J. G. Lockhart: Life of Walter Scott

“23d August, 1814.—Wake under the Castle of Dunvegan, in the Loch of Folliart. I had sent a card to the Laird of Macleod in the morning, who came off before we were dressed, and carried us to his castle to breakfast. A part of Dunvegan is very old; ‘its birth tradition notes not.’ Another large tower was built by the same Alaster Macleod whose burial-place and monument we saw yesterday at Rowdill. He had a Gaelic surname, signifying the Hump-backed. Roderick More (knighted by James VI.) erected a long edifice combining these two ancient towers: and other pieces of building, forming a square, were accomplished at different times. The whole castle occupies a precipitous mass of rock overhanging the lake, divided by two or three islands in that place, which form a snug little harbour under the walls. There is a court-yard looking out upon the sea, protected by a battery, at least a succession of embrasures, for only two guns are pointed, and these unfit for service. The ancient entrance rose up a flight of steps cut in the rock, and passed into this courtyard through a portal, but this is now demolished. You land under the castle, and, walking round, find yourself in front of it. This was originally inaccessible, for a brook coming down on the one side, a chasm of the rocks on the other, and a ditch in front, made it impervious. But the late Macleod built a bridge over the stream, and the present laird is executing an entrance suitable to the character of this remarkable fortalice, by
DIARY—DUNVEGAN—AUG. 23, 1814. 227
making a portal between two advanced towers and an outer court, from which he proposes to throw a drawbridge over to the high rock in front of the castle. This, if well executed, cannot fail to have a good and characteristic effect. We were most kindly and hospitably received by the chieftain, his lady, and his sister;* the two last are pretty and accomplished young women, a sort of persons whom we have not seen for some time; and I was quite as much pleased with renewing my acquaintance with them as with the sight of a good field of barley just cut (the first harvest we have seen), not to mention an extensive young plantation and some middle-aged trees, though all had been strangers to mine eyes since I left Leith. In the garden—or rather the orchard which was formerly the garden is a pretty cascade, divided into two branches, and called Rorie More’s Nurse, because he loved to be lulled to sleep by the sound of it. The day was rainy, or at least inconstant, so we could not walk far from the castle. Besides the assistance of the laird himself, who was most politely and easily attentive, we had that of an intelligent gentlemanlike clergyman, Mr Suter, minister of Kilmore, to explain the carte-de-pays. Within the castle we saw a remarkable drinking-cup, with an inscription dated A.D. 993, which I have described particularly elsewhere.† I saw also a fairy flag, a pennon of silk, with something like round red rowan-berries wrought upon it. We also saw the drinking-horn of Rorie More, holding about three pints English measure, an ox’s horn tipped with silver, not nearly so large as Watt of Harden’s bugle. The rest of the curiosities in the castle are chiefly In-
* Miss Macleod, now Mrs Spencer Perceval.
† See Note, Lord of the Isles, Scott’s Poetical Works, vol. x. p. 294.

228 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.
dian, excepting an old dirk and the fragment of a two-handed sword. We learn that most of the Highland superstitions, even that of the second-sight, are still in force. Gruagach, a sort of tutelary divinity, often mentioned by Martin in his History of the Western Islands, has still his place and credit, but is modernized into a tall man, always a Lowlander, with a long coat and white waistcoat. Passed a very pleasant day. I should have said the fairy-flag had three properties. Produced in battle, it multiplied the numbers of the Macleods—spread on the nuptial bed, it ensured fertility and lastly, it brought herring into the loch.*

* The following passage from the last of Scott’s Letters on Demonology, (written in 1830), refers to the night of this 23d of August, 1814. He mentions that twice in his life he had experienced the sensation which the Scotch call eerie; gives a night-piece of his early youth in the castle of Glammis, which has already been quoted (ante, voL i. p. 212.); and proceeds thus:—“Amid such tales of ancient tradition, I had from Macleod and his lady the courteous offer of the haunted apartment of the castle, about which, as a stranger, I might be supposed interested. Accordingly I took possession of it about the witching hour. Except, perhaps, some tapestry hangings, and the extreme thickness of the walls, which argued great antiquity, nothing could have been more comfortable than the interior of the apartment; but if you looked from the windows, the view was such as to correspond with the highest tone of superstition. An autumnal blast, sometimes clear, sometimes driving mist before it, swept along the troubled billows of the lake, which it occasionally concealed, and by fits disclosed. The waves rushed in wild disorder on the shore, and covered with foam the steep pile of rocks, which, rising from the sea in forms something resembling the human figure, have obtained the name of Macleod’s Maidens, and, in such a night, seemed no bad representative of the Norwegian goddesses, called Choosers of the Slain, or Riders of the Storm. There was something of the dignity of danger in the scene; for, on a platform beneath the windows, lay an ancient battery of cannon, which had sometimes been used against privateers even of late years. The distant scene was a view of that part of the Quillen mountains which

DIARY—DUNVEGAN.

