From John O'Groats to Land's End Part 3

After bidding Mrs. Spence farewell, and thanking her for her kind attention to us during our visit to Stromness, we made our way to the sloop, which seemed a frail-looking craft to cross the stormy waters of the Pentland Firth. We did not, of course, forget our large basket which we had had so much difficulty in finding, and which excited so much attention and attracted so much curiosity towards ourselves all the way to John o' Groat's. It even caused the skipper to take a friendly interest in us, for after our explanation he stored that ancient basket amongst his more valuable cargo.

There was only a small number of pa.s.sengers, but in spite of the early hour quite a little crowd of people had a.s.sembled to witness our departure, and a considerable amount of banter was going on between those on board the sloop and the company ash.o.r.e, which continued as we moved away, each party trying to get the better of the other. As a finale, one of our pa.s.sengers shouted to his friend who had come to see him off: "Do you want to buy a cow?" "Yes," yelled his friend, "but I see nothing but a calf." A general roar of laughter followed this repartee, as we all thought the Orkneyman on sh.o.r.e had scored. We should have liked to have fired another shot, but by the time the laughter had subsided we were out of range. We did not expect to be on the way more than three or four hours, as the distance was only about twenty-four miles; but we did not reach Thurso until late in the afternoon, and we should have been later if we had had a less skilful skipper. In the first place we had an unfavourable wind, which prevented our sailing by the Hoy Sound, the shortest and orthodox route, and this caused us to miss the proper sea view of the "Old Man of Hoy," which the steamboat from Stromness to Thurso always pa.s.sed in close proximity, but we could perceive it in the distance as an insular Pillar of Rock, standing 450 feet high with rocks in vicinity rising 1,000 feet, although we could not see the arch beneath, which gives it the appearance of standing on two legs, and hence the name given to the rock by the sailors. The Orcadean poet writes:

See Hoy's Old Man whose summit bare Pierces the dark blue fields of air; Based in the sea, his fearful form Glooms like the spirit of the storm.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "OLD MAN OF HOY."]

When pointing out the Old Man to us, the captain said that he stood in the roughest bit of sea round the British coast, and the words "wind and weather permitting" were very applicable when stoppages wore contemplated at the Old Man or other places in these stormy seas.

We had therefore to sail by way of Lang Hope, which we supposed was a longer route, and we were astonished at the way our captain handled his boat; but when we reached what we thought was Lang Hope, he informed the pa.s.sengers that he intended to anchor here for some time, and those who wished could be ferried ash.o.r.e. We had decided to remain on the boat, but when the captain said there was an inn there where refreshments could be obtained, my brother declared that he felt quite hungry, and insisted upon our having a second breakfast. We were therefore rowed ash.o.r.e, and were ushered into the parlour of the inn as if we were the lords of the manor and sole owners, and were very hospitably received and entertained. The inn was appropriately named the "Ship," and the treatment we received was such as made us wish we were making a longer stay, but time and tide wait for no man.

For the next inn he spurs amain, In haste alights, and scuds away-- But time and tide for no man stay.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SHIP INN, LANG HOPE. The sign has now been removed to a new hotel, visible in the photograph, on the opposite side of the ferry.]

Whether it was for time or tide or for one of those mysterious movements in the Pentland Firth that our one-masted boat was waiting we never knew. We had only just finished our breakfast when a messenger appeared to summon us to rejoin the sloop, which had to tack considerably before we reached what the skipper described as the Scrabster Roads. A stiff breeze had now sprung up, and there was a strong current in the sea; at each turn or tack our boat appeared to be sailing on her side, and we were apprehensive that she might be blown over into the sea. We watched the operations carefully and anxiously, and it soon became evident that what our skipper did not know about the navigation of these stormy seas was not worth knowing. We stood quite near him (and the mast) the whole of the time, and he pointed out every interesting landmark as it came in sight. He seemed to be taking advantage of the shelter afforded by the islands, as occasionally we came quite near their rocky sh.o.r.es, and at one point he showed us a small hole in the rock which was only a few feet above the sea; he told us it formed the entrance to a cave in which he had often played when, as a boy, he lived on that island.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DUNNET HEAD AND LIGHTHOUSE.]

