Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

NORTH IIONA. 321
cavern ; rain and storm ; a tieaf octagenarian grand-
mother; the wife and children half naked ;
and, to add
to all this, solitude, and a prison from which there was
no escape. Yet they were well fed, seemed contented,
and little concerned what the rest of the world was doing.
To tend the sheep and house the winter firing; to dig the
ground and reap the harvest in their seasons ; to hunt
wild fowl and catch fish ; to fetch water from the pools,
keep up the fire, and rock the child on their knees to
sleep, seemed occupation enough, and the society of the
family itself, society enough. The women and children,
indeed, had probably never extended their notions of a
world much beyond the precincts of North Rona, and the
chief seemed to have few cares or wishes that did not
center in it. If man is a gregarious animal, it is only by
cultivation that he learns to delight in extended society.
Kenneth had few ideas to communicate ; and his family,
apparently, had none at all. And after all, as Montaigne
says, " Sur le plus beau trone du monde on n*est jamais
assis que sur son cul."
We were desirous of knowine; whether he meant to
renew his engagement, as seven years of it were now
expired. But on this head he did not seem to have made
up his mind. All that we could discover, was a desire to go
to Lewis to christen his infant. In another year, his wish
will have been gratified. I shall never know the event;
for assuredly, in leaving North Rona, I have left it for
ever ; but I shall be much surprised if some future visitor
does not find Kenneth, twenty years hence, wearing out
his old age in the subterranean retreat of his better days.
" But the weary wind began to rise, and the sea began
to rout." It was time to think of leaving a place where
a few hours of neglect might have detained us the whole
winter. The charms of pensive contemplation would have
been dearly purchased by a few months residence in
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