lady coming to church with a maid behind her carrying her shoes and
stockings, which she put on at a little distance from the church.
Indeed, from what he says, it would seem to have been quite common
for those in the position of ladies and gentlemen to go about in
this free and easy fashion. Their motives for doing so were no doubt
those of economy and comfort--not because they had neither shoes nor
stockings to put on. The practice is quite common at the present day
in Scotland, for both respectable men and women when travelling on
a dusty road on a broiling summer-day, to do so on their bare feet,
as being so much more comfortable and less tiresome than travelling
in heavy boots and thick worsted stockings. No one thinks the worse
of them for it, nor infers that they must be wretchedly ill off. The
practice has evidently at one time been much more common even among
the higher classes, but, like many other customs, lingers now only
among the common people.
From all we can learn, however, the chiefs and their more immediate
dependants and relations appear by no means to have been ill-off, so
far as the necessaries of life went, previous to the rebellion of
1745. They certainly had not a superfluity of money, but many of the
chiefs were profuse in their hospitality, and had always abundance
if not variety to eat and drink. Indeed it is well known, that
about 200 years before the rebellion, an enactment had to be made
by parliament limiting the amount of wine and brandy to be used by
the various chiefs. Claret, in Captain Burt’s time, was as common in
and around Inverness as it was in Edinburgh; the English soldiers
are said to have found it selling at sixpence a quart, and left it
at three or four times that price. In their habits and mode of life,
their houses and other surroundings, these Highland gentlemen were no
doubt rough and rude and devoid of luxuries, and not over particular
as to cleanliness either of body or utensils, but still always
dignified and courteous, respectful to their superiors and affable
to their inferiors. Highland pride is still proverbial, and while
often very amusing and even pitiable, has often been of considerable
service to those who possess it, stimulating them to keep up their
self-respect and to do their best in whatever situation they may be
placed. It was this pride that made the poorest and most tattered of
the tacksmen tenants with whom Burt came in contact, conduct himself
as if he had been lord of all he surveyed, and look with suspicion
and perhaps with contempt upon the unknown English red-coat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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