The next generation will speak,
A full thousand years,
Of the judgement that came,
In that devastating blizzard.
So the Badenoch bard Donnchadh Gobha MacAoidh (Duncan Gow
Mackay) summed up the repercussions of Call
Ghàdhaig (The Catastrophe of Gaick, sometimes referred to as The Loss of
Gaick). Be that as it may, some exaggeration may be at play here as the memory
of the incident is probably not as strongly held in folk memory as it certainly
used to be but, clearly, at the time it made a deep and lasting impact upon the
locality which resonated for a long time afterwards.
The
Catastrophe of Gaick is a famous (or perhaps a better description would be an infamous)
episode in Gaelic tradition where many tales, poetry and traditions inspired by
the event have in some ways clouded over an incident which was reported in
contemporary sources. Even so, right from the very outset fiction has got in the
way of fact in this rather macabre account of Captain John MacPherson of Ballachroan
(1724–1800), styled in Gaelic tradition as An
t-Othaichear Dubh (The Black Officer) or Othaichear Dubh Bhaile a’ Chròdhain (The Black Officer of
Ballachroan), but who was probably better known, at least to his contemporaries
and acquaintances, by his patronymic Iain Dubh mac Alasdair (Black-haired John son of Alexander).
Contemporary
Report
The
catastrophe occurred, according to the old calendar just before the Old
Christmas (30th of December) in 1799, and according to the modern calendar on
the 6th of January 1800. The accident
was documented in the newspapers of the day as, for example, a contemporary
report from The Scots Magazine relates:
…Major
Macpherson of Lorick, and other four gentlemen who were out along with him
shooting wild-fowl […] have unfortunately perished in the violent storm of snow
[…] They had retired for shelter to an old cot house […] which was blown down
upon them by the fury of the wind. The bodies of Major Macpherson and other
three of them were found under the ruins; that of the fifth gentleman was found
on the outside of the cottage.
Although
the report regarding the catastrophe is short, there appear three errors. The
hunting-party did not go to Gaick to shoot wild-fowl but rather to hunt deer
(in order to acquire venison for a traditional Christmas celebration), and John
MacPherson has been erroneously promoted to a major when in actuality his rank
was that of captain. However, the most galling mistake in the report is that it
was not a gust of wind which destroyed the bothy and the men taking shelter
from the elements but rather an avalanche which killed the occupants.
A
few brief facts should be borne in mind with regard to the Black Officer. He was born in
Glentruim, a somewhat remote glen to the south of Kingussie, in 1724. His
father was Alexander MacPherson who was kin to a prominent and ancient branch
of the MacPhersons of Phoness, the eldest cadet of Sliochd Ghillìosa (Gillies’s Progeny) whose reputed
chieftains were the MacPhersons of Invereshie, and his mother, Isabel
MacDonald, was of the famous house of Aberarder representing Sliochd Iain Dubh (Black John’s Progeny)
of the MacDonalds of Brae Lochaber and so “the best blood of Badenoch and
Lochaber ran in his veins.” Marrying rather late in life, when he was already in
his fifties, he turned to a woman that shared his surname, Anne MacPherson, and
they were betrothed in 1777, and had issue.
Military Service
Previous
to becoming a family man, the Black
Officer pursued a military career in the British Army and was attached
to the 82nd Regiment. Before this he was involved in the ’Forty-five as the
following piece of verse, composed by Calum Dubh nam Protaigean (Black-haired
Malcolm Macintyre of the Tricks, so-called for he was a juggler as well has
having the propensity to play practical jokes on his neighbours) (c.
1755–c. 1830), tells us:
In spite of malice and ill-will,
If I could, I woudl declare you—
You were a Captain of the race of Gillies,
A MacPherson of high pedigree,
You won the battle in Penrith,
That laid the Lowlanders low;
A woman of Clan Donald, from the stock of
The Earl of Islay, raised and suckled you.
It
appears that John MacPherson followed his clan chief, Cluny MacPherson, to
England where he saw action at the Battle of Penrith (otherwise known as the
Clifton Moor Skirmish) at the time when the Jacobite army was retreating back
to Scotland after the fateful decision made shortly before in Derby. In
addition, there is a passing mention of the Black Officer while he was in the army by the aforementioned bard
Donnchadh Gobha MacAoidh (died c.
1820), who also composed a lament regarding the Catastrophe of Gaick:
The Black Officer was at their head,
He turned his back on his house and children,
If he had fallen in the French war
His loss would not be so distressing.
