Footsteps of Dr. Johnson (Scotland)/Chapter 9

by George Birkbeck Norman Hill

Nairn and Cawdor (August 27-28).

Leaving Elgin that same afternoon, our travellers drove on to Fores, where they passed the night. Next morning, continuing their journey early, they breakfasted at Nairn. "Though a county town and a royal burgh, it is," writes Boswell, "a miserable place." Johnson also describes it as being "in a state of miserable decay." Nevertheless, "the chief annual magistrate," he says, "is styled Lord Provost." If it sank as a royal burgh, it has raised its head again as a popular bathing-place. In this respect it has not its rival, I was told, in the north of Scotland. Here Johnson "fixed the verge of the Highlands; for here he first saw peat fires, and first heard the Erse language."^[1] Over the room in the inn where he and Boswell sat "a girl was spinning wool with a great wheel, and singing an Erse song." It was thirty years later that Wordsworth in like manner heard "The Solitary Reaper":

"Yon solitary Highland lass
Reaping and singing by herself."

Even so far back as the reign of James VI. both languages were spoken in Nairn. "It was one of that king's witticisms to boast that in Scotland he had a town 'sae lang that the folk at the tae end couldna understand the tongue spoken at the tother.'"^[2] Gaelic is no longer heard in its streets. The verge of the Highlands must now be fixed farther to the west. Nine years before Johnson's visit the little town had been stirred up by Wesley. On Monday, June 11, 1764, he recorded in his journal: "While we were dining at Nairn, the innkeeper said, 'Sir, the gentlemen of the town have read the little book you gave me on Saturday, and would be glad if you would please give them a sermon.' Upon my consenting, the bell was immediately rung, and the congregation was quickly in the kirk."^[3]

From Nairn our travellers turned a few miles out of their course to visit the Rev. Kenneth Macaulay in his manse at Cawdor. To Johnson he was known by his History of St. Kilda—"a very pretty piece of topography" as he called it to the author, "who did not seem much to mind the compliment." To us he is interesting as the great-uncle of Lord Macaulay. "From his conversation," says Boswell, "Dr. Johnson was convinced that he had not written the book which goes under his name. 'There is a combination in it' (he said) 'of which Macaulay is not capable.'" "To those who happen to have read the work," writes Sir George Trevelyan, "Johnson's decision will give a very poor notion of my ancestor's abilities."^[4] Let him take comfort. The present minister of Cawdor, to whose civility I am indebted, told me that in the Kirk Session Records is a minute by Macaulay "most beautifully expressed." I had hoped to sit in the very parlour where Johnson had reproached him with being "a bigot to laxness," and where he had given his little son a Sallust, promising at the same time to get him a servitorship at Oxford when he was ready for the University. But hopes that are based on the permanence of buildings are often disappointed. Of the old manse nothing remains. The minister, who rejoiced in having a more comfortable home than his predecessors, refused to share in my sentimental regrets. The situation seemed a pleasant one, as I saw it on a fine evening in July, with the sun setting behind the
CAWDOR. hills on the other side of the Moray Firth. The haymakers were busy at their work close to the house, in a field which is bounded on one side by a deep hollow, with a little brook flowing at the bottom, and in front by a row of old ash trees.

In the company of Macaulay Boswell "had dreaded that a whole evening would be heavy. However," he adds, "Mr. Grant, an intelligent and well-bred minister in the neighbourhood, was there, and assisted us by his conversation." His grandson is Colonel Grant, who shares with Captain Speke the glory of having discovered the sources of the Nile. It was indeed an unusual gathering that August evening in the parlour of the quiet manse—Johnson, the first of talkers, Boswell, the first of biographers, the great-uncle of our famous historian, and the grandfather of our famous discoverer. My hopes rose high when I was told that a diary which Mr. Grant kept was still in existence. Of this evening's talk some record surely would have been made. With sorrow I learnt from his grandson that "accounts of expenses, sermons preached, peat-cutting, stipends, washing twice a year, births, &c., are the principal things which are mentioned." This washing twice a year must not be taken as a proof that this divine "had no passion for clean linen." A Scotch friend of mine remembers a man who owned three farms in the neighbourhood of Campbeltown. In his house they only washed twice a year, though both he and his three sons who lived with him changed their shirts every second day. A time was chosen when there was a slackness in the ordinary work, and then the female servants were gathered from the three farms for a week's hard washing.
PENANT RING, LAWDOR CHURCH. This same custom exists, I believe, to the present day in Norway. In the churchyard I found Mr. Grant's tombstone. He lived till 1828—fifty five years after he had met Johnson. He used to tell a story about the doctor which happily has been preserved. He had supped with him, as we learn from Boswell, at the inn at Inverness. Johnson, who was in high spirits, gave an account of the kangaroo, which had lately been discovered in New South Wales, "and volunteered an imitation of the animal. The company stared; Mr. Grant said nothing could be more ludicrous than the appearance of a tall, heavy, grave-looking manlike Dr. Johnson standing up to mimic the shape and motions of a kangaroo. He stood erect, put out his hands like feelers, and gathering up the tails of his huge brown coat so as to resemble the pouch of the animal, made two or three vigorous bounds across the room."^[5]

