After boat we stay in big grand happy house with much music no pipes and Joseph too eat like king of Bohemia. After supper the lady sing song of love in own tongue.(2) I cry. Later when men drink I ask lady what words mean. She tell me wait and she bring me paper with English song words. They beautiful. I not show them to master I want to show them to my Margaret as they tell her my heart pain. They will be in Joseph book. I like woman picture on song but she not so pretty as lady of my soul.
Margaret, I must ask, what is special with the Black c.o.c.k? It is a bird like all birds. In Bohemia we have black c.o.c.ks so thick the skies are like end of world. The doctor he eat whole black c.o.c.k in one meal. He eat bones and beaks. Then he break wind and say Latin words. The master he hears that this island is home to black c.o.c.ks and he ask for guns to shoot more to please the master. He still think he is soldier and marches up hill with big gun. No black c.o.c.ks. Just rain and rain. The master he blame me for no black c.o.c.ks. I so big I frighten birds he say. He so stupid. I nearly take gun and shoot him.(3) Next day he want to be explorer and conquer island. We will climb high mountain say master. I wish to stay with the doctor and carry book from library when he wish but master say no, Joseph must carry gun in case of black c.o.c.k, and bread and cheese and mutton and the brandy and the punch in case of hungry. This time we find small birds for shooting. They sitting on ground, Joseph could kill with stick but master he shoot and frighten birds that leave their feathers. Then we climb the hill by easy track but master think it is like walk on moon. On top of hill he want to make dance with the men from big house. In my country Margaret, man does not make dance with man. And Joseph never dance with man, I tell you Margaret. But master after he drink he dance with black c.o.c.k if he find one.
Again at night Joseph ashamed of master who make eye at the house lady and take her arm. I tell you Margaret Joseph not make eyes at ladies and pinch arms with bad look of come to bed with me. My master think only of next brandy and next lady. Or he too sad to think, and just look eyes down at his life.(4) Margaret, you wise woman but you never think so. Tell me why in Scotland everybody visit caves. My cave is biggest! In this cave you hear own voice speak like Englishman. In this cave you find monster. Joseph not want to see another cave.(5) But we see big ship go past. Doctor is silent then ask me how I find this country, if Joseph miss Bohemia. I say I miss my country every day and want again to touch feet on my land. He looks sad but touch me on shoulder and again say Joseph is good man.(6) Today we leave island and go to boat. This Malcolm he call me back and give me parcel for doctor. He say it is old poem by poet Ossian. He say it worth much guineas as they show this poet was living and not made up by not so good poet Macpherson (I explain all this when we meet, my Margaret). But Joseph know that talk of poet Ossian make doctor angry with red face so I hide poem from doctor. I put poem in with letter so you can show them to bookseller and make money for nice things.(7) We go back to Sky island. Even horses not like dark wet land and look not to fall from the path (You see Margaret, now I write like bible!). But the doctor he fall from horse and lie on wet ground like dead man. The master make strange noise and start to hit own head. But Joseph know what to do and doctor soon back on horse, he use very bad words to master. To make light, I ask if these words are in new dictionary. The doctor he look frown at me and say nothing.
I think the doctor stay angry as that night the master try to laugh with doctor who tell him he is eunuch. I know Margaret you ask was Joseph hearing own ears or in dream? No dream, the doctor say eunuch word again and says the master rattle in throat like the eunuch. This time the master go into sulk and say nothing.(8) I think it time to go home for these men.
Later in bedroom the master he keep scratch himself and make hand bleed. He say Joseph am I sick man, do you think I die soon. I say no, you live forever and find more ladies. I think I hear him cry in sleep.
I sleep now also but if I cry it because I miss you my Margaret ...
Good dreams, Your Missing Joseph (1) Joseph"s dream is oddly prophetic; some ninety years after the tour Boswell"s former house in James Court in Edinburgh was destroyed by fire, and a century or so later Raasay House suffered a similar fate. Ditto Banancrieff House which had not yet been visited at this stage in the journey.
