Diary of a Lighthouse Keeper, 3rd November 2024
There follows the third of five excerpts 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. III
Stromness turned out to be a higgle-piggle collection of houses, shops, and sheds, huddling beneath another precipitous slope, which our pilot informed me is called Brinkie’s Brae. Its scale was diminutive compared to the hills of Hoy, but its proximity to the water, and the houses dwarfed at its foot, created a scene like a stage set for some nautical melodrama.
It looked as if the closes and wynds of Edinburgh’s old town had been picked up and dropped against the base of Arthur’s Seat, and Holyrood Park flooded by Prince Albert’s new loch. I was about to observe this to my father but bit my tongue. He has no patience for such fancies and would have lectured me on the cubic volume of the loch and the impossibility of it flooding as vast a surface as the park. If a lighthouse were proposed for the summit of Salisbury Crags he would bestir himself, but otherwise that landscape is as tedious to him as a desert to a sea captain.
Representatives of the Lighthouse Board arrived at the pierhead in a pony cart and departed with my father to inspect the site of proposed accommodation for the families of a new rock lighthouse at Sule Skerry. We sailed past that lonely outpost last summer on our previous tour, and I was heartily sick. Partly my nausea came from the violent swell, and partly from the idea of being a wickie stuck on such a barren lump. If I were ever to be cast away, I pray it would be on an island with sunshine, palm trees, and parrots, rather than gales, salt-grizzled grass, and gannets. The lighthouse remained unbuilt, but my father, it seems, cannot bear to see a wave-swept rock without dreaming of a gleaming tower being erected on it. (Maybe he does possess an imagination after all.)
Stromness harbour was thronged with fishing vessels, whalers bound for Greenland, and several ships I learned were either about to depart for, or had late returned from, Hudson’s Bay in Canada. It is one of the glories of the British Empire, and a tribute to the ingenuity of its people, that we have succeeded in industrialising, not just our cities, but also our seas. And our family has, I admit, profited greatly from that industry.
Sad to relate, industry is not a principle much embraced in Stromness. Once I left behind the clamour of the harbour, most of the locals were occupied with nothing more industrious than standing and watching me pass. Reeking on a pipe seemed the most strenuous activity possible.
Eventually the porter, lumbering ahead of me with our bags on his barrow, came to a halt in the middle of the street. I say ‘middle,’ but in fact the buildings crowded in so close that there were no edges to navigate towards. He just stopped. I looked around. On my right, a dark doorway lead into what looked like a coalhole, but there was no sign of the respectable hotel I had been directed to settle into.
‘Why have we stopped, Mr Bones?’ I said.
He started unloading the bags. ‘This is hid, young sir,’ he grunted.
‘This is the Captain’s Rest?’ I said. ‘Surely not!’
A great wheezing cough came from inside the dark entry. ‘Best room and board in town,’ said a scratchy voice.
I peered into the darkness. A hunched figure limped towards me, whistling with every breath. It paused at the threshold, and a pair of rheumy eyes looked me up and down from behind yellow-tinted spectacles. ‘Stevenson party?’ he wheezed.
‘Indeed, sir. My father will be along shortly, after he concludes his business. And you are Mr Pews?’
‘Ha!’ he laughed. ‘Hear that Billy Bones? Lad thinks I’m a kirk!’
The porter cackled.
‘Bews is the name,’ said the innkeeper. ‘Blind Bews to some, though I’m not so much blind as practised at turning a blind eye, if you ken what I mean.’
The porter laughed again. ‘You did that for many years when you sailed under Captain Flint,’ he said. ‘And were rewarded for it with this fine establishment.’
‘Best not to see too clearly what Captain Flint was up to,’ said the innkeeper. ‘A policy I find holds equally good for my guests. So whatever it is you’re lippenan after – a bottle of overproof rum or the company of a bonny country lass – just say the word.’
‘A nod’s as good as a wink to Blind Bews,’ croaked Bones the porter.
‘I was hoping,’ said I, ‘for a clean and comfortable bed, and a recommendation for dining this evening.’
‘In Stromness? On a Monday?’ Bews stared at me like I was mad. ‘You can’t get the staff!’
To be continued.
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 6th 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.