"Ah'm thinkin' the gentleman micht find a coomfortaible lodgin' wi' the
weedow Macphairson a wee bittie doon the road. Her dochter is awa' in
Ameriky, an' the room is a verra fine room, an' it is a peety to hae it
stannin' idle, an' ye wudna mind the few steps to and fro tae yir meals
here, sir, wud ye? An' if ye 'ill gang wi' me efter dinner, 'a 'll be
prood to shoo ye the hoose."

So, after a good dinner with the English fishermen, Sandy piloted me
down the road through the thickening dusk. I remember a hoodie crow
flew close behind us with a choking, ghostly cough that startled me. The
Macpherson cottage was a snug little house of stone, with fuchsias and
roses growing in the front yard: and the widow was a douce old lady,
with a face like a winter apple in the month of April, wrinkled, but
still rosy. She was a little doubtful about entertaining strangers, but
when she heard I was from America she opened the doors of her house and
her heart. And when, by a subtle cross examination that would have been
a credit to the wife of a Connecticut deacon, she discovered the fact
that her lodger was a minister, she did two things, with equal and
immediate fervour; she brought out the big Bible and asked him to
conduct evening worship, and she produced a bottle of old Glenlivet
and begged him to "guard against takkin' cauld by takkin' a glass of
speerits."

It was a very pleasant fortnight at Melvich. Mistress Macpherson was so
motherly that "takkin' cauld" was reduced to a permanent impossibility.
The other men at the inn proved to be very companionable fellows, quite
different from the monsters of insolence that my anger had imagined
in the moment of disappointment. The shooting party kept the table
abundantly supplied with grouse and hares and highland venison; and