THE KING AMONG THE CLANSMEN.

Hokitika Guardian, 25 November 1919, Page 4

THE KING AMONG THE CLANSMEN.

(By Elizabeth Craig, in the 'London ‘Daily Mail’ of September 9.) Highland gatherings in Scotland are as numerous as race meetings in England, but, unlike the race meetings, on one only does royalty smile. And that is Braemar. Beautiful, heather-fringed, fir-soented Btraemar, where the famous Highland gathering takes place to-day. It is six long years since the King and Queen visited Balmoral, which lies further down the glen at the foot -of Loehnagar. And only the country folk know what their absence has meant. No gathering. None of the quiet autumn pageantry so dear to the hearts of the clansmen- In fact, the pearly village might have been any sort of a village instead of the brawest hamlet in all Scotland. But now Braemar is herself again.

Royalty, breathes in .the air. There is stir. There is laughter. No more do the pipes wail out heartrending laments for the passing of some brave man on the field of war. Day in, day out, the folk have been spending their ,'soulfs in the fir'e-time of reels and jig of strathspeys in anticipation of to-day. There is nothing quite so wonderful as the wonder of this gathering. It is the one event in year to which all troop. From far and near from cottage and castle, up from lone Glenmuick and southern Glenshee, down the Braes of Mar, along the Banks o’ Dee they come in their thousands just as in the old clan days they rushed to the call of the Fiery Cross. Then the march of the Highlanders. The Balmorals are leading, with the King’s Commissioner, swinging in front Royal Stuart is their tartan, their badge of thistle and oak leaves, and they carry Lochaber axes agleam in the sun.

Behind came the Duffs in their own tartan, and badged with holly, their ugly spikes held proudly aloft. And the chieftain’s men, the Farquharsons, bring up the fear. In the striking clan tartan, with fir badges in bonnets, they sway along, their claymores cleaving their air, while each clan has its pipers and slogans as well. They line up and hem the white road that leads from Balmoral to await the coming of their chief, Mr A. H. Farquharson of Invercauld, who arrives first to welcome the King and Queen.

Then silence. . . You can almost blear the pulse of the Glen. . . Suddenly the pipes shried their souls out in ‘Hielan’ Laddie’ ... a glint of scarlet as the outriders prance by . . . and the King, in Royal Stuart hunting tartan, and the Queen drive through the kilted bodyguard—right up to the royal pavil ion, gay in its heathered aend rowanberried trimmings.

To-day the champion athletes, fresh from tbo htirly-burly of war, will throw ttye hammer and toss the caber as never before.

Up Braemar way Scotland is herself again. ~