been fiercest among borderers; and the enmity between the Highland borderer and the Lowland borderer along the whole frontier was the growth of ages, and was kept fresh by constant injuries. One day many square miles of pasture land were swept bare by armed plunderers from the hills. Another day a score of plaids dangled in a row on the gallows of Crieff or Stirling. Fairs were indeed held on the debatable land for the necessary interchange of commodities. But to those fairs both parties came prepared for battle; and the day often ended in bloodshed. Thus the Highlander was an object of hatred to his Saxon neighbours; and from his Saxon neighbours those Saxons who dwelt far from him learned the very little that they cared to know about his habits. When the English condescended to think of him at all, — and it was seldom that they did so, — they considered him as a filthy abject savage, a slave, a Papist, a cutthroat, and a thief.[1]
This contemptuous loathing lasted till the year 1745, and
- ↑ A striking illustration of the opinion which was entertained of the Highlander by his Lowland neighbours, and which was by them communicated to the English, will be found in a volume of Miscellanies published by Afra Behn in 1685. One of the most curious pieces in the collection is a coarse and profane Scotch poem entitled, "How the first Hielandman was made." How and of what materials he was made I shall not venture to relate. The dialogue which immediately follows his creation may be quoted, I hope, without much offence.
"Says God to the Hielandman, 'Quhair wilt thou now?'
'I will down to the Lowlands, Lord, and there steal a cow.'
'Ffy,' quod St. Peter, 'thou wilt never do weel,
'An thou, but new made, so sone gais to steal.'
'Umff,' quod the Hielandman, and swore by yon kirk,
'So long as I may geir get to steal, will I nevir work."'Another Lowland Scot, the brave Colonel Cleland, about the same time, describes the Highlander in the same manner
"For a misobliging word
She'll dirk her neighbour o'er the board.
If any ask her of her drift,
Forsooth, her nainself lives by theft."Much to the same effect are the very few words which Franck Philanthropus (1694) spares to the Highlanders: "They live like lairds and die like loons, hating to work and no credit to borrow: they make depredations and rob their neighbours." In the History of the Revolution in Scotland, printed at Edinburgh in 1690, is the following passage: "The Highlanders of Scotland are a sort of wretches that have no other consideration of honour, friendship, obedience, or government, than as, by any alteration of affairs or revolution in the government, they can improve to themselves an opportunity of robbing or plundering their bordering neighbours."
