Here I found myself upon the north coast, and took the road eastward between the mountains and the sea.  It was a beautiful region of desolation.  There were rocky glens cutting across the road, and occasionally a brawling stream ran down to the salt water, breaking the line of cliffs with a little bay and a half-moon of yellow sand.  The heather covered all the hills.  There were no trees, and but few houses.  The chief signs of human labour were the rounded piles of peat, and the square cuttings in the moor marking the places where the subterranean wood-choppers had gathered their harvests.  The long straths were once cultivated, and every patch of arable land had its group of cottages full of children.  The human harvest has always been the richest and most abundant that is raised in the Highlands; but unfortunately the supply exceeded the demand; and so the crofters were evicted, and great flocks of sheep were put in possession of the land; and now the sheep-pastures have been changed into deer-forests; and far and wide along the valleys and across the hills there is not a trace of habitation, except the heaps of stones and the clumps of straggling bushes which mark the sites of lost homes.  But what is one country’s loss is another country’s gain.  Canada and the United States are infinitely the richer for the tough, strong, fearless, honest men that were dispersed from these lonely straths to make new homes across the sea.

It was after sundown when I reached the straggling village of Melvich, and the long day’s journey had left me weary.  But the inn, with its red-curtained windows, looked bright and reassuring.  Thoughts of dinner and a good bed comforted my spirit—­prematurely.  For the inn was full.  There were but five bedrooms and two parlours.  The gentlemen who had the neighbouring shootings occupied three bedrooms and a parlour; the other two bedrooms had just been taken by the English fishermen who had passed me in the road an hour ago in the mail-coach (oh! why had I not suspected that treacherous vehicle?); and the landlord and his wife assured me, with equal firmness and sympathy, that there was not another cot or pair of blankets in the house.  I believed them, and was sinking into despair when Sandy M’Kaye appeared on the scene as my angel of deliverance.  Sandy was a small, withered, wiry man, dressed in rusty gray, with an immense white collar thrusting out its points on either side of his chin, and a black stock climbing over the top of it.  I guessed from his speech that he had once lived in the lowlands.  He had hoped to be engaged as a gillie by the shooting party, but had been disappointed.  He had wanted to be taken by the English fishermen, but another and younger man had stepped in before him.  Now Sandy saw in me his Predestinated Opportunity, and had no idea of letting it post up the road that night to the next village.  He cleared his throat respectfully and cut into the conversation.