IN THE HIGHLANDS 211 



How well I remember the fight between Sir James 

 and Applecross ! We were living at the time in Pool 

 House, at the head of Loch Ewe, and Sir James actually 

 sent a steamer (one of the first, if not the very first 

 to enter the loch) with my mother and all the voters in 

 the parish of Gairloch to the poll at Ullapool. I was 

 one of the party, and also my dear old uncle. Captain 

 Kenneth of Kerry sdale, attended by a faithful daughter. 

 The Captain was then nearly eighty years my senior. 

 We got back to our homes that night. Still more 

 wonderful, the same steamer took a number of us over 

 the following day to Stornoway with the latest news of 

 the poll, and back in the evening. I doubt whether there 

 were many living in those days who accomplished such 

 a feat as to go from the mainland to the Lews and return 

 the same day. 



I remember the great castle was hardly finished then, 

 and the Mathesons were not yet resident there, but my 

 mother was presented by the castle gardener with a 

 bouquet of scarlet geraniums and bits of yellow 

 calceolaria . My astonishment at the latter 's resemblance 

 to little slippers was great, for I had never seen a 

 calceolaria in my life ! My uncle mentions having seen 

 his first fuchsia when he was a lad at Brahan Castle in 

 the last Lord Seaforth's days. 



