“I remained at home till the end of 1774, but I consider this as the most gloomy period of my life. Educated in a liberal manner, fired with ambition, fond of society, I found myself in confinement in a remote corner of the world; without any hope of extinguishing the debts of my family, or of ever emerging from poverty and obscurity. I had also the torment of seeing my mother and sisters immured with me.
“In 1774 [1773] Dr. Samuel Johnson, with his companion, Mr. Boswell, visited our dreary regions; it was my good fortune to be enabled to practise the virtue of hospitality on this occasion. The learned traveller spent a fortnight at Dunvegan; and indeed amply repaid our cares to please him by the most instructive and entertaining conversation. I procured for him the company of the most learned clergymen and sagacious inhabitants of the islands.”[641]
Macleod’s high praise of Johnson is in curious contradiction to Sir Walter Scott’s account, that “when winter-bound at Dunvegan, Johnson’s temper became most execrable, and beyond all endurance save that of his guide (Boswell).”[642] Mr. Croker, on receiving this account from Sir Walter, applied to the Laird’s son and successor, “who assured him emphatically they were all delighted with him.”[643] Nevertheless, as I have already stated,[644] the young ladies of the family do not seem to have shared in this delight. The true Johnsonian must look upon them as “a set of wretched un-idea’d girls,” and so forgive their want of taste.
Macleod, two or three years after our traveller’s visit, raised a company of his own Highlanders, and entered the army. In the war against our colonists in America he and his wife, who had accompanied him, were taken prisoners. In their captivity they made the acquaintance and won the friendship of George Washington. Let us hope that the heart of the founder of the great American Commonwealth was softened towards the author of Taxation no Tyranny by the anecdotes which he heard of him from his warm friend, the young Scottish chief. On his return home he raised the second battalion of the forty-second Highlanders, and served with distinction in India as their colonel. Zoffany painted him in his soldier’s dress, surrounded with elephants, camels, and Hindoos, with Highland scenery in the background. Just before he started for the East he dined at the house of one of his tacksmen, or chief tenants, “who said that all the dishes should be the produce of Macleod’s estate and the shores thereof. Amongst a profusion of other dishes there were thirteen different kinds of fish.”[645] He died in 1802 at the early age of forty-six.
LADY MACLEOD.
Fortunate as Johnson was in having this amiable and high-spirited youth for his host, scarcely less fortunate was he in his hostess, the Laird’s mother, Lady Macleod. The title which she bore was one of courtesy. Up to this time the wives of Highland lairds, and also of Scotch judges, seem commonly to have been addressed as Lady. Johnson’s hostess at Lochbuie, the wife of the laird, is called Lady Lochbuie by Boswell. The change to the modern usage had, however, begun; for Ramsay of Ochtertyre, speaking of the year 1769, says that, “Somebody asked Lord Auchinleck before his second marriage if the lady was to be called Mrs. Boswell, according to the modern fashion.”[646] Johnson was not wholly a stranger to his hostess. “I had once,” he writes, “attracted her notice in London.” She was able to render his stay pleasant, for from her long residence in England, “she knew all the arts of southern elegance, and all the modes of English economy.” In his talk she took great delight, though when one day she heard him maintain ““that no man was naturally good more than a wolf, and no woman either,” she said in a low voice, ‘This is worse than Swift.’” Knox, who visited Dunvegan in 1786 records the following anecdote:—
“Lady Macleod, who had repeatedly helped Dr. Johnson to sixteen dishes or upwards of tea, asked him if a small basin would not save him trouble, and be more agreeable. ‘I wonder, Madam,’ answered he roughly, ‘why all the ladies ask me such impertinent questions. It is to save yourselves trouble, Madam, and not me.’ The lady was silent and went on with her task.”[647]
It is not likely that Knox had the story at first hand, for when he visited Dunvegan, the Castle was occupied by a Major Alexander Macleod, who had married a daughter of Flora Macdonald. It is probable, therefore, that Lady Macleod was not living there at the time. The number of cups of tea may have grown as the story passed from one to another. We shall find in the next chapter that at Ulinish Johnson was reported to have exceeded even this feat in tea-drinking. Lady Eldon used to relate that one evening at Oxford she had helped him to fifteen. Cumberland, who was not famed for accuracy, did not go beyond a dozen as the number supplied to the great man by Mrs. Cumberland. Short even of this Johnson might very well “have turned his cup,” as he had done at Aberbrothick, and muttered, “claudite jam rivos, pueri.”
THE OLD ROCK.
Lady Macleod was discontented with the barrenness of Dunvegan, and longed to move the seat of the family to a spot about five miles off, “where she could make gardens and other ornaments. She insisted that the rock was very inconvenient; that there was no place near it where a good garden could be made; that it must always be a rude place; that it was a Herculean labour to make a dinner here.” “I was vexed,” writes Boswell, “to find the alloy of modern refinement in a lady who had so much old family spirit. ‘Have all the comforts and conveniences of life upon it,’ I said, ‘but never leave Rorie More’s cascade.’ ‘It is very well for you,’ she replied, ‘who have a fine place, and everything easy, to talk thus, and think of chaining honest folks to a rock. You would not live upon it yourself.’ ‘Yes, Madam,’ said I, ‘I would live upon it, were I Laird of Macleod, and should be unhappy if I were not upon it.’ Johnson (with a strong voice and most determined manner). ‘Madam, rather than quit the old rock, Boswell would live in the pit; he would make his bed in the dungeon.’ The lady was puzzled a little. She still returned to her pretty farm—rich ground—fine garden. ‘Madam,’ said Dr. Johnson, ‘were they in Asia, I would not leave the rock.’”