The father of St. Kilda : twenty years in isolation in the sub-Arctic territory of the Hudson's Bay Company

Preface

It was said long ago, that *' of the making of books there is no end." I, too, wisely or unwisely, have made a book. In the fag-end of a weary century we have attained to the prosaic faculty of being able to measure sunshine, weigh winds, and analyse stars, yet the primitive instincts of humanity are still unconquered, still unconquerable. A sunworshipper by nature and early training, I have loved dearly a life in the open air. Is it then folly, ignorance, or presumption that tempts me to become an author? My audacity stares me in the face. Yet '' one must accomplish something," says Goethe, **nay, fail in something, to learn to know one's own capacities and those of others." We discover an unsuspected vein in us, only in beginning to work it. And so work grows out of faith, and it takes both to make a man. It is by toil alone that we arrive at our true selves. Only by polishing do we reach the peculium of a diamond — its light-giving faculty ; and only by the same process do we discover the hidden powers of a man, his peculiar office and function in the world, which none other can exactly fill.

The following pages contain a personal narrative — the history of my early years and vi PREFACE

of my travels and adventures, strange and thrilling enough, in the territories around Hudson Bay. I have dealt little in geography and ethnology. Recent works on these matters have added greatly to the knowledge we possessed when I made my youthful journey from Stornoway to Hudson Bay and the Red River of the North. In the account of that and subsequent journeys I am able to give the first complete picture of these scarce-known regions and their primitive inhabitants as they were when first the white trader ventured among them. I have made it my care to tell my story with absolute truthfulness, and have yielded to no temptation to embellish it. If I can induce some youth, conscious of energy, ability and force of will, to ponder over and profit by the lessons of a unique career, I shall be happy ; for, according to an ancient saying, to receive is only a single pleasure, but to give is a threefold one. Let me only say, further, that, in the words of Burns, ** I am determined to make these lines my confidant. I will sketch every character that in any way strikes me to the best of my observation, with unshrinking justice." Thus he whom these pages do not interest will have only himself to blame should he read further, and if he weary himself over them I can only desire him to recollect that for him they were not written. ^ p

BusHEY Heath, April, 190 1.

INTRODUCTORY.

The desire to see foreign countries was awakened in me at a very early age. How strong was this trait of the combined Celtic and Norse blood which ran in my veins my history is witness. As a boy I was brave, ready to hold my own against all comers, light-hearted, but always full of confidence. Whether at angling, rock-fishing, or any game, no boy in the place could beat me. Steadiness of aim and purpose, frankness of speech, and truthfulness at any price were my ideal virtues. As I grew older I cared less for the society of my playmates, and preferred the conversation of the elder folks. Thus I acquired a sagacity beyond my years, and an inborn foresight and regard for the consequences of my actions. I was habitually quick and sound in perception, and tacitly circumspect in all my doings. These qualities often stood me in good stead, and enabled me to get off scot-free when my comrades were caught and punished viii INTRODUCTORY.

for one or other of those pranks in which I was generally the instigator and leader. I was quick, too, at reading character by physiognomy, a gift I have since found invaluable in my singular and varied career. Beyond this I was endowed with an extraordinarily tenacious memory. These qualities being given, how much there is to be found by one who diligently seeks ! Yet, strange to say, the possession of these qualities only served to render my boyhood extremely unhappy, because, I presume, of the surroundings in which I was born, or perhaps because of the star under which that insignificant event took place. True, I could never angle for favour or popularity. These I looked upon as ephemeral, and despised ; for even in my boyhood I had a strong craving for what was true and lasting.

I was born in the Lewis, in the remotest parish of that Ultima Thule, and nursed among seas and crags, amid surroundings stern and simple such as discipline the spirit for a life ol toil. I opened my eyes upon a world of winds and storms, and the instinct of stress and of endeavour thus implanted has never left me, and never will.

