The deer stalker’s chief mourner
THE A82, where it runs alongside the bonnie banks of Loch Lomond between Ardlui and Tarbet, is such a busy and potholed road these days, that you dare not risk taking your eyes off it even for a second. But if you are travelling south and the traffic is light, ask one of your passengers to look out for an upright stone standing a little way away from the carriageway, a few hundred yards before the Inveruglas visitor centre and the spectacular Loch Sloy power station.
The stone, about two-feet high, has a Gaelic inscription which you won’t be able to read from your vehicle. To do that you must park at the visitor centre and make your way back along the shore to find it again. There is no pavement, so don’t attempt to walk along the road!
The inscription reads: MAR CHUIMNEACHAN AIR IAIN MOR MACDHOMHNUILL SEALADAIR FHIADH A CHAIDH A MHARBHAIDH ANNS AN IONAID SO MIOS SAMHHNA 1900 (To the memory of Big Iain MacDonald, deer stalker, who met his death at this spot in the month of November 1900).
Iain MacDonald was a gamekeeper on Ardvorlich estate owned by Sir James Colquhoun of Luss, the fifth Baronet, whose father, also James, was drowned in a sudden storm on Loch Lomond in 1873 when he and others rowed out to bring back a deer for a Christmas feast.
John, or Iain, as he was known locally, used to cycle once or twice a week to Tarbet, a distance of 12 miles, for food and other provisions. He set off on the morning of Thursday November 30 accompanied by his dog. He, apparently, did not leave Tarbet till late and was last seen alive at about 10 o’clock that night on the road home.
All seems to have gone well until he came to the small bridge crossing the Allt an Ardain, about a mile from his destination. Colliding with one of the parapets in the dark, Iain was catapulted into the burn below. It was thought that he must have been going at a great speed, as his face was apparently so badly lacerated that his features could not be distinguished. There is, however, a local story that poachers put a wire across the bridge to get their own back for some incident.
The death certificate gave the cause as wounds from falling off a bicycle; the post mortem examination report submitted to the procurator fiscal by Dr Charles Edward Salmon, Tarbet, was more specific. ‘Asphyxia and shock, the result of fall about 11 feet from [the] bicycle into the said burn. Death immediate’.
It wasn’t until the following morning that a walker, crossing the bridge, found Iain’s body lying in the burn with his faithful dog still by his side, and relayed a message to the police. The body was taken away to Tarbet. I have no knowledge of where Iain was buried. He was a strong man of 36 and left a widow and two children.
Instances of dogs remaining with the bodies of their owners at the scene of an accident, or by their graves for years afterwards, are not unusual. The best-known, perhaps, is Greyfriars Bobby, a Skye terrier belonging to John Gray, who worked for the Edinburgh City Police as a night-watchman. When John Gray died he was buried in Greyfriars cemetery in the Old Town of Edinburgh.
Bobby is said to have sat by the grave for 14 years until he died himself on 14 January 1872 and was buried just inside the cemetery gate, not far from John Gray’s grave. A year later, an English philanthropist Lady Burdett-Coutts, was so taken by the story that she commissioned the sculptor William Brodie to produce a fountain topped with Bobby’s statue which can still be seen opposite the entrance to the churchyard.
Robert Henry Johnson, a little known mid-19th-century poet and gold miner, of Tambaroora in New South Wales, Australia, must have experienced the loss of a favourite companion when he composed a lovely poem, The Dog at his Master’s Grave: ‘There’s a mourner that mourns in that old churchyard, for he sleeps on that cold damp grave; he heedeth not winter stern and hard, no shelter doth he crave: nor while life shall last, will his memory fail for his old friend dead and gone. He sheddeth no tear, he maketh no wail, but his long night watch keeps on’.
At Meoble, near Loch Morar in West Inverness-shire, there is a grassy mound marking the grave of the son of a local laird, on which his favourite deerhound kept her lonely vigil following his early death. For many years her ghost returned when any of her master’s family were about to die.
Sir Edwin Landseer, the Victorian artist, is best remembered for his stirring painting of a magnificent stag called, the Monarch of the Glen, and four monumental bronze lions guarding Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square. For me, his finest and best picture is the Old Shepherd’s Chief Mourner. John Ruskin, one of the most famous art critics of Landseer’s day, praised this 1837 work, describing it as ‘one of the most perfect pictures which modern times have seen’.
Whenever I am in London I visit the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in South Kensington to see it. The gallery label tells viewers: ‘This scene of the sentimental devotion of a dog won praise and popularity for its famous artist, Edwin Landseer. The animals he painted display human feelings and characteristics. One of the important aims of British art of the day was to illustrate love and affection in paintings.’
The Old Shepherd’s Chief Mourner hangs in a darkened and crowded hallway of one of the galleries at the V&A. It would be easy to miss if you were not looking for it. The protective glass over the painting actually makes it difficult to see.
Although the label is factually accurate, it leaves out a large portion of the story, namely that it became an important part of animal welfare campaigns in the 19th century. For example, in March 1881, it was reproduced in the magazine of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Here, in a transposed image of human grief, a Highland collie rests its head on the plain wooden coffin containing the body of his companion, the “old shepherd”. That this dog refuses to leave his master’s side – even after death – highlights the bond that these two had.
The closeness of the dog’s breast against the coffin; the clinging of the legs, which has dragged the coarse woollen blanket off the trestle; the utter hopelessness in the eye; the spectacles marking the place where the Bible was last closed; the sprigs of sweet-scented bog-myrtle on the pall and on the floor; the quietness and serenity of the small room, is about as emotional and powerful as it gets. It is not difficult to imagine a similar scene the night before Ian Mor MacDonald of Ardvorlich was buried.