rain. It did not pour straight down, it did not patter on door and
window, it had no action as it has in the south,--which made it all
the more tormenting, for in action there is always some sort of
exhilaration; in any case you have the notion that it will wear
itself out soon, that "it is too hot work to last long, Hardy." An
immense quantity of moisture was held in the atmosphere, and it
descended in a soft, silent, imperceptible drizzle. It did not seem
so very bad when you looked out on it from the window, but if you
ventured on the gravel you were wet to the skin in a trice. White
damp vapours lay low on the hills across the Loch; white damp vapours
lay on the rising grounds where the sheep fed; white damp vapours hid
the tops of the larches which sheltered the house from the south-west
winds. Heaven was a wet blanket, and everything felt its influence.
During the whole day Maida lay dreaming on the rug before the fire.
The melancholy parrot moped in its cage, and at intervals--for the
sake of variety merely--attacked the lump of white sugar between the
wires, or suspended itself, head downwards, and eyed you askance.
The horses stamped and pawed in their stables. The drenched peacock,
which but a few days before was never weary displaying his starry
tail, read one a lesson on the instability of human glory. The
desolate sea lapping the weedy piers of Tyre; Napoleon at St Helena,
his innumerable armies, the thunders of his cannon that made capitals
pale, faded away, perished utterly like a last year's dream, could
not have been more impressive. It sat on the garden seat, a mere
lump of draggled feathers, and as gray as a hedge-sparrow. The
Landlord shut himself up in his own room, writing letters against the
departure of the Indian mail. We read novels, and yawned, and made
each other miserable with attempts at conversation--and still the
clouds hung low on hill, and rising ground, and large plantation,
like surcharged sponges; and still the drizzle came down mercilessly,
noiselessly, until the world was sodden, and was rapidly becoming
sponge-like too. On the fourth day we went upstairs, threw ourselves
on our beds dead beat, and fell asleep, till we were roused by the
gong for dinner. Thrusting my face hurriedly into a basin of cold
water, tidying dishevelled locks, I got down when the soup was being
taken away, and was a good deal laughed at. Somehow the spirits of
the party seemed lighter; the despotism of rain did not weigh so
heavily on them; I felt almost sportively inclined myself; and just
at the conclusion of dessert, when wine had circulated once or twice,
there was a flush of rosy light on the panes. I went at once to the
window, and there was the sun raying out great lances of splendour,
and armies of fiery mists lifting from the hills and streaming
upwards, glorious as seraph bands, or the transfigured spirits of
martyrdom. The westward-ebbing loch was sleek gold, the wet trees
twinkled, every puddle was sun-gilt. I looked at the barometer and
saw the mercury rising like hope in a man's breast when fortune
smiles on him. The curtains were drawn back to let the red light
fully into the room. "I like to see that fiery smoke on the hills,"
said the Landlord, "it's always a sign of fine weather setting in.
Now it won't do for you fellows to lie up here like beached boats
doing nothing. You must be off after tiffin to-morrow. I'll give
you letters of introduction, a dog-cart and a man, and in a week or
so come back and tell me what you think of Duntulm and Quirang. You
must rough it you know. You mustn't be afraid of a shower, or of
getting your feet wetted in a bog."
[Sidenote: Departure from the Landlord's.]
And so next day after tiffin the Landlord sent us off into the wilds,
as a falconer might toss his hawk into the air.