(2) Johnson describes how after supper the women of Raasay House would sing "Erse songs, to which I listened as an English audience to an Italian opera, delighted with the sound of words I did not understand". Indeed Johnson inquired after the subject of the songs "but the lady, by whom I sat, thought herself not equal to the work of translating." Enquiries have shown no record of this song. Strangely Colin Milne, the ill.u.s.trator, claims to have written something very similar.
(3) Boswell describes how, "Soon after we came in, a black c.o.c.k and grey hen, which had been shot, were shown, with their feathers on, to Dr Johnson, who had never seen that species of bird before." The following day Boswell and company end up hiding from the torrential rain among the ferns having failed to shoot any of the birds.
(4) Presumably the latest victim of Boswell"s lascivious attention was the eldest Miss MacLeod of Raasay. Boswell restricts himself to the observation, "Miss Flora is really an elegant woman (tall, genteel, a pretty face), sensible, polite, and good-humoured."
(5) As always, Joseph has a point. At every turn the travellers are invited to visit the local cave, and indeed one cave is very like another. Perhaps Johnson harboured the hope of encountering a lost tribe of Scottish troglodytes, the existence of which would confirm his fixed belief in the essential primitivism of the host race.
(6) Emigration was a topic that was of huge interest to Johnson. In his Life of Johnson Boswell records that he considered the phenomenon to be "hurtful to human happiness: for it spreads mankind, which weakens the defense of a nation, and lessons the comfort of living."
(7) This is without doubt the most astonishing reference in any of Joseph"s letters. If he was in fact given an original ma.n.u.script this would have challenged Johnson"s belief that Ossian was a literary hoax. It is a source of huge regret that the poem has become separated from the letter.
(8) Boswell obviously agonised over including this exchange which does not show him in a flattering light. During the evening entertainment at Dunvegan one of the young women present sits on Johnson"s lap. Boswell makes some comment about a seraglio and Johnson retaliates viciously by pointing at Boswell and saying, "if he were properly prepared; and he"d make a very good eunuch."
STAGE EIGHT.
MULL, ULVA, COLL, IONA.
Sighting of a Vessel containing All of the Known World b.u.t.tonholed by a Drunkard A Meditation on the Poignancy of Blackberries A Troubled and Troublesome Landlady A near Invitation to a Wedding Description of yet another Unremarkable Cave A Brief Interlude Featuring Fairies, Pipers and Dogs Further Profound Reflections on Growing Old A Condemned Sheep A Devout Pa.s.sage describing a Pilgrimage
Oban Craignure Tobermory
Once again in Edinburgh I experienced the sense of suspended animation. I was increasingly desperate to sneak a look round the curtain as Boswell lay awake on his last night on Skye listening to the thunder and lightning, his legs aching, "fatigued with violent dancing", his head addled with whisky.
David may have been lying when he claimed to have secured temporary employment as a supply teacher of physics in East Lothian. Either way in a moment of self-sacrificial stoicism Roy once more resigned himself to the task of accompanying me.
The early travellers had sailed from Coll to Mull to Ulva to Inchkenneth to Iona to Mull again and thence to Oban. Faced with the constraints of the ferry timetable we had no option but to start in Mull and wend our way between the islands.
The highlight of Boswell and Johnson"s voyage to Mull was an encounter with what appeared to be a "desperate armed Irish smuggling". It was in fact a government ship that presented little threat. Boswell describes the episode with the studied nonchalance of someone disappointed not to be spending the afternoon in mortal combat with desperados, villains and generally bad people. In different circ.u.mstances his account would have described how the good doctor felled a brigade of brigands with volume two (L to Z) of his dictionary while he himself carved welts on their bloodied cheeks with his rapier wit.
