Part 20

In the present drawing-room a small portrait of Johnson, ascribed to Reynolds, but, as I was told, by Zoffany, hangs in a place of honour. Here, too, is kept his letter of thanks to Macleod, endorsed “Dr. Johnston’s.” He wrote it “on the margin of the sea, waiting for a boat and a wind. Boswell,” he continues “grows impatient; but the kind treatment which I find wherever I go makes me leave with some heaviness of heart an island which I am not very likely to see again.” Among other treasures in the same room is Rorie More’s horn, “a large cow’s horn, with the mouth of it ornamented with silver curiously carved. It holds rather more than a bottle and a half. Every laird of Macleod, it is said, must, as a proof of his manhood, drink it off full of claret without laying it down.” It is curious that Boswell makes no mention of the ancient cup described by Scott in a note to the second canto of _The Lord of the Isles_, or of the fairy flag. “Here,” writes Pennant, “is preserved the _Braolauch shi_, or fairy-flag of the family, bestowed on it by the queen of the fairies. She blessed it with powers of the first importance, which were to be exerted on only three occasions; on the last, after the end was obtained, an invisible being is to carry off standard and standard-bearer, never more to be seen. The flag has been produced thrice. The first time in an engagement against the Clan-Ronald, to whose sight the Macleods were multiplied ten-fold; the second preserved the heir, being then produced to save the longings of the lady; and the third time to save my own; but it was so tattered, that Titania did not seem to think it worth sending for. This was a superstition derived from the Norwegian ancestry of the house.”[652] Sir Walter describes it as “a pennon of silk, with something like round red rowan-berries wrought upon it.”[653] [Sidenote: RORIE MORE’S CLAYMORE.] In the gallery I saw Rorie More’s claymore, “of a prodigious size,” as Boswell called it. He wrote this some years before he heard from old Mr. Edwards that Johnson, when an undergraduate of Oxford, “would not let them say prodigious at college, for even then he was delicate in language.” If it is not prodigious, nevertheless it is a real _claymore_ or _great sword_, for that is what the Gaelic word means. Unfortunately the point is broken off. The sight of it did not console me for my disappointment at finding that Rorie More’s bed is no longer in existence, with the inscription above it, “Sir Roderick M’Leod of Dunvegan, Knight. God send good rest.” I would rather have seen it than a dozen swords, whether great or small.

[Sidenote: THE FAIRY BEDROOM.]

Johnson slept in the Fairy Bedroom in the Fairy Tower. The legend runs that this part of the castle was built 450 years ago by that very uncommon being, a fairy grandmother. Godmothers among the fairies have often been heard of, but grandmothers, we believe, never before or since. Had Puck peeped in and seen Johnson wearing his wig turned inside out and the wrong end in front as a substitute for a night-cap,[654] he might well have exclaimed that his mistress kept a monster, not only near but in “her close and consecrated bower.” From this room a winding stone staircase led up to the battlements, but without mounting so high Johnson commanded a fine view. From his window he could see, far away across the lochs, Macleod’s Tables, two lofty hills with round flat tops, which on all sides form a striking landmark. Much nearer was the Gallows Hill, where in the bad old times many a poor wretch, dragged from his dark and dismal dungeon, caught his last sight of loch and mountain and heath, doomed to death by the laird. Only thirty-three years before our travellers’ visit a man was hanged there by the grandfather of their host. He was a Macdonald who had murdered his father, and escaped into Macleod’s country. But the old tribal feuds were long since over, and he found no safety there. At Macdonald’s request he was at once seized and hanged.[655]

[Sidenote: DUNGEONS AND PIT.]

