‘They had a suavity!’ admitted the Mate. ‘Not like Dr. Johnson at Lochbuy. I have been looking up Boswell. Lochbuy was told that Johnson did not hear well so he went up and bawled in his ear: “Are you of the Johnstons of Glen-cro or of Ardnamurchan?” And then Boswell’s superb comment: “Dr. Johnson gave him a significant look but said nothing.” Do you think that Boswell sometimes, by himself, roared with laughter?’

‘I am afraid he has given himself whole.’

‘I wonder. For it is the very consistency of his character that raises doubt. It looks too like a character made by a novelist. He dramatised this character for a specific purpose. And succeeded beyond the cunning of any novelist. For we do know that Boswell’s detachment was absolute.’

‘You are getting on to dangerous ground. For you are almost implying that if the English stopped seeing him as a glorified batman to one of their great men they might wake up and get a shock. Too diabolic.’

‘It must be the weather,’ said the Crew. ‘Is that Lismore?’

‘It is. And talking of writers, once a Dean lived on it who compiled a book. It is a collection of odd stuff in phonetic Gaelic, made about the beginning of the sixteenth century. The Dean of Lismore’s Book it is called, and very marvellous it is. Deirdre’s Farewell to Albyn is in it and many other curious pieces. The Crew copied one or two typical passages in Taynuilt. What about the dislikes?’

‘ “ I dislike to journey for a year;
I dislike the table where a woman sits;
I dislike sorrow and sadness;
I dislike a great house without joy;
I dislike seeing a good man with a bad wife;
I dislike weak drink at a high price;
I dislike being long at a time;
I dislike the men who grudge me food;
I dislike the widow who is not cheerful;
I dislike the man of melancholy mind;
I cannot tell to any man
All the things that I dislike.

I dislike.”

‘I’ve missed out a few of the dislikes.’

‘You wouldn’t notice it,’ said the Mate. ‘But tell me—are there no holy passages? I thought they would be all—’

‘Yes. There’s the talk between Ossian and St. Patrick:

“For thy love’s sake, Patrick, forsake not the heroes,
Unknown to Heaven’s King, bring thou in the Feinn.”

“Though little room you’d take, not one of your race,
Unknonm to Heaven’s King, shall get beneath his roof.”

“How different, MacCumhail, the Feinn’s noble King:
All men uninvited, might enter his great house.”

And Ossian’s final comment:

“Better the fierce conflict of Finn and his Feinn,
Than thy holy master and thyself together.” ’

‘Is the shore clean along Lismore?’ asked the Mate. ‘I’d like to have a look at it.’

It was, so we went over and presently were able to distinguish that green island fairly clearly. Sheep were plentiful and the cottages looked very trim. Here and there the rock showed the unmistakable pallor of limestone and possibly this explains the greenness of the grass and the name Lismore—‘ the big garden’. An Irishman once told me that Ireland breeds the finest horses in the world on a limestone foundation.