There is no finer picture in all the wild and remote Hebrides than the Butt of Lewis,

INTRODUCTORY. ix

looming out of the dark blue waters of the North Atlantic like a grim sentinel, guarding *' in filial strain Britannia's barren coast." Its steep tower-crowned heights, its rugged rampart of cliffs, have faced for ages the rude winter gales of the broad Atlantic. The coast line is tortured continuously by the ocean waves, which have fretted the reefs into cruel fangs, lurking wolf-like and ravenous round every point and inlet. Among the tumbled precipitous masses, and the rocky ledges of the granite cliffs, the high tremendous seas fling their girdle of snow-white foam, with laughter of tossing surge. At the tide-swept promontory of the Butt's Eye, where one looks east and west over an endless stretch of luminous dark blue water, a rainbow gleams unceasingly on the shimmering veil of flying spray.

Yet notwithstanding the stern majesty of the coast, the island's inner aspect has a charm pecuHarly its own. It has a milder climate and softer air than many other parts of the British Isles, and would be a pleasant place to live in all the year round if it were not lashed by so many storms of wind and rain bred in the broad, restless Atlantic, which beats upon its shores. Yet these ocean-born storms lend an invigorating quality to the air, and

X INTRODUCTORY.

keep the hills and valleys of an emerald green unrivalled among these northern islands. The temperate influence of the Gulf Stream softens for it the harsher asperities of winter, and frost and snow do not often come to stay very long. When the sun shines and the skies are clear blue and the sea rolls in, white-crested, to the yellow strand, the dark mist-cloud and sweeping ** rack " are easily forgotten.

The island, too, has its share of historical and antiquarian interest, in its varied associations with remote ages and the scanty but venerable ruins that yet remain. The treasures of romance, the tales of daring and of suffering that cling about these antique buildings, ought surely to quicken the imagination of writers and make the task of invention light, for where there is a ruin there is a story. It cannot be doubted that the Roman general Agricola landed at Ness when circumnavigating the British Isles in 82 — 83 a.d. Three miles west of Port Ness, near the spot where I first saw the light, there is an inlet, a very beautiful spot, called after Agricola's son-in-law, the Stoic philosopher aud moralist, Seneca. Thus with a record dating back to the beginning of the Christian era, the Lewis can even claim a patron saint of its own, who lived there for many

INTRODUCTORY. xi

years labouring to lighten the darkness of the rude West. He was of the clan MacGhillie Mhoire, and was known as St. Oran the Good and the father of St. Kilda.* His descendants held the position of Breithcamh of the Lewis till a comparatively late date. He built the old St. Peter's Church in Swanbost Valley at Ness, and also St. Thomas' Temple at Europie, the latter probably in memory of a visit of St. Columba to the island. The literature of the island might have been considerable, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to collect the facts and traditions. Clearly, the island was first peopled from two points — Loch Inchard by the Norsemen, and the Sound of Harris by the Celts. Later, a third colony, of Picts, crossed the Minch from Point of Stoir, and settled on the peninsula of Long Point on Broad Bay, where they built a church, finally extending their conquering rights to Bay-head, now Stearn-a-bhaigh (Stornoway).

This and a great deal more I learned as a

* Physically, too, the Lewis is also the father of St. Kilda. The legend recorded by Martin, of the warrior queen who hunted deer on the land between St. Kilda and Harris, points to the possibility of men having found their way there at a time when St. Kilda still formed part of the Lewis. This story was also frequently told me by Angus Gunn, as a truism, for he gave utterance to a conscious truth — oral truth — from one generation to another.

xii INTRODUCTORY.

