IN THE HIGHLANDS 33 



those days was by the packet from Stornoway, and a 

 big boy, John Grant, came over to us at Gairloch with 

 the bread and the letters once or twice a week. How 

 well I can remember him standing, usually dripping wet, 

 shivering in the Tigh Dige kitchen, while the cook ex- 

 pressed lively indignation because the bread-bag was 

 soaking wet. That lad served me as a man very faith- 

 fully for many years as grieve after I bought Inverewe 

 in 1862. 



Only a few years ago a party of us went from Inverewe 

 and back in order to visit the Bull's Rock. In more than 

 one part of it we could let ourselves down and pull 

 ourselves up only with the help of our stalwart stalker ! 

 On one occasion a Post Office overseer from London, 

 who was being sent to Stornoway, and was following Big 

 John on foot, fainted en route, and Big John managed 

 to carry the fat official on the top of the mail-bag for 

 several miles till he reached Ardlair. 



When the first Sir Alexander built the Tigh Dige the 

 timber was all cut in the natural Scotch fir forest of 

 Glas Leitir (the Grey Slope) on the shores of the upper 

 end of Loch Maree, and boated down the loch to Slata- 

 dale, and from there dragged by innumerable men and 

 ponies for seven miles over that wild hill that separates 

 Loch Maree from the sea at Gairloch. There was not a 

 single mark of a saw to be found on the timbers of the 

 roof of the Tigh Dige, and they are squared only by the 

 axe. 



I spent the nine years of my childhood, from 1844 

 to 1853, in the Tigh Dige, and did ever boy spend a 

 happier nine years anywhere ? When I was between 



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