The highlight of our journey on the Oban-Craignure ferry was pa.s.sing close to a floating palace vessel modestly called The World. According to an article in that day"s Glasgow Herald a mere half of a million pounds would buy you a suite and ent.i.tle you to roam the earth indefinitely making use of the onboard golf course and a different restaurant every day of the week. The boat would be useful in a post-apocalypse world sailing contaminated oceans, coc.o.o.ned in a floating bubble of opulence, steering a path through rafts of corpses swelling with the tide. When The World"s pa.s.sengers eventually die of ennui and overeating, right-wing governments will vie with one another to strip it out and use it as a prison ship which could be left to rot on a marsh somewhere.
As the bus routes on Mull are limited we brought bikes with us and stowed them beneath the decks of the 495 to Tobermory. The driver, Alasdair to his regular pa.s.senger, had a penchant for Indian music which percolated sinuously through the bus. At Salen he abandoned his vehicle and sought refuge in the Spar grocery. Had he not already been warned as to his future conduct he would have opted for a speed wash at the adjacent launderette and checked on his investments at the cafe which also provided postal and banking services.
Rejuvenated by his purchases he accelerated onto the slipway for the Lochaline Ferry, raising the possibility that Bowmans Coaches had invested their six-monthly profits in amphibious vehicles similar to the DUKW craft that plunges into the Mersey. Either that or he simply wanted to find out if the bus would float. Having second thoughts he rejoined the road.
The bus slalomed and skewed as two large deer cantered down the white line. They fleetingly looked Alasdair in the eye before disappearing back into the heather. He seemed relieved at not having to pick deer bits off his radiator grill. A sign pointed the way to a Stickmaker Craft Centre. Why does anyone need to make more sticks? Are they better than the real thing?
Three trawlers leant drunkenly against each other on the foresh.o.r.e, old pals. Their rib cages had become entangled in an embrace that must have lasted several decades. Roy told me that it was considered bad luck to dismantle a boat which is why the island sh.o.r.es are littered with wrecked and unwanted vessels. Soon not an inch of beach will remain as ocean going tankers, aircraft carriers, cruise ships, coracles and canoes cuddle up.
Boswell counted "twelve or fourteen vessels" in Tobermory harbour. Roy counted sixty seven and then revised his tally to sixty six. I looked for the bubbles showing where a yacht must have recently sunk. He pointed out that it had just sailed out of the harbour so could not feature in his nautical census.
Boswell says that Johnson was decidedly grumpy at the thought of being stranded on yet another island and could only be consoled with a "dish of tea, some good wheaten cakes (scones) and fresh b.u.t.ter." Young Coll who was their guide on this part of the tour, and the long suffering Joseph, managed to escape the increasingly compet.i.tive and tedious conversation by improvising a drinking spree with two ship"s captains. In their absence Boswell and Johnson discussed Alberti"s Tour of Italy, Addison"s Remarks, Moreri"s Dictionary, Selden"s Table Talk, Fenelon"s Telemachus, Voltaire"s Universal History, the Bishop of Meaux(?), Racine, Corneille, Moliere, Ma.s.sillon and Bourdaloue. Meanwhile their fellow tea drinkers slit their wrists and garrotted each other out of kindness. Coll and Joseph had made the right choice.
Johnson was about to experience the quintessential Scottish experience of being b.u.t.tonholed by a drunk. One of Coll"s new companions, a man called Nisbet, was determined to give the travellers the benefit of his wisdom and joined them. Boswell declared "He was much in liquor and spoke nonsense."
"Hey Big Man, a"ve some words that arenae in yer English dictionary ..."
We cycled slowly down Tobermory main street feigning interest in the Hebridian Whale and Dolphin shop, a worthy, brown-rice sort of venture that targeted unscrupulous j.a.panese whalers covered in spermy gore.
The two main decorative features of the main street were a rusting mine with money slot for those with sufficient compa.s.sion to be mindful of Shipwrecked Fishermen Everywhere, and a curious fountain depicting a mermaid sitting astride of a pig"s snout which on closer examination revealed itself to be the neck of an ancient urn but with flared nostrils. The inscription had been partially eroded by the weather but was evidently a gift from Rasputin.
