“It is all very well for the Macleods to interest themselves with these trumpery little local matters.  They play the part of grand patron; the people are proud to honor them; it is a condescension when they remember the name of the crofter’s youngest boy.  But as for me—­when I am taken about—­well, I do not like being stared at as if they thought I was wearing too fine clothes.  I don’t like being continually placed in a position of inferiority through my ignorance—­an old fool of a boatman saying ‘Bless me!’ when I have to admit that I don’t know the difference between a sole and a flounder.  I don’t want to know.  I don’t want to be continually told.  I wish these people would meet me on my own ground.  I wish the Macleods would begin to talk after dinner about the Lord Chamberlain’s interference with the politics of burlesque, and then perhaps they would not be so glib.  I am tired of hearing about John Maclean’s boat, and Donald Maclean’s horse, and Sandy Maclean’s refusal to pay the road-tax.  And as for the drinking of whiskey that these sailors get through—­well, it seems to me that the ordinary condition of things is reversed here altogether; and if they ever put up an asylum in Mull, it will be a lunatic asylum for incurable abstainers.”

“Now, now, Gerty!” said her father; but all the same he rather liked to see his daughter get on her high horse, for she talked with spirit, and it amused him.  “You must remember that Macleod looks on this as a holiday-time, and perhaps he may be a little lax in his regulations.  I have no doubt it is because he is so proud to have you on board his yacht that he occasionally gives the men an extra glass; and I am sure it does them no harm, for they seem to be as much in the water as out of it.”

She paid no heed to this protest.  She was determined to give free speech to her sense of wrong, and humiliation, and disappointment.

“What has been the great event since ever we came here—­the wildest excitement the island can afford?” she said, “the arrival of the pedlar!  A snuffy old man comes into the room, with a huge bundle wrapped up in dirty waterproof.  Then there is a wild clatter of Gaelic.  But suddenly, don’t you know, there are one or two glances at me; and the Gaelic stops; and Duncan or John, or whatever they call him, begins to stammer in English, and I am shown coarse stockings, and bundles of wool, and drugget petticoats, and cotton handkerchiefs.  And then Miss Macleod buys a number of things which I know she does not want; and I am looked on as a strange creature because I do not purchase a bundle of wool or a pair of stockings fit for a farmer.  The Autolycus of Mull is not impressive, pappy.  Oh, but I forgot the dramatic surprise—­that also was to be an event, I have no doubt.  I was suddenly introduced to a child dressed in a kilt; and I was to speak to him; and I suppose I was to be profoundly moved when I heard him speak to me in my own tongue in this out of the world place.  My own tongue!  The horrid little wretch has not an h.”