On our return voyage we skirted the whole north of Scotland, having had the rare chance of the steamer which once a year is chartered to take back the herring-fishers from Thurso to the Hebrides. But first Sir George Sinclair most hospitably entertained us at Thurso Castle, whose grim battlements frown flush over the Arctic Sea: all within the walls luxurious warmth, and without them wrecks and desolation. So also with the garden; on one side of the high wall greenhouses and flower-beds in the Italian style,—on the other, in strange contrast, the desolate wild ocean, which you see through windows of thick plate-glass let into the walls. At Thurso town I conversed with the local genius, Robert Dick, made of world-wide fame since by that kind-hearted and clear-minded author, Samuel Smiles, the said genius being a noted self-taught naturalist, who as a small baker struggled with poverty through life, to be inconsistently rewarded after death by a national monument; his fellow-townsmen let the living starve to deify him when dead. Cervantes and his like have met the same fate elsewhere. Leaving Thurso for the Hebrides, in company with no fewer than 700 Gaelic fishermen, we passed the magnificent cliffs of Cape Wrath in a pleasant calm,—which next day when we had reached Stornoway turned to a furious storm: had we encountered it with those 700 loading the deck it would infallibly have wrecked us,—as it did many other vessels on that night.
Sir James Matheson was our great host at Stornoway, who treated me and mine with magnificent hospitality. If I had wished to shoot a buck or to catch a salmon (the kilted gillie stood ready with his tackle), I might have done so and welcome; but there was no time to spare for anything but a visit to the prehistoric temple of Callanish, where the stones strangely enough are set in the form of a cross instead of the ordinary circle; and to a Pictish tower, and other antiquities,—which I preferred to sport.
Sir James's piper always wakes the guests a'mornings, parading round the terraces with his bagpipes, and after dinner, as usual at the feasts of Highland magnates, he marches round the table in kilt and flying tartans with his drone-like dirge or furious slogan,—being rewarded on the spot with whisky from the chief.
Here I will cease my quick reminiscence of that pleasant northern travel, though I might recount many noticeable matters about Skye and its dolomite Cuchullins, Staffa, Iona, and Oban, where The MacDougal allowed us to see and handle (an unusual honour) the famous brooch of Lorne, the loss of which saved The Bruce's life, when he broke away from his captor, the then MacDougal; leaving tartan and shoulder-brooch in his grasp.
CHAPTER XL.
LITERARY FRIENDS.
Among the many literary men and women of my acquaintance there are some (for it is not possible to enumerate all) of whom I should like to make some mention; and, place aux dâmes, let me speak of the ladies first. In my boyhood I can recollect that astronomical wonder of womankind, Mrs. Mary Somerville, a great friend of my father's; she seemed to me very quiet and thoughtful, and so little self-conscious as to be humbly unregardful of her genius and her fame. Strangely enough I first met her in the same drawing-room in Grafton Street (she lived and died at Chelsea) where I acted a silent part years after in some private theatricals with Miss Granville (met during my American visit in her then phase of a German Baroness), herself an authoress and a cantatrice, daughter of Dr. Granville, the well-known historian of Spas. I recollect, too, in those early times, Mrs. Jameson, then a celebrated writer, and a vivacious leader of literary society; and much nearer this day, Mrs. Beecher Stowe, whom I found too taciturn, and as if scared at the notice she excited, quite to realise one's expectation of a famous lioness. With her I have since broken a lance in the interest of Byron, whom I considered maligned in the matter of his "sweet sister," and accordingly wrote on his behalf a vindicatory fly-leaf of poetic indignation. Another lance, too, have I broken in favour of Ouida, as against a newspaper critic who had tried to crush her "Moths;" I had met her before that, and did my little best in her defence, receiving from her from Italy a charming letter of acknowledgment. "Ouida" is not generally known to have been the nursery name of "Louisa" de la Ramenay, just as "Boz" was of Dickens. Both "Ouida" and Miss Braddon, whom also I have seen as Mrs. Maxwell, remind me of that great and not seldom unfairly judged genius, Georges Sand. There remains a worthy duplicated friendship of later years, Mr. and Mrs. Carter Hall, of whose geniality and kindness I have often had experience; also Mr. and Mrs. Grote, my learned and agreeable neighbours at Albury; also Lady Wilde, admirable both for prose and poetry on Scandinavian subjects, and her eloquent son Oscar, famous for taste all the world over; and as another duplicate the Gaelic historian and cheerful singer, Charles Mackay, with his charming daughter, the poetess.
Of celebrated men whom I have not previously mentioned in this volume, there is Rogers, the poet, with whom I once had an interview at his artistic house in St. James's Place; Carlyle, of course, well known to me by books, but personally only in a single visit, when I found him in Cheyne Row cordially glad to greet me;—after a long talk, taking my leave with a hearty "God bless you, sir," his emphatic reply, as he saw me to the door, was, "And good be with you!"