[Sidenote: THE ROAD TO AUCHINLECK.]
On Saturday, October 30, our travellers set out on their way to
Boswell’s home at Auchinleck, in Ayrshire. Part of the way must
have been over a wild country, for a few years earlier, in his
“Instructions” for his friend Temple on his tour to Auchinleck, he
writes: “Set out [from Glasgow] for Kingswell, to which you have a
good road; arrived there, get a guide to put you through the muir to
Loudoun.”[760] He and Johnson did not go the whole distance in one
day, though they had but thirty-four miles to travel. They broke their
journey at the house of Mr. Campbell, of Treesbank, who had married
Mrs. Boswell’s sister. Here they rested till Tuesday. At a few miles
distance Robert Burns, a lad of thirteen, “a dexterous ploughman for
his age,” was spending his boyhood “in unceasing moil” and hardship,
not having as yet “committed the sin of rhyme.” Boswell, I believe,
much as he admired Allan Ramsay’s poem in the Scottish dialect, _The
Gentle Shepherd_, never makes mention of Burns, and Burns only once
mentions him. In the _Author’s Earnest Cry and Prayer_, written before
the year 1786, he says:
“Alas! I’m but a nameless wight,
Trode i’ the mire an’ out o’ sight!
But could I like Montgomeries fight,
Or gab[761] like Boswell,
There’s some sark-necks[762] I wad draw tight,
An’ tie some hose well.”
[Sidenote: “KING BOB’S” CASTLE.]
Dundonald Castle, in which Robert II. lived and died, our travellers
visited on Monday morning. “It has long been unroofed,” writes
Boswell, “and though of considerable size we could not by any power
of imagination, figure it as having been a suitable habitation for
majesty. Dr. Johnson, to irritate my _old Scottish_ enthusiasm, was
very jocular on the homely accommodation of “King _Bob_,” and roared
and laughed till the ruins echoed.”
The castle belongs to two periods. The original keep was eighty-one
feet long, forty broad, and seventy high. It was afterwards lengthened
at the southern end by seventeen feet. “The great hall has been a very
noble apartment.”[763] Boswell justly praises the view. “It stands,” he
says, “on a beautiful rising ground, which is seen at a great distance
on several quarters, and from whence there is an extensive prospect of
the rich district of Cunninghame, the western sea, the isle of Arran,
and a part of the northern coast of Ireland.” Camden quaintly says that
“the name _Cunninghame_, if one interpret it, is as much as the _Kings
Habitation_, by which a man may guess how commodious and pleasant
it is.”[764] As I sat on the Castle hill, and looked over the fine
country to the north-west, I could have wished that the tall chimneys
of Irvine, pouring forth clouds of smoke, had been out of sight. In the
plain, at the distance of about a mile, a thin line of steam showed
where a heavy train was creeping along the railway. Just beneath us the
low spire of the church rose among the trees, while in the gardens of
the cottages that clustered around it there was an abundance of fruit
trees and of vegetables which would have delighted Johnson’s heart,
such as “King Bob” never saw or even dreamt of. Beyond the village were
undulating fields of well-cultivated land. To the west, almost within
bow-shot, stands a steep rocky hill—a counterpart of that on which the
castle is placed—all covered with wood. High over the old ruins the
swifts were flying and screaming. The sole tenants of the great hall
were some black cattle whom my entrance disturbed. Where kings once
kept their court, and frowned and were flattered,
“There but houseless cattle go
To shield them from the storm.”
High up on the wall of the keep there are two stone shields, on which
still can be traced the royal and the Stewart arms. Little did they who
carved them think that the day was to come when they would have sunk
into the ornaments of a cow-house.
[Illustration: OLD AUCHANS.]
[Sidenote: THE COUNTESS OF EGLINTOUNE.]
From Dundonald our travellers rode on a short distance to Auchans,
the house of the Dowager Countess of Eglintoune. Johnson, in a letter
to Mrs. Thrale, describes her as “a lady who for many years gave the
laws of elegance to Scotland. She is in full vigour of mind, and not
much impaired in form. She is only eighty-three. She was remarking
that her marriage was in the year eight; and I told her my birth was
in nine. ‘Then,’ says she, ‘I am just old enough to be your mother,
and I will take you for my son.’ She called Boswell the boy. ‘Yes,
Madam,’ said I, ‘we will send him to school.’ ‘He is already,’ said
she, ‘in a good school;’ and expressed her hope of his improvement. At
last night came, and I was sorry to leave her.” “She had been,” writes
Boswell, “the admiration of the gay circles of life, and the patroness
of poets.” To her Allan Ramsay had dedicated his _Gentle Shepherd_,
and Hamilton of Bangour had addressed verses. With his reception
Johnson was delighted, so congenial were their principles in church
and state. “In her bed-rooms,” says Dr. Robert Chambers, “was hung a
portrait of her sovereign _de jure_, the ill-starred Charles Edward, so
situated as to be the first object which met her sight on awaking in
the morning.”[765] She who had patronised poets and worshipped princes
in her last years amused herself by taming rats. “She had a panel in
the oak wainscot of her dining-room, which she tapped upon and opened
at meal-times, when ten or twelve jolly rats came tripping forth and
joined her at table.” She died in 1780, at the age of ninety-one.[766]
[Illustration: OLD AUCHANS.]
[Sidenote: OLD AUCHANS.]
Auchans—Old Auchans as it is now called—since the countess’s death
has been chiefly inhabited by caretakers. It was built in 1644, at a
time when in the houses of the great comfort was more studied than
means of defence. Nevertheless “we find some shot-holes near the
entrance doorway.”[767] It is finely placed among the trees, with views
of Dundonald Castle on one side and of the sea in the distance on the
other. The interior has been greatly altered by the division of rooms
and blocking up of windows and passages. We were only shown a small
part of it, and looked with sadness on the broken ceiling in what by
tradition is known as the dining-room. It is a pity that so interesting
and so fine a building should have suffered under the neglect of a
whole century. It is so strongly built that it looks as if it could,
at no excessive expense, be once more made habitable. Johnson had not
been easily persuaded to visit it, but “he was so much pleased with
his entertainment, that he owned,” says Boswell, “that I had done well
to force him out.” No less pleased was the old countess, “who, when
they were going away, embraced him, saying, ‘My dear son, farewell.’”
Neither of this visit nor of one which he had paid two days earlier to
the Earl of Loudoun, who “jumped for joy” at the thought of seeing him,
does he make any mention in his book. He was the last man to indulge
“in that vain ostentatious importance,” which he censured in many
people, “of quoting the authority of dukes and lords.” He merely says
that, “on our way from Glasgow to Auchinleck we found several places
remarkable enough in themselves, but already described by those who
viewed them at more leisure, or with much more skill.”