[Sidenote: KINGSBURGH TO DUNVEGAN.]
Had our travellers ridden the whole distance from Kingsburgh
to Dunvegan they would have travelled a weary way in rounding
Lochs Snizort and Grishinish. But they sent their horses by land
to a point on the other shore of the further loch, and crossed
over themselves in Macdonald of Kingsburgh’s boat. “When,” said
Johnson, “we take into computation what we have saved and what we
have gained by this agreeable sail, it is a great deal.” They had
still some miles of dreary riding through the most melancholy of
moorlands. There were no roads or even paths. “A guide,” writes
Boswell, “explored the way, much in the same manner as, I suppose,
is pursued in the wilds of America, by observing certain marks
known only to the inhabitants.” In some places the ground was
so boggy that it would not bear the weight of horse and rider,
and they were forced to dismount and walk. [Sidenote: DUNVEGAN
CASTLE.] It was late in the afternoon when they reached Dunvegan
Castle—that hospitable home where Johnson “tasted lotus, and was
in danger,” as he said, “of forgetting that he was ever to depart.”
This ancient seat of the Macleods was less beautiful, but far
more interesting as he saw it than it is at the present day. The
barrenness of nature has been covered with a luxuriant growth, and
the land all around “which presented nothing but wild, moorish,
hilly, and craggy appearances,” is now finely wooded. But while
the setting is so greatly improved, the ancient building which is
enshrined has suffered beneath the hand of a restorer. It is true
that some great improvements have been made. The wing which had
so long been left unfinished, through a superstitious fear that
the owner would not long outlive the completion—“this skeleton
of a castle,” as Johnson describes it—has been completed. A fine
approach has been formed from the side of the land. But in the
alterations which were made about fifty years ago an architect
was employed who must surely have acquired his mischievous art in
erecting sham fortresses on the banks of the Clyde for the wealthy
traders of Glasgow. It is greatly to be wished that a judicious
earthquake would bring to the ground his pepper-box turrets.
Nevertheless, in spite of all that he has done—and he did his
worst,—it still remains a noble pile, nobly placed. It is built
on the rocky shore of a small bay, and well sheltered from the
violence of the waves by an island which lies across the mouth,
and by headlands on both sides. Through narrow inlets are seen the
open waters of Loch Follart, and beyond them the everlasting hills.
We saw it on a fine summer evening, when the long seaweeds were
swaying in the gentle heaving of the tiny waves. Outside the bay
two yachts were furling their sails, for the morrow was the day
of rest. The sea-birds were hovering and screaming all around. A
great heron was standing on a rock, with his white breast reflected
in the water. A little to the north a long mast was lying on
the beach, washed up from a wreck which, black with seaweed, is
discovered at low tide. The old castle, the finely wooded hills,
the rocks covered with fern and heath, the clear reflections
in the sea of the mountains across the loch, the island, the
inlets, the white sails of the yachts, the tranquil beauty of the
summer evening—all moved us deeply. One thing only was wanting.
[Sidenote: RORIE MORE’S NURSE.] The delightful weather which the
country had so long enjoyed had silenced “Rorie More’s Nurse.”
There was not water enough in it to have caught that good knight’s
ear; still less to have lulled him to sleep. Johnson had seen it
“in full perfection.” It was “a noble cascade,” he said. But he
paid dearly for the fineness of the sight; for during the whole
of his stay the weather was dreary, with high winds and violent
rain. “We filled up the time as we could,” he writes; “sometimes
by talk, sometimes by reading. I have never wanted books in the
Isle of Skye.” So comfortably was he situated that he could hardly
be persuaded to move on. “Here we settled,” he writes, “and did
not spoil the present hour with thoughts of departure.” When on
Saturday Boswell proposed that they should leave on the following
Monday, when their week would be completed, he replied: “No, Sir, I
will not go before Wednesday. I will have some more of this good.”
[Illustration: RORIE MORE’S NURSE.]
[Sidenote: THE LAIRD OF MACLEOD.]
