CH. XXVI. START IN THE MORNING. 97 



and fresh appearance of the good lady's sheets, I 

 had trusted my tired limbs to their snowy white- 

 ness, when, sallying forth from every crevice and 

 every corner, thousands of these obnoxious insects 

 had hopped on to me, to enjoy the treat of a sup- 

 per of English blood. The natives of these places 

 seem quite callous to everything of the kind. 



To continue, however. After making good use 

 of the burn that rippled along within fifty yards 

 of the house, and having eaten a most alarming 

 quantity of the composition called porridge, I 

 sallied forth alone. Malcolm and his brother 

 would fain have accompanied me, but the latter 

 had to attend' some gathering of sheep in a dif- 

 ferent direction, and Malcolm was obliged to go 

 for the stag killed yesterday. He therefore only 

 walked a few hundred yards up the first hill with 

 me, in order to impress well on my recollection the 

 different glens and burns he wished me to look at 

 on my way to the place of rendezvous with old 

 Donald. The sun was but a little distance above 

 the horizon when I gained the summit of a toler- 

 ably long and steep ascent immediately behind 

 Malcolm's house. A blackcock or two rose wild 

 from some cairn of stones or hillock, where they 

 had been enjoying the earliest rays of the sun, 



and flew back over my head to take shelter in the 

 VOL. II. h 