A SeaLife craft slowly crossed the bay. Its elderly pa.s.sengers were all swaddled in beige anoraks and looked confused, as well they might, given they had been sucked out of the ocean in the 1940"s by a B-movie tornado and dropped decades later into Tobermory harbour.
The aisles in the Co-operative stores were blocked by a landing party from a yacht, the cost of whose papal red nautical clothing would easily have bought every item on sale in the shop with the possible exception of the drink display which was undeniably impressive in both its range and scale. Our co-op rolls would not have been a match for the meal of tongue, fowls, greens and a little brandy punch with which Boswell and Johnson stuffed themselves.
They spent the night at Hector Maclean"s house a mile away in the hamlet of Erray. The name still features on the road sign but there is no trace of any 18th century building, only a golf course and the High School. We thought better of inquiring in the police station. "A stout gentleman you say, with a faint whiff of mutton, with a younger gentleman, fawning."
On arrival "Mr Johnson took sowans and cream heartily. We had a bowl of rum punch." They had after all travelled at least a mile without eating.
Boswell describes how "We arrived at a strange confused house ... ornamented with some bad portraits, "and a piece of sh.e.l.l-work" made by Miss Maclean, the doctor"s daughter. We were received by Mrs Maclean, a little brisk old woman in a bedgown with a brown wig, and Miss Maclean, a little plump elderly young lady in some dress which I do not recollect farther than she had a smart beaver hat with a white feather ... There was a parrot in it (the house not the wig) which Mrs. Maclean had had for sixteen years. She said it could speak very well in Glasgow, but it had rusted in Mull." There you have it, the quintessential Bed and Breakfast complete with bad decor, beavers and a rusted parrot.
"We set out, mounted on little Mull horses. Mull corresponded exactly with the idea which I had always had of it: a hilly country, diversified with heath and gra.s.s, and many rivulets. Dr Johnson was not in very good humour. He said it was a dreary country, much worse than Skye. I differed from him. "Oh, sir, said he, "a most dolorous country!"""
Johnson had reason to be grumpy. Not only could his horse barely support his weight, it didn"t have a saddle. How many broken nags did Johnson leave in his wake? He also had to endure a Dr Foster moment when he plunged though deep water where Loch na Cuilce had overflowed. To make matters worse he lost his staff. First his spurs and now his stick, what was going on? He had intended to donate his trusty pole to a museum and for a while convinced himself that it had been stolen by their baggage man.
Our journey was undeniably easier. Cycling through the forest we were accompanied by an escort of azure dragon flies which hovered as delicately as Conan Doyle"s fairies. Endless b.u.t.terflies performed outrider duties.
After leaving the tarmac we meandered over a lochside track. We held the farm gate to let through a frail elderly man who had slipped from the frame of an Edwardian family portrait. He was being guided in slow motion by his daughter who explained that he always inspected the blackberries at this time of year. He shook his head saying something was wrong, they should be further on. The daughter must have known this would be the last year they would enact this important ritual. Their outing was endowed with the poignancy of antic.i.p.ated loss; the walk was already happening in retrospect. For our part we had encountered our own leech-gather like one "met with in a dream".
The forest was again impersonating ocean depths. Looking up we caught sight of the dark swimmers pulling their way through the water while angel fish darted suspiciously through the waving fronds.
In clearings we skirted past the monochrome dereliction of deforestation. This time the battlefield was medieval. Ma.s.sive dead trees with black earth roots barred the way like toppled siege engines. Gray weary knights rested their gray shields and built random ricks from their lances among their fallen comrades whose knees were oddly angled in death.
