Perthshire and Kinross

Logie Robertson was one of our foremost Scottish minor poets. He was born and brought up in Milnathort. Mr. Robertson became a school teacher, and for 37 years
was head English master in the Edinburgh Ladies’ College.
He was much beloved by his pupils, and by his nthusiasm
for his subject he instilled into them a taste for good
literature and a love for it which remained with them ever
after. He had a great love for Loch Leven and its sur-
roundings, and from his class-room he could see the
Lomond Hills, and, like an exile far from home, he felt
the drawing power of these. This comes out clearly in
his poem “Balgedie,” a village at the foot of the Bishop
Hill.

“It sleeps among the trees,
To the hummin’ o’ the bees,
Frae the sowin’ o’ the seed till the barley’s ready,
Then it waukens to a strife
For the dear staff o’ life,
An’ sleeps a’ the winter again, does Balgedie.

“Auld Reekie’s fu’ o’ stour,
An’ I’m deaved every hour,
Frae the time I get up till I gang to my beddie,
But the Loch’s caller gleam,
I see it in my dream,
And I hear the bees hummin’ on the Braes o’ Balgedie.

“0 gin I were a doo,
I wad flee awa the noo,
Wi my neb to the Lomond and my wings wavin’ steady,
And I wadna rest a fit
Till at gloamin’ I wad sit
Wi’ ither neebour doos on the lums o’ Balgedie.

Mr. Robertson was in the habit of contributing verses
to the Scotsman, written after the manner of the Odes of Horace, which he called “Horace in Homespun.” These
were signed ‘‘Hugh Haliburton,’’ who was supposed to be
a shepherd on the Ochils. These odes appeared in the
Scotsman weekly for a long period. They are of great
merit and deal with an infinite variety of subjects. On
the Ochilside they were familiarly called ‘Hughies.”
‘Anither Hughie’s oot the day’’ was a common saying
among the hill farmers. Like most Kinross-shire men
he was a keen angler anti wrote some angling songs. Here is a verse of one:

“When Adam in Eden grew tired o’ his life,
Diggin and delvin’, they gied him a wife
Had they gi’en him a gaud wi a line an’ a flee,
Commonsense wad hae keepit him aff o’ the tree
He wad ne’er hae gaen near it ae stap o’ his fit,
He rnicht hae been fishin the Hiddekel yet.”

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