The Merry Men and Other Tales and Fables

It was a beautiful morning in the late July when I set forth on foot for the last time for Aros. A boat had put me ashore the night before at Grisapol; I had such breakfast as the little inn afforded and leaving all my baggage till I had an occasion to come round for it by sea struck right across the promontory with a cheerful heart.*****I was far from being a native of these parts springing as I did from an unmixed lowland stock. But an uncle of mine Gordon Darnaway after a poor rough youth and some years at sea had married a young wife in the islands; Mary Maclean she was called the last of her family; and when she died in giving birth to a daughter Aros the sea-girt farm had remained in his possession. It brought him in nothing but the means of life as I was well aware; but he was a man whom ill-fortune had pursued; he feared cumbered as he was with the young child to make a fresh adventure upon life; and remained in Aros biting his nails at destiny. Years passed over his head in that isolation and brought neither help nor contentment. -excerpt from The Merry Men and other Tales and Fables