Chapter II: Part 2

A quiet, sunny nook in the hollow it is, this square old garden with its gravelled walks and high stone walls; a sheltered retreat left peaceful here, under the overhanging woods, when the stream of the world’s traffic turned off into another channel. The grey stone house, separated from the garden by a thick privet hedge and moss-grown court, is the last dwelling at this end of the quiet market-town, and, with its slate roof and substantial double storey, is of a class greatly superior to its neighbours, whose warm red tiles are just visible over the walls. It stands where the old road to Edinburgh dipped to cross a little stream, and, in the bygone driving days, the stage-coach, after rattling out of the town, and down the steep road here, between the white, tile-roofed houses, when it crossed the bridge opposite the door, began to ascend through deep, embowering woods. But a more direct highway to the capital was opened many a year ago; just beyond the bridge a wall was built across the road; and the grey house with its garden was left secluded in the sunny hollow. The rapid crescendo of the coach-guard’s horn no longer wakens the echoes of the place, and the striking of the clock every hour in the town steeple is the only sound that reaches the spot from the outside world.

The hot sun beats on the garden here all day, from the hour in the morning when it gets above the grand old beeches of the wood, till it sets away beyond the steeple of the town. But in the hottest hours it is always refreshing to look over the weather-stained tiles of the long low toolhouse at the mossy green of the hill that rises there, cool and shaded, under the trees. Now and then a bull, of the herd that feeds in the glades of the wood, comes down that shaded bank, whisking his tawny sides with an angry tail to keep off the pestering flies, and his deep bellow reverberates in the hollow. In the early morning, too, before the dewy freshness has left the air, the sweet mellow pipe of the mavis, and the fuller notes of the blackbird, float across from these green depths, and ever and again throughout the day the clear whistle of some chaffinch comes from behind the leaves.

Standing among the deep box edgings and gravelled paths, it is not difficult to recall the place’s glory of forty years ago--the glory upon which the ancient plum-trees, blossoming yet against the sunny walls, looked down. To the eye of Thought time and space obstruct no clouds, and in the atmosphere of Memory the gardens of the past bloom for us always.

Forty years ago! It is the day of the fashion for Dutch bulbs, when fabulous prices were paid for an unusually “fancy” specimen, and in this garden some of the finest of them are grown. The tulips are in flower, and the long narrow beds which, with scant space between, fill the entire middle of the garden, are ablaze with the glory of their bloom. Queenly flowers they are and tall, each one with a gentle pedigree--for nothing common or unknown has entrance here--and crimson, white, and yellow--the velvet petals of some almost black--striped with rare and exquisite markings, they raise to the sun their large chaste chalices. The perfection of shape is theirs, as they rise from the midst of their green, lance-like leaves; no amorous breeze ever invades the spot to dishevel their array or filch their treasures; and the precious golden dust lies in the deep heart of each, untouched as yet save by the sunshine and the bee. When the noonday heat becomes too strong, awnings will be spread above the beds, for with the fierce glare, the petals would open out and the pollen fall before the delicate task of crossing had been done.

But see! through the gate in the privet hedge there enters as fair a sight. Ladies in creamy flowered muslins and soft Indian silks, shading their eyes from the sun with tiny parasols, pink and white and green,--grand dames of the county, and grander from a distance; gentlemen in blue swallow-tailed coats and white pantaloons--gallants escorting their ladies, and connoisseurs to examine the flowers--all, conducted by the owner, list-book in hand, advance into the garden and move along the beds.

To that owner--an old man with white hair, clear grey eyes, and the memory of their youthful red remaining in his cheeks--this is the gala time of the year. Next month the beds of ranunculus will bloom, and pinks and carnations will follow; but the tulips are his most famous flowers, and, for the few days while they are in perfection, he leads about, with his old-world courtesy, replying to a question here, giving a name or a pedigree there, a constant succession of visitors. These are his hours of triumph. For eleven months he has gone about his beloved pursuit, mixing loams and leaf-moulds and earths, sorting, drying, and planting the bulbs, and tending their growth with his own hand--for to whose else could he trust the work?--and now his toil has blossomed, and its worth is acknowledged. Plants envied by peers, plants not to be bought, are there, and he looks into the heart of each tenderly, for he knows it a child of his own.

Presently he leads his visitors back into the house, across the mossy stones of the court where, under glass frames, thousands of auricula have just passed their bloom, and up the railed stair to the sunny door in the house-side. He leads them into the shady dining-room, with its furniture of dark old bees-waxed mahogany, where there is a slight refreshment of wine and cake--rare old Madeira, and cake, rich with eggs and Indian spice, made by his daughter’s own hand. Jars and glasses are filled with sweet-smelling flowers, and the breath of the new-blown summer comes in through the open doors.

