Chapter IV: Part 4

The black art of letters is probably the least detail of the learning acquired by school-children in the country, and it must be confessed that the thirst for book-lore is not exactly their most conspicuous foible. Happy, nevertheless, in “schools and schoolmasters” of Nature’s own appointing, they grow up like the lilies, children of the earth and sun, and none the less fit for life, perhaps, that their learning has been got at first-hand from the facts and realities of actual existence. Who has not envied the bright-eyed boys and red-lipped little lasses, healthy with the breath of the woods and of the fresh-delved earth, whom one meets, satchel on back, on sequestered country roads? The dead tongues may be dead, indeed, to them, and mathematics an unnamed mystery; but, with eyes and ears open, they have learned all the lore of the fields and the hedges--have drunk deep at those nature-fountains whence all the literatures and poetries of the world have sprung.

Many changes have been made in school-teaching in the country of recent years. The Government inspector is now abroad, and code and standard compel all within their iron rule. The old ruts and byways have been forsaken, and the coach of Learning has been made to roll, if not yet along the coveted “royal road” of the old saw, at least along a highway more uniformly paved than of yore. The difference in outside appearance between the wayside school-houses of to-day and of thirty years ago is only an indication of the changes which have taken place within. The days are past when any incompetent would do for a dominie; and in place of the halt and the palsied, who used to fill the pedagogic chair, there is now the pretty school-ma’am from some Normal seminary. A tyrant of the most petty kind, it is to be feared, the rural schoolmaster of the old days too often was--

Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace
The day’s disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he:
Full well the busy whisper, circling round,
Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned.

Now all this is altered. No longer would it be suffered that a sour and crabbed dominie, too crippled to walk, should, out of sheer caprice and ill-temper, hurl his tawse at some urchin’s head, and order him to bring them up and be thrashed; and it is to be doubted if the modern “Board” would countenance even such a gallant device as the vicarious birching of a boy for the delinquencies of one of the dearer sex. Idiosyncrasies like these, no doubt, made much of the picturesqueness of school life in the country a generation ago; and people whose memories are of the old régime are apt to look back upon the former state of things, faulty as it was, with a sigh. Sometimes a head is shaken regretfully, and it is averred that with modern innovations are being planed away all those strong, rich peculiarities of ancient rural life which made character in the country interesting. The crabbed rule of the ancient village pedagogue has a charm for those who have escaped beyond reach of his tawse, the thrashings themselves of bygone days have become mere subject for a smile. Point of view, however, makes a considerable difference in the matter, and the unfortunate urchin of those days, counting the strokes of an ill-tempered and unreasoning castigation upon his nether habiliments, probably entertained a somewhat different sentiment.

Head-shakings and misgivings notwithstanding, individuality of country life may very well be left to take care of itself. Children remain true to their instincts under the new régime as under the old; and growing like the trees of the hedgerows, amid the influences of wild and varied nature, rustic character may still be trusted to develop a picturesqueness of its own. The real country school, after all, does not lie within four walls, nor is it ruled by the rod of prim school-ma’am or spectacled dominie. Nature herself, the primeval _alma mater_ of all mankind, is the educator there. The leaves of her primers are stored in the woodlands; her history-books are written and explained by the seasons themselves; the lark and the rivulet are the perpetual tutors of her “old notation”; and her terms are timed by the bloom and flight of the snowdrop and the swallow.

A LOCH-SIDE STRATH.

Hardly more than twenty miles from the populous heart of Glasgow lies a parish of which no notice is to be found in the guide-books. No show-place is supposed to be there, and no tourist route runs through it, and so, though almost within hearing of the hum of a great city, the strip of country between mountain and loch remains all but as primitive in its rustic simplicity as it was a hundred years ago. A century ago, indeed, the district may have been better known than it is to-day, if notoriety be regarded as a distinction; for every corrie in the hillsides and every burnside hollow, where a little wooding afforded concealment, appears then to have been the scene of illicit distilling operations; and the raids of the excise and military in search of “sma’ stills” were both frequent and famous. With this exception the parish has been allowed to slumber on in happy obscurity since the days of the old clan feuds and the cattle-liftings of its neighbours, the wild Macgregors.

