Long Interview with William Robertson Inverness Courier 01 September, 1891

The following is a transcription of an interview with William Robertson which gives some really detailed information on his life and movements around the Highlands from childhood to adulthood.
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"A LINK WITH CULLODEN"
One of the most interesting personages in Broughty Ferry is Mr William Robertson, the almost nonogenarian poet, with whom a representative of this journal had an interview the other day. He found William in excellent spirits and hale and hearty in his body, - "all but a bad leg that sometimes troubles me " - was the poet's remark as he alluded to the cause of just a perceptible limp. He bears his age admirably, and is a keen, alert, intelligent, gentlemanly old man with whom a "twa-handed crack"is always interesting. The poetic fire still stirs his heart, poetic images still crowd his active brain, and poetic grace still turns his verse. He has the sturdy, hardy bearing of the country-bred Scot of a bygone generation.
"When were you born?" asked our representative, after William had been comfortably seated, and ready to plunge into reminiscences.
"In 1804," was the reply. "In Edwards' book of Scottish poets," he added, it is wrongly given as 1808, but I am now in my 87th year."
"And which is your 'calf ground?'"
"The Carse of Gowrie - in the Parish of Longforgan. My father was gamekeeper at Castle Huntly, and I was born there."
"Did you stay long in the Carse?"
"No, my father removed when I was a mere child to Invergarry, where he became the servant of Colonel Alexander Macdonell, the chief of Glengarry then. During my boyhood I resided just beside the mansion house close by Loch Oich."
"Were there many more people about Invergarry then than now? "
"Well, it's a long time since I left it ; but I should say that there were many more then than now. And they were a frugal, well-behaved people - although I must say it, a little lazy. "
"What did the common people live on chiefly in your young days?"
"A great dish was brochan, used often for breakfast, and there was often herring for dinner; then they had cakes and bannocks, an' they were awful fond o' whiskey. They considered it a panacea for a' diseases."
"Smuggled whisky, I suppose?"
"Ay, there was smuggling in those days," and there was a merry twinkle in William's eye as he added, "if it could be called smuggling as they did so openly. Man, I've seen a procession of 40 horses - a man attending on each- all carrying smuggled whisky, and all going quite openly along the road. Each man carried a stout cudgel over his shoulder, and all were as jovial as they could be."
"Yes, Glengarry was an ideal Highland Chief. He was one of the last of that grand old kind of men. He kept two bards and a piper, and on all festive occasions the bards chanted the praises of the clan, and narrated the brilliant deeds of the Macdonells. A favourite game in those days was shinty. It was played with great clubs, the men being stripped to shirt and kilt. Sometimes the contest would be between the lower and upper end of the glen, or between two adjacent straths; but whoever were the rivals the game was always fiercely contested. The Highland blood always got on fire, and it was really dangerous for anyone who got in the way of a player. Glengarry himself almost always attended these encounters, as chief of his sept, and it was his custom on such occasions to ride home with the bards chanting before him and the piper playing by turns. His door was always open to the poorest of his people, to whom he acted as patriarch."
"Were the people well off for food in those days?"
"Oh! no' so bad. There was no want of fish; plenty of herring and eggs. Eggs were considered very dear at 4d. a dozen. Oh, yes, there was oatmeal too; but mind you, the Highlandman didn't care so very much for oatmeal. If they took it, they preferred it in the form of brochan or brose.They turned up their nose at oatmeal porridge, and I've heard more than one say - 'What sort of dish is that to go to the hill with?' Potatoes mashed was a favourite dish and there was aye plenty of milk,"
"Yes, it was at Glengarry that I met with a hero of the Forty-Five. His name was Owen Macdonell, an active little man, who always went past at the run, and looked as fleet as a five year old. "
"What age would Owen be?"
"Oh, he was said to be a hundred at that time. The Chief made a great deal of him. Owen was at all the feasts of the Castle, and the Chief always spoke proudly of him as the man who had seen the first blood drawn for Prince Charlie at Prestonpans, and was afterwards present at Falkirk and Culloden."
"Was Macdonell the only Culloden man you knew?"
"No; I've known five altogether. There were two other Macdonells - the Black Forester and the Red Forester they were named, from the colour of their hair. The names of the other two I cannot remember. Owen was the oldest, but there were several who lived as long as he did - for James Grant, in his 'British Battles,' mentions one who died as late as 1830, at the age of 108. I was about sixteen at the time I knew Macdonell, and I believe there are few, if any, alive today who can say they ever met a Culloden hero."
"Had you ever had any particular conversation with him about the battle?"
"Nothing in particular."
"I suppose you know that the Macdonalds did not fight that day?"
"Yes; it was a difference about precedence of position, and they marched off the field without engaging. Owen, I suppose, was among them for the Macdonalds and Macdonells are just the same clan."
"Quite so. Have you ever been at Culloden field?"
"No. I've often wished to see it; but (regretfully) that's past hoping noo, I doot. But I've seen Killiecrankie!"
"Ay, but Killiecrankie's no Culloden!"
"No, no. That was a sorrowfu' day for the Stuarts, and sair, sair suffering it entailed upon many a good Highlander."
"No, I have not been able to do any regular work for some years (he said in answer to another question). I was trained to be a gardener, and am what is known as a landscape gardener. I got my training at Lindertise, near Kirriemuir, as the servant of Mr. Gilbert Laing Masson, I have been engaged at Tullymet, Ballechin and lots of other places in Perthshire since then. Man, I must tell you Invergarry was a bonnie place in my young days. You could have seen the yellow daffodils and columbine growing in acres - the columbine, you know, darts off in every variety of colour." - Dundee Evening Telegraph 