229

“24th August, 1814.—This morning resist with difficulty Macleod’s kind and pressing entreaty to send round the ship and go to the cave at Airds by land; but our party is too large to be accommodated without inconvenience, and divisions are always awkward. Walk and see Macleod’s farm. The plantations seem to thrive admirably, although I think he hazards planting his trees greatly too tall. Macleod is a spirited and judicious improver, and if he does not hurry too fast, cannot fail to be of service to his people. He seems to think and act much like a chief, without the fanfaronade of the character. See a female school patronised by Mrs M. There are about twenty girls, who learn reading, writing, and spinning; and being compelled to observe habits of cleanliness and neatness when at school, will probably be the means of introducing them by degrees at home. The roads around the castle are, generally speaking, very good; some are old, some made under the operation of the late act. Macleod says almost all the contractors for these last roads have failed, being tightly looked after by Government, which I confess I think very right. If Government is to give relief where a disadvantageous contract has been engaged in, it is
are called, from their form, Macleod’s Dining-Tables. The voice of an angry cascade, termed the Nurse of Rorie Mhor, because that chief slept best in its vicinity, was heard from time to time mingling its notes with those of wind and wave. Such was the haunted room at Dunvegan; and, as such, it well deserved a less sleepy inhabitant. In the language of Dr Johnson, who has stamped his memory on this remote place, ‘I looked around me, and wondered that I was not more affected; but the mind is not at all times equally ready to be moved.’ In a word, it is necessary to confess that, of all I heard or saw, the most engaging spectacle was the comfortable bed in which I hoped to make amends for some rough nights on shipboard, and where I slept accordingly without thinking of ghost or goblin, till I was called by my servant in the morning.”

230 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.
plain it cannot be refused in similar instances, so that all calculations of expenses in such operations are at an end. The day being delightfully fair and warm, we walk up to the Church of Kilmore. In a cottage, at no great distance, we heard the women singing as they waulked the cloth by rubbing it with their hands and feet, and screaming all the while in a sort of chorus. At a distance, the sound was wild and sweet enough, but rather discordant when you approached too near the performers. In the churchyard (otherwise not remarkable) was a pyramidical monument erected to the father of the celebrated Simon, Lord Lovat, who was fostered at Dunvegan. It is now nearly ruinous, and the inscription has fallen down. Return to the castle, take our luncheon, and go aboard at three—Macleod accompanying us in proper style with his piper. We take leave of the castle, where we have been so kindly entertained, with a salute of seven guns. The chief returns ashore, with his piper playing ‘the Macleods’ gathering,’ heard to advantage along the calm and placid loch, and dying as it retreated from us.

“The towers of Dunvegan, with the banner which floated over them in honour of their guests, now showed to great advantage. On the right were a succession of three remarkable hills, with round flat tops, popularly called Macleod’s Dining-Tables. Far behind these, in the interior of the island, arise the much higher and more romantic mountains, called Quillen, or Cuillin, a name which they have been said to owe to no less a person than Cuthullin, or Cuchullin, celebrated by Ossian. I ought, I believe, to notice, that Macleod and Mr Suter have both heard a tacksman of Macleod’s, called Grant, recite the celebrated Address to the Sun; and another person, whom they named, repeat the description of Cuchullin’s car. But all agree as to the gross infidelity of Macpherson as a translator and editor. It ends in
DIARY—SKYE. 231
the explanation of the Adventures, in the Cave of Montesinos, afforded to the Knight of La Mancha, by the ape of Gines de Passamonte—some are true and some are false. There is little poetical tradition in this country, yet there should be a great deal, considering how lately the bards and genealogists existed as a distinct order. Macleod’s hereditary piper is called MacCrimmon, but the present holder of the office has risen above his profession. He is an old man, a lieutenant in the army, and a most capital piper, possessing about 200 tunes and pibrochs, most of which will probably die with him, as he declines to have any of his sons instructed in his art. He plays to Macleod and his lady, but only in the same room, and maintains his minstrel privilege by putting on his bonnet so soon as he begins to play. These MacCrimmons formerly kept a college in Skye for teaching the pipe-music. Macleod’s present piper is of the name, but scarcely as yet a deacon of his craft. He played every day at dinner. After losing sight of the Castle of Dunvegan, we open another branch of the loch on which it is situated, and see a small village upon its distant bank. The mountains of Quillen continue to form a background to the wild landscape with their variegated and peaked outline. We approach Dunvegan-head, a bold bluff cape, where the loch joins the ocean. The weather, hitherto so beautiful that we had dined on deck en seigneurs, becomes overcast and hazy, with little or no wind. Laugh and lie down.

