Footsteps of Dr. Johnson (Scotland)

by George Birkbeck Norman Hill

FORT AUGUSTUS.

It was dark when our travellers reached “the wretched inn” at Fort Augustus. Happily it was not in it that they were to lodge, for the governor invited them to sleep in his house. Of the fort, the rebels had made a bonfire on April 15, 1746, the day before Culloden, “to celebrate the Duke of Cumberland’s birthday.”[595] It had since been rebuilt and greatly strengthened, “being surrounded by two trenches filled with water, and having draw-bridges, strong walls, and bastions.”[596] Nothing is left of it. Where rough soldiers once carried things with a high hand, now smooth priests rule. On the site of the old fortifications which bore the second name of the butcher duke has been raised a college and monastery dedicated to St. Benedict. Johnson long remembered the rest which he enjoyed in the governor’s hospitable home. Nearly four years later he recorded in his diary: “I passed the night in such sweet uninterrupted sleep as I have not known since I slept at Fort Augustus.” The following year, writing to Boswell, he said, “The best night that I have had these twenty years was at Fort Augustus.” From this spot to the sea-shore opposite Skye they had about forty-four miles of highland paths to traverse. This part of their journey they were forced to divide very unequally, as Anoch, the only place where they could find entertainment, was scarcely a third of the way. GLENMORISON. Crossing the mountains by a road which had been made “with labour that might have broken the perseverance of a Roman legion,” early in the afternoon they came “through a wild country” to Glenmorison.[597] They did not, as the guide-book says, follow the course of the river Moriston from Invermoriston, but joined it some miles higher up, above the fine scenery and the wild tumble of water which are shown in the accompanying sketch. This fact I did not discover till too late. Anoch Johnson describes as “standing in a glen or valley pleasantly watered by a winding river. It consists of three huts, one of which is distinguished by a chimney.” It was in the house thus distinguished that they lodged. When I visited this spot last summer, we halted at a farmhouse hard by to rest our horses and take some lunch. We sat on the bank of a dried-up brook, beneath a row of witch-elms. A cuckoo was flying about, resting now and then on the garden wall. “Its two-fold shout” it scarcely uttered, thinking, perhaps, that as it was the month of June, it would be “heard, not regarded.” The wind rustled in the leaves, the river, blue beneath a blue sky, ran swiftly by, now under a shady bank, and now round a stony foreland, till it lost itself at last from our sight behind a bend. To the west rose lofty mountains; on the other side of the valley were sloping hills. We lunched on frothing milk, oat-cakes, scones, and butter; the sheep dogs playing around us, and with wistful gaze asking for their share of the feast. We lay on the ground and looked across the little ravine at an old hut that was “distinguished by a chimney.” This we all voted, and very likely with truth on our side, was the very place where our travellers had lodged. Talking of “far-off things,” of Johnson and the copy of Cocker’s Arithmetic which he gave to his landlord’s “gentle and pleasing daughter,” of her father’s library of odd volumes, and of the old hut and the old life, an hour slipped quickly and pleasantly by.

SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE
& RIVINGTON, LTD, PUBLISHERS, LONDON

IMP. & HÉLIOG. LEMERCIER & C^IE. PARIS.

THE MORISTON RIVER

ENGLISH SOLDIERS.

As our travellers “passed on through the dreariness of solitude” on their way hither, they had come upon a party of soldiers working on the road, to whom they gave a couple of shillings to spend in drink. “With the true military impatience of coin in their pockets,” these men had followed them to the inn, “having marched at least six miles to find the first place where liquor could be bought.” There they made merry in the barn. “We went and paid them a visit,” writes Boswell; “Dr. Johnson saying, ‘Come, let’s go and give ’em another shilling a-piece.’ We did so, and he was saluted ‘My Lord’ by all of them.” Johnson avows that one cause of his generosity was regard to his and Boswell’s safety. “Having never been before in a place so wild and unfrequented, I was glad of their arrival, because I knew that we had made them friends; and to gain still more of their good-will, we went to them when they were carousing in the barn, and added something to our former gift.” The money was ill-bestowed. “The poor soldiers got too much liquor. Some of them fought and left blood upon the spot, and cursed whisky next morning.” Perhaps Johnson had them in his mind when, a few years later, he said, “Why, sir, a common soldier is usually a very gross man.” To the degradation of one of the English regiments which had been stationed in the Highlands, testimony is borne by Wolfe, who on his return from Scotland in 1753, wrote: “If I stay much longer with the regiment I shall be perfectly corrupt; the officers are loose and profligate, and the soldiers are very devils.”[598] Johnson soon found that he had no need of a guard. His host had indeed fought in the Highland army at Culloden, but he was a quiet honest fellow. The account which he gave of the campaign moved Boswell to tears. If he told them the following story which I have found in Henderson’s History of the Rebellion, he would have moved also Johnson to anger. THE GRANTS OF GLENMORISON. A party of the Grants of Glenmorison had joined the Pretender’s army at Edinburgh. The laird, who had remained loyal, came, after the battle of Culloden, “with about five hundred of his vassals to Inverness, whence they were sent into the country of the Macintoshes. Hereupon the Grants in the rebellion begged his intercession. He repaired to the Duke of Cumberland, and said, ‘Here are a number of men come in with their arms, who would have submitted to none in Britain but to me.’ ‘No!’ answered the duke; ‘I’ll let them know that they are my father’s subjects, and must likewise submit to me.’ So he gave orders to embark them with the other prisoners, and they were shipped off to Tilbury Fort.”[599] Smollett tells how great numbers of the miserable captives who were sent to London by sea, being crowded in the holds of the vessels, “perished in the most deplorable manner for want of necessaries, air, and exercise.”[600] If the Grants escaped this fate, very likely they were transported to America.