Page:Footsteps of Dr. Johnson.djvu/338

270 had patronised poets and worshipped princes in her last years amused herself by taming rats. "She had a panel in the oak wainscot of her dining-room, which she tapped upon and opened at meal-times, when ten or twelve jolly rats came tripping forth and joined her at table." She died in 1780, at the age of ninety-one.

Auchans—Old Auchans as it is now called—since the countess's death has been chiefly inhabited by caretakers. It was built in 1644, at a time when in the houses of the great comfort was more studied than means of defence. Nevertheless "we find some shot-holes near the entrance doorway." It is finely placed among the trees, with views of Dundonald Castle on one side and of the sea in the distance on the other. The interior has been greatly altered by the division of rooms and blocking up of windows and passages. We were only shown a small part of it, and looked with sadness on the broken ceiling in what by tradition is known as the dining-room. It is a pity that so interesting and so fine a building should have suffered under the neglect of a whole century. It is so strongly built that it looks as if it could, at no excessive expense, be once more made habitable. Johnson had not been easily persuaded to visit it, but "he was so much pleased with his entertainment, that he owned," says Boswell, "that I had done well to force him out." No less pleased was the old countess, "who, when they were going away, embraced him, saying, 'My dear son, farewell.'" Neither of this visit nor of one which he had paid two days earlier to the Earl of Loudoun, who "jumped for joy" at the thought of seeing him, does he make any mention in his book. He was the last man to indulge "in that vain ostentatious importance," which he censured in many people, "of quoting the authority of dukes and lords." He merely says that, "on our way from Glasgow to Auchinleck we found several