About four miles farther on we arrived at a place called the Muir of
Ord, a rather strange name of which we did not know the meaning,
reaching the railway station there just after the arrival of a train
which we were told had come from the "sooth." The passengers consisted
of a gentleman and his family, who were placing themselves in a large
four-wheeled travelling-coach to which were attached four rather
impatient horses. A man-servant in livery was on the top of the coach
arranging a large number of parcels and boxes, those intolerable
appendages of travel. We waited, and watched their departure, as we had
no desire to try conclusions with the restless feet of the horses, our
adventures with the Shetland pony in the north having acted as a warning
to us. Shortly afterwards we crossed a large open space of land studded
with wooden buildings and many cattle-pens which a man told us was now
the great cattlemarket for the North, where sales for cattle were held
each month--the next would be due in about a week's time, when from
30,000 to 35,000 sheep would be sold. It seemed strange to us that a
place of such importance should have been erected where there were
scarcely any houses, but perhaps there were more in the neighbourhood
than we had seen, and in any case it lay conveniently as a meeting-place
for the various passes in the mountain country.
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