AND ANOTHER THING
An elegy to a tall Highlander with whom I walked the hills
PAUL JOHNSON
The worst thing about growing older is not the decline of physical powers — I can steel myself to that — but the loss of friends, which leaves gaping holes in your life you know can never be filled. It is par- ticularly hard when the friend you lose is younger, someone you'd counted on to see you through to the end.
Last Saturday, Simon Fraser, my High- land walking companion for more than 20 years, died without warning. His going was, in a way, glorious. He was mounted on his favourite horse, in full hunting pink, in which, as always, he look magnificent, a fig- ure from pure romance, and he was leading the local drag-hunt in the park of his castle, its rose-brown granite glittering in warm spring sunshine. There was no pain, just the swift closing of a full, strenuous and happy life. He was more than a decade younger than I am, superlatively fit, always riding, climbing, skiing, voyaging all over the world, never ill, ready for any challenge or adventure. It was a constant struggle for me, puffing and panting, to keep up with his long, effortless Highlander's stride. I felt, 'So long as I can still walk with Simon, and not fall too far behind, I'm not really an old man.'
We climbed chiefly the big hills at the head of the glen he owned, especially Sgorr na Lapaich, the tallest (3,773 feet) and most varied, with as many queenly profiles as there are angles of approach up her tawny flanks. I have painted them all, hur- rying ahead of Simon to get ten minutes' grace for a quick sketch before his relent- less stride overtook me again. I have scores, perhaps hundreds, of little watercolours of the glen, sometimes with Simon in them, sitting on a rock, at his feet one of his majestic succession of black labradors, especially the lithe and graceful Roly, whom he loved so much.
One thing I envied even more than his stamina was his eyesight. Like an African tracker's, his eye was constantly and sys- tematically roaming over the hills, so that he could spot the red deer from a mile or more away, long before they saw us. This was the fruit of many years stalking. He could no longer bear to cull the fine crea- tures, but he retained all the instincts of the sport, especially a keen feeling for the wind and its abrupt changes of direction, and a sense of what a watchful herd was thinking. So often we would get close to a great mass of them, resting and blending totally with the ground, before they finally became aware of us Then they would rise, a hun- dred — sometimes a thousand — strong, and it was as if the entire hillside suddenly came to life and raced for the shelter of the horizon.
It was our good fortune, almost always on a long day's walk, to spot a pair of gold- en eagles, creatures he knew intimately. It was his theory that their devastating power and mastery of the air currents made them preternaturally lazy, so that they preferred to glide and gyrate for a mile rather than flap on giant, languorous wing. 'But,' he added, 'they are most curious birds.' We saw this for ourselves once, when we were out climbing with Simon's enchanting wife, Virginia. We were planning to go up our second favourite mountain, Sgorr a Choir Ghlais, but first Simon, who had a portable rod, descended to the lochan to the north of it, in the hope of finding a trout. I went with him, while Virginia lay down and dozed in the bright sunshine on the col above. After a few fruitless casts, we were climbing up again when we became aware that an enormous eagle — the largest we had ever seen — was circling low over Vir- ginia. He had spotted the sleeping beauty and was slowly descending to investigate further. Would he have seized her — he looked strong enough — and carried her off to his eyrie? I shall never know, for our shouts startled the noble monster, and with a few beats of his enormous wings he was off into the stratosphere.
Across the glen, high among the primor- dial pine-forest, there is indeed an eyrie, sometimes occupied, which we often stud- ied from above through field-glasses. Simon believed it was of great antiquity, going back to the 17th century — musty, archaeological layers of twigs supporting in turn generations of fierce eaglets. It was already old when Prince Charles Edward, with a few hunted followers, straggled up the glen after the catastrophe of Culloden, heading for the west coast and safety.
Indeed, everything is old in these parts. Simon's castle dates from the 12th century, though it was rebuilt in the 1930s, after a disastrous fire. On a recent visit I talked to the old master-mason, who as a lad helped to match and set in place the granite ash- lars of the main façade. Simon liked to jest about the fire: how the clansmen had hur- ried from the neighbourhood to rescue the castle's contents before the flames con- sumed them; but, being simple High- landers, had brought out what they them- selves most valued, so that priceless portraits and heirlooms were left behind, while the men staggered out carrying vast stuffed heads of 12-pointer stags.
Simon had a strong sense of his responsi- bilities towards his great inheritance and sought earnestly to give it long-term pro- tection by anchoring it in the future. Among other enterprises, he built a salmon fishery and the most modern water-bottling plant in Europe. He was always devising schemes to provide well-paid, secure employment for the clansmen and women.
When I was last there, in January, he took me up to a wild stretch of moorland where he planned to erect a wind-farm. He had carefully chosen it to be out of sight and earshot of any human habitation, and so that the tall sails would not spoil any of the horizons we cherished. It was a day of fierce cold and intense sunshine, and the entire gigantic wilderness was under deep snow and ice. I had never seen Simon's kingdom looking so spectacular, as though it stretched to Arctic infinity, and I am glad I had the hardihood to sit down and record it in watercolour. This will be my last visual record of our times in the big hills of the north, but the figure of the tall Highlander I loved will stride through my memory until my own time is come.
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