The day was fine, the heat was tempered by a pleasant breeze, great
white clouds swam in the blue void, and every now and again a shower
came racing across our path with a sunbeam at its heel. We drove
past the village, past the huts that ran along the top of the
cultivated hill-side, dropped down on Skeabost, and the stream with
the island of graves, and in due time reached the solitary
school-house at the junction of the roads. Turning to the left here,
we drove along the east shore of Loch Snizort, up stages of easy
ascent, and then, some four or five miles on, left the Parliamentary
Road and descended on Kingsburgh. I pointed out to Fellowes the
ruins of the old house, spoke to him of the Prince, Flora Macdonald,
Dr Johnson, and Boswell. After sauntering about there for a quarter
of an hour, we walked down to the present house with its gables
draped with ivies, and its pleasant doors and windows scented with
roses and honey-suckles. To the gentleman who then occupied the farm
we bore a letter from the Landlord, but, on inquiring, found that he
had gone south on business a couple of days previously. [Sidenote:
Kingsburgh.] This gentleman was a bachelor, the house was tenanted by
servants only, and of course at Kingsburgh we could not remain. This
was a disappointment; and as we walked back to the dog-cart, I told
my companion of a pleasant ten days I had wasted there three or four
summers since. I spoke to him of the Kingsburgh of that time--the
kindly generous Christian Highland gentleman; of his open door and
frank greeting, warm and hospitable; of his Christianity, as open and
hospitable as his door; of the plenteous meats and drinks, and the
household pieties which ever seemed to ask a blessing. I spoke of
the pleasant family, so numerous, so varied; the grandmother, made
prisoner to an easy-chair, yet never fretful, never morose; who, on
the lip of ninety, wore the smile of twenty-five; who could look up
from her Bible--with which she was familiar as with the way to her
bedroom--to listen to the news of the moment, and to feel interested
in it; who, with the light of the golden city in her eyes, could
listen and enter into a girl's trouble about her white frock and her
first dance. There is nothing keeps so well as a good heart; nothing
which time sweetens so to the core. I spoke of Kingsburgh himself,
guileless, chivalrous, hospitable; of his sisters, one a widow, one a
spinster; of his brave soldier nephew from India; of his pretty
nieces, with their English voices and their English wild-rose
bloom--who loved the heather and the mist, and the blue Loch with the
gulls sweeping over it, but him most of all; of his sons, deep in the
Gorilla Book, and to whose stories, and the history of whose
adventures and exploits grandmamma's ears were ever open. I spoke
too of the guests that came and went during my stay--the soldier, the
artist, the mysterious man, who, so far as any of us knew, had
neither name, occupation, nor country, who was without parents and
antecedents--who was himself alone; of the games of croquet on the
sunny lawn, of the pic-nics and excursions, of the books read in the
cool twilight of the moss-house, of the smoking parliament held in
the stables on rainy days, of the quiet cigar in the open air before
going to bed. 'Twas the pleasantest fortnight I ever remember to
have spent; and before I had finished telling my companion all about
it we had taken our seats in the dog-cart, and were pretty well
advanced on the way to Uig.
[Sidenote: On the way to Uig.]
Uig is distant from Kingsburgh about five miles; the road is high
above the sea, and as you drive along you behold the northern
headlands of Skye, the wide blue Minch, and Harris, rising like a
cloud on the horizon; and if the day is fine, you will enjoy the
commerce of sea and sky, the innumerable tints thrown by the clouds
on the watery mirror, the mat of glittering light spread beneath the
sun, the gray lines of showers on the distant promontories, the
tracks of air currents on the mobile element between. The clouds
pass from shape to shape--what resembles a dragon one moment
resembles something else the next; the promontory which was obscure
ten minutes ago is now yellow-green in sunlight; the watery pavement
is tesselated with hues, but with hues that continually shift and
change. In the vast outlook there is utter silence, but no rest.
What with swimming vapour, passing Proteus-like from form to
form--obscure showers that run--vagrant impulses of wind--sunbeams
that gild and die in gilding--the vast impressionable mimetic floor
outspread,--the sight you behold when you toil up the steep road from
Kingsburgh to Uig is full of motion. There is no rest in nature,
they say; and the clouds are changing like opinions and kingdoms, and
the bodies and souls of men. Matter is a stream that flows, a fire
that burns. By a cunninger chemistry than ours, the atoms that
composed the body of Adam could be arrested somewhere yet.
