226 A HUNDRED YEARS 



Donald used to shoot down many queer things from his 

 cell on to the people passing through the street; for 

 though he could not see the cross or things around it, 

 he had a clear view of the street. Wicked boys were 

 sometimes accused of getting Donald to lower his cord 

 and hook on the coming of the fishwives, and as soon 

 as the creels were uncovered the hook was through a 

 haddock's or cod's gills or a skate's mouth, and * Heuk, 

 Donald !' saw the prize in a minute flying up to the top 

 of the gaol. It is said that on one unlucky day when 

 the hook was down a boy put it through the back of a 

 fishwife's petticoats, and on his calling out * Heuk, 

 Donald !' up in the air sailed a most unusual kind of 

 fish. The poor fishwife kicked and screamed furiously, 

 till, the hold giving way, she came to the ground like a 

 shot, and got badly hurt. After this Donald's hook was 

 instantly taken away. 



" The Inverness Court House, where the Judges sat, 

 was a mere box in size and attached to the present town 

 steeple, which was part of the gaol. Such places as the 

 gaols and asylums then in Britain would not be credited 

 now but by those who had seen or been in them. Our 

 northern dangerous lunatics were locked up in our 

 gaols, a most unenviable berth, as I can vouch from 

 personal inspection. We had no asylums then in the 

 north, where we were overrun with lunatics. One of 

 that tribe, who was harmless except that he believed he 

 was a calf, went about driving people nearly mad by 

 imitating the cry of a calf from morning till night with 

 the lungs of a bull, till at last he had to be caged in the 

 gaol, where he sang out unceasingly ' Baa-a-o-u ! 