The warm sunlight through the brown linen blind finds its way across the room, and falls with subdued radiance on the middle picture on the opposite wall. The dark eyes, bright cheeks, and cherry mouth were those of the old man’s wife--the wife of his youth. She died while the smile was yet on her lip, and the tear of sympathy in her eye; for she was the friend of all, and remains yet a tender memory among the neighbouring poor. The old man is never seen to look upon that picture; but on Sundays for hours he sits in reverie by his open Bible here in the room alone. In a velvet case in the corner press lies a silver medal. It was pinned to his breast by the Third George on a great day at Windsor long ago. For the old man, peacefully ending his years here among the flowers, in his youth served the king, and fought, as a naval officer, through the French and Spanish wars. As he goes quietly about, alone, among his garden beds, perchance he hears again sometimes the hoarse word of command, the quick tread of the men, and the deep roar of the heavy guns as his ship goes into action. The smoke of these battles rolled leeward long ago, and their glory and their wounds are alike forgotten. In that press, too, lies the wonderful ebony flute, with its marvellous confusion of silver keys, upon which he used to take pleasure in recalling the stirring airs of the fleet. It has played its last tune; the keys are untouched now, and it is laid past, warped by age, to be fingered by its old master no more.

But his guests rise to leave, and, receiving with antique grace their courtly acknowledgments, he attends the ladies across the stone-paved hall to their carriages.

Forty years ago! The old man since then has himself been carried across that hall to his long home, and no more do grand dames visit the high-walled garden. But the trees whisper yet above it; the warmth of summer beats on the gravelled walks; and the flowers, lovely as of old in their immortal youth, still open their stainless petals to the sun.

BY THE BLASTED HEATH.

The barometer has fallen somewhat since last night, and there are ominous clouds looming here and there in the west; but the sky remains clear blue overhead, the white road is dry and dazzling, and the sun as hot as could be wished. Out to the eastward the way turns along the top of the quaint fisher town, with its narrow lanes and throng of low thatched roofs, till at a sudden dip the little bridge crosses the river. Sweet Nairn! The river has given its name to the town. A hundred and forty years have passed since these clear waters, wimpling now in the sun, brought down from the western moors the life-blood of many a wounded Highlander fallen on dark Culloden. The sunny waters keep a memory still of the flight of the last Prince Charles.

Like a crow-flight eastward the road runs straight, having on the left, beyond the rabbit warren, the silver sand-beach and the sea, and on the right the fertile farm-lands and the farther woods. The white line glistening on the horizon far along the coast to the east, is a glimpse of the treacherous hillocks of the Culbin shifting sands. They are shining now like silver in the calm forenoon; but, as if restless under an eternal ban, they keep for ever moving, and, when stirred by the strong sea-wind, they are wont yet to rise and rush and overwhelm, like the dust-storm of the Sahara. For two hundred years a goodly mansion and a broad estate have lain buried beneath those wastes, and what was once called the Garden of Moray is nothing now but a desolate sea of sand. They say that a few years ago an apple-tree of the ancient manor orchard was laid bare for some months by a drift, that it blossomed and bore fruit, and again mysteriously disappeared. Curious visitors, too, can still see, in the open spaces where the black earth of the ancient fields is exposed, the regular ridges and furrows as they were left by the flying farmers; and the ruts of cart-wheels two hundred years old are yet to be traced in the long-hidden soil. Flint arrowheads, bronze pins and ornaments, iron fish-hooks and spear-points, as well as numerous nails, and sometimes an ancient coin, are to be picked up about the mouldered sites of long-buried villages; but the mansion of Kinnaird, the only stone house on the estate, lies yet beneath a mighty sandhill, as it was hidden by the historic storm which in three days overwhelmed nineteen farms, altered by five miles the course of a river, and blotted out a prosperous country-side. Pray Heaven that yonder terrible white line by the sea may not rise again some night on its tempest wings to carry that ruin farther!

Over the firth, looking backward as the highway at lasts bends inland, the red cliffs of Cromarty show their long line in the sun, and, with the yellow harvest-fields above them, hardly fulfil sufficiently the ancient name of the “Black Isle.” Not a sail is to be seen on the open firth, only the far-stretching waters, under the sunny sky, bicker with the “many-twinkling smile of ocean.” Here, though, two miles out of Nairn, where the many-ricked farmhouses lie snug among their new-shorn fields, the road rises into the trim village of Auldearn.

Neat as possible are the little gardens before the cottages, bright yet with late autumn flowers. Yellow marigolds glisten within the low fences beside dark velvety calceolarias and creamy stocks; while the crimson flowers of tropeolum cover the cottage walls up to the thatch, and some pale monthly roses still bloom about the windows. A peaceful spot it is to-day, yet a spot with a past and a grim tale of a hundred years before Culloden. Here it was that in 1645 Montrose, fighting gallantly for the First Charles, drove back into utter rout the army of the covenanting Parliament. On the left, among sheepfolds and dry-dyke inclosures, lay his right wing with the royal standard; nearer, to the right, with their backs to the hill, stood the rest of his array with the cavalry; and here in the village street, between the two wings, his few guns deceived the enemy with a show of force. It was from the church tower, up there in front, that Montrose surveyed the position; and below, in the little churchyard and church itself, lie many of those who fell in the battle. They are all at peace now, the eastern Marquis and the western, Montrose and Argyle: long ago they fought out their last great feud, and departed.

The country about has always been a famous place for witches, and doubtless the three who fired Macbeth with his fatal ambition belonged to Auldearn. Three miles beyond the village the road runs across the Hardmuir, and there it was that the awful meeting took place. The moor is planted now with pines, and the railway runs at less than a mile’s distance; but even when the road is flooded with sunshine, there hangs a gloom among the trees, and a strange feeling of eeriness comes upon the intruder in the solitude. On the left a gate opens into the wood, and the witches’ hillock lies at some distance out of sight.

