105 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



story which, after all, is no story of my journey hither, 

 and of what I have been seeing and doing since I came. 

 Draw your seat a little nearer me, that I may begin. 



' I came here about a month ago, after a delightful 

 journey of two days from Conon-side, from whence I 

 have been despatched by my employer with another 

 mason lad, and a comical fellow, a carter, to procure 

 materials for the building. Though the youngest of the 

 party, I am intrusted with the charge of the others, in 

 consideration of my great gravity and wonderful com- 

 mand of the pen ; but, as far as the carter is concerned, 

 the charge is a truly woeful one. He bullies, and swears, 

 and steals, and tells lies, and cares for nobody. I am 

 stronger, however, and more active than he, and must 

 give him a beating when I have recovered my lameness, 

 to make my commission good. My comrade, the mason, 

 and I have been living in a state of warfare with him 

 ever since we came here. On the morning we set out 

 from Conon-side he left us to drive his cart and went to 

 Dingwall, where he loitered and got drunk ; we, in 

 turn, after waiting for him for two long hours at the 

 village of Contin, drove away, leaving him to follow us 

 on foot as he best might, for at least thirty miles ; and 

 he has not yet forgiven us the trick. 



' You have never seen Contin, and so I must show 

 it you. It is a beautiful Highland village, pleasantly 

 situated on the sweep of a gentle declivity, which ter- 

 minates behind the houses, on the banks of a river, and 

 is covered atop by the mansion-house and pleasure- 

 grounds of Sir George McKenzie of Coul, a gentleman 

 not quite unknown in the literary world. Towards the 

 north the gigantic Ben Wyvis lifts up his huge burly 

 head, like leviathan among the lesser inhabitants of the 

 deep. There is a much smaller, but more beautiful, hill 



