Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

DUNTULM. 447
educated, as they are, in odd notions about liberty, and
about the value of time.
In the morning I was ready at six ; to breakfast at
Duntulm : but my horse was, as usual, in the moor. As
nine o'clock struck, the g-uests straggled down at inter-
vals; just as the vapours of the preceding night cleared
away in succession, and rose to mix with the purer breeze
that blew over the wild hills of Portree, wafting re-
proaches which I did not deserve and my host did not
feel. Breakfast—no—the fearful morning schalch of ca-
momile whisky was first to be drank : drank—aye, and
digested ; and then in two hours came the breakfast. Of
Highland breakfasts we have all read :
we read of many
strange things : some of them prove true. At twelve
o'clock the breakfast was done. But I was told that I
need not hurry; it was only fifteen miles, and I should
be there " quite soon enough" if I went at three. There
was nothing to see but the ruins of the old castle, and I
should see that in five minutes. I might have said that
I had come some hundred miles on purpose to see the
old castle, and other old castles, and sundry other things
older than all the castles in Sky ; and that if I spent my
time in dining, and breakfasting, and lounging about
with my hands in my pockets, listening to the points
and prices of stirks, and to all sorts of talk about bul-
locks, I might as well have remained at home. Thus,
however, passed an hour; and then the horse was sent
for; and when the horse came, another hour was ex-
pended, and, eventually, I got under way at two o'clock.
At two o'clock, or long before it, I should have been at
Duntulm. He who breakfasts in this country may vainly
hope that he shall replace his lapsed time by unusual
industry. All the speed that Roger could exert was
unable to place me in the " status" from which I had
been thrown ; 1 could but do to-morrow what I should