Lady Victoria Campbell

276 NIGHEAN AN DIUC
and she went through many a rough day to keep
her part of the tryst. On one occasion, it took four
men, walking beside her pony-chair, to ensure that
it was not blown bodily off the precipitous road
with her inside it, so fierce were the blasts which were
sweeping over the place ; and the girls, having no
one to hold them on to the road, had not faced the
elements.
The Duke, writing to her about this time, alarmed
by her journeys, and not in a mood to do justice to
a place which was causing her so much over-exertion
and fatigue, asks, in pretended ignorance, what
keeps her in Mull.
My dear V.,
I was very glad to hear this morning from
Bunessan, and admire your pluck in going by that
beastly boat, all the way round by Coll, Tiree, and
Iona. Could you not get to Bunessan by a shorter
route ? And, now, what on earth are you going
to do at Bunessan ? The dullest place on earth !
Why don't you go to Tiree, with fine skies, and fine
seas, instead of muddy ebbs and dirty seaweed ?
Lady Victoria's correspondents loved teasing her
on her choice of abodes. Her dear " Rev., Sir James,
Dean " called her Ethica " your sand-bank," and
she returned their chaff, giving as good as she got ;
she loaded them all with her pity that their minds
were unable to understand how her fines had fallen
unto her in fair places.