ACROSS  MORVEN.                                151
But very wrongly, as I was soon to see; for I had not
been half an hour at the inn (standing in the door most
of the time, to ease my eyes from the peat smoke) when
a thunderstorm came close by, the springs broke in a
little hill on which the inn stood, and one end of the
house became a running water. Places of public enter-
tainment were bad enough all over Scotland in those
days ; yet it was a wonder to myself, when I had to go
from the fireside to the bed in which I slept, wading
over the shoes.
Early in my next day's journey I overtook a little,
stout, solemn man, walking very slowly with his toes
turned out, sometimes reading in a book and sometimes
marking the place with his finger, and dressed decently
and plainly in something of a clerical style.
This I found to be another catechist, but of a dif-
ferent order from the blind man of Mull: being indeed
one of those sent out by the Edinburgh Society for
Propagating Christian Knowledge, to evangelise the
more savage places of the Highlands. His name was
Henderland; he spoke with the broad south-country
tongue, which I was beginning to weary for the sound
of; and besides common countryship, we soon found
we had a more particular bond of interest. For my
good friend, the minister of Essendean, had translated
into the Gaelic in his by-time a number of hymns and
pious books, which Henderland used in his work, and
held in great esteem. Indeed it was one of these he
was carrying and reading when we met.