Near Mr. Grant lies his friend and predecessor Kenneth Macaulay, with an inscription which tells that he was "notus in fratres animi paterni." This animus paternus descended in full measure to Lord Macaulay. On the porch of the church is still fastened by an iron chain the old penance-ring which Pennant saw one hundred and twenty years ago. "Observed," he writes, "on a pillar of the door of Calder church a joug, i.e., an iron yoke or ring, fastened to a chain; which was in former times put round the necks of delinquents against the rules of the Church, who were left there exposed to shame during the time of divine service, and was also

Drawbridge: Cawdor Castle.

used as a punishment for defamation, small thefts, &c., but these penalties are now happily abolished."^[6] From such penance as this there was perhaps an escape for those who were well-to-do. From Hudibras we learn that the Presbyterian saints could "sentence to stools or poundage of repentance," which passage is explained by the commentator as "doing penance in the Scotch way, upon the stool of repentance, or commuting the penance for a sum of money."^[7]

"By the direction of Mr. Macaulay," writes Johnson, "we visited Cawdor Castle, from which Macbeth drew his second title." That they should have needed a direction to visit so beautiful a spot seems strange, for they must have passed close by it on their way to the manse. As I first caught sight of it by the light of a summer evening, I thought that I had rarely seen a fairer spot. This castle hath indeed a pleasant seat, I said. All the barrenness of the eastern coast I had left behind me, and had found in its stead a luxuriance of growth that would have graced the oldest mansion in England. Everything seemed beautiful, and everything harmonious—the ancient castle, with its high-pitched roof and its lofty tower;
CAWDOR CASTLE. the swift-flowing river, with its bridge of a single arch; the curve in the road where it crosses it; the avenue of lofty trees, the lawns enclosed by limes, the shrubberies, and the range of mountains in the distance still showing the light of the sun which had set for us. The water murmured pleasantly, and a gentle breeze rustled the leaves. I found a little inn close by the park gate, where homely fare and decent lodging are provided. A man of a quiet meditative mind might pass a few days there pleasantly enough if he sought shelter in the woods on the afternoons when the castle is thrown open to visitors. Next morning I watched the school-children, bare-footed, but clean and tidy, carrying on their arms their slates covered with sums in neat figures, trooping merrily by, and winding over the bridge on their way to school. By the kindness of the Earl of Cawdor I was allowed to go over the castle from turret almost to foundation-stone at a time when it was not generally open.

"The old tower," says Boswell, "must be of great antiquity. There is a drawbridge what has been a moat and an ancient court. There is a hawthorn-tree, which rises like a wooden pillar through the rooms of the castle; for, by a strange conceit, the walls have been built round it. The thickness of the walls, the small slanting windows, and a great iron door at the entrance on the second story as you ascend the stairs, all indicate the rude times in which this castle was erected. There were here some large venerable trees."

It is surprising that he should have thought that there could ever have been a moat on a rock high above the river. Johnson nevertheless also mentions it. What they mistook for a moat is the

VAULT.

excavation made in quarrying the stone for the castle. In clearing it out some while ago, the workmen came to a place where the masons had left some stones half dressed. Mr. Irving, who visited Cawdor, has had the fine entrance copied, I am told, in his scenery for Macbeth, adding, however, a portcullis, of which no traces remain. I was shown in a kind of vault the trunk of the old hawthorn which Boswell mentions. There is a tradition that "a wise man counselled a certain thane to load an ass with a chest full of gold, and to build his castle with the money at the third hawthorn-tree at which the animal should stop." The ass stopped where Cawdor Castle is built, and the tree was enclosed. The thane's only child, a little girl, was carried off by Campbell of Inverliver, on Loch Awe. In his flight he was overtaken by the Cawdors. Being hard pressed, "he cried out in Gaelic, 'It is a far cry to Loch Awe, and a distant help to the Campbells,' a saying which

Tapestry chamber.

became proverbial in the north to express imminent danger and distant relief."^[8] He won the day, however, and the child when she grew up married a son of the Earl of Argyle. From them is descended that "prosperous gentleman," the present Thane or Earl of Cawdor.

I passed through the great iron door which Boswell mentions, and other strong doors too, and climbed up the staircase which is built in the thickness of the wall. I was shown the place in the roof where Lord Lovat, when fleeing from justice early in his bad career, had lain in hiding for some weeks. I saw, moreover, more than one chamber living with old tapestry. In one of them stands the state bed of Sir Hugh Campbell, who in 1672 married Lady Henrietta Stewart. Their initials, with the date, are carved on the outside wall of the court. At one end of the hall runs a gallery which bears the name of the Fiddler's Walk. There the musicians used to play, keeping time with their steps to their tune.

 

1. The language of the Highlanders is generally called Erse by the English writers of this period; sometimes irish and Celtic. M'Nicol objected to the term Erse. "The Caledonians," he says, "always called their native language Gaelic." Remarks on Johnson's Journey, p. 432. Macpherson, in the title-page of Ossian, calls it Galic.
2. Murray's Handbook for Scotland, ed. 1867, p. 308.
3. Wesley's Journal, iii. 182.
4. Life of Lord Macaulay, ed. 1877, i. 6.
5. Boswell's Journal, ed. by Carruthers, p. 96.
6. Pennant's Tour in Scotland, i. 155.
7. Hudibras, iii. 1, 1477.
8. Boswell's Hebrides, ed. by R. Carruthers, p. 85.

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