When it was time to retire for the night, my hostess would take a live peat between the tongs in one hand and a candle in the other, and sally out into the night, then up an outside stair, without any rail, to my barn, where she lit the candle, and left me. I shall never forget the moaning of the wind through the open louver-boards that served for windows, the gusts that swept through the place and nearly blew out the candle, and the shrieking of the sea-fowl, like the agonised cries of drowning seamen. But the heather was soft, the blankets warm, and with youth on one’s side one slept soundly till the morning. [Sidenote: A GEOLOGIST IN SKYE] At my departure I pressed my kind host and hostess to accept remuneration for their services, but they rejected the notion almost with indignation. At last Charles was persuaded to let me send him some remembrance when I got back to the south country. He said he would prefer a book, and when asked to choose his book, he timidly enquired whether he might have ‘_Josaiphus_.’ Although his knowledge of English was scanty, he used to read English books aloud to his children, but I am afraid that much of what he read must have been unintelligible both to him and to them. However, I procured and sent him an illustrated copy of _Josephus_, which, I was told, he used to show with pride as the largest book on his shelf. A more distant excursion took me to the extreme north-eastern part of Skye. After spending some time on the shore of Loch Staffin and making a collection of the well-preserved fossils to be obtained there, I started late one afternoon for the hamlet of Lonfern, in which my friends at the Manse of Snizort, told me I would get a warm welcome at Mrs. Nicolson’s, if I mentioned that I came from them. The distance was only a few miles, but there was much to interest me by the way, so that the gloaming had set in, and still no sign could be seen of the hamlet. At last I came upon a man returning from the hill with a creel of peats on his back, and asked him the path to Lonfern, when a conversation ensued, which may here be given as an illustration of crofter inquisitiveness. ‘Lonfern! Are you gaun to Lonfern? And where hae ye come frae?’ ‘I have come this evening from Loch Staffin.’ ‘Frae Loch Staffin! and ye’ll be a marchant?’ ‘No, I’m not a merchant.’ ‘Not a marchant! and what is’t that ye’ll be carryin’ in your bag?’ ‘My bag is full of stones.’ ‘Full of _stones_! Ochan, ochan! d’ye tell me that? STONES in your bag. And what wull ye be doin’ wi’ the stones?’ ‘Well, I mean to take them south and look at them all very carefully.’ ‘Lookin’ at stones! Well, well! And have ye no stones in your ain countrie?’ ‘O yes, plenty of them; but they are not the same as you have in Skye. But will you not tell me how I am to go to reach Lonfern.’ ‘To Lonfern! Ow ay, to be sure, the way to Lonfern. But what use are the stones to you?’