The son of Ludovick of Gordonstoun and the second laird to bear the name Sir Robert of Gordonstoun, was one of the most colourful and intriguing character to have ever lived in this part of Morayshire.
Sir Ludovick of Gordonstoun’s heir Robert was born in 1647. This was at a time when the Renaissance had blossomed all over Europe giving inspiration to men of a scholarly bent who were wealthy enough to indulge their interests in the new culture, in questioning beliefs, testing new scientific thinking and in mathematical studies. The great Galileo was not long dead and Sir Isaac Newton was born as the first Sir Robert, Ludovick's father, took over Gordonstoun house. Robert Boyle, one of the founders of the Royal Society was only 20 years older than Sir Robert and had correspondence with him on matters scientific . It seems that quite early in his youth the young Robert showed himself to be more like his learned grandfather than his father in his preference for learning rather than estate management and so he was sent to Italy to study at the University of Padua where he met some of the finest scientific minds of his day.
When he returned to Gordonstoun Robert began to collect what would become an impressively large library. He also set up a workshop and laboratory on the ground floor of the house where fires could be seen burning late into the night. Multi-coloured flames and shadows dancing behind mullioned windows no doubt began the legends that grew around this man who was somewhat of a recluse. To the uneducated people of Moray it was obvious that he was a wizard and it is quite probable that he encouraged such talk because in those days when the only law-keepers and discipline dispensers were the landed gentry, it increased the awe in which he was held and made it easier for him to keep discipline amongst his tenants without having to expend much effort. Fear of enchantment was a terrible deterrent to the superstitious. It also meant they left him in peace to do what absorbed him most.
So it was that word got about of a fire spirit raised from the regions beyond death by the laird in his furnace. This fire spirit could tell Sir Robert secrets unknown to the rest of humankind, and, furthermore, in his lust for yet more knowledge of the natural orders (denied to humans by the King of Heaven for their own good,) the wizard laird had, whilst in Padua, entered into a pact with Satan, called forth by blasphemous symbols, incantations and perhaps even sacrifice.
Satan would naturally have charged the usual price to give up the secrets of the universe, that is to say he would have demanded a human soul. Being a gentleman Sir Robert had undertaken to pay the price himself at the end of one year.
It amuses me to think that the same mechanism of denial operating when folk fall to the temptation of buying a three-piece suite with ‘Nothing to pay until 2015’ must have been similar to Sir Robert’s hopeful expectation of some future lucky event intervening to annul the final reckoning to this pact. The future is a safe place where the very course of history can have changed so that payment may never have to be made at all. It seems quite credible that when one year later to the second, in the full heat and sunlight of an Italian afternoon, the dapper gentleman in black appeared for the rendering of his account Robert had forgotten the agreement and been startled by this unpleasant demand for his soul. However his wits did not desert him entirely. He looked up and down the empty thoroughfare and seeing but one moving object with any claim to life pointed to his shadow crying ‘Take him instead!’
We are told the Devil is one for a jest and that he appreciates above all a spirit of courage and impudence in his future prey so with a great roar of laughter he agreed to take the shadow which promptly disappeared from the ground. Then he told Robert in merry tones: ‘You have bought yourself 25 years more for your quick thinking but I WILL have your soul Robert. All Hallow’s e’en 25 years from this day we will roast your soul together.’
So it came to pass that when Robert returned to Gordonstoun he was never to be seen except in cloudy weather, for if the Kirk had come to hear that he lacked a shadow they would have had the proof to take him for sorcery, and the punishment for that was the stake.
Many tales were told but none could be proven. It is said that one frosty night when he was due at an appointment in Elgin he set off in his coach to cross the loch by ferry (as loch there was in those days.) When the coachman brought them to the edge they found that there was a covering of ice just thick enough to prevent the ferry from setting out but not thick enough to drive across. Fearing he would be late, Robert told the coachman to drive on across the loch keeping his eyes fastened to the other shore and not looking back whatever drew him to do so or the devil would drown them both.
In fear the coachman drove and in awe he found the ice held them. Unfortunately, like Lot’s wife, natural curiosity got the better of him before he quite reached the other bank and he turned his head to look back at the laird. What he saw caused him to tremble so much he lost the reins. A great black crow sat on the Laird’s shoulder. The moment it saw the coachman turn it flew cawing angrily into the air and the coach sank up to its axles in the mud.
