IN THE HIGHLANDS 225 



Fearachar a Ghunna (Farquliar of the Gun) was a very- 

 well known character all over the eastern side of the 

 county. He always carried an old blunderbuss of a gun 

 with him, and collected every conceivable horror, such 

 as old bones and skins and filthy rags. He lived in a 

 bothy on the Redcastle glebe, and as the smell from 

 Farquhar's accumulations became quite unbearable, the 

 minister applied to the Sheriff to have Farquhar ejected 

 from his hovel. It seems the minister had been long in 

 Canada, and came to Redcastle only when he got the 

 call to the parish. On being examined by the Sheriff, 

 Farquhar suggested that the minister must have a 

 peculiarly sensitive nose when he was able to smell the 

 stipend of Kedcastle all the way from America ! 



My uncle gives the following instances of the manner 

 in which dangerous lunatics were treated in pre-asylum 

 days, the misery the unfortunates suffered, and the 

 scandal that occurred from having even harmless lunatics 

 running all over the country. He says: 



" When I was a boy I went for a short time to school 

 at Tain, and the home of a dangerous lunatic was then 

 the upper cell in Tain Gaol, a square tower in the centre 

 of the town having at its base the Town Cross, on the 

 steps of which the fishwives used to sit and display their 

 wares to purchasers. Some friend had given Donald, 

 the lunatic, a strong cord with an iron hook at its end. 

 It used to be thought fun to call on Donald Heuk (Hook), 

 as we named him, to let down his hooked cord, which we 

 fastened to anything movable, from a penny roll to a 

 peat, and on our crying ' Heuk, Donald !' up went the 

 prize instantly to the iron cage at the top of the tower. 



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