boy from old Angus Gunn, the Herodotus of the island, who told his tales of old with much emotion, tears glittering on his long white eyelashes, and running down his aged cheeks. To question his veracity would be an unpardonable insult. He had a rare, a marvellous and uncontaminated memory ; and truth telling, literal, strict and absolute, was the first article of his faith. And undoubtedly the accuracy of many of his stories is attested by historical facts. The original people of the island (Celtic) now inhabit the whole western side, having fled before the Pictish intruders to the verge of the Atlantic. These form the population of many hamlets from Callanish — the famous Druidical stone hamlet — in the west, to Borve in the east, and are noticeably distinguished by their dark complexion and diminutive stature. Near all these hamlets may be found visible traces of defensive fortifications in loch or on reef, thrown up when the ocean forbade further retreat. There is no doubt as to the predatory habits of the interlopers. The traditions of their cattlelifting forays are second only in vivid interest to the thrilling records of the Border raids. Many bloody battles were fought between my ancestors, the burly Morrisons of Ness, and

INTRODUCTORY. xiii

the fierce Macaulays of Uig, that would not have been unworthy the daring audacity of Rob Roy himself. Would that the author of ** Waverley " had visited these scenes ! Without him, or another such as he, the tales and traditions of the Long Island must perish unknown to the world.

The island had many successive proprietors, but records only survive of three. The big burly McLeods held sway for a long time, the McKenzies of Seaforth for a shorter period, though their rule will be favourably remembered for its kind and humane dealing with the poor crofters. In 1844 Mr. (afterwards Sir James) Matheson bought the place from the Seaforth trustees for ;^igo,ooo. The previous year he had married a Canadian lady, a Miss Mary Jane Perceval, of Spencer Wood, near Quebec. With the advent of the new proprietor came in an evil hour the potato disease. In these trying times he showed himself a generous landlord, considerate and humane towards the crofters. As feudal superior he recognised his responsibilities, and did much to improve the condition of the people, of whose nature and requirements he had a true understanding. He established a system of popular education by means of primary schools, and in this good xiv INTRODUCTORY.

work Lady Matheson heartily seconded him by building a seminary for the higher education of young ladies. Alas, that the time was gone when I might have shared in these advantages ! He assisted many poor people, utterly unable to help themselves, to emigrate to Canada. Many of these it has been my privilege to visit after many years in their new homes amid vastly improved circumstances. This considerate kindness and mild and beneficent habit of deahng secured the cordial and happy relationship between landlord and people with which his name shall always be proudly associated.

But this is not a biography of the first baronet of Achany. Neither is it a history of the Lewis. Should no such history exist, however, this outline will perhaps serve to revive the memory of the old and stimulate the imagination of the young. I have attacked the theme with what Dr. Johnson called ** the intrepidity of ignorance." It is submitted as an endeavour, and if the necessity is the justification of an endeavour, the charity that is greater than knowledge will surely temper judgment. Style, subtlety, and literary refinement I have not to give, and, indeed, these do not always attract, sometimes rather repel, the

INTRODUCTORY. xv

common-sense reader. I have no qualification, in the literary sense, for the task of writing a book. I have not at command the phrase which condenses the essence of a paragraph or a page. But if the portraits which I here present are painted with neither subtlety nor vigour, I have at least laid my prejudices to sleep, and have, I trust, spoken with candour and charity even of people to whom I am not and cannot be attracted. Indeed, the greatest care has been exercised that no undue personal reference should prejudice judgment.

Yet another word. We hear sometimes of the privilege of birth. For my own part I know of no birth so privileged as that which places a man face to face with the facts of life, untrammelled by tradition and convention. Thus, free from the first in my outlook upon life, my themes ought to appeal to every youth. I hope not a few will find in them matter for thought and consideration. The reader will discover, as he proceeds, how picturesque a career has been developed out of an origin, temperament and circumstances strangely diverse and striking.

THE FATHER OF ST. KILDA.