Nevertheless, unknown though it may be, and unfrequented by “the Sassenach” as in the days of Rob Roy himself, this quiet loch-shore has a history stirring enough, and memories of its own. Situated just on the old Highland line, the district must frequently at all periods have been the scene of warlike episodes. Regarding the tastes and pursuits of its ancient inhabitants there remains small doubt. The memorial of a peaceful enough enterprise, it is true, seems crystallised in the name of the parish--the parish of St Ronan’s Cell, as it reads translated. Midway, it is said, on his journey from Kilmarnock in Ayrshire to Kilmaronaig on Loch Etive, that famous missionary priest of the early Church thought it worth his while to tarry a space in the district in order to teach the rude inhabitants peace. But, to judge by the later events of history, the task would seem to have had but doubtful results. The prevailing names, at the present hour, of the people in the district--Galbraith, Macfarlane, M’Kean--recall the circumstances of less orderly times. In the stalwart farmers’ sons guiding the plough and feeding the cattle about the steadings there to-day, one sees the lineal descendants of clansmen who once held their own on the loch-side by the primitive _coir a glaive_--the title of the strong arm. To keep these turbulent vassals in order, the Earls of Lennox found it necessary to hold three castles in the neighbourhood.

Nor has the strath been without a share in the outstanding events of history. This loch-shore it was which witnessed the failure of Argyle’s ill-advised attempt at rebellion in 1685. Here, barring his progress, beyond the streamlet in the clachan of the parish, the Protestant Earl, after his long march among the western lochs, first came within sight of the Royal troops. Here, that night, his camp-fires were left burning to deceive his opponents; and it was on the hills behind that his little army finally lost its way, broke up, and dispersed amid the bogs and the darkness.

A romantic story of that most romantic of episodes, the Rebellion of 1745, also belongs to the district. The most powerful family in the strath at that time, as, indeed, it had been for generations, was one of the name Buchanan. This family owned two mansions and estates at no great distance from each other, and from the larger of these they took their familiar title, Buchanans of the Ross. Whether the head of the house of that date had personally taken part in the Jacobite rising, or had incurred suspicion of Jacobite sympathies, need not be inquired into, but, upon the final overthrow of the Stuart cause in the spring of 1746, it can be understood that he, in common with others in his position, was willing enough to demonstrate his loyalty to the Government of King George. The opportunity for doing so which occurred to him, however, involved a breach of laws which above all others were held inviolably sacred by the Highlanders--the laws of hospitality.

The tradition of the district has to be relied upon for the story. By this tradition it would appear that among the fugitives upon whose head a price was set, after Culloden, was the Marquis of Tullibardine, elder brother of the Duke of Athole. Being hard pressed by the search-parties which were everywhere scouring the country, this nobleman, it is said, betook himself to Buchanan of the Ross, with whom he had been upon terms of friendship, and besought temporary asylum. This favour Buchanan granted readily enough, and apparently in all good faith; but no sooner was the unfortunate refugee secure under his roof than he intimated the fact to the nearest military post. The natural consequence was an immediate visit of the soldiery and the arrest of the fugitive.

Here the story becomes uncanny. The victim of misplaced confidence was being dragged across the threshold, when, it is said, recovering from surprise at the unheard-of treachery, his Highland rage and indignation reached the blazing point, and, turning upon his host, he hurled out the imprecation, “There’ll be Murrays on the braes of Athole when there’s ne’er a Buchanan at the Ross!”

This was the last of the Marquis, so far as the district was concerned, but it was by no means, in the eyes of the dwellers there, the last of his “curse.” Strangely enough, and, whether in fulfilment of the fierce prophecy or not, only a few decades had passed when the race at the Ross, so far as the male line was concerned, actually died out, and, as if to complete the result, upon two occasions since then the estates have passed to other hands through female heirs.

In the early decades of the present century the master of the place was an Edinburgh advocate, Mr Hector Macdonald, and under his hospitable roof again and again was entertained no less a guest than the author of “Waverley.” It is not difficult to understand, apart from the congenial society of his host, Scott’s attraction to the house. The natural beauty of the place, if nothing else, must have been a continual delight to one so keenly alive as he was to the interest of woodland and loch. The district around, the house itself, and the mountains before him, besides, were teeming with memories--every glen the home of a romance. In Ross Priory, at anyrate, he frequently stayed, and from the local legends and colour with which his residence supplied him he selected the materials for some of the most famous episodes in “Rob Roy” and “The Lady of the Lake.” The use he made of it, indeed, has invested the whole district with a new interest. All the neighbourhood, strath and glen, glows with the reflected splendour of his thought, a “light that never was on sea or land”; and with the clear wind blowing fresh from mountain and loch, something seems mingled of the wholesome mental health and vigour of the “Wizard’s” work.

The place has changed but little since Scott last visited it, and the wanderer by the loch’s margin may, with the atmosphere of the past still about him, indulge in all the pleasures of reverie and recollection undisturbed. At the present day hardly a sound is to be heard there but the lapse of wavelets on the pebbly beach, and the sighing of the wind through the branches of the immemorial oaks. Occasionally, on a summer evening, when the air is still, the far-off beat of paddles comes faintly across the lake, as the steamer threads its passage among the islands. But for the rest of the time the call sometimes of the peacocks on the lawn before a storm, and, at night, the harsh cry of wild-fowl making flight for the marshes at the river’s mouth, form the only addition to the harmony of the wind and the waters.

