The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

Through Darkest Inverness-shire. 627
THROUGH DARKEST INVERNESS-SHIRE
BY RAIL AND ROAD.
IT
Edward— .... Let me have no more tragedy— it sickens
me ! makes me dull and heavy give me comedy, it is my
;
humour.
—
Old Play.
was in the present year (1892) of grace, some few
weeks ago, and at an hour when the sun, opaquelyseen
through the dripping mist Hke a huge harvest moon,
hung low above the horizon, and the average of Western
human kind was wrapped in deep sleep ; when the wearied
husbandman, groping half mechanically for the family
watch, placed for convenience and partly for security
underneath the pillow, turned himself round in his warm
blankets with a huge breath of gratitude at the earliness of
the hour and the prospect of a little more of that greatest
of all luxuries, deep and dreamless sleep ; even the grouse-
hunter, though intent on " big bags," and unlimited
" braces," lay snorting and snoring, killing more in his
dreams than he ever dreamed of in his waking moments ;
and the household dog, who had barked with exasper-
ating diligence at nothing, all through the long hours of the
night, was now dumb and oblivious of the fact that the
wary nocturnal cat, after the night's dissipation, was
creeping homewards within speaking distance of its kennel
door.
It was at this early hour that the intelligent observer
might have seen a young man, whose long form was
wrapped up in a somewhat respectable " Ulster," as it is
called, and who carried on his head a well-brushed felt hat,
on his feet blackened and polished boots, and in his hand
an umbrella.