Mackensen

“ At Tarragona he was so mortified with Sir John Murray's conduct, that he almost forgot that he himself was only second in command, and charged Sir John with incapacity and cowardice, for which the latter was tried by Court Martial - General Mackenzie being one of the principal witnesses against him. Full of vigour of mind and body, he took a lively interest in everything in which he engaged, from fishing and shooting to farming, gardening, politics, and fighting. He never forgot his Gaelic, which he spoke with fluency and read with ease. Though a severe disciplinarian, his men adored him. ”

“ MS. history of the Mackenzies, the oldest in existence, suggests that Mackenzie himself may have instigated the ruffians to do away with his wife. "They lived," he says, "a considerable time together childless, but men in those days (of whom be reason) preferred succession and manhood to wedlock. He caused to throw her under silence of night over the Bridge of Scatwell, but by Providence and by the course of the river she was cast ashore and escaped, went back immediately to his house, then at Achilty, and went to his bedside in a fond condition. ”

“ Mr. Mackenzie was something in the city, and had not apparently hit upon a good thing, for there was not much money to spare in the house at Putney. I rather fancy that he was managing clerk to a tea-warehouse, but am not sure upon that point. Mrs. Mackenzie had been a governess, but of course she had not started life as a teacher of small children; no, she had come into the world in an upper room of a pretty country vicarage, where the olive branches grew like stonecrop, and most visitors were in the habit of reminding the vicar of certain lines in the hundred and twenty-seventh Psalm. ”

“ In 1875 Mackenzie paid a visit to Great Britain, and was received at Windsor by Queen Victoria; he was offered a knighthood, but declined it. After his defeat he suffered from failing health, gradually resulting in almost total paralysis, but though in 1880 he resigned the leadership of the opposition, he retained a seat in parliament till his death at Toronto on the 17th of April 1892. While perhaps too cautious to be the ideal leader of a young and vigorous community, his grasp of detail, indefatigable industry, and unbending integrity won him the respect even of his political opponents. ”

“ She was no longer steaming proudly in; she crept as one who has been stricken blind and feels her way; out of mid-channel toward the Marin County shore—MacKenzie was able to bring her that far while the fog was descending—and now she crawled along under the lofty hills. The passengers had left her decks; there were no signs of life save for the lookout hidden in the murk that cloaked the bows, and the two men on the bridge. The captain's face had grown tense, and as he paced back and forth he glanced often at MacKenzie. ”

“ Those on shore observing the row, came out in their small boats and seeing Mackenzie, who was a dexterous swimmer, manfully making for Sconsar, on the opposite shore, in Skye, they pelted him with stones, smashed in his brains and drowned him. The few of his men who kept sober, seeing their leader thus perish, resolved to sell their lives dearly; and fighting like heroes, they killed the young laird of Raasay, along with MacGillechallum Mor, author of all the mischief, and his two sons. ”

“ Mackenzie, though he wrote in favour of solitude, passed a very active life, first as a pleader, and afterwards as a judge; that he was an eloquent writer, and an eloquent critic, we have the authority of Dryden, who says, that till he was acquainted with that noble wit of Scotland, Sir George Mackenzie, he had not known the beautiful turn of words and thoughts in poetry, which Sir George had explained and exemplified to him in conversation. As a judge, and king's advocate, will not the barbarous customs of the age defend his name? ”

“ The man was Alexander Mackenzie, and the worlds he sought to conquer were those of the far north. There was said to be a mighty river whose waters no white man had ever yet seen, whose source and outlet could only be guessed at, from the vague reports of Indians, whose banks were said to be infested with bloodthirsty tribes, and whose course was broken by so many and dangerous cataracts that no traveller might hope to navigate its waters and live.
Mackenzie, chafing at the dreary monotony of the fur-trader's life, listened eagerly to all such tales. ”

“ Mackenzie with a resigned little gesture. “Ye see, sir,” he faltered with a pathetic smile, “how soon I am forgot.” He paused, and the weak tears of sickness welled up into his eyes; then he resumed with a shade of bitterness, “Scott is sure to succeed, for he is of noble birth. He’ll not be patronized, at least.”
Mr. Mackenzie had been thinking deeply, and now he turned to Robert with a resolute air. “Mr. Burns,” he said earnestly, “with your consent, I will go to the Board of Commissioners of Excise, of which the Duke of Gordon is the chairman, and move them to grant you full salary. ”