The dungeons and the pit are not described by either Boswell or Johnson, though the sight of them, we would willingly believe, must have roused their indignation. In these old castles there are few things more shocking than the close neighbourhood of festivity and misery. It shows a callousness to human suffering which almost passes belief. If a prisoner is in a remote part of a great castle, the imagination then must come into play to bring his sufferings before the mind; but when he is close at hand, when his sorrowful sighing is only kept by the thickness of a single wall from mingling with the prattle of children and the merriment of feasters, then the heart must be hard indeed which is not touched. At Dunvegan a door to the left opened into a pleasant sitting-room, and to the right into the chief dungeon. In it there was no window, not even one of those narrow slits by which a few rays can struggle in. But there was something worse even than the dungeon. In the floor there was an opening by which the unhappy prisoner could be lowered into a deep-pit. Here he would dwell in ever-during dark, never cheered by the hurried glimpse of daylight such as broke the long night in the prison above whenever the jailer paid his visit. The door of the other dungeon—for there was yet another—is in the wall of a bedroom, which is furnished in so old a style that it is likely enough that the curious bed and hangings were gazed at by many a prisoner as he was hurried by.

As we wandered through these old rooms and staircases and passages, we were told of a poor woman from St. Kilda, who like ourselves was shown over the castle. As she went on she became so bewildered by the number of the rooms, that she begged to be allowed to keep fast hold of the hand of the person who was conducting her, for fear she might get lost and never find her way out. The story called to my mind a man from the same remote island mentioned by Martin. He was taken to Glasgow, and though in those days it was but a small town, nevertheless he was so much scared that in like manner he clung to his guide’s hand as long as he was in the streets.[656] The poor woman must have breathed more freely when she at length reached the court-yard and looked out over the familiar sea. The platform, then, no doubt was rough with stone, but now it is soft with green turf. I looked there for the false stone cannons which Boswell mentions, but I learnt that they had been moved to the top of one of the towers. In their place are some of iron, venerable by their antiquity, but unfit for service. Against one of the low walls which enclose this pleasant court leans a piece of old sculpture, the effigy probably of some lady of the family.

[Sidenote: ISLAND ISA.]

Three or four miles down the loch, and out of sight of the castle, lies the little island of Isa or Issay, “which Macleod said he would give to Dr. Johnson, on condition of his residing on it three months in the year; nay, one month. Dr. Johnson was highly amused with the fancy. He talked a great deal of this island; how he would build a house there—how he would fortify it—how he would have cannon—how he would plant—how he would sally out, and _take_ the Isle of Muck; and then he laughed with uncommon glee, and could hardly leave off. Macleod encouraged the fancy of Dr. Johnson’s becoming owner of an island; told him that it was the practice in that country to name every man by his lands, and begged leave to drink to him in that mode, ‘_Island Isa_, your health.’ Ulinish, Talisker, M’Queen, and I all joined in our different manners, while Dr. Johnson bowed to each with much good humour.” To Mrs. Thrale he wrote: “Macleod has offered me an island; if it were not too far off I should hardly refuse it; my island would be pleasanter than Brighthelmstone if you and my master could come to it; but I cannot think it pleasant to live quite alone,

‘Oblitusque meorum, obliviscendus et illis.’”[657]

Much as he wished to visit it, he was hindered even from seeing it by the stormy weather. We were more fortunate, for though we did not land, yet we saw it from the high ground on the opposite shore. The greater part of the way to this spot a rough road has been made along which we drove, passing a great heronry. It was curious to watch the huge nests and the great birds in the trees. For nearly three miles of country they were the chief inhabitants. _Island Isa_ would certainly have lived in great solitude, for after we had passed the gamekeeper’s cottage close to the castle, we saw no signs of habitation except the herons’ nests, till we reached a farm-house nearly three miles off. Here the road ended. In the little garden stood some large laburnum trees, all drooping with their golden flowers. Our way led across a wide heath to a fine breezy headland. Below us another stretch of heath-land sloped down to the shore of the loch. On the other side of a narrow channel lay Isa, with fine rocky cliffs to the west and the north, but lying open to the south-east. It was Midsummer Day. The sea was calm, a blue haze softened the outline of the neighbouring hills, but let the mountains in the farther Hebrides be but faintly seen. The little isle lay before us with no signs on it of human habitation. Buchanan describes it as “fertilis frugum,”[658] and Martin says that it was “fruitful in corn;”[659] but it must be many a year since the plough turned up its soil. It is a land of pastures. In the hot, drowsy air there was nothing but the song of the lark and the bleating of the lambs “to break the silence of the seas.” Far below us a shepherd with his two dogs was gathering a small flock of sheep. They, and the larks, and the sea-birds were the only things that seemed alive. We had reached, as it were, the antipodes of “that full tide of human existence” in which Johnson delighted. For not a single day would he have endured the lonely dignity of such a domain. The road to the headland had not been quite free from danger, for on our return we found coiled up asleep on the path half hidden in the heather an adder. It was killed by a blow of a stick which I had brought with me from Corsica.