A HIGHLAND REEL.

Much study, truly, becomes a weariness of the flesh. After a long day’s seclusion over desk and books the cobwebs begin to gather about one’s brain, and stronger and stronger grows the longing to look upon the face of one’s fellows. There are fair faces, too, to look upon, and bright-lipped laughter to listen to not far away; and the shriek of a fiddle or the skirl of the pipes is all that is needed to set light footsteps tripping on a broad barn floor. Down with pamphlet and pen, therefore; on with a heavy coat in case of rain, and out into the roaring night.

A heavy “carry” is tearing across the sky, but the air is fresh and clear; and see, away below through the darkness, by the loch-side, shining hospitable and bright, are the lights of Gartachraggan. Away, then, by the steading, where the patient beasts are stirring in their byres, and a breath is caught of the rich warm mash preparing for their evening meal. Away through the whin-haughs, where the owls answer each other with silvery hootings, and again and again overhead there is heard the creaking wing of belated snipe beating to and fro. How the wind sighs in the naked hedges, with a louder whisper where the thick-leaved holly-trees are set! One is tempted to linger under the soft shelter of the wood, where the air is rich with the fragrance of the undergrowth, and the stillness gives a feeling of pleasant security by contrast with the roar and sough of the storm in the tree-tops far above. The stones of the dry-dyke here are covered close with the clinging tendrils of a small-leaved ivy, and wild strawberry and wild geranium in summer star with white and pink the mossy crannies. A pleasant spot it is, therefore, at that time of year, to linger in, to watch the red squirrel frolic on the road, and the chaffinch build his mossy home overhead. But to-night one’s thoughts are otherwise. It is cold, and the south wind is roaring in the wood, hustling the withered leaves to limbo. Down the hill, therefore, at a blithesome pace, jousting and jesting with the storm, till a glimpse of the realm of Oberon is caught below--the foam-swept loch with its lonely islets, seen by the fitful gleam of stars. Life comes back to the jaded heart on such a night, as the fresh wind lifts the hair and clears the brain. There is war in the heavens overhead, and the scream can be heard of wild-duck entangled in the driving clouds; but in the heart there is only laughter, born of the comradeship of “rude Boreas.” Whew! Draw in here to the shelter till the rain-blast sweeps over. It whistles like arrowy sleet through the branches overhead, and the great limbs roar and struggle in the contest. The bole of the giant ash itself heaves and groans with the effort. But the strong tree has grappled before with the Titan, and the wrestlings of eighty winters have but given it a deeper grip of the soil. And so the blast blows over, the air clears, and close at hand, a ruddy blaze among the trees, are seen the gleaming windows of the farm.

What a kindly welcome is this! No ordinary “How d’ye do?” and touch of listless fingers, but a heartiness honest as its own broad vowels. The good folk here live close to the soil, and continually touch the real facts of life. Ennui and cynicism, those soul-cankers of the dwellers in towns, have never found their way to these homesteads by the loch-side; and sweet and whole-hearted as the breath of their own hay-ricks are the greetings of these hospitable folk. For the frank grasp that will ease world-cares, go to the kindly sea-captain, or the hand that has held a plough. Years have gathered on the heads of the farmer and his wife since first their plough-shares turned the loch-side soil, but still they are fresh and hale, and the frost of years that has silvered their hair has touched them no whit besides. Meanwhile, there has grown around them a brave and comely brood--sons stalwart as the ark-builders of old, and daughters--ah! Look not too long upon these, good youth, or thou art undone (though that might not be the worst thing that could happen thee). For there is choice and difference among them; the hair of one dark as the starling’s wing, another’s bright with russet gold; eyes blue as the summer skies, eyes dark as the woodland wells; cheeks of fair soft peach-bloom, and cherry lips ripe and red. Beware!

Into the parlour? No!--the kitchen is the place. A carpeted parlour can be seen at any time, but such a kitchen only in such a spot. The great fire blazing in the chimney roars defiance to the storm outside, and flashes its warm light upon wall and rafter. Lamps shine bright as silver in their sconces, and plate-racks and harness steels gleam in the wall’s recesses. Not a speck stains the purity of the red-stone floor, and the massy tables and chairs of honest deal are white as driven snow. Into the kitchen, then, and ask for the goodman’s health, and whether the ploughing has gone forward well, whether the collie that went amissing has turned up yet, and what was done with the tramp who threatened the ploughman’s wife.

