do. They are independent and wide awake,
curious and full of personal interest. The wayside mind in Inverness or
Perth runs more to muscle and less to fat, has more active vanity
and less passive pride, is more inquisitive and excitable and
sympathetic--in short, to use a symbolist's description, it is more
apt to be red-headed--than in Surrey or Somerset. Scotchmen ask more
questions about America, but fewer foolish ones. You will never
hear them inquiring whether there is any good bear-hunting in the
neighbourhood of Boston, or whether Shakespeare is much read in the
States. They have a healthy respect for our institutions, and have quite
forgiven (if, indeed, they ever resented) that little affair in 1776.
They are all born Liberals. When a Scotchman says he is a Conservative,
it only means that he is a Liberal with hesitations.

And yet in North Britain the American pedestrian will not find that
amused and somewhat condescending toleration for his peculiarities, that
placid willingness to make the best of all his vagaries of speech and
conduct, that he finds in South Britain. In an English town you may do
pretty much what you like on a Sunday, even to the extent of wearing
a billycock hat to church, and people will put up with it from a
countryman of Buffalo Bill and the Wild West Show. But in a Scotch
village, if you whistle in the street on a Lord's Day, though it be
a Moody and Sankey tune, you will be likely to get, as I did, an
admonition from some long-legged, grizzled elder:

"Young man, do ye no ken it's the Sawbath Day?"

I recognised the reproof of the righteous, an excellent oil which doth
not break the head, and took it gratefully at the old man's hands. For
did it not prove that he regarded me as a man and a brother, a creature
capable of being civilised and saved?

It was in the gray town of Dingwall that I had this bit of
pleasant correction, as I was on the way to a fishing tramp through
Sutherlandshire. This northwest corner of Great Britain is the best
place in the whole island for a modest and impecunious angler. There
are, or there were a few years ago, wild lochs and streams which are
still practically free, and a man who is content with small things can
pick up some very pretty sport from the highland inns, and make a good
basket of memorable experiences every week.

The inn at Lairg, overlooking the narrow waters of Loch Shin, was
embowered in honeysuckles, and full of creature comfort.