and first breathed his mountain air. His source of recreation was now limited to his boat, and visiting the Islets of Lochlinn to shoot sea-fowl. On one of these trips, attended by Donald, they sailed close by McKay's side of the estuary, and to their great joy beheld Bella McKay and Mary Grant on one of their charitable excursions, going to visit a lonely woman, who lived in a small boothie by the sea-side, whose name was Ni Ruari (or Rodrick's Daughter).
This poor creature had never extended her acquaintance further than the immediate neighbourhood of Lochlinn, and was therefore ignorant of many habits, customs, and other modern subjects; as an illustration of her want of knowledge, we will give one instance of her peculiarities.
One shooting season, in the absence of the laird, a Colonel Robertson took up his quarters at the Castle. Being a Lowlander, and partial to the good things of this life, he invariably replenished his table with many delicacies which were procured in those parts at a very moderate rate, such as fowls, eggs, &c. Ni Ruari, having heard from a neighbour the excellent market which presented itself at the Castle for their surplus fowls and eggs, resolved to benefit by the opportunity, and started to the Castle with a pair of fowls and a dozen eggs, with the proceeds of which she intended to procure some tea, to which she was extremely partial.
On approaching the Castle she was encountered by an enormous turkey cock, which was the terror of all females, particularly those wearing any article of red, and as Ni Ruari had unfortunately enveloped herself in her long laid-up red tartan cloak, she became an object for the bird's wrath.
He accordingly arrested her progress by strutting before her on the path with his bristling plumage, large scarlet appendages of comb over his beak and breast, giving utterance to that gobbling sound peculiar to them. Turkeys being very scarce in those parts, except about gentlemen's houses, and as Ni Ruari had never in her life seen or heard of the like, concluded at once it must be the Corineal (Colonel) of whose person she was as
