Mackellar

“ Mackellar," said he, "not every man is so great a coward as he thinks he is - nor yet so good a Christian." He did not guess how true he spoke! For the fact is, the thoughts which had come to me in the violence of the storm retained their hold upon my spirit ”

“ The first warning that all was not well came to me when my equipage drew up, to a symphonic accompaniment of rattling buckets, at the lodge gates of Buckholm. These were held, like the bridge across the Tiber upon a famous occasion, by a resolute trio composed of Mackellar, the under-gardener, and Mesdames Elspeth and Maggie Mackellar, Mackellar's daughters, aged about fourteen. Horatius Codes (Mackellar) informed me that by her ladyship's orders it was "hauf-a-croon to get in," adding (quite incomprehensibly at the moment) that it was "on account of the Feet for Charity." ”

“ Well; they did talk over the matter, cautiously and discreetly, for a few hours, for Captain Mackellar was a hard man at a bargain, and he would not agree to give them a passage at anything less than two pound a head. At last negotiations were concluded, the men got aboard the Bonnie Doon and piloted her out of the lagoon. They reached the Clyde in safety, having on the voyage found that Captain Mackellar was a religious man and never used any but the most God-fearing of oaths at his crew. ”

“ This being “a case of the greatest emergency, and of particular importance to the reputation of the British name in India,” the Political Department requested Captain Mackellar, the then senior officer at Bombay, to proceed to Goa, at that time blockaded by Sir William Clarke, and convey the troops under that officer’s orders from thence to Surat. Captain Mackellar instantly sailed in the Terpsichore, accompanied by the Trident 64, Betsy armed brig, and two Indiamen, joined Captain Hargood at Goa ”

“ War (as the ancients said very wisely) is ULTIMA RATIO. When we take our advantage unrelentingly, then we make war. Ah! Mackellar, you are a devil of a soldier in the steward's room at Durrisdeer, or the tenants do you sad injustice! ”

“ Time has proved these fears to have been quite exaggerate. Certainly there is no more worthy gentleman to-day in Scotland than the seventh Lord Durrisdeer. Of my own exodus from his employment it does not become me to speak, above all in a memorandum written only to justify his father....
[Editor’s Note.—Five pages of Mr. Mackellar’s MS. are here omitted. I have gathered from their perusal an impression that Mr. Mackellar, in his old age, was rather an exacting servant. Against the seventh Lord Durrisdeer (with whom, at any rate, we have no concern) nothing material is alleged.—R. L. S.]
... ”

“ Her long strange eyes were narrowed to threads of shining green,
She touched the broken spear-point the wound's red lips between,
She touched it with her careless foot, and yet he did not stir,
Dull fool that lay with open eyes and would not look at her!
She turned away in anger and raised her arms on high,
Her straight white arms that questioned the pure pale sky,
The thousand slender tree-stems soon hid the way she went
As they who hold a secret and therewith are content.
The dead man smiled in silence ”

“ In Dec. 1801, whilst the Terpsichore was under repair at Bombay, the Governor of that Presidency received information that the Portuguese authorities on the coast of Malabar, expected a French squadron, with a body of troops, to take possession of their settlements; and feeling the importance of preventing the enemy establishing themselves at Demaun and Isle Diu, applied to Captain Hargood, of H.M.S. Intrepid, the senior officer present, for assistance. The Intrepid and Terpsichore being in a dismantled state, Captain Mackellar instantly volunteered to take the command of an expedition ”

“ MacKellar's ballad was made, being young women in ringlets who press the suburban piano, have, we may reasonably hope, small need of the law any how, and we may be pretty sure that the verses which have touched the great popular heart are made in a spirit which is better than any law, even the law of metre. ”

“ Mackellar remained as chief engineer with Brigadier-general James Murray (1720–1794) [q. v.] , who took command of the city, and during the autumn and spring he strengthened the fortifications. In April 1760 the French, ten thousand strong, advanced on Quebec. Murray met them at Sillery, with Mackellar in command of his artillery. Murray was defeated and driven back to Quebec, and Mackellar was dangerously wounded. The French besieged Quebec, and Mackellar, as soon as he was convalescent, directed the defence until the advance of the British fleet up the St. ”

