The Man from the Clouds by J. Storer Clouston

On a raw grey February morning Mr. Thomas Sylvester Hobhouse bade a polite farewell to the medical gentlemen who had escorted him thus far, and stepped aboard the little steamer sailing from a certain small and ancient port out into the northern isles of that archipelago. This medical escort was a typical instance of my uncle's relentless thoroughness. He was not in the secret, and so all the way from Euston to those remote islands I had to endure the ordeal of sitting under the eye of a conscientious middle-aged gentleman with a strong Yorkshire accent and but one idea in his head: -- to keep in readiness to seize me at each station in case I leapt out of the carriage and headed for the refreshment rooms. We parted, I think, with equal relief on either side.

Under a heavy sky and a chilly wind we steamed through divers waterways, touched at divers islands, and shipped and unshipped many cattle. At last, when it had turned afternoon and the wind was beginning to feel wet as well as chilly, Thomas Sylvester stepped ashore on the modest pier at Ransay. Already he had noted from the deck his prospective host, pipe in mouth and hands in his knickerbocker pockets among a small knot of inhabitants, but to his relief there were no other familiar faces.