Utterly silent the place is! Not a breath of air is moving, and the atmosphere has become close and sultry. There is no path, for few people follow their curiosity so far. Dry ditches and stumps of old trees make the walking difficult; withered branches of pine crackle suddenly sometimes under tread; and here and there the fleshy finger of a fungus catches the eye at a tree root.

And here rises the hillock. On its bald and blasted summit, in the lurid corpse-light, according to the old story,

The weird sisters, hand in hand,
Posters of the sea and land,
Thus do go about, about,

when Macbeth, approaching the spot with Banquo, after victory in the west over Macdonald of the Isles, exclaims:

So foul and fair a day I have not seen!

and the hags, suddenly confronting the general, greet him with the triple hail of Glamis, Cawdor, and King.

The blasted hillock was indeed a fit spot for such a scene. Not a blade of grass grows upon it; the withered needles and cones of the pines lie about, wan and lifeless and yellow; and on one side, where the witches emptied their horrid caldron, and the contents ran down the slope, the earth remains bare, and scorched, and black. Even the trees themselves which grow on the hillock appear of a different sort from those on the heath around.

Antiquaries set the scene of fulfilment of the witches infernal promptings--Macbeth’s murder of King Duncan--variously at Inverness, Glamis, and Bothgofuane, a smithy near Forres. Popular tradition, however, points to Cawdor, and less than seven miles from the fatal heath the Thane’s great moated keep frowns yet among its woods.

But what is this? The air has grown suddenly dark; the gloom becomes oppressive; and in the close heat it is almost possible to imagine a smell of sulphur. A flash of lightning, a rush of wind among the tree-tops, and a terrible crash of thunder just overhead! A moment’s silence, a sound as if all the pines were shaking their branches together, a deluging downpour of rain, and the storm has burst. The spirits of the air are abroad, and the evil genius of the place is awake in demoniac fury. The tempest waxes terrific. The awful gloom among the trees is lit up by flash after flash of lightning; the cannon of thunder burst in all directions; and the rain pours in torrents. The ghastly hags might well revisit the scene of their orgies at such a moment.

It is enough. The powers of the air have conquered. It is hardly safe, and by no means pleasant, to remain among the pines in such a storm. So farewell to the deserted spot, and a bee-line for the open country. To make up for the wetting, it is consoling to think that few enthusiasts have beheld so realistic a representation of the third scene of Macbeth.

AMONG THE GALLOWAY BECKS.

It rained heavily at intervals all night, and, though it has cleared a little since day-break, there is not a patch of blue to be seen yet in the sky, and the torn skirts of the clouds are still trailing low among the hills. The day can hardly brighten now before twelve o’clock, and as the woods, at anyrate, will be rain-laden and weeping for hours, the walk through “fair Kirkconnel Lea” is not to be thought of. The lawn, too, is out of condition for tennis. But see! the burn, brown with peat and flecked with foam, is running like ale under the bridge, and though the spate is too heavy for much hope of catching trout down here, there will be good sport for the trouble higher up among the moorland becks. Bring out the fishing-baskets, therefore, some small Stewart tacklings, and a canister of bait. Put up, too, a substantial sandwich and a flask; for the air among the hills is keen, and the mists are sometimes chilly.

Wet and heavy the roads are, and there will be more rain yet, for the pools in the ruts are not clear. The slender larch on the edge of the wood has put on a greener kirtle in the night, and stands forward like a young bride glad amid her tears. If a glint of sunshine came to kiss her there, she would glitter with a hundred rain-jewels. The still, heavy air is aromatic with the scent of the pines. By the wayside the ripening oats are bending their graceful heads after the rain, like Danae, with their golden burden, while the warrior hosts of the barley beyond hold their spiky crests white and erect.

The long, springing step natural on the heather shortens the road to the hills; and already a tempting burn or two have been crossed by the way. But nothing can be done without rods; and these have first to be called for at the shepherd’s.

A quiet, far-off place it is, this shieling upon the moors, with the drone of bees about, and the bleating of sheep. The shepherd himself is away to the “big house” about some “hogs,” but his wife, a weather-grey woman of sixty, with rough hospitable hands and kindly eyes, says that “maybe Jeanie will tak’ a rod to the becks.” Jeanie, by her dark glance, is pleased with the liberty; and indeed this lithe, handsome girl of fifteen will not be the least pleasant of guides, with her hair like the raven’s wing, and on her clear features the thoughtful look of the hills.

Here are the rods, straight ash saplings of convenient length, with thin brown lines.

“Ye’ll come back and tak’ a cup o’ tea; and dinna stay up there if it rains,” says the goodwife, by way of parting.

Jeanie is frank and interesting in speech, with a gentle breeding little to be expected in so lonely a place. She has the step of a deer, and seems to know every tuft of grass upon the hills. There is not so much heather in Galloway as in the West Highlands. A long grey bent takes its place, and on mossy ground the white tufts of the cotton grass appear.

