The day was
already drawing to a close as we sat down to tea and the good things
provided by Mrs. Mackenzie, and we were waited upon by a Scotch lassie,
who wore neither shoes nor stockings; but this we found was nothing
unusual in the north of Scotland in those days. After tea we adjourned
to our room, and sat down in front of our peat fire; but our
conversational powers soon exhausted themselves, for we felt uncommonly
drowsy after having been exposed so long to the open air. We sat there
silently watching the curling smoke as it went up the chimney and
dreamily gazing into the caverns which had been formed in the fire
below, imagining that we could see all kinds of weird objects therein,
and then we thought of the times when we should not have been able to
rest so securely and comfortably in the "Huna Inn," when one Scottish
clan was trying to exterminate another not so far away from where we
were then sitting, for no more apparent reason than that the Scots were
born soldiers, and if they had no foreigners to fight they must fight
among themselves. We must have been nearly asleep when our reveries were
interrupted by the entrance of the shepherd, whom for the moment we had
entirely forgotten.
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