Part 23

In Iona, however, there was no need of threats. The poor people were devoted to their former chief. “He went,” says Johnson, “to the headman of the island whom fame, but fame delights in amplifying, represents as worth no less than fifty pounds. He was, perhaps, proud enough of his guests, but ill prepared for our entertainment; however, he soon produced more provision than men not luxurious required.” There was not a single house in which, with any comfort, they could have been lodged. Pennant, who had been there a year earlier, “had pitched a rude tent formed of oars and sails.” There was but one house which had a chimney. “Nevertheless, even in this,” says Johnson, “the fire was made on the floor in the middle of the room, and notwithstanding the dignity of their mansion the inmates rejoiced like their neighbours in the comforts of smoke.” Though the soil was naturally fruitful, yet the poverty of the people was great. “They are,” he adds, “remarkably gross and remarkably neglected; I know not if they are visited by any minister. The island, which was once the metropolis of learning and piety, has now no school for education nor temple for worship, only two inhabitants that can speak English, and not one that can write or read.” The population was probably not less than four hundred souls.[682] Sacheverell, who was there in 1688, mentions a class of “hereditary servants. They are,” he adds, “miserably poor. They seem an innocent, simple people, ignorant and devout; and though they have no minister, they constantly assemble in the great church on Sundays, where they spend most part of the day in private devotions.”[683] According to Pennant they were “the most stupid and the most lazy of all the islanders.” “They used,” he says, “the Chapel of the Nunnery as a cow-shed; the floor was covered some feet thick with dung, for they were too lazy to remove this fine manure, the collection of a century, to enrich their grounds.”[684] Boswell, however, gives a much better report. “They are industrious,” he says, “and make their own woollen and linen cloth; and they brew a good deal of beer, which we did not find in any of the other islands.” In July, 1798, Dr. Garnett and his companion, Mr. Watts, the painter, passed a night in the public-house. The floor of their chamber was liquid mud; the rain fell on their beds. For fellow-lodgers they had several chickens, a tame lamb, a dog, some cats, and two or three pigs. Next morning they invited the schoolmaster to breakfast, and found that the inn could boast of only two tea-cups and one spoon, and that of wood.[685] Sir Walter Scott, who visited Iona in 1810 mentions “the squalid and dejected poverty of the inhabitants—the most wretched people he had anywhere seen.”[686] With such houses and such people Sir Allan Macleane certainly did wisely in choosing a barn for the lodgings of himself and his two friends. “Some good hay,” writes Boswell, “was strewed at one end of it, to form a bed for us, upon which we lay with our clothes on; and we were furnished with blankets from the village. Each of us had a portmanteau for a pillow. When I awaked in the morning, and looked round me, I could not help smiling at the idea of the chief of the Macleanes, the great English Moralist, and myself, lying thus extended in such a situation.”

[Sidenote: IONA’S PAST AND PRESENT.]

The smile might have passed into a sigh, had Boswell contrasted the splendours of Iona’s past with the meanness of her present lot. They had come to

“Where, beneath the showery west, The mighty kings of three fair realms are laid.”

Like the pilgrim

“From the Blue Mountains, or Ontario’s Lake,”

amidst the ruins of fallen greatness and fallen learning they had sought

“Some peasant’s homely shed, Who toils unconscious of the mighty dead.”

Whether with Johnson among “those illustrious ruins,” we look upon Iona as the instructress of the west, or with Gibbon as the island whence was “diffused over the northern regions a doubtful ray of science and superstition,” in either case it is surely a spot where we are forced to pause, and with pensive mind “revolve the sad vicissitude of things.” I must not, however, be unjust to Boswell. It was his enthusiasm which had led them hither. It was he who had longed to survey Iona. “I,” said Johnson, “though less eager did not oppose him.” To him then we owe that splendid passage in which the great Englishman celebrates the power exerted over the mind by the sight of places where noble deeds were done, and noble lives were lived.

“We were now treading that illustrious Island, which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge, and the blessings of religion. To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible, if it were endeavoured, and would be foolish if it were possible. Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me, and from my friends, be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona!”

Boswell surely not without good reason maintains that “had their tour produced nothing else but this sublime passage the world must have acknowledged that it was not made in vain.”

THE SOUTHERN COAST OF MULL AND LOCHBUY (OCTOBER 20-22).

