REMINISCENCES OF THE LEWS. 145 



carriage was not of the highest order ; I don't 

 think any of our Lewisian carriages were got 

 up quite in Hyde Park style. But Shippy's 

 harness was really a thing of shreds and 

 patches. The only part about it that could 

 be said to have the slightest substance was the 

 collar ; and this having been made for a very 

 large carriage horse, some seventeen hands 

 high, while the chestnut was barely twelve, I 

 often wondered he did not go through it like 

 one of the sylphs through the hoops at old 

 Astley's. 



Of course, Shippy, whenever he went on a 

 fishing expedition, as invariably broke his 

 harness as he did his rod. I remember well 

 one night (Saturday), we had been passing the 

 week at wild Dalbeg, and had come across from 

 thence to Diensten bothy, where our respective 

 traps were to meet us to convey us home. 

 Shippy started before me in his, and I was 

 following down the Diensten Hill, in a true 

 Hebridean night, blowing a hurricane, and 

 bucketing hailstones in your face, when through 

 the storm I heard the most frantic exclama- 

 tions and entreaties not to drive over him, as 

 he could not stir. And there he was safe by 

 the side of the road, with nothing of harness 

 left save the eternal collar and parts of the 



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