answering all our questions in the
easy manner found useful in dealing with
idiots and infants, and never thinking it
worth while to correct us when we were
wrong. As he sat chatting with us over a
glass of whisky in a mildewy room of the
inn, the inhabitants dropped in one by one;
first the two old men, then a little boy,
then a tipsy fisherman, and so on till
the room was full of spectators, all with
their mouths wide open, and all without
any sign of ordering or drinking
anything, staring at the strangers. This
volley of eyes became at last so
unbearable, that it was thought advisable to
direct it elsewhere by ordering "glasses
round;" a movement which, however grateful
to the feelings, was received without
enthusiasm, only the mouths and eyes opened
still wider in amaze. The advent of the
whisky, however, acted like a charm, and
the company burst into a torrent of
Gaelic, in which the words "Got taven"
and "Sassenach" were easily distinguishable
at intervals.

The result of a long conversation with
the populace, which in number and appearance
bore about the same relation to a
respectable community that a stage "mob"
in Julius Cæsar would bear to the real
article, was not particularly edifying. The
populace was cynical on the merits of
Loch Boisdale; its principal beauties, in
their opinion, being ague, starvation, and
weariness. For any person to remain
there, ever so short a time, who could by
any possibility get out of it, was a thing
not to be credited by common-sense. The
innkeeper, however, tried to convey to us
his comprehension that we had come there,
not for pleasure, but "on a discovering
manner," by which mystical Celticism he
meant to say that we were visitors come to
make inquiries, possibly with a view to
commerce or statistics. He shook his head
over both country and people, and seemed
to think our inquiry was a waste of time.

For three days after that, it rained
as it can rain only in the Long Island;
and when at last, tired out of patience, we
rushed ashore, our friend the innkeeper
received us with a deprecating smile.
With keen sarcasm, we demanded if it were
always "that sort of weather" in Loch
Boisdale, but he replied quite calmly, "Aye,
much aboot." But when we sat down over
usquebaugh, and the rain still plashing
darkly without,

                          with its dull twofold sound,
    The clash hard by, and the murmur all round!

showed that the weather was little likely to
abate that day, the landlord seemed to
think his credit at stake, and that even
Loch Boisdale was appearing at a
disadvantage. To console him, we told him that
story of the innkeeper at Arrochar, which
poor Hugh Macdonald used to retail with
such unction over the toddy. An English
traveller stayed for some days at Arrochar,
and there had been nothing but rain from
morn to night. The landlord tried to keep
up his guest's spirits by repeated prophecies
that the weather was "about to break
up;" but at last, on the fifth day, the
stranger could endure it no longer. "I say,
landlord; have you ever—now on your
honour—have you ever, any other sort
of weather in this confounded place?"
The landlord replied, humbly yet bitterly:
"Speak nae mair, sir, speak nae mair—I'm
just perfectly ashamed of the way in which
our weather's behaving!" But the Loch
Boisdale landlord seemed to think the
tale too serious for laughter.

As we have noted above, the herring
harvest was over. Twice in the year there
is good fishing; in the spring and in the
autumn; but the autumn fishing is left
quite in the hands of a few native boats.
The moment the spring fishing ends, Loch
Boisdale subsides into torpor. All is desolate
and still; only the fishy smell remains,
to remind the yawning native of the glory
that is departed.

A busy sight indeed is Loch Boisdale
in the herring season. Smacks, open boats,
skiffs, wherries, make the narrow waters
shady; not a creek, however small, but
holds some boat in shelter. A fleet, indeed!
The Lochleven boat from the east coast,
with its three masts and three huge lug-
sails; the Newhaven boat with its two Iug-
sails; the Isle of Man "jigger;" the beautiful
Guernsey runner, handsome as a racing
yacht and powerful as a revenue-cutter;
besides all the numberless fry of less
noticeable vessels, from the fat west-country
smack with its comfortable fittings down to
the miserable Arran wherry.* Swarms of
seagulls float everywhere, and the loch is

* The Arran wherry, now nearly extinct, is a wretched-
looking thing without a bowsprit, but with two strong
masts. Across the foremast is a small bulkhead, and
there is a small locker for blankets and bread. In the
open space between bulkhead and locker birch tops are
thickly strewn for a bed, and for covering there is a
huge woollen waterproof blanket ready to be stretched
out on spars. Close to the mast lies a huge stone, and
thereon a stove. The cable is of heather rope, the anchor
wooden, and the stock a stone. Rude and ill-found
as these boats are, they face weather before which any
ordinary yachtsman would quail.