_Saturday_, _August_ 27_th_.—Before I rose, Mrs. Macfarlane came into my
room to see if I wanted anything, and told me she should send the servant
up with a basin of whey, saying, ‘We make very good whey in this
country;’ indeed, I thought it the best I had ever tasted; but I cannot
tell how this should be, for they only make skimmed-milk cheeses. I
asked her for a little bread and milk for our breakfast, but she said it
would be no trouble to make tea, as she must make it for the family; so
we all breakfasted together. The cheese was set out, as before, with
plenty of butter and barley-cakes, and fresh baked oaten cakes, which, no
doubt, were made for us: they had been kneaded with cream, and were
excellent. All the party pressed us to eat, and were very jocose about
the necessity of helping out their coarse bread with butter, and they
themselves ate almost as much butter as bread. In talking of the French
and the present times, their language was what most people would call
Jacobinical. They spoke much of the oppressions endured by the
Highlanders further up, of the absolute impossibility of their living in
any comfort, and of the cruelty of laying so many restraints on
emigration. Then they spoke with animation of the attachment of the
clans to their lairds: ‘The laird of this place, Glengyle, where we live,
could have commanded so many men who would have followed him to the
death; and now there are none left.’ It appeared that Mr. Macfarlane,
and his wife’s brother, Mr. Macalpine, farmed the place, inclusive of the
whole vale upwards to the mountains, and the mountains themselves, under
the lady of Glengyle, the mother of the young laird, a minor. It was a
sheep-farm.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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