No collection of the national humours could be regarded as representative or complete that did not contain more than a passing reference to the Laird of Macnab, who was the hero of many a ludicrously funny story, and who, like Sir John Falstaff, was not only witty himself, but frequently the cause of wit in others. The Macnabs were originally the proprietors of extensive estates in the Highlands of Perthshire, and were sometimes styled “The Macnabs of Auchlyne,” at other times “The Macnabs of Bovain,” “The Macnabs of Kinnell,” and “The Macnabs of Glendochart.” Francis—our hero—was the last relic of the ancient, stern, feudal system. His obtrusive peculiarities were pride of family antiquity and rank, and a withering scorn of the trousered Sassenach. He was extremely poor, but was extremely proud, and, having no money to boast of, he boasted all the more of his “lang pedigree.” On this latter, indeed, he could scarcely ever speak dispassionately. As compared with the Macnabs, the Campbells and the M’Leans and such like were creatures of yesterday. These might trace their ancestral line even to the Flood, but that afforded them next to nothing in the comparison, for the Macnab, bless you—the chief of all the Macnabs—why, he had a boat of his own, and would never condescend to be beholden to Noah, or any such plebeian individual. No, no, the Macnab recognised no superior, and there were doubtless many Maister Macnabs, “but the auld black lad may hae my saul,” he would say, “if I ken but o’ ae Macnab.” How it would have roused the Laird’s ire had he lived to see the Highlands overrun with Cockney tourists—and not only so, but to see many ancient family seats passing into the hands of wealthy brewers and manufacturers—we can from his own words form some idea.
“Macnab, are you acquainted with Macloran of Dronascandlich, who has lately purchased so many acres in Inverness-shire?” asked a fellow-guest of the Laird one day at a dinner party.
“Ken wha?” burst in the Macnab, thus easily sent off on his genealogical steed. “The puddock-stool o’ a creature they ca’ Dronascandlich, wha no far bygane daured, curse him! to offer siller, sir, for an auld ancient estate, sir? An estate as auld as the Flood, sir; a hantle deal aulder, sir. Siller, sir, scrapit thegether by the miserable sinner in India, sir, not in an officer or gentleman-like way, sir; but, hang him, sir, by makin’ cart wheels and trams, sir, and barrows, and the like o’ that wretched handicraft. Ken him, sir? I ken the creature weel, and whaur he comes frae, sir; and so I ken that dumb tyke, sir, a better brute by half than a score o’ him.”
“Mercy on us, Macnab! you surprise me,” interjected the querist; “I thought from the sublime sound of his name and title, that, like yourself, he had been a chief of fifteen centuries’ standing, at least.”
“By the saul o’ the Macnabs, sir,” rejoined the Laird, snorting like a mountain whirlwind with rage at the daring comparison, “naething but yer diabolical Lowland ignorance can excuse ye for siccan profanation! Hear me, sir! It’s fifty years and mair bygane, a’e time I was at Glasgow, wanting some tyking, or Osnaburgs, or what the fiend ca’ ye them, what ye mak’ pillows and bowsters, o’? Weel, sir, I was recommended to an auld decent creature o’ a wabster, wha pickit up a miserable subsistence in the Gallowgate. I gaed east a bit past the Spoutmouth, then up a’e pair o’ stairs—twa—three—four pair o’ stairs—a perfect Tower o’ Babel in meeniature, sir. At last I quat the regions o’ stane an’ lime an’ cam’ to timmer, sir—about twenty or thirty rotten boards, that were a perfect temptation o’ Providence to venture the fit o’ a five-year-auld bairn on. I gaed in at a hole—door it was nane—and there I found a miserable anatomy—the picture o’ famine, sir; wi’ a face as white as a clout, an auld red Kilmarnock night-cap on his poor grey pow, an’ treddle, treddling awa’ wi’ his pitifu’ wizened trotters. Wha think ye, sir, was this abortion o’ a creatur—this threadbare, penniless, and parritchless scrap o’ an antediluvian wabster? This was Macloran’s grandfather, sir! This was the origin o’ Dronascandlich, sir!! And a bonnie origin for a Highland chief, by the saul o’ the Macnabs!!!”