“25th August, 1814.—Rise about eight o’clock, the yacht gliding delightfully along the coast of Skye with a fair wind and excellent day. On the opposite side lie the islands of Canna, Rum, and Muick, popularly Muck. On opening the Sound between Rum and Canna, see a steep circular rock, forming one side of the harbour, on the point of which we can discern the
232 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.
remains of a tower of small dimensions, built, it is said, by a King of the Isles to secure a wife of whom he was jealous. But, as we kept the Skye side of the Sound, we saw little of these islands but what our spy-glasses could show us; the coast of Skye is highly romantic, and at the same time displayed a richness of vegetation on the lower grounds, to which we have hitherto been strangers. We passed three salt water lochs, or deep embayments, called Loch Bracadale, Loch Eynort, and Loch Britta—and about eleven o’clock open Loch Scavig. We were now under the western termination of the high mountains of Quillen, whose weatherbeaten and serrated peaks we had admired at a distance from Dunvegan. They sunk here upon the sea, but with the same bold and peremptory aspect which their distant appearance indicated. They seemed to consist of precipitous sheets of naked rock, down which the torrents were leaping in a hundred lines of foam. The tops, apparently inaccessible to human foot, were rent and split into the most tremendous pinnacles; towards the base of these bare and precipitous crags, the ground, enriched by the soil washed away from them, is verdant and productive. Having past within the small isle of Soa, we enter Loch Scavig under the shoulder of one of these grisly mountains, and observe that the opposite side of the loch is of a milder character softened down into steep green declivities. From the depth of the bay advanced a headland of high rocks which divided the lake into two recesses, from each of which a brook seemed to issue. Here Macleod had intimated we should find a fine romantic loch, but we were uncertain up what inlet we should proceed in search of it. We chose, against our better judgment, the southerly inlet, where we saw a house which might afford us information. On manning our boat and rowing ashore, we
DIARY—LOCH CORRISKIN. 233
observed a hurry among the inhabitants, owing to our being as usual suspected for king’s men, although, Heaven knows, we have nothing to do with the revenue but to spend the part of it corresponding to our equipment. We find that there is a lake adjoining to each branch of the bay, and foolishly walk a couple of miles to see that next the farm-house, merely because the honest man seemed jealous of the honour of his own loch, though we were speedily convinced it was not that which we had been recommended to examine. It had no peculiar merit excepting from its neighbourhood to a very high cliff or mountain of precipitous granite; otherwise, the sheet of water does not equal even Cauldshiels Loch. Returned and re-embarked in our boat, for our guide shook his head at our proposal to climb over the peninsula which divides the two bays and the two lakes. In rowing round the headland surprised at the infinite number of sea-fowl, then busy apparently with a shoal of fish; at the depth of the bay, find that the discharge from this second lake forms a sort of waterfall or rather rapid; round this place were assembled hundreds of trouts and salmon struggling to get up into the fresh water; with a net we might have had twenty salmon at a haul, and a sailor, with no better hook than a crooked pin, caught a dish of trouts during our absence.

