Whisky, Kilts, and the Loch Ness Monster
Page 5
Inveraray today is considerably more pleasing, even a bit on the charming, genteel side, I have to confess. And it boasts the hotel, now known as the Argyll Hotel, built in 1755, where Boswell and Johnson settled in for their visit. Johnson described it as “not only commodious but magnificent.” These things are a matter of some subjectivity, of course, and over a period of nearly two and a half centuries and a fire or two, one would expect standards of commodiousness and magnificence to change. They have. I arrived at 1 P.M. and was told by a rather pouty young female desk clerk that rooms would not be available until 3. When I returned at 3 she failed to recognize me—in spite of the absence of anyone else attempting to claim rooms—and bluntly advised me that rooms would not be offered until 3:30. I sat down on a sofa directly in front of her, and at 3:30 she managed to produce a slim smile of recognition. My room was close to the one where Johnson is alleged to have slept; it overlooked the loch, though getting to it up a creaky, steeply winding staircase surely would have taxed Dr. Johnson and perhaps even Boswell. I asked the clerk when I came back downstairs if she had heard of Boswell and Johnson. No, she replied, but she could get the manager for me. He might have seen them. This would be only the first of my discoveries that Scots, as a rule, don’t have long memories or especially good thoughts for either Bozzy or Dr. J.
I departed for a haircut and a pint in that order. The haircutter turned out to be a woman in her thirties who trimmed men’s and women’s hair and said she had lived in Inveraray all her life. I asked if she had heard of Boswell and Johnson coming through the town, and she helpfully responded, “No, I haven’t seen anyone like that lately.” When I added that they passed through in 1773, she added, “Well, I wasn’t here then.” I didn’t much care for the haircut.
The Royal Burgh is attractive, clean, and walkable. It has been affectionately described by the novelist Neil Munro, who was born here and poured out his love for Inveraray and for its closely knit Highland values in his 1907 novel The Daft Days (recommended reading before a visit here). Inveraray’s neat, bright shops and pubs seem mostly to cater to the tourist trade. The tourists come here in summer, by the way, not for the pleasure of remembering Boswell and Johnson but to buy Scottish clothing at the many discount shops (all of which sell whisky in addition to the usual souvenirs, sweaters, and scarfs) and to see Inveraray Castle, the home of the latest duke of Argyll.
Boswell and Johnson had a remarkable time at Inveraray. Unfortunately for me, the castle was closed for visitors until April, though the grounds were open. That was especially disappointing because some of my predecessors on the Boswell/Johnson trail have made wonderful and occasionally bizarre entrances to the castle. In her quirky but readable 1956 book A Hebridean Journey, the English writer Elizabeth Stucley remembers how she, in the company of her eight-year-old adopted son David, knocked on the castle door, and when the duke opened it, “I explained I was Dr. Johnson and that David was Mr. Boswell.” The duke graciously went on to give her a brief tour, and she and David slept that night in their van outside the castle. My teeth gnash at having missed such an opportunity. The Scottish writer Moray McLaren fared even better. In his engaging and insightful book The Highland Jaunt (1954), he recounts that when he got to Inveraray the duke-in-residence invited him to stay for a few days so that he could report that the castle “has not changed fundamentally” since 1773. I decided to venture back to the castle in the morning, partly because it had now turned cold and begun to rain steadily. But mostly because there was no one was there to invite me in.
Back at the hotel the clerk was smiling, though not at me. Her boyfriend had come in and was helping her pass the time. He looked surprisingly like her—solid, maybe even chunky, pouty, with at least as many facial rings as she claimed. His motorcycle was parked outside. I resisted any urge to ask him about Boswell and Johnson. I drifted into the empty hotel bar where Johnson and Boswell had lifted a glass. I ordered a pint and sat back to watch and wait. Twenty minutes later, I was still by myself with an empty glass. I decided to try another establishment.
