Sometimes it happened that the Highland hospitality, which
welcomed us with all the variety of mountain fare, preparations
of milk and eggs, and girdle-cakes of various kinds, as well as
more substantial dainties, according to the inhabitant's means of
regaling the passenger, descended rather too exuberantly on
Donald MacLeish in the shape of mountain dew. Poor Donald! he
was on such occasions like Gideon's fleece--moist with the noble
element, which, of course, fell not on us. But it was his only
fault, and when pressed to drink DOCH-AN-DORROCH to my ladyship's
good health, it would have been ill taken to have refused the
pledge; nor was he willing to do such discourtesy. It was, I
repeat, his only fault. Nor had we any great right to complain;
for if it rendered him a little more talkative, it augmented his
ordinary share of punctilious civility, and he only drove slower,
and talked longer and more pompously, than when he had not come
by a drop of usquebaugh. It was, we remarked, only on such
occasions that Donald talked with an air of importance of the
family of MacLeish; and we had no title to be scrupulous in
censuring a foible, the consequences of which were confined
within such innocent limits.
Pages:
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225