Sailing from Iona about midday on Wednesday, October 20, our travellers landed in the evening on the southern coast of Mull, near the house of the Rev. Neal Macleod, who gave them lodgings for the night. Johnson oddly described him as “the cleanest-headed man that he had met with in the Western Islands.” The talk ran on English statesmen. Here it was that Johnson called Mr. Pitt a meteor, and Sir Robert Walpole a fixed star, and maintained that Pulteney was as paltry a fellow as could be. Continuing their journey on the morrow, they dined at the house of a physician, “who was so much struck with the uncommon conversation of Johnson, that he observed to Boswell, ‘This man is just a hogshead of sense.’” This doctor’s practice could scarcely have been very lucrative, for there came a time when he had no successor. Garnett writing of Mull at the end of the century, says, “There is at present no medical man in the island; the nearest surgeon of eminence is at Inverary.”[687] The distance from that town to the farthest points in Mull, as the crow flies, is not less than sixty miles, but by the route taken would be perhaps one hundred. [Sidenote: GLOOM AND DESOLATION.] In the afternoon our travellers rode, writes Boswell, “through what appeared to me the most gloomy and desolate country I had ever beheld.” “It was,” said Johnson, “a country of such gloomy desolation that Mr. Boswell thought no part of the Highlands equally terrific.” Faujas Saint-Fond, a few years later, describes Mull as a country “without a single road, without a single tree, where the mountains have heather for their only covering.”[688] Amidst the beautiful plantations and the fine trees with which this island is now in so many parts adorned, the modern tourist fails to recognize the truthfulness of these gloomy descriptions. Our travellers were to spend the night at Moy, the seat of the Laird of Lochbuy,[689] at the head of the fine loch from which he takes his title. [Sidenote: THE APPROACH TO LOCHBUY.] I approached it from the north-eastern side of the island, having driven over from Craignure, a little port in the Sound of Mull. Perhaps the country through which I passed was naturally finer than that which they had traversed in coming from the south-west. Perhaps, on the other hand, the difference was chiefly due to the trees and to better weather. Certainly the long drive, though in places dreary, was for a great part of the road on a bright, windy summer day, one of remarkable beauty. I passed lochs of the sea with the waves tossing, the sea-fowl hovering and settling and screaming, great herons standing on the shore, and the sea-trout leaping in the waters. But far more beautiful was Loch Uisk, an inland lake embosomed among the mountains, its steep shores covered with trees. The strong wind was driving the scud like dust over the face of its dark waters. As I drew near Lochbuy, I caught sight of the ivy-mantled tower across a meadow, where the mowers were cutting the grass, and the hay-makers were tossing it out to the sun and wind. Beyond the castle there was a broad stretch of white sand; a small vessel lay at anchor, ready at the next tide to run ashore and discharge the hamlet’s winter stock of coal. Tall trunks of fir-trees were lying near the water’s edge ready for shipping. At the head of the loch are two beautiful bays, each with its pastures and tilled lands, its low-wooded heights and its lofty circling mountains, each facing the south-west and sheltered from the cold winds. Between these two bays rise fine crags, hidden in places beneath hazels and ivy. For most of the year it is a land streaming with waterfalls. In beautiful ravines, half hidden by the trees, wild cascades rush down, swollen by the storms that have burst on the mountains; but at the time of my visit their voice was hushed by the long drought. So dry had the springs become in some places, that I was told at Lochbuy that to one of the neighbouring islands water had to be carried in boats.

[Sidenote: THE LAIRD OF LOCHBUY.]

Close to the ruined Castle stood “the mansion, not very spacious or splendid,” where Macleane of Lochbuy, “a true Highland laird, rough and haughty, and tenacious of his dignity,” entertained our travellers.

“We had heard much,” writes Boswell, “of Lochbuy’s being a great roaring braggadocio, a kind of Sir John Falstaff, both in size and manners; but we found that they had swelled him up to a fictitious size, and clothed him with imaginary qualities. Col’s idea of him was equally extravagant, though very different: he told us he was quite a Don Quixote; and said, he would give a great deal to see him and Dr. Johnson together. The truth is, that Lochbuy proved to be only a bluff, comely, noisy, old gentleman, proud of his hereditary consequence, and a very hearty and hospitable landlord. Lady Lochbuy was sister to Sir Allan Macleane, but much older. He said to me, ‘They are quite _Antediluvians_.’ Being told that Dr. Johnson did not hear well, Lochbuy bawled out to him, ‘Are you of the Johnstons of Glencro, or of Ardnamurchan?’ Dr. Johnson gave him a significant look, but made no answer; and I told Lochbuy that he was not Johns_ton_, but John_son_, and that he was an Englishman.”[690]

According to Sir Walter Scott, Boswell misapprehended Lochbuy’s meaning.