But here is a chance for a trial cast. A small burn comes down a side glen, and, just before it joins the main stream, runs foaming into a deeper pool. Keep well back from the bank, impale a tempting worm on the hook, and drop it in just where the water runs over the stones. Let the line go: the current carries it at once into the pool. There! The bait is held. Strike quickly down stream: the trout all swim against the current. But it is not a fish; the hook has only caught on a stone. Disentangle it, and try again. This time there is no mistaking the wriggle at the end of the rod; with a jerk the hungry nibbler is whipped into the air, and alights among the grass, a dozen yards from his native pool. A plump little fish he proves, his pretty brown sides spotted with scarlet, as he gasps and kicks on _terra firma_.

Not another trout, however, can be tempted to bite in that eddy; the fish are too well fed by the spate, or too timid. “There will be more to catch,” says Jeanie, “higher up the becks.” She is right. Perhaps the trout in these narrow streamlets are less sophisticated than their kind lower down, for in rivulets so narrow as almost to be hidden by the bent-grass there seem plenty of fish eager to take the bait. These are darker in colour than the trout in the river, taking their shade from the peat, and though small, of course, averaging about a quarter of a pound in weight, are plump, and make merry enough rivalry in the whipping of them out.

But the mists droop lower overhead, and a small smirring rain has been falling for some time; so, as Jeanie, at least, has a fair basketful, it will be best to put up the lines, discuss a sandwich under the shelter of the birches close by, and hold a council of war.

Desolate and silent are these grey hillsides. Hardly a sheep is to be seen; the far-off cry of the curlew is the only sound heard; and as the white mists come down and shroud the mountains, there is an eerie, solemn feeling, as at the near presence of the Infinite. Something, however, must be done. The rain is every moment coming down more heavily, and the small leaves of the birches afford but scant protection. Off, then; home as fast as possible! The mountain maid knows a shorter way over the hill; and lightly and swiftly she leads the Indian file along the narrow sheep-path. On the moor, amid the grey mist and rain, appear the stone walls of a lonely sheepfold; and just below, in the channel of the beck, lies the deep pool, swirling now with peaty water and foam, where every year they wash the flocks.

The shepherd’s wife appears at her door. Her goodman is home. A great peat fire is glowing on the warm hearth, and she is “masking the tea.” “Ye’ll find a basin of soft water in the little bedroom there, and ye’ll change ye’re coats and socks, and get them dried,” says the kindly woman.

This is real hospitality. The rough coats and thick dry socks bespeak warm-hearted thoughtfulness; and a wash in clean water after the discomforts of fishing is no mean luxury. The small, low-raftered bedroom, with quaintly-papered walls, and little window looking out upon the moors, is comfortably furnished; and the stone-floored kitchen, clean and bright and warm, with geraniums flowering in the window, has as pleasant a fireside seat as could be desired. Why should ambition seek more than this, and why are so many hopeless hearts cooped up in the squalid city?

Here comes Jeanie down from the “loft,” looking fresher and prettier than ever in her dry wincey dress, with a little bit of blue ribbon at the throat. The tea is ready; her mother has fried some of the trout, and the snowy table is loaded with thick white scones, thin oatmeal cakes, home-made bramble jelly, and the freshest butter. Kings may be blest; but what hungry man needs more than this? The shepherd, too, is well-read, for does not Steele and Addison’s “Spectator” stand there on the shelf, along with Sir Walter Scott, Robert Burns, and the Bible? With fare like this for body and mind, man may indeed become “the noblest work of God.”

But an hour has passed, too quickly; the rain has cleared at last, and away to the south and west the clouds are lifting in the sunset. Yonder, under the clear green sky, glistens the treacherous silver of the Solway, and as far again beyond it in the evening light rises the dark side of Skiddaw, in Cumberland. The gravel at the door lies glistening after the shower, the yellow marigolds in the little plot are bright and opening, and the moorland air is perfumed with mint and bog-myrtle. A hearty handshake, then, from the shepherd, a warm pressing to return soon from his goodwife, a pleasant smile from Jeanie, and the road must be taken down hill with a swinging step.

IN KILT AND PLAID.

All dust has been swept from the causeways by the clear wind from the firth, as if in preparation for this great gala-day of the North. Unusual stir and movement fill the streets of the quiet Highland town, and the bright sunshine glitters everywhere on jewelled dirk and brooch and skeandhu. The clean pavements are ringing far and near with the quick, light step of the Highlander, and, from the number of tartans to be seen, it might almost be thought that the Fiery Cross was abroad, as in days of old, for the gathering of the clans.

Sad enough are the memories here of the last war summons of the chiefs. High-hearted, indeed, was the town on the morning when the clans marched forth under “Bonnie Prince Charlie” to do battle for the Stuart cause. But before an April day had passed, the gates received again, flying from fatal Culloden, the remnants of the broken chivalry of the North, and the streets themselves shook under the thunder of the Lowland guns.

The wounds of the past, however, are healed, the feuds are forgotten, and the clouds of that bygone sorrow have been blown away by the winds of time. A lighter occasion now has brought gaiety to the town, and the heroes of the hour go decked with no ominous white cockade. Already in the distance the wild playing of the pipes can be heard, and at the sound the kilted clansmen hurry faster along the streets; for the business of the day is on the greensward, and the hill folk, gentle and simple, are gathering from far and near to witness the Highland games.