As we peched up the straggly endless hills we were overtaken by a brace of super fit, young cyclists. They seemed quite deferential as they steamed past, at least not sneering obviously, and were soon over the horizon and out of sight. By some warp in the time s.p.a.ce continuum we had been overtaken by our younger selves. Had they not disappeared so quickly we would have sat with them, introduced ourselves to ourselves and given rea.s.surance that life was going to be all right with only a few pitfalls which in retrospect could have been avoided; the odd haunting sense of the road not taken, but all things considered, not bad lives ahead. They would have listened politely, not fully understanding, all the while distracted by the bald heads and slightly shocked by the old bodies.
The sight of a squashed hedgehog nudged the time s.p.a.ce thing even further back. The hedgehog had been neatly bisected by the thin tyres of a Ford Popular or Standard 8. We stepped aside as a happy family drove proudly past in the new motor car, dad with neat moustache and greased-back hair, mum nursing the Daily Express on her lap.
Enthusiastic as ever Johnson records, "We travelled many hours through a tract, black and barren, in which, however, there were the reliques of humanity; for we found a ruined chapel in our way." Most of the gravestones in Kilmore churchyard have been sandblasted into hobbled shapes by the wind and made even more illegible by the moss. The only readable stone belonged to an unknown merchant seaman washed ash.o.r.e in 1940. A tiny wooden cross was propped up against his grave.
The abandoned grocery shed at the start of Dervaig was still proudly advertising Wills" Woodbines but had probably not sold much of anything for a few years. If there was any justice the same would apply to the coffee/ bookshop into which we foolishly strayed. Having been totally ignored by the owner who was regaling captured tourists with tedious tales of his former life as a journalist, he suddenly turned his attention to us, "Why did you come in?" He asked belligerently. "We"re shoplifters," Roy explained.
Ulva Craignure Oban
If Boswell and Johnson"s landlady had specialised in beavers and parrots ours revealed a more catholic taste. Her specialist areas were horses, seventeen of them on the pelmet, cows, slightly fewer but placed in descending order of size on a purpose built shelf, a nightmare rag gollywog, snuff boxes, unidentifiable objects on the wall, possibly antique silver kebab sticks, a grandfather clock so large it would not fit in the room, its face disappearing into a purpose built hole in the ceiling, but above all else, colossal rudeness.
Our hostess resented our presence from the moment we disturbed her obsessively manicuring some midget plants in her garden. She barked prohibitions, restrictions and caveats in a strange clipped tongue from which all vowels had been stripped on account of their lowly origins. I cowered in the bedroom while Roy was disciplined for leaving a door open which could have seen the house overrun with animals and other wild things, which presumably encompa.s.sed both parrots and beavers. Instead of meekly accepting his verbal lashing I heard Roy questioning the likelihood of this phantom menagerie traipsing though the house with muddy hoof and claw. He later explained that "a line had to be drawn".
The landlady"s long-haired, long-suffering dog understood the situation in the house. It sighed knowingly and shook its head at every barbed observation forced out of its mistress"s permanently curled lips.
When the coast was clear I stopped cowering and joined Roy who had discovered two other hostages. While the rude woman was busy outside imposing order on the natural world they opened up, all the while glancing guiltily as the door lest their vengeful jailer returned. A gentle retired couple from Suss.e.x, they explained how they had been captured nearly two weeks previously. They had eventually negotiated a parole under the terms of which they were permitted to leave their cell during daylight hours. They would spend each evening in a lay-by reading in their car, eating sandwiches until their electronic tag dictated their return. The man took a small risk and disclosed that the real reason behind their visit was, and here he looked at his wife for unspoken permission to continue, his pa.s.sion for Scammell lorries of which there were apparently many on Mull. Roy announced that he was off to "run a shallow grave".
At least we found our sheets were clean unlike Boswell who "was shocked at their dirtiness. I threw off only my boots and coat and waistcoat, and put on my greatcoat and a night-gown, and so lay down. The mixture of brandy punch at the inn and rum punch here, joined with the comfortless bed, made me rest very poorly ... After I had tossed long in weariness, Joseph came and called me and let in light. I would have risen, but was afraid to put my hand anywhere in the dark, for fear of spiders, or some uncleanly circ.u.mstance of sloth. I was not well at all."