Although
the Napoleonic Wars were ongoing at this time, it appears that the Black
Officer, contrary to the bard’s wish, was not personally involved but that he
did recruit many of the Badenoch youth who went and fought in these various
campaigns. After taking retirement from military service, MacPherson became a
tacksman and gentleman-farmer at Ballachroan. The Black Officer received the
tack of Ballachroan farm from Alexander, 4th Duke of Gordon (1743–1823), in
1776. It is, however, unfortunate that there is no real additional evidence
regarding the Black Officer other
than the fact that he is known to have suffered severe financial difficulties, something
not unfamiliar to gentleman-farmers at that or any other time, as stated by the
Liberal MP and historian Charles Fraser-Mackintosh:
He was a man of great ability, actively engaged in diverse
business―constantly striving in the pursuit of gain. All came to nought, and
years before his death he had become bankrupt. I have many of his letters,
showing him servile to superiors, agreeable to equals when he chose, tyrannic
to his inferiors. In the year 1767 he was living at Phoness, and is described
as “Lieutenant John Macpherson of the Battalion of Highlanders, lately
commanded by Major James Johnston,” and had seen service abroad. His chief home
military work was recruiting, carried on with extreme rigour and arbitrariness.
There
are many extant petitions which indicate that MacPherson was an extremely
litigious character. One example out of many is the fact that he and the
tacksman of Aberarder, Lachlan McIntosh, completely fell out with one another
and that they were at loggerheads for a period of at least twenty years. It
appears that no settlement was ever reached until either McIntosh died or the
matter was simply put to one side. Not only was this a concern to MacPherson but
he was taken to court when two brothers, Thomas and William MacPherson, who had
formerly been soldiers, and thus, it may be inferred, were under his command,
made an official complaint against him. MacPherson did not easily put aside
anything which smacked of legality. Such official documents can, however, be supplemented
by accounts from oral tradition but they contain opinions which were
substantiated more upon rumour rather than upon the actual facts.
Two Histories
We
are, however, fortunate to have a contemporary description of the Black Officer
penned by Mrs Anne Grant of Laggan (1755–1838). It was written shortly after
the catastrophe when its repercussions were still being strongly felt and it is
interesting not only on that very score but also for the fact that she personally
knew the Black Officer although it is not apparent how intimate their
relationship actually was. It does, however, provide a more accurate
description of the disaster than the previously quoted version from The Scots Magazine:
I have not the leisure to describe to you the dreadful fate of Captain
Macpherson of Ballochroan, who, with four others, set out before Christmas to
hunt for deer in a chase of the Duke of Gordon’s, between this country and
Athol. There was a shooting-lodge, built in that place to shelter the Duke on
his summer excursions. There the hunters repaired every night to sleep, having
provided fire and food to keep them comfortable for the three days they were to
remain. But on the third evening […] there came on a stormy night; next
morning, the father of one of the young men of the Captain’s party, went up to
see how they fared, but could not see even the house, the roof, timber, and
every stone of which had been carried more then two hundred yards distance. The
whole country was summoned out to discover and bring home the mortal remains
and the Captain and his associates were found dead, covered with snow, where the
house had stood. The story is almost miraculous, and every one hereabout was
filled with superstitious horror. We account for it from a whirlwind or
avalanche. You can have no-idea what a gloom has overspread us […] There are so
many tender, as well as strange circumstances involved in this dismal tale,
that the mind cannot shake off the impression.
Over
the years many other authors have written accounts of the Catastrophe of Gaick and
scarce a book has been written about the area which does not contain a passing mention
or another about it. Perhaps the most famous of these various accounts was
written by the well-known folklorist Calum I. Maclean (1915–1960). His account
is important for the very fact that Maclean makes full use of the versions
available from oral tradition as well as those which had appeared in print. A remark
made by Maclean with regard to the Catastrophe of Gaick reflects his philosophical
outlook which remains a touchstone of his famous book The Highlands (1959):
There are two histories of every land and people, the written history
that tells what it is considered politic to tell and the unwritten history
which tells everything.
This is perhaps a little too forceful in that
Maclean rhetorically exaggerates his point in order to make his argument clear.
In reality, as Maclean knew full well, the situation is far more nuanced and
complex. As mentioned earlier, there are not a few
authors who have made some mention or another about the Catastrophe of Gaick,
and a few of these have subsequently become famous.
The Ettrick Shepherd and The
Wizard of the North
Reports
of the Catastrophe of Gaick spread far and wide throughout the Highlands and
beyond eventually reaching the Lowlands soon thereafter. It was not long,
therefore, before the likes of Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) and James Hogg (1770–1835),
known as the Ettrick Shepherd, heard of it. And it was not long before these
two put pen to paper and wrote their own rather biased accounts. Hogg’s version
made its appearance in The Spy (1810) while Scott’s rendition was published
in The Foreign Quarterly Review (1827). As was the case with Gaelic
storytellers, in the hands of both Scott and Hogg, the story grew in the
telling. After Scott’s account appeared in print there arose immediate controversy
as the following reply shows:
To the narrator of this notice Captain Macpherson was intimately known,
and he begs to state, that Captain Macpherson never did, in any one instance,
recruit for money. He did, no doubt, recruit at two different periods. He did
so, first, to raise a certain number of men, to procure a lieutenancy that had
been offered him in the 101st Regiment of Foot, when commissions, it
may be remembered, were given to several gentlemen in the Highlands, on the
terms of their supplying a certain quota of men. The 101st Regiment
was reduced at the close of the first American War. Sometime after, Captain
Macpherson obtained a company in the regiment then called the Duke of
Hamilton’s, and on the same terms. To raise his company, he again recruited in
Badenoch, and on no other occasion, and for no other purpose.
