“HONORED MRS. LAVENDER:--It waz Mairi waz sayin that you will want me to write to you, bit I am not good at the writin whatever, and it was 2 years since I was written to Amerika, to John Ferkason that kept the tea-shop in Stornoway, and was trooned in coming home the very last year before this. It waz Mairi will say you will like a letter as well as any one that waz goin to Amerika, for the news and the things, and you will be as far away from us as if you waz living in Amerika or Glaska. But there is not much news, for the lads they hev all pulled up the boats, and they are away to Wick, and Sandy McDougal that waz living by Loch Langavat, he will be going too, for he waz up at the sheilings when Mrs. Paterson’s lasses was there with the cows, and it waz Jeanie the youngest and him made it up, and he haz twenty-five pounds in the bank, which is a good thing too mirover for the young couple. It waz many a one waz sayin when the cows and the sheep waz come home from the sheilings that never afore waz Miss Sheila away from Lock Roag when the cattle would be swimmin across the loch to the island; and I will say to many of them verra well you will wait and you will see Miss Sheila back again in the Lews, and it wazna allwas you would lif away from your own home where you waz born and the people will know you from the one year to the next. John McNichol of Habost he will be verra bad three months or two months ago, and we waz thinkin he will die, and him with a wife and five bairns too, and four cows and a cart, but the doctor took a great dale of blood from him, and he is now verra well whatever, though wakely on the legs. It would hev been a bad thing if Mr. McNichol was dead, for he will be verra good at pentin a door, and he has between fifteen pounds and ten pounds in the bank at Stornoway, and four cows, too, and a cart, and he is a ferra religious man, and has great skill o’ the psalm-tunes, and he toesna get trunk now more as twice or as three times in the two weeks. It was his dochter Betsy, a verra fine lass that waz come to Borvabost, and it waz the talk among many that Alister-nan-each he waz thinkin of making up to her, but there will be a great laugh all over the island, and she will be verra angry and say she will not have him, no, if his house had a door of silfer to it, for she will have no one that toesna go to the Caithness fishins wi the other lads. It waz blew verra hard here the last night or two or three. There is a great deal of salmon in the rivers; and Mr. Mackenzie he will be going across to Grimersta the day after to-morrow, or the next day before that, and the English gentlemen have been there more as two or three weeks, and they will be getting verra good sport whatever. Mairi