A fair and appropriate scene is the tourney-ground, with the mountains looking down upon it, purple and silent--the Olympus of the North. The eager crowd gathers thick already, like bees, round the barricade. Little knots of friends there, from glens among the hills, discuss the chances of their village hero. Many a swarthy mountaineer is to be seen, of pure Celtic blood, clear eyed and clean limbed, from far-off mountain clachan. Gamekeepers and ghillies there are, without number, in gala-day garb. And the townspeople themselves appear in crowds. On every side is to be heard the emotional Gaelic of the hills, beside the sweet English speech for which the town is famous, and only sometimes one catches the broader accent of a Lowland tongue.

The lists have just been cleared, and the “chieftain” of the day has gathered his henchmen around him. The games are about to begin.

Yonder go the pipers, half a dozen of them, their ribbons and tartans streaming on the wind. Featly they step together to the quick tune of the shrill mountain march they are playing. Deftly they turn in a body at the boundary, and brightly the cairngorms of their broad silver shoulder-brooches flash all at once in the sun. No wonder it is that the Highlander has the tread of a prince, accustomed as he is to the spring of the heather beneath his feet, and to music like that in the air. The Highland garb, too, can hardly fail to be picturesque when it is worn by stalwart fellows like these.

The programme of the games is very full, and several competitions are therefore carried on at the same time. Here a dozen fleet youths speed past on the half-mile racecourse. Some lithe ghillies yonder are doing hop, step, and leap to an astonishing distance. And, farther off, five brawny fellows are preparing to “put” the heavy ball. Out of the tent close by come some sinewy men, well stripped for the encounter, to try a bout of wrestling. A pair at a time, they wind their strong arms about each other, and each strains and heaves to give his rival a fall. One man scowls, and another smiles as he picks himself up after his overthrow--the sympathy of the crowd goes largely by these signs. Most, however, display the greatest good-humour, and every one must obey the ruling of the umpire. Gradually the two stoutest and heaviest men overcome the rest; and at last, the only champions remaining, they stand up to engage each other. The grey-headed man has some joke to make as he hitches up his belt before closing, and the bystanders laugh heartily at his pleasantry; but his opponent evidently looks upon the contest too seriously for that. Hither and thither they stagger in “the grips,” the back of each as rigid as a plank at an angle of forty-five degrees. More than once they loosen hold for a breath, and again grasp each other, till at last, by dint of sheer strength, the grey-headed wrestler draws the younger man to himself, and, with a sudden toss, throws him clear upon the ground.

The slim youths at the pole-vaulting look like white swallows as they swing high into the air on their long staves to clear the bar; and a roar of applause from the far end of the lists, where the dogged “tug of war” has been going on, tells that one of the teams of heavy fellows straining at the rope has been hauled over the brink into the dividing ditch. The brawny giants who were throwing the axle a little while ago are just now breathing themselves, and will be tossing the mighty caber by and by. And ever and anon throughout the day there float upon the breeze the wild strains of the competing pipers--pibrochs and strathspeys and “hurricanes of Highland reels.”

Meanwhile the grand pavilion has filled. Lord and lady, earl and marquis and duke are there. And beside these are others, heads of families, who count their chieftainship, it may be, through ten centuries, and who are to be called neither esquire nor lord, but just ---- of that Ilk. Chiefs by right of blood, they need no other title than their name.

The presence of so much that is noble and illustrious lends a feudal interest to the games, and imports to the rivalry something of that desire to appear well in the eyes of the chief which was once so powerful an influence in the Highlands. The young ghillie here, who has out-stripped all but one competitor at throwing the hammer, feels the stimulus of this. He knows not only that his sweetheart’s eyes are bent eagerly upon him from the barrier at hand, but that he has a chance of distinguishing himself before his master and “her ladyship,” who are watching from under the awning yonder. So he breathes on his hands, takes a firm grasp of the long ash handle, and, vigorously whirling the heavy iron ball round his head, sends it with all his strength across the lists. How far has it gone? They chalk the distance up on a board--95½ feet. There is a clapping of hands from the crowd, and a waving of white kerchiefs from the pavilion. He is sure of winning now, and the shy, pretty face at the barrier flushes with innocent pride. Is he not _her_ hero?

There, on the low platform before the judges, go the dancers, two after two. They are trimly dressed for the performance, and wear the thin, low-heeled Highland shoes, while the breasts of some of them are fairly panoplied in gold and silver medals won at former contests. Mostly young lads, it is wonderful how neatly they perform every step, turning featly with now one arm in the air and now the other. Cleverly they go through the famous sword dance over crossed claymores, and in the wild whirl of the Reel o’ Tulloch seem to reach the acme of the art.

But in the friendly rivalry of skill and strength the day wears on. The races in sacks and over obstacles, as well as the somewhat rough “bumping in the ring,” have all been decided; the “best dressed Highlander” has received his meed of applause; and the sun at last dips down behind the hills. Presently, as the mountain-sides beyond the river are growing grey, and their shadows gather upon the lists, the spectators melt by degrees from the barricades, and in a slow stream move back into the town. By and by the Assembly Rooms will be lit up, and carriages will begin to arrive with fair freights for the great Caledonian Ball. But, long before that, the upland roads will be covered with pedestrians and small mountain conveyances with family parties--simple folk, all pleased heartily with their long day’s enjoyment, and wending their way to far-off homes among the glens, where they will talk for another twelvemonth of the great feats done at the gathering here by Duncan or Fergus or Hamish.

