IN THE HIGHLANDS 45 



as thick as my body, every year bore bushels of as fine 

 full filberts as were ever exhibited, till old John Fraser, 

 ruined by having a vinery put up for him about sixty 

 feet north of the filbert, actually cut it down on the sly 

 when we were in Gairloch, from an idea that it might 

 possibly shade the vinery ! I never saw my father 

 in a hurry or passion or heard him swear, but sure I am 

 that when he came to the vacant site of the filbert, friends 

 would have avoided listening to his sotto voce comments 

 on that day. But old John, perhaps, was only looking 

 forward to the shocking seasons to come, when money 

 could not discover a ripe common hazel-nut. There 

 have been no nuts of late years in our woods, which 

 used regularly to produce splendid crops. Hundreds 

 of sacks of nuts, every one full to the neck, were sent 

 in cartloads to the Beauly markets and to every town 

 and village; the nutcrackers became a regular nuisance, 

 paving every street and road and room with shells for 

 months ; the whole people in the country seemed to live 

 with their pockets full of nuts, and the price was 

 fabulously low. What utter nonsense to talk of the 

 temperature now being what it was seventy years ago ! 

 It might do for the marines, but the sailors won't listen 

 to it. 



" We used, I believe, as a matter of duty always to 

 be settled in the west for the summer before the 4th of 

 June, which was the King's birthday, and on that day 

 we never failed to have a big china bowl after dinner 

 with a pail of cream that " wad mak a cawnle of my 

 fingers " to wash down the first strawberries of the 

 season. Don't I remember their delicious smell in 