“ Mackenzie recalled the night he had first approached that door and come suddenly around the corner into the pale beam of Hertha Carlson’s lantern. Now the kitchen door might be shut, and there was no window on that side.
Mackenzie stopped to listen, his senses as keen as a 290 savage’s under his strain. One who has not approached danger and uncertainty, listening and straining in the night, cannot conceive the exquisite pitch to which human nerves can be attuned. ”

“ Mackenzie retorted. "Here, Sher Jang, you're the broadest of us. Come and stand just here. I'll mount you; then, Bob, you're the slimmest, you swarm up. On my shoulders you'll be able to see over. Take the matches. Keep a look-out, Dick, and if you see anyone above threaten mischief, just fire off your revolver--not to hit him, you understand. Diplomacy comes before war."
Sher Jang stooped while Mackenzie mounted his back, then slowly rose to his full height. Mackenzie rested his hands on the shutter, and Jackson clambered up the human pedestal, and grasped the top of the iron gate. ”

“ Alexander, though deeply grieved at the cruel destruction of his people, expressed his gratitude that the enemy, whom he had hitherto considered too numerous to contend with successfully, had now engaged God against them by their impious conduct. Contin was not far from Kinellan, and Macdonald, thinking that Mackenzie would not remain at the latter place with such a comparatively small force, ordered Gillespic to draw up his followers on the large moor, now known as "Blar-na-Pairc," that he might review them, and send out a detachment to pursue the enemy. ”

“ As a railway builder he staged the greatest pageant of industry ever known in Canada, and when the show went off the road because it was no longer able to pay its bills, took what he could salvage of the properties and left other men to wrestle with the reconstruction.
We shall never have another Mackenzie. Bigger men may arise. More unusual characters may stalk out of obscurity into places of eminence and power. But there never again can be an era like the Mackenzie epoch, because that kind of experience is suffered and enjoyed but once in a nation's lifetime. ”

“ In 1776 Mackenzie married Penuel, daughter of Sir Ludovick Grant of Grant. He was, in his later years, a notable figure in Edinburgh society. He was nicknamed the “man of feeling,” but he was in reality a hard-headed man of affairs with a kindly heart. ”

“ Mackenzie asked of Beresford.
"There's a pit in the cavern. Out of it come rays like those from the Eye. They decompose water: what you sent down nearly made an end of us. A greater quantity would have shivered the whole place to atoms."
Mackenzie drew a long breath.
"They know it, thank goodness!" he said. "Anything new, Bob?"
"No: they're still running this way. There must be some near the door I can't see. They all look as if they're expecting something to happen."
The last words were drowned by an explosion that shook the building.
"Gunpowder! The door!" cried Mackenzie. ”

“ But in the passing of that instant, as one who casts behind him all else upon the seizing of swift-racing opportunity, MacKenzie rose and leaped. Out of the boat against the reeling steel wall he sprang; he gripped the ladder's sides with both strong hands and found the step which lay unseen beneath him. Already the oarsmen were pulling off to safety; through the black plates he heard the clanging of the gong down in the engine room. He climbed up and gained the deck. ”

“ The words had scarcely left his lips when the great door at the end of the aisle resounded under a loud and violent knocking.
"It means war, I doubt," Mackenzie answered. "Go and join Mr. Beresford, Bob. I'll bring the others with some of those arms you discovered. We must keep the Chinkies out at all costs."
He raced back to the inner room. Forrester had already left the head-dress, and seized an ancient pike.
"No, no, Dick!" cried Mackenzie. "Stick to your job, man. I'm no good at puzzles myself. We will need that Eye! Hamid, you and your chopper, away to the kitchen door. ”

