“I wadna hae disturbit ye, for a’ the warld, sir,” said his landlady. “Ah, laddie! there’s naething like rest and sleep.”
Hardly had Sandie finished breakfast ere his friend Willie Munro arrived.
“Now,” he cried gleefully, “you’re a curler, aren’t you?”
“Rather,” said Sandie. “It is the best game in the world.”
“Well, this day won’t seem long if you come with me. The Loch o’ Skene, nine miles from here, is bearing, and there is going to be curling. I have a chumping horse and dogcart. Come lad, come.”
Sandie needed no second bidding.
Curling, I may notify the English reader, is a game played on the ice with immense large stones like cheeses, that are sent gliding along from tee to tee. In some ways it is like bowls, in some respects like skittles, and in others like billiards on a very large scale. But it beats all for pleasure and excitement. I only wish Englishmen would take to Scotland’s roaring game, as they have adopted our other national games of football and golf.
Sandie was permitted to drive, and in an hour that grey mare had trotted them out to the loch. The boys spent all the forenoon playing. Everybody was there, and all hands were hail fellow well met. It was a pleasant little republic on the ice, laird, lord, parson, and peasant all were here, and all were equals. Meanwhile their wives and daughters were skating far over the broad and beautiful expanse of frozen water.
At one o’clock a halt was called for luncheon—bread and cheese and a dram. But now Sandie got in the mare, and bidding kindly good-bye to their playmates, the boys started back for the distant city.
They had not gone far, however, before they drew up on the causeway of a comfortable little hostelry—the Inn of Straik. A boy held the horse, and the landlady herself met them in the doorway.