A Witch and Her Ghost

The following story appeared in "Echoes of the Mountain Muse". About forty-six years ago I was employed as gardener to a gentleman in the Highlands of Perthshire, where the incidents occurred which I am about to relate.
Being a single man, I occupied a small room, distant fully a quarter of a mile from my work, and where, I might say, I acted as "guide, philosopher, and friend" to myself.
A woman, to all appearance very old, was my next-door neighbour. She had a wild and weird-like look, and the expression of her eyes was simply appalling. A thin partition separated her apartment from mine, and I could hear her spinning-wheel going every Sunday, herself at the same time humming a mournful Gaelic air, as an accompaniment to the birr of her wheel.
By the natives all round she was regarded with superstitious dread and the boldest would not venture to incur her displeasure. So great was the awe she inspired that she could enter houses, and, unchallenged, take from the press or cupboard bread, butter, or cheese, whilst none of the cowed inmates would dare to interfere.
It seemed to be an understood thing among the natives that should anyone be unfortunate enough, by any means whatever, to incur her displeasure, a terrible calamity would soon overtake them.
The reader will perhaps be surprised when I state that I was rash enough to somewhat rudely dispute her right to pillage my press, seeing I am alive, and unscathed by devilry or witchcraft of any kind. I am impelled, however to confess, that had I not been a man of more than ordinary nerve, I would most assuredly have been frightened out of my wits by this same witch, six years after she was dead and buried.
The startling statement I have now made, and the incidents that follow, I solemnly declare were witnessed by me.
Before proceeding further with my story I wish to state that I am very far from being superstitious, and I am equally free from slavish fears, and have, since I arrived at manhood, been an independent and, I may I add, a fearless thinker. My courage however, was put to the test that

"Might have strewed the snows of age

on youth's auburn ringlets, or blighted

Beauty's rosy cheek for ever.

How I had nerve sufficient to brave the appalling sight I was doomed to witness I have never been able to satisfy myself, and it remains an unexplained puzzle to me to this day.

Gardners during winter, when the weather is too cold and stormy for work out of doors, generally take to the house, and emply themselves in making baskets to carry fruit or vegetables to the great man's house.

On a very cold and tempestuous day I sat in my apartment engaged at basket-making, and listening to the spinning wheel, and the low, wailing notes of the so-called witch's Gaelic air. Bye-and-by the wheel, and the sad music that accompanied it, ceased, and in less than five minutes my door was opened, and in entered the old hag for the first time, "withered, wild and ragged in her attire." I was honoured with a glance that seemely to me absolutely infernal in its expression, and hideous in its wrinkled deformity. From what I had heard of her I expected my press would be laid under contribution; and so it was, for, with a look of resolute determination, thither she went, and at once commenced to pillage its contents. Not relishing such familiarity, I rose and stepped towards her, and laying my hands on her shoulders, wheeled her round and pushed her out, barring the door behind her. Just as the door closed, she turned round and give vent to a shriek so frightful as to ring in my ears like a howl from the damned.

Next day, in connversation with the Grieve, I told him wht I had done, seeming, at the same time, to treat the affair lightly. He shook his head, and said, "Man, I would not have done what you say for fifty pounds!"