[Sidenote: GATHERING OF THE CONGREGATIONS.]

On the Sunday, which we spent at Dunvegan, we chanced to see a sight interesting in itself, but doubly so to anyone who came from the South. The Free Kirk congregations of three parishes met in a field to take the Sacrament. It was one of the three great religious gatherings of the year, and the people flocked in from all the country side. Many came by water from far-off glens that sloped down to the sea. From the windows of our inn we watched the heavy boats fully laden coming round a distant point, and rowing slowly up to a ledge of rocks just below us. In one we counted twenty-one people. Women as well as men tugged at the oars, and when the boat was run aground helped to drag it up the beach. When this was done, they all set about completing their toilettes. The beach served them for their tiring-house, though it was a good deal more open to view than a hawthorn-brake. In one of the boats we had noticed a man distinguished from all the rest by a tall black hat, _pietate gravem ac meritis_. To him had been entrusted the clean white collars and neckties of the rowers. Many of the men knelt down while their wives fastened them on for them and smoothed their hair. One man even went so far as to put on his shirt in public. The women too, who were almost all in black, had their dresses to arrange, for in the boats they had kept their skirts tucked up. Some of the girls even had to get their bustles adjusted. Carlyle or his wife once made merry over their maid-of-all-work at Chelsea, who with two or three kitchen-dusters made the best substitute she could for that monstrous and most “considerable protuberance.” What would he have said had he seen the lasses in Skye thus making themselves as ridiculous as even the finest lady in town?

[Sidenote: A FIELD CONVENTICLE.]

When at length every one was ready, the whole party moved slowly along the road towards the church. Others came driving up in light and heavy carts, while across the moors we could see single wayfarers, or more often three or four together, coming in by different paths. There was greeting of old friends and shaking of hands. The church stood on the road-side, a plain building with the manse close by. In it was gathered that part of the congregation which spoke English. On the other side of the road the ground fell away to a little brook which had eaten its way through the dark-coloured peat, and here made a sudden bend. On the other side of the water, within the bend, there was a grassy slope ending in a low ridge, and dotted with little hillocks. Here the people sat down on the ground, facing an erection which looked like a large sentry-box. It was occupied by the minister, who addressed the people in Gaelic, speaking in a kind of musical recitative which carried the voice far, and must have made every syllable distinct. It often had a very pleading and plaintive sound. Below him stood two long rows of tables, and a cross table, all covered with white cloths. On the other side of the stream by the roadside twenty carts or more were standing, while the horses were quietly grazing on the moor tethered each to an iron peg. One horse nibbled through the cord, and came up to the outskirts of the meeting, but a lad left his seat and caught it. In the background the dreary moorland sloped upwards, blackened here and there with heaps of peat drying in the sun and wind. I thought how in the old days watchers would have been posted on the most distant ridges to give warning of the approach of the persecutors. How many people were gathered together I do not know—certainly many hundreds, perhaps a thousand. [Sidenote: NATIONAL COSTUMES.] All were decently, though some poorly dressed. Almost all had good warm clothing, with strong boots and shoes, none of them in holes. Very many of the women had tartan shawls, and one or two boys wore the kilt. One man I saw with tartan stockings, but the dress of all the rest differed in no respect from that worn in England. In costumes an act of uniformity seems to have been passed not only for the British Isles, but also for Western Europe in general. Travelling is losing part of its interest by the great sameness in clothing everywhere met with. There will soon, I fear, be no country left which can boast of a national dress. Though the meeting was out of doors, yet all were decent and sober in their behaviour. There was no talking or giggling, no fringe of rude lads and silly girls. Where the little moorland path ended that led from the church a table was set, on which stood a large metal basin to receive the offerings. Every one seemed to put in something, even the poorest, but in the great pile of pence and half-pence I saw but one piece of silver. When the service in the church was over, the minister and people joined those on the moor, for it was there that the Sacrament was taken by both congregations together. The service began between eleven and twelve o’clock. Soon after four we saw the people come trooping down to the shore. The boats were launched, sails were set, and with a gentle breeze they were slowly carried down the loch and round the headland out of our sight.

