OBAN—
the most odious place in the Highlands, I have heard it called; the most beautiful place in the world, Mr. William Black thinks. When the west wind blows and the sun shines, there is nothing like it for color, he told J——. We had to take his word for it. We found an east wind blowing and gray mist hanging over town and bay, and we could not see the hills of Mull. When we walked out in the late afternoon, it seemed a town of hotels and photograph shops, into which excursion trains were forever emptying excursionists and never carrying them away again. Crowds were on the parapetless, unsafe embankment; the bay was covered with boats. In front of the largest hotels bands were playing, and one or two of the musicians went about, hat in hand, among the passers-by. Fancy Hassler at Cape May sending one of his men to beg for pennies! It was dull, for all the crowd. The show of gayety was as little successful as the attempt of a shivering cockney to look comfortable in his brand-new kilt.
Altogether, Oban did not seem in the least lovely until we could no longer see it. But as the twilight grew grayer and the tide went out, the great curve of the embankment was marked by a circle of lights on shore and by long waving lines of gold in the bay. At the pier, a steamer, just arrived, sent up heavy clouds of smoke, black in the gathering grayness. The boats one by one hung out their lights. Oban was at peace, though tourists still walked and bands still played.
It was gray and inexpressibly dreary the next day at noon, when we took the boat for Tobermory, in Mull. Through a Scotch mist we watched Oban and its picturesque castle out of sight; through a driving rain we looked forth on the heights of Morven and of Mull. Sometimes the clouds lightened, and for a minute the nearer hills came out dark and purple against a space of whitish shining mist; but for the most part they hung heavy and black over wastes of water and wastes of land. Sir Walter Scott says that the Sound of Mull is the most striking scene in the Hebrides; it would have been fair to add, when storms and mists give one a chance to see it. Pleasure parties sat up on deck, wrapped in mackintoshes and huddled under umbrellas. Our time was divided between getting wet and drying off down-stairs. The excitement of the voyage was the stopping of the steamer, now in mid-stream in "Macleod of Dare" fashion, now at rain-soaked piers. Of all the heroes who should be thought of between these two lands of romance, only the most modern was suggested to us, probably because within a few weeks we had been re-reading Mr. Black's novel. But, just as in his pages, so in the Sound of Mull, little boats came out to meet the steamer. They lay in wait, tossing up and down on the rough waters and manned with Hamishes and Donalds. Into one stepped a real Macleod, his collie at his heels; into another, an elderly lady, who was greeted most respectfully by the Hamish, as he lifted into his boat trunks marked with the name of Fleeming Jenkin. This gave us something to talk about; when we had last seen the name it was in a publisher's announcement, which said that Mr. Stevenson was shortly to write a biographical notice of the late Fleeming Jenkin.
At the piers, groups of people, no better off for occupation than we, waited to see the passengers land. We all took unaccountable interest in this landing. At Salen there was an intense moment when, as the steamer started, a boy on shore discovered that he had forgotten his bag. At the next pier, where a party of three got off, as their baggage was carried after them, we even went the length of counting up to forty bags and bundles, three dogs, and two maids. We left them standing there, surrounded by their property, with the rain pouring in torrents and not a house in sight. This is the way you take your pleasure in the Hebrides. We were glad to see among the boxes a case of champagne. At the last moment, one of the men, from the edge of the pier, waved a brown paper parcel, and told the captain that another like it had been left aboard. I am afraid he had forgotten something else; thence to Tobermory the captain did but revile him.