'You are young yet,' replied the hermit, laughing, 'although you speak so like a book.
'Here we are, then, in my compound. The fence, you see, is a very open one, for I desire neither to exclude the sunshine nor the fresh air from my vegetables. Observe,' he continued, 'that my hut, which consists of one large room, stands in the centre of a gravel square.' 212
'It is strange-looking gravel!' said Dugald.
'It is nearly altogether composed of salt. My house is built of stone, but it is plastered with a kind of cement I can dig here in the hills. There is not a crevice nor hollow in all the wall, and it is four feet thick. The floor is also cemented, and so is the roof.'
'And this,' I remarked, 'is no doubt for coolness in summer.'
'Yes, and warmth in winter, if it comes to that, and also for cleanliness. Yonder is a ladder that leads to the roof. Up there I lounge and think, drink my maté and read. Oh yes, I have plenty of books, which I keep in a safe with bitter-herb powder—to save them, you know, from literary ants and other insects who possess an ambition to solve the infinite. Observe again, that I have neither porch nor verandah to my house, and that the windows are small. I object to a porch and to climbing things on the same principle that I do to creeping, crawling creatures. The world is wide enough for us all. But they must keep to their side of the house at night, and I to mine. And mine is the inside. This is also the reason why most of the gravel is composed of salt. As a rule, creepies don't like it.'
'Oh, I'm glad you told us that,' said Archie; 'I shall make my mule carry a bushel of it. I'm glad you don't like creepies, sir.'
'But, boy, I do. Only I object to them indoors. Walk in. Observe again, as a showman would say, how very few my articles of furniture are. Notice, however, that they are all scrupulously clean. Nevertheless, I have every convenience. That thong-bottomed sofa is my bed. My skins and rugs are kept in a bag all day, and hermetically sealed against the prying probosces of insectivora. Here is my stove, yonder my kitchen and scullery, and there hangs my armoury. Now I am going to call my servant. He is a Highlander like yourselves, boys; at any rate, he appears to be, for he never wears anything else 213 except the kilt, and he talks a language which, though I have had him for ten years, I do not yet understand. Archie, Archie, where are you?'
'Another Archie!' said Dugald, 'and a countryman, too?'
'He is shy of strangers. Archie, boy! He is swinging in some tree-top, no doubt.'