first and the last that I had in all my travels from Edinburgh; and had not this Highland Irish house helped me at a pinch, I should have sworn that all Scotland had not been so kind as to have bestowed a louse upon me: but with a shift that I had, I shifted off my cannibals, and was never more troubled with them.
The next day I travelled over an exceeding high mountain, called mount Skene, where I found the valley very warm before I went up it; but when I came to the top of it, my teeth began to dance in my head with cold, like Virginal's jacks;[1] and withal, a most familiar mist embraced me round, that I could not see thrice my length any way: withal, it yielded so friendly a dew, that did moisten through all my clothes: where the old Proverb of a Scottish mist was verified, in wetting me to the skin. Up and down, I think this hill is six miles, the way so uneven, stony, and full of bogs, quagmires, and long heath, that a dog with three legs will out-run a horse with four; for do what we could, we were four hours before we could pass it.
Thus with extreme travel, ascending and descending, mounting and alighting, I came at night to the place where I would be, in the Brae of Mar, which is a large county, all composed of such mountains, that Shooter's Hill, Gad's Hill, Highgate
- ↑ Virginal Jack.—A keyed instrument resembling a spinet.