Recognising no superior, the Laird was consequently a law unto himself, or rather claimed the right to be so. He rarely, however—never in fact—was known to concede another’s title to exception from the strictures of law and order. “Like the Laird o’ Macnab’s Volunteers,” has become a Scotch proverb, and thereby hangs the following tale, which shows that the Laird’s ideas of volunteering were as original as any Irishman’s could possibly be. When the French war broke out the Laird organised a corps of infantry, which he styled “Macnab’s Volunteers.” A kenspeckle lot they were, we may be sure; but to our tale.
One day while Lord Breadalbane was driving down Strathyre on his way from Taymouth Castle to Stirling, he encountered a horse and cart, the latter containing the living carcasses of six brawny Highlanders tied neck and heel, and the whole in charge of a cordon of armed gillies. On his lordship inquiring as to the meaning of the strange spectacle, he was informed by the kilted driver that—
“Tem are six tam scoundrels, my Lort, that refuse to pe the Laird o’ Macnab’s Volunteers, and we’re just takin’ tem doon to Stirling, ta curst hallions tat ta are, to see if ta cauld steel will mak’ tem do their duty.”
This is quite as good as the wife’s request to her husband to “gang awa quietly and be hangit, and no anger the Laird.”
Speaking of the Laird and his volunteers calls to memory an episode which exhibits our hero in the character of a strategist of the first water. Macnab was proceeding from the West, on one occasion, towards Dunfermline, in charge of a company of the Breadalbane Fencibles. In those days, the Highlanders were notorious for their smuggling propensities, and an excursion to the Lowlands, whatever might be its cause or import, was an opportunity by no means to be neglected. The Breadalbane men, accordingly, contrived to store a considerable quantity of the genuine “peat reek” into the baggage carts. On the party reaching Alloa, the excisemen located therein got a hint as to the contents of the carts, so hurried out and intercepted them. Meanwhile, Macnab, accompanied by a gillie, in true feudal style, was proceeding slowly at the head of his men, and the intelligence reaching him that the baggage had been seized by a posse of excisemen, at once roused the lion within his breast.
“Did the lousy villains dare to obstruct the march of the Breadalbane Fencibles?” he exclaimed, inspired with the wrath of a thousand heroes, as away he rushed to the scene of contention.
“Who the devil are you?” he demanded as soon as he reached the excisemen.
“Gentlemen of the Excise,” was the answer.
“Robbers, thieves, you mean!” shrieked the Macnab. “How dare you lay hands on His Majesty’s stores? If you be gaugers, show me your commissions.”
Unfortunately for the excisemen, they had not deemed it necessary to bring such documents with them.
“Ay! just what I took you for; a parcel of highway robbers and scoundrels. Come, my good fellows” (addressing the soldiers in charge of the baggage, and extending his voice with the lungs of a Stentor) “prime! load!”
The excisemen did not wait the completion of the order, but fled at full speed.
“Now, my lads,” said the Laird, “proceed—the whisky’s safe.”
Another anecdote illustrates how equal he was to a delicate occasion. The Laird was a regular attender at Leith races. He rode a most wretched-looking steed, which gave occasion for many jibes at his expense, and one year, while rushing in to see the result of a heat, his horse fell and was seriously injured. The year following, a puppy, who thought he might raise a laugh at Macnab’s expense, looked up to him as he passed by, and enquired—
“Is that the same horse ye had here last year, Laird?”
“No,” retorted Macnab, bringing his whip-shaft down on his interrogator’s head with a force that made him bite the dust, “but it’s the same whup!”
But the Laird’s grand escapade—his coup d’état—remains yet to be related. It happened to be the last in his life, and it forms a fitting climacteric to a truly wonderful career. It is narrated at great length in a MS. scrap book of his adventures still preserved at Breadalbane Castle, and is briefly as follows:—
The pressure of a declining revenue began to tell heavily on the Laird, and he had occasionally to grant bills for his purchases. For many years these bills were regularly discounted at the Perth Bank, the Directors of which, knowing their money to be sure, though perhaps not soon, humoured his idiosyncracies, and took his acceptances although signed “The Macnab.” Unluckily for the Laird, one of these “cursed bits o’ paper,” as he termed them, found its way to the Stirling Bank, an establishment with which he had no direct connection, and, having no personal friend to protect his credit at Stirling, it was duly noted and protested, and notice was sent to him. These formalities the Laird treated, of course, with the most lofty indifference. He was effectually roused, however, when the alarming information reached his ear that a “caption and horning” had been issued against him, and that a clerk, accompanied by two messengers, would proceed to Auchlyne House on the following Friday for the purpose of taking him into custody. The Laird called a council of war. Janet, his faithful old housekeeper, and other two trusty retainers, were made familiar with the disgrace that was threatening to fall on the Chief of all the Macnabs. Janet was a diplomatist of the true Caleb Balderstone type, and the Laird trusted chiefly to her wit and ingenuity in the emergency. “To clap me within four bare stane wa’s,” said he, addressing his female major-general, “and for what, think ye? A peetifu’ scart o’ a goose’s feather—deil cripple their souple shanks. It would ill become me to hae ony hobble-show wi’ siccan vermin, so I’ll awa’ doun to my Lord’s at Taymouth, and leave you, Janet, my bonnie woman, to gie them their kail through the reek.” And off he went, leaving Janet to master the situation as best she could. This was on Friday morning. In the course of the day the officers made their appearance at Auchlyne House.
