snuff and tobacco, and had accordingly stored ourselves with both at
Fort Augustus. Boswell opened his treasure, and gave them each a piece
of tobacco roll. We had more bread than we could eat for the present,
and were more liberal than provident. Boswell cut it in slices, and
gave them an opportunity of tasting wheaten bread for the first time.
I then got some halfpence for a shilling, and made up the deficiencies
of Boswell's distribution, who had given some money among the
children. We then directed that the mistress of the stone house should
be asked what we must pay her: she, who perhaps had never before
sold anything but cattle, knew not, I believe, well what to ask, and
referred herself to us: we obliged her to make some demand, and one of
the Highlanders settled the account with her at a shilling. One of the
men advised her, with the cunning that clowns never can be without, to
ask more; but she said that a shilling was enough. We gave her half
a crown, and she offered part of it again. The Macraes were so well
pleased with our behaviour, that they declared it the best day they
had seen since the time of the old Laird of Macleod, who, I suppose,
like us, stopped in their valley, as he was travelling to Skye....

I cannot forbear to interrupt my narrative. Boswell, with some of his
troublesome kindness, has informed this family and reminded me that
the 18th of September is my birthday. The return of my birthday, if I
remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general
care of humanity to escape. I can now look back upon three score
and four years, in which little has been done, and little has been
enjoyed; a life diversified by misery, spent part in the sluggishness
of penury, and part under the violence of pain, in gloomy discontent
or importunate distress. But perhaps I am better than I should have
been if I had been less afflicted. With this I will try to be content.