This
bombastic account stemmed from MacPherson’s own daughter, Mrs Helen MacBarnet. Although the Wizard of the North later wrote
a retraction, “for telling a rawhead and bloody bones story about him”, it did
not appear to satisfy, so that the clearly irritated Scott wrote in his journal
that, “I almost wish they would turn out a clansman to be free of the cumber.
The vexation of having to do with ladies who on such a point must be
unreasonable is very great. With a man it would be soon ended or mended. It
really hurt my sleep.”
In
League with the Devil
In
many ways the controversy surrounding the Black Officer and the way in which
his character was vilified has remained ever since and it is no easy task to
think of anyone else in Gaelic oral tradition where opinion is so divided and
controversial. However, the most pertinent question to ask is why are the
majority of oral accounts so prejudicial against the Black Officer? Why did
they maintain that he was in League with the Devil? And why did they slander
him so much? More often than not, it was men of high rank who earned themselves
a bad reputation, such as the Black Officer at the time, heroes such as the
famous chief of Clan Cameron, Sir Ewen Dubh of Lochiel, MacDonell of Keppoch,
or the famous medieval wizard Michael Scot who received the reckoning of Shrove
Tuesday (Fios na h-Inid) when
visiting the Pope in Rome by hitching a ride on the Devil’s back. Oral
tradition has given them devil-like or infernal capabilities as they were
connected with families of high education, such as the MacMhuirichs of
Stilligarry in South Uist or the Beaton medical family in the Isle of Mull.
Clearly,
they were under suspicion because of their occult or esoteric knowledge gained illicitly
from book-learning. With regard to the Black Officer, it was less to do with
book-learning but rather because of modern farming methods which he adopted and
was successful with. It was further maintained that it was MacPherson’s own
pride and hubris that brought him to his unfortunate (and as some would say
deserved) end. Very often supernatural occurrences appear in these various
accounts and the further we go from the place of the accident’s origin (both in
time and in space), the more fabulous the stories tend to become not only about
the Catastrophe of Gaick itself but also with regard to the Black Officer. In
this case, distance lends a rather black enchantment and the accretions added
to the story through the generations make for compelling renditions.
Badenoch and Beyond
There
are several accounts from Badenoch and Laggan itself, as would be expected, and
a little further afield, from Lochaber, Glenurquhart, and further still, such
as Morar, Arisaig, the Inner Hebrides and then the Outer Hebrides. Geographical
remoteness did not get in way of a good story spreading far and wide. A version
from Nova Scotia (specifically) Cape Breton bears this point out. This account
is extremely interesting because the story of the Catastrophe of Gaick must
have been established early in the tradition before many of the emigrants left
in the 1820s and thereafter. It may be argued that this is a very short space
of time for the story to grow in such as fashion as it did. Then, again, there
was nothing to stop storytellers, however remote, from adding their own
fictions and inventions as would be their wont. Be that as it may, almost every
oral account seems to agree upon the fact that the Black Officer generated
animus towards himself mainly because of his insidious recruiting tactics by
tricking the young men to take the king’s shilling. Did the Black Officer
deserve the bad reputation that has been imputed upon him? There appears some
evidence of this from the bard Donnchadh Gobha MacAoidh:
Black recruiting without blessing
He never reckoned anything without trouble,
Yet it has
caused a trampling of his name
That detractors love to relate about him.
In
addition, tradition also accuses him of using false pretensions in recruiting
and the following is an account from a local man, John Cameron of Inch, Badenoch,
relating the types of methods said to have been used by the Black Officer:
But I have heard them
say that the locals were afraid of him for he had been recruiting their sons
and doubtless through duplicity by offering them drams and by putting a shilling
in their pocket when they were in the inn. The next morning he would say to
them that they’d better make ready to join the army. And Oh! they saw no reason
for this.
“Oh yes: you know
fine well what you did last night. You took the king’s shilling.”
“We’ve never seen
it,” said one of the lads.
“Oh! Well, I saw it
going into your pocket.”
He never said who put
it there.
“I saw it going into
your pocket and if you look you’ll find it.”
The lad turned his pocket out.
“Oh, there’s a shilling!”
know now that it went into your
pocket,” he said, “and there’s no escaping it. There’s many like you who are
going to join up.”
In any case, the old parents, they were not all pleased with this going
on. And they never had a good word to say about him.
