144 REMINISCENCES OF THE LEWS. 



certainly, when in motion, one was not con- 

 scious of their existence. The shafts of that 

 vehicle were very wide, and the animal inclosed 

 within them very small, and it consequently 

 rolled in its progress hke a trooper-transport 

 in a gale of wind in Table Bay. Dick Burnaby 

 and I were commissioned to horse this won- 

 derful carriage ; and, accordingly, we attended 

 the great July fair, then held on the muir side, 

 three miles from Stornoway, on the Callernish 

 road. There we picked out a chestnut pony 

 that would not, it was said, go in harness. 

 This animal, after finding every fault under the 

 sun with every part of its carcass, we, to the 

 farmer's great astonishment, purchased. Dick 

 soon persuaded the chestnut as to the necessity 

 of going in harness, and in due time Shippy 

 was allowed to navigate his own vessel ; and I 

 never heard of his coming to any greater grief 

 than pitching a brother, who came up to see 

 him, and was not yet accustomed to its lurches, 

 out on the high road, and splitting his trousers 

 to ribands — ^he wore them tight and strapped 

 down over his boots. I see him now on the 

 road, near the Creed Gate, as we were going 

 over to the Blackwater to fish ; and for the 

 rest of the journey he took a tight clutch of 

 that roundabout. Then the harness of this 



