dry-stone dyke that bordered the Inns of Tynrec.

CHAPTER XXVII.--A TAVERN IN THE WILDS.

Tynree is the Gaelic of a name that in the English is King's House. What
humour gave so gaudy a title to so humble a place I have been always
beat to know. For if the poorest of the chiefs of the poor isles had
his choice of the gallows at once or Tynree for a long habitation, I'm
thinking he would cry, "Out with your rope." Standing all its lee lone
on the edge of the wildest moor of all the Scottish kingdom, blustered
on by the winds of Glen-coe and Glen Etive, the house, far apart from
any other (even a hunter's bothy among the corries), must be eerie,
empty of all but its owner at most seasons of the year. He will have
nothing about him but the flying plover that is so heart-breaking in its
piping at the grey of morn, for him must the night be a dreariness no
rowth of cruisie or candle may mitigate. I can fancy him looking out day
after day upon plains of snow and cruel summits, blanching and snarling
under sodden skies, and him wishing that God so good was less careless,
and had given him a home and trade back among the cosy little glens,
if not in the romping towns. But they tell me--people who rove and have
tried Tynree in all weathers--that often it is cheerful with song and
story; and there is a tale that once upon a time a little king, out
adventuring in the kingly ways of winter stories, found this tavern in
the wilds so warm, so hospitable, so resounding with the songs of good
fellows, that he bided as a duc for a week of the winter weather.

When I came on Tynree, it was sounding with music, just, it might be,
as in the day of the king in the story. Three of the morning, yet the
hostel sent out a most hearty reek and firelight, the odours of stewing
meats and of strong waters, and the sound of piping and trumping and
laughing.

I stood back a piece from the house and debated with myself whether or
not it was one where the tartan of Diarmaid would be sure of a welcome
even if his sporran jingled with gold to the very jaws. All I wanted was
shelter till the day broke and-this may seem odd to any one who has not
known the utter wearisomeness of being a hunted man jinking in the dark
among woods and alleys--the easy conversation of some human beings with
no thought bothering them but what would be for the next meal, or the
price of cattle at a town tryst And song and trump-come, I'll tell the
G--s own truth upon tha