The homing instincts of dogs, especially collies, are legendary, but the dog in the following story, sent to me by a correspondent in Oban, must have been exceptional.
The tale began on the south shores of Loch Sunart when the tenant of Laudale Estate, the late John Andrew Fletcher, found one his collies worrying sheep so he decided to dispose of it.
On his way down to the shore with his gun he met one of the crew of a Clyde fishing boat that had come into the loch for shelter during a spell of bad weather. During the conversation, the crewman asked Mr Fletcher what he was doing that morning. When he heard that the dog was about to be shot, he asked if he could have it as he liked the look of it.
The weather abated and the fishing boat departed for its home port. As it entered the river Clyde the dog, deciding that it did not like the sea or the look of its new surroundings, leapt overboard and swam ashore. Three weeks later it turned up on the doorstep of Laudale House 150 miles away. Perhaps it knew the reason for its banishment because it never again worried sheep.
The Fletchers were a Mull family from the Lochdonhead area and well known for their knowledge of sheep and cattle.
They came to Morvern in 1871 to manage Glencripesdale Estate for three brothers from Birmingham, William, Horace and Thomas Henry Newton (the first two were Church of England clergymen), who considered buying the island of Lismore but had the good sense to realise the disadvantages of having a holiday retreat so close to burgeoning Oban and quickly moved on.
John Andrew Fletcher took over the tenancy and factorship of Laudale from his father, Archibald, who died in 1903. Between them, father and son established a fold of Highland cattle whose strain is still to be found among some of the best pedigree herds in Europe. John Andrew died in 1948 and his ashes are scattered on the ridge above Laudale House.
The Fletchers must have lived on Mull for generations because an arrangement existed between them and the Curries, another very old local family, that when a Fletcher died the Curries were to have the first “lift” of the coffin and the same when a Currie died, the Fletchers were to have the like right. The custom, a bond, was apparently the outcome of a fight to the death between a Fletcher and a Currie alone on some hillside on Mull many centuries ago.
Returning to maritime matters. A friend told me a good story recently of a well-known family of distillers who, many years ago, used to spend a lot of time sailing around the West Coast. Occasionally when they went into a bay at the end of the day and wanted fresh food or a change of diet, they would look for a lobster pot buoy.
They’d pull up a creel and if it contained a good-sized lobster, they would replace it with a bottle of their own whisky. I don’t know who got the best deal – probably the fisherman as lobsters in these days were 10-a-penny, but I would like to have seen the expression on his face when he saw what he had caught!
Traditional Christian names are coming back into fashion according to a recent national survey. Not so long ago it was the custom in the Highlands and islands to name new born females after close male relatives who had died from natural causes or had been killed in the war. Hence, we have, Hughina, Murdina, Wilhelmina and Donalda to give just a few examples.
There was also a well-established formula for carrying forward family names which, if strictly adhered to, would allow anyone to trace their forebears without having to rely on written records which really did not come into being much before 1855 other than what might be recorded in family Bibles.
The first son was called after his father’s father; the second son after his mother’s father, the third son after his father’s father’s father; the fourth son after his mother’s mother’s father; the fifth son after his father’s mother’s father; the sixth son after his mother’s father’s father and the 11th through to the 14th sons after their mother’s four great grandfathers.
The first daughter was named after her mother’s mother; the second daughter after her father’s mother; the third daughter after her mother’s father’s mother; the fourth daughter after her father’s father’s mother; the fifth daughter after her mother’s mother’s mother; the sixth daughter after her father’s mother’s mother; the seventh through to the 10th daughters after their mother’s four great grandmothers and the 11th through to the 14th daughters after their father’s four great grandmothers.
How the parents remembered all this rigmarole is almost beyond belief but of course the human memory appears less flexible or reliable today than it was yesterday!
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