Their
conversation is decent and inoffensive. They disdain to drink for
their principles, and there is no disaffection at their tables. I
never heard a health offered by a Highlander that might not have
circulated with propriety within the precincts of the King's
palace.
Legal government has yet something of novelty to which they cannot
perfectly conform. The ancient spirit, that appealed only to the
sword, is yet among them. The tenant of Scalpa, an island
belonging to Macdonald, took no care to bring his rent; when the
landlord talked of exacting payment, he declared his resolution to
keep his ground, and drive all intruders from the Island, and
continued to feed his cattle as on his own land, till it became
necessary for the Sheriff to dislodge him by violence.
The various kinds of superstition which prevailed here, as in all
other regions of ignorance, are by the diligence of the Ministers
almost extirpated.
Of Browny, mentioned by Martin, nothing has been heard for many
years. Browny was a sturdy Fairy; who, if he was fed, and kindly
treated, would, as they said, do a great deal of work. They now
pay him no wages, and are content to labour for themselves.
In Troda, within these three-and-thirty years, milk was put every
Saturday for Greogach, or 'the Old Man with the Long Beard.'
Whether Greogach was courted as kind, or dreaded as terrible,
whether they meant, by giving him the milk, to obtain good, or
avert evil, I was not informed.