I replied, "I would do it again for far less;" adding, "I am not afraid of witches."

"You will break your neck, or leg, or be drowned some of these days," he replied.; adding, as he moved off, "Mind what I say!"

When six months had nearly expired, the old lady died and was buried, the neighbours wondering all the while why I had escaped unharmed from the vengeance of this terrible witch. I was careful to take a note of the year and day of the month on which she was buried; this I jotted down on the fly-leaf of a favourite book.

Before proceeding further with my story, I wish it to be distinctly understood that I have no intention to magnify my own courage and resolute bearing under the frightful ordeal I was doomed to encounter. I can only say that I was sustained in a mysterious way beyond my comprehension. Let me explain how I felt. I felt my muscles tighten, and a strength and firmness of body and limb, as if I had been a man of iron. In short, I stood boldly convinced that my right of way upon earth was a good as any ghost's could be, and it is questionable whether a psychologist could give a better reason. Why this strange old creature should always regard me with a look of intense hatred, which she did every time she met me, I cannot explain; at all events, I would have rendered her all the kindness in my power, had not her deportment towards me made that impossible.

Some four or five months after her death I removed to a situation in Forfarshire, a distance from my Highland abode of about thirty-five miles as the crow flies. It was here I met the ghost of the witch - a pretty long distance from the spot where her bones were mingling with the clods of the valley. I had been married, and had settled down in my new abode for some years, when I got leave of absence for two or three days to go and see a friend who had returned from abroad in bad health. I was on my return home when I met the witch, enveloped in horrors - a veritable embodiment of all imagination can conceive of the terrible in the world unseen.

It was late in the day when I started on my journey, and, being winter, darkness soon set in; but in other respects it was a pleasant night for the season. Between one and two o'clock in the morning I had reached within a mile or so of my home, and having nothing to hurry me, was walking leisurely along. On my right hand was a lea field, which terminated at a thick belt of young fir trees about 150 yards in advance of where I was walking. At that moment I happened to look forward to the dreary-looking line of trees, and then it was I saw a dark-looking ill-defined figure move out on the lea about fifteen feet or thereby from the road, and approaching rapidly in a straight line down the field. Owing to the darkness, I should not have seen the figure till it came nearer; but, at all events, I did see it the moment it emerged on the field. When opposite me, I saw it kneel in a halo of intense light, which shot out tremulous rays into the darkness, with a low spluttering noise, in all directions. My astonishment knew no bounds the moment I discovered that the figure kneeling before me was the witch, grasping her staff with her skinny hands, and holding it upright in front of her. I recognised every patch on her tattered cloak, her staff, the terrible expression of her eyes, more frightful now than ever; and I could see her toothless gums when she opened her thin lips, from which proceeded horrid mutterings, seemingly devilish in their import.

"If this is not a ghost, there never was one," I thought to myself.

Horror upon horrors! looking into her eyes, which blazed like two furnaces, I could see in their far depths a tiny image of myself, standing, as it were, in a sea of flame. So intensely awful was the sight that it made me instinctively utter, "Merciful God, support and protect me at this moment." A sound like the flap of a bird's wing made me lok up, and there I saw, above the kneeling figure, a ring of lurid red colour, about five feet in diameter, and stationary. So threatening in their expression were the features of the apparition, that every moment I expected it would spring at me. I was about to move away, when I observed the ring slowly descending, whilst the figure, at the same time, rose slowly, as if to meet it; and when the head and shoulders of this frightful phantom rose above the ring and stood at its centre, the spectacle was appalling in a terrible degree. Suddenly the ring again began to descend, and the wild glaring eyes all the while fixed on me, fierce and undefinable in their hate. No sooner had the ring reached the ground than the fiend-like features relaxed, the eyes grew dimmer, the ring seemed to sink into the earth, the halo of light vanished, and a dark form stood a few moments in gloomy stillness, then slowly melted into the shades of night.

In passing the wood from which I first noticed my unearthly visitor emerge, I felt a shock rattle through my brain like a shower of icicles and on raising my hand to my head I found my hair drenched with a cold, clammy sweat, and a momentary giddiness came over me, but soon passed away. On my return home I looked up the book in which I had noted the witch's death and found, curiously enough, that it was exactly six years since the witch died and was buried. Though it is now well-nigh fifty years since the occurrence of the event which I have related in my story, I have still a most vivid recollection of all the incidents of which, improbable as it may seem, I was an unharmed eye-witness.