Memories

As a daughter of the Chief of Clan Cumming, my home was, of course, at Altyre, in Morayshire, i.e. at headquarters—a goodly heritage in truth, and yet a mere fragment of the vast possessions of the Clan in the days of its power. With regard to antiquity, it is said that the Cummings of Altyre are directly descended from the Counts de Comyn who were directly descended from Charlemagne. Robert, who was fifth in descent, was created Earl of Northumberland by his cousin, William the Conqueror. He was killed in Durham in January 1069. Besides broad lands in Northumberland, his family held estates in Yorkshire and Wiltshire. From him the old knights of Altyre (who were also Lords of Badenoch) prove direct descent in the male line.

In the reign of Alexander III. the Comyns were also Earls of Buchan, Earls of Menteith, Lords of Galloway, and Lords of Lochaber, owning vast tracts of country. And besides these great barons, there were then thirty landed knights in the Clan.

Of the Red Comyn who (while alone at prayer in Greyfriars Church in Dumfries) was stabbed in sudden passion by Robert Bruce and murdered by Kirkpatrick, it is recorded that sixty belted knights, with all their vassals, were bound to follow his banner. But in that sacred and unguarded hour, only his uncle, Robert Comyn of Altyre, was near, and shared his fate.

The spelling of surnames in ancient documents is always liable to variation, but probably no other has lent itself so largely to the fancy of scribes. In one old charter of the Altyre family it is spelt in five different ways. Cumeine, Chuimein, Commines, Cumyn, Comyn, Comin, Coming, Cumin, Cummine, Cuming, and the modern form of Cumming, are among these varieties.

The Clan is spoken of by various old writers as the most potent that ever existed in Scotland; and a quaint old atlas, published in Amsterdam in 1654 by Jean Blaeu, quotes a somewhat older Latin work by Sir Robert Gordon of Stralloch, concerning

“Altyr, qui appartenoit à ceux de la maison de Cumines qui estoit, il y a plus de trois cens ans, la plus riche, et la plus puissante de l’Ecosse.”

How it came to pass that this powerful family should, so quickly after the accession of Robert Bruce, have been reduced to the comparatively small proportions of later years, is one of the unsolved mysteries of Scottish history.

CHAPTER I “SURELY GOODNESS AND MERCY HAVE FOLLOWED ME ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE.”—Psalm xxiii. 6.

Altyre—Dunphail—Numerous Kinsfolk—Cornish Relations—Grants of Grant—Episcopal Church.

Many a time I have been asked by friends who have found pleasure in reading my notes of travel in divers countries to write a record of my early home-life and of various matters of local interest.

Having rarely kept a journal, except when travelling, I felt that I had insufficient materials from which to compile such a record; but after a while I bethought me of one friend (Miss Murray of Polmaise), with whom for more than forty years I had corresponded regularly, and as I had preserved most of her letters, it was possible that she might have done the same by mine. So to her I applied. The answer was, “Why did you not write a month sooner? I have been setting my house in order, to minimise trouble for my survivors, and have just burnt all my old letters, including yours.” A few weeks later she entered the Larger Life, and for a while the thought passed from me.

But now that I am rapidly nearing the appointed term of threescore years and ten, and have far outlived thirteen of my fifteen brothers and sisters—_i.e._ all save one of my brothers, and one half-sister—it seems well to thread together such scattered details as may prove of interest to some of my numerous friends, known and unknown, many of whom I can never hope to meet face to face, but who have gladdened me by kind letters, telling me how the records of my wanderings have beguiled weary hours of suffering and weakness (one of these, which gave me special pleasure, was from the author of the celebrated Book of Nonsense).

So for such sympathetic friends, I will now note some early memories of those happy days—

“When we all were young together And the earth was new to me.”

And if such notes are apt to appear egotistic, may I be forgiven, for assuredly the records of the first fifty years of my life are those of some one quite different from my present self in every respect, both of personality and of surroundings. Indeed, I received a hint of this about twenty-five years ago, when on my return from wandering in far countries, I was told that an old family servant was anxious to see me again after an interval of about fifteen years. I went to her house, and was received with the cold glare of non-recognition. I said, “Don’t you remember Miss Eka?” “Miss Eka,” she said beamingly, “Oh, fine do I mind her, but,” doubtingly, “surely you are no her? Eh!! and ye WERE so good-looking!” I like to treasure that tribute to a forgotten past.

Though I cannot say that I remember the 26th of May 1837, I do vividly remember my father’s assuring me that early on that morning he had found me in the heart of a fine large cabbage; so I greatly respected the tall cabbages, from beneath which I retrieved deliciously sweet, small pears, which fell from a large overhanging tree—one of the countless joys of the most delightfully varied series of gardens that ever gladdened the heart of happy children, and their elders of all ages.

