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Dr John Stewart of Findynate

From 'Reminiscences and Reflections of an Octogenarian Highlander' by Duncan Campbell. Inverness 1910.

Dr John Stewart of Findynate had been a navy surgeon for many years, and when he came home to reside on his small ancestral property in Strathtay, and to establish for himself a medical practice over a large district, he was found still to be a Highlander of Highlanders in language and sympathies.

He was one of the small lairds of long descent who helped much to link all classes together and to sweeten the social life of their locality and their age. He gave the tinkers a camping-place on his property, where they took care to comport themselves so well that no fault could be justly found with them by Justices of the Peace - of which body he was himself a member - nor by ministers, kirk sessions, or the country people. When they encamped on his ground he looked to it that they should send their children to school well cleaned, and as decently clothed as circumstances allowed.

The camping ground was open to bands of all surnames, but if two bands came at the same time they had to keep the peace among themselves, or woe to the offenders. The tinkers who used the royal surname of Stewart - and they were numerous - looked up to Findynate as their special or almost heaven-born Chief, and those of other surnames were not much behind them in their devotion and obedience to him. When the country had no rural police, and kilns were numerous, and there was a large and steady demand for horn spoons and tinsmith's work, the tinkers had a tolerably good time of it, although their old silversmith work had come to an end with the eighteenth century in most places. As his part of the country was as orderly and as law-abiding as could be wished, Findynate did not see the necessity for Sir Robert Peel's bluecoated police.

He soon came into collision with the one who was stationed at Aberfeldy. He was driving in his dogcart one day to visit a patient whose house was some twenty miles up the country, and when he reached the Weem toll-bar he met the new policeman with a little tinker widow woman in tow. She was a daughter of old Duncan, and her proper name was Jean MacArthur, but she was known on both sides of the Grampians by the nickname of "Co-leaic," whatever that strange compound word might mean. Amazed at seeing the harmless Co-leaic interfered with, Findynate pulled up his horse, and in fiery wrath - for his just indignation at anything which looked to him like oppression of the weak flared up like kindled tow - shouted to the policeman, "Let that woman go. Why have you dared to stop her?"

"I have stopped her" replied the policeman, "because she is a vagrant." "She is," was the stern retort, "what she was born to be. She was at school with me. She has brave sons in the British army. I know her history, and will be her warrant that she has always been a decent harmless body. Let her go at once if you do not want to get into trouble for being over officious." Then turning to the Co-leaic he asked her "Where were you going when this man stopped you?" She mentioned a farm some miles further up the water. "I'll be driving past it," said he, "so get up on the back seat and I'll take you there." In this manner demure little Jean was carried off triumphantly and the over-zealous policeman was left discomfited.

Politically a Tory of the Tories,  our worthy doctor was practically a democratic feudalist with a sympathetic heart, unpaid services, an open hand and a loud voice in denunciation of oppression and persuasive in pleading for the poor and afflicted. To take the tinker class as the lowest I verily believe he did more good among them by blending kindness with scoldings and quarter-deck discipline than any of the agencies for redeeming them which have been since then set on foot. And they repaid him with reverential devotion and worshipful loyalty. I had in later years, when schoolmaster and registrar at Fortingall a singularly touching proof of the feelings his tinker people entertained towards him.

On a winter day, when the roads were slushy after a heavy fall of snow and showers were still falling, a young sprightly tinker girl of twenty or thereabouts who, if well washed and dressed, would have been called a pretty girl anywhere, came to my house. She had a newly-born, well-wrapt babe clasped to her bosom, and her errand was to get it registered. She sat by the kitchen fire crooning in the pride of young motherhood to the pink morsel of humanity while I went for the register, and my sister made tea for her. When questioned as to the date of birth and other usual particulars, the story, in all respects a true one, which she had to tell was an amazing one.

The child was not yet 48 hours old, and yet she had, through the slushy roads, walked with it that day four long Scotch miles to get it registered. She made quite light of that feat of hardihood, but shuddered a little in telling what preceded the child's birth. She and her young husband were with the band to which they belonged in Bunrannoch when she began to think that it was nearly her time, and insisted on going away with her man at once, that their child might be born on Findynate's land, where she had been born herself.

"When more than half way over the hill, the snowstorm," she said, "burst suddenly upon us and after struggling for a while with the storm, I became weary-worn, and my trouble began. Happily the hill barn above the Garth farmhouses was near, and my lad, the dear fellow, carried me and laid me therein. He ran himself - 'le anail na uchd' - to the farmhouses for help. And good women, with blankets and lights, for it was no mirk night, came to me, and could not have been kinder if they had been angels from heaven. My bairn was born in the barn, but they soon carried us both to a comfortable bed and warn fireside. It is a pity that the bairn was not born at Findynate, but it is a mercy he is a boy, and that he is to be baptised John Stewart."

"But," I hinted, "your husband does not call himself a Stewart?" "Well," she replied, "I am a Stewart and my first-born is to be baptised John Stewart.' When the entry was completed, she was getting her second cup of tea, and I asked he if she would like an ember in it. "Oh," she said, "I want to be a strictly sober woman all my life, but today a drop of spirits would go down - deas-toabh mo chleibh - the right side of my heart."

So the second cup was laced with whisky, and having merrily thanked us and drunk it up, she went on her way rejoicing.

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