ic
eight-day clock in another. A small bookshelf supported the family
Bible and several ancient and much-worn volumes. Wooden benches were
ranged round the walls; and clumsy chairs and tables, with various
pails, buckets, luggies, troughs, and indescribable articles, completed
the furniture of the picturesque and cosy apartment. The candle that
lighted the whole was supported by a tall wooden candlestick, whose foot
rested on the ground, and whose body, by a simple but clumsy
contrivance, could be lengthened or shortened at pleasure, from about
three to five feet.

But besides all this, there was a world of _materiel_ disposed on the
black rafters above--old farm implements, broken furniture, an old
musket, an old claymore, a broken spinning-wheel, etcetera, all of which
were piled up and so mingled with the darkness of the vault above, that
imagination might have deemed the spot a general rendezvous for the aged
and the maimed of "still life."

Fast and furious was the dancing that night. Native animal spirits did
it all. No artificial stimulants were there. "Tatties and mulk" were
at the bottom of the whole affair. The encounter of that forenoon
seemed to have had the effect of recalling the spirit of his youth to
Mr Sudberry, and his effervescing joviality gave tone to all the rest.

"Now, Fred, you must take my place," said he, throwing himself in an
exhausted condition on a "settle."

"But perhaps your partner may want a rest?" suggested Fred.

Lass Number 1 scorned the idea: so Fred began.

"Are your fingers not tired?" asked Mr Sudberry, wiping his bald
forehead, which glistened as if it had been anointed with oil.

"Not yet," said McAllister quietly.

Not yet! If the worthy Highlander had played straight on all night and
half the next day, he would have returned the same answer to the same
question.

"You spend a jolly life of it here," said Mr Sudberry to Mrs
McAllister.

"Ay, a pleasant life, no doot; but we're not _always_ fiddling and
dancing."

"True, but the variety of herding the cattle on these splendid hills is
charming."

"So it is," assented Mrs McAllister; "we've reason to be contented with
our lot. Maybe ye would grow tired of it, however, if ye was always
here. I'm told that the gentry whiles grow tired of their braw rooms,
and take to plowterin' aboot the hills and burns for change. Sometimes
they even dance wi' the servants in a Highland cottage!"

"Ha! you have me th