ollected fuel for our fire, began to play on
the green hill where we stood, as heedless as if we had been trees or
stones, and amused us exceedingly with their activity: they wrestled,
rolled down the hill, pushing one another over and over again, laughing,
screaming, and chattering Erse: they were all without shoes and
stockings, which, making them fearless of hurting or being hurt, gave a
freedom to the action of their limbs which I never saw in English
children: they stood upon one another, body, breast, or face, or any
other part; sometimes one was uppermost, sometimes another, and sometimes
they rolled all together, so that we could not know to which body this
leg or that arm belonged. We waited, watching them, till we were assured
that the boatman had noticed our signal--By the bye, if we had received
proper directions at Loch Lomond, on our journey to Loch Ketterine, we
should have made our way down the lake till we had come opposite to the
ferryman's house, where there is a hut, and the people who live there are
accustomed to call him by the same signal as here. Luckily for us we
were not so well instructed, for we should have missed the pleasure of
receiving the kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Macfarlane and their family.

A young woman who wanted to go to the island accompanied us to the
water-side. The walk was pleasant, through fields with hedgerows, the
greenest fields we had seen in Scotland; but we were obliged to return
without going to the island. The poor man had taken his boat to another
place, and the waters were swollen so that we could not go close to the
shore, and show ourselves to him, nor could we make him hear by shouting.
On our return to the public-house we asked the woman what we should pay
her, and were not a little surprised when she answered, 'Three
shillings.' Our horse had had a sixpenny feed of miserable corn, not
worth threepence; the rest of the charge was for skimmed milk, oat-bread,
porridge, and blue milk cheese: we told her it was far too much; and,
giving her half-a-crown, departed. I was sorry she had made this
unreasonable demand, because we had liked the woman, and we had before
been so well treated in the Highland cottages; but, on thinking more
about it, I satisfied myself that it was no scheme to impose upon us, for
she was contented with the half-crown, and would, I daresay, have been so
with two shillings, if we had offered it her at first. Not being
accustomed to fix a