, and when the Revolution broke out many moved north into Canada, settling on the Niagara frontier, the bay of Quinté, and the banks of the St. Lawrence. From the latter settlement sprang the present Glengarry County. In 1804-1805 Bishop McDonell obtained several grants of land in the district for the Highlanders of the disbanded Scottish Glengarry Regiment, and for twenty-five years promoted the interests of the colonists. He raised, in 1812, the Glengarry Fencibles Regiment, which rendered valuable service during the war. ”

“ During the '45 the command of the Glengarry clan was, on account of the imprisonment of the chief, and of Alastair the chiefs eldest son, entrusted to the second son, Æneas; but in the absence of Æneas in the highlands to procure reinforcements, the clan was, while on the march southwards to Derby, under the charge of Colonel Donald Macdonald of Lochgarry ”

“ The horses require attention at critical moments, and there are always points of interest when it is important that conversation should be deflected from the subject in hand, so since Mrs. Murray was willing, Kate turned into the park. For an hour they drove along its shady, winding roads while Mrs. Murray talked of many things, but mostly of Ranald, and of the tales that the Glengarry people had of him. For wherever there was lumbering to be done, sooner or later there Glengarry men were to be found, and Ranald had found them in the British Columbia forests. ”

“ This truth is nowhere more apparent than in a county of Upper Canada where we spent nearly three years. The county of Glengarry was settled {16} in 1815 by Scotchmen, some of whom were Catholics. The colony increased partly by the natural multiplication of the settlers, partly by immigration, until about 1840, when immigration almost totally ceased, all the lands being occupied. The population was then left to grow by natural increase alone. ”

“ A most explicit description is that of the followers of Glengarry, “three hundred illustrious youths in the first flower of vigorous manhood, each of whom a tartan garb covers, woven with Phrygian skill in triple stripe, and as a garment clothes their broad chests and flanks. A helmet defends the temples of the men. A coloured plaid veils their shoulders, and otherwise they are naked.... ”