[Sidenote: THE ROYAL BURGH OF NAIRN.]
Leaving Elgin that same afternoon, our travellers drove on to Fores,
where they passed the night. Next morning, continuing their journey
early, they breakfasted at Nairn. “Though a county town and a royal
burgh, it is,” writes Boswell, “a miserable place.” Johnson also
describes it as being “in a state of miserable decay.” Nevertheless,
“the chief annual magistrate,” he says, “is styled Lord Provost.” If
it sank as a royal burgh, it has raised its head again as a popular
bathing-place. In this respect it has not its rival, I was told, in the
north of Scotland. Here Johnson “fixed the verge of the Highlands; for
here he first saw peat fires, and first heard the Erse language.”[554]
Over the room in the inn where he and Boswell sat “a girl was spinning
wool with a great wheel, and singing an Erse song.” It was thirty years
later that Wordsworth in like manner heard “The Solitary Reaper”:
“Yon solitary Highland lass
Reaping and singing by herself.”
Even so far back as the reign of James VI. both languages were spoken
in Nairn. “It was one of that king’s witticisms to boast that in
Scotland he had a town ‘sae lang that the folk at the tae end couldna
understand the tongue spoken at the tother.’”[555] Gaelic is no longer
heard in its streets. The verge of the Higher lands must now be fixed
farther to the west. Nine years before Johnson’s visit the little town
had been stirred up by Wesley. On Monday, June 11, 1764, he recorded
in his journal: “While we were dining at Nairn, the innkeeper said,
‘Sir, the gentlemen of the town have read the little book you gave me
on Saturday, and would be glad if you would please give them a sermon.’
Upon my consenting, the bell was immediately rung, and the congregation
was quickly in the kirk.”[556]
[Sidenote: CAWDOR MANSE.]
From Nairn our travellers turned a few miles out of their course to
visit the Rev. Kenneth Macaulay in his manse at Cawdor. To Johnson
he was known by his _History of St. Kilda_—“a very pretty piece of
topography” as he called it to the author, “who did not seem much to
mind the compliment.” To us he is interesting as the great-uncle of
Lord Macaulay. “From his conversation,” says Boswell, “Dr. Johnson
was convinced that he had not written the book which goes under his
name. ‘There is a combination in it’ (he said) ‘of which Macaulay is
not capable.’” “To those who happen to have read the work,” writes Sir
George Trevelyan, “Johnson’s decision will give a very poor notion
of my ancestor’s abilities.”[557] Let him take comfort. The present
minister of Cawdor, to whose civility I am indebted, told me that in
the Kirk Session Records is a minute by Macaulay “most beautifully
expressed.” I had hoped to sit in the very parlour where Johnson had
reproached him with being “a bigot to laxness,” and where he had given
his little son a Sallust, promising at the same time to get him a
servitorship at Oxford when he was ready for the University. But hopes
that are based on the permanence of buildings are often disappointed.
Of the old manse nothing remains. The minister, who rejoiced in having
a more comfortable home than his predecessors, refused to share in my
sentimental regrets. The situation seemed a pleasant one, as I saw it
on a fine evening in July, with the sun setting behind the hills on the
other side of the Moray Firth. The haymakers were busy at their work
close to the house, in a field which is bounded on one side by a deep
hollow, with a little brook flowing at the bottom, and in front by a
row of old ash trees.
[Illustration: CAWDOR.]
[Sidenote: TALK IN CAWDOR MANSE.]
In the company of Macaulay Boswell “had dreaded that a whole evening
would be heavy. However,” he adds, “Mr. Grant, an intelligent and
well-bred minister in the neighbourhood, was there, and assisted us
by his conversation.” His grandson is Colonel Grant, who shares with
Captain Speke the glory of having discovered the sources of the Nile.
It was indeed an unusual gathering that August evening in the parlour
of the quiet manse—Johnson, the first of talkers, Boswell, the first
of biographers, the great-uncle of our famous historian, and the
grandfather of our famous discoverer. My hopes rose high when I was
told that a diary which Mr. Grant kept was still in existence. Of this
evening’s talk some record surely would have been made. With sorrow I
learnt from his grandson that “accounts of expenses, sermons preached,
peat-cutting, stipends, washing _twice a year_, births, &c., are the
principal things which are mentioned.” This washing twice a year must
not be taken as a proof that this divine “had no passion for clean
linen.” A Scotch friend of mine remembers a man who owned three farms
in the neighbourhood of Campbeltown. In his house they only washed
twice a year, though both he and his three sons who lived with him
changed their shirts every second day. A time was chosen when there was
a slackness in the ordinary work, and then the female servants were
gathered from the three farms for a week’s hard washing. This same
custom exists, I believe, to the present day in Norway. [Sidenote:
CAWDOR CHURCH.] In the churchyard I found Mr. Grant’s tombstone. He
lived till 1828—fifty-five years after he had met Johnson. He used to
tell a story about the doctor which happily has been preserved. He had
supped with him, as we learn from Boswell, at the inn at Inverness.
Johnson, who was in high spirits, gave an account of the kangaroo,
which had lately been discovered in New South Wales, “and volunteered
an imitation of the animal. The company stared; Mr. Grant said
nothing could be more ludicrous than the appearance of a tall, heavy,
grave-looking man like Dr. Johnson standing up to mimic the shape and
motions of a kangaroo. He stood erect, put out his hands like feelers,
and gathering up the tails of his huge brown coat so as to resemble
the pouch of the animal, made two or three vigorous bounds across the
room.”[558]
[Illustration: DRAWBRIDGE: CAWDOR CASTLE.]
