d contrive to quarter us, as far as a cup of tea went, upon the
hospitality of some parish minister of worth and intelligence, or some
country family of the better class, who mingled with the wild simplicity
of their original manners, and their ready and hospitable welcome,
a sort of courtesy belonging to a people, the lowest of whom are
accustomed to consider themselves as being, according to the Spanish
phrase, "as good gentlemen as the king, only not quite so rich."

To all such persons Donald MacLeish was well known, and his introduction
passed as current as if we had brought letters from some high chief of
the country.

Sometimes it happened that the Highland hospitality, which welcomed us
with all the variety of mountain fare, preparations of milk and eggs,
and girdle-cakes of various kinds, as well as more substantial dainties,
according to the inhabitant's means of regaling the passenger, descended
rather too exuberantly on Donald MacLeish in the shape of mountain dew.
Poor Donald! he was on such occasions like Gideon's fleece--moist with
the noble element, which, of course, fell not on us. But it was his only
fault, and when pressed to drink DOCH-AN-DORROCH to my ladyship's good
health, it would have been ill taken to have refused the pledge; nor was
he willing to do such discourtesy. It was, I repeat, his only fault. Nor
had we any great right to complain; for if it rendered him a little more
talkative, it augmented his ordinary share of punctilious civility, and
he only drove slower, and talked longer and more pompously, than when he
had not come by a drop of usquebaugh. It was, we remarked, only on such
occasions that Donald talked with an air of importance of the family of
MacLeish; and we had no title to be scrupulous in censuring a foible,
the consequences of which were confined within such innocent limits.

We became so much accustomed to Donald's mode of managing us, that we
observed with some interest the art which he used to produce a little
agreeable surprise, by concealing from us the spot where he proposed our
halt to be made, when it was of an unusual and interesting character.
This was so much his wont that, when he made apologies at setting off
for being obliged to stop in some strange, solitary place till the
horses should eat the corn which he brought on with them for that
purpose, our imagination used to be on the stretch to guess what
romantic retreat he had secretly fixed upon for our noon