The Eyes of Love

AUTHOR’S NOTEFrom boyhood a Highland Chief began to understand, or at least to enjoy, his peculiar position in life. He was of the same blood, name and descent of his people, but he stood halfway between them and God. Edward Burt wrote in the eighteenth century, “The ordinary Highlanders esteem it the most sublime degree of virtue to love their Chief and pay him a blind obedience although it may be in opposition to the Government, the Laws of the Kingdom or even the Law of God. He is their idol and, as they profess to know no King but him, so will they say they ought to do whatever he commands.” A Chief was not distinguished by the degree of his fortune or by the splendour of his dress, although some walked like peacocks in tartan and silver. Thus did a Macdonald of Keppoch boast that his rent-roll was five hundred fighting men. In such a climate of pride and sensitive honour the hospitality of the Highlands was more often manifest vanity. When this same Keppoch was told by a guest of the great candelabra to be seen in the houses of England, he ringed his table with tall Clansmen, each holding aloft a flaming pine-knot. The Keppoch grinned at his guest. “Where in England, France or Italy, is there a house with such candlesticks?” he asked. A Scot is always a Scot and wherever he goes his instinctive love for ‘Bonnie Scotland’ is always uppermost in his mind and heart.