The evening sun was gleaming delightfully as we neared the scene of our labours, on the broad reaches of the Conon, and lighting up the fine woods and noble hills beyond. It would, I knew, be happiness to toil for some ten hours or so per day in so sweet a district, and then to find the evening all my own; but on reaching the work, we were told that we would require to set out in the morning for a place about four miles further to the west, where there were a few workmen engaged in building a jointure-house for the lady of a Ross-shire proprietor lately dead, and which lay off the river in a rather unpromising direction. And so, a little after sun-rise, we had to take the road with our tools slung across our backs, and before six o'clock we reached the rising jointure-house, and set to work. The country around was somewhat bare and dreary--a scene of bogs and moors, overlooked by a range of tame heathy hills; but in our immediate neighbourhood there was a picturesque little scene--rather a vignette than a picture--that in some degree redeemed the general deformity. Two meal-mills--the one small and old, the other larger and more modern--were placed beside each other, on ground so unequal, that, seen in front, the smaller seemed perched on the top of the larger; a group of tall graceful larches rose immediately beside the lower building, and hung their slim branches over the huge wheel; while a few aged ash-trees that encircled the mill-pond, which, in sending its waters down the hill, supplied both wheels in succession, sprang up immediately beside the upper erection, and shot their branches over its roof. On closing our labours for the evening, we repaired to the old mansion-house, about half a mile away, in which the dowager lady for whom we wrought still continued to reside, and where we expected to be accommodated, like the other workmen, with beds for the night. We had not been expected, however, and there were no beds provided for us; but as the Highland carpenter who had engaged to execute the woodwork of the new building had an entire bed to himself, we were told we might, if we pleased, lie three a-bed with him. But though the carpenter was, I daresay, a most respectable man, and a thorough Celt, I had observed during the day that he was miserably affected by a certain skin disease, which, as it was more prevalent in the past of Highland history than even at this time, must have rendered his ancestors of old very formidable, even without their broadswords; and so I determined on no account to sleep with him. I gave my master fair warning, by telling him what I had seen; but uncle David, always insensible to danger, conducted himself on the occasion as in the sinking boat or under the falling bank, and so went to bed with the carpenter; while I, stealing out, got into the upper story of an out-house; and, flinging myself down in my clothes on the floor, on a heap of straw, was soon fast asleep. I was,