To-morrow we go to the Highlands, and we shall leave our two big trunks in the care of the man in the red coat, who is commander-in-chief at the Royal Hotel, and who said he would take as much care of them as if they was two glass jars filled with rubies; and we believed him, for he has done nothing but take care of us since we came to Edinburgh, and good care, too.
Letter Number Twenty-two
KINLOCH RANNOCH.
t happened that the day we went north was a very fine one, and as soon as we got into the real Highland country there was nothing to hinder me from feeling that my feet was on my native heath, except that I was in a railway carriage, and that I had no Scotch blood in me, but the joy of my soul was all the same. There was an old gentleman got into our carriage at Perth, and when he saw how we was taking in everything our eyes could reach, for Jone is a good deal more fired up by travel than he used to be—I expect it must have been the Buxton waters that made the change—he began to tell us all about the places we were passing through. There didn't seem to be a rock or a stream that hadn't a bit of history to it for that old gentleman to tell us about.
We got out at a little town called Struan, and then we took a carriage and drove across the wild moors and hills for thirteen miles till we came to this village at the end of Loch Rannoch. The wind blew strong and sharp, but we knew what we had to expect, and had warm clothes on. And with the cool breeze, and remembering "Scots wha ha' wi' Wallace bled," it made my blood tingle all the way.