And,
as have been stated previously, that he was in League with the Devil. Here is
an account from another local man, John Campbell of Kingussie, Badenoch:
This Christmas night the Officer left with his
companion called am Post Bàn and arrived at Gaick and they were going to spend
the night in the bothy at the foot of the mountain. The Officer said to his
companion that he should go to bed but that he was not going to bed himself at
that time. He was pacing backwards and forwards on the bothy’s floor […] At
midnight there was a knock on the door and the Post Bàn leapt out of the bed
and was going to open the door but the Officer said to him that he’d open the
door. The Post went back to bed and the Officer opened the door. He went out
and had a conversation with the stranger at the door. After a while he came
back in and when he closed the door the Post heard what he had to say. I will
return a year tonight to meet with you.
The Post said to the Officer:
“Who was that?”
“Oh!” said the Officer, “that was a gentlemen who was
going to go hunting with us tomorrow, but when he saw that there was only me he
couldn’t.
The Post said:
“Has he got a long way to go tonight?”
“Oh!” said the Officer, “yes, but he has a good horse and he’ll not be
long on the road.”
Well, the Post thought that there was something wrong and when he came
back next day to Ballachroan and told his neighbours about him, and they
started to talk and they thought—everyone thought—that the Officer was [in League]
with the Devil. They were sure that the Devil had come to the bothy door at
Gaick.
Not
only this but supernatural occurrences were alleged to taken place on his way
to the funeral as related by John MacDonald of Highbridge, Brae Lochaber:
There was a man John MacPherson, the Black Captain of Ballachroan as
they would call him […] it was the last Christmas [of the century] when this
happened. They made out that he was greatly in League with the Devil. He
requested twelve men to go with him to hunt up in Gaick. They all went but
nobody returned. They were dead and they [the others] went up to see the place.
And it was a terrible site which they beheld. The barrels on the guns were all
twisted round […] and everything was as strange as anything they had ever seen.
They could do nothing else but bring the corpses home. They went up and when
they lifted the body of this man, the Black Captain, they gave him the honour
of the way by placing him in front. But they said that they’d carry him in the
name of the God. When they said this, they could not lift him from the ground.
An old man in the company said, “Leave with him in the name of the person he
was promised to.” And they said that they’d leave in the name of the Devil. And
it was in this way that they could move off and carry him. They had not gone
far when snowing and drifting began. The man shouted:
“Put the old man at the rear,” he said, “and put the most godly one
whom you think at the front.”
And this is how it happened. The weather cleared and the sun came out
and they got safely back to their homes.
“Thus,” as Maclean so
memorably put it, “came home the soulless body of the Captain of Ballachroan, a
faithful servant of two principalities, the British Empire and the Powers of
Darkness.”
The
Black Captain was finally laid to rest alongside his kin in St Columba’s
Churchyard, Kingussie, under a flagstone bearing the following inscription:
SACRED TO THE MEMORY
OF CAPTAIN JOHN MACPHERSON,
BALLACHROAN, LATE OF
THE 82ND REGIMENT, WHO
DIED 2ND
JANUARY 1800 AGED 76 YEARS.
Fact and Fiction
It
remains clear that there are differences between the accounts from Badenoch and
Strathspey (central) and the accounts from Lochaber, Morar, Glenurquhart and
Cape Breton (peripheral). The central accounts tend to put more weight upon the
Black Officer’s character and how he tricked the Badenoch youth as well as the
effect this had upon the local community. These accounts also maintain that
there was a tryst between the Black Officer and the Devil a year to the very day
before the accident itself took place. And, in addition, it is also maintained
that there was a pact between the Black Officer and the Devil; a similar type
of tradition is widespread throughout Europe and doubtless elsewhere which
brings to mind the Legend of Faust. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), the
famous German poet, novelist and scientist published his internationally famous
play Faust in 1790 which was based
upon a man who is said to have lived during the sixteenth-century called Georg Faust
(1480–1540). This legend, in turn, clearly influenced the English playwright
Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593), who wrote a version of this very story as the
play A Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus (1588–92),
which, it seems, had its inspiration from a historical sketch in chapbook format,
The Historie of the Damnable Life, and Deserved Death of Doctor John Faustus (c. 1588). The complex nexus of
orality and literature and the influences upon one another can be seen at play
here. Finally, it is maintained that the corpse of the Black Officer got
its rightful place at the end of the procession when they were on their way to
the funeral. Whereas in the peripheral accounts, the supernatural occurrences
tend to gain an upper hand and appear to be based more upon rumour rather than upon
the actual truth. But, perhaps, the story has reached its perfection, at least
in terms of sheer exaggeration, from a Cape Breton account where the Devil
appears in the guise of a goat.
It is clear that the stories concerning the Black Officer
and the Catastrophe of Gaick have tended to become more and more fabulous in
inverse relation from both the time and place of the actual disaster.
Doubtless, though, the accounts have some connection with what really happened
at Gaick but it would appear that storytellers, as was their wont, have tended
to add parts as they saw fit and thus to maintain the artifice of the
storyteller’s art. Why, after all, let the truth get in the way of a good
fantasy?
