They traversed the picturesque Kyles of Bute--coasted the shores of Cantyre--touched at the beautiful port of Campbelton--doubled the cliffy promontory--passed Gigha--left Isla on the left--navigated the sound of Jura--prudently kept along the romantic coast of Lorn and Appin--sailed through the sound of Mull--drank whisky at Rum--and, afraid of the beds and bowls of the hospitable Skye, cast anchor in Garelock. What more they did, and where they farther navigated the iron shores and tusky rocks of the headlands, that grin in unsatiated hunger upon the waves and restless waters of the Minch, we shall not here pause to describe. Let it be enough that they were courageously resolved to double Cape Wrath, and to enjoy the midnight twilights, and the smuggled gin of Kirkwall;--the aurora borealis of the hyperborean region, with the fresh ling of Tamy Tomson’s cobble boat at Hoy, and the silvery glimpses of Ursa Major; together with the tasty whilks and lampets that Widow Calder o’ the Foul Anchor at Stromness, assured her customers in all her English--were pickled to a concupiscable state of excellence. Our immediate duty is to follow the steps of the Laird’s nephew; and without entering upon any unnecessary details,--our readers, we trust, have remarked, that we entertain a most commendable abhorrence of all circumstantiality,--we shall allow Allan M’Lean and his passengers to go where it pleased themselves, while we return to Camrachle; not that we have much more to say respecting what passed there, than that Walkinshaw, as had been previously arranged, set out alone for Glengael Castle, in Inverness-shire; the parting from his mother and sister being considerably alleviated by the reflection, that Ellen Frazer, in attendance on Mrs. Eadie, was soon to follow him. Why this should have given him any particular pleasure, we cannot understand; but, as the young man, to speak prosaically, was in love, possibly there are some juvenile persons capable of entering into his feelings. Not, however, knowing, of our own knowledge, what is meant by the phrase--we must just thus simply advert to the fact; expressing, at the same time, a most philosophical curiosity to be informed what it means, and why it is that young gentlemen and ladies, in their teens, should be more liable to the calamity than personages of greater erudition in the practices of the world. CHAPTER LXXXVI