But, listen! the neighbours are coming already, and in the lull of the wind surely that was the sound of the pipes! How the girls’ eyes sparkle and their colour rises! What tempting access of witchery!--wait a little, take care, keep hold of your heart! Perhaps their sweethearts are coming. The pipes stop at the door, there is a sound of laughter, a moment’s pause, and then a new invasion of brave lads and comely lasses, bringing in with them the earth-smelling wind of the night. Fresh-voiced as the spring thrushes, it is an inspiration to look at and listen to these sons and daughters of the hills.

First of all, for the Highlands are hospitable, something must be eaten. The table in a trice is heaped with tempting array--everything the produce of the farm itself, and not the less delicious for the fair hands that have placed it there.

Then, hey, presto! the scene is changed. A space has been cleared in the barn, and lamps hung from the rafters and on the walls light it up in gipsy fashion, casting fantastic shadows into the far corners behind the great heaps of warm oat-straw. A skirl of the pipes, and in a moment partners are chosen. Then more than one secret slips out to the curious eye; for much there is to be read in the language of a blush and a look. The lads stand back to back, two and two, their partners facing them, and as the music takes to the air, featly they trip it in the merry figure-of-eight. Presently, opposite their neighbours’ partners, comes the chance for spirit and agility, and many a wild capering step is done by the lads with arm in air and a whirl of the tartans, while the lasses, more modest, with downcast look, hold back their skirts daintily as they foot it with toe and heel. Faster and faster the music gathers, faster flies the dance with its changing step, with the threading of eights and the Highland fling, while cheeks take flame, eyes flash wildly, and the barn floor shakes in rhythm. More and more breathless grow lasses and lads, but no one will yield to stop, till at last, with a wild whoop, they fling themselves all at once upon the straw, and the music slowly runs out.

Again and again it will be renewed, with the wilder “Reel o’ Hulochan” for a change, or some wonderful old-fashioned country dance; and only some time in the morning, long after the old folk have gone to bed, will the merry party break up, tired but delighted, to go home in twos and threes along the hills.

AN ARRAN RIDE.

“Hamish will just be putting the mare in the cart to drive over the ladies, so the need is not so great for hurrying.”

The arrangement of the crofter’s wife is hospitably meant, if somewhat ominously expressed. Conveyance of any kind, moreover, will be most acceptable to the two ladies of our party after their long ramble on seashore and moorland; and the more primitive it prove, the more fittingly will it end the memories of the day. “Meanwhile ‘the need is not so great for hurrying,’” repeats one of the two slyly, out of hearing of her hostess, and, pulling off her gloves, proceeds to gather pleasure from the blazing chimneyful of peat. Leaning back in the warm light, she stirs the white feathery ash with a dainty boot, and discovers, to the boot’s cost and her own surprise, that the whiteness of the peat conceals a glow of burning red. It is a peculiarity of the Highland character, as of the Highland fuel, this fire within the grey exterior, needing only a touch or a breath to show itself.

The light ash of the peat, they say, flies everywhere about a shieling. But it is a cleanly thing. It leaves no tarnish, at anyrate, on the snowy wood dresser or its high rack of shining delf. The tall old-fashioned mahogany case-clock in the corner, an heirloom much valued, may have absorbed more of the powder, perhaps, than conduces to regular intestinal working; but the open iron cruizie or cresset lamp hanging quaintly, though now unused, from the high mantelshelf, is kept clear enough for lighting yet if need were; and maybe the hams and “kippered” fish hanging from hooks in the blackened rafters are rather improved in flavour by the condiment.

But look here. With true Highland hospitality, preparations for tea have been surreptitiously advanced, and the fresh, wholesome-looking daughter of the house and her mother lift into the middle of the earthen floor the table ready caparisoned with cloth-of-snow, glittering cups and knives, heaped sugar-bowl, and beaker of rich yellow cream. A lissome flower of the moors is this crofter maid. The oatmeal which she has been baking is not more soft and fair than the skin of the comely lass, and, as she smiles reply in lifting the toasted oat-farles from the flat iron “girdle” swung over the fire, it needs no poet to notice that her eyes are bits of summer sea and her mouth a damask bud. The toasted farles of oat-cake from her hand send forth an ambrosial smell which, with the fragrance of the new-made tea, is irresistible to hungry folk, and no pressing Highland exhortation is needed to set visitors of both sexes to the attack of the viands.

Not till every one has again and again declared sheer inability to pursue the attack further, does the announcement come that “the mare is in the cart.” A chair, therefore, is presently carried out, and the whole party of four mount into the rough vehicle among the straw. Hereupon follow a hand-shaking and repetition of hospitable invitations to return which begin to become almost embarrassing, before Hamish starts at his horse’s head upon the moor track.

