informing them that it was a place much celebrated in England, though
perhaps little thought of by them, and that we only differed from many of
our countrymen in having come the wrong way in consequence of an
erroneous direction.

After a little time the gentleman said we should be accommodated with
such beds as they had, and should be welcome to rest in their house if we
pleased. William came back for Coleridge and me; the men all stood at
the door to receive us, and now their behaviour was perfectly courteous.
We were conducted into the house by the same man who had directed us
hither on the other side of the lake, and afterwards we learned that he
was the father of our hostess. He showed us into a room up-stairs,
begged we would sit at our ease, walk out, or do just as we pleased. It
was a large square deal wainscoted room, the wainscot black with age, yet
had never been painted: it did not look like an English room, and yet I
do not know in what it differed, except that in England it is not common
to see so large and well-built a room so ill-furnished: there were two or
three large tables, and a few old chairs of different sorts, as if they
had been picked up one did not know how, at sales, or had belonged to
different rooms of the house ever since it was built. We sat perhaps
three-quarters of an hour, and I was about to carry down our wet coffee
and sugar and ask leave to boil it, when the mistress of the house
entered, a tall fine-looking woman, neatly dressed in a dark-coloured
gown, with a white handkerchief tied round her head; she spoke to us in a
very pleasing manner, begging permission to make tea for us, an offer
which we thankfully accepted. Encouraged by the sweetness of her
manners, I went down-stairs to dry my feet by the kitchen fire; she lent
me a pair of stockings, and behaved to me with the utmost attention and
kindness. She carried the tea-things into the room herself, leaving me
to make tea, and set before us cheese and butter and barley cakes. These
cakes are as thin as our oat-bread, but, instead of being crisp, are soft
and leathery, yet we, being hungry, and the butter delicious, ate them
with great pleasure, but when the same bread was set before us afterwards
we did not like it.

After tea William and I walked out; we amused ourselves with watching the
Highlanders at work: they went leisurely about everything, and whatever
was to be done, all followed, old men, and young, and little