, and these I took to be vessels dragging their anchors.

We stood looking down a while, for with the stopping of the snow a
weight seemed to be lifted from us, and then made our way downwards
towards the sea. After our fight upwards, the descent seemed easy and
almost calm, although the wind was howling still; but we were close to
farmed land now, and company, and once in a field sheltered by the wood
of the Point, we came on sheep, standing and lying close in by the
trees, and Dan bawled into my ear, "The hogs are doing finely, Hamish;
I hadna expected to see them," and I remembered that we were wintering
sheep with old Hector of the Point as well as Easdale and Birrican. We
struck the shore road and passed the big rock, and the sea was washing
over the road, carrying spars, and bamboos, and sailors' beds, and
leaving them high and dry on the fields by the roadside.

Groups of noisy seamen passed us with a great clop-clopping of
sea-boots, and many little thatch houses we hurried by, until we came
to the Quay Inn, where there were many people gathered, and pushed
ourselves through drunken, quarrelling sailors to the counter.

[1] Forage.

CHAPTER VII.

WE SAIL IN McKELVIE'S SKIFF TO THE HOLY ISLAND.

Through the throng of bearded sailors we strode and made our way to the
kitchen of the Quay Inn. A place sacred to kenspeckle folk it was, and
from its smoke-stained rafters hung many pieces of bacon and dried
shallots, and there were also bunches of centaury, and camomile, and
dandelion root, and bogbean, for the goodman's wife was cunning in
medicines of the older-fashioned sort. In this place the noise from
the common room was not so plainly heard, and indeed it gave me the
impression of a haven from the boisterous spirit there.

As I stood before the blazing fire, guiltily conscious of the puddle of
water at my feet where the snow had melted, Dan left the kitchen by a
door leading to a yard and stables, and I heard him speaking to some
one; and then when he came back there was the goodwife with him, and
Dan cried for a long hot drink, for the flesh was frozen on his bones.
At that the goodwife, with many "to be sures" and "of courses," hurried
herself here and there, and all the time she would be talking of the
sheep in this terrible weather, and of our long tramp across the hill;
and then she handed us the drink, and would not be having any payment
at all for it, for were we not freens of her ain f