ird side is
the skeleton of a castle of unknown antiquity, supposed to have been a
Norwegian fortress, when the Danes were masters of the Islands. It is so
nearly entire, that it might have easily been made habitable, were there
not an ominous tradition in the family, that the owner shall not long
outlive the reparation. The grandfather of the present Laird, in
defiance of prediction, began the work, but desisted in a little time,
and applied his money to worse uses.

As the inhabitants of the Hebrides lived, for many ages, in continual
expectation of hostilities, the chief of every clan resided in a
fortress. This house was accessible only from the water, till the last
possessor opened an entrance by stairs upon the land.

They had formerly reason to be afraid, not only of declared wars and
authorized invaders, or of roving pirates, which, in the northern seas,
must have been very common; but of inroads and insults from rival clans,
who, in the plenitude of feudal independence, asked no leave of their
Sovereign to make war on one another. Sky has been ravaged by a feud
between the two mighty powers of Macdonald and Macleod. Macdonald having
married a Macleod upon some discontent dismissed her, perhaps because she
had brought him no children. Before the reign of James the Fifth, a
Highland Laird made a trial of his wife for a certain time, and if she
did not please him, he was then at liberty to send her away. This
however must always have offended, and Macleod resenting the injury,
whatever were its circumstances, declared, that the wedding had been
solemnized without a bonfire, but that the separation should be better
illuminated; and raising a little army, set fire to the territories of
Macdonald, who returned the visit, and prevailed.

Another story may show the disorderly state of insular neighbourhood. The
inhabitants of the Isle of Egg, meeting a boat manned by Macleods, tied
the crew hand and foot, and set them a-drift. Macleod landed upon Egg,
and demanded the offenders; but the inhabitants refusing to surrender
them, retreated to a cavern, into which they thought their enemies
unlikely to follow them. Macleod choked them with smoke, and left them
lying dead by families as they stood.

Here the violence of the weather confined us for some time, not at all to
our discontent or inconvenience. We would indeed very willingly have
visited the Islands, which might be seen from the house scattered in the