For example, Andrew Lang (1844–1912), the famous
novelist, poet, literary critic and not forgetting folklorist, wrote an account
in his Angling Sketches (1891),
that is as romantic as romantic can be. Lang heard the story from a schoolmaster
in Rannoch where the black reputation of the Black Officer lingered long and this
is probably why his account was so slanderous. And if Lang’s account is bad
enough, a version published by James Grant in his Legends of the Black Watch
(1859), is even worse as it
contains hardly any factual detail at all. After all, the Black Officer,
despite (or perhaps because) of his name was never in the Black Watch.
Nevertheless, it would be true to say that the Black
Officer was a figure steeped in controversy mainly due to his notoriety as an extremely
assiduous press-gang leader. Perhaps the main cause for the Black Officer to
gain such a reputation was that he and his like were never popular in the eyes
of the common people, in a similar fashion to repressive landlords who forced
the tenantry to do as they were told without any recourse to the law. In such
uncertain times perhaps they were only too happy to see him as a scapegoat
which may have helped to assuage their powerlessness in the face of oppression
and thus could act as a kind of therapeutic release.
Eye-Witness Account
To
To return to the contemporary accounts, nearest in both time and place to the
incident, there survives an eye-witness account. The account is preserved in a
manuscript in the National Library of Scotland (NLS, Adv.MS.73.1.14, pp.
129–32) and was written down by the Rev. Mackintosh MacKay (1793–1873) who, in
his day, was a notable Gaelic scholar. Unfortunately, no name can be
indentified with regard to the person who actually gave the eye-witness
account. It is worth quoting a good portion of the account as it not only gives
an authentic voice but also lends itself to the truth, or at least the nearest
to the truth that is now accessible to us:
Towards the End of December 1799, Capt[ain] MacP[herson] having a young
greyh[oun]d that he was anxious to give blood to, determined on an excursion to
the forest of Gawick. The foxhunter of the district was arranged with, to
accompany the Capt[ain] with his hounds, so as to initiate the young hound in the
chase. Beside the foxhunter, Don[al]d McGillivray & Serv[ant] the Capt[ain]
also arranged with Duncan Macfarlane & John Macpherson […] This John
Macpherson […] was the planner of the unfortunate exped[itio]n. Some days
before, he came to the Capt[ain]’s house to inform him that there were deer on
certain grounds of Gàig were they could be easily taken. On receiving this
inform[atio]n the Capt[ain] planned the exped[itio]n, & sent for the Foxhunter,
D[onald] M[acGillivray] to accompany him. They resolved to set out on Monday
last of Dec[em]b[e]r.
Once
the background has been recounted by the eye-witness, the narration proceeds by describing a great
storm that lasted for a whole three days and which did not abate completely until
Thursday:
After nightfall, it
still continued to blow unabatedly. A brother & I retired to rest, and
slept in the same bedroom. About midnight, the storm increased to such
tremendous violence, that we both lay awake, fearing for the safety of our
house. The window of our bedroom hung on hinges, and in a moment by the
violence of a fearful blast, the window was thrown open, and the drift poured
in upon us tremendously. We both got up, and from the great violence of the
blast, it was with the utmost difficulty we could force the window to its place
and secure it. During the evening and the night the wind appeared to have shifted
considerably to the South. On Wednesday morning the violence of the storm had
abated, and the state of the atmosphere indicated a thaw. From the moment particularly,
at which our window was blown in upon us in our bedroom, I have the remembrance
distinctly of a lively impression of the danger of the Capt[ain] and his party.
It
is little wonder that after such a storm the witness should have been worried
about the wellbeing of the hunting-party which had set out to the remote forest
of Gaick some three days before that the witness describes earlier in his
account:
On Monday morning, the Capt[ain]’s party
having been now all assembled at his house, the Capt[ain] waited me for some
time to breakfast. As my father’s house was not above a quarter of a mile
distant from his, the Capt[ain] finding me not appearing, came himself down
between 8 & 9 in the morning to my father’s, and on entering the house,
asked where I was, to which my mother replied I was in bed. In bed, said the
Capt[ain] eagerly – tell the lazy fellow, that we all wait for him to
breakfast. I was soon dressed, being in the act of dressing when he entered,
and came to him. He said in his usual jocose way, what was I about, I told him
then the circumstances of my having received the note alluded to from Captain
D. McP[herson] and expressed what I truly felt, my disappoint[men]t at not
being now able to make one of his party. At this he also expressed regret, and
left me to return to his house to breakfast. I had also to repair to attend the
drill of that day at the Bridge of Spey. On way thither, I observed the Capt[ain]
and his party, who had passed close to me, tho’ unobserved in a hollow of the
road, crossing the Spey over the ice, and ascending the hill on the opposite
side, taking the road to Gàig – the last sight of my friend, that I was
destined in this life to have.