The time had now arrived to cross the Pentland Firth and to sail round Dunnet Head to reach Thurso. Fortunately the day was fine, and the strong breeze was nothing in the shape of a storm; but in spite of these favourable conditions we got a tossing, and no mistake! Our little ship was knocked about like a cork on the waters, which were absolutely boiling and foaming and furiously raging without any perceptible cause, and as if a gale were blowing on them two ways at once. The appearance of the foaming ma.s.s of waters was terrible to behold; we could hear them roaring and see them struggling together just below us; the deck of the sloop was only a few feet above them, and it appeared as if we might be swallowed up at any moment. The captain told us that this turmoil was caused by the meeting of the waters of two seas, and that at times it was very dangerous to small boats.

Many years ago he was pa.s.sing through the Firth with his boat on a rather stormy day, when he noticed he was being followed by another boat belonging to a neighbour of his. He could see it distinctly from time to time, and he was sure that it could not be more than 200 yards away, when he suddenly missed it. He watched anxiously for some time, but it failed to reappear, nor was the boat or its crew ever seen or heard of again, and it was supposed to have been carried down by a whirlpool!

We were never more thankful than when we got safely across those awful waters and the great waves we encountered off Dunnet Head, and when we were safely landed near Thurso we did not forget the skipper, but bade him a friendly and, to him, lucrative farewell.

We had some distance to walk before reaching the town where, loaded with our luggage and carrying the large basket between us, each taking hold of one of the well-worn handles, we attracted considerable attention, and almost every one we saw showed a disposition to see what we were carrying in our hamper; but when they discovered it was empty, their curiosity was turned into another channel, and they must see where we were taking it; so by the time we reached the house recommended by our skipper for good lodgings we had a considerable following of "lookers on." Fortunately, however, no one attempted to add to our burden by placing anything in the empty basket or we should have been tempted to carry it bottom upwards like an inmate of one of the asylums in Lancashire. A new addition was being built in the grounds, and some of the lunatics were a.s.sisting in the building operations, when the foreman discovered one of them pushing his wheelbarrow with the bottom upwards and called out to him, "Why don't you wheel it the right way up?"

"I did," said the lunatic solemnly, "but they put bricks in it!"

We felt that some explanation was due to our landlady, who smiled when she saw the comical nature of that part of our luggage and the motley group who had followed us, and as we unfolded its history and described the dearth of willows in the Orkneys, the price we had paid, the difficulties in finding the hamper, and the care we had taken of it when crossing the stormy seas, we could see her smile gradually expanding into a laugh that she could retain no longer when she told us we could have got a better and a cheaper basket than that in the "toon," meaning Thurso, of course. It was some time before we recovered ourselves, laughter being contagious, and we could hear roars of it at the rear of the house as our antiquated basket was being stored there.

After tea we crossed the river which, like the town, is named Thurso, the word, we were informed, meaning Thor's House. Thor, the G.o.d of thunder, was the second greatest of the Scandinavian deities, while his father, Odin, the G.o.d of war, was the first. We had some difficulty in crossing the river, as we had to pa.s.s over it by no less than eighty-five stepping-stones, several of which were slightly submerged.

Here we came in sight of Thurso Castle, the residence of the Sinclair family, one of whom, Sir John Sinclair, was the talented author of the famous _Statistical Account of Scotland_, and a little farther on stood Harold's Tower. This tower was erected by John Sinclair over the tomb of Earl Harold, the possessor at one time of one half of Orkney, Shetland, and Caithness, who fell in battle against his own namesake, Earl Harold the Wicked, in 1190. In the opposite direction was Scrabster and its castle, the scene of the horrible murder of John, Earl of Caithness, in the twelfth century, "whose tongue was cut from his throat and whose eyes were put out." We did not go there, but went into the town, and there witnessed the departure of the stage, or mail coach, which was just setting out on its journey of eighty miles, for railways had not yet made their appearance in Caithness, the most northerly county in Scotland. We then went to buy another hamper, and got a much better one for less money than we paid at Stromness, for we had agreed that we would send home two hampers filled with sh.e.l.ls instead of one. We also inquired the best way of getting to John o' Groat's, and were informed that the Wick coach would take us the first six miles, and then we should have to walk the remaining fifteen. We were now only one day's journey to the end and also from the beginning of our journey, and, as may easily be imagined, we were anxiously looking forward to the morrow.

