352 A FARMER'S YEAR 



dogs. Once, some years ago, he was living in the farmhouse at 

 Crossapol while some repairs were going on at the Castle, and was 

 greatly pleased by the daily visits of a most delightful collie that, 

 from pure and flattering attention, came all the way across the 

 island to see him at the farm. One fine morning, however, some- 

 body chanced to walk into the neighbouring graveyard, where 

 there had been a recent interment. The rest of the story may be 

 guessed, but that clever doggie was knowing enough to fill in his 

 excavations, and reopen them when necessary. The soil is sandy, 

 and they do not bury deep at Crossapol. 



Our best day's shooting this week was on the 22nd, at Cliad 

 and Grissapol (not Crossapol), when we killed thirteen couple of 

 snipe, one partridge, and two and a half brace of grouse. The 

 last, however, v/ere wild and hard to come by. Lees tells me that 

 they are increasing on the island, which is very good news. I 

 think that on that day I must have seen two hundred snipe in a 

 single boggy turnip field, but for the most part they rose in wisps 

 and out of shot. I remember that I had five down at once, which 

 is not a common occurrence nowadays. 



To-day we walked to service at the Presbyterian church at 

 Clabac. People who grumble because they have to go half a 

 mile to find a church door would scarcely praise the spiritual 

 facilities of Coll, for from the Castle to Clabac is a good five miles, 

 or an hour and a half of steady walking. The kirk, which belongs 

 to the Established Church of Scotland, is joined on to the manse, 

 and is a very plain building, whitewashed and shed-like in appear- 

 ance. At the end of it, clad in a black silk grown, sat the minister, 

 the Rev. D. Macechern, in a high pulpit, and beneath him were 

 gathered a congregation of about twenty people. The service con- 

 sisted of hymns, extempore prayers, two lessons, and a long, but on 

 the whole a very good and well-reasoned sermon. The Psalms were 

 sung from a metrical paraphrase, but why, instead of hacking them 

 into rhyming couplets, the Bible or our beautiful Prayer-Book 

 version of these unequalled poems is not considered worthy to 

 be used in Scotland to me has always been a mystery. Another 