“ Mackellar served in the abovementioned ships [3] , until 1790, when he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant in the Circe frigate, employed cruising in the Channel.
A few months after the commencement of hostilities against the French republic, our officer was appointed to the Assistance of 50 guns; in which ship we find him serving as first Lieutenant, at the capture of l’Elizabeth, mounting 40 guns, with a complement of 300 men, by the squadron under Vice-Admiral Murray, on the Halifax station, Aug. ”

“ M’KEAN, R. b. 1849; manager Royal Albert music hall, Glasgow 1865 and of Alexandra, Victoria, Folly and Britannia music halls; partner with H. T. Rossborough in the Britannia music hall at time of death. d. 81 London st. Glasgow 8 May 1885. bur. Southern Necropolis 12 May.
MACKELLAR, John (eld. son of general Patrick Mackellar, chief engineer in north America and Minorca, d. 1779) . b. Minorca about 1768; entered navy 6 Jany. 1781; captain 27 April 1799; agent for prisoners of war and transports and governor of naval hospital at Halifax, Nova Scotia, May 1804 to about May 1810 ”

“ We anchored out in the bay on account of danger from the blacks, and a sailor was left in the boat. All the others took off their nether garments, got into the sea up to their armpits, and waded ashore; but they would not hear of my doing likewise, and Mack, the sailor, insisted I should get on his back, and in this undignified way I was carried ashore, in fits of laughter, nearly strangling Mack, as wet as any one else in reality, but of course pretending I was not. I was in white linen clothes and hat, and these dried up in a few minutes in the broiling sun. ”

“ BY THE SAME AUTHOR
"A PLEASURE PILGRIM IN SOUTH AMERICA" Daily News.―"A Book of the Day" ... "We journey with Mr. Mackellar with pleasure ... we must read between the lines in this book if we are to get from its full value. Then we shall find it instructive and moving to the imagination."
Morning Post.―" an interesting, vivacious, and incidentally instructive book. ... Mr. Mackellar's opinions on more serious matters are based upon shrewd observations of facts." ”

“ Ephraim Mackellar, A.M., late steward on the Durrisdeer estates, completed a set of memoranda (as long as a novel) with regard to the death of the (then) late Lord Durrisdeer, and as to that of his attainted elder brother, called by the family courtesy title the Master of Ballantrae. These he placed in the hand of John Macbrair, W.S., the family agent, on the understanding they were to be sealed until 1862, when a century 269 would have elapsed since the affair in the wilderness (my lord’s death) . You succeeded Mr. Macbrair’s firm; the Durrisdeers are extinct ”

“ What is spontaneous is all right, what we force ourselves to do is a bore.
There is the monkey—ought I to have contributed to its ease and well-being also?—no, really, that would be too much! The deck passengers give it its daily due! “Preety Cockay”—ah! he makes up for everything, and no one can say I neglected him—I never got the chance. This introspective mood annoys me; it is so much better never to think. It is all the old Malay; he made me feel as if somehow I had been so selfish and unthinking.
Batavia, Java ”

“ The people rise very early, but by eleven or so retire to their house, get into slipshod attire, repose all day, and only come forth in the evening. They dine about nine or so, and soon retire to bed. It does not sound very lively, and seems a somewhat slovenly life. It may be the only possible one. After this glimpse at Batavia and sniff at the Durian—a very long sniff, though—I rejoined the Stettin and we sailed at eleven in the morning. ”

“ Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.
Dorothea Mackellar
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1928.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1968, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 54 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”

“ Some of the Solomon Isles are within the German sphere and some within the British. With the same almost insane lack of foresight which has characterised all the dealings of the Home Government with these seas and isles, they allowed the best part of them to fall to Germany. This is a real misfortune, and it is a great pity Germany has any of them. It would have been better for herself also not to have them, as will be seen in time. As much as she can she shuts them against all traders save Germans; others must pay a large annual licence; whereas the British ones are open to any one. ”