_Friday, September 15th._

At eight o'clock in the morning we were comfortably seated in the coach which was bound for Wick, with our luggage and the two hampers safely secured on the roof above, and after a ride of about six miles we were left, with our belongings, at the side of the highway where the by-road leading in the direction of John o' Groat's branched off to the left across the open country. The object of our walk had become known to our fellow-pa.s.sengers, and they all wished us a pleasant journey as the coach moved slowly away. Two other men who had friends in the coach also alighted at the same place, and we joined them in waving adieux, which were acknowledged from the coach, as long as it remained in sight. They also very kindly a.s.sisted us to carry our luggage as far as they were going on our way, and then they helped us to scheme how best to carry it ourselves. We had brought some strong cord with us from Thurso, and with the aid of this they contrived to sling the hampers over our shoulders, leaving us free to carry the remainder of our luggage in the usual way, and then, bidding us a friendly farewell, left us to continue on our lonely way towards John o' Groat's. We must have presented an extraordinary appearance with these large baskets extending behind our backs, and we created great curiosity and some amus.e.m.e.nt amongst the men, women, and children who were hard at work harvesting in the country through which we pa.s.sed.

My brother said it reminded him of Christian in John Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_, who carried the burden on his back and wanted to get rid of it; while I thought of Sinbad the Sailor, who, when wrecked on a desert island, was compelled to carry the Old Man of the Sea on his shoulders, and he also wanted to get rid of his burden; but we agreed that, like both of these worthy characters, we should be obliged to carry our burdens to the end of the journey.

We had a fine view of Dunnet Head, which is said to be the Cape Orcas mentioned by Diodorus Siculus, the geographer who lived in the time of Julius Caesar, and of the lighthouse which had been built on the top of it in 1832, standing quite near the edge of the cliff.

The light from the lantern, which was 346 feet above the highest spring tide, could be seen at a distance of 23 miles; but even this was sometimes obscured by the heavy storms from the west when the enormous billows from the Atlantic dashed against the rugged face of the cliff and threw up the spray as high as the lights of the building itself, so that the stones they contained have been known to break the gla.s.s in the building; such, indeed, was the prodigious combined force of the wind and sea upon the headland, that the very rock seemed to tremble as if it were affected by an earthquake.

While on the coach we had pa.s.sed the hamlets of Murkle and Castlehill.

Between these two places was a sandy pool on the seash.o.r.e to which a curious legend was attached. The story goes that--

a young lad on one occasion discovered a mermaid bathing and by some means or other got into conversation with her and rendered himself so agreeable that a regular meeting at the same spot took place between them. This continued for some time. The young man grew exceedingly wealthy, and no one could tell how he became possessed of such riches. He began to cut a dash amongst the la.s.ses, making them presents of strings of diamonds of vast value, the gifts of the fair sea nymph. By and by he began to forget the day of his appointment; and when he did come to see her, money and jewels were his constant request. The mermaid lectured him pretty sharply on his love of gold, and, exasperated at his perfidy in bestowing her presents on his earthly fair ones, enticed him one evening rather farther than usual, and at length showed him a beautiful boat, in which she said she would convey him to a cave in Darwick Head, where she had all the wealth of all the ships that ever were lost in the Pentland Firth and on the sands of Dunnet. He hesitated at first, but the love of gold prevailed, and off they set to the cave in question. And here, says the legend, he is confined with a chain of gold, sufficiently long to admit of his walking at times on a small piece of sand under the western side of the Head; and here, too, the fair siren laves herself in the tiny waves on fine summer evenings, but no consideration will induce her to loose his fetters of gold, or trust him one hour out of her sight.

We walked on at a good pace and in high spirits, but, after having knocked about for nine days and four nights and having travelled seven or eight hundred miles by land and sea, the weight of our extra burden began to tell upon us, and we felt rather tired and longed for a rest both for mind and body in some quiet spot over the week's end, especially as we had decided to begin our long walk on the Monday morning.

