Footsteps of Dr. Johnson (Scotland)

by George Birkbeck Norman Hill

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

DUNVEGAN CASTLE

[Dunvegan Castle (September 13-21).]

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. 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. 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.”

RORIE MORE’S NURSE.

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.