[Sidenote: PENANCE-RING, CAWDOR CHURCH.]
Near Mr. Grant lies his friend and predecessor Kenneth Macaulay,
with an inscription which tells that he was “notus in fratres animi
paterni.” This _animus paternus_ descended in full measure to Lord
Macaulay. On the porch of the church is still fastened by an iron chain
the old penance-ring which Pennant saw one hundred and twenty years
ago. “Observed,” he writes, “on a pillar of the door of Calder church
a _joug_, _i.e._, an iron yoke or ring, fastened to a chain; which was
in former times put round the necks of delinquents against the rules
of the Church, who were left there exposed to shame during the time
of divine service, and was also used as a punishment for defamation,
small thefts, &c., but these penalties are now happily abolished.”[559]
From such penance as this there was perhaps an escape for those who
were well-to-do. From _Hudibras_ we learn that the Presbyterian saints
could “sentence to stools or poundage of repentance,” which passage
is explained by the commentator as “doing penance in the Scotch way,
upon the stool of repentance, or commuting the penance for a sum of
money.”[560]
[Illustration: CAWDOR CASTLE.]
[Sidenote: CAWDOR CASTLE.]
“By the direction of Mr. Macaulay,” writes Johnson, “we visited Cawdor
Castle, from which Macbeth drew his second title.” That they should
have needed a direction to visit so beautiful a spot seems strange, for
they must have passed close by it on their way to the manse. As I first
caught sight of it by the light of a summer evening, I thought that
I had rarely seen a fairer spot. This castle hath indeed a pleasant
seat, I said. All the barrenness of the eastern coast I had left behind
me, and had found in its stead a luxuriance of growth that would have
graced the oldest mansion in England. Everything seemed beautiful,
and everything harmonious—the ancient castle, with its high-pitched
roof and its lofty tower; the swift-flowing river, with its bridge of
a single arch; the curve in the road where it crosses it; the avenue
of lofty trees, the lawns enclosed by limes, the shrubberies, and the
range of mountains in the distance still showing the light of the sun
which had set for us. The water murmured pleasantly, and a gentle
breeze rustled the leaves. I found a little inn close by the park
gate, where homely fare and decent lodging are provided. A man of a
quiet meditative mind might pass a few days there pleasantly enough if
he sought shelter in the woods on the afternoons when the castle is
thrown open to visitors. Next morning I watched the school-children,
bare-footed, but clean and tidy, carrying on their arms their slates
covered with sums in neat figures, trooping merrily by, and winding
over the bridge on their way to school. By the kindness of the Earl
of Cawdor I was allowed to go over the castle from turret almost to
foundation-stone at a time when it was not generally open.
“The old tower,” says Boswell, “must be of great antiquity.
There is a draw-bridge—what has been a moat—and an ancient
court. There is a hawthorn-tree, which rises like a wooden
pillar through the rooms of the castle; for, by a strange
conceit, the walls have been built round it. The thickness of
the walls, the small slanting windows, and a great iron door
at the entrance on the second story as you ascend the stairs,
all indicate the rude times in which this castle was erected.
There were here some large venerable trees.”
[Illustration: VAULT.]
It is surprising that he should have thought that there could ever
have been a moat on a rock high above the river. Johnson nevertheless
also mentions it. What they mistook for a moat is the excavation
made in quarrying the stone for the castle. In clearing it out some
while ago, the workmen came to a place where the masons had left some
stones half dressed. Mr. Irving, who visited Cawdor, has had the
fine entrance copied, I am told, in his scenery for Macbeth, adding,
however, a portcullis, of which no traces remain. I was shown in a
kind of vault the trunk of the old hawthorn which Boswell mentions.
There is a tradition that “a wise man counselled a certain thane
to load an ass with a chest full of gold, and to build his castle
with the money at the third hawthorn-tree at which the animal should
stop.” The ass stopped where Cawdor Castle is built, and the tree was
enclosed. The thane’s only child, a little girl, was carried off by
Campbell of Inverliver, on Loch Awe. In his flight he was overtaken by
the Cawdors. Being hard pressed, “he cried out in Gaelic, ‘It is a far
cry to Loch Awe, and a distant help to the Campbells,’ a saying which
became proverbial in the north to express imminent danger and distant
relief.”[561] He won the day, however, and the child when she grew
up married a son of the Earl of Argyle. From them is descended that
“prosperous gentleman,” the present Thane or Earl of Cawdor.
[Illustration: TAPESTRY CHAMBER.]
I passed through the great iron door which Boswell mentions, and other
strong doors too, and climbed up the staircase which is built in the
thickness of the wall. I was shown the place in the roof where Lord
Lovat, when fleeing from justice early in his bad career, had lain in
hiding for some weeks. I saw, moreover, more than one chamber hung
with old tapestry. In one of them stands the state bed of Sir Hugh
Campbell, who in 1672 married Lady Henrietta Stewart. Their initials,
with the date, are carved on the outside wall of the court. At one end
of the hall runs a gallery which bears the name of the Fiddler’s Walk.
There the musicians used to play, keeping time with their steps to
their tune.