ought to myself, How light the labour of such a
house as this! Little sweeping, no washing of floors, and as to scouring
the table, I believe it was a thing never thought of.

After a long time the ferryman came home; but we had to wait yet another
hour for the tide. In the meanwhile our horse took fright in consequence
of his terror at the last ferry, ran away with the car, and dashed out
umbrellas, greatcoats, etc.; but luckily he was stopped before any
serious mischief was done. We had determined, whatever it cost, not to
trust ourselves with him again in the boat; but sending him round the
lake seemed almost out of the question, there being no road, and probably
much difficulty in going round with a horse; so after some deliberation
with the ferryman it was agreed that he should swim over. The usual
place of ferrying was very broad, but he was led to the point of a
peninsula at a little distance. It being an unusual affair,--indeed, the
people of the house said that he was the first horse that had ever swum
over,--we had several men on board, and the mistress of the house offered
herself as an assistant: we supposed for the sake of a share in
eighteen-pennyworth of whisky which her husband called for without
ceremony, and of which she and the young lasses, who had helped to push
the boat into the water, partook as freely as the men. At first I feared
for the horse: he was frightened, and strove to push himself under the
boat; but I was soon tolerably easy, for he went on regularly and well,
and after from six to ten minutes swimming landed in safety on the other
side. Poor creature! he stretched out his nostrils and stared wildly
while the man was trotting him about to warm him, and when he put him
into the car he was afraid of the sound of the wheels. For some time our
road was up a glen, the banks chiefly covered with coppice woods, an
unpeopled, but, though without grandeur, not a dreary tract.

Came to a moor and descended into a broad vale, which opened to Loch
Linnhe, an arm of the sea, the prospect being shut in by high mountains,
on which the sun was shining among mists and resting clouds. A village
and chapel stood on the opposite hill; the hills sloped prettily down to
the bed of the vale, a large level area--the grounds in general
cultivated, but not rich. We went perhaps half a mile down the vale,
when our road struck right across it towards the village on the
hill-side. We overtook a tall, we