314 WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA. 



forth in the most comical fashion for lack of a 

 rest. Just at the moment I espied five men re- 

 pointing the gable end of a building a little 

 distance away. Two of them were working on 

 a scaffold, and the remaining three standing on 

 the ground calmly surveying their progress. I 

 drew my brother's attention to them, and re- 

 marked, " It takes two Highlanders to do a piece 

 of work, and three to look on." This observation 

 electrified the slumberer, whose head had given 

 such a violent backward bob as to awake him, 

 and, jumping to his feet, he exclaimed with a snort 

 " The devil ! and at my expense too." 



He descended upon the men in a fair whirl- 

 wind of passion, and I can vouch for it that 

 they honestly earned their money for the rest 

 of that day. 



After this little episode his heart softened 

 slightly towards us, and he suggested that we 

 might go and photograph some grotesque looking 

 rocks which could be seen out at sea from where 

 we stood in front of the hotel, as they had a 

 somewhat peculiar geological history. We didn't 

 care a brass farthing for the rocks or their history, 

 but we understood the value of humouring an 

 old man in power, and promptly invested half- 

 a-crown in the services of a very clumsy gillie, 

 who nearly drowned us in a fierce tidal current. 

 We landed on an island almost opposite the rocks, 

 and walking over a rough promontory which bore 

 pathetic signs of crofters' huts and wee patches of 

 cultivated ground, long since abandoned to the 

 inexorable forces of nature, arrived at a high cliff 

 in the face of which was a great black cave. 



Upon walking to the edge of the roof of this 

 cave there was a great clatter of wings and o 