Around the corner—the wind gusts blew me there quite easily—was the George Hotel, which had a lively, noisy bar and restaurant into which I happily slipped. The rain poured down in sheets outside, but a large, warming fire, hospitable neighbors, a delicious meal of Cullen Skink (smoked haddock, potatoes, and onions) and good drink kept me smiling until late in the evening when I returned to the Argyll. The bar was still empty. When Johnson arrived at the hotel on that rainy night 234 years ago, he did not change out of his wet clothes, noted Boswell. “We supped well; and after supper, Dr. Johnson, whom I had not seen taste any fermented liquor during all our travels [Boswell is wrong; see the section on Dunvegan Castle in a later chapter], called for a gill of whisky. ‘Come,’ said he, ‘let me know what it is that makes a Scotchman happy.’” Boswell proposed a toast to their mutual friend Mrs. Thrale, but Johnson seemed offended and demurred.
Hester Thrale occupied an interesting place in the lives of the two men. Both were correspondents with her, and she and Boswell were something of rivals for Johnson’s affection. Both had been given a blessing to write biographies of Johnson, and both pursued their relationships with some measure of self-interest. Boswell was far superior as a writer, but Mrs. Thrale held an important place in Johnson’s heart—he was deeply saddened when she remarried and virtually abandoned him near the end of his life. She also was able to be with Johnson in more domestic situations, and hence gave a picture of the doctor in ways Boswell could not. I thought of all three—Boswell, Johnson and Mrs. Thrale—as I sat in the bar. But even with good whisky, it was way too depressing to be by myself.
Back in my room, which appeared to be a little larger than the one Johnson is alleged to have slept in, I prepared for the worst. The Scottish poet Robert Burns had stayed here, too, about fourteen years after Boswell and Johnson, and his stay wasn’t so wonderful. He wrote in 1787
There’s nothing here but Highland pride,
And Highland scab and hunger;
If Providence has sent me here,
’Twas surely in an anger.
The wooden floors were uneven and caused a near fall when I got up to go to the loo about 2 A.M. My bed, however, proved quite comfortable and, in spite of forebodings, I slept soundly. Morning brought clear skies and temperatures in the upper forties and a friendlier desk clerk who brought me a newspaper to go with my tea. Warmed and awake, I strolled briskly to the castle grounds, pastoral and quiet with elongated green patches and horse barns in the distance, lovely leafless woods, stone bridges, and sheep grazing peacefully. Do sheep ever graze aggressively? The castle exterior, at least seen from a distance, is a lot less imposing than, say, that of Stirling Castle or even Doune, having been much more scaled to domestic inhabitance. But it certainly played an imposing role in the visit by Boswell and Johnson.
The fifth duke of Argyll (sometimes spelled Argyle) was their host in 1773, and his castle was the seat of the powerful Clan Campbell, the most important family in the Highlands, if not in all of Scotland. The clan had been at the center of much controversial Scottish politics over the centuries. They were said to be allies of the popular Robert the Bruce in the fourteenth century, maintained loyalties to the royals, kept up remarkable cohesiveness among the individual members when other clans did not, and turned out to be rather aggressive and occasionally ruthless at the expense of their neighbors. Quite a few of them sided with the English at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, which resulted in a massacre of Highlanders and put a bloody end to the rebellion led by one of the most romantic figures in Scottish history, Charles Edward Stewart, better known as the aforementioned Bonnie Prince Charlie. More about him and the tangle of political history comes up later in this book.
Boswell naturally wrangled an invitation to the duke’s home for himself and Johnson, though not without some soul-searching over a rather delicate matter. In his Journal, Boswell wrote: “The Duchess of Argyll, I knew, hated me, on accoun
t of my zeal in the Douglas Cause. But the duke of Argyll has always been very civil to me, and had paid me a visit in London. They were now at the castle. Should I go and pay my respects there?” Their disagreement came over a legal matter some years before when the wealthy and attractive duchess of Hamilton sought to have her son declared her rightful heir and Boswell supported a rival claimant, in the process treating the duchess with some legal and personal disrespect. The duchess of Hamilton was now none other than the wife of the fifth duke of Argyll. “I mentioned how disagreeable my company would be to the Duchess,” Boswell wrote. “Mr. Johnson treated this objection with manly disdain. ‘That sir,’ said he, ‘he must settle with his wife.’”
