IN THE HIGHLANDS 235 



served in the house. It included both beef and mutton, 

 and they had to use their dirks for knives and forks, 

 as such things were very uncommon in Gairloch in those 

 days. They spent the night at Loch a Druing, and 

 slept in John Mackenzie's barn, where couches of heather 

 were prepared for them. They went all through the 

 woods, but they saw nothing of the Gille Dubh 1 



The existence of water-kelpies in Gairloch, if perhaps 

 not universally credited in the present generation, was 

 accepted as an undoubted fact in the last. The story 

 of the celebrated water-kelpie — it was sometimes spoken 

 of as the Each Uisge, and at other times as the Tarbh 

 Oire — of the Greenstone Point is very well known in 

 Gairloch. The proceedings for the extermination of 

 this wonderful creature formed a welcome topic even 

 for the Punch of the period. The creature is spoken of 

 by the natives sometimes as " The Beast." He lives, or 

 did live in the fifties, in the depth of a loch, called after 

 him Loch na Beiste, or Loch of the Beast, which is about 

 half-way between Udrigil House and the village of Mellan 

 Udrigil. 



Mr. Bankes, the then proprietor of the estate on which 

 this loch is situated, was pressed by his tenants to take 

 measures to put an end to the beast, and at length was 

 prevailed upon to take action. Sandy Macleod, an 

 elder of the Free Church, was returning to Mellan Udrigil 

 from the Aultbea church on Sunday in company with 

 two other persons, one of whom was a sister (still living 

 at Mellan Udrigil in 1886) of the well-known John 

 Mackenzie of the Beauties, when they actually saw the 

 *' Beast " itself. It looked something like a big boat 