As
there was no sign of the hunters who had set out only a few days before a search
party was organised in order to find out what many of them may have feared:
On Thursday the weather was fine still, and the
sky clear. On Friday a thaw commenced. On Thursday morning, I called at Capt[ain]
Macpherson’s, when his family appeared not much alarmed, but expressed a
general anxiety about the comfort of the party at Gàig. On Friday evening,
continuing anxious myself, an anxiety I carefully concealed from the family, I
again called at the Capt[ain]’s―when the family seemed to have taken alarm; and
I endeavoured to persuade them that the Capt[ain] and his party, instead of
returning straight home, must have crossed Gàig to Dalnacardoch, as an easier
route, and would return home by the Highland road, by Dalnacardoch, &
Dalwhinny. This kept their hopes alive, till Saturday evening, when their
anxiety increased to alarm, when I endeavoured to persuade them, that should
the party have come by Dalnacardoch, they might be unable to cross Druimochter,
and would be comfortable enough at Dalnacardoch. Quite alarmed myself, I took
aside Duncan Campbell, the Capt[ain]’s grieve, after I had left the house, and
told him, that unless the Capt[ain] arrived in course of the night, I was
certain all could not be right, and that he & I must set out for Gàig
before daylight, next morning (Sabbath).
Before daylight on Sabbath, Campbell was at my father’s door, to say
there was no word of the party, and ready to start for Gàig. He found me also
ready to start, alive as I had all along been, to a sort of presentiment that
there was need for our presence there. We accordingly set out before daylight.
The morning turned soft, and there had been some thaw. After crossing the Spey,
at the farm of Noldmore, and ascending the heights on the opposite side, it
came on a severe and continued fall of snow, with a gale of wind. The gale and
snow continued to increase greatly, as we advanced on our progress to the
hills. On our way, we called at a shepherd’s house called Lynachragan, to
inquire, whether the party might not have come there, or whether they might not
have been heard of. There was no word of them.
After this, on our way, the snow lay so heavy, that it was with
difficultly we walked. On entering what is properly called the plain of Gàig,
the storm increased to a perfect hurricane. Campbell and I could hardly keep
our footing. Here, a narrow pass is formed between a considerable lake and the
base of a steep hill. In this pass, we had the utmost difficulty (Loch an
t-Seilich) to hold ourselves by the ground, encumbered as we were, &
sinking in snow to the waists. The scene was tremendous―the drift continued
&c.
The bothy was situated at the south-west end of the lake, at a small
distance from it. Here a considerable valley opens―the bothy was built at the
entrance of the valley, on a rising ground close to the base of the hill
forming the south side of the valley―closer to the hill than where the Duke of
Gordon’s present shooting box stands. After we had gained the end of the lake,
and as we set ourselves to make the bothy, we were met by a nephew of Capt[ain]
Macpherson’s, Alex[ander] McPherson, and Alex[ande]r McP[herson] the father of
John, alluded to in the commencement of the narrative. They had crossed from
Phoness in Glentruim, a shorter route than that by which we had come. We
exchanged a sort of boding salutation, and proceeded towards the site of the
bothy.
After the arduous journey that the search-party had
made in order to get to Gaick, the melancholy scene is now described of what
they found before them:
As we came near enough to discern the site of the bothy, where we knew
it ought to stand―there was no appearance of it. We were all so perfectly
acquainted with the ground, that we came within a few yards, as we afterwards
found, of the house. Still there was no appearance or vestige of it to be seen.
This was sufficient to confirm our fears―and our impressions at that moment may
be more easily conceived than described. On the drift ceasing for a moment, we
clearly saw the marks and the cause of the deadly ravages committed. The
mountain rises to a great height above the house, and very steep―almost
perpendicular. Tho’ the subsequent snow and drift had partly filled up the
chasm made in the mountain side, by the snow that had fallen, in so
indescribably prodigious quantity, we could clearly trace its destructive
progress. It was manifest, to the simplest observer, that the snow, by means of
the drift, had accumulated on the brow of the hill, to such a depth and
quantity, that its own weight tore it from its roof, as it were―and tho’ the
mark of its course had since been in part obliterated, we saw with feelings of
horror and consternation, that it took the house, in its very mid-way path―and
after having rolled to the plain, its broken masses, now partly rounded by the
accessions of new drift, lay scattered over the plain, diminishing in size as
they extended forward on the plain, exhibiting precisely the same appearance,
as may often be seen in the tract of a summer torrent, when it was carried down
a hill stones and gravel, and poured on the champaign below.
It was now mournfully manifest to us, that the house was fairly swept
off. If any part of it remained, it was then not visible to us, by the
accumulation of new snow and drift.