A long, memorable day it has been, amid the warm sunshine and the bright sea-breeze, a day to do the heart good and to tire the limbs royally--the morning draught of brave mountain air and life on the white moorland road before the inn; the forenoon ramble, rod in hand, on the warm gorse-path by the river; luncheon in quaint-flavoured, wit-haunted company by the blue Kilbrannan Sound, with nothing to interrupt but the beat of sudden outflying wings sometimes about the warm cliff crannies overhead, and, on the beach below, the soft caressing murmur of the secret-telling sea; the afternoon drive to the far hill-clachan, where the turf roofs were tied down with heather ropes, where the brown women were carrying sea-wrack to manure their fields, and where, as a back-sound to the quaint-turned Highland speech, was heard the thud-thud of the swinging flails; and, last of all, the return at evening by the high moorland path, with the amethyst fire dying out on Ben Ghoil in the east, and, in the west, the sunset heavens aflame with saffron and rose, and the sea a living splendour of generous wine.

Now it is night, and the air comes cooler over the moor. No air is like Arran air at night, with its vague herb-perfumes adrift, for stirring old memories and desires in the heart and new ambitions in the blood. Upon its clear breath old designs, old possibilities long forgotten, come back again to make life and hope. By it the vapours of worldly wisdom are blown aside, the cloud-wrack care of intervening years is lifted, and one walks again clear-hearted for a time in the April valley of his youth. Night anywhere has charms for those who think, but night upon the moors possesses an influence peculiarly its own. The primeval heath, wild and undesecrated by the hand of man, lies under “the splendid-mooned and jewelled night,” shadowy and mystic with the silence of the ages. Abroad upon the moor at such an hour seem to brood the imaginings of an older world, and the grey stone circles standing gaunt yet upon the Arran wilds are hardly needed to suggest the memory that along these wilds, once upon a time, wound processions of bearded Druids, to practise under the starry influences rites of a faith now long forgotten. At intervals upon the moor appear these grey menhirs and circles. Inscrutable as the Egyptian sphinx they stand with sealed lips, strange monuments of a buried past. For tens of centuries they have seen the dusks gather and the stars swim overhead, but no rising sun has wakened them from their silence, and still they keep the stony secret of their origin, though they could not keep the ashes of the dead committed to their charge.

Meanwhile Hamish makes way steadily, though by tortuous windings. None but a native bred on the spot could conduct a vehicle safely by night across these moors. Where unaccustomed eyes can make out no sign whatever of a track, and where a single mistake would send one wheel floundering into a peat-hag and the other spinning in the air, or capsize the whole equipage into the miry abysses of a bog, Hamish leads confidently on, with no worse result than the jolting of a rugged road. The mare is a sturdy beast of the small sure-footed Arran breed, now dying out, and she pulls away gallantly among rocks and heath-tufts that would bring any other sort of horse to quick disaster. It takes her master all his time to keep up with her on the rough ground, and he has breath left for no more than an occasional “Ay, ay,” or “’Deed, yes, sir!” in the true Arran accent. English is evidently the less familiar language to him; his remarks to the mare, _sotto voce_, are in Gaelic.

All last month after nightfall tufts and sheets of flame were to be seen among the darkness of the hills; for in March they burn the heather on the sheep-farms to let the young herbage come up, and the conflagrations which appear then as pillars of smoke by day become pillars of fire by night. But in April the moorland birds have begun to build their nests, and the hills are left to them in darkness and in peace. The only light to be seen from the cart is that in the window of the croft far behind, which will be kept aglow by thoughtful hands as a guide till Hamish’s return after moonset. Over the brow of the moor, however, the shining lights of the clachan at the mountain foot before long come into sight, and away to the right, tremulous with silver and shadows, the sheen of the moonlight can be made out on the sea. Rapidly now the path descends, plunging presently through lanes of high thorn hedges where the stars are all but shut out overhead. The rush of a river is heard, the wheels grate harshly on the gravel, there is a sudden and vigorous splashing of hoofs, and the mare has passed the ford. Then a half-mile of climb uphill on a good road, and Hamish stands still with his charge at the door of the inn.

BY A WESTERN FIRTH.

“Good-bye, my dear!”

How beautiful the old lady looks as she stands in the porch overclustered with its tangle of budding roses and honeysuckle, a kindly smile on her lips, and her eyes shining, and her silver hair, in the last light of afternoon! For the sun is setting now, across the water, behind the hills of Bute, and the glory that fills the heavens and floods the full-ebbed sea casts about her, in its departing moments, a halo of peace serene as the hours of her life’s own afternoon. “Good-bye, my dear!”