AT THE FOOT OF BEN LEDI.

Sit here in the stern of the boat, and let her drift out on the glassy waters of the loch. After the long sultry heat of the day it is refreshing to let one’s fingers trail in these cool waters, and to watch the reflection of the hills above darkening in the crystal depths below. Happy just now must be the speckled trout that dwell in the loch’s clear depths; and when the fiery-flowering sun rolls ablaze in the zenith there are few mortals who will not envy the cool green domain of the salmon king. But now that the sunset has died away upon the hills, like “the watch-fires of departing angels,” a breath of air begins mysteriously to stir along the shore, and from the undergrowth about the streamlet that runs close by into the loch, blackbird and water-ousel send forth more liquid pipings. The cuckoos, that all day long have been calling to each other across loch and strath, now with a more restful “chuck! chu-chu, chu, chuck!” are flitting, grey flakes, from coppice to coppice, preparatory to settling for the night The grouse-cocks’ challenge, “kibeck, kibeck, kibeck!” can still be heard from their tourney-ground on the moraine at the moor’s edge; and from the heath above still comes the silvery “whorl-whorl-whorl” of the whaup. These sounds can be heard far off in the stillness of the dusk.

But listen to this mighty beating of the waters, and look yonder! From the shadow of the hazels on the loch’s margin comes the royal bird of Juno, pursuing his mate. In his eager haste he has left the water, and with outstretched neck, beating air and loch into foam with his silver wings, he rushes after her. She, with the tantalising coyness of her sex, has also risen from the water, and, streaming across the loch, keeps undiminished the distance between herself and her pursuer. At this, finding his efforts vain, he gives up the chase, subsiding upon the surface with a force which sends the foam-waves curling high about his breast. Disdainfully he turns his back upon the fair, and, without once inclining his proud black beak in her direction, makes steadily for the shore. This, however, does not please the lady. She turns, looks after her inconstant lover, and, meeting with no response, begins slowly to sail in his direction. Suddenly again at this, with snowy pinions erect, neck curved gallantly back, and the calm waters foaming round his breast, he surges after her, ploughing up the loch into shining furrows. Again the coy dame flees, again and again the same amorous manœuvres are gone through, and when night itself falls, the splendid birds will still be dallying over their long-certain courtship. No plebeian affair is the mating of these imperial denizens of the loch. Seldom do mortals witness even this wooing of the swans.

More commonplace, though not, perhaps, less happy, are the three brown ducks and their attentive drake, which having, one after another, splashed themselves methodically on the flat stone by the margin of the loch, now swim off in a string for home. Young trout are making silver circles in the water as they leap at flies under the grassy bank; and the keen-winged little swallows that skim the surface, sometimes tip the glassy wave with foot or wing.

Before the daylight fades there are beautiful colours to be seen on shore. The fresh young reeds that rise at hand like a green mist out of the water deepen to a purple tint nearer the margin. The march dyke that comes down to the shallows is covered with the red chain-mail of a small-leaved ivy; and the gean-tree beside it, that a week or two ago raised into the blue sky creamy coral-branches of blossom, still retains something of its fragile loveliness. On the stony meadow beyond, the golden whinflower is fading now, but is being replaced by the paler yellow splendour of the broom. The rich blush-purple of some heathy banks betrays the delicate blossom of the blaeberry, and patches of brown show where the young bracken are uncurling their rusty tips.

And silent and fair on the mountain descends the shadowy veil of night. Darkening high up there against the sapphire heaven, the dome-topped hill, keeping watch with the stars, has treasured for twenty centuries strange memories of an older world. Whether or not, in the earth’s green spring, it served as a spot of offering for some primeval race, no man now can tell. But long before the infant Christ drew breath among the far-off Jewish hills, grave Druid priests ascended here to offer worship to their Unknown God. On the holy Beltane eve, the First of May, the concourse gathered from near and far, and as the sun, the divine sign-manual set in the heavens, arose out of the east, they welcomed his rising with an offering of fire. From sea to sea across dim Scotland, from the storm-cloven peaks of Arran to the sentinel dome of the Bass, could be seen this mountain summit; and from every side the awed inhabitants, as they looked up and beheld the clear fire-jewel glittering on Ben Ledi’s brow, knew that Heaven had once more favoured them with the sacred gift of flame. For the light on the mountain-top, like the altar fires of the Chaldean seers on the hills of the East of old, was understood to be kindled by the hand of God; every hearth in the land had been quenched, and the people waited for the new Bal-tein, or Baal-fire from Heaven, for another year.

Rude these people may have been--though that is by no means certain,--but few races on earth have had a nobler place of worship than this altar-mountain, which they called the Hill of God.

The climber on Ben Ledi to-day passes, near the summit, the scene of a sad, more modern story. On the shoulder of the mountain lies a small, dark tarn. It is but a few yards in width, yet once it acted a part in a terrible tragedy. Amid the snows of winter, and under a leaden heaven, a funeral party was crossing the ridge, when there was a crash; the slow wail of the pipes changed into a shriek of terror, and a hundred mourners, with the dead they were carrying, sank in the icy waters to rise no more. That single moment sufficed to leave sixty women husbandless in Glen Finglas below. No tablet on that wind-swept moor records the half-forgotten disaster; only the eerie lapping of the lochlet’s waves fills the discoverer with strange foreboding; and at dusk, it is said, the lonely ptarmigan may be seen, like souls of the departed, haunting the fatal spot.