Stepping forward from the spot we supposed (and rightly) to be the size
of the house, and looking in mournful silence to the marks of devastation on
the plain, it was only by blinks, when the drift cleared, that we could make
any remarks on the scene before us. We soon however, in one of those blinks,
observed a hat, half-buried in the snow. We immediately went up to―found it to
be Capt[ain] M’[Pherson’]s hat, fixed on a sort of two-pronged stick, or click,
that had formerly stood fixed to the wall of the house within, for the purpose
of hanging hats and shot-bags &c. His shot-bag was also attached to this
stick. The catastrophe in its full horror was now made known to our minds―and
never can I cease to remember and feel, the frantic grief of the father of John
Macpherson. He paced and ran, backwards and forwards thro’ the snow, as if not
encumbered a moment by its great depth, &c.
As
to any attempt at a further search in the snow, it was out of the
question―besides we were provided with no instruments to dig with―and should
we, the day continued so fearfully stormy that it would have been impossible―we
therefore set off for home.
Unfortunately,
the account ends rather abruptly with arrangements being made for men to be
gathered together in order to proceed to Gaick with spades and shovels and also,
it may be assumed, carrying stretchers to remove the corpses. There is,
however, no description of how they actually found the corpses or, indeed, how
they managed to carry them back in such inclement conditions. Despite this, the
account provides a detailed picture of what the weather was actually like, that
the disaster was caused by a naturally occurring avalanche and that the Black
Officer was said to be congenial man (at least according to the writer of the
above account).
It may well be that according to an article published by Veritas in The Highlander newspaper of 1874 that the above eye-witness account
might have come from the testimony of a certain John Duff for the contributor
states the following:
About twenty three
years ago [1851], as I was passing Inverness, I called at the house of an old
man named Kennedy, who kept a stable somewhere near Petty Street. In course of
conversation Kennedy asked if I ever heard old John Duff speaking of the loss
of the Black Captain, or doom of Gaick, as it was called. Having answered in
the affirmative, he went on to say “Well, Duff and myself were the first two
who entered the ruins of the house, and after removing a good deal of the snow
and debris, we came on the body of
the captain, with one leg resting on the floor and the rest of the body in what
was once a bed. The body was greatly disfigured. His gun lay beside him with
the barrels twisted like a straw rope.” Theses are the words of the very man
who, along, with John Duff, found the body, and they exactly correspond with
what I often heard Duff tell of the melancholy affair.
Contemporary Letter
Nonetheless,
a contemporary letter survives, written by a certain Captain Alexander Clerk
(who may have been related to James ‘Ossian’ Macpherson), only a few days after
the incident, on the 8th of February to be exact. Clerk had also been a
tacksman at Invernahavon and his letter was addressed to William Tod who was a commissioner
and bailiff on the Duke of Gordon’s Badenoch lands:
…You well know the
honest Captain’s passion and propensity of being in the hill, and at his
favourite sport after the deer. This led him to go to Gaick […] with a party of
four men and three greyhounds. That day and the next were tolerably good days
but in the course of Wednesday night it came on to blow very hard, with snow
and drift […] But as there was a most sufficient house there, and they had
provisions, their friends had hopes of their being safe until the weather
became moderate on Saturday, and they did not come home, nor any word from
them. On Sunday a few men went up to Gaick, who returned that night and
reported that no vestige of the house remained […] This report left no doubt as
to the melancholy fate of the poor Captain and his unfortunate companions […] a
pretty large number of men went on Monday to the hill, and after long labour in
exploring the stance of the house, they at last made it out, and […] they that
night dug the body of the Captain and three of his companions out of the snow […]
The Captain was found in bed with his shoes of [sic] and night-cap on,
in a kneeling position, with both his hands under his forehead. Two men in
another bed in one another’s arms, with the three greyhounds lying above them,
and the third as if he had been sitting by the fire-side. The fourth is not
found yet […] The bodies are this day to be carried from Gaick, which will be a
very serious trial for men, and the Captain’s corpse is to be in some sort of
state for this night at his own house, and to be interred to-morrow. I will not
dwell much longer on this melancholy subject, only mention to you the names of
the people who accompanied the Captain on his fatal excursion―Donald
Macgillivray, fox-hunter―a Strathdearn lad, with his servant, one Grant, from
Duthil; John Macpherson, a fine stripling from Phones; and Duncan Macfarlane,
from Kingussie […] and whose body is still unfound. The cruel accident was
occasioned by a circumstance which could neither be expected nor foreseen, and
which, I suppose, brought on their death before they were aware of any danger.
It appears to have been done by an immense bank of snow having fallen from near
the top of the hill behind the house, and afterwards carried down by the
hurricane with great force and velocity, and sweeping the house along with it to
the very foundation stones…
As
can be readily seen, the Captain’s account clearly accords with the other
eye-witness’s report and, thus, leaves but little room to doubt the veracity of
either account. In other words, both accounts can be relied upon.
