When they got to Borva, Lavender began to see that Mackenzie had laid
the most subtle plans for reconciling him to the hard weather of these
northern winters; and the young man, nothing loath, fell into his
ways, and was astonished at the amusement and interest that could
be got out of a residence in this bleak island at such a season.
Mackenzie discarded at once the feeble protections against cold and
wet which his guest had brought with him. He gave him a pair of his
own knickerbockers and enormous boots; he made him wear a frieze coat
borrowed from Duncan; he insisted on his turning down the flap of a
sealskin cap and tying the ends under his chin; and thus equipped they
started on many a rare expedition round the coast. But on their first
going out, Mackenzie, looking at him, said with some chagrin, "Will
they wear gloves when they go shooting in your country?"
"Oh," said Lavender, "these are only a pair of old dogskins I
use chiefly to keep my hands clean. You see I have cut out the
trigger-finger. And they keep your hands from being numbed, you know,
with the cold or the rain."
"There will be not much need of that after a little while," said
Mackenzie; and indeed, after half an hour's tramping over snow and
climbing over rocks, Lavender was well inclined to please the old man
by tossing the gloves into the sea, for his hands were burning with
heat.
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