I saw some decent blue cloth
cloaks of a fashion that made me think they had served four generations
at least. The lasses wore their own shining hair "streeling" down their
backs or neatly braided up; abundant locks they had, brown color
prevailing. Fresher, rosier, comelier girls than these mountain maidens
it would be hard to find.
The men's clothing, though poor, and in some instances patched in an
artistic fashion, was scrupulously clean. In the congregation were some
young men well dressed, bold and upright, whose bearing, cut of
whiskers, and watch chains, showed that they had lived among our trans-
Atlantic cousins of the great Republic.
The priest of the hills is the one man whom these people trust. The
prevailing type of landlord has been their enemy and oppressor. The
priest has been friend, counsellor, sympathizer, helper, as well as
clergyman, and so he is _soggarth aroon_.
The storm continues at intervals. I get one clear, cold bit of fair
weather to climb to the top of Doune hill, where the Ulster kings used
to be crowned, a sugar-loaf shaped hill with the top broken off, rising
in isolated grandeur up high enough to give one a breather to get to the
top.
The weather returned to its normal condition of storm, and I was shut up
again.
