Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-10-18
GIVEN OVER TO GAME.
Portions of Scotland Which Should
Blossom Like a Rose Are
NEARLY DEVOID OF INHABITANTS.
Edgar Wakem1n Penetrates Far Into This
Secluded Territory.
UNEXPECTEDLY GUEST AT A WEDDING

| CORRESPONDENCE OF THE DrsPArcB.i
FAsNAKYLE, SCOTLAND, October L.
| Leaving the little railway station at Beauty,
we saw, not hundred feet away, at the
road-head of long pair of stairs huge
wagonette, already filed with people. This
was the Strathglass "coach," so my COM
paniOn said. Two seats were reserved be-
side the driver. These we scrambled into,
and before the train had steamed out of the
station our coach was rolling heavily away
toward a region of silence eternal. For
when the Strathglass coach finally stops,
some 30 or 40 miles west Of Beauty, in every
direction save that from whence it came, is
a land that has never known a road or q
wheeled vehicle. Once under the old clan
system it was peopled with a grand and
noble race.
From clearance after clearance and evie-
tron after eviction it is now more lone and
| silent than when skin-clad helots huddled
In its straths and glens, and savage Pagan
rites were celebrated within its olden stone
| circles and claehans. To-day its very foot
paths and bride paths are given over to the
| gamekeeper, the gillie and the red deer.
| Perhaps a hundred grave-faced erofters
may occupy every 100 square miles of lard.
4
portion of the Scottish people throughout
| the entire North OF Scotland, precisely as,
| with famine aud Balfourism, it is gradually
but surely numbering an entire race in Ire
| land. The Green Isle is being transformed
| into sheep and cattle range for London
butchers; and the Scottish Highlands from
| the Grampians to the ocean rim around the
whole North of Scotland and to the outer
| cliffs OF the Western Isle, is already simply
i r
| DRAMATICALLY BEAUTIFUL.
| But Gods sunlight never shone on so ro-
mantically beautiful a land and the inex-
pressible pathos OF it all mists your eyes as
they look in vain for the homes where a
whole race has been plundered of its herit-
| age. OF the scattering remnants of these
people who, despite all injustice and loss,
still cling to the mountain eeries which gave
them birth, our coachload was completely
typical. Que huge, grave fellow WAS
| blacksmith who leased a little Jorge far up
the strath where he still starved along, now
and then getting driblet of work in shoe
ing the horses kept at the gentry's hunting
lodges.
Another man held a few acres of land and
a dreary old inn at the edge of the strath,
where occasionally gillies lOitered and
| dropped a few pence, or at odd intervals,
lords and ladies, from freak, or accident of
| requiring shelter, flung a few pounds into
| his grOveling hands. Three were Gro ters
pure and simple with Tam O'Shanter hats,
bushy boards. hollow cheeks, bloodless faces,
and deep-set blue eyes that seemed ever set
upon some lar object, as il intently endeav-
oriug to solve the riddle OF their lives of
| endless want and wretchedness. There
were two women. One was a cottar's wife,
miserably clad, with an ailing child which
mad been taken q score of miles to Beaulv
that physician might see it, as no doctor
| lived in all this vast region from sea to sea.
The other was scraggy old guidwife,
travel worn, but bravely making her waY
back TO some Highland croft, with a few
pounds in her pocket from among the her
ring-curing crews at Wick or Lerwick in
Shetland. What she had earned would
keep the thatch over her family's heads an-
| other year. Another man, sleek and WE'LL
| fed, was from Lord Tweedmouth's great
| Polled Angus stock farm and lodge far up
the strath; and still another was a strath-
merchant who dealt in "sweeties" and meal
in little hut by Fasnakyle Bridge. Then
| there was the driver, earnest and awful, be-
| cause entrusted with Her Majesty's mail
pouches; myself next to him on the box; and
to complete the party, alongside myself the
| Rev. Mr.. Mackenzie, nv companion, Free
| Church minister TO the tiny fold in grand
Strathgiass, and resident in the Free
Church manse, by Fasuakyle.
A sACRIFICIAL LIFE
And how came 1 TO be the guest of this
man who, capable OF filling a New York
| pulpit Is passing devoted and sacriieiaI
| life among the lowly OF these tempest-rid-
den mountains, has spice of humor in il.
worth the telling. He had been cycling in
| Norway, and, returning to Scotland, came to
| the same little hotel which housed me in
Edinburgh. With like sympathies and
| longings TO know all strangers can tell each
other, we had tumbled into an acquaintance
and mutual liking at breakfast; were in my
| own room directly, feasting on a pile of sew
| eral hundred delicious old volumes 1 had
| dug out the secondhand shops in Edin-
burgh, and while thus gosthering at each
other in glorious way we were suddenly
| overtakeu by little romance.
Bursting into the room in a great state of
trepidation our kindly Iandlady of st.
Andrews, Mrs. Steele, breathessIy stated
in the richest Aberdonian dialect that a
wedding dinner and wedding itself were
in the process of spelling for the want of
"meenister." They had come all the way
from Alloa, poor souls with kith and kin,
and their parson had missed the ferry; and
everything and everybody would be ruined
if nv friend ''dinna COON ava doom the
coffee-room, an join the puir bodies di-
rectly."
No; my friend was obdurate 1t was his
vncation. Resides, how did he know they
were fright in their lines" But the brisk
landlady had him there. She had been
school teacher; had already examined their
Lines" hersel.; and the nair were entitled
to succor on that score. No, again; because
ne had been cycling. was in grays and
kniekerbOckers TO boot; and whoever heard of
a clergyman marrying or burying anybody
without the regulation black? But had
him there; and soon saw him clapped inside
a black evening suit OF my own. But oh,
Scotch perversity! he had no white collar
and choker Then L cornered him again;
this time with Yankee paper collar and
ha'penny white muslin tie, ana we were now
sure OF victory, for under these conditions We
rot him to the landing below. Here he
baked completely.
On how slight thread hung the fate of
this wretched couple then! He had not the
form of service with him. and proceeding
without il was utterly out of the question.
Bless those secondhand books, this time
they were the recourse. L babe the landlady
hold the man of prayer, and with visions Of
loss and the aroma of i scorching dinner
prompting, she held him like wise. In q
moment more I had bounded to my room,
with emotions of defeat, hope, victory, had
swept my eyes along the miliewed covers of
nv secondhand books, and finally pouneed
with exuitaDt delight upon little brown
volume OF 1856, "Anders0n's Ministers
Directory"