Sunshine and silence sleep now on the hillside strath above, where the woods hang motionless, and the sward here and there, in the open spaces, is lit with the golden flame of gorse in blossom; but across that hillside once long ago raged the tide of a relentless war. Here, blood-red in the setting sun, waved the standard of a Scottish king, and yonder, down to the shore and to the wrecks of his ships, was driven back the shattered strength of the invading Norseman. The corries were filled then with the bodies of the dead, and the brown waters were stained a dreadful purple in the burn-pools where the trout leap now after the evening fly. That was the Scottish Salamis.

No one is in sight upon the white road, and no sound to be heard of distant footstep or departing wheels. There is only the lingering lapse of the quiet ripples as the sea sows its pearl-seed along the shore. A perfect calm rests upon the waters while the light slowly leaves them, and the red sun goes down behind the hills; only, at one place, across the glassy surface, where the tide is stirring, run, on the tiny wavelets, a hundred flickering tongues of fire, and, far out, the reflection of the great yellow cloud aflame in the west shimmers like frosted gold upon the sea.

Gently the gloaming falls. The last mellow pipe of the mavis floats from the garden shrubbery behind, and bats begin to jerk about with their uncertain flight under the trees, their wings making a curious eerie creaking in the air. Only a dim green light falls through the leaves interlaced overhead as the road leaves the bay and dips inland through the woods.

The day’s work is over. It is the sacred hour, and, far from “the stir and tumult of the street,” in these still aisles, carpeted soft with fallen bud-sheaths and grass, roofed with the fretted canopy of branch and leaf, and hung with the fringed banners of larch and birch, ascends to heaven with the last notes of the woodland choristers the sweet incense of a thousand flowers. Mossy dykes run into the wood-depths here, and among the tall feathery grasses under the trees there are places purple with a mist of wild hyacinths. A crimson shadow, too, lies here and there, where the wood geranium throws its profusion; and pink and white sandflowers grow in the dry ditch-sides. By the clear mossy roadside well, and among the withered leaves in the glades, rise the first green spires of the foxgloves; a golden haze betrays the beds of yellow crowfoot; and in some sequestered spots pale primroses are still starring the rivulet banks.

Amid the woods, a secluded nook, nestles a cottage--the gamekeeper’s lodge, with its low slate roof, and sweetbrier trained upon the white walls, yellow pansies asleep beneath its window-sills, and crimson fuchsia and wild dog-roses blossoming in the hedge. The little flower-garden about it is trimly kept, with its southernwood and thyme, its clipped box edgings and gravelled path; and in the grassy hollow under the wood behind are the rows of boxes for breeding the young pheasants. A faint luscious smell hangs in the air of the spot--suggestive of frying trout freshly caught in the brown burn that gurgles close by in the darkness. The keeper, too, is sitting outside the quiet doorway enjoying his evening pipe; and the fragrance of the southern weed mingles with the sweet scent of the pink hawthorn flowering over the wicket. Tread softly, though, on the grassy edge of the road for a little way. The kennel is at hand, and the slightest sound will set every dog baying his loudest. The rattle of a terrier’s chain is enough, sometimes, to set the woods echoing for full ten minutes.

The air grows less heavy as the road again approaches the shore, and there comes up with the murmur of the shingle the faint salt smell of the sea. Away in front the bright blaze streaming out in the darkness strikes from the lighthouse tower at the outmost sea-edge, receiving its signal, like the bale-fires of old, from the beacon on the opposite coast, and flashing it on to the next point up channel. Far out, too, on the firth a red light is moving, and the faint beat of paddles comes across the water. It is the last river-steamer making for the watering-place opposite. Singularly still the air is, to carry so distinctly the throbbing of that distant pulse. Not another sound is to be heard, and nothing astir is to be seen. Only, the moon has risen, a clear sickle, on the edge of the dark hill above. On such a night loveliness and mystery swim together on the air; the blushing of the rose is the fairer for being but half seen in the dim light; the woods above have ceased their amorous whisperings; and the sea amid the silence is kissing the shore’s wet lips.

What white shadow comes yonder, though, moving under the high hedge in the darkness? It might almost be one of those wraiths of which the country-folk speak with bated breath--the awful Something seen moving in the dusk from the house where a man has died. There is a sound of hoofs here, however, and the spectre proves to be but the gaunt Rozinante of some wandering gipsies--the grey and pitiful counterpart, doubtless, of a once-gallant steed. Delicate hands may have patted the neck worn bare now by the collar, and sweet sugar-bits may have been offered by dainty fingers to the lips that tremble now as they crop the dusty roadside grasses. Does memory ever come to the brain behind those patient eyes?