“There are,” he says, “two septs of the powerful clan of M’Donald, who are called Mac-Ian, that is _John’s-son_; and as Highlanders often translate their names when they go to the Lowlands,—as Gregor-son for Mac-Gregor, Farquhar-son for Mac-Farquhar,—Lochbuy supposed that Dr. Johnson might be one of the Mac-Ians of Ardnamurchan, or of Glencro. Boswell’s explanation was nothing to the purpose. The _Johnstons_ are a clan distinguished in Scottish border history, and as brave as any Highland clan that ever wore brogues; but they lay entirely out of Lochbuy’s knowledge—nor was he thinking of them.”

I have little doubt, however, that whatever Lochbuy was thinking of he pronounced the name _Johnston_. In this both Boswell and Johnson agree. This too was the name which I commonly found given to the great man in the Highlands and Lowlands alike.

“The following day (writes Boswell) we surveyed the old castle, in the pit or dungeon of which Lochbuy had some years before taken upon him to imprison several persons; and though he had been fined in a considerable sum by the Court of Justiciary, he was so little affected by it, that while we were examining the dungeon, he said to me, with a smile, ‘Your father knows something of this;’ (alluding to my father’s having sat as one of the judges on his trial). Sir Allan whispered me, that the laird could not be persuaded that he had lost his heritable jurisdiction.”

[Sidenote: HEREDITARY JURISDICTIONS.]

Up to the year 1747 “in the Highlands,” to quote Johnson’s words, “some great lords had an hereditary jurisdiction over counties, and some chieftains over their own lands.” This subjection of the people to their chiefs was rightly regarded as one of the main sources of the rebellions of 1715 and 1745. He who by law was privileged to keep a pit, a dungeon, and a gallows, was not likely to meet with much resistance when he summoned his people to follow him to the field. Advantage was therefore taken of the defeat of the clansmen at Culloden, “to crush all the Local Courts and to extend the general benefits of equal law to the low and the high, in the deepest recesses and obscurest corners.” The heritable jurisdiction had been divided into regalities, ordinary baronies, and baronies which had the right of pit and gallows.

“The lowest criminal jurisdiction,” says a Scotch legal author, “is what we call for Battery and Bloodwits, _viz._, Offences whereby a party is beaten, or blood drawn of him, but no greater harm done; and this is implied in all Baronies. But if the erection of the Barony contain a power of Pit and Gallows, it imports a jurisdiction in ordinary capital cases, but not in the excepted crimes, which go under the name of the _Four Pleas of the Crown_, _viz._, Murder, Robbery, Rape, and wilful Fire-raising. It is so called from the manner of execution of criminals, _viz._, by hanging the men upon the Gallows or Gibbet, and drowning the women, sentenced in a capital crime, in a pit, it not being thought decent of old to hang them.”[691]

In old law Latin this right was known under the name of _furca et fossa_.[692] A person invested with the jurisdiction of a regality had power also in the Four Pleas of the Crown. “The sentences in civil cases are subject to the review of the Lords of Session, and in criminal to the Court of Justiciary. In criminal trials thirty days were allowed before execution of the sentence on this [the southern] side of the Forth, and forty on the other.” From this appeal there was one regality which was exempt. The jurisdiction of the Duke of Argyle was absolute even in cases of life and death. From his sentences there was no appeal.[693] Each barony had its Gallows Hill, and its dempster or hangman.[694] Pennant, in 1772, saw “on a little flat hill near the village of Kilarow in Islay the remains of the gallows.”[695] At Dunvegan men had been hanged on the sentence of the laird, so late as 1740. No doubt this power was sometimes most oppressively exercised. A chief who lived near Inverness was charged with having rid himself at a profit of men on his estate who had given him trouble. He charged them with theft, threatened them with the gallows, and so brought them “to sign a contract for their banishment.” They were then put on board a ship bound to the West Indies, “the master paying so much a head for them.”[696] In other words, they were sold for slaves, if not for life, at all events for a certain number of years.