[Sidenote: The inn at Uig.]
Just when you have reached the highest part of the road you come in
view of the Bay of Uig. You are high above it as you drive or walk
along, the ground is equally high on the other side, and about the
distance of a mile inland, on a great sandy beach, the tide is
rolling in long white lines that chase each other. On the deep water
outside the tidal lines a yacht is rocking; there is a mansion-house
with a flag-staff on the shore, and at the top of the bay are several
houses, a church, and a school-house, built of comfortable stone and
lime. When the Minch is angry outside, washing the headlands with
spray, Uig is the refuge which the fisherman and the coaster seek.
When once they have entered its rocky portals they are safe. The
road now descends towards the shore; there is an inn midway,
low-roofed, dimly-lighted, covered with thatch--on the whole perhaps
the most unpromising edifice in the neighbourhood. Here we pulled
up. Already we had driven some twenty-five miles, and as we wished
to push on to Duntulm that evening, we were anxious to procure a
fresh horse. The keen air had whetted our appetites, and we were
eager for dinner, or what substitute for dinner could be provided.
Our driver unharnessed the horse, and we entered a little room,
spotlessly clean, however, and knocked with our knuckles on the deal
table. When the red-haired handmaiden entered, we discovered that
the Uig bill of fare consisted of bread and butter, cheese, whisky,
milk, and hard-boiled eggs--and a very satisfactory bill of fare we
considered it too. There is no such condiment as hunger honourably
earned by exercise in the open air. When the viands were placed
before us we attacked them manfully. The bread and butter
disappeared, the hard-boiled eggs disappeared, we flinched not before
the slices of goats'-milk cheese; then we made equal division of the
whisky, poured it into bowls of milk, and drank with relish. While
in the middle of the feast the landlord entered--he wore the kilt,
the only person almost whom I had seen wearing it in my sojourn in
the island--to make arrangements relative to the fresh horse. He
admitted that he possessed an animal, but as he possessed a gig and
eke a driver, it was his opinion that the three should go together.
To this we objected, stating that as we already had a vehicle and a
driver, and as they were in no wise tired, such a change as he
suggested would be needless. We told him also that we meant to
remain at Duntulm for one night only, and that by noon of the
following day we would be back at his hostelry with his horse. The
landlord seemed somewhat moved by our representations, and just when
victory was hanging in the balance the brilliant idea struck my
companion that he should be bribed with his own whisky. At the rap
on the deal table the red-haired wench appeared, the order was given,
and in a trice a jorum of mountain dew was produced. This decided
matters, the landlord laid down the arms of argument, and after we
had solemnly drunk each other's health he went out for the fresh
horse, and in a quarter of an hour we were all right, and slowly
descending the steep hill-road to Uig.
[Sidenote: The road to Duntulm.]
We drove through the village, where a good deal of building seemed
going on, and then began to climb the hill-road that rose beyond it.
Along the hill-side this road zig-zagged in such a curious manner,
ran in such terraces and parallel lines, that the dog-cart
immediately beneath you, and into which you could almost chuck a
biscuit--the one machine heading east the other west--would take ten
minutes before it reached the point to which you had obtained. At
last we reached the top of the wavy ascent, passed through a mile or
two of moory wilderness, in which we met a long string of women
bringing home creels of peats, and then in the early sunset descended
the long hill-side which led to Kilmuir. Driving along we had
Mugstot pointed out to us--a plain white dwelling on our left in
which Macdonald lived after he had vacated Duntulm, and while
Armadale was yet building. About this place, too, the Parliamentary
Road stopped. No longer could we drive along smoothly as on an
English turnpike. The pathway now was narrow and stony, and the
dog-cart bumped and jolted in a most distressing manner. During the
last hour, too, the scenery had changed its character. We were no
longer descending a hill-side on which the afternoon sun shone
pleasantly. Our path still lay along the sea, but above us were high
cliffs with great boulders lying at their feet; beneath us, and
sloping down to the sea level, boulders lay piled on each other, and
against these the making tide seethed and fretted. The sun was
setting on the Minch, and the irregular purple outline of Harris was
distinctly visible on the horizon. For some time back we had seen no
house, nor had our path been crossed by a single human being. The
solitariness and desolation of the scenery affected one. Everything
around was unfamiliar and portentous. The road on which we drove was
like a road in the "Faery Queen," along which a knight, the sunset
dancing on his armour, might prick in search of perilous adventure.
