Our tea was now ready, and so were we, as we had walked fifteen miles since our lunch in the heather.  We were ushered into the parlour, where we were delighted to find a Cheshire gentleman, who told us he had been out shooting, and intended to leave by the coach at two a.m.  Hearing that two pedestrians had arrived, he had given up his bed, which he had engaged early in the day, and offered to rest on the sofa until the arrival of the mail-coach.  We thanked him for his kind consideration, for we were tired and footsore.  Who the gentleman was we did not discover; he knew Warrington and the neighbourhood, had visited Mr. Lyon of Appleton Hall near that town, and knew Mr. Patten of Bank Hall, who he said was fast getting “smoked out” of that neighbourhood.  We retired early, and left him in full possession of the coffee-room and its sofa.

At two o’clock in the morning we were wakened by the loud blowing of a horn, which heralded the approach of the mail-coach, and in another minute the trampling of horses’ feet beneath our window announced its arrival.  We rose hurriedly and rushed to the window, but in the hurry my brother dashed against a table, and down went something with a smash; on getting a light we found it was nothing more valuable than a water-bottle and glass, the broken pieces of which we carefully collected together, sopping up the water as best we could.  We were in time to see our friend off on the coach, with three horses and an enormous light in front, which travelled from Thurso to Helmsdale, a distance of fifty-eight miles, at the rate of eight miles per hour.

(Distance walked twenty-one and a half miles.)

Wednesday, September 20th.

We rose early, and while waiting for our breakfast talked with an old habitue of the hotel, who, after drawing our attention to the weather, which had now changed for the worse, told us that the building of the new pier, as he called it, at Wick had been in progress for seven or eight years, but the sea there was the stormiest in Britain, and when the wind came one way the waves washed the pier down again, so that it was now no bigger than it was two years ago.  He also told us he could remember the time when there was no mail-coach in that part of the country, the letters for that neighbourhood being sent to a man, a tailor by trade, who being often very busy, sent his wife to deliver them, so that Her Majesty’s mails were carried by a female!

[Illustration:  A STORM IN WICK HARBOUR.]

Almost the last piece of advice given us before leaving home was, “Mind that you always get a good breakfast before starting out in a morning,” and fortunately we did not neglect it on this occasion, for it proved one of the worst day’s walks that we ever experienced.  Helmsdale was our next stage, and a direct road led to it along the coast, a distance of sixteen miles.  But my brother was a man of original ideas, and he had made up his mind that we should walk there by an inland route, and climb over the Maiden’s Paps mountain on our way.