We drove to the Pettybaw Inn and Posting Establishment, and, alighting, dismissed the driver. We had still three good hours of daylight, although it was five o'clock, and we refreshed ourselves with a delicious cup of tea before looking for lodgings. We consulted the greengrocer, the baker, and the flesher, about furnished apartments, and started on our quest, not regarding the little posting establishment as a possibility. Apartments we found to be very scarce, and in one or two places that were quite suitable the landlady refused to do any cooking. We wandered from house to house, the sun shining brighter and brighter, and Pettybaw looking lovelier and lovelier; and as we were refused shelter again and again, we grew more and more enamored, as is the manner of human kind. The blue sea sparkled, and Pettybaw Sands gleamed white a mile or two in the distance, the pretty stone church raised its carved spire from the green trees, the manse next door was hidden in vines, the sheep lay close to the gray stone walls and the young lambs nestled close beside them, while the song of the burn, tinkling merrily down the glade on the edge of which we stood, and the cawing of the rooks in the little wood, were the only sounds to be heard.
Salemina, under the influence of this sylvan solitude, nobly declared that she could and would do without a set bath-tub, and proposed building a cabin and living near to nature's heart.
"I think, on the whole, we should be more comfortable living near to the inn-keeper's heart," I answered. "Let us go back there and pass the night, trying thus the bed and breakfast, with a view to seeing what they are like,--though they did say in Edinburgh that nobody thinks of living in these wayside hostelries."
Back we went, accordingly, and after ordering dinner came out and strolled idly up the main street. A small sign in the draper's window, heretofore overlooked, caught our eye. "House and Garden To Let. Inquire Within." Inquiring within with all possible speed, we found the draper selling winseys, the draper's assistant tidying the ribbon-box, the draper's wife sewing in one corner, and the draper's baby playing on the clean floor. We were impressed favorably, and entered into negotiations without delay.