Boswell did go to pay his respects and at a time when he thought the duchess and her ladies might be gone from dinner. He found the duke most amiable, enjoyed a fine meal and good claret, and explained his most curious journey. At one point the duke introduced his wife to Boswell, who reported that she “took not the least notice of me.” The two travelers returned the next day and Boswell introduced Johnson to the duke and recorded, with candor and clarity, his own feelings about a most un-dukely topic: “I shall never forget the enchanting impression made upon my fancy by some of the ladies’ maids tripping about in neat morning dresses. After seeing nothing for a long time but rusticity, their elegance delighted me; and I could have been a knight-errant for them.” How can you not love Boswell for his intimate frankness and openness? Who else would have the nerve to admit feeling horny around the little maids while one of the most powerful men in the country was showing his visitors around his estate?
If there was one person who could take Boswell’s mind off those tasty maids, it was surely the duchess. And sure enough, at dinner later Boswell observed her “peevish resentment.” Things got a little nastier after dinner when the duchess, who found herself enjoying Johnson’s company, inquired as to why the travelers had gotten such a late-season start on their journey. Johnson replied that Boswell had been occupied in court. “‘Why, madam,’ said he, ‘You know Mr. Boswell must attend the Court of Session, and it does no rise until the twelfth of August.’” Boswell quotes her reply: “She said, with spite, ‘I know nothing of Mr. Boswell.’”
There were other delicious moments during the time Boswell and Johnson spent at Inveraray, including a testy exchange between Johnson and a dinner guest, more ruminations on the Douglas Cause, and Johnson’s carefree “Meditation on a Pudding,” a grand, quasi-scholarly and amusingly over-the-top ode to flour, salt, milk, eggs, and the natural and animal world that gives us—yes, pudding. The ode may have inspired Burns a few decades later when he wrote glowingly of the haggis. As for those who would find Johnson dour and unsmiling, this kind of evidence must be ignored, for it tells us clearly the good doctor was having a whee of a time for a good part of this strange yet refreshing journey. As for Boswell, simply being with Johnson over this extended period had given him not merely a devout intimacy but secured for him a literary mission as well.
But how about the Campbells? Did those dukes and duchesses at Inveraray carry any grudges over the years? At least one of them certainly did. In his excellent 1982 book In the Footsteps of Johnson and Boswell, the American-born journalist Israel Shenker recounts how he wrote a letter to Ian Campbell, the twelfth duke of Argyll, to ask permission to call on him at the castle. The duke didn’t reply, but his secretary did, and I quote some of her reply as provided by Shenker: “For the Duke’s part, he ventures to suggest that Johnson’s and Boswell’s visit to Inveraray was not perhaps their happiest one, certainly in Boswell’s case, where he was received very coolly by the then-duchess, as you will know, and of the many distinguished visitors to Inveraray Castle over the centuries, these particular ones strike the least sympathetic note with the present duke; in fact, mention of them is inclined to make him wish ‘to take to the hills.’”
She went on to suggest that the duke might prefer that Mr. Shenker take to the hills instead, and she ruled out any conversational possibilities. Shenker, being a good journalist, proceeded to take the pubic tour and get a look at the castle anyway. So much for peevishness unbounded, more than two hundred years after the Boswell and Johnson visit.
For those two men the journey was nearing its end. It was the end of October; the weather was worsening. They went to Boswell’s home at Auchinleck, south of Glasgow, before returning to Edinburgh. For me, however, the journey was just beginning. On to Oban, following now the path that culminated in my literary companions’ fascinating stop in Inveraray. Except, of course, that I was tracing the path in reverse.
4
To Oban
Before departing Inveraray, I made a quick stop at the jail after the suddenly chipper desk clerk suggested it was worth a visit. She was right. An older gentleman of Inveraray, costumed as a nineteenth-century warder of the prison, escorted me around the damp, rather dismal place. I took a liking to him, though I once again discovered that the visit here by Boswell and Johnson excited no memory whatsoever. The old jail was built about 1820 for imprisonment. Men, women, and children were kept here, as many as twenty in eight small cells. The new jail, completed in 1848, was considerably more advanced in security, ventilation, and water closets. The warder took some pride in informing me that Argyll outlawed the death penalty well before the rest of Scotland got around to it. I stopped by the jail gift shop because I had never been to a jail that had a gift shop. In addition to a few books about the prison system and some woolies, glasses, and pencils, it featured a generous selection of Scotch whiskies for sale. Just the sort of thing every prison needs, I suppose.
