Burns said: “Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.” If he had been picking up lights from Flugga on Ultima Thule down our intricate west coast, with its tides and islands, on a dark night, he would have held his breath with the thought of all the human effort and forethought these lighthouses express of man’s humanity to man—to our countrymen, to my Norse companions, to the Russian trader, whose light we see to-night not far astern; nation to nation offering kindly guidance and warning. So we have various colours in the night, the pale flashing lighthouse we steer to, and two golden eyes from our galley casting patches of light on deck, and on either side of us a phosphorescent Milky Way with occasionally vivid flashes as we turn over a wave in the smooth water.
But it is to bed, to bed, for to-morrow we must be astir early, to meet relatives in Tobermory, and anchor in its circular bay, where we have so often anchored when we were young and unspoiled, and Mull to Ardnamurchan in a dinghy seemed a long way, and whaling was as a tale that is told.
At four o’clock in the morning we pass Hyskeir Rocks, pass them three cables to starboard. It is dark and hazy but their light sweeps across our deck: soon the lights on Ardnamurchan and Coll greet us; and as sea and mountain and air faintly separate, we pass the light on the point and pick up Kilchoan, and then the Tobermory Light.
Ardnamurchan shows a rugged, mountainous outline against the morning sky, and to a stranger coming from the sea, picking up the lights as he goes, it seems inhospitable. But to the writer it recalls some similar mornings—after smoky town down south—coming up for winter shooting. What glens there are of birches for black game, corries for deer, lochs for little brown trout and burns for sea-trout! My thanks to relatives for the free run we had when we were young—Ardnamurchan Point to Glen Borrodale, what a playground! North beyond the point and the hills above Kilchoan we see the hills above Loch Aylort and the coast of Morar, “Blessed Morar,” perhaps the most beautiful spot of the most beautiful country in the world. Where else do you find stone pines, in deep heather growing right down to a white coral strand, and glass-green sea-water. Then Drimnin and Glen Morven appear west and south of Ardnamurchan, full of memories of relations, of piping, singing, hunting and sailing.
The relatives, we presume, are all asleep now, so we won’t awake them, as we pass, with repeated blasts on our foghorn, as we half thought of doing—no, we will later rouse them up with a Fiery Cross reply-paid telegram from Tobermory to come across the sound to see this newest whaler. Possibly we will, after considering mundane matters, such as potatoes and marmalade for all hands, drop anchor at Drimnin or Glen Morven and ask the relatives to step off and see our wonders on board ship, but the anchorage at neither of the places is of the very best and Tobermory is perfect.
My Norse friends fell in love with Drimnin and Tobermory and its round sheltered bay at first sight: we had only too short a stay, for a wire told us my cousin, Mr C. H. Urmston, a fellow-director in our Company, would await me in Oban, so we up anchored, went over to Morven and dipped our flag and blew the horn opposite Drimnin, and passed the Urmstons’ house, Glen Morven, in silence, for we hear it is let to a stranger from the south, and down the familiar Sound of Mull we proceeded on this lovely summer afternoon to the Great Oban.
By the way, I met two men interested in whaling in Tobermory! When your mind runs on a subject, is it not odd how many people you meet who also take an interest in same? This man is Yule by name; we met on the subject of bagpipes; piping is the best bond and introduction to the best men! So with two interests, whaling and piping, you at once get very intimate. He came from the east coast—I never met a Highlandman whaler, and not often a sailor (they are generally Captains or Chiefs, they have brains).
“Did you ever hear the name of Yule as a whaler?” he said; and I replied I’d heard more stories about Yule and whales and white bears and Arctic jokes and adventures from Dundee to north of the Pole than of any other man alive or dead. “Well,” he said, “that was my grandfather,” and he referred me to his father up the close, to verify the grandfather’s exploits. So if anyone who reads this wishes yarns true and hair-curling about Greenland’s icy mountains, etc., let him call at Tobermory, on Yule senior. No. 51, the third close past the post office.
A fair lady at Tobermory graced our vessel with a fleeting visit. Miss Sheila Allan, of the famous line of that name. She rowed from Aros Castle in her dinghy and sprang on board, leaving her collie in charge, overhauled our strange craft, fore and aft, sprang into the dinghy again, a mere cockle-shell, and rowed off again half-a-mile to windward, against a fresh breeze, as if it was the most ordinary everyday thing for one of our ladies to do; many a fair Brunhilda could have done the same. I did not tell my Norse friends that she was at all exceptional, so our Norsemen have formed a lofty idea of Scotswomen as mariners. I wished they could have seen her, as I have, out on the Sound of Mull in wind and rain, fair hair flying, yellow oilskins dripping, racing her own cutter, three reefs down, through the spray for the Tobermory Cup.