First of all, for the Highlands are hospitable, something must be eaten. The table in a trice is heaped with tempting array--everything the produce of the farm itself, and not the less delicious for the fair hands that have placed it there.
Then, hey, presto! the scene is changed. A space has been cleared in the barn, and lamps hung from the rafters and on the walls light it up in gipsy fashion, casting fantastic shadows into the far corners behind the great heaps of warm oat-straw. A skirl of the pipes, and in a moment partners are chosen. Then more than one secret slips out to the curious eye; for much there is to be read in the language of a blush and a look. The lads stand back to back, two and two, their partners facing them, and as the music takes to the air, featly they trip it in the merry figure-of-eight. Presently, opposite their neighbours’ partners, comes the chance for spirit and agility, and many a wild capering step is done by the lads with arm in air and a whirl of the tartans, while the lasses, more modest, with downcast look, hold back their skirts daintily as they foot it with toe and heel. Faster and faster the music gathers, faster flies the dance with its changing step, with the threading of eights and the Highland fling, while cheeks take flame, eyes flash wildly, and the barn floor shakes in rhythm. More and more breathless grow lasses and lads, but no one will yield to stop, till at last, with a wild whoop, they fling themselves all at once upon the straw, and the music slowly runs out.
Again and again it will be renewed, with the wilder “Reel o’ Hulochan” for a change, or some wonderful old-fashioned country dance; and only some time in the morning, long after the old folk have gone to bed, will the merry party break up, tired but delighted, to go home in twos and threes along the hills.
“Hamish will just be putting the mare in the cart to drive over the ladies, so the need is not so great for hurrying.”
The arrangement of the crofter’s wife is hospitably meant, if somewhat ominously expressed. Conveyance of any kind, moreover, will be most acceptable to the two ladies of our party after their long ramble on seashore and moorland; and the more primitive it prove, the more fittingly will it end the memories of the day. “Meanwhile ‘the need is not so great for hurrying,’” repeats one of the two slyly, out of hearing of her hostess, and, pulling off her gloves, proceeds to gather pleasure from the blazing chimneyful of peat. Leaning back in the warm light, she stirs the white feathery ash with a dainty boot, and discovers, to the boot’s cost and her own surprise, that the whiteness of the peat conceals a glow of burning red. It is a peculiarity of the Highland character, as of the Highland fuel, this fire within the grey exterior, needing only a touch or a breath to show itself.