“ Despite his varied energy, Mackennal remained through life a close student, a finished preacher, and an assiduous pastor. His thoughts on critical and theological questions were ax once broad and deep; exaggeration and excitement he abhorred, and he had no liking for 'reckless evangelising' of the Moody type. In his limitation of the Divine omniscience he falls unconsciously into a Socinian position (Life, p. 137) . In politics he was no prominent figure, but a consistent advocate of an anti-war policy. ”

“ It's hard the Government gives nobody in the North power to keep people in order. I don't choose to send a company to Inverness until I hear what they are determined to do at Lord Lovat's."
The Earl of Loudon writes to Marshal Wade, then Commander-in-Chief in the North, under date of 16th November, saying that 150 or 160 Mackenzies, seduced by the Earl of Cromarty, marched in the beginning of that week up the north side of Loch-Ness, expecting to be followed by 500 or 600 Frasers, under command of the Master of Lovat, but the Mackenzies had not on that date passed the mountains. ”

“ This earl’s eldest son was John Mackenzie, Lord Macleod (1727–1789) , who shared his father’s fortunes in 1745 and his fate in 1746. Having pleaded guilty at his trial Macleod was pardoned on condition that he gave up all his rights in the estates of the earldom, and he left England and entered the Swedish army. In this service he rose to high rank and was made Count Cromarty. The count returned to England in 1777 and was successful in raising, mainly among the Mackenzies, two splendid battalions of Highlanders, the first of which, now the Highland Light Infantry, served under him in India. ”

“ But God's will be done; God's will be done. I think I had better go now, Mr Rubb. There will be no use in my going to her upstairs again. Tell her from me, with my love, that she shall hear from me when I have seen the lawyer. I will try to come to her, but perhaps I may not be able. Good-bye, Mr Rubb."
"Good-bye, Miss Mackenzie. I hope we shall see each other sometimes."
"Perhaps so. Do what you can to support her. She will want all that her friends can do for her." ”

“ Kenneth was at the time on a visit to Mackenzie of Gairloch, at his house on Island Rory in Loch-Maree, and hearing of Glengarry's approach and the object of his visit, he ordered all his coasts to be placed in readiness, and sent Alexander Mackenzie of Achilty with sixteen men and eight oarsmen, in an eight oared galley belonging to John Tolmach Macleod, son of Rory, son of Allan Macleod, who still possessed a small portion of Gairloch, to watch the enemy and examine the coast as far as Kylerhea. ”

“ Next day Kenneth started for Kinellan, where his father, the old chief Alexander, resided, and related to him what had taken place. His father was much grieved, for he well knew that the smallest difference between the families would revive their old grievances, and, although there was less danger since Macdonald's interest in Ross was smaller than in the past, yet he knew the clan to be a powerful one still, more so than his own, in their number of able-bodied warriors ”

“ MACKENZIE, WILLIAM (1791–1868) , surgeon, born in Queen Street, Glasgow, on 29 April 1791, was son of James Mackenzie, a muslin manufacturer (d. 1800) . He was educated in the grammar school and in the university of his native town. He then turned his attention for a short time to theology, intending to become a minister of the church of Scotland, but in 1810, abandoning divinity, he began the study of medicine in the university of Glasgow and in the Royal Infirmary of that city. ”

“ Mackenzie returned, leaving her to form her own conclusion.
She searched his face with steady eyes, her hand on the ax-helve, in earnest effort to read his heart.
21
“No, you are not afraid,” she said. “But wait; when you hear him speak, then you will be afraid.”
“How do you know he is coming home tonight?”
She did not speak at once. Her eyes were fixed on the open door at Mackenzie’s side, her face was set in the tensity of her mental concentration as she listened. Mackenzie bent all his faculties to hear if any foot approached. There was no sound. ”

“ After visiting Paris, Macken assisted in the compilation in London of the 'Huntingdon Peerage' (1821) , published with the name of Henry Nugent Bell [q. v.] as the author. William Jordan [q. v.] wards issued several of his poems in the 'Literary Gazette,' and procured the publication of his third volume of poems, the 'Lays on Land.' Macken returned in bad health in 1821 to Ireland, where he resumed his position as joint-editor of the 'Enniskillen Chronicle.' He died on 7 May 1823, aged 39, and was buried in Aughaveagh parish church, where there is a memorial to him. ”