Only the fact remains that, like the heather ale of old, Donald's
whisky was held in high esteem, its effects on the visitors who began in
numbers to seek the seclusion of his bothy, as "blessed" as were ever
those of that earlier mysterious beverage beloved of our Pictish
ancestors:
"From the bonny bells of heather
They brewed a drink long-syne,
Was sweeter far than honey,
Was stronger far than wine.
They brewed it, and they drank it,
And lay in a blessed swound
For days and days together
In their dwellings underground."
Donald M'Donald had formerly been a smuggler, but he had wearied of that
too active life, and he had longed for an occupation more sedentary and
less strenuous. Distilling suited his temperament to a nicety. It was
what he had been used to see as a boy when his parents were alive, for
his father before him had been a "skeely" man in that line. So Donald
built to himself a kind of hut in a wild, unfrequented glen. A little
burn, clear and brown, ran chattering past his door; on the knolls
amongst the heather grouse cocks crowed merrily in the sunny August
mornings, and the wail of curlews smote sadly on the ear through the
long-drawn summer twilights.
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