inn should be able to furnish at least a bit of mutton-ham or a cut of
dried salmon, and ordered a few slices, first of ham, and then of
salmon; but his orders served merely to perplex the landlord and his
wife, whose stores seemed to consist of only oatmeal and whisky; and,
coming down in his expectations and demands, and intimating that he was
very hungry, and that anything edible would do, we heard the landlady
inform, with evident satisfaction, a red-armed wench, dressed in blue
plaiding, that "the lads would take porridge." The porridge was
accordingly prepared; and, when engaged in discussing this familiar
viand, a little before midnight--for we had arrived late--a tall
Highlander entered the inn, dropping like a mill-wheel. He was charged,
he said, with messages to the landlord, and to two mason lads in the
inn, from a forlorn carter with whom he had travelled about twenty
miles, but who, knocked up by the "drap drink" and a pair of bad shoes,
had been compelled to shelter for the night in a cottage about seven
miles short of Auchen-nasheen. The carter's message to the landlord was
simply to the effect that the two mason lads having stolen his horse and
cart, he instructed him to detain his property for him until he himself
should come up in the morning. As for his message to the lads, said the
Highlander, "it was no meikle worth gaun o'er again; but if we liked to
buckle on a' the Gaelic curses to a' the English ones, it would be
something like that."

We were awakened next morning by a tremendous hubbub in the adjoining
apartment. "It is Click-Clack the carter," said my comrade: "oh, what
shall we do?" We leaped up; and getting into our clothes in doubly-quick
time, set ourselves to reconnoitre through the crannies of a deal
partition, and saw the carter standing in the middle of the next room,
storming furiously, and the landlord, a smooth-spoken, little old man,
striving hard to conciliate him. Click-Clack was a rough-looking fellow,
turned of forty, of about five feet ten, with a black unshaven beard,
like a shoe-brush stuck under his nose, which was red as a coal, and
attired in a sadly-breached suit of Aberdeen grey, topped by a brimless
hat, that had been borrowed, apparently, from some obliging scare-crow.
I measured him in person and expression; and, deeming myself his match,
even unassisted by my comrade, on whose discretion I could calculate
with more certainty than on his valour, I entered the apartm