It soon became clear, from our conversation with the good couple, that our toils were crowned with success. This really had been Nicol's property; it still belonged to a member of his family. That line of gray heights seen from the door was what Burns alluded to when he facetiously dubbed his friend 'Illustrious lord of Laggan's many hills.' This cottage had been the retreat of the High School master in his hours of rustic vacation. There was a difficulty, which we discussed over a glass of most welcome spirits and water furnished by the farmer: Did this neat room form a part of the dwelling of Nicol? It appeared not. It was a modern addition. The original house, to which it adjoined upon a different level of flooring, was the merest hut, of one room, with a line of box-beds dividing the sitting-place from a small space, which, being rudely causewayed like a cow-house, had probably been employed in keeping animals of some kind. Such was the humble _tuguriolum_ of Willie Nicol of the 'peck o' maut'--an interesting memorial of the simplicity of country life in Scotland at the close of the eighteenth century. We did not venture to indulge in any dreamings as to festive meetings between Burns and Nicol in this humble shed; for we felt that here there was no certain ground to go upon. Enough that we could be assured of Burns and Nicol having been together here; two most singular examples of the peasant class of their country, and one of them an unapproached master of his country's lyre, whose strains have floated to the ends of the earth, and promise to last through many ages.