On a knoll at the mountain foot, where the Leny leaves Loch Lubnaig, lies the little Highland burial-place to which the clansmen were bearing their dead comrade. Only a low stone wall now remains round the few quiet graves; but here once stood the chapel of St Bride, and from the Gothic arch of its doorway Scott, in his “Lady of the Lake,” describes the issuing of a blithesome rout, gay with pipe-music and laughter, when the dripping messenger of Roderick Dhu rushed up and thrust into the hand of the new-made groom the Fiery Cross of the Macgregors--

“The muster place is Lanrick mead;
Speed forth the signal! Norman, speed!”

Well did the poet paint the parting of bride and groom; and to-day on the mossy stones of the little burial-place are to be read the wistful words of many who have bid each other since then a last good-bye. Surely the arcana of earth’s divinest happiness is only opened by the golden key of love. Sweet, indeed, must be that companionship which unclasps not with resignation even when sunset is fading upon the hills of life, and the shadows are coming in regretful eyes, but would fain stretch forth its yearnings through the pathways of a Hereafter. Simple and lacking excitement may be the lives of the folk who dwell under these hills, but something of the sublime surely is latent in hearts whose hopes extend beyond a time when heaven and earth shall have passed away.

CADZOW FOREST.

High on the edge of the crumbling cliff here, like the grey eyrie of some keen-winged falcon, hangs the ruined keep of Cadzow. Bowered and all but hidden by the leafy luxuriance of “the oak and the ash and the bonnie ivy-tree,” with the Evan roaring down its rocky bed far below at the foot of the sheer precipice, there is enough left of this ancestral home of the Hamiltons to give some idea of its ancient strength. Perched where it was unassailable on one side save by foes who had the gift of wings; on the other hand, the deep moss-grown moat and the massive remains of thick walls tell how secure a refuge it gave to its possessors. Secluded, too, in the depths of the old Caledonian forest, the fastness had endless facilities for secret communication and for safe hiding in case of necessity, and the deeds of its owners need have been subject to the curiosity of prying eye. Who can tell what captives have languished in the dungeons into which now, at places through the broken arch, the sunshine makes its way? Birds have built their nests, and twitter joyously about their callow young, where once only the sighs of the prisoner were heard and the iron clank of his chain. Alas! he had not the linnet’s wing to fly out and speed away along these sunny woodland paths.

But not vindictive above their peers were the chiefs of the ancient race that held these baronies. Rather has the gleam of romance come here to lighten the records of their gloomy age. For it was within these walls, tradition says, that Queen Mary found an asylum upon the night following that of her escape from Loch Leven Castle--a tradition the more likely to be true since the Hamilton Palace of that day was but a rude square tower. And it is easy to imagine how in that sweet May morning, the second of her new-born liberty and of her fresh-reviving hopes, the eyes of the fair unfortunate Queen may have filled with tears of happiness as she gazed from this casement forth upon the green waving forests and the silver Evan in its gorge below, and heard in the courtyard and the woods behind the tramp of horses and the ring of arms. Alas! whatever her frailties, she suffered sorely for them. There are few perhaps whose errors lie so much at the door of circumstance. From the Rout of Solway, which heralded her birth, to the last sad scene at Fotheringay, her life was a walk of tears; and the student of her reign is tempted to think that had she been a less lovable woman she might have been a more successful queen. That was the last gleam of sunshine in her life, the eleven days between Loch Leven and Langside. Short was the respite, but it must have been sweet, and doubtless these Hamiltons made chivalrous hosts. They fought for her gallantly at anyrate, if in vain, for they were the foremost to rush against her enemies’ spears in the steep narrow lane at Langside.

And at last she rode away from this place, surrounded by a brave little troop of nobles, their armour glancing in the sun as they caracoled off along these grassy forest glades. Then amid the restored quiet, only the whisper of the woods about them and the murmur of the river far below, the women waited here, listening. Presently, sudden and ominous, they heard a sound in the distance--cannonading near Glasgow, ten miles away. The Queen had been intercepted on her journey to Dunbarton. There was not much of the sound, and it died feebly.

Hours afterwards, anxious waiting hours, down these forest avenues, slowly, with drooping crest and broken spear, came riding the lord of the castle, haggard, and almost alone. For of the gallant gentlemen who had followed him to Langside many had fallen upon the field, and the rest were scattered and fleeing for their lives.

What sorrowings then for those who would never return must there have been within these walls--what aching hearts for those who had escaped! The smoke of the houses in Clydesdale, fired by the victorious army of the Regent, could almost be seen from here; and day after day news came of friends taken and friends in flight, until it was whispered that the Queen herself was a prisoner in the hands of the English Warden. A weary and anxious time it must have been; but the danger passed, and the hour of reprisal came.