No change had been made by the Act of Union of 1706, for it was expressly provided in it that all these heritable jurisdictions “should be reserved to the owners as rights and property.”[697] When in 1747 these powers had been swept away, two unhappy classes of men were excepted from the full benefit of the Act. The workers in any kind of mine or in salt-works were to remain as they had hitherto been—serfs for life. These men were found only in the Lowlands, chiefly in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh. Nevertheless, even they were not left altogether without relief. “All jurisdiction in any case inferring the loss of life or demembration, was abrogated.”[698] A collier or a salter therefore could no longer be hanged or drowned, or even mangled by his master. It was not till the last year of the century that they were finally and fully freed. One of these emancipated serfs lived till the year 1844.[699]

The Act of 1747 not only abolished jurisdictions, but also alleviated the prisoner’s lot. Till it was passed, “all over Scotland pits were accounted legal prisons for thieves and other meaner criminals.”[700] Lady Margaret Bellenden in _Old Mortality_ praises her pit. “It is not more than two stories beneath ground,” she says, “so it cannot be unwholesome, especially as I rather believe there is somewhere an opening to the outer air.”[701] But henceforth—so the Act ran—“the prison shall have such windows or grates, as that it may be practicable for any friend of the prisoner to visit, see, and converse with him when he shall be so minded.”[702] In out of the way places, where there were no justices within reach, the laird, no doubt, to some extent, continued to exercise his old powers. Thus in Col, more than sixteen years after the Act was passed, the laird put a woman into “the family prison” for theft.[703] There have been men who regarded, or affected to regard with indignation the abolition of these injurious hereditary powers. “By the nation at large,” writes Dr. Robert Chambers, “the measure was contemplated as a last stab to the independence of Scotland, previously almost destroyed by the Union.”[704] There is happily no reason to believe that the nation at large was at any period of its history a set of sentimental fools.

[Sidenote: LOCHBUY BEFORE THE COURT.]

To most of the chiefs this loss of their ancient jurisdictions must have come as a terrible shock. Lochbuy, as has been seen, had refused to believe it, and so had got into trouble with the Court of Justiciary. After some search I was fortunate enough to discover a report of his case. He had, as I was informed by his descendant, the present laird, with the help of his piper let down a man into the pit. But here, for once, tradition has not been guilty of amplification. Aided by his servant, his piper and son, the innkeeper in Moy, and two other tenants, he had seized two men of the name of Maclean, and had imprisoned them two days “in an old ruinous castle.” Two of the accused did not appear to the indictment, “they were therefore fugitated (outlawed), and their moveables escheated to the king for their contempt.” The trial took place on August 15, 1759. It lasted twelve hours. “The jury (of which a majority was landed gentlemen) returned their verdict unanimously, finding the pannels (prisoners at the bar) guilty; but verbally recommending the four servants and tenants to the mercy of the court, it appearing that what they did was by order of Lochbuy, their master. The lords pronounced sentence, decerning Lochbuy in £180 sterling of expenses and damages to the private prosecutors, and 500 marks Scots (about £27) of fine; and condemning the whole pannels to seventeen days’ imprisonment.”[705]

Lochbuy had no doubt been the more unwilling to believe in the abolition of his jurisdiction as he had, it should seem, no share in that “valuable consideration in money which was granted to every nobleman and petty baron who was thus deprived of one part of his inheritance.”[706] On what principle of justice this compensation was given is not clear, unless we agree with Johnson in his assertion that “those who have long enjoyed dignity and power ought not to lose it without some equivalent.”[707] Professor Thorold Rogers informs me that we have here, he believes, the first instance in our history where compensation is paid by the country at large for the vested interests of a class. The claims which were made were excessive, partly no doubt in the hope that when much was demanded at all events something would be given, but partly, it was said, with the intention of “obstructing the Act, and raising discontents in the country.”[708] The total sum asked for was £587,000, but only £152,000 was granted. Among the claimants I found “Maclean of Lochbuie, Bailie of the Bailiery of Morovis and Mulerois, £500.” His name does not appear among the list of those whose claims were allowed.[709]

[Sidenote: LOCHBUY CASTLE.]