ich he revived, were at least
curious. There was a supply of _gradden_-meal prepared--_i.e._, grain
dried in a pot over the fire, and then coarsely ground in a
handmill--which made cakes that, when they had hunger for their sauce,
could be eaten; and on more than one occasion I shared in a not
unpalatable sort of blood-pudding, enriched with butter, and well
seasoned with pepper and salt, the main ingredient of which was derived,
through a judicious use of the lancet, from the _yeld_ cattle of the
farm. The practice was an ancient, and by no means unphilosophic one. In
summer and early autumn there is plenty of grass in the Highlands; but,
of old at least, there used to be very little grain in it before the
beginning of October; and as the cattle could, in consequence, provide
themselves with a competent supply of blood from the grass, when their
masters, who could not eat grass, and had little else that they could
eat, were able to acquire very little, it was opportunely discovered
that, by making a division in this way of the all-essential fluid,
accumulated as a common stock, the circumstances of the cattle and their
owners could be in some degree equalized. With these peculiarly Highland
dishes there mingled others not less genuine--now and then a salmon from
the river, and a haunch of venison from the hill-side--which I relished
better still; and if all Highlanders live but as well in the present day
as I did during my stay with my aunt and cousins, they would be rather
unreasonable were they greatly to complain.

There were some of the other Highland restorations effected by my
cousin that pleased me much. He occasionally gathered at night around
the central Ha' fire a circle of the elderly men of the neighbourhood,
to repeat long-derived narratives of the old clan feuds of the district,
and wild Fingalian legends; and though, of course, ignorant of the
language in which the stories were conveyed, by taking my seat beside
Cousin George, and getting him to translate for me in an under tone, as
the narratives went on, I contrived to carry away with me at least as
much of the clan stories and legends as I ever after found use for. The
clan stories were waxing at the time rather dim and uncertain in
Sutherland. The county, through the influence of its good Earls and its
godly Lords Reay, had been early converted to Protestantism; and its
people had in consequence ceased to take liberties with the throats and
cattle of