IN THE HIGHLANDS 59 



do not by any means produce the best men as Highland 

 proprietors; such training just turns them into regular 

 Sassenachs ! It is surely better that a Highlander 

 should be something a little different from an English- 

 man. When they are sent to English schools as small 

 boys of eight or nine years old, and their education is 

 continued in the south, they lose all their individuality. 

 They may be very good, but they have nothing Highland 

 about them except the bits of tartan they sport, which 

 were probably manufactured in the south and their 

 kilts tailored in London ! My uncle writes that his 

 father, Sir Hector, nnd his wife, the hhantighearna ruadh 

 (the auburn lady) as she was always called, spoke 

 Gaelic to each other as often as they did English. To- 

 day my daughter and I do the same. Why should the 

 present chiefs and lairds call themselves Highland if 

 they can't speak a word of the language of their people 

 and country ? One would not call a man a Boer in 

 South Africa if he could not speak a word of Dutch, nor 

 call a man a French-Canadian if he could not converse 

 in the French of his country, even though it be some- 

 thing of a patois. Then, again, many of the lairds are 

 so unpatriotic as to have forsaken the Church of their 

 forefathers. Instead of worshipping with their tenantry 

 and their servants in the Presbyterian Church in their 

 neighbourhood, they motor great distances to some 

 chapel where they can find very ritualistic services and 

 probably hear only a very poor sermon. 



A distinguished lady remarked to me quite lately 

 that the three best educated and most intelligent and 

 most charming men she had ever come across in the 



