William Black, the novelist, used to tell of an English clergyman who, having breakfasted and paid his bill at Tobermory, was anxious for the arrival of the steamboat that was to take him north. He made his way to the pier, and walked up and down there for a time, but could see no sign of the vessel. At last, accosting a Highlander, who, leaning against a wall, was smoking a cutty-pipe, he asked him when the Skye steamer would call. Out came the pipe, followed by the laconic answer, ‘That’s her smoke,’ and the speaker pointed in the direction of the Sound of Mull. The traveller for a time could observe nothing to indicate the expected vessel, but at last noticed a streak of dark smoke rising against the Morven Hills on the far side of the island that guards the front of the little bay of Tobermory. When at last the steamer itself rounded the point and came fully into sight, it seemed to the clergyman a much smaller vessel than he had supposed it would be, and he remarked to the Highlander, ‘That the Skye steamer! that boat will surely never get to Skye.’ The pipe was whisked out again to make way for the indignant reply, ‘She’ll be in Skye this afternoon, if nothin’ happens to Skye.’ The order of nature might conceivably go wrong, but Hutcheson’s arrangements could be absolutely depended upon.
WEST-COAST STEAMBOATS
The captains of these steamers were personages of some consequence on the west coast. Usually skilful pilots and agreeable men, they came to be on familiar terms with the lairds and farmers all along their route, whom they were always glad to oblige and from whom they received in return many tangible proofs of recognition and good-will. At the end of a visit which I had been paying to friends on the south coast of Mull, the captain, to whom my kind host had previously written, brought his vessel a little out of his way in order to pick me up. The shore being full of rocks and reefs, my boat had to pull some distance out to the steamer, so that the tourist passengers had time to gratify their curiosity by crowding to one side to see the cause of this unusual stoppage. When the boat came alongside its cargo was transhipped in the following order: first a letter for the captain, next a live sheep, then a portmanteau, and lastly myself. There were many inquisitive glances at the scantiness of my flock, but the sheep had been sent as a present from my host to the captain, in recognition of some little services which he had lately been rendering to the family.
I have known a number of these captains, and have often been struck with their quiet dignity and good nature in circumstances that must have tried their temper and patience. They had much responsibility, and must often have had anxious moments in foggy or stormy weather. Now and then a vessel met with an accident, or was even shipwrecked, but the rarity of such always possible mishaps afforded good proof of the skilful seamanship with which the Hutcheson fleet was handled. There was always a heavy traffic in goods. Scores of cases, boxes, barrels, and parcels of all conceivable shapes and sizes had to be taken on board and distributed at the various places of call. Live stock had to be adequately accommodated, and the varying times and direction of the tides had to be allowed for. Then there was the tourist-traffic, which, though small in those days compared with what it has now grown to, required constant care and watchfulness. Not improbably the human part of his cargo gave a captain more trouble than the rest. The average tourist is apt to be selfish and unreasonable, ready to find fault if everything does not go precisely as he wished and expected. He is usually inquisitive, too, and doubtless asks the same questions that are put to the captain and seamen of the ship season after season. He has formed certain anticipations in his own mind of what he is to see, and when these are not quite realised he wants to know why. A common hallucination among travellers south of the Tweed clothes every Highlander in a kilt, and surprise is often expressed that the ‘garb of old Gaul’ is so seldom seen. The answer of one of David Hutcheson’s officers should suffice for all who give vent to this surprise: ‘Oh no, nobody wears the kilt here but fools and Englishmen.’
TOURISTS ON WEST COAST
Various anecdotes are in circulation about the passengers and crew of these western steamboats. One of these narratives, of which different versions have been told, relates how on a dull, drizzling, and misty evening, when every attention had to be given to the rather intricate navigation, a lady began to ask questions of the man at the wheel. He answered her as briefly as possible for a time; but, as she still plied him with queries, he at last lost his temper and abruptly desired her to go to the nether regions. She retired in high dudgeon and sought out the captain, insisting that the man should be discharged, and that she would report the matter to Mr. Hutcheson. The captain tried to soothe her, expressing his own regret at the language that had been used to her, and assuring her that he would make the man apologise to her for his conduct. She thereupon went down to the saloon and poured out her indignation to some of her fellow-passengers. In the midst of her talk, a man in dripping oilskins and cap in hand appeared at the door, and, after some hesitation and looking round the company, advanced to the irate lady and said, ‘Are you the leddy I tellt to gang to hell? Weel, the captain says ye needna gang yet.’ Such was the apology.
I well remember, when as a lad of eighteen I first visited Skye, that the steamer carrying the usual miscellaneous cargo in the hold and on deck, after rounding the Mull had made so many calls, and had so much luggage and merchandise to discharge at each halt, that it was past midnight of the second day before we came into Broadford Bay. The disembarkation was by small-boat, and as we made our way shorewards, the faces of the oarsmen were at every stroke lit up with the pale, ghostly light of a phosphorescent sea. The night was dark, but with the aid of a dim lantern one could mount the rough beach, where I was met by a son of the Rev. John Mackinnon of Kilbride, with whom I had come to spend a few weeks. We had a drive of some five miles inland, enlivened with Gaelic songs which my young friend and his cousin screamed at the pitch of their voices. At a certain part of the road they became suddenly silent, or only spoke to each other in whispers. We were then passing the old graveyard at Kilchrist; but when we had got to what was judged a safe distance beyond it and its ghosts, the hilarity began anew, and lasted until we came to our destination between two and three o’clock in the morning.
THE TELEGRAPH IN HIGHLANDS
The introduction of the electric telegraph naturally aroused much curiosity in the rural population as to how the wires could carry messages. A West Highlander who had been to Glasgow and was consequently supposed to have got to the bottom of the mystery, was asked to explain it. ‘Weel,’ said he, ‘it’s no easy to explain what you will no be understandin’. But I’ll tell ye what it’s like. If you could stretch my collie dog frae Oban to Tobermory, an’ if you wass to clap its head in Oban, an’ it waggit its tail in Tobermory, or if I wass to tread on its tail in Oban an’ it squaked in Tobermory—that’s what the telegraph is like.’