He was fortunate in his hosts. The Laird, a young man of nineteen,
quickly won his friendship. He had been the pupil at University
College, Oxford, of George Strahan, who had been known to Johnson from
his childhood. Boswell describes Macleod as “a most promising youth,
who with a noble spirit struggles with difficulties, and endeavours
to preserve his people. He has been left with an incumbrance of forty
thousand pounds debt, and annuities to the amount of thirteen hundred
pounds a year. Dr. Johnson said, ‘If he gets the better of all this,
he’ll be a hero; and I hope he will. I have not met with a young man
who had more desire to learn, or who has learnt more. I have seen
nobody that I wish more to do a kindness to than Macleod.’” According
to Knox, who was an impartial witness, he was an excellent landlord.
Distressed though he was by this heavy burthen of debt, “he raised
no rents, turned out no tenants, used no man with severity, and in
all respects, and under the most pressing exigences, maintained the
character of a liberal and humane friend of mankind.”[639] He formed
at one time the design of writing his own Life. Unhappily he left but
a fragment. His father had died early, so that on the death of his
grandfather, the year before Johnson’s visit, he had succeeded to the
property—the estates in Skye, the nine inhabited isles and the islands
uninhabited almost beyond number. “He did not know to within twenty
square miles the extent of his territories in Skye.” But vast as these
domains were, the revenue which they produced was but small. One estate
of eighty thousand acres was only rented at six hundred pounds a year.
“His grandfather,” he writes, “had entered upon his inheritance
in the most prosperous condition; but the course of his life
was expensive, his temper convivial and hospitable, and he
continued to impair his fortune till his death. He was the
first of our family who was led to leave the patriarchal
government of the clan, and to mix in the pursuits and ambition
of the world. He had always been a most beneficent chieftain,
but in the beginning of 1772, his necessities having lately
induced him to raise his rents, he became much alarmed by the
new spirit which had reached his clan. Aged and infirm he was
unable to apply the remedy in person; he devolved the task on
me, and gave me for an assistant our nearest male relation,
Colonel Macleod, of Talisker. The estate was loaded with debt,
encumbered with a numerous issue from himself and my father,
and charged with some jointures. His tenants had lost in that
severe winter above a third of their cattle.[640] My friend and
I were empowered to grant such deductions in the rents as might
seem reasonable; but we found it terrible to decide between the
justice to creditors, the necessities of an ancient family,
and the distresses of an impoverished tenantry. I called
the people together; I laid before them the situation of our
family; I acknowledged the hardships under which they laboured;
I reminded them of the manner in which their ancestors had
lived with mine; I combated their passion for America; I
promised to live among them; I desired every district to
point out some of their most respected men to settle with me
every claim, and I promised to do everything for their relief
which in reason I could. Our labour was not in vain. We gave
considerable abatements in the rents; few emigrated; and the
clan conceived the most lively attachment to me, which they
most effectually manifested.
“I remained at home till the end of 1774, but I consider this
as the most gloomy period of my life. Educated in a liberal
manner, fired with ambition, fond of society, I found myself in
confinement in a remote corner of the world; without any hope
of extinguishing the debts of my family, or of ever emerging
from poverty and obscurity. I had also the torment of seeing my
mother and sisters immured with me.
“In 1774 [1773] Dr. Samuel Johnson, with his companion, Mr.
Boswell, visited our dreary regions; it was my good fortune
to be enabled to practise the virtue of hospitality on this
occasion. The learned traveller spent a fortnight at Dunvegan;
and indeed amply repaid our cares to please him by the most
instructive and entertaining conversation. I procured for
him the company of the most learned clergymen and sagacious
inhabitants of the islands.”[641]
Macleod’s high praise of Johnson is in curious contradiction to Sir
Walter Scott’s account, that “when winter-bound at Dunvegan, Johnson’s
temper became most execrable, and beyond all endurance save that of
his guide (Boswell).”[642] Mr. Croker, on receiving this account from
Sir Walter, applied to the Laird’s son and successor, “who assured him
emphatically they were all _delighted_ with him.”[643] Nevertheless, as
I have already stated,[644] the young ladies of the family do not seem
to have shared in this delight. The true Johnsonian must look upon them
as “a set of wretched un-idea’d girls,” and so forgive their want of
taste.
