Diary of a Lighthouse Keeper, 17th November 2024
The Castle Hotel, around the time of RLS’s supposed visit. The ground floor has recently become HSH’s new shop.
There follows the fifth and final excerpt from a manuscript attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson. It’s believed to be an account of his visit to Orkney in 1869, when he was 18.
AN ISLAND VOYAGE, Chap. V.
Our pony cart pulled to a stop on a newly constructed street, outside a newly constructed building of imposing dimensions. A sign above the door declared it to be The Castle Hotel.
‘A much more commodious accommodation than last night,’ said my father. ‘The improvements made to this town in the last dozen years are remarkable. Where once were hovels and stinking vennels, now stand clean streets, modern commercial premises, and a healthier, more prosperous population.’
‘Yet I confess to being disappointed,’ I said. ‘Here we are on Castle Street, outside the Castle Hotel, and there is no castle in sight.’
The porter who had arrived to assist us paused in his labours. ‘They had to knock down the old castle to build the street and the hotel,’ he said. ‘And I’m glad they did, otherwise I’d be up to my oxters in gutter in a field instead of carrying gentlemen’s bags for tips.’
My father raised his eyebrows at the man’s effrontery, but slipped him a coin nonetheless.
‘Quod erat demonstrandum, Louis,’ he exclaimed. ‘Progress!’
My poet’s soul shrivelled. ‘Without the old and the picturesque,’ I retorted, ‘what a dull, sterile world we would inhabit. Long live the antique, the ruined, and the romantic!’
My father sighed. ‘I must inspect some recent works in the harbour. A local man, Mr Peace, has made additions to the east pier. Why they did not commission our firm passeth understanding.’ He chortled at his ecclesiastical witticism and made to leave, then paused and pointed with his stick. ‘You will find, a few steps away, an antique cathedral and a ruined palace. As for romantic adventures – stick to your books.’
For once, my father’s advice struck me as sound, and I made my way to the top of Castle Street, then turned right onto Broad Street, which revealed itself to be nothing less than a boulevard of the north boasting wide pavements, a freshly brushed roadway, and a green space lined with young trees. Beyond that reared the elegant frontage of a massive church, as imposing as the cliffs of Hoy we passed a few days ago, and nearly as red. I must have been gawping like an awestruck schoolboy, for all at once there was a voice at my shoulder: ‘Aye, quite a sight. All the tourists love it.’
My interlocuter was a man of middle years, running to stoutness, with an abundant, well-oiled moustache and a twinkling eye.
‘James Kirkness, Grocer and Wine Merchant, at your service,’ he said, and inclined his head. ‘Would you care to step inside my establishment?’
Something about his open countenance and confident manner put me at my ease, and I crossed his threshold into an emporium rich in the scents of coffee, spices, cheese and a hundred other exotic foodstuffs. Shelves stretched from ceiling to floor on all sides, packed with bottles, jars and pots of preserves. Cases of wine and trugs of vegetables were artfully arranged around the floor. Counters were laden with loaves of bread, racks of eggs and baskets of scarlet apples. Hams hung from the ceiling on silver hooks, waiting to be sliced.
‘Extraordinary!’ I exclaimed. ‘I feel like I’m in the food hall at Jenners!’ Then, catching myself, I added, ‘Jenners is a large department store in…’
‘I ken fine what Jenners is,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘In fact I visited it the last I sailed to Leith.’ He nodded appreciatively. ‘Not bad.’
‘I’ll pass on your compliments the next time I call,’ I said, with some irony, though he essayed not to notice.
Instead he looked me up and down through narrowed eyes. ‘So, you’re an Edinburgh gentleman?’ he said.
‘I’m a voyager on life’s great ocean,"‘ I said, intending to present myself as a humble if slightly mysterious traveller.
A twitch at the side of his mouth suggested he may not have taken my words that way. ‘Jim Harcus!’ he roared. A big-eyed boy in an apron scuttled out from a door at the back. ‘Jim lad, we have an old seadog in our midst. Fetch a suitable welcome.’
A moment later, Jim scurried back and placed two small glasses and a bottle of dark syrupy liquid on the oak counter that ran the length of the shop. Kirkness uncorked the bottle and poured a generous measure into each glass, giving one to me and raising the other high in his own hand.
‘Yo ho ho!’ he toasted, then knocked back a good half of the spirit.
I took a sip. It was sweet, peppery, and burned like fire as it trickled down my throat. I coughed.
The shopkeeper laughed. ‘Your first sup of good Caribbean rum? You’re no pirate then!’
‘Do I look like a pirate? I spluttered, gasping for breath.
‘Smuggler then? Herring fisher? Fur trader? Harpooner?’ He winked, drained his glass and laughed again, though the laugh sounded more like a squawk. Then I realised it was a squawk, but it wasn’t coming from the shopkeeper.
A sleek black and white bird with a colourful bill sat in a cage on top of a press holding bottles of Port. ‘Is that a parrot?’ I asked.
‘Parrots don’t prosper at these latitudes,’ said Kirkness. ‘That’s Captain Flint. He’s a puffin. I found him injured at the foot of a stack in Westray, a peedie ball of fluff. We’re inseparable now, are we not Captain?’
The puffin turned its head on one side and fixed Kirkness with a beady eye. When it squawked again, it seemed to be repeating a phrase with intense conviction: ‘Pieces of hake, pieces of hake!’
* * *
The manuscript ends here. Whether the time young Robert Louis Stevenson spent in Orkney influenced his later work I will leave up to you to decide.
You can read more about the Lyceum Theatre’s production of Treasure Island on their website. And buy tickets!
This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 20th November 2024. A new diary appears weekly. I post them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations, and occasional small corrections or additions.