I awaked very early. I began to imagine that the landlord, being about
to emigrate, might murder us to get our money, and lay it upon the
soldiers in the barn. Such groundless fears will arise in the mind,
before it has resumed its vigour after sleep! Dr. Johnson had had the
same kind of ideas; for he told me afterwards, that he considered so
many soldiers, having seen us, would be witnesses, should any harm be
done, and that circumstance, I suppose, he considered as a
security.[435] When I got up, I found him sound asleep in his miserable
_stye_, as I may call it, with a coloured handkerchief tied round his
head. With difficulty could I awaken him. It reminded me of Henry the
Fourth's fine soliloquy on sleep; for there was here as _uneasy a
pallet_[436] as the poet's imagination could possibly conceive.
A _red coat_ of the 15th regiment, whether officer, or only serjeant, I
could not be sure, came to the house, in his way to the mountains to
shoot deer, which it seems the Laird of Glenmorison does not hinder any
body to do. Few, indeed, can do them harm. We had him to breakfast with
us. We got away about eight. M'Queen walked some miles to give us a
convoy. He had, in 1745, joined the Highland army at Fort Augustus, and
continued in it till after the battle of Culloden. As he narrated the
particulars of that ill-advised, but brave attempt, I could not refrain
from tears. There is a certain association of ideas in my mind upon that
subject, by which I am strongly affected. The very Highland names, or
the sound of a bagpipe, will stir my blood, and fill me with a mixture
of melancholy and respect for courage; with pity for an unfortunate and
superstitious regard for antiquity, and thoughtless inclination for war;
in short, with a crowd of sensations with which sober rationality has
nothing to do.
We passed through Glensheal, with prodigious mountains on each side. We
saw where the battle was fought in the year 1719.[437] Dr. Johnson
owned he was now in a scene of as wild nature as he could see; but he
corrected me sometimes in my inaccurate observations. 'There, (said I,)
is a mountain like a cone.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir. It would be called so in
a book; and when a man comes to look at it, he sees it is not so. It is
indeed pointed at the top; but one side of it is larger than the
other[438].' Another mountain I called immense. JOHNSON. 'No; it is no
more than a considerable protuberance.'
We came to a rich green valley, comparatively speaking, and stopped a
while to let our horses rest and eat grass[439]. We soon afterwards came
to Auchnasheal, a kind of rural village, a number of cottages being
built together, as we saw all along in the Highlands. We passed many
miles this day without seeing a house, but only little summer-huts,
called _shielings_. Evan Campbell, servant to Mr. Murchison, factor to
the Laird of Macleod in Glenelg, ran along with us to-day. He was a
very obliging fellow. At Auchnasheal, we sat down on a green turf seat
at the end of a house; they brought us out two wooden dishes of milk,
which we tasted. One of them was frothed like a syllabub. I saw a woman
preparing it with such a stick as is used for chocolate, and in the same
manner. We had a considerable circle about us, men, women, and children,
all M'Craas, Lord Seaforth's people. Not one of them could speak
English. I observed to Dr. Johnson, it was much the same as being with a
tribe of Indians. JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; but not so terrifying[440].' I
gave all who chose it, snuff and tobacco. Governour Trapaud had made us
buy a quantity at Fort Augustus, and put them up in small parcels. I
also gave each person a bit of wheat bread, which they had never tasted
before. I then gave a penny apiece to each child. I told Dr. Johnson of
this; upon which he called to Joseph and our guides, for change for a
shilling, and declared that he would distribute among the children. Upon
this being announced in Erse, there was a great stir; not only did some
children come running down from neighbouring huts, but I observed one
black-haired man, who had been with us all along, had gone off, and
returned, bringing a very young child. My fellow traveller then ordered
the children to be drawn up in a row; and he dealt about his copper, and
made them and their parents all happy. The poor M'Craas, whatever may be
their present state, were of considerable estimation in the year 1715,
when there was a line in a song,
'And aw the brave M'Craas are coming[441].'
There was great diversity in the faces of the circle around us: some
were as black and wild in their appearance as any American savages
whatever. One woman was as comely almost as the figure of Sappho, as we
see it painted. We asked the old woman, the mistress of the house where
we had the milk, (which by the bye, Dr. Johnson told me, for I did not
observe it myself, was built not of turf, but of stone,) what we should
pay. She said, what we pleased. One of our guides asked her in Erse, if
a shilling was enough. She said, 'yes.' But some of the men bade her ask
more[442]. This vexed me; because it shewed a desire to impose upon
strangers, as they knew that even a shilling was high payment. The
woman, however, honestly persisted in her first price; so I gave her
half a crown. Thus we had one good scene of life uncommon to us. The
people were very much pleased, gave us many blessings, and said they had
not had such a day since the old Laird of Macleod's time.