We felt fine in the morning despite Roy having produced bottles of wine from nowhere to help us through our evening captivity. We set off towards Ulva, our panniers crammed with silver snuff boxes and china horses.
We stopped to chat with a late middle aged couple who were manning a battery of surveillance equipment apparently focused on nothing. After signing the official secrets act we were invited to squinny into the telescope and saw a close up of a rag that had been thrown onto a stick. It was, allegedly, a sea eagle intent on claiming the pole-squatting record which was now only days away. Our empathy became less false once the man animatedly recreated from memory the bird"s flight as it plunged lochwards and plucked a fish from its waters. His arms became elongated, his eyes narrowed and his neck hunched down into his shoulders for the final descent.
The low point of the ride was the predictability with which our efforts to drag aging bodies through the treacle of hill climbs were met with condescending encouragement from car drivers. "Well done boys, you can do it!" tossed in our direction through lowered windows. The same patrician tones would have been equally familiar to members of the Light Brigade and the young frightened boys prodded from their trenches in the Somme.
The tiny Ulva ferry is summoned by moving a red board which is visible from the island. Boswell and Johnson found the trip much more problematic and only made the crossing thanks to an Irish sailor whose ship was at anchor in the strait.
They stayed at the "mean" house of Lachlan Macquarrie who owned the island. We walked down the drive of Ulva House, a 1950"s building which was sufficiently grand to have been built on the same spot as the Macquarry residence. We joined a queue forming outside of the main door. The woman in front seemed very friendly as she manoeuvred a three-wheeled racing pram which could have doubled as a sand buggy or indeed a hang glider if push came to shove, or indeed flight. The queue exuded wealth.
I glanced uneasily at Roy whose resemblance to a superannuated but still alarmingly l.u.s.ty pirate grew stronger with each pa.s.sing hour. Everyone ahead was greeted with either a manly embrace or a kiss on both cheeks from a swarthy, dapper man who was presumably the owner. When our turn came he grasped our hands and told us we were most welcome and hoped we would enjoy ourselves. It seemed churlish to point out that we had not actually been invited to anything and so explained our quest. He reminisced for a short while about how his grandfather had burned down the original building decades earlier before pointing us towards a distant steading which incorporated the original walls of the Macquarrie residence. Roy asked about the marquee rising behind the house and he explained that he was getting married the following day.
Had we played our cards differently we could have stayed as guests; no one would have known who we were and good breeding would have dictated that n.o.body asked. We learned subsequently that he was the owner of the island and presumably had the power to summarily execute fraudsters and bearded vagabonds.
Dr Johnson had interrogated the earlier owner of Ulva about the custom of Mercheta Mulierum, a fine, normally a sheep, due to the Laird at the marriage of a virgin. Would the current resident virgins of Ulva rest easier in their beds knowing that their laird had finally made a choice?
Johnson walked three miles, on his own, to visit the remains of a church on Ulva. Presumably Boswell was again hung over. We set out to follow in his footsteps but got so confused by the maze of different paths through the ferns that we gave up. Roy insisted that the lairds of Ulva traditionally yoked the natives together and forced them to trample the aforementioned paths just to confuse potential visitors or virgin stealers.
The licensed restaurant adjacent to the ferry was temporary home to a collection of trainee aristocrats. We a.s.sumed from their costumes that they were rehearsing for a pastiche performance of Brideshead Revisited. Sadly they were in earnest. Stalking jackets rubbed tweedy sleeves against waxed Barbours with just a hint of h.o.m.oeroticism; they yah-ed, brayed and buffooned their way through copious pints of Pimms; the young women all betrayed a startling resemblance to their favourite horses and may have been in severe discomfort from cramming their own still soft hooves into green wellies. Thigh slapping, their own and others", occurred at intervals to encourage the blue blood to hold its own against the invading tide of expensive alcohol. We briefly toyed with the idea of killing the lot of them and then living rough on the island while being hunted down by huge salivating Baskervilles.
