Our bad accommodation here made me uneasy, and almost fretful.  Dr. Johnson was calm.  I said, he was so from vanity.  JOHNSON.  ’No, Sir, it is from philosophy.’  It pleased me to see that the Rambler could practise so well his own lessons.

I resumed the subject of my leaving him on the road, and endeavoured to defend it better.  He was still violent upon that head, and said, ’Sir, had you gone on, I was thinking that I should have returned with you to Edinburgh, and then have parted from you, and never spoken to you more.’

I sent for fresh hay, with which we made beds for ourselves, each in a room equally miserable.  Like Wolfe, we had a ’choice of difficulties[447]’.  Dr. Johnson made things easier by comparison.  At M’Queen’s, last night, he observed that few were so well lodged in a ship.  To-night he said, we were better than if we had been upon the hill.  He lay down buttoned up in his great coat.  I had my sheets spread on the hay, and my clothes and great coat laid over me, by way of blankets.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2.

I had slept ill.  Dr. Johnson’s anger had affected me much.  I considered that, without any bad intention, I might suddenly forfeit his friendship; and was impatient to see him this morning.  I told him how uneasy he had made me, by what he had said, and reminded him of his own remark at Aberdeen, upon old friendships being hastily broken off.  He owned he had spoken to me in passion; that he would not have done what he threatened; and that, if he had, he should have been ten times worse than I; that forming intimacies, would indeed be ’limning the water[448],’ were they liable to such sudden dissolution; and he added, ‘Let’s think no more on’t.’  BOSWELL.  ’Well then, Sir, I shall be easy.  Remember, I am to have fair warning in case of any quarrel.  You are never to spring a mine upon me.  It was absurd in me to believe you.’  JOHNSON.  ’You deserved about as much, as to believe me from night to morning.’

After breakfast, we got into a boat for Sky.  It rained much when we set off, but cleared up as we advanced.  One of the boatmen, who spoke English, said, that a mile at land was two miles at sea.  I then observed, that from Glenelg to Armidale in Sky, which was our present course, and is called twelve, was only six miles:  but this he could not understand.  ’Well, (said Dr. Johnson,) never talk to me of the native good sense of the Highlanders.  Here is a fellow who calls one mile two, and yet cannot comprehend that twelve such imaginary miles make in truth but six.’