The Henson Journals

[28]

Friday, August 11th, 1922.

I read aloud before getting up the interviews which David Deans had with Reuben Butler and Barloline Saddletree on the morning after the murder of the Porteons. The old man, almost crushed with grief & shame at his daughter's fall, is roused into a mighty outbreak of fanaticism by the calm counsels of the clergyman and the worldly proposals of the amateur lawyer. Side by side are exhibited the competing obsessions of the religious bigot and the legal prig.

We had a picnic lunch on a hill near the mansion, and, leaving the rest to return at their leisure, our hostess& we returned, and were taken by William, (after a brief humiliating interval during which the car refused to move) to visit Mrs Strain at Cassilis, where we spent an agreeable hour. I was claimed as an old acquaintance by the lady whose daughter married Kenneth Wolfe Barry, son of the engineer who was a parishioner of mine in Westminster. She insisted on showing us the house, which is quite extraordinarily interesting. It is said to be the oldest inhabited house save one in Scotland. One feature is, in this island, unique, through a parallel exists in France viz: a stone hollowed pillar pierced for lamps, & designed to illumine the central staircase which rose around it. A wonderful dungeon and a medieval kitchen were also shown. The enormous thickness of the walls indicated the strength of what was once a fortress. Just outside the house stands an ancient tree, which was used as a gibbet for the executing of the owner's victims.

[29]

"Let us not however make too much haste to despise our neighbours. Our own cathedrals are mouldering by unregarded dilapidation. It seems to be part of the despicable philosophy of the time to despise monuments of sacred magnificence, & we are in danger of doing that deliberately, which the Scots did not do but in the unsettled state of an imperfect constitution."

Thus Dr Johnson chastens the indignation against its possessors which the ruined cathedral of Elgin moved in his mind when he visited it in the autumn of 1773. (v. "A journey to the Western Isles of Scotland. London 1775 p. 48). The old ruffian was as keen in his observations as he was shrewd in his comments. He did not trouble to deceive himself:

"Supreme beauty is seldom found in cottages or workshops, even where no real hardships are suffered. To expand the human face to its full perfection, it seems necessary that the mind should co–operate by placidness of content, a consciousness of superiority." (v. Ibid p. 190).

His description of Highland hospitality is not without humour eg.

"The house & the furniture are not always nicely suited. We were driven once, by missing a passage, to the hut of a gentleman, where, after a very liberal supper, when I was conducted to my chamber, I found an elegant bed of Indian cotton, spread with fine sheets. The accommodation was flattering: I undressed myself & felt my feet in the mire. The bed stood upon the bare earth, which a long course of rain had softened to a puddle".

For an old Londoner this must have been trying & perilous.

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