Macleod, two or three years after our traveller’s visit, raised a
company of his own Highlanders, and entered the army. In the war
against our colonists in America he and his wife, who had accompanied
him, were taken prisoners. In their captivity they made the
acquaintance and won the friendship of George Washington. Let us hope
that the heart of the founder of the great American Commonwealth was
softened towards the author of _Taxation no Tyranny_ by the anecdotes
which he heard of him from his warm friend, the young Scottish chief.
On his return home he raised the second battalion of the forty-second
Highlanders, and served with distinction in India as their colonel.
Zoffany painted him in his soldier’s dress, surrounded with elephants,
camels, and Hindoos, with Highland scenery in the background. Just
before he started for the East he dined at the house of one of his
_tacksmen_, or chief tenants, “who said that all the dishes should
be the produce of Macleod’s estate and the shores thereof. Amongst
a profusion of other dishes there were thirteen different kinds of
fish.”[645] He died in 1802 at the early age of forty-six.
[Sidenote: LADY MACLEOD.]
Fortunate as Johnson was in having this amiable and high-spirited
youth for his host, scarcely less fortunate was he in his hostess,
the Laird’s mother, Lady Macleod. The title which she bore was one
of courtesy. Up to this time the wives of Highland lairds, and also
of Scotch judges, seem commonly to have been addressed as _Lady_.
Johnson’s hostess at Lochbuie, the wife of the laird, is called Lady
Lochbuie by Boswell. The change to the modern usage had, however,
begun; for Ramsay of Ochtertyre, speaking of the year 1769, says that,
“Somebody asked Lord Auchinleck before his second marriage if the lady
was to be called Mrs. Boswell, according to the modern fashion.”[646]
Johnson was not wholly a stranger to his hostess. “I had once,” he
writes, “attracted her notice in London.” She was able to render his
stay pleasant, for from her long residence in England, “she knew all
the arts of southern elegance, and all the modes of English economy.”
In his talk she took great delight, though when one day she heard him
maintain ““that no man was naturally good more than a wolf, and no
woman either,” she said in a low voice, ‘This is worse than Swift.’”
Knox, who visited Dunvegan in 1786 records the following anecdote:—
“Lady Macleod, who had repeatedly helped Dr. Johnson to
sixteen dishes or upwards of tea, asked him if a small basin
would not save him trouble, and be more agreeable. ‘I wonder,
Madam,’ answered he roughly, ‘why all the ladies ask me such
impertinent questions. It is to save yourselves trouble,
Madam, and not me.’ The lady was silent and went on with her
task.”[647]
It is not likely that Knox had the story at first hand, for when
he visited Dunvegan, the Castle was occupied by a Major Alexander
Macleod, who had married a daughter of Flora Macdonald. It is probable,
therefore, that Lady Macleod was not living there at the time. The
number of cups of tea may have grown as the story passed from one to
another. We shall find in the next chapter that at Ulinish Johnson
was reported to have exceeded even this feat in tea-drinking. Lady
Eldon used to relate that one evening at Oxford she had helped him to
fifteen. Cumberland, who was not famed for accuracy, did not go beyond
a dozen as the number supplied to the great man by Mrs. Cumberland.
Short even of this Johnson might very well “have turned his cup,” as he
had done at Aberbrothick, and muttered, “_claudite jam rivos, pueri_.”
[Sidenote: THE OLD ROCK.]