“Advancing up this huddling and riotous brook, we found ourselves in a most extraordinary scene; we were surrounded by hills of the boldest and most precipitous character, and on the margin of a lake which seemed to have sustained the constant ravages of torrents from these rude neighbours. The shores consisted of huge layers of naked granite, here and there intermixed with bogs, and heaps of gravel and sand marking the course of torrents. Vegetation there was little
234 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.
or none, and the mountains rose so perpendicularly from the water’s edge, that Borrowdale is a jest to them. We proceeded about one mile and a half up this deep, dark, and solitary lake, which is about two miles long, half a mile broad, and, as we learned, of extreme depth. The vapour which enveloped the mountain ridges obliged us by assuming a thousand shapes, varying its veils in all sort of forms, but sometimes clearing off altogether. It is true it made us pay the penalty by some heavy and downright showers, from the frequency of which, a Highland boy, whom we brought from the farm, told us the lake was popularly called the Water Kettle. The proper name is Loch Corriskin, from the deep corrie or hollow in the mountains of Cuillin, which affords the basin for this wonderful sheet of water. It is as exquisite as a savage scene, as Loch Katrine is as a scene of stern beauty. After having penetrated so far as distinctly to observe the termination of the lake, under an immense mountain which rises abruptly from the head of the waters, we returned, and often stopped to admire the ravages which storms must have made in these recesses when all human witnesses were driven to places of more shelter and security. Stones, or rather large massive fragments of rock of a composite kind, perfectly different from the granite barriers of the lake, lay upon the rocky beach in the strangest and most precarious situations, as if abandoned by the torrents which had borne them down from above; some lay loose and tottering upon the ledges of the natural rock, with so little security that the slightest push moved them, though their weight exceeded many tons. These detached rocks were chiefly what are called plum-pudding stones. Those which formed the shore were granite. The opposite side of the lake seemed quite pathless, as a huge mountain, one of the detached ridges of the Quillen, sinks in a
DIARY—LOCH CORRISKIN. 235
profound and almost perpendicular precipice down to the water. On the left hand side, which we traversed, rose a higher and equally inaccessible mountain, the top of which seemed to contain the crater of an exhausted volcano. I never saw a spot on which there was less appearance of vegetation of any kind; the eye rested on nothing but brown and naked crags,* and the rocks on which we walked by the side of the loch were as bare as the pavement of Cheapside. There are one or two spots of islets in the loch which seem to bear juniper, or some such low bushy shrub.

* ‘Rarely human eye has known

A scene so stern as that dread lake,

With its dark ledge of barren stone.

Seems that primeval earthquake’s sway

Hath rent a strange and shatter’d way

Through the rude bosom of the hill;

And that each naked precipice,

Sable ravine, and dark abyss,

Tells of the outrage still.

The wildest glen, but this, can show

Some touch of Nature’s genial glow;

On high Benmore green mosses grow,

And heath-bells bud in deep Glencroe,

And copse on Cruchan-Ben;

But here above, around, below,

On mountain or in glen,

Nor tree, nor shrub, nor plant, nor flower,

Nor aught of vegetative power,

The weary eye may ken;

For all is rocks at random thrown,

Black waves, bare crags, and banks of stone,

As if were here denied

The summer’s sun, the spring’s sweet dew,

That clothe with many a varied hue

The bleakest mountain-side.’

Lord of the Isles, iii. 14.