The last ferry of the day found us in unwelcome physical proximity to these leaders of tomorrow. They quipped in code and nudge-nudge- winked each other knowingly. The one who had been brought along because she still knew how to talk with mere mortals asked why three people had been left on the slipway. The boatman explained with a complicit glance at us that they were part of the owner"s family who had personally come to ensure that the riff-raff left the island. They all thought this was a jolly good joke. Typically, not one of them could muster the courtesy to thank the boatman as they left the ferry.
Disaster struck as I cycled up the slipway: both of my hamstrings snapped simultaneously. I briefly considered that I had been shot in both legs by someone who was objecting to the hint of cla.s.s hatred creeping into my narrative. I howled for Roy to come back and comfort, rescue or carry me but he was already a speck in the distance. Mercifully the cramp disappeared as quickly as it came and for a brief moment I felt joyous empathy with the Lourdes pilgrims who, cured on the spot, add their crutches to an ever growing pyre.
We both felt exhilarated by the adrenaline-fuelled ride alongside Loch na Keal under the lee of the black cliffs that had realigned themselves after the ice age. We stopped and looked across the water at Inchkenneth. It was only a stone"s throw away but frustratingly not accessible by bus pa.s.s, bike or CalMac ferry. Had we been forty years younger we might have swum across.
The three-storey white house, a successor building to the former home of Allan Maclean, Boswell and Johnson"s host, enjoyed a more recent notoriety as the home of the Mitford family. It was odd to think that Hitler used to phone Diana when she lived there as part of the eccentric blue-eyed sisterhood. It was a pity too that we could not look for the swastikas she had etched into the windows or the retaliatory hammers and sickles added by Jessica. What price a discussion between the sisters and Dr Johnson? For his part Boswell would have been too busy ogling the other five sisters to contribute a great deal. For a moment we heard the faint strains of The Valkyrie being carried on the wind.
In his account Boswell mentions a nasty moment when Sir Allan broke the news before diner that the expected delivery of wine had not been ferried over but "luckily the boat arrived this very afternoon. We had a couple of bottles of port and hard biscuits, after some roasted potatoes, which is Sir Allan"s simple fare by way of supper."
Boswell goes further and confesses to having been "disagreeably disappointed in Sir Allan" because his host, despite his reputation and the company he kept, was not a drinker. "I apprehended that I should find a riotous bottle companion and be pressed to drink; in place of which, the Knight was as sober after dinner as I could wish, and let me do as I pleased." So Boswell probably drank both bottles before necking the decanters and raiding the cellar.
The drink may have explained two odd pa.s.sages from Boswell"s account of his stay. "I was for going to the chapel; but a tremor seized me for ghosts, and I hastened back into the house. It was exceedingly dark, and in my timorous hurry I stepped suddenly into a hollow place, and strained a sinew on my right foot. It was painful a while; but rubbing it with rum and vinegar cured it by next day at breakfast." Presumably the rum was applied both internally and externally. Either way the remedy seems to have worked, "I got a spade and dug a little grave in the floor of the chapel, in which I carefully buried what loose bones were there."
In an innocent aside Boswell mentions how he and Dr Johnson went searching for whelks while Col and Joseph went looking for otters.
We eventually found the farm track that led to MacKinnon"s cave which made a deep impression on both Boswell and Johnson despite Old Grumpy commenting, "We had been disappointed already by one cave, and were not much elevated by the expectation of another."
For some reason the ingredients of which were probably stupidity and inability to read in equal measure, we both missed the undeniably prominent sign that directed all cave visitors to hug the fence. Accordingly we set out across bog and swamp in completely the wrong direction. Finally back on track we moved slowly down the cliff path. I lost my footing and fell head first howling like a child, Roy said. In my defence my knee had bent itself into an acute angle it had not known since a more supple adolescence and I must have been near death from the rash of nettle stings apart from anything else.