Lady Macleod was discontented with the barrenness of Dunvegan, and
longed to move the seat of the family to a spot about five miles off,
“where she could make gardens and other ornaments. She insisted that
the rock was very inconvenient; that there was no place near it where a
good garden could be made; that it must always be a rude place; that it
was a _Herculean_ labour to make a dinner here.” “I was vexed,” writes
Boswell, “to find the alloy of modern refinement in a lady who had so
much old family spirit. ‘Have all the comforts and conveniences of life
upon it,’ I said, ‘but never leave Rorie More’s cascade.’ ‘It is very
well for you,’ she replied, ‘who have a fine place, and everything
easy, to talk thus, and think of chaining honest folks to a rock. You
would not live upon it yourself.’ ‘Yes, Madam,’ said I, ‘I would live
upon it, were I Laird of Macleod, and should be unhappy if I were not
upon it.’ JOHNSON (with a strong voice and most determined manner).
‘Madam, rather than quit the old rock, Boswell would live in the pit;
he would make his bed in the dungeon.’ The lady was puzzled a little.
She still returned to her pretty farm—rich ground—fine garden.
‘Madam,’ said Dr. Johnson, ‘were they in Asia, I would not leave the
rock.’”
Her visitors were in the right. The scene was too noble a one to be
lightly deserted. There was no need to go five miles for trees and
gardens. [Sidenote: DR. JOHNSON’S PLANTATIONS.] The Scotch for their
carelessness in adorning their homes did not here fall on deaf ears.
His host and his host’s son planted largely, and the fruit of his
advice and of their judicious labours is seen in the beautiful woods
and shrubberies which surround the Castle. Rorie More’s Cascade is
almost hidden by trees. A Dutch garden has been formed, where, under
the shelter of the thick beech hedge which encloses it, the roses
bloom. Close to the ruins of an ancient chapel, with glimpses through
the trees of the waters of the Loch, a conservatory has been built. Had
Johnson seen the beautiful and rare flowers which grow in it, he would
surely never have maintained that “a green-house is a childish thing.”
What a change has come since the day when he wrote that “the country
about Dunvegan is rough and barren. There are no trees except in the
orchard, which is a low, sheltered spot, surrounded with a wall.” The
rough old fellow passed over the land with his strong common sense and
his vigorous reproofs, and the rudeness of nature has been tamed, and
its barrenness changed into luxuriance. He deserved better of mankind
even than he “who made two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to
grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before;”[648] for he
made trees and flowers to grow where before there had been none. He did
that which a king of Scotland had tried to do and failed. James the
Fifth’s command that round every house plantations should be made had
resulted, I was told, in the few trees which Johnson saw. But where
the king’s could be almost counted on the fingers of the two hands,
Johnson’s cover whole hill-sides. I was informed by Miss Macleod, of
Macleod, for whose kindness I am most grateful, that she had no doubt
that it was his reproaches which stirred up her grandfather to plant so
widely. How luxuriantly nature can deck the ground when she is aided
by art, was seen in the strange variety of flowers which we noticed in
the grounds. Two seasons seemed to be mingled into one, for we found
at the same time wild roses, the hawthorn, blue bells, cuckoo flowers,
heather, lupins, laburnums, and rhododendrons.
In ancient days the only access to the castle, says Sir Walter Scott,
was “from the sea by a subterranean staircase, partly arched, partly
cut in the rock, which winding up through the cliff opened into
the court.”[649] These steps Johnson oddly describes as “a pair of
stairs,” just as if they were in an Oxford college or the Temple.
When the tide was up access was cut off, so that a visitor who had
arrived by land must at the very end of his journey have taken boat
in order to gain the entrance. A little above the lower gate, on the
side of the passage, there was an old well, with uncovered mouth. At
the christening of the present laird, one of the guests who had drunk
too freely, going down the steps to his boat, fell in and was drowned.
The well was at once enclosed, and has never been used since. Even in
Johnson’s time its water, though not brackish in spite of its being
so near to the sea, was not much used. The stream which formed Rorie
More’s Cascade was thought to afford a purer supply. It was not by
this staircase that our travellers entered the castle, but by a long
flight of steps which the last laird had made on the side of the land.