Visions of a good hotel which we felt sure we should find at John o'

Groat's began to haunt us, and the more hungry we became the brighter were our antic.i.p.ations of the good fare that awaited us. But judge of our surprise and disappointment when a man whom we met on the road told us there was no hotel there at all! We asked if he thought we could get lodgings at John o' Groat's House itself, but the sardonic grin that spread over his features when he told us that that house had vanished long ago was cruel. The information gave us quite a shock, and our spirits seemed to fall below zero as we turned our backs on the man without even thanking him for answering our questions. We felt not too full, but too empty for words, as we were awfully hungry, and I heard my brother murmur something that sounded very like "Liar"; but the man's information turned out to be perfectly correct. Our luggage also began to feel heavier, and the country gradually became more wild and desolate. Our spirits revived a little when a fisherman told us of a small inn that we should reach a mile or two before coming to John o'

Groat's. We thought we had surely come to the end of everywhere when we reached the "Huna Inn," for it stood some distance from any other house and at the extreme end of an old lane that terminated at the sea. It was a small, primitive structure, but it was now our only hope, as far as we knew, for obtaining lodgings, and we could scarcely restrain our delight when we were told we could be accommodated there until Monday morning.

It was an intense relief to us to be separated from our c.u.mbersome luggage, and we must say that Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie did all in their power to make us comfortable and happy and to make us feel at home. We contented ourselves with some light refreshments which to some non-pedestrians might have appeared decidedly heavy, and then decided to see all that remained of John o' Groat's House.

Walking along the beach for about a mile and a half, the distance we were told that separated the ruins from the inn, we failed to find them, and were about to return when we met a shepherd who said we had already pa.s.sed them. We therefore returned with him, as he told us he was going to the inn, and he showed us a few mounds of earth covered with gra.s.s which marked the site of the foundations of John o' Groat's House, but the stones had been removed to build a storehouse, or granary, at a place he pointed out in the distance. We were rather disappointed, as we expected to find some extensive remains, and, seeing they were so very scanty, we wondered why, in a land where stones were so plentiful, some monument or inscribed stone had not been erected to mark the site where this remarkable house once stood, as, in the absence of some one to direct them, strangers, like ourselves, might pa.s.s and repa.s.s these remains without noticing them. We were not long in reaching the inn, for the shepherd was a big man and took very long strides, and here we wrote a few short letters to our friends to advise them of our safe arrival at John o' Groat's, afterwards walking to the post office about a mile away to post them, and ordering a high tea to be ready for us on our return.

It was half-past eight when we finished our tea, after which we were conducted to a little room close to the sea, with two tiny windows in it, one of them without a blind, and with a peat or turf fire burning brightly on the hearth. Mrs. Mackenzie then brought us a small candle, which she lighted, and handed us a book which she said was the "Alb.u.m,"

and we amused ourselves with looking over this for the remainder of the evening. It was quite a large volume, dating from the year 1839, and the following official account of the Groat family, headed with a facsimile of the "Groat Arms," was pasted inside the cover:

THE CHIEF OF THE RACE OF JOHN O' GROAT IS ALEXANDER G. GROAT, ESQ., ADVOCATE, EDINBURGH.

NOTICES OF JOHN O' GROAT'S HOUSE.

It is stated in _Sinclair's Statistical Accounts of Scotland_, vol.

8, page 167 and following:--"In the account of Cannisby by the Rev.

John Marison, D.D., that in the reign of James the Fourth, King of Scotland, Malcom, Cairn and John de Groat, supposed to have been brothers and originally from Holland, arrived in Caithness from the south of Scotland, bringing with them a letter in Latin by that King recommending him to the countenance and protection of his loving subjects in the County of Caithness."

It is stated in _Chambers's Pictures of Scotland_, vol. 2, page 306, "that the foundations or ruins of John o' Groat's House, which is perhaps the most celebrated in the whole world, are still to be seen."