Chapter I. Birth — Church Schism — General Remarks

Unquestionably my birth was unpropitious. I came into the world just when Dr. Chalmers and his contemporaries were in the heat ot theological contention, when the disruption of the Church of Scotland closed our parish school, and the potato blight darkened the fortunes of the island. With the exception of about ten per cent, in the town of Stornoway, the whole population of the Lewis went over en masse to the new party, and in heroic mood, strong though delusive, nailed their colours to the new mast. One feels sometimes inclined to ask what became of religious faith amid all this bickering. While the shepherds belaboured each other with their crooks the wolves carried off the sheep from both sides. Perhaps this was not to be regretted. The spectacle of this theological party strife sets the thoughtful mind to work to find out what lies behind, and so not uncommonly liberty of conscience, tolerance,

S.K. B justice, and humanity are found. In the outer developments pure reason has only a minor part to play. For Fraser of Brae, Campbell of Row, Erskine of Linlathen, and Morrison of Bathgate were deposed for preaching a large and generous gospel, in advance of the stricter Calvinism, and thus secessions had begun as early as 1733. The blissful inertia of the ** Auld Kirk," however, and the unsatisfactory operation of the laws of patronage provided a more rational basis of complaint. And both abuses were more than made up for by the invention by the immortal man of Anstruther of the famous Sustentation Fund.

It is surely not impious to say that Christianity was one thing to Paul, another to John, and yet another to James. For their conceptions of it introduce us to three separate thought-worlds. And so through the ages. There are Calvin and Rabelais, contemporary ecclesiastics, fellow-countrymen, each furnished with all the learning of the day, each with the same religious facts within his view, yet one offers us the '' Institutes," and the other *' Pantagruel." The African Augustine and the Alexandrian Origen had the same records and traditions to go upon ; but how different an affair each made of it ! The brothers Newman, again, men so closely related, so pure, and so high-minded — is not their absolute oneness on mathematical questions in itself a proof that some other element than pure reason had come into play to produce their religious differences ? And so the minds mystic and the minds rationalistic, the minds inductive and the minds deductive, tunnel continually through the sam.e mountain all to emerge at last into the same hght.

The true vsecret of our theologies lies deep down in that ''philosophy of the unconscious" which waits yet to be explored. It is the secret of temperament which creates for each of us a separate universe, a separate creed. What a man sees depends as much on the inner instrument as on the outer object, and a Swedenborg could never see as a Voltaire. The truth lies in the Aristotelian principle '* that our nature is not simple, and there is in us an element of corruption which makes us prone to change. We are all material as well as spiritual, sensual as well as intellectual, composite organisms."

But to return to the disruption in the Lewis. There was no compromise possible. A Scotchman spends no small part of his life in splitting theological hairs, while his neighbour uses the hairs to stuff a social mattress on which he may comfortably repose. Feeling ran high, and angry words were spoken. There was no

B 2 lack of faith and zeal, though a good deal of mere complaisance and unreasoned emotion, among the people. Ignorance and fear led many of them, and they followed like sheep with docility and such thought as they were capable of, hoping only that the new departure would not long remain '' a spring shut up, a fountain sealed." For this they had not long to wait, for soon there happened in the Lewis one of the most wonderful revivals ot the century. The Scottish Church had hitherto occupied itself chiefly with religion in the abstract. The broader minds had now come to understand that there is a sphere of ''applied" religion as truly as of ''applied" mathematics. They were beginning to recognise that religion comprises in the true range of its operations the whole of human life. Yet the Westminster Confession still reigned unchallenged. The clergy and the elders subscribed it, and the immortal Shorter Catechism, which has done so much to train the Scottish mind in metaphysics, carried its theology into every school and home. People thought in the categories of Calvinism. Things happened because God had so ordained. Faith was His gift, and to it men were elected. Unless so elected, their names could not be written in the book of life. Original sin was as worthy of death as actual, for all were involved in the guilt of Adam's transgression. The Atonement was for the elect ; the men for whom Christ died could not but be saved ; those for whom He had not died could not but be lost. The work of the Spirit was as restricted as the sacrifice of the Son, and so the numbers of the saved and the lost were fixed beyond possibility of increase or decrease. Even as a boy I grieved over these harsh beliefs, this narrowing down of grace and of salvation. But I fear I had no sympathisers.

