Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

KYLE RICH. 437
Eilan Reocb, naesiccan traveller folk shud gang speiring
after her dochters." " She dare-said I kent naethiug o*
My Lord, after a', and should na doot that 1 had stawn
Roger," By this time, Roger seemed to think, as well
as I, that he had listened long enough to Meg's elo-
quence. I saw that he was about to lose his patience
and borrow an opprobrious epithet ft"om the female collie,
which seemed by its grim visage and muttering snarl, to
be well grounded in the family feelings ; so I gave him
permission, and the triple objurgations of Meg, Sposo, and
Cur, pursued us till the sound expired in the whistling
of the mountain breeze.
The postscript of this letter comes rather lagging,
like the second part of the Winter's Tale or the Astrolo-
ger; since it is of two years later in date. But can a
postscript of retributive justice ever come too late.
" Raro antecedentem, " says Horace : sooner or later she
treads on the culprit's heel. Two years had elapsed
I chanced to be in an excise boat ; it was a beau-
tiful summer evening; the clear yellow sun was shin-
ing on the hills of the Kyle ; the oaks, as they waved
their branches over the high cliff's, were tinged with his
last beams ; and the tide was pouring, in whirling eddies,
through the strait, dark and strong, yet silent, as not a
breeze ruffled the surface, which was marked only by the
lono* streamino; lines and circles of the current. As our
boat glided along under its influence, scarcely requiring
the occasional dip of an oar to keep it in the stream, I
related this story to my boatmen. The honour of the
Highlanders was piqued, and they vowed that Mr. and
Mrs. Nicholson were neither Gael nor Scot.
" Had I any
objection to allow them to make a seizure if they could."
They were sure that such a knave as Mr. Nicholson
dealt in smuggled whisky — "very possibly." Then
hurra, my boys, said the boatswain, pull in shore. The
;