when nursing her
eldest boy, she had, when on a visit to the low country, assisted also
in nursing her. The boy had shot up into a very clever lad, who, having
gone to seek his fortune in the south, rose, through the several degrees
of clerkship in a mercantile firm, to be the head of a commercial house
of his own, which, though ultimately unsuccessful, seemed for some four
or five years to be in a fair way of thriving. For about three of these
the portion of the profits which fell to my cousin's share did not fall
short of fifteen hundred pounds per annum; and on visiting his parents
in their Highland home in the heyday of his prosperity, after an absence
of years, it was found that he had a great many friends in his native
district on whom he had not calculated, and of a class that had not been
greatly in the habit of visiting his mother's cottage, but who now came
to lunch, and dine, and take their wine with him, and who seemed to
value and admire him very much. My aunt, who was little accustomed to
receive high company, and found herself, like Martha of old, "cumbered
about much serving," urgently besought my mother, who was young and
active at the time, to visit and assist her; and, infinitely to my
delight, I was included in the invitation. The place was not much above
thirty miles from Cromarty; but then it was in the _true_ Highlands,
which I had never before seen, save on the distant horizon; and, to a
boy who had to walk all the way, even thirty miles, in an age when
railways were not, and ere even mail gigs had penetrated so far,
represented a journey of no inconsiderable distance. My mother, though
rather a delicate-looking woman, walked remarkably well; and early on
the evening of the second day, we reached together my aunt's cottage, in
the ancient Barony of Gruids. It was a low, long, dingy edifice of turf,
four or five rooms in length, but only one in height, that, lying along
a gentle acclivity, somewhat resembled at a distance a huge black snail
creeping up the hill. As the lower apartment was occupied by my uncle's
half-dozen milk-cows, the declination of the floor, consequent on the
nature of the site, proved of signal importance, from the free drainage
which it secured; the second apartment, reckoning upwards, which was of
considerable size, formed the sitting-room of the family, and had, in
the old Highland style, its fire full in the middle of the floor,
without back or sides; so that, like a bonfir