The chin of the sun now rested on the Minch, the overhanging cliffs
were rosy, and the rocky road began to seem interminable. At last
there was a sudden turn, and there, on a little promontory, with
shattered wall and loophole against the red light, stood Duntulm--the
castle of all others that I most wished to see.
[Sidenote: A hospitable reception.]
Going down the rocky road, the uncomfortable idea crept into our
minds that Duntulm, to whom we bore a letter of introduction from the
Landlord, might--like the owner of Kingsburgh--have gone to the south
on business. We could hardly have returned to Uig that night, and
this thought made yet more rigid the wall of rosy cliff above us, and
yet more dreary the seethe of the Minch amongst the broken boulders
beneath. As suspense was worse than certainty, we urged on the Uig
horse, and in a short time, with the broken castle behind us, drew up
at the house. Duntulm had seen us coming, and when we alighted he
was at the door, his face hospitable as a fire in winter time, and
his outstretched hand the best evidence of good wishes. In a moment
the bald red cliffs and the homeless seething of the Minch among the
broken stones faded out of my memory. We mentioned our names, and
proffered the letter of introduction. "There is no need," said he,
as he thrust the epistle into his pocket, "civility before ceremony.
Having come you are of course my guests. Come in. The letter will
tell me who you are soon enough." And so we were carried into the
little parlour till our bedrooms were got ready, and then we went
up-stairs, washed our hands and faces, changed our clothes, and came
down for tea. When we entered the parlour, the tea-urn was hissing
on the table, and with our host sat a photographer--bearded as all
artists at the present day are--who had been engaged during the
afternoon on Flora Macdonald's grave.
When tea was over we were carried into another room where were
materials placed for the brewing of punch. Through the window I
beheld spectral castle, the sea on which the light was dying, the
purple fringe of Harris on the horizon. And seated there, in the
remotest corner of Skye, amongst people whom I had never before seen,
girt by walls of cliffs and the sounding sea, in a region, too, in
which there was no proper night, I confess to have been conscious of
a pleasant feeling of strangeness, of removal from all customary
conditions of thought and locality, which I like at times to recall
and enjoy over again. Into this feeling the strange country through
which I had that day driven, the strange room in which I sat, the
strange faces surrounding me, the strange talk, all entered; yet I am
almost certain that it was heightened to no inconsiderable extent by
the peculiar spirit bottle on the table. This bottle was pale green
in colour, was composed of two hollow hemispheres like a sand-glass,
the mouthpiece surmounting the upper hemisphere of course; and from
the upper hemisphere to the lower sprang four hollow arms, through
which the liquor coursed, giving the bottle a curiously square
appearance. I had never seen such a bottle before, and I suppose
till I go back to Duntulm I am not likely to see its like. Its shape
was peculiar, and that peculiarity dove-tailed into the peculiarity
of everything else. We sat there till the light had died out on the
sea, and the cloud had come down on Harris, and then the candles were
brought in.
[Sidenote: Donald Gorm.]
