to which every highlander
will rise, with money or arms in hand, and for it he will lay down his
last dollar, the last drop of his blood. There is scarce any limit to
which this fealty will not go. Your brother or cousin may have committed
a crime that shocks you as it does all other decent citizens; but will
you give him up to the officers and testify against him? Not if you are
a mountaineer. You will hide him out in the laurel, carry him food, keep
him posted, help him to break jail, perjure yourself for him in
court--anything, everything, to get him clear.

We see here a survival, very real and widespread, in this
twentieth-century Appalachia, of a condition that was general throughout
the Scotch Highlands in the far past. "The great virtue of the
Highlander," says Lecky, "was his fidelity to his chief and to his clan.
It took the place of patriotism and of loyalty to his sovereign.... In
the reign of James V., an insurrection of Clan Chattan having been
suppressed by Murray, two hundred of the insurgents were condemned to
death. Each one as he was led to the gallows was offered a pardon if he
would reveal the hiding-place of his chief, but they all answered that,
were they acquainted with it, no sort of punishment could induce them to
be guilty of treachery to their leader.... In 1745 the house of
Macpherson of Cluny was burnt to the ground by the King's troops. A
reward of L1,000 was offered for his apprehension. A large body of
soldiers was stationed in the district and a step of promotion was
promised to any officer who should secure him. Yet for nine years the
chief was able to live concealed on his own property in a cave which his
clansmen dug for him during the night, and, though upwards of one
hundred persons knew of his place of retreat, no bribe or menace could
extort the secret."

The same chivalrous, self-sacrificing fidelity to family and to clan
leader is still shown by our own highlanders, as scores of feuds and
hundreds of criminal trials attest. All this is openly and unblushingly
"above the law"; but let us remember that the law itself, in many of
these localities, is but a feeble, dilatory thing that offers
practically no protection to those who would obey its letter. So, in an
imperfectly organized society, it is good to have blood-ties that are
faithful unto death. And none knows it better than he who has missed
it--he who has lived strange and alone in some wild, lawless region
where everyone