A SUMMER RAMBLE AMONG THE HEBRIDES. 113 



when it drove up, I went to take my place in it The post- 

 master of the village, a lean, hungry-looking man, interfered 

 to prevent me. I had secured my seat, I said, two days pre- 

 vious. Ah, but I had not secured it from him. " I know 

 nothing of you, I replied ; but I secured it from one who 

 deemed himself authorized to receive the fare ; was he so 1 

 " Yes. 1 ' " Could you have received it ?' " No." " Show 

 me a copy of your regulations." " I have no copy of regu- 

 lations ; but I have given the place in the gig to another." 

 " Just so and what say you, postman T " That you took 

 the place from me, and that he has no right to give a place 

 to any one : I cariy the Portree letters to him, but he has 

 nothing to do with the passengers." A person present, the 

 proprietor or stabler of the horse, I believe, also interfered 

 on the same side ; but what Carlyle terms the " gigmanity" 

 of the postmaster was all at stake, his whole influence in 

 the mail-gig of Portree ; and so he argued, and threatened 

 withal, and, what was the more serious part of the business, 

 the person he had given the seat to had taken possession of 

 the gig ; and so we had to compound the matter by carrying 

 a passenger additional. The incident is scarce worth relat- 

 ing ; but the postmaster was so vehement and terrible, so de- 

 fiant of us all, post, stabler, and simple passenger, and so 

 justly impressed with the importance of being postmaster of 

 Portree, that, as I am in the way of describing rare specimens 

 at any rate, I must refer to him among the rest, as if he had 

 been one of the minor carnivorse of a Skye deposit, a cuttle- 

 fish, that preyed on the weaker molluscs, or a hungry poly- 

 pus, terrible among the animalculse. 



We drove heavily, and had to dismount and walk afoot 

 over every steeper acclivity ; but I carried my hammer, and 

 only grieved that in some one or two localities the road should 

 have been so level. I regretted it in especial on the south- 

 ern and eastern side of Loch Sligachan, where I could see 



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