Then followed the names and addresses of visitors extending over a period of thirty-three years, many of them having also written remarks in prose, poetry, or doggerel rhyme, so we found plenty of food for thought and some amus.e.m.e.nt before we got even half way through the volume. Some of these effusions might be described as of more than ordinary merit, and the remainder as good, bad, and indifferent. Those written in foreign languages--and there were many of them--we could neither read nor understand, but they gave us the impression that the fame of John o' Groat's had spread throughout the civilised world. There were many references to Stroma, or the Island of the Current, which we could see in the Pentland Firth about four miles distant, and to the difficulties and danger the visitors had experienced in crossing that "stormy bit of sea" between it and John o' Groat's. But their chief complaint was that, after travelling so far, there was no house for them to see. They had evidently, like ourselves, expected to find a substantial structure, and the farther they had travelled the greater their disappointment would naturally be. One visitor had expressed his disappointment in a verse more forcible than elegant, but true as regarded the stone.

I went in a boat To see John o' Groat, The place where his home doth lie; But when I got there, The hill was all bare, And the devil a stone saw I.

The following entry also appeared in the Alb.u.m:--

Elihu Burrit of New Britain, Connecticut, U.S. America, on a walk from Land's End to John o' Groat's, arrived at Huna Inn, upon Monday Sep. 28th, 1863. He visited the site of that famous domicile so celebrated in the world-wide legend for its ingenious construction to promote domestic happiness, and fully realised all he had antic.i.p.ated in standing on a spot so rich with historical a.s.sociations and surrounded with such grand and beautiful scenery. He desires also to record his testimony to the hospitality and comfort of the cosy little sea-side Inn, where he was pleasantly housed for the night, and of which he will ever cherish an interesting remembrance.

_Sat.u.r.day, September 16th._

"Now for the sh.e.l.ls!" exclaimed my brother, as we awoke early in the morning, for we expected to have a hard day's work before we gathered sh.e.l.ls enough to fill our large baskets. So we hurried on with our breakfast, and then, shouldering our hampers, walked quickly along the beach to the place where we had been informed we should find them. When we got there we saw a sight which surely could not have had its parallel in the British Isles, for the beach was white with them for the greater part of two miles. We were greatly astonished, for in some places the beach was so thickly covered that, had we possessed a shovel, we could have filled both our baskets with sh.e.l.ls in a very few minutes. We decided therefore to select those best suited to our purpose, and we worked away until we had filled both our hampers. We then carried them one at a time to the "Huna Inn," and arranged with Mr. Mackenzie to have them carefully packed and delivered to the local carrier to be conveyed by road to the steamboat office at Wick, and thence forwarded by water to our home, where we knew their contents would be appreciated for rockery purposes. The whole of our operations were completed by noon, instead of occupying the whole of the day as antic.i.p.ated, for we had a great advantage in having such an enormous number of sh.e.l.ls to select from. Our host told us that farmers occasionally moved them by cart-loads to serve as lime manure on their land. Their acc.u.mulation at that particular spot was a mystery which he could not explain beyond the fact that the sh.e.l.ls were washed up from the Pentland Firth during the great storms; so we concluded that there must be a land of sh.e.l.l fish in or near that stormy deep, perhaps corresponding with that of the larger fish whose destruction we had seen represented in the Strata of Pomona in the Orkneys.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROCKS AT DUNCANSBAY.]

We must not forget to record, however, that amongst the vast number of sh.e.l.ls we had turned over we found some of those lovely little sh.e.l.ls known as "John o' Groat's buckies," so highly prized by visitors. They were difficult to find, as they were so very small, but we found quite a number, and considered them to be perfect little gems, and so very pretty that we reserved them for special presents to our friends. We afterwards learned that they were known to science as Cyproe Artoca, or European Cowry.

An interesting account of John o' Groat's House and the sh.e.l.ls was written in the year 1698 by the Rev. John Brand, Commissioner of the General a.s.sembly:--

The landing-place was called John o' Groat's House, the northernmost house in Scotland; the man who now liveth in it and keepeth an inn there is called John Grot, who saith his house hath been in the possession of his predecessors of that name for some hundreds of years; which name of Grot is frequent in Caithness.

Upon the sand by John Grot's house are found many small pleasant buckies and sh.e.l.ls, beautified by diverse colours, which some use to put upon a string as beads, and account much of their rarity. It is also observed of these sh.e.l.ls that not one of them can be found altogether like another, and upon the review of the parcel I had I discovered some difference among them which variety renders them the more beautiful.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE STACKS OF DUNCANSBAY.]