Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

STRATH. 417
took care of that part. The inside being just the reverse,
there was thus a fair average for the whole. The en-
trance hall, or passage, remaining just as the masons had
left it ten years before, was a pool ; and a deal board
served for a bridge to conduct to the parlour. The floor
here had been fitted without being fixed ; so that it re-
mained unplaned, gaping at every cranny. A half-crown
fell out of my pocket, and rolled away till it sank beneath
the stage, like Don Ju^. " Ah, never mind," said my
worthy host, "there is a good deal of money there." The
walls too remained as they had come from the mason's
hands, unplastered ; except that, instead of being white,
they were black as jet. They kept in the smoke eflTectually
as did the chimney, for not a puff was ever seen to come
out of it; but then in return they admitted all the rain.
Hence the navigation of the passage; which, as I under-
stood, extended, when it was Gala-day with the storm, to
the parlour also. My good host was very much surprised
and hurt, that he had an asthma and could not breathe,
and that his eyes were ahvays inflamed, so that he could
not see ;
considering that Sky was of so pure and mild an
air. I proposed to him to treat with the rain and the smoke,
at once. " It was useless to try, for it had been so ever
since the house had been built : " « ten years : " the ma-
sonry was bad, and therefore he would Hot allow the
house to be finished." « The exposed gable might be
slated, or harled." " No, he was determined that nothing
more should be done ; " and, in the mean time, like Mo-
liere's misanthrope, he had enjoyed the pleasure of abus-
ing the mason every day for ten years. But the ten years
of pleasure and patience were expired, and the very deal
boards which I had traced hither, were to remedy the
evil ; by building a new house. The existing one might
have been rendered water-tight for ten pounds, and half
VOL. III. E E
;