The quoad sacra parish of Ness was thus suddenly broken up, and although born in the bosom of the good '' Auld Kirk," I became a Dissenter at a very early age. I remember the long walk with my parents to the baptistery, a temporary substitute for the new church, not yet built, the funds for which, according to an impious critic, were yet to be drawn from the slaves of the Southern States of America, where the law of compensation is exacting payment for the excesses of the '' Auld Kirk." So complete was the change in popular feeling, that the *' Auld Kirk" minister, whom the people had a short time before worshipped as a kind of superior being, had now hastily to leave manse, church, and parish. Having been crammed with texts from Holy Writ, they probably remembered one which says that the hireling fleeth because he is a hireling. The case was the same in all the rural parishes except that of Barvas, where the Rev. Mr. McRae bravely held his pulpit as a captain might his quarterdeck, though without supporters worth counting. Israel had taken to stoning her old prophets.

In the spring-time we could see the Dundee whalers sailing past the Butt's Eye for Davis Straits, and possibly the ships Erebus and Terror passing to their doom in the same regions in search of the unsearchable North-west Passage, carrying Sir John Franklin and 128 souls, destined never more to be seen by sorrowful friends and grateful country, and subsequently search expeditions in earnest quest of the same. But my youthful community knew nothing beyond the optical vision ; knowledge of all this realisation being cruelly closed against them at the expense of religious upheaval, burning a red-hot iron into their brows. The Church of dour John Knox, of George Wishart, and of Jenny Geddes, sustained a severe shock. Out of that wreck there might come something that should be for the Divine glory, and praise will be abundantly fulfilled —

" She let the legions thunder past, And plunged in thought again."

♦* Talking of sects till late one eve, Of the various doctrines the saints believe — That night I stood in a troubled dream By the side of a darkly flowing stream."

Chapter II. My Parentage And Family History

SCHOOL-DAYS.

About the close of my fifth year my life almost came to an abrupt termination. The sensitive heart of infancy is quick in apprehension when its happiness is threatened, and in many secret misgivings I told myself that life was already finished. But I recovered, and became one of the healthiest of the sons of Adam.

I was the third son of my mother and fifth child of my father. At the time of my earliest recollections my father was captain of his own boat, lived in his own house, farmed several acres of good land, had many sheep and cattle, and kept a man-servant and a horse. We children of the house occupied a very happy position in the social scale, a position open to all good influence, high enough to allow us to see about us models of good manners, of self-respect, of piety, and simple dignity. Amply furnished with all the necessarico of life, we had no reason for shame, as we had none for pride. We never knew what chronic underfeeding was, but we were brought up by the wisest of mothers in a Spartan simpHcity of diet, wholesome and bracing in its effect, which stood my physical frame in good stead in future years. For us the humble prayer of Agur, " Give me neither poverty nor riches," was truly realised.

The branch of the great clan of which my father, Malcolm Campbell, came was not a direct offshoot from Argyll, but from Glenorchy, the Marquis of Breadalbane's district. The family came to Port Ness from Cape Wrath about the year 1663. They were the descendants of Kenneth Buey Mclver and his brother Farquhar, who left Argyllshire about 1560 with a large number of clansmen, and marched northwards to Caithness, scouring the country as they went. The details of their history are lost in the haze of tradition. The early title of my clan was O'Duine, who lived about 1 100.

My worthy sire himself was spare in figure, of active habits, an early riser, and possessed of much natural shrewdness and warm affection. He was loud-voiced and outspoken, sometimes utterly unreserved. This frankness and his transparent honesty won for him many friends and admirers. Here, it was felt, was a man who had bravely grappled with life's earliest problems, to whom life was no holiday, but a steady march onward and upward to a goal assured by Christian faith. This brave faith he had no doubt inherited from his mother, Catherine Bain, who lived a noble Christian life. In later years, however, his sense of his own unworthiness became morbid, and his tendency to dwell on the fleetness of life and the approach of death gradually tinged his thoughts with overmuch of the Celtic melancholy. As his life ebbed his religious anxieties caused him much suffering, which saddened his days more or less to the end.

