Historical Tales and Legends of the Highlands

📘 This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1878 edition. Excerpt: ... THE FIEST GAUGEK IN SKTE. About one hundred and fifty years ago, there lived in Dumfries a worthy man of the name of Gillespie, who followed the honest, though highly unpopular, occupation of excise officer or gauger. At the time my tale begins, he had just been appointed to a new district in the Highlands, and it is while on his journey there that I first make his acquaintance. Behold him then, a tall, thin, ungainly figure, with a consequential, self-important air, dressed in a coat of bottle-green cloth, with large silver-gilt buttons, a striped yellow waistcoat, corduroy breeches, and top boots. A tall peaked hat, with narrow brim, a large drab overcoat, and a sword-stick, completed his costume. He was mounted on a small shaggy pony or "gearran," with neither shoes, bit, nor saddle, whose head was secured by the taod, or Highland bridle, made of horse hair, and in lieu of a saddle was a housing of straw mat, on which was placed a wooden pack-saddle, called a "strathair," having two projections like horns, on which was hung the luggage of the rider. This "strathair" was kept in position by girths of straw rope, and was prevented from going too far forward by an antique kind of crupper, consisting of a stick passing under the animal's tail, and braced at each end to the "strathair." Having jogged along for a considerable time through a lonely moor, without meeting any sign of human habitations, it occurred to Mr Gillespie that he had lost his way. While staring about for something to guide him, he was nearly dismounted by the sudden starting of his pony, and on pulling up, he discovered that he had almost ridden over a young red-headed Highlander, who was lying among the heather, indolently supporting his head on one hand, while with...