See! close by in the little dell among the flowering broom twinkles the camp-fire of the owners. Their dark figures lie about it asleep, for the night is warm, and they are a hardy race; while at hand stands their quaint house on wheels, overhung with baskets of all sorts and uses. A strange, lawless life they live in the midst of nineteenth-century civilisation, those Bedouins of the broomfields and commons.

But here is our inn, a long-forgotten hostelrie, where one can sit at noon in the shade by the doorway with a book, and watch the ships far out go by upon the firth, while the cool sea glistens below, and all day long there is the drowsy hum of bees about the yellow tassels of the laburnums at the gable ends. A pleasant spot it is even now in the darkness. The lilac-trees in the garden are a-bloom, and the air is sweet with their scent. A pleasant place, where the comely hostess will welcome the tired pedestrian, where his supper will taste the better for the fresh night air from the open window, and where, presently, he will fall asleep between sheets that smell of the clover-field, to dream of the firmly-grasped tiller, the snowy cloud of sails overhead, and the rushing of the water under the yacht’s counter of the morrow.

AN ISLAND PICNIC.

Seven o’clock, and a glorious morning! The sun is shining brightly on the coral-clustered rowan-tree outside, and the sky already is dazzling blue. A gentle air, too, just stirs the muslin curtain of the window left open overnight. With it comes in the scent of honey and the hum of bees at work in the garden below. No morning is this for laziness and a late breakfast. The impulse to be abroad is born of the sunshine; and a few minutes serve, after a hurried toilet, to snatch a towel, bound down stairs, and go tramping across the heather to the well-known pool.

A magnificent day indeed it promises to be. The wreathing night-mists have already risen from the Bens, and the loch below gleams like melted sapphire round sylvan island and far-set promontory. Everywhere the mountains are clad in purple, and from the moor-bloom spreading its springy carpet underfoot rises a fragrance that fills air and heart alike with delight. And the river pool--never was found more delightful bathing-place. Hidden deep between overhanging banks of heather in flower, with a clean brown ledge of rock to dive from, the depth of dark, clear water, like amber wine, sparkles with foam-bells, and the waterfall tosses from the rock above great showers of silver spray. No more invigorating plunge could be had. For a moment, as he breasts the brown depths, the bather feels something of the salmon’s exultant pride; and a dip like that sets one off high-hearted for the day.

Breakfast is a delight after such an appetiser; and fresh eggs and thin oatcakes, creamy porridge, golden marmalade, and all the wealth of Highland fare, disappear with startling despatch. There is no time to be wasted either, for Archie was to have the boat ready at half-past nine, and there is a Highland half-mile of road between the house and the loch. Archie would by no means scruple about expressing his candid, and perhaps not very complimentary, opinion if the party chanced to be late; and there is a kind of unwritten law in the house that the old servant is to be humoured as much as possible. So already the ladies are concerning themselves with the making and packing of sandwiches, the due stowage of cold provender, jellies, fruit, milk, _et cetera_, and the apportioning to each his load. For the luncheon is to be, _bonâ fide_, a true Robinson Crusoe affair, no servants interfering; and each man must make himself useful.

“’Deed, and ye’re no that late, efter a’!” is Archie’s magnanimous reply to a deprecating remark of his mistress on reaching the loch-side. The sunshine has evidently thawed his usual crustiness. “Aye, mem,” he replies further, “it’ll be a fine mornin’, a very fine mornin’; the hills is quite clear.” After which deliverance he holds the boat steady alongside the little wooden landing-place, while provisions, kettles, and rugs are stowed away in the bow; and his grey eyes twinkle with pleased humour under their shaggy brows when the heir of the house whispers some bit of sly badinage in his ear. “Aye he iss a fine lad that, a fine lad!” the old fellow will be saying to himself when the boat has been pushed off, and he watches from the pier the stalwart object of his remark bestirring himself to haul up the sail.

There is just enough breeze to curl the water gently; and when the snowy sheet is hoisted the boat bends away gracefully before it, leaving a swirling track of foam and eddies in her wake. When the morning is so fine as this there is little fear of danger; but on these Highland lochs one never can foretell the moment when a sudden gust may come down from some hillside corrie; and cool nerves and a steady hand are needed to control sheet and tiller. The man who loses his wits on an emergency, who cannot slacken out sail or bring the boat’s head up to wind when a squall strikes her, is no fit pilot for these waters, and many a fair freight has gone to the bottom from such an one holding the helm. A strong and ready hand is in charge to-day, however, and “black care” is a thing impossible on board, as the little craft goes bounding out upon the bosom of the loch.