Oban was about an hour away by car—you may recall that Boswell and Johnson needed a full day to slosh through the trip—so I took my time. The scenery was lovely, looping around the top edges of Loch Awe, which, at more than twenty-five miles in length, is the longest splash of fresh water in Scotland. Boswell and Johnson crossed this loch on a rain-swept ferry. According to travel guides, legend has it that the loch is inhabited by a monster “even more gruesome” than the one at Loch Ness. (That would make the monster “awesome,” wouldn’t it? Anyway, there are lots of legends to go around in Scotland, even more than to be found in Ireland.)
The ruins of Kilchurn Castle, once a fortification of those darned Campbells, were visible far in the distance. I thought I might be developing a potentially unhealthy addiction to castles; as it turned out it would only get worse. Much closer was a beautiful old stone church standing proudly on the banks of the loch. When I walked to it, though, I found that St. Conan’s Kirk was barely one hundred years old—notable and venerable in America, perhaps, but historically speaking a mere toddler here, and, of course, nowhere to be seen when Boswell and Johnson came through. The interior stones radiated a bone-chilling dampness, so I hurried along. And speaking of bones, the kirk is the repository of one of Robert the Bruce’s bones, according to signage. I’m not sure just how that is known, but there is definitely somebody’s bone there. Back in the car the heater felt very good, and I drove past herds of shaggy highland cattle—the ones with horns—lots of sheep, and even some deer feeding calmly near the road. I was grateful I wasn’t on horseback or foot.
I arrived in Oban in the early afternoon. Back when Boswell and Johnson were here, it was but a hamlet, “a few families collected together with a view toward the fisheries,” one traveler wrote in 1786. It had a post office and a customhouse, but since no one in the islands paid customs, there was no officer.
In the summer months this moderate-sized town becomes one of the busiest and most crowded in all of Scotland. It is the major jumping-off place for thousands of tourists headed via ferries to the Western Isles, and it bustles. In early March, however, it was largely deserted, and the touristshop owners were looking rather hungrily at me. Oban does have some things I badly needed: laundries, petrol stations, bookstores, and the like. The clerk at the bookstore said he had heard of Boswell and Johnson but couldn’t tell me anything ab
out them. Footballers, perhaps? At my urging he checked his computer and found one copy of an edition containing Boswell’s Journal and Johnson’s Journey in stock. I bought it with the hope the store would have to reorder. It felt like a victory of sorts.
While I was so involved, the weather was rapidly deteriorating. By late afternoon it was raining heavily with gusty winds blowing in off the Firth of Lorn. By the time I walked four blocks to a seafood restaurant for dinner, the rain was horizontal and the winds felt gale force, keeping me unsteady on my feet. Cheered by a splendid dinner and ample drink, I very deliberately stepped through the puddles on my way back to the hotel, the wind howling in my ears and my clothes drenched through my supposedly waterproof jacket. With my first ferry ride coming up the next day, I was getting a little nervous about the weather, so I decided to reread the Oban entries from Boswell and Johnson.
The latter is terse about Oban. His only observation takes note of staying at a “tolerable inn.” Boswell is, of course, a bit more voluble. The lodging the pair were pointed to was full, so they spent the night at another inn, “a slated house of two storeys, and we were well enough entertained; at least we were satisfied, though we had nothing like what is found in good inns upon a frequented road.… It was comfortable to Mr. Johnson and me after so many states of uncertain confinement in islands, to be now on the mainland.” Another traveler who stayed at the same inn a few years after Boswell and Johnson found it clean and the food simple but good. He also reported on a bagpiper who “strutted up and down” in front of the inn. The piper was perceived as a rather accomplished musician and entertained the guests. When he was given—apparently unexpectedly—some shillings for his performance, his delight knew no bounds. In fact he refused to leave, playing far into the night until being forcibly escorted away.