'his foot upon his native heath,' is rather comic, though later on we
find him striding about with a target and broad sword, and a bonnet
drawn over his wig! Though both professed profuse addiction to Jacobite
sentiments, it is curious no mention is made of Culloden. It may be that
Boswell, who some days later weeps over the battle, may have
diplomatically avoided it, or it may have been dark as their chaise
passed it, though it is not impossible that Boswell, who at St Andrews
had not known where to look for John Knox's grave, and has no mention of
Airsmoss where Cameron fell in his own parish of Auchinleck, was
ignorant of the site. From their inn at Inverness he wrote to Garrick
gleefully over his tour with Davy's old preceptor, and then begged
permission to leave Johnson for a time, 'that I might run about and pay
some visits to several good people,' finding much satisfaction in
hearing every one speak well of his father.

On Monday, August 30, they began their _equitation_; 'I would needs make
a word too.' They took horses now, a third carried his man Ritter, and a
fourth their portmanteaus. The scene by Loch Ness was new to the sage,
and he rises in his narrative a little to it and the 'limpid waters
beating their bank, and waving their surface by a gentle agitation.'
Through Glenshiel, Glenmorison, Auchnasheal, they passed on to the inn
at Glenelg. They made beds for themselves with fresh hay, and, like
Wolfe at Quebec, they had their 'choice of difficulties;' but the
philosophic Rambler maintained they might have been worse on the
hillside, and buttoning himself up in his greatcoat he lay down, while
Boswell had his sheets spread on the hay, and his clothes and greatcoat
laid over him by way of blankets.

Next day they got into a boat for Skye, reaching Armidale before one.
Here occurred one of the dramatic episodes of the book. Sir Alexander
Macdonald, husband of Boswell's Yorkshire cousin Miss Bosville, and the
host at the masquerade in February, was on his way to Edinburgh, and met
them at the house of a tenant, 'as we believe,' wrote Johnson to Mrs
Thrale, 'that he might with less reproach entertain us meanly. Boswell
was very angry, and reproached him with his improper parsimony. Boswell
has some thoughts of collecting the stories and making a novel of his
life.' In the first edition of his book something strong had clearly
been written, but it was wisely suppressed at the last moment when the
book was b