A RAID ON SUTHERLAND. 457 



A more good-natured expression never set off very plain fea- 

 tures. His dot of a nose had been so sunburnt the first day 

 by wearing a Glengarry, that he appeared the second with a 

 wide-awake grotesquely looped down to shade his nostrils. 

 " The sun's got hould of your nose, and ears too, sir ; mine's 

 quite roasted ; I micht ait it whan I laike." Seeing him tie 

 something round a cork, I asked what it was. " Trumps, sir 

 (the Jew's harp) ; a pair o' them makes very pretty music 

 when they's well played." On telling this to the landlord, he 

 assured me they were very musical at Scourie, " whaur Hector 

 cam' frae." Our other boatman had been unwell, and Hector 

 gave for explanation : "I was thinkin' what was the matter 

 wi' him ; he drank some ale and whisky in the morning 

 thegither ; one of them's best alane." Then, for fear of being 

 unjust to the ale and whisky, he added, "And the worst o't 

 was the cauld water on the tap o't." There was a poor maniac 

 of Eoss-shire, whom Hector affirmed fed for seven years on 

 grass with the deer. " She was covered wi' lang hair, and 

 could run as fast as themsels." He knew a very old woman 

 in Tongue who remembered her, and " she was very wild when 

 first catched." 



Under Hector's pilotage we trolled Loch Naver. A five- 

 pound trout, three two-pounders in size, shape, and colour 

 exactly alike and several near a pound, were the day's pro- 

 duce. The large one was ill-shaped and ugly ; all the rest 

 handsome trout. We saw nothing of the salmo-ferox in Loch 

 Naver, but this was the only day we tried it. 



Going out in haste, we asked Hector to get the landlord to 

 direct a paper : " He can't read a word ; no, nor yet write." 

 After a pause : " Nor spall aither." And yet the school- 

 master was not far away, for we passed a bothy on the banks 

 of the loch, made entirely of turf, with a little window, a 

 rustic chair of state for the master, and stones for the scholars 

 to sit on. This extempore schoolhouse was private property, 

 being put up by a keeper of the tenant of the shootings, and 



