The division of races is
more sharply marked within the borders of Scotland itself than
between the countries. Galloway and Buchan, Lothian and Lochaber,
are like foreign parts; yet you may choose a man from any of them,
and, ten to one, he shall prove to have the headmark of a Scot. A
century and a half ago the Highlander wore a different costume,
spoke a different language, worshipped in another church, held
different morals, and obeyed a different social constitution from
his fellow-countrymen either of the south or north. Even the
English, it is recorded, did not loathe the Highlander and the
Highland costume as they were loathed by the remainder of the
Scotch. Yet the Highlander felt himself a Scot. He would
willingly raid into the Scotch lowlands; but his courage failed him
at the border, and he regarded England as a perilous, unhomely
land. When the Black Watch, after years of foreign service,
returned to Scotland, veterans leaped out and kissed the earth at
Port Patrick. They had been in Ireland, stationed among men of
their own race and language, where they were well liked and treated
with affection; but it was the soil of Galloway that they kissed at
the extreme end of the hostile lowlands, among a people who did not
understand their speech, and who had hated, harried, and hanged
them since the dawn of history.
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