But the broken tower of Duntulm still abode in my memory, and I began
to make inquiries concerning it. I was told that it was long the
seat of the Macdonalds, but that after the family had been driven out
of it by the ghost of Donald Gorm, they removed to Mugstot. "Donald
Gorm!" I said; "were they driven out by the restless spirit of the
Donald who flouted Macleod at his own table at Dunvegan--who, when he
was asked to show his dirk, held it up in the torch-light in the face
of Macleod and of his gentlemen, with the exclamation, 'Here it is,
Macleod of Dunvegan, and in the best hand for pushing it home in the
four and twenty islands of the Hebrides?'" "They were driven away by
the spirit of the same Donald," said our host. "That chieftain had
been stricken by a lingering yet mortal illness, and removed to
Edinburgh, and placed himself under the care of the leeches there.
His body lay on a sick-bed in Edinburgh, but his spirit roamed about
the passages and galleries of the castle. The people heard the
noises, and the slamming of doors, and the waving of tartans on the
staircases, and did not know that it was the spirit of their sick
master that troubled them. It was found out, however. The servants
were frightened out of their wits by the unearthly voices, and the
sounds of weeping, the waving of shadowy tartans, and the wringing of
shadowy hands, and declared that they would no longer abide in the
castle. At last a young man, from Kilmuir over there, said that if
they would provide him with a sword and a Bible, and plenty to eat
and drink, he would sit up in the hall all night and speak to the
apparition. His offer was accepted, and he sat down to supper in the
great hall with his sword drawn and his Bible open on the table
before him. At midnight he heard doors open and close, and the sound
of footsteps on the stairs, and before he knew where he was there was
Donald Gorm, dressed in tartan as if for feast or battle, standing on
the floor and looking at him. 'What do you want with me, Donald?'
said the young man. 'I was in Edinburgh last night,' said the
spirit, 'and I am in my own castle to-night. Don't be afraid, man;
there is more force in the little pebble which you chuck away from
you with your finger and thumb than there is in my entire body of
strength. Tell Donald Gorm Og--("Donald's son, you know,"
interpolated the photographer)--tell Donald Gorm Og to stand up for
the right against might, to be generous to the multitude, to have a
charitable hand stretched out to the poor. Woe's me! woe's me! I
have spoken to a mortal, and must leave the castle to-night,' and so
the ghost of Donald vanished, and the young man was left sitting in
the hall alone. Donald died in Edinburgh and was buried there; but
after his death, as during his life, his spirit walked about here
until the family was compelled to leave. It was a fine place once,
but it has been crumbling away year by year, and is now broken and
hollow like a witch's tooth. The story I have told you is devoutly
believed by all the fishermen, herdsmen, and milkmaids in the
neighbourhood. I think Mr Maciver, the clergyman at Kilmuir, is the
only person in the neighbourhood who has no faith in it." This ghost
story the photographer capped by another, and when that was finished
we went to bed.
[Sidenote: Flora Macdonald's grave.]
Next morning we went out to inspect the old castle, and found it a
mere shell. Compared with its appearance the night before, when it
stood in relief against the red sky, it was strangely unimpressive; a
fragment of a tower and a portion of flanking wall stood erect; there
were traces of building down on the slope near the sea, but all the
rest was a mere rubble of fallen masonry. It had been despoiled in
every way; the elements had worn and battered it, the people of the
district had for years back made it a quarry, and built out of it
dwellings, out-houses, and dikes--making the past serve the purposes
of the present. Sheep destined for the London market were cropping
the herbage around its base--suggesting curious comparisons, and
bringing into keener contrast antiquity and to-day. While we were
loitering about the ruins the photographer came up, and under his
guidance we went to visit Kilmuir churchyard, in which Flora
Macdonald rests. We went along the stony road down which we had
driven the night previously--the cliffs lately so rosy, gray enough
now, and the seethe of the fresh sea amongst the boulders and shingle
beneath rather exhilarating than otherwise. After a walk of about a
couple of miles we left the road, climbed up a grassy ascent, and
found the churchyard there, enclosed by a low stone wall. Everything
was in hideous disrepair. The gate was open, the tomb-stones were
broken and defaced, and above the grave of the heroine nettles were
growing more luxuriously than any crop I had yet had the good fortune
to behold in the island. Skye has only one historical grave to
dress--and she leaves it so. On expressing our surprise to the
photographer, he told us that a London sculptor passing that way, and
whose heart burned within him at the sight, had offered at several
dinner-tables in the district to execute a bronze medallion of the
famous lady, gratis, provided his guests would undertake to have it
properly placed, and to a have fitting inscription carved upon the
pedestal. "The proposal was made, I know," said the photographer,
"for the sculptor told me about it himself. His proposal has not
been taken up, nor is it likely to be taken up now. The country
which treats the grave of a heroine after that fashion is not worthy
to have a heroine. Still,"--he went eyeing the place critically,
with his head a little to one side--"it makes a picturesque
photograph as it stands--perhaps better than if it were neat and
tidy." We plucked a nettle from the grave and then returned to
Duntulm to breakfast.
