Being of a very lively and amusing disposition, he took great pleasure in inventing tales and fabricating innocent anecdotes, to gull the most simple and ignorant among the small cotters on the Lochlinn estate.
Among the most conspicuous of his victims and dupes were some half-dozen small cotters, living in a wild and unfrequented point, or rue, at the south entrance of Lochlinn. This solitary spot was rendered almost inaccessible by land, by a barrier of cliffs which separated it from the main, and through facing the Atlantic was liable to strong westerly gales, from which it derived the singular name in Gaelic of Ton-ghaoi (or Windy-Bottom). The inhabitants of this sequestered point were, as already mentioned, owing to their seldom mixing or associating with the outer world, yet ignorant of many enlightened and modern facts regarding the construction of the globe and firmament. In short, they believed the earth to be a flat or plain surface, bordered or capped over with the firmament, which was composed of some clear substance, through which the sun, moon, and stars travelled.
The winter before the opening of our tale having been unusually wet and stormy, Donald Munroe had little to occupy him, he therefore bethought himself of visiting Ton Ghaoi for Otter-hunting, and also to give these simple people a taste of his pibroch, of which they were passionately fond.
On leaving, his father commissioned him to tell the Ton Ghaoi people that the factor's (Mr. Stuart's) boats were in need of repair for conveying seaweed for manure in the spring; they required oakum for that purpose, and as these people were always supplied with that article from pieces of cable cast on their wild coast from wrecks, that he (the factor) would thank them for sending him some.
On arriving among these simple people, Donald gave them a hearty taste of his music (all having gathered round him in the house he lodged at for the night), and danced to their hearts' content to the sound of his lively reels.
After this the piper was besieged and pressed on to open his budget of news concerning the outer world, and
