Come closer, Christian--and let us put it to thine ear. What a pretty
face of wonder at the chime! Good people, you have work to do in the
hay-field--let us part--God bless you--Good-by--farewell!

Half an hour since we parted--we cannot help being a little sad--and
fear we were not so kind to the old people--not so considerate as we
ought to have been--and perhaps, though pleased with us just now, they
may say to one another before evening that we were too merry for our
years. Nonsense. We were all merry together--daft Uncle among the
lave--for the creature came stealing in and sat down on his own stool in
the corner; and what's the use of wearing a long face at all times like
a Methodist minister? A Methodist minister! Why, John Wesley was facete,
and Whitfield humorous, and Rowland Hill witty--though he, we believe,
was not a Methody; yet were their hearts fountains of tears--and ours is
not a rock--if it be, 'tis the rock of Horeb.

Ha, Hamish! Here we are beneath the Merlin Crag. What sport? Why, five
brace is not so much amiss--and they are thumpers. Fifteen brace in all.
Ducks and flappers. Seven leash. We are getting on.

"But what are these,
So wither'd and so wild in their attire;
That look not like th' inhabitants o' the earth,
And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught
That man may question? You seem to understand me,
By each at once her choppy finger laying
Upon her skinny lips:--you should be women,
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so!"

Shakespeare is not familiar, we find, among the natives of Loch-Etive
side--else these figures would reply,

"All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Glammis!"

But not satisfied with laying their choppy fingers on their skinny lips,
they now put them to their plooky noses, having first each dipped fore
and thumb in his mull, and gibber Gaelic, to us unintelligible as the
quacking of ducks, when a Christian auditor has been prevented from
catching its meaning by the gobbling of turkeys.

Witches at the least, and about to prophesy to us some pleasant events,
that are to terminate disastrously in after years. Is there no nook of
earth perfectly solitary--but must natural or supernatural footsteps
haunt the remotest and most central places? But now we shall have our
fortunes told in choice Erse, for sure these are the Children of the
Mist, and perhaps they will favour us with a running