ID Sandy, the shepherd on one of the smallest of the Hebridean islands, has lived alone now for twenty years, writes Macnair Reid in the "Manchester Guardian."
I learned this from him when I dropped in casually one evening recently.
I found him in the kitchen of his little thatched-roof cottage.
The table was drawn near the fire, for the weather was bitterly cold. At, his feet were his two collies, They knew me by this time, and when I entered they thumped their bushy tails on the floor where they lay.
Sandy found a cup and saucer and poured me some of his freshly made tea, He was himself scraping out the last of his second boiled egg. which he ate with great squares of oatcake thickly spread with butter. On the table was a brown earthen jar filled with primroses. This was at the centre, and elsewhere arranged round it were glass dishes with bramble jam. island honey, and marmalade. Two large plates. blue-rimmed, held soda scones and pancakes, or drop scones as they are called in many other parts.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.