CHAPTER VI: DUNCAN MACPHAIL


The sea town of Portlossie was as irregular a gathering of small
cottages as could be found on the surface of the globe. They faced
every way, turned their backs and gables every way--only of the
roofs could you predict the position; were divided from each other
by every sort of small, irregular space and passage, and looked
like a national assembly debating a constitution. Close behind the
Seaton, as it was called, ran a highway, climbing far above the
chimneys of the village to the level of the town above. Behind this
road, and separated from it by a high wall of stone, lay a succession
of heights and hollows covered with grass. In front of the cottages
lay sand and sea. The place was cleaner than most fishing villages,
but so closely built, so thickly inhabited, and so pervaded with
"a very ancient and fishlike smell," that but for the besom of the
salt north wind it must have been unhealthy. Eastward the houses
could extend no further for the harbour, and westward no further for
a small river that crossed the sands to find the sea--discursively
and merrily at low water, but with sullen, submissive mingling when
banked back by the tide.

Avoiding the many nets extended long and wide on the grassy sands,
the youth walked through the tide swollen mouth of the river, and
passed along the front of the village until he arrived at a house,
the small window in the seaward gable of which was filled with a
curious collection of things for sale--dusty looking sweets in
a glass bottle; gingerbread cakes in the shape of large hearts,