Twenty five years passed and this time Sir Robert did not forget his soul was in danger. When the stables and barns at Gordonstoun were in need of replacing he designed a new building with this very event in mind and with all the cunning of a learned mathematician. It was the fashion to build such amenities slightly away from the main house and in the form of a hollow square , that is four sides of the necessary accommodation for coach, horses and fodder, around a courtyard with an archway for entrance. He had instead built what is now called ‘The Round Square’ designed to his own mathematical calculations to have no corner in which the devil could catch him.
However, when the time drew near it seems Sir Robert did begin to doubt his own cleverness and he sent the same coachman who had attempted to cross the Spynie Loch to fetch the parson of Duffus to spend the evening with him. He also set the clocks forward an hour to confuse the devil and to give himself time to make a bolt for it if necessary.
The parson came and was dully wined and dined until warm with hospitality they both sat by the fire in the great room, then Sir Robert told the increasingly distressed parson of his foolish youth and of the dreadful pact he had made. As he talked his eyes turned often to the clock. When the hand reached midnight one of the window panes burst in bringing with it a great gust of wind and a diabolical voice boomed out: ‘ Now Robert, your hour has come!’
‘Oh no’ shouted the wily laird, ‘ I have changed the clocks. I have still one hour more to call my soul my own!.’
The devil laughed heartily. ‘Very well, but this is the last time you make sport with me! In one hour I shall claim your soul.’
The parson pleaded with Robert to make haste to the only place holy enough to keep him safe, the Kirk at Birnie. Robert still claimed his Round Square would do the job but the parsons’ pleading must have finally shaken his belief in himself because he set out for Byrnie kirkyard at a run taking the route he thought the devil least likely to know.
Now it happened that the Rev. John M’Kean of Birnie had been out visiting in Alves on ecclesiastical matters and was returning home shortly before midnight when he heard the footsteps of a man running in his direction. The man soon came level with him and hardly pausing in his stride called to him ‘tell me man, am I on the right road for Birnie Kirk?’ Recognising Sir Robert’s voice the minister hastened to assure him that he was indeed on the right road and before he could ask what the trouble was the laird had disappeared into the mists ahead of him, leaving the reverend very perturbed. Why should the laird of Gordonstoun be running so far and in such evident desperation at midnight?
No sooner had he collected himself and started on his way again than he heard the thudding of hooves behind him. A rider drew abreast of him on a jet black horse, his own form covered with a dark hooded cloak beneath which his face was just another shadow in the night. From this form came an unpleasantly guttural and wheezing voice asking: ‘Has a man passed this way?
The minister was about to say that yes, Sir Robert of Gordonstoun had just run on toward the kirk when some intimation of evil in the thing that had asked the question pulled him up short and he bethought him of Sir Robert who had never done harm to him, nor indeed as far as he had heard to any other man, so instead he shook his head and declared ‘No. Not a soul has passed this way.’
The horse plunged on into the darkness. As it disappeared from sight the reverend was even more disturbed to see what looked like two large four-footed creatures following it. Full of misgiving, and with the ominous foreboding of preternatural doom the minister walked on, as silently as he could for fear of being found again by what he know was sure was a fiend from the nether worlds of hell.
In a short time he heard hoof beats and the horrid sound of hunting dogs. He shrank back into the bushes as a sudden break in the cloud let through veins of blue-white light from the moon by which he saw the horse and rider returning, but this time across the saddle lay a bleeding human body with the fangs of a great wolfhound still hanging on its throat, another three hounds baying on behind. The horse slowed as it passed him and he heard the voice of the fiend growl out ‘I shall return in time for thee.’ Then the devil disappeared into a smoking cavern which opened in the ground at the horse’s feet. The minister, praying fervently but to no avail, stumbled on toward his home which alas he never reached because he was overtaken once more by the ghastly entourage and in the morning was found dead on the path, his throat torn out as though by a wild animal.
And so, by common consent, came the end of the wizard, Sir Robert of Gordonstoun. Those who tell you he died in his bed at a grand old age are surely mistaken.
Sources:
‘The Michael Kirk, Gordonstoun and its historical background’ Edward Lightowler. Paul Harris Publishing, Edinburgh 1980
(Where we read that for 150 years after the death of Sir Robert, the Michael Kirk which was built as a mausoleum for his body by his second wife Elizabeth Dunbar, was to be avoided after dark for fear of spectral presences.)
‘The Lintie O’Moray being a collection of poems chiefly composed for and sung at the anniversaries of the Edinburgh Morayshire Society from 1829 to 1841.’ Compiled for the 1851 edition by George Cumming and for a second edition, published in 1887, by Charles Rampini , sheriff of Caithness, Orkney and Shetland.
No comments:
Post a Comment