358 FIELD AND FERN. 



occasionally; and, in fact, oatcake, cuddy, and lyth, 

 which they fish for with a line and swivel, and a 

 skinned black eel, are what the cottars mainly trust 

 to. There is that low., sighing wind, which betokens 

 abundance of rain ; and the hay-fields are soon the 

 scene of one great Scurry Stakes among the women 

 who carry half a hay-cock at least on their backs to 

 the rick. 



Quirang is in sight at last, with its chain of natural 

 ramparts, the glory of which would make the sternest 

 of Woolwich martinets forget himself, and play at 

 leap-frog with unbuttoned jacket and cadets upon 

 the green knolls below. Over the water is the 

 shore of Ross-shire once more, with its eternal cot- 

 tars. They fish, and they live as they can, and mul- 

 tiply like the eight-year-old black mare which trots 

 away over the heather with five blacks, all her own, 

 and none of them twins, at her heels. 



Duntulm Castle looks bleak and bare, as we visit 

 it next morning. Its days of revelry have long gone 

 by, but it has been orally handed down that there 

 was dancing in it about two hundred years ago. 

 Now the witches and warlocks have all the reels 

 to themselves. Black-faced wedders browse in the 

 old garden, and an empty cask, with sad suggestive- 

 ness, was tossing about in the dungeon, where nothing 

 passed the lips but salt boiled beef and hopeless 

 cries for water. 



Skye is divided into seven parishes, one of which, 

 Ealmuir, is on clay, and the rest on good loam. The 