ULINISH AND TALISKER (SEPTEMBER 21-25).

[Sidenote: DR. JOHNSON’S CUPS OF TEA.]

On the morning of Tuesday, September 21, our travellers took advantage of a break in the stormy weather to continue their journey to Ulinish, a farm-house on Loch Bracadale, occupied by “a plain honest gentleman,” the Sheriff-substitute of the island. Here they passed the night, and here, if we may trust report, Johnson’s powers as a drinker of tea were exerted to their utmost pitch. “Mrs. Macleod of Ulinish,” writes Knox, “has not forgotten the quantity of tea which she filled out to Dr. Johnson, amounting to twenty-two dishes.”[660] Surely for this outrageous statement some of those excuses are needed “by which,” according to Boswell, “the exaggeration of Highland narratives is palliated.” From an old tower near the house a fine view was had of the Cuillin, or Cuchullin Hills, “a prodigious range of mountains, capped with rocky pinnacles in a strange variety of shapes,” which with good reason reminded Boswell of the mountains he had seen near Corte in Corsica.

[Sidenote: A GREAT CAVE.]

On the afternoon of the following day “an interval of calm sunshine,” writes Johnson, “courted us out to see a cave on the shore famous for its echo. When we went into the boat one of our companions was asked in Erse by the boatmen who they were that came with him. He gave us characters, I suppose, to our advantage, and was asked in the spirit of the Highlands whether I could recite a long series of ancestors. The boatmen said, as I perceived afterwards, that they heard the cry of an English ghost. This, Boswell says, disturbed him. We came to the cave, and clambering up the rocks came to an arch open at one end, one hundred and eighty feet long, thirty broad in the broadest part, and about thirty feet high. There was no echo; such is the fidelity of reports; but I saw what I had never seen before, mussels and whelks in their natural state. There was another arch in the rock open at both ends.” This cave was not on the shore of Skye, as Johnson’s account seems to imply, but in the little island of Wia. From Boswell we learn that it was to an island they were taken. We were fortunate enough on our visit to this wild part of the coast to have as our guide one of Macleod’s gamekeepers. “A man,” to borrow from Johnson the praise which he bestowed on one of his guides, “of great liveliness and activity, civil and ready-handed.”[661] We had passed the night in the lonely little inn at Struan on the shore of an arm of Loch Bracadale, where we had found decent, if homely, lodging. In a fisherman’s boat we rowed down the loch, sometimes in mid-channel and sometimes skirting the cliffs, which rose like a wall of rock to a great height above us. We passed little islets, and the mouths of caverns which filled with clouds of spray as the long rolling waves swept in from the Atlantic. On the ledges of the rocks, hovering over our heads, swimming and diving in the sea, were cormorants, puffins, oyster catchers, gulls, curlews and guillemots. We had none of us looked upon a wilder scene. When we reached our island we were pleased to find that the narrow beach at which we were to land was guarded by a huge headland from the swell of the sea. Whether we visited the cave which our travellers saw I do not feel at all sure, for it does not correspond with their description. My friend, the gamekeeper, was sure that it was the place, and I was willing to advance my faith more than half-way to meet his assertion. We scrambled up the steep beach, and then over rocks covered with grass and ferns, between the sides of a narrow gorge. At the top a still steeper path led downwards to a cave, at the bottom of which we could see a glimmer of light. Scrambling upwards again, we reached a place where we could hear the sea murmuring on the other side. We afterwards climbed to the top of the cliff and sat down on the ground which formed the roof of the cavern. It was covered with heather and ferns, and patches of short grass; a pleasant breeze was blowing, the sea birds were uttering their cries, far beneath us we could hear the beating of the surge. Across the Loch on both sides, the dark cliffs rose to a great height, and in the background stood the mountains of Skye and of the mainland. Had the air been very clear, we might have seen on the north-west the wooded hills of Dunvegan.

