Huts However Are Not More Uniform
Than Palaces; And This Which We Were Inspecting Was Very Far From
One Of The Meanest, For It Was Divided Into Several Apartments; And
Its Inhabitants Possessed Such Property As A Pastoral Poet Might
Exalt Into Riches.
When we entered, we found an old woman boiling goats-flesh in a
kettle.
She spoke little English, but we had interpreters at hand;
and she was willing enough to display her whole system of economy.
She has five children, of which none are yet gone from her. The
eldest, a boy of thirteen, and her husband, who is eighty years
old, were at work in the wood. Her two next sons were gone to
Inverness to buy meal, by which oatmeal is always meant. Meal she
considered as expensive food, and told us, that in Spring, when the
goats gave milk, the children could live without it. She is
mistress of sixty goats, and I saw many kids in an enclosure at the
end of her house. She had also some poultry. By the lake we saw a
potatoe-garden, and a small spot of ground on which stood four
shucks, containing each twelve sheaves of barley. She has all this
from the labour of their own hands, and for what is necessary to be
bought, her kids and her chickens are sent to market.
With the true pastoral hospitality, she asked us to sit down and
drink whisky. She is religious, and though the kirk is four miles
off, probably eight English miles, she goes thither every Sunday.
We gave her a shilling, and she begged snuff; for snuff is the
luxury of a Highland cottage.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 37 of 212
Words from 9569 to 9849
of 56696