We clambered over real flotsam, man"s stuff. No namby-pamby bleached Squeezy bottles and sea-rounded sticks. Here were tree trunks from an Ecuadorian jungle and trawler wheel houses.
Boulders the size of giant"s b.o.l.l.o.c.ks blocked the way to the cave now visible next to the waterfall tumbling off the cliff. I made a comment about having fresh water on tap not realising that Johnson had been very dismissive of the same idea, "There is a tradition that it was conducted thither artificially to supply the inhabitants with water. Mr Johnson gave no credit to this tradition." That"s me told then.
We were wondering how on earth Johnson could have clambered over these rocks when we remembered that he arrived by sea and was probably carried into the cave entrance by a sweating, swearing Joseph and a worse than useless Boswell. They only had a small candle to light their way and we only had our mobile phones. I accidently pressed iTunes and spookily Sibelius filled the s.p.a.ce; a quick shuffle and Amy Whitehouse was rejecting rehab, especially if she had to stay in a cave.
There was the usual cave furniture, a tree trunk barely charred in the middle spite the best efforts of Special Brewed Satanists intent on barbecuing a mermaid.
Boswell mentions the legend of the piper and twelve men who marched into the cave and never returned. We listened intently, but nothing, not even the hint of a poignant pibroch or a strangled chanter. Allegedly the piper challenged the fairies to a compet.i.tion. A great mistake. There is also the legend of the dog that entered only to emerge crazed and hairless on the other side of the island weeks later. Part of us wished we had brought along the landlady"s dog, but then we wondered if the process would work in reverse. If we set off into the dark might we emerge at some distant point in time and place with full heads of hair?
Time was tight if we were to make the last ferry of the day but we had to stop and gawk as we pa.s.sed the same posse of yahs we had seen on Ulva. This time they were being led down a private pier towards a waiting fishing launch by a man dressed in a pantomime variant of a gillies" costume complete with deer stalker and k.n.o.bbed stick. There were several possibilities; this was the final stage of a rigorous selection procedure for fast track entrants into the aristocracy, a sort of Big Brother for k.n.o.bs and t.o.s.s.e.rs. Alternatively this was our first encounter with Toff"s Tours, a new venture by the same company whose vans, full of young Australians, hurtle round Scotland to the clank of tinnies and the swish of urine. Perhaps after all they were just an ordinary bunch of St Andrews undergraduates enjoying a typical weekend break.
Away from the coast a frenzied poster campaign announced forthcoming dog trials. What crimes had they committed; were they merely old and had failed to master new tricks? How was the jury selected? We rode towards Craignure with these and many other questions unanswered.
We reflected on the age profile of the long queue shuffling towards the ferry. Visibly tired and slow moving this was, for many couples, their last holiday together. How long before a small disintegration in either partner would preclude even the coach tour and three star accommodation on Mull. The worry about toilets and the daily reckoning with the neatly compartmentalised pill box would become too much of a burden; better to stay at home and wait.
In time-honoured island tradition we watched the cars driving off the newly arrived ferry. The locals, mostly bored single drivers were easy to spot; hara.s.sed young families determined to have a good holiday despite the ominous presence of a mad granny in the back; laughing honeymooners en route to a remote spot, the car piled high with presents, toilet rolls and Tes...o...b..gs.
Boswell and Johnson found a proliferation of No Vacancies signs in Oban before settling for an inn, a slated house of two storeys where they were well enough entertained, "at least we were satisfied, though we had nothing like what is to be found in good inns upon a frequented road."
On account of its superior view overlooking the harbour the owner of our B & B charged an exorbitant price and implied by his supercilious manner that he was only dabbling in the trade to placate his wife. He was equally scathing of the restaurant where earlier we had dined like lords happily bathing in the red light of a ferocious sunset.
Oban Aringour Arnabost Cliad Breacachidh Oban