“ Can’t you live? Can’t you go and fight some one, or do something to amuse some one? You go on like a cranky Chinaman—I suppose the other diggers kicked you out from where you were; you must have bored them to death. Go and get an island of your own, where no one can see you, and be blanked to you! ”

“ If you but face them bravely, lost in a barren land,
Never will they betray you, the sky and the sea and sand.
Blue burns the sky above me, red the sand at my feet,
Near and far on the sandhills shimmers the living heat ”

“ Hear her million voices hum like a lucky hive;
Blossom of the brier, blossom of the brier,
Mary in the summertime, give me my desire!
All the talking winds are stilled in the autumn pause,
Redder far than blood or fire blaze the hips and haws ”

“ Fish brush by her weed-hung side;
Never wave can shake her, she
Has gone through them far too deep,
And her crew may rest asleep
In the places where they died.
There each man unheeding lies
As he was the night she sank ”

“ Oft the colours are pitched so high
The deepest note is the cobalt sky;
We have to wait till the sunset comes
For shades that feel like the beat of drums
Or like organ notes in their rise and fall—
Purple and orange and cardinal,
Or the peacock-green that turns soft and slow
To peacock-blue as the great stars show....
Sugar-gum boles flushed to peach-blow pink ”

“ Steep-sloping to the sky,
I want to reach the summit
And watch the clouds race by;{36}—
The clouds that go so quickly
The whole hill seems to lean;—
I want to breathe in deeply
The cool air, thin and keen.
My heart turns to high places
All men have long adored—
The proud and lonely mountains,
The Altars of the Lord. ”

“ We went on to the Parkinson bungalow, Raluna, or Raliuna, where we found Mrs. Parkinson and one of her daughters. Mrs. Parkinson is not like her stepsister Queen Emma in looks. She is a very popular lady, very clever and well read, and plays an important part in New Guinea. There was a market going on. Mrs. Parkinson was bargaining for fruit and vegetables with a number of native women who sat outside on the ground at one end of the verandah, where she stood before a table laden with tobacco and cloth, which they got in return for their produce. The old women were more than hideous. ”

“ The morns are growing misty, the nights are turning cold,
The linden leaves are falling like a shower of gold;
And over where my heart is, beneath the southern sun,
The shearing's nearly over and the spring's begun.
The crying flocks are driven to feed in peace again,
They stream and spread and scatter on the smooth green plain. ”

“ White on the sea.
Now to the waves you swoop,
Snatch at your prey—
Smoothly you pause and stoop,
And are away,
While the sea's rage is spent
Leaping at you,
Who make high merriment
Up in the blue. ”

“ My feet are grey with the roadside dust,
My hair is wet with the dew,
My heart is flagging with weariness
And faint with the want of you.
You are as young as the breaking buds,
You are as old as the sea ”

“ Through the narrow gorges where the flying-foxes muster,
Hanging from the kurrajongs like monstrous magic grapes,
Something spreads a sudden fear that breaks each heavy cluster—
See the furry prick-eared faun that chuckles and escapes! ”

“ I can foresee a splendid future for Northern Australia—this island paradise in the Straits, and British New Guinea—it is far away, but it is to come one day. To me it is inexplicable how few people ever seem able to look beyond the present. The Barrier Reef and Torres Straits are mines of gold. ”

“ To-day, when the cranes in their grey and pink
Fish solemnly in the weeds,
To-day, when the cattle come down to drink
And push through the whispering reeds,
I stand there and watch them, in Culgai too,
And they do not heed or fear;
There is not one lark in the radiant blue
Whose carol I do not hear. ”

“ Where the winter fern is gold among the silver grass,
And the shy bush creatures watching bright-eyed and unfearing
See the slender Oreads while we unheeding pass.
Wreathed with starry clematis these tread the grassy spaces
When the moon sails up beyond the highest screening tree,
All the forest dances, and the furthest hidden places
Are astir with beauty—but we may not often see. ”