Dr. Johnson was much refreshed by this repast. He was pleased when I
told him he would make a good Chief. He said, 'Were I a chief, I would
dress my servants better than myself, and knock a fellow down if he
looked saucy to a Macdonald in rags: but I would not treat men as
brutes. I would let them know why all of my clan were to have attention
paid to them. I would tell my upper servants why, and make them tell the
others.' We rode on well[443], till we came to the high mountain
called the Rattakin, by which time both Dr. Johnson and the horses were
a good deal fatigued. It is a terrible steep to climb, notwithstanding
the road is formed slanting along it; however, we made it out. On the
top of it we met Captain M'Leod of Balmenoch (a Dutch officer who had
come from Sky) riding with his sword slung across him. He asked, 'Is
this Mr. Boswell?' which was a proof that we were expected. Going down
the hill on the other side was no easy task. As Dr. Johnson was a great
weight, the two guides agreed that he should ride the horses
alternately. Hay's were the two best, and the Doctor would not ride but
upon one or other of them, a black or a brown. But as Hay complained
much after ascending the _Rattakin_, the Doctor was prevailed with to
mount one of Vass's greys. As he rode upon it down hill, it did not go
well; and he grumbled. I walked on a little before, but was excessively
entertained with the method taken to keep him in good humour. Hay led
the horse's head, talking to Dr. Johnson as much as he could; and
(having heard him, in the forenoon, express a pastoral pleasure on
seeing the goats browzing) just when the Doctor was uttering his
displeasure, the fellow cried, with a very Highland accent, 'See, such
pretty goats!' Then he whistled, _whu!_ and made them jump. Little did
he conceive what Dr. Johnson was. Here now was a common ignorant
Highland clown, imagining that he could divert, as one does a
child,--_Dr. Samuel Johnson!_ The ludicrousness, absurdity, and
extraordinary contrast between what the fellow fancied, and the reality,
was truly comick.
It grew dusky; and we had a very tedious ride for what was called five
miles; but I am sure would measure ten. We had no conversation. I was
riding forward to the inn at Glenelg, on the shore opposite to Sky, that
I might take proper measures, before Dr. Johnson, who was now advancing
in dreary silence, Hay leading his horse, should arrive. Vass also
walked by the side of his horse, and Joseph followed behind: as
therefore he was thus attended, and seemed to be in deep meditation, I
thought there could be no harm in leaving him for a little while. He
called me back with a tremendous shout, and was really in a passion with
me for leaving him. I told him my intentions, but he was not satisfied,
and said, 'Do you know, I should as soon have thought of picking a
pocket, as doing so?' BOSWELL. 'I am diverted with you, Sir.' JOHNSON.
'Sir, I could never be diverted with incivility. Doing such a thing,
makes one lose confidence in him who has done it, as one cannot tell
what he may do next.' His extraordinary warmth confounded me so much,
that I justified myself but lamely to him; yet my intentions were not
improper. I wished to get on, to see how we were to be lodged, and how
we were to get a boat; all which I thought I could best settle myself,
without his having any trouble. To apply his great mind to minute
particulars, is wrong: it is like taking an immense balance, such as is
kept on quays for weighing cargoes of ships,--to weigh a guinea. I knew
I had neat little scales, which would do better; and that his attention
to every thing which falls in his way, and his uncommon desire to be
always in the right, would make him weigh, if he knew of the
particulars: it was right therefore for me to weigh them, and let him
have them only in effect. I however continued to ride by him, finding he
wished I should do so.
As we passed the barracks at Bernéra, I looked at them wishfully, as
soldiers have always every thing in the best order: but there was only a
serjeant and a few men there. We came on to the inn at Glenelg. There
was no provender for our horses; so they were sent to grass, with a man
to watch them. A maid shewed us up stairs into a room damp and dirty,
with bare walls, a variety of bad smells, a coarse black greasy fir
table, and forms of the same kind; and out of a wretched bed started a
fellow from his sleep, like Edgar in _King Lear_[444], '_Poor Tom's a
cold_[445].' This inn was furnished with not a single article that we
could either eat or drink[446]; but Mr. Murchison, factor to the Laird
of Macleod in Glenelg, sent us a bottle of rum and some sugar, with a
polite message, to acquaint us, that he was very sorry that he did not
hear of us till we had passed his house, otherwise he should have
insisted on our sleeping there that night; and that, if he were not
obliged to set out for Inverness early next morning, he would have
waited upon us. Such extraordinary attention from this gentleman, to
entire strangers, deserves the most honourable commemoration.
Our bad accommodation here made me uneasy, and almost fretful. Dr.
Johnson was calm. I said, he was so from vanity. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir, it
is from philosophy.' It pleased me to see that the _Rambler_ could
practise so well his own lessons.
I resumed the subject of my leaving him on the road, and endeavoured to
defend it better. He was still violent upon that head, and said, 'Sir,
had you gone on, I was thinking that I should have returned with you to
Edinburgh, and then have parted from you, and never spoken to you more.'
I sent for fresh hay, with which we made beds for ourselves, each in a
room equally miserable. Like Wolfe, we had a 'choice of
difficulties[447]'. Dr. Johnson made things easier by comparison. At
M'Queen's, last night, he observed that few were so well lodged in a
ship. To-night he said, we were better than if we had been upon the
hill. He lay down buttoned up in his great coat. I had my sheets spread
on the hay, and my clothes and great coat laid over me, by way
of blankets.