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56 8 R Skye, Part I There were nothing but blue skies above when I climbed behind the wheel the next morning, pointing northward on the A82 and then west on the A87. I was eager to get to Skye; every time I strayed from Boswell and Johnson I quickly began missing them. The journey on this lovely morning proved spectacular: gorgeous mountains topped by fresh snows and framed by those deep blue skies and a few puffy high whites. Scotland’s highest peak, Ben Nevis (4,406 feet), was off to the right, and later the Five Sisters, peaks that range up to 3,000 feet, were glowingly displayed in the sunlight. The glen was breathtaking, the waters of Loch Duich, cold and clean, running along the roadside and offering polished mirror images of the distant peaks. I must have stopped the car a half dozen times. In summer, I was told later, buses with thousands of visitors headed for Skye barrel through here with little opportunity for reflection. None could have a finer weather moment than I was enjoying now; I snapped photo after photo. I’ve never spent two hours in the presence of any more stunning scenery than that before me this morning. I made the tough decision to pass by another terrific-looking castle as a step in my faltering struggle to overcome castle addiction. It was Eilean Donan Castle, one of Scotland’s most photographed edifices and the one featured in such films as Highlander, The World Is Not Enough, and Rob Roy. The last appeared in 1995, the year of Braveheart, though it drew considerably less attention. Liam Neeson starred as the title character, which the moviemakers pitched in their usual modest way: “Honor made him a man. Courage made him a hero. History made him a legend.” It wasn’t the first film about the man; that would have been the 1911 Rob Roy, the first Skye, Part I 57 “major” motion picture produced in Scotland. No prints of it survive, but like the most recent version—the fourth to hit the screen—it was probably all about a kilted Highland hero in a romantic landscape. There was a real Rob Roy, a MacGregor born in 1671. He became a romanticized figure over the years, thanks largely to Sir Walter Scott’s somewhat fanciful and very popular 1818 novel, Rob Roy. The 1995 film didn’t hurt that romantic portrayal, either. Like Braveheart, it looks great on the screen with numerous lovely shots of the Scottish countryside. The actual story of Rob Roy has a stirring reality about it that connects with some of the deepest strains in Scottish history. As a teenager Rob Roy joined his father in the uprising against King William of Orange. He was wounded in one battle, and his father was jailed by the English for treason. When the father was released, his wife was dead, their lands taken, his spirit crushed. Having survived that, the son eventually settled into life as a respected cattleman. He wound up defaulting on a loan to increase his herd, and his chief creditor—the powerful duke of Montrose—branded him an outlaw and evicted him from his land. That led to a blood feud between the two men that lasted for five years until he surrendered to the duke and was imprisoned. Rob Roy was eventually pardoned . He died quietly in 1734 and remains a figure celebrated by most Scots. The original fortified structure on the island of Donan went up in the thirteenth century to protect against Viking incursions. The castle expanded over succeeding centuries and witnessed many periods of bloodshed. Eilean Donan played a role in the Jacobite uprisings in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which resulted in its near destruction at the hands of the English. Abandoned and neglected for most of the next two hundred years, it was rebuilt between 1912 and 1932 and has been open to the public since. On the day that I was there, there were only a few cars in the visitor lot, but I had decided to push on to meet up with Boswell and Johnson. Within minutes I was driving over the Skye Bridge, which opened in 1995, replacing the old ferry, and which now links the island to the mainland. Mine was a much easier trip than Boswell and Johnson had when they took a slow boat to Skye to launch the Western Isles...

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