"We have mountains in this island," remarked Mackenzie slowly as he kept his eye on his companion—"we have mountains in this island sixteen thousand feet high."
Lavender looked sufficiently astonished, and the old man was pleased. He paused for a moment or two, and said, "But this iss the way of it: you will see that the middle of the mountains it has all been washed away by the weather, and you will only have the sides now dipping one way and the other at each side o' the island. But it iss a very clever man in Stornoway will tell me that you can make out what wass the height o' the mountain, by watching the dipping of the rocks on each side; and it iss an older country, this island, than any you will know of; and there were the mountains sixteen thousand feet high long before all this country and all Scotland and England wass covered with ice."
The young man was very desirous to show his interest in this matter, but did not know very well how. At last he ventured to ask whether there were any fossils in the blocks of gneiss that were scattered over the moorland.
"Fossils?" said Mackenzie. "Oh, I will not care much about such small things. If you will ask Sheila, she will tell you all about it, and about the small things she finds growing on the hills. That iss not of much consequence to me; but I will tell you what is the best thing the island grows: it is good girls and strong men—men that can go to the fishing, and come back to plough the fields and cut the peat and build the houses, and leave the women to look after the fields and the gardens when they go back again to the fisheries. But it is the old people—they are ferry cunning, and they will not put their money in the bank at Stornoway, but will hide it away about the house, and then they will come to Sheila and ask for money to put a pane of glass in their house. And she has promised that to every one who will make a window in the wall of their house; and she is very simple with them, and does not understand the old people that tell lies. But when I hear of it, I say nothing to Sheila—she will know nothing about it—but I hef a watch put upon the people; and it wass only yesterday I will take back two shillings she gave to an old woman of Borvabost that told many lies. What does a young thing know of these old people? She will know nothing at all, and it iss better for some one else to look after them, but not to speak one word of it to her."
"It must require great astuteness to manage a primitive people like that," said young Lavender with an air of conviction; and the old man eagerly and proudly assented, and went on to tell of the manifold diplomatic arts he used in reigning over his small kingdom, and how his subjects lived in blissful ignorance that this controlling power was being exercised.
They were startled by an exclamation from Ingram, who called to Mackenzie to pull up the horses just as they were passing over a small bridge.
"Look there, Lavender! did you ever see salmon jumping like that? Look at the size of them!"
"Oh, it iss nothing," said Mackenzie, driving on again. "Where you will see the salmon, it is in the narrows of Loch Roag, where they come into the rivers, and the tide is low. Then you will see them jumping; and if the water wass too low for a long time, they will die in hundreds and hundreds."
"But what makes them jump before they get into the rivers?"
Old Mackenzie smiled a crafty smile, as if he had found out all the ways and the secrets of the salmon: "They will jump to look about them—that iss all."