They were not guarded by hand-rails. Many years ago a milkmaid coming
up them with her pails on a stormy day, was carried over by a high
wind, and much hurt. They have given place to the present approach by a
carriage-road carried over the chasm which cut off the castle from the
neighbouring land.
[Illustration: WATERGATE.]
[Sidenote: THE STATELY DINING-ROOM.]
On the walls of the “stately dining-room” where our travellers were
first received, I saw hanging some fine portraits by Raeburn, their
host and his wife and their eldest son, a lad with a sweet honest
face, who was lost with his ship, the Royal Charlotte, in the Bay of
Naples. Near them hang “the wicked laird” and his two wives. There
is a tradition that his first wife had fled from him on account of
his cruelty, but had been enticed back by a friendly letter. When her
husband had caught her, he starved her to death in the dungeon. It was
no doubt the sight of these pictures which one day at table led the
company to talk of portraits; when Johnson maintained that “their chief
excellence is being like. One would like,” he added, “to see how Rorie
More looked. Truth, Sir, is of the greatest value in these things.”
In the same room stands a handsome old sideboard, bearing the date of
1603. Though it goes back to the year of the union of the two Crowns,
yet of all the festive gatherings which it has witnessed, perhaps there
is none that was more striking than that evening when the Highland
gentlemen listened to Johnson’s “full strain of eloquence. We were,”
writes Boswell, “a jovial company at supper. The laird, surrounded
by so many of his clan, was to me a pleasing sight. They listened
with wonder and pleasure while Dr. Johnson harangued.” [Sidenote: SIR
WALTER SCOTT AT DUNVEGAN.] It was very likely in this same room that
Sir Walter Scott breakfasted that August morning forty-one years later,
“when he woke under the castle of Dunvegan. I had,” he writes, “sent a
card to the laird of Macleod, who came off before we were dressed, and
carried us to his castle to breakfast.”[650]
[Illustration: DINING ROOM, DUNVEGAN CASTLE.]
The noble drawing-room, with the deep recesses for the windows in walls
nine feet thick, is not the one described by Boswell. The drawing-room
which he saw “had formerly been,” he says, “the bed-chamber of Sir
Roderick Macleod, and he chose it because behind it there was a
cascade, the sound of which disposed him to sleep.” At the time of Sir
Walter Scott’s visit it had again become a bed-room, for here he slept
on a stormy night. [Sidenote: THE HAUNTED ROOM.] He had accepted, he
says, “the courteous offer of the haunted apartment,” and this was
the room which was given him. “An autumnal blast, sometimes clear,
sometimes driving mist before it, swept along the troubled billows
of the lake, which it occasionally concealed and by fits disclosed.
The waves rushed in wild disorder on the shore, and covered with foam
the steep pile of rocks, which rising from the sea in forms something
resembling the human figure have obtained the name of Macleod’s
Maidens. The voice of an angry cascade, termed the nurse of Rorie More,
was heard from time to time mingling its notes with those of wind
and wave. Such was the haunted room at Dunvegan; and as such it well
deserved a less sleepy inhabitant.”[651] This account Sir Walter wrote
many years later from memory. The rocks which he saw were not Macleod’s
Maidens; from them he was separated by nearly ten miles of mountains
and lochs.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF SARAH, LADY MACLEOD, BY RAEBURN.]
[Illustration: HORN.]
[Sidenote: DUNVEGAN’S THREE TREASURES.]
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.
[Illustration: ARMOUR.]
[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]
[Illustration: MACLEOD’S TABLES.]
[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.
[Illustration: TERRACE.]
[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]
[Illustration: HERONRY.]
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.
[Illustration: ISLAND ISA. OFFERED TO DR. JOHNSON BY THE LAIRD OF
M^{c}LEOD.]
[Illustration: SACRAMENT SUNDAY.]
[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?
[Illustration: A CROFTER’S HUT IN SKYE.]
[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.
[Illustration: TALISKER HEAD AND ORONSAY.]