[Sidenote: PRINCE CHARLIE’S CAVES.]

Two or three days later, when I was giving two Highlanders an account of this cavern, one of them asked with a humorous smile: “Did they not tell you it was Prince Charlie’s Cave? He must, I am thinking, have been sleeping everywhere.” His companion laughed and said: “They have lately made a new one near an hotel which they have opened at ——.” The innkeepers should surely show a little originality. Why should they not advertise Dr. Johnson’s Cave, and show the tea-pot out of which he drank his two-and-twenty cups of tea when he picnicked there? They would do well also to discover the great cave in Skye which Martin tells of. “It is supposed,” he writes, “to exceed a mile in length. The natives told me that a piper who was over-curious went in with a design to find out the length of it, and after he entered began to play on his pipe, but never returned to give an account of his progress.”[662]

[Sidenote: THE SAIL TO TALISKER.]

From Ulinish our travellers sailed up Loch Bracadale on their way to Talisker. “We had,” says Boswell, “good weather and a fine sail. The shore was varied with hills, and rocks, and corn-fields, and bushes, which are here dignified with the name of natural _wood_.” They landed at Ferneley, a farm-house about three miles from Talisker, whither they made their way over the hills, Johnson on horseback, the rest on foot. The weather, no doubt, had been too uncertain for them to venture into the open sea round the great headland at the entrance of the loch. Skirting the stern and rock-bound coast, a few miles’ sail would have brought them to Talisker Bay, within sight of Colonel Macleod’s house. Yet, had the wind risen, or had there been a swell from the Atlantic, they would have been forced to keep out to sea. Boswell describes “the prodigious force and noise with which the billows break on the shore.” “It is,” says Johnson, “a coast where no vessel lands but when it is driven by a tempest on the rocks.” Only two nights before his arrival two boats had been wrecked there in a storm. “The crews crept to Talisker almost lifeless with wet, cold, fatigue, and terror.” What could not be safely done near the end of September, might, we thought, be hazarded in June. As the day was fine and we had a good sea-boat, an old fisherman to manage it, our trusty gamekeeper to help in rowing, and an accomplished yachtsman in our artist, we boldly sailed forth into the Atlantic. We passed in sight of Macleod’s Maidens, beneath rocks such as Mr. Brett and Mr. Graham delight to paint. In one spot we were shown where, a few years before, a huge mass had come tumbling down. At the entrance to the Bay we passed through a narrow channel in the rocks with the waves foaming on each side. [Sidenote: TALISKER BAY.] Even our stout-hearted gamekeeper for a moment looked uneasy, but with a few strong strokes of the oars the worst was past, and we were out of the broken waters, and in full sight of the little bay with its beach of great black stones, its rugged and steep headlands, and its needle rocks, with one of the sunniest of valleys for its background. Johnson thought it “the place, beyond all he had seen, from which the gay and the jovial seem utterly excluded; and where the hermit might grow old in meditation without possibility of disturbance or interruption.” To us on that fine June day, with the haze lying on the hills, it was as if

“We came unto a land In which it seemed always afternoon.”