To my mother, nee Jessie Morrison, I owe everything, even my outward appearance, and appropriately my name. Her family gave several ministers to the church at Ness, and after the last of them I am called. She was the daughter of Allan Morrison, whose greatgrandfather, Roderick Morrison, vv-as titulary proprietor of Habost and also of Ness. Thus, from time immemorial, her family owned the extreme northern point of the Lewis ; and their chief, Morrison of Habost, for many generations held the honourable position of hereditary breithcamh, or judge, over the whole of Lewis down to the year a.d. 1613. The nature of my ancestor's judgeship is described by Sir R. Gordon in explaining the office of a breive among the islanders: — **The breive is a kind of a judge, who hath an absolute judicatorie, unto whose authoritie and censure they willinglie submit themselves when he determineth any debateable question between partie and partie." "^ That learned man of law Sir Alexander Morrison, who is quoted as an authority to the present day, no doubt derived his tastes from his ancestor, the Ness breive. For a badge the Morrisons have a drift log, '' sqoidchladaich," suggested by the logs which the storms of the Atlantic cast ashore at Ness. No other clan has this badge. Their coat of arms consists of — argent, three Moors' heads, couped, sable, banded of the first ; crest, three Saracens' heads, conjoined in one neck proper, the faces looking to the chief dexter and sinister sides of the shield f ; motto, " Pretio prudentia praestat " (" Prudence predominates over price ' ') . The tradition attached to this crest and coat of arms tells how my worthy and rugged

* See Sir R. Gordon's " Earl of Sutherland," p. 268. t See Burke's " Heraldic Dictionary."

EARLY YEARS. ii

ancestor the MacGhillie Mhoire, at the siege of Acre in 1191, was seen to fly before three Saracens, who attacked him together. His flight, however, was but a feint, and when he had drawn them far enough from their supporters, he turned and slew them one by one. The saying went round the Christian army, '' One More from Scotland is more than a match for three pagan Moors,'' and from this the heraldic bearings were devised.

The titular proprietorship of Habost remained in my mother's family till her great-grandfather's time on the sublet system, which was abolished as the population increased. The father of this last proprietor deserves a few words to himself. He was the Hercules of the island, a man of immense physical proportions and enormous strength. His voice and manner suggested a constitution of iron and health so impregnable that no insurance office dealing in life annuities would have ventured to look him in the face. He was thought good for nine lives at least ; there seemed no possible avenue where death or disease could force a breach. Yet so poor is the anchorage of human hopes that, amid all these anticipations, this Scotch granite ancestor of mine suddenly struck his flag and died at the comparatively early age of sixty years. Angus Gunn had promised him two hundred. He seemed built in an antediluvian type and for age-long duration, yet he did not reach even the modest span allotted by the Psalmist.

For the rest the story of my ancestry rests upon Angus Gunn's somewhat hazy version, and I do not propose to give rein to my Celtic imagination in making it more precise. Being a Scot, I have naturally begun with a pedigree, but the reader will admit that this is but a very small ell of the genealogical tree.

During my childhood my mother suffered for some years from ill-health. But she was still erect, dignified, graceful in person, and possessed of admirable beauty of countenance. Her dark eyes had a striking lambency, her smile inspired love, the habit of her genial mind was to reflect the moods of others and seek to make them happy, never thinking of herself, and all this she did with singular tact and a playful, simple grace. Utterly incapable of servility or obsequiousness, her gifted and lofty nature was always in peace and charity. Contentment with all around her was stamped upon her countenance and mien. Yet there was no weakness in her character, and, like Cromwell's mother, she could exhibit in a marked degree, when other assistance failed her, the noble faculty of self-help. Such was my mother, a wise and noble woman. She has passed away like the setting sun. Suns do not set to die, but to rise again ; and so would it be with the setting sun of what we called the dream and drama of life.

The whirligig of time goes round, and there

comes a truce even to religious disputes. The

disruption agitation which had closed the

schools ended at last, and left calm in the