On his return to Strath-Connan, Ian was welcomed by many an old friend, and he speedily felt himself again rooted in his native soil. He soon re-edified his bothy; but he did so after that much improved and much more comfortable style of architecture which his large experience of civilised life had now taught him to consider as essential. He again took readily to his caurets, and to the simple occupations attendant on the care and management of them, which he forthwith increased to a considerable extent by increasing their numbers; and every day he grew wealthier and wealthier by means of them. The taste which he had now had of society, led him more frequently to visit the gayer and livelier scenes of the more thickly inhabited straths; and it was seldom that a market, a marriage, or a merry-making of any kind occurred, where Ian’s sinewy limb and well turned ankles were not seen executing the Highland fling to a degree of perfection rarely to be matched. These innocent practices he continued long after he was a husband and a father, yea, until he was far advanced in life.
If Ian had a spark of pride at all, it was in the circumstance that the calves of his legs were so well rounded, that however much his limbs might be exercised, they always kept up his hose without the aid of a garter, an appendage to his dress which he always scorned to wear. One night a large party of friends were assembled in his house to witness the baptism of a recently born grandson. After the ceremony and the feast were both over, the young people got up to dance, and, old as he was, Ian More Arrach was among the foremost of them. To it he went, and danced the Highland fling with his usual spirit and alacrity, snapping his fingers and shouting with the best of them. But alas! when the dance was over, he suddenly discovered that his hose had fallen three inches from their original position, betraying the sad fact that his limbs had lost somewhat of their original muscle. This was to him a sad sinking in the barometer of human life. He surveyed his limbs for some time in silence with a melancholy expression; and then, with something like a feeling of bitterness, which no one had ever seen take possession of him before, he exclaimed,—
“Tamm her nanesell’s teeths! She may weel gie ower ta fling, noo tat her teeths wunna haud up her hose!”
MORNING SCENE.
The shrill and persevering crow of a cock, who roosted on the rafters immediately over our heads, gradually succeeded in drawing up Grant and myself from the deep Lethean lake of slumber into which both had been plunged, and we arose yawning and most unwillingly from our simple couches, ere yet the sun had peeped above the horizon. With one consent we stole to the outer door in our dressing gowns and slippers, to inhale a few draughts of pure air, and to inform ourselves as to the state of the weather. A perfect calm prevailed, and the landscape was lying under one general sombre shadow, which made it so difficult to distinguish objects, that we could not even trace the exact line of boundary of the still waters of Loch-an-Dorbe. One glow of an aurora hue made the summit of the opposite hill to gleam faintly, but that was enough to produce a corresponding fragment of bright reflection on the bosom of the lake. In the middle of that warm spot rested a little boat with two men in it, one of whom was seated at the oars to keep it steady, whilst the other was standing in the stern eagerly occupied in fishing.
Grant, rubbing his eyes,—Can that possibly be Clifford?
Author.—Let us ascertain whether he is in his bed or not.
Grant.—Aha! his gite is empty and cold! What an indefatigable fisherman!
Author.—Depend upon it, we shall not see him here for some hours to come.