“O, sirs,” quoth Janet, receiving them blandly, “ye maun be sair forfouchten wi’ your langsome travel. Sit down, and get some meat. The Laird’s awa’ to see a friend, and will be back momently. What gars ye gloom that gate? There’s a’ ye want, and muckle mair, locked up in that kist there, in bonnie yellow gowd, fairly counted by his honour this very mornin’,” and, so saying, she spread before the wayworn travellers a plentiful store of Highland cheer—including kippered salmon and braxtie ham, and a “good willie-waucht” of the “rale peat reek.” The gloaming came, but brought no signs of the Laird’s returning. “Nae doot,” said Janet, “his honour will be down at the Earl’s, so ye’ll just e’en mak’ yer beds here for the nicht, and the first thing ye’ll get for your handsel in the mornin’ will be a sonsie breakfast and weel-counted siller.”
The terms were sufficiently tempting, and were accordingly closed with. The two limbs of the law were quartered in a room the window of which faced the East, while the clerk was, in deference to his social status, bestowed in a room the window of which looked towards the setting sun.
Now, opposite the window of the room in which the officers slept there grew a huge tree, the great spreading branches of which creaked and moaned beneath the blast during the entire night, and now and again made a crash which caused the drowsy beagles to start in their sleep, and shiver when they had fairly awakened. Being utterly ignorant of the cause of these disturbances, and anxious to ascertain, the first glimmer of daylight brought one of the officers to the window, when, horror! there, before his eyes, swinging backwards and forwards, suspended from one of the main branches of the tree, was the body of the clerk, coated, booted, and fully attired, as if he had been taken and lynched just when ready for the road. The poor man gave a howl which nearly lifted the roof off the house. Five minutes later the domestics were alarmed by the officers rushing headlong down the stairs, and making in the direction of the door, and by Janet demanding of them in fierce tones—“What the foul fiend d’ye mak’ sic a din for?”
“W—what’s that on the t—t—tree!” gasped out the officers, simultaneously.
“Oh,” said Janet, with an eldritch laugh, “it’s a bit clerk bodie frae the Bank o’ Stirling that cam’ here last nicht to deave the Laird for siller. We’ve ta’en and hangit the silly elf.”
Not another word was needed. The limbs of the law disappeared like water poured on quick-sand, and were beyond the reach of Janet’s voice ere she had well finished her sentence. During this brief parley Janet’s confederates slipped out and cut down the man of straw, which, for the occasion, had been filling the clerk’s clothes; and, quickly divesting it of the latter, they had these deftly replaced on the chair beside the bed where lay their still soundly sleeping owner.
By and by the all-unconscious clerk came tripping leisurely downstairs.
“Are my companions not astir yet?” said he to Janet.
“Yer companions?” queried Janet, with a grim leer in her eyes; “the Laird’s gillies have ta’en them awa’ to the Holy Loch at Crianlarich and droon’d them—and they’ll be here for you directly.”
“I hear them comin’!” cried Janet, as the clerk’s heels disappeared out at the doorway.
Whether the money was ever paid history deponeth not. One thing however, is certain, and it is this, that not all the estates of all the Macnabs that ever existed would have tempted another embassy of the same three to Auchlyne.
The Laird o’ Macnab paid the debt of Nature (there was no shirking this creditor!) in the early part of the present century. His portrait—full length, and in Highland costume—painted by Raeburn, is still in the possession of the Breadalbane family.