The Reminiscences of Joseph D. Grant

Abstract

A dam Grant was born at Lairg, in Sutherland, Scotland, on September / 24,1830. When I visited Lairg, some years ago, I found a pretty little JL JL clachan (village) clustered about a kirk which overlooks Loch Shin (long and narrow like a fiord); and not far away is the coast town of Dor noch, famous for its golf links and as the seat of the laird of Skibo, the late Andrew Carnegie. If I had wondered why my father left his native land, I soon found out. Optimistic crofters grow oats near Lairg, and it is true that the grandfather of the present duke of Sutherland attempted to grow oranges. Sheep do well on the lower foothills. But east, west, and north of the tiny town are great windswept moors where a man can wander for hours without spying a single shieling (small cottage). Above and beyond these are the mountains. Croft ers have tried to live in this wild country, the natural home of the grouse and the tall red deer, and have failed. A Scot hates to leave Scotland. My father left Lairg because he realized that the banks and braes of Lairg were not bonnie, for all their steeping in history and tradition: Picts' houses, cham bered tumuli, rise out of Loch Naver; and here and there are reminders of the Norsemen. Although today three-fourths of the inhabitants of this county of Scotland speak Gaelic better than English, there runs in them a strong Nordic strain, indicated physically in the bright blue eyes and fair complexion of many of the people. According to ethnologists, the Sutherland Highlanders are the tallest men in Europe; but Adam Grant, fair of complexion and hair, was only of middle height though strongly built. Eloquent testimony of the martial bent of Clan Grant is the crest of one branch of the family: a hand brandishing a broad sword, with the motto, Stand fast, stand sure! The Grants of Lairg, how ever, have as their emblem a mountain surmounted by a forest; and when Adam Grant, a sapling of some fourteen years, left his native heather, he car ried with him little more than the promise implied in the family emblem to stand fast and sure.