[Sidenote: Quirang.]
Shortly after breakfast our dog-cart was at the door, and followed by
Duntulm and the photographer in a similar machine, we were on our way
to Quirang. A drive of a couple of hours brought us to the base of
the singular mountain. Tilting our vehicles, leaving the horses to
roam about picking the short grass, and carrying with us materials
for luncheon on the crest, we began the ascent. The day was fine,
the sky cloudless, and in an hour we were toiling past the rocky
spire of the needle, and in fifteen minutes thereafter, we reached
the flat green plateau on the top. Here we lunched and sang songs,
and made mock heroic speeches in proposing each other's health. I
had ascended the Quirang before in rain, and wind, and vapour, and
could hardly recognise it now under the different atmospherical
conditions. Then every stone was slippery, every runnel a torrent,
the top of the needle lost in the flying mist, everything looking
spectral, weird, and abnormal. On the present occasion, we saw it in
fair sunlight; and what the basalt columns, the shattered precipices,
the projecting spiry rocks lost in terror they gained in beauty.
Reclining on the soft green grass--strange to find grass so girdled
by fantastic crags--we had, through fissures and the rents of ancient
earthquake, the loveliest peeps of the map-like under world swathed
in faint sea azure. An hour, perhaps, we lay there; and then began
the long descent. When we reached the dog-carts we exchanged a
parting cup, and then Duntulm and the photographer returned home, and
we hied on to Uig.
Arriving at Uig we dined--the bill of fare identical with that on the
preceding day; the hard-boiled eggs, only a shade harder boiled
perhaps; and then having settled with the kilted landlord--the charge
wondrously moderate--we got out our own horse, and with the setting
sun making splendid the Minch behind us, we started for Portree. It
was eleven P.M. before we reached the little town, the moon was
shining clearly, a stray candle or two twinkling in the houses, and
when we reached the hotel door the building was lighted up--it had
been a fair day, the prices for cattle were good, and over whisky
punch farmer and drover were fraternising.
Next morning, in the soft sky was the wild outline of the Cuchullins,
with which we were again to make acquaintance. Somehow these hills
never weary, you never become familiar with them, intimacy can no
more stale them than it could the beauty of Cleopatra. From the
hotel door I regarded them with as much interest as when, from the
deck of the steamer off Ardnamurchan ten years ago, I first beheld
them with their clouds on the horizon. While at breakfast in the
public room, farmer and drover dropped in--the more fiery-throated
drinking pale ale instead of tea. After breakfast we were again in
the dog-cart driving leisurely toward Sligachan--the wonderful
mountains beyond gradually losing tenderness of morning hue and
growing worn and hoary, standing with sharper edges against the
light, becoming rough with rocky knob and buttress, and grayly
wrinkled with ravines. When we reached the inn we found it full of
company, bells continually jangling, half a dozen machines at the
door, and a party of gentlemen in knickerbockers starting with rods
and fishing-baskets. Here we returned the dog-cart to the landlord,
and began to address ourselves to the desolate glen stretching
between the inn and Camasunary.
[Sidenote: Glen Sligachan.]