236

LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

“Returned from our extraordinary walk and went on board. During dinner, our vessel quitted Loch Scavig, and having doubled its southern cape, opened the bay or salt-water Loch of Sleapin. There went again on shore to visit the late discovered and much celebrated cavern, called Macallister’s Cave. It opens at the end of a deep ravine running upward from the sea, and the proprietor, Mr Macallister of Strath Aird, finding that visiters injured it, by breaking and carrying away the stalactites with which it abounds, has secured this cavern by an eight or nine feet wall, with a door. Upon enquiring for the key, we found it was three miles up the loch at the laird’s house. It was now late, and to stay until a messenger had gone and returned three miles, was not to be thought of, any more than the alternative of going up the loch and lying there all night. We therefore, with regret, resolved to scale the wall, in which attempt, by the assistance of a rope and some ancient acquaintance with orchard breaking, we easily succeeded. The first entrance to this celebrated cave is rude and unpromising, but the light of the torches with which we were provided, is soon reflected from roof, floor, and walls, which seem as if they were sheeted with marble, partly smooth, partly rough with frost-work and rustic ornaments, and partly wrought into statuary. The floor forms a steep and difficult ascent, and might be fancifully compared to a sheet of water, which, while it rushed whitening and foaming down a declivity, had been suddenly arrested and consolidated by the spell of an enchanter. Upon attaining the summit of this ascent, the cave descends with equal rapidity to the brink of a pool of the most limpid water, about four or five yards broad. There opens beyond this pool a portal arch, with beautiful white chasing upon the sides, which pro-
DIARY—MACALLISTER’S CAVE. 237
mises a continuation of the cave. One of our sailors swam across, for there was no other mode of passing, and informed us (as indeed we partly saw by the light he carried), that the enchantment of Macallister’s cave terminated with this portal, beyond which there was only a rude ordinary cavern speedily choked with stones and earth. But the pool, on the brink of which we stood, surrounded by the most fanciful mouldings in a substance resembling white marble, and distinguished by the depth and purity of its waters, might be the bathing grotto of a Naiad. I think a statuary might catch beautiful hints from the fanciful and romantic disposition of the stalactites. There is scarce a form or group that an active fancy may not trace among the grotesque ornaments which have been gradually moulded in this cavern by the dropping of the calcareous water, and its hardening into petrifactions; many of these have been destroyed by the senseless rage of appropriation among recent tourists, and the grotto has lost (I am informed), through the smoke of torches, much of that vivid silver tint which was originally one of its chief distinctions. But enough of beauty remains to compensate for all that may be lost. As the easiest mode of return, I slid down the polished sheet of marble which forms the rising ascent, and thereby injured my pantaloons in a way which my jacket is ill calculated to conceal. Our wearables, after a month’s hard service, begin to be frail, and there are daily demands for repairs. Our eatables also begin to assume a real nautical appearance—no soft bread—milk a rare commodity—and those gentlemen most in favour with John Peters, the steward, who prefer salt beef to fresh. To make amends, we never hear of sea-sickness, and the good-humour and harmony of the party continue uninterrupted. When we left the cave we carried off two grandsons of Mr Macallister’s, re-
238 LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.
markably fine boys; and Erskine, who may be called L’ami des Enfans, treated them most kindly, and showed them all the curiosities in the vessel, causing even the guns to be fired for their amusement, besides filling their pockets with almonds and raisins. So that, with a handsome letter of apology, I hope we may erase any evil impression Mr Macallister may adopt from our storming the exterior defences of his cavern. After having sent them ashore in safety, stand out of the bay with little or no wind, for the opposite island of Egg.”

William Erskine, Lord Kinneder (1768-1822) The son of an episcopal clergyman of the same name, he was a Scottish advocate and a close friend and literary advisor to Sir Walter Scott.

Simon Fraser, eleventh lord Lovat (1668-1747) Jacobite conspirator executed following the rebellion of 1745.

King James VI and I (1566-1625) King of Scotland (1567-1625) and England (1603-1625).

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English man of letters, among many other works he edited A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) and Shakespeare (1765), and wrote Lives of the Poets (1779-81).

Anne Macleod [née Stephenson] (d. 1861) The daughter of John Stephenson and spouse of John Norman MacLeod of MacLeod; she was an acquaintance of Walter Scott.

John Norman Macleod (1788-1835) The 24th Chief of Macleod; educated at Harrow and Oxford, he was MP for Sudbury (1828-30); Walter Scott visited him in his island tour of 1814.

Sir Roderick Macleod of Harris and Dunvegan [Roderick Mor] (1562 c.-1626) Chief of the MacLeods of Harris and Dunvegan; he was knighted by James I in 1613.

James Macpherson (1736-1796) Scottish poet who attributed his adaptations of Gaelic poetry to the blind bard Ossian; author of the prose epics Fingal (1761) and Temora (1763).

Martin Martin (1669 c.-1718) Of Skye, educated at Edinburgh University, he was author of Description of the Western Islands of Scotland (1703).

Ossian (250 fl.) Legendary blind bard of Gaelic story to whom James Macpherson attributed his poems Fingal and Temora.

Anna Eliza Perceval [née Macleod] (d. 1889) The daughter of Maj.-Gen. Norman MacLeod of MacLeod; in 1821 she married Spencer Perceval, son of the prime minister.

Walter Scott, third laird of Harden [Auld Wat] (1550 c.-1629 c.) Walter Scott's ancestor, the son of William Scott of Todrig; he was a border reiver and founder of the Harden dynasty.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) Scottish poet, novelist, antiquary, biographer, editor, and sheriff.

Martin Martin (1669 c.-1718) A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland. (London: Andrew Bell, 1703).

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, addressed to John Gibson Lockhart. (London: John Murray, 1830). Published as the sixteenth volume in Murray's Family Library.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) The Lord of the Isles: a Poem. (Edinburgh: A. Constable and Co., 1815). A metrical romance in six cantos.

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) Poetical Works. 12 vols (Edinburgh: R. Cadell, 1833-34).

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Author: Lockhart, J. G. (John Gibson), 1794-1854

Title: Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart. 7 vols (Edinburgh: Robert Cadell, 1837).

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