slash'd
short waistcoats, a trousing (which is breechen and stockings of one
piece of striped stuff), with a plaid for a cloak and a blue bonnet.
They have a ponyard knife and a fork in one sheath, hanging at one side
of their belt, their pistol at the other, and their snuff-mull before,
with a great broadsword by their side. Their attendance was very
numerous, all in belted plaids, girt like women's petticoats down to
the knee, their thighs and half of the leg all bare. They had each
also their broadsword and poynard, and spake all Irish, an
unintelligible language to the English. However, these poor creatures
hired themselves out for a shilling a day to drive cattle to England,
and to return home at their own charge. There was no leaving anything
loose here but it would have been stolen."

The Michaelmas Market was shorn of its glory and its picturesque aspect
by the transference of the cattle tryst to Falkirk in 1770. There was
occasional bloodshed at these gatherings, the peace being with
difficulty preserved by the authority of the Lord of Drummond, who
collected the customs of the fairs of Crieff and Foulis. These customs
amounted, in 1734, to nearly L600 Scots. The Lochaber axes carried by
the guardians of the peace may still be seen in the armoury at Drummond
Castle. This last shred of baronial supervision--the ghost of the
ancient Stewardship--disappeared in 1831. But perhaps the most
interesting memorial of the Crieff Michaelmas Tryst is a poem written
by one of the Highland drovers, whose appearance moved the compassion
of Macky, the tourist of 1723. His name is Robert Doun or Donn. He
had left his heart behind him in his native glen, as people will do,
drovers as well as others. There is a ring of genuine poetry in the
verses in which he expresses his love-sickness--his desire to go upon
the wings of the wind as it whistles northward, northward:--

"Easy is my bed--it is easy,
But it is not to sleep that I incline.
The wind whistles northwards, northwards,
And my thoughts move with it.
More pleasant were it to be with thee
In the little glen of calves
Than to be counting of droves
In the enclosures of Crieff."

Mention of the name of Robert Doun brings up recollections of another
literary name--that of David Mallet, or Malloch, who is said to have
been born in Crieff. He has the honour of being mentioned several
times in Boswell's _Life of Johnson_. The latter had no gr