Deer Park

“It’s Monday morning on the oceans peak

And to catch me mackerel that is what I seek

Once I’ve caught my fish that the seal’s don’t take

I will bring ‘em home for me mum to bake!

Cho: I can fish boys!

I can cast it out!

I can pull the lure!

I can catch some trout!

I can fish boys!

The mackerel’s on my line!

I’m a Rathbone lad and this here fish is mine!

Well the seals are tricksey -- I know they want my fish

When I reel the line they think they’ll have a dish

So I’ll pull the line to where they cannot swim

And they can catch their own fish when the light grows dim

Well the crabs are hungry, they all want my bait

First they grab ahold and soon it is too late

But I’ll keep it moving so they cannot chew

For to lose my bait, well that would never do!

I can fish in ponds and I can fish in Lochs

I can fish the seas and I can fish from docks

I can fish in surf when the waves are tall

And I won’t stop fishing ‘till I’ve caught ‘em all!

~The Rathbone Lad, sung to the tune of Collier Lad

Written by the Rathbone/Van Buren family in a time of bordom

The boat trip was pretty uneventful. I was sad to be leaving Skye, I was truly enchanted with it. I lost a pound or two in poker with my father (who seemed to break about even) and my brother (who cleaned up at mostly my expense). Once ashore we had a good drive to Back, a town just outside of Stornoway in the Hebrides. Along the way we passed a plant which sprung up leaves about half as big as I am. They were funny because the leaves resembled somewhat something you might see in a salad. But the leaves were not half as soft as they look, course, rough, with spiky undersides to their leaves. Not for eating, unless perhaps you boiled the leaves as you do spinach.

Native plants aside, we happened to encounter what looked to be a stone turret in very good condition at the top of a hill to the side of the road. We pulled over to look at it. When my father and I hopped out to look (my mother and bro didn’t have the energy) the plaque at the base of the path declared it to be a modern dedication to the Deer Park Revolutionaries. The Scotsman had been driven from a large chunk of land years past. Once it had been settled and a different lord ruled the land (still British) the Scots petitioned her to return the land to them. In response, she turned it into her private deer park. The Deep Park revolution occurred when 8 people marched into the land and informed the groundskeeper that the land was theirs. They then proceeded to camp in the woods for several days, killing every deer they could find, and generally wreaking minor havoc. All 8 men were acquitted in the trial that followed, and if memory serves me, the plaque said they got their land back.

Three doorways at the base of the monument signified the three communities the eight revolutionaries came from. To symbolize the 3 events of the revolution (Scots were driven from the land, Scots mess up Deer Park, Scots get land back), there are three stones standing out along the top of the turret. To honor each of the 8 that took part, there was a stone taken from each of their houses and used to create the turret-esque monument with inscriptions on each stone numbering them 1 to 8 (though why they wrote those numbers rather than the men’s actual names, I’m not sure). It was kind of a cool monument in any case, though not centuries old, it was filled with symbolism.