on." And then
he shut up--the oracle was dumb. I need not describe my feelings of
disappointment. I could have punched that man's head.

I learn that Mull is a cheap place--as it ought to be--to live in. In
Tobermory, butter--beautiful in its way--is eighteenpence a-pound;
mutton, tenpence; eggs, eightpence a dozen; and, says my informant,
things are now very dear. The people are agricultural, and each one
cultivates his little crop. The women are fearfully and wonderfully
made; they seem born for hard work, and a large number of the young ones
leave yearly for Glasgow, where, as maids-of-all-work, they are much in
request. In the mud and rain, children, barefooted, come out to stare.
The girls have no bonnets on, the boys mostly wear kilts, but they have
all the advantages of a school, and the steamers from Oban now and then
bring batches of the Glasgow papers. One of the things that most strikes
a stranger in these Western isles is the astonishing number of
sweetshops. Every one is born, it is said, with a sweet tooth in his
head, but here every islander must have a dozen at least. Tobermory is
no exception to the general rule. The lower part of the town, at the far
end of the bay, is chiefly devoted to trade, and at every other shop I
see sweets exposed for sale. It is the same at Portree, the capital of
Skye, and it is the same at the still more important town of Stornoway,
in the island of Lewis. At Tobermory, one sees in the shop windows,
besides ship stores, mutton--you never see beef either in the Inner or
Outer Hebrides; articles symptomatic of feminine love for
fashion--actually a skating-rink hat being one of the attractions at one
of the leading shops, though I can't hear of a skating-rink on this side
of the world at all. In the interior of the island are farmers and
farmers' wives, who evidently have cash to spare. As we skirt along the
coast we see here and there a grey castle in ruins, telling of a time and
manners and customs long since passed away. At one castle--that of Moy,
for instance--the laird was a real knight and chief, and behaved as such.
One part of the castle was built over a precipice, and in the wall was a
niche in which a man could just stand, and barely that; a man or woman
charged with a crime was placed in that niche; after a certain time the
door was opened, and if he or she was still standing the result was a
verdict of "Not guilty." Had strength or nerve failed, the