"'You can be at no loss to conjecture who we are, and what our ordinary occupation is; but you have nothing to fear; for, though we live by what is called violence, we are not destitute of humanity. Our depredations are never marked by cruelty, and seldom by blood; and those whom necessity has thrown on our care have never either been treated with barbarity or suffered to want. We extort only a little from those who are able to spare it, and rather augment than diminish the property of the poor. We know, alas! too well what the consequences would be were we to fall into the hands of the rich and powerful; but we are resigned to our fate. We can only die once, and our enemies can inflict no greater vengeance upon us. Miserable we may be; but we have a fellow-feeling for sufferers, and never take advantage of distress: in truth, it is from no sordid love of gain, nor is it to pander to vicious habits or immoral purposes, that we live in this manner. It is because we have no other mode of support; for, after the cruelties that have been perpetrated upon their disarmed opponents, it were in vain to expect assistance or relief at the hands of our Hanoverian oppressors. "'You see our quarters, and shall have every accommodation they can afford you: and, if you can trust us, who have neither inclination nor reason to deceive you, we give you a hearty welcome to these adamantine abodes, and that with the most perfect sincerity. Our fare is homely but wholesome; and our beds, though coarse, are clean. Nor be under any concern for your horses; they too shall share our protection and hospitality. We have no hay; but they shall not want. Stables we have none; but can shelter them, for one night at least, from the inclemency of the weather.' "This address revived our courage, which was not a little augmented upon being handed a bicker of whisky--mountain dew of the most delicious description; at least I thought so then, and have never changed my opinion since. Talk of the wines of Spain, or of France, or the Rhine, I never felt from them half the delight I experienced in quaffing the nectar of the Gael. When we had finished, a supper was laid before us which might have provoked the appetite of an English alderman, and that is saying a good deal. We had blackcock and ptarmigan broiled, or, as it is called in Scotland, brandered; fine black-faced Highland mutton done to a turn in the live ashes; and a stew of snipes and wild duck, the aroma of which was perfectly ambrosial. I did ample justice to the good cheer, and ate with as much coolness and self-possession as if I had been seated in Dolly's chop-house, in place of an apparently interminable cave surrounded by caterans; for so the Highland banditti are termed.