We had then to retrace our four-mile walk to "Huna Inn," but the miles
seemed rather longer, as Mrs. Mackenzie could only walk in a leisurely
manner and we were feeling very hungry. We whiled away the time by
talking about the sermons and the snuff, but chiefly about the deacons
and their wonderful noses, and why they were all alike and so strangely
crooked. Mr. Mackenzie suggested that they were crooked because if they
had grown straight they would have projected over their mouths and
prevented them from eating, the crook in them being a provision of
nature to avoid this; or, they might have descended from the Romans or
some other ancient race who had formerly inhabited the coast of that
part of Scotland. Books had been written and sermons preached about
noses, and the longer the nose the greater the intellect of the owner
was supposed to be. We told our host that there was only one-sixteenth
part of an inch between the length of Napoleon's nose and that of
Wellington's. We had forgotten which was the longer, but as Wellington's
was so conspicuous that he was nicknamed "Nosey" by his troops, and as
he had won the great battle of Waterloo, we concluded that it was his,
and gave him the benefit of the doubt.
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