In addition, the Sobieski-Stewarts, in their Lays of
the Deer Forest (1848), provide another account from Captain Lachlan
MacPherson, styled “Old Biallaid”, who knew Captain John MacPherson intimately,
and who left a eulogistic testimony:
…he is esteemed as a man who, in mental and bodily qualities, had few
equals, and no superior, in the Highlands; kind, generous, brave, and
charitable, full of noble patriotism for his clan, and if a formidable
opponent, none ever sought his aid, or conciliated his enmity, without
receiving prompt assistance and immediate reconciliation. His purse, as well as
his talents, was ever at the service of the poor, the oppressed, and all who
stood in need of assistance […] Active, intelligent, and superior in all
things, he was a dangerous enemy, but an unshaken ally, and the most bitter foe
had only to seek his amity, and he immediately became his friend. His mind was
full of generosity, kindness, and sensibility; and if he had faults, they were
errors of his age, and not of his own heart. In his latter days, his liberality
in assisting others embarrassed his own affairs; but in every trial, his
conduct was distinguished by honour and integrity. Amidst his misfortunes he
was deprived of his wife, after which, he went little into society, but in his
old age, spent many of his days, like the ancient hunters, alone in the hills
of Gàic or the corries of Beann-Alder, with no other companion than his
‘cuilbheir’ and ‘his grey dogs.’ Such was one of the last true deer-stalkers of
the old race of gentlemen—a man who, if we lived a hundred years, we should not
see again.
Heart of Darkness
Hunting
usually takes place in liminal areas and it would seem that the Forest of Gaick
has always had a dark reputation. For instance, there is a story of how Walter
Comyn (of a family that once held powerful sway in Badenoch) was ripped apart
by a two witches who had transmogrified themselves into eagles. Further, there
is a tradition in which Muirdeach mac
Iain, while hunting in Gaick, killed a woman who had taken deer-form. There
is also a story that the ‘spirit’ of Gaick itself would appear. And to make
matters worse, the tragedy of Gaick occurred at one of the most liminal of
periods between the Old and the New Year, when it was unlucky to carry anything
out according to traditional Gaelic cosmology, as this was a time when
otherworldly creatures would be abroad in order to tempt the unwary. In this respect
it is little wonder that the Black Captain was seen to invite his own doom when
he set forth with his hunting party to chase the deer into the alluring heart
of darkness that was:
Dark Gaick of the winding runnels
She has always been a whore—
A witch ensnaring her net,
Each one who desires to lie with her.
Epitaph
A memorial can still to be seen
to this day at Gaick which was erected in 1902 to commemorate the disaster
under the aegis of Alexander MacPherson, sometime provost of Kingussie, as well
as banker and antiquarian. Monies for the monument were raised from the funds
accrued by the sale of Alexander MacPherson’s pamphlet, Captain John
MacPherson of Ballachroan: The Gaick Catastrophe of the Christmas of 1799
(O.S.): A Counter-blast. As can be readily understood from the title, the
author was at pains to try and protect or at least defend the memory of the
Black Officer’s name from dectrators―the very same thing that the aforementioned
bard Calum Dubh nam Protaigean (who
also composed a lament for Young John MacPherson styled Iain Òg mac Alasdair
’ic Ullleim, another of the Gaick victims), it would seem, tried and
failed to do a hundred years previously:
THE LOSS OF GAICK
In Memory of
CAPT’N JOHN McPHERSON
OF BALACHROAN
A valiant and
patriotic gentleman
Born at Glentruim
1724
Who perished on this
spot
By an avalanche in
Jan. 1800
Along with four
companions in the chase
JAMES GRANT, DONALD McGILLIVRAY
DUNCAN McPHARLANE,
JOHN McPHERSON
O dùisgibh-se mu’m fas sibh liath
’S dluithibh bhur cas
ris an t-sliabh
Feuch gu’m bi bhur
fasgadh deant’
Mu’n téid a’ ghrian a
laidhe oirbhe
This memorial stone
Erected August 1902
Is due to the
exertions of the late
ALEXANDER M’PHERSON
Provost of Kingussie
Who never wearied
working for his chief
His clan &
Badenoch, and who died
11th Jan. 1902
sincerely regretted
By all who knew him.
References:
MacPherson,
Alexander, Captain John MacPherson of
Ballachroan and the Gaick Catastrophe of the Christmas of 1799 (O.S.): A
Counter-blast (Kingussie, 1900); also printed in The Scots Magazine, vol.
XXV (1900), pp. 215–28.
Scarlett, Meta
Humphrey, In the Glen Where I Was Young (Moy, 1988).
Thompson, Francis, The
Supernatural Highlands (London, 1976).
Wiseman, Anndra E.
M., ‘Call Ghàdhaig ann am Ficesan is ann am Fìrinn’ [The Catastrophe of Gaick
in Fact and in Fiction], Transactions of
the Gaelic Society of Inverness, vol. LXII (2000–02), pp. 298–346.
Images:
Portrait of the Black
Officer, courtesy of the Clan MacPherson Museum, Newtonmore, Badenoch.
The Gaick Memorial
Marking the Scene of the Catastrophe © Richard Webb and licensed for reuse
under the Creative Commons Licence.
Gaick Memorial Plaque
© Richard Webb and licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Licence.
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