was fit and right in his own house, or if he had, one would have accused
him of servility; but in the Highlander it only seemed like politeness,
however erroneous and painful to us, naturally growing out of the
dependence of the inferiors of the clan upon their laird; he did not,
however, refuse to let his wife bring out the whisky-bottle at our
request: 'She keeps a dram,' as the phrase is; indeed, I believe there is
scarcely a lonely house by the wayside in Scotland where travellers may
not be accommodated with a dram. We asked for sugar, butter,
barley-bread, and milk, and with a smile and a stare more of kindness
than wonder, she replied, 'Ye'll get that,' bringing each article
separately.

We caroused our cups of coffee, laughing like children at the strange
atmosphere in which we were: the smoke came in gusts, and spread along
the walls and above our heads in the chimney, where the hens were
roosting like light clouds in the sky. We laughed and laughed again, in
spite of the smarting of our eyes, yet had a quieter pleasure in
observing the beauty of the beams and rafters gleaming between the clouds
of smoke. They had been crusted over and varnished by many winters,
till, where the firelight fell upon them, they were as glossy as black
rocks on a sunny day cased in ice. When we had eaten our supper we sate
about half an hour, and I think I had never felt so deeply the blessing
of a hospitable welcome and a warm fire. The man of the house repeated
from time to time that we should often tell of this night when we got to
our homes, and interposed praises of this, his own lake, which he had
more than once, when we were returning in the boat, ventured to say was
'bonnier than Loch Lomond.'

Our companion from the Trossachs, who it appeared was an Edinburgh
drawing-master going during the vacation on a pedestrian tour to John o'
Groat's House, was to sleep in the barn with William and Coleridge, where
the man said he had plenty of dry hay. I do not believe that the hay of
the Highlands is often very dry, but this year it had a better chance
than usual: wet or dry, however, the next morning they said they had
slept comfortably. When I went to bed, the mistress, desiring me to 'go
ben,' attended me with a candle, and assured me that the bed was dry,
though not 'sic as I had been used to.' It was of chaff; there were two
others in the room, a cupboard and two chests, on one of which stood the
milk in wooden vesse