In looking back and considering lives and characters, I often think how little weight we give to the inestimable advantages which have enfolded some of us from our birth to our grave. Ay, and long, long before our birth, in the unspeakable blessing of healthy, well-conditioned ancestors, who have transmitted to their descendants well-balanced minds in healthy bodies, naturally cheerful dispositions, and many another pleasant inheritance; all natural gifts which we accept as our birthright, quite as a matter of course, yet the lack of which are to so many life-long drawbacks for which all the world’s wealth cannot compensate.

And when to these personal gifts there is added the charm of being born and brought up in singularly lovely and delightful homes, nurtured in simple, practical faith and reverence for all holy things, and enfolded in the love of a large and attached home-circle, and the wider friendship of very numerous kinsfolk, equally happy in their surroundings, such an one is truly of the number of those “to whom much is given.”

Such has been my own experience of life, always surrounded by good influences.

My mother was the very embodiment of health and beauty, bodily and mental. In physical stature, tall and stately, but above all, great in soul and intellect. My father, Sir William Gordon-Cumming, Chief of Clan Comyn or Cumming, was as splendid a Highlander as ever trod the heather, only excelled in beauty and stature by his own second son, Roualeyn, who was certainly the grandest and most beautiful human being I have ever beheld.

My mother, Eliza Maria Campbell of Islay and Shawfield, had eight brothers and sisters, twenty-one nephews and nieces, and ever so many grand-nephews and nieces. My father had fifteen brothers and sisters (of whom seven died young), twenty-nine nephews and nieces, and thirty-four grand-nephews and nieces.

So I started in life with fifty first cousins, about twice as many second and third cousins, and collaterals without number, for the family tree had roots and branches ramifying in every direction; and as each group centred around some more or less notable home, it followed that England and Scotland were dotted over with points of family interest, in those good old days when it was held that “blood was thicker than water,” and kinship, however much diluted, was fully recognised.

Looking back to those numerous centres of cheery and hospitable welcome, I realise that they now exist only in memory. At best the old friends are replaced by a second or third generation, but too often the old homes have changed hands; iniquitous death-duties have done their malignant work in ruining the old landowners and dispersing the many retainers who for generations had worked on the estates, in healthy, peaceful country homes.

On the death of my grandfather, Sir Alexander Penrose Gordon Comyn, my father, then a minor, succeeded to the great estates of Altyre and Dallas, Gordonstoun, and Rose-isle, all in the county of Moray.

Although the Comyns have held Altyre for certainly seven hundred—probably a thousand years—(it was Sir Robert Comyn of Altyre who, on 10th February 1305, came to the rescue of his nephew Sir John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch, commonly called the Red Comyn, when he was stabbed by Bruce in the Greyfriars Church at Dumfries, and who was himself slain by Kirkpatrick)—they seem to have lived about seven miles from Altyre at the castle of Dallas (which for a while was called Torchastle), on a bleak, uninviting moorland. The very ruins of this have now disappeared, and a luxurious modern house has been built as a shooting-lodge.

At what date the original house of Altyre was built is uncertain, but contracts of marriage were there signed about 1581 and 1602 (the latter between James Cuming and Margaret, sister to Symon, Lord Fraser of Lovat). That old house was inhabited till A.D. 1789, when my grandfather, finding it too small for his sixteen children, bought Forres House, at Forres, from the Tullochs of Tannachie. On his death it became the dower-house of his widow, who died there in 1832. For a few years after their marriage, they had lived at Cothall, close to the river Findhorn, a very pleasant situation in a green meadow enclosed by old trees. Only a fragment of ruin now marks the spot.

My father’s intention always was to build an entirely new house on a hill about a mile from old Altyre. At great cost, he levelled the summit of the said hill, making an excellent carriage road, winding gently round to the proposed site, from which there is a wide, beautiful view, overlooking the Altyre and Darnaway woods, with a distant view of the pretty little town of Forres and of Findhorn Bay, and across the Moray Firth to the faint blue distant hills of Ross, Sutherland, Caithness, and Cromarty. It is a delightful spot, known to this day as “the Situation,” and for many years building thereon was the dream of my father’s life.

Close to the Situation, another heathery, fir-crowned hill has from time immemorial been known as the “Gallows Hill,” whereon any one who had the misfortune to incur the wrath of the knights of Altyre was ruthlessly hanged in the “good old days,” when it is related of one awe-stricken wife that she urged her unwilling husband to go quietly to his doom and “dinna anger the laird.”

As it was not convenient to begin at once building on the new site, my father and mother decided that for a while they would continue to live in the old house; and then began the laying out of those great, beautiful gardens and shrubberies of which comparatively little now remains—sacrificed to the changing taste of successive generations. They also laid out many miles of romantic woodland paths, which made the whole place a dream of delight. And so they became more and more disinclined to leave the home they had made so fascinating; and as their family increased they occasionally added a few rooms to the old place, which thus gradually developed into a picturesque patchwork, covered with climbing roses, honeysuckle, and jessamines, and beloved by the happy children, to whom it was indeed an earthly paradise, the profusion of flowering shrubs so lavishly planted in every direction adding their fragrance to that of the sweet woods.