Through these woods, according to the tradition preserved by Sir Walter Scott, on a January afternoon less than two years after the battle of Langside, a hunting-party was returning to the castle. Amid the fast-falling shadows of the winter day they were bringing home their quarry--the wild bull whose race still roams these glades; and the guests and huntsmen were making merry over the success of their sport. There was the jingle, too, of hawk-bells, and the bark of hounds in leash. But their lord rode in front, silent, with clenched hand and clouded brow. He had not forgotten the misfortune that had befallen his house, and news of a fresh insult had but lately quickened his anger over it. The estate of one of his kinsmen, Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, had been confiscated to a favourite of the Regent, and the new possessor, it was said, had used his power with such severity, in turning out Bothwellhaugh’s wife and new-born infant on a freezing night, that the poor lady had become furiously mad. Brooding darkly and bitterly on these evils, the chief was drawing near the castle, when there was suddenly heard approaching the heavy gallop of a horse, and in another moment Bothwellhaugh sprang to the earth before him. His face was wild and pale, and his steed, bespattered with foam and blood, drooped its head in exhaustion. Vengeance swift and dire had fallen upon the Regent, and, twenty miles away, in Linlithgow Palace, the birthplace of the sister he had dethroned, he lay dying. It is for a higher Judge than man to say whether his death was that of a martyr or of a miscreant; but at the time there were not wanting those who held that Bothwellhaugh satisfied with one blow his own private feud and the wrath of heaven over the distresses of the Queen. The brass matchlock, curiously enough a rude sort of rifle, with which the deed was done, lies yet in the palace of the Hamiltons.

Three hundred years ago and more it all happened, and the moss grows dark and velvety now on the ruined bridge over which once rang the hoofs of Queen Mary’s steed; but the grey and broken walls, silent amid the warm summer sunshine, recall these memories of the past. There could be no sweeter spot to linger near. Foamy branches of hawthorn in spring fill the air here with their fragrance; and in the woodland aisles lie fair beds of speedwell, blue as miniature lakes. Under the dry, crumbling banks, too, among tufts of delicate fern, are to be seen the misty, purple-flowering nettle and the soft green shoots of brier. Overhead, in summer luxuriance, spread the broad, palm-like fronds of the chestnut; close by, the soft greenery of the beech lets the tinted sunshine through; and amid them rises the dark and sombre pine. But, venerable above all, on these rolling forest lands, the shattered girth of many an ancient oak still witnesses to an age that may have seen the rites of the Druids. Monarchs of the primeval wilds, these gigantic trees, garlanded now with the green leaf of another year, need acres each for the spread of their mighty roots; while as withies in comparison appear the cedars of a century.

And down these forest avenues, the home of his sires from immemorial time, where his hoof sinks deep in the primeval sward, and there is no rival to answer his hoarse bellow of defiance, comes the lordly Caledonian bull. Never yet has the race been tamed, and the cream-white hide and black muzzle, horn, and hoof bespeak the strain of its ancient blood. There is a popular belief, indeed, that when the white cattle become extinct the house of Hamilton will pass away. Here, then, in the forgotten solitude, where seldom along the grassy woodland ways comes the foot of the human wanderer, the mountain bull keeps guard with his herd over the scene of that old and sorrowful story.

A FISHER TOWN.

Keen and strong, and steady to-night in the gathering dusk, the wind is coming up the firth out of the east. Darkling clouds roll low along the sky, and, before the breeze, the waves in their unnumbered hosts, like dark hussars white-crested, ride past to break upon the beach-sands yonder inland at Fort George. The full, deep gale brings with it out of the shadowy east the health of a hundred tumbling seas, and sets the glad life dancing in lip, and eye, and heart; while the music of the rushing waves, like the drums of far-off armies, stirs the soul with the daring of great purposes. Little need, therefore, is there to pity the fisher women and children far out at the ebb-tide edge gathering bait among the reefs. Clear are their eyes as the sea-pools over which they bend, and while sun and wind have made their skins brown as the wet sand itself, many a drawing-room beauty would give her diamonds for such a wealth of raven hair. Even at this distance the happy voices of the children, a pleasant murmur, speak of free and simple hearts. Sport on, happy children! Rejoice in your brown brood, simple mothers! Not yours are the pale cheek and the wasted form, the lifeless eye and the languid step. Sometimes, it may be, when the winds rise and the waves come thundering upon the beach, there are anxious hours for you because of husband or father tossing out there somewhere in the darkness; sometimes, alas! a sore heart and many tears when the little knot of sad and silent men come up from the beach and lay gently upon its pillow the pale wet face that will speak to you no more. But yours, at least, are not the fetid atmosphere of cities and their weary miles of pavement; for you the smile of Heaven is not veiled by a sin-black pall of smoke; and when the dark angel does come to your humble dwellings, and the last “Good-byes!” have to be said, it is not amid the heartless roar and the squalor of city streets, but amid the sweet, salt smell, and listening to the strange and solemn “calling” of the sea.

A race by themselves are these fisher-folk, mixing little with the people of the upper town, and keeping very much by customs of their own. Danish, very likely, or Norse, in origin, their blood remains all but as pure yet as it was when their forefathers landed on these shores. Seven miles to the eastward along the coast, where the white sand-line gleams on the horizon, in places exposed by the shifting dunes, are still to be found the remains of villages which belonged to the ancestors of these folk, and by these remains--bronze pins, fish-hooks, broken pottery, and shell heaps--it seems clear that the ancient villagers lived very much the same life as is lived here to-day. Only, of late years the steamship and the School Board have made some invasions upon traditional ideas.