And fair as a romance is the scene--the clear lake winding away among the mountains, its surface broken only by bosky islets that float in their own reflections--while the sunny air is full of the awe and silence of the Bens.

The only spot in all the scene where silence reigns not is on board the little boat herself; and a continuous ripple of merry chat and joyous laughter floats away astern with her foam. From wild little islets passed by the way come breaths of pinewood and of heather in bloom, faint and delicious as the gales which drifted leeward of old from homeward-bound spice-argosies of the East. But the bright eyes on board are an inspiration themselves, independent of the sunshine and the pure and scented air; and the gladness of youth has broken forth--the contagion of happy and hopeful hearts. A sweet strain of melody floats once and again from the bow, where the singing throats are:

Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing!

--the Skye Boat Song, a farewell to Prince Charlie, that old-time idol of the Highland hearts. A sad melody it is, amid its sweetness, as are all the old Jacobite songs, with their breathing of hopes that were never to be fulfilled; and somehow, strains like that come to the ear with more real tenderness when sung as to-day by clear young voices among their native mountains.

Too soon, almost, the boat’s keel grates upon the island beach--the strip of silver shingle under the green-fringing trees. One would fain have prolonged especially the last part of the voyage, through the straits between the islands--straits like the miniature narrows of fairy-land, between whose near and bosky shores the fragile shallop of Oberon and Titania might almost be expected to appear, flying a web of the woodland gossamers for its sail. But other attractions enough lie within the island greenwood. There are delicate groups of birches to be sketched by those who have brought block and colours. In the rivulet dells some of the young ladies have been promised the discovery of the much-sought hart’s-tongue fern. And for those who wish to recall to fancy the place’s romance of the past, there are the remains of a ruined monastery to explore. But the merriest party of all, perhaps, is that retained for the preparation of luncheon; and it is wonderful in how short a time those dainty-fingered damsels have the tasteful display of linen and crystal and silver spread on a grassy plot, the clumsy-handed males being retained, after the fashion of the knights-errant of old, for the opening of baskets and boxes, and the seeking of leaves wherewith to decorate fruit-salvers, napkins, and the tablecloth’s centre.

A merry meal it is, too, which follows, _al fresco_--“all in the greenwood free”--with the contortions of carvers on their knees, the popping of corks, and continual little explosions of mysterious laughter from the various groups perched on cloaks and rugs wherever a seat-hold offers round the roots of some gnarled oak or ash. Never more gallant do young men appear than when attending the wants of their fair comrades amid such a scene; and thrice happy is he who has such an opportunity of laying siege to the heart that he desires.

Then away again over the island they go, in parties of two and three; and the flutter of a light dress is to be seen and the joyous ripple of merry laughter to be heard in many a nook and dell hitherto invaded only by the antlered and timid deer. Many a pleasant word is spoken, and many a heart mayhap lightened of its care on such an afternoon; for the anxieties of civilised life come not to a sylvan retreat like this, and it is impossible to be aught but joyous-spirited when the surroundings are all of gladness.

But hark! they have caught a piper on the mainland, and have brought him over, and there is to be a dance on the grass. Yonder he goes, under the edge of the trees, pouring forth a torrent of Highland reels. A brave sound that, setting the blood on fire and making it impossible to sit still. And merrily go the twinkling feet on the greensward--“figures of eight,” and Reel o’ Tulloch, Highland Schottische and Highland Fling. Wilder and faster grows the music, as the piper catches the spirit of the scene, and faster and faster the dancers foot it, with swirling tartans and flying skirts, till, at a final blast of the screaming chanter, the last partners throw themselves panting on the grass. Then a cup of tea makes a kindly refreshment and prevents heated throats from catching cold, and the boat has to be got ready, and the furniture of the feast stowed away. Afterwards, as the clear young moon begins to sparkle in the sky, the sail is set once more and the prow pointed for home. And if the wind fails, and some rowing has to be done, the exercise is good for keeping off the chill; and with song after song floating out across the water under the stars, a fitting end is made of a day without regrets.

TENNIS IN THE NORTH.

A pretty sight they are, these two, this fair summer morning, among the dewy branches of the rose-garden, all unconscious that anyone is looking at them, Minna, the daughter of the house, her white hands wet with flowers, is cutting fresh blossoms for the breakfast-table, and that tall fellow, the Professor, who at home used to get up only when the college bell was ringing, has actually risen half an hour earlier than he need have done in order to hold the basket for her. He is not looking at the costly little circlet of diamonds sparkling upon her finger, but at the bright dark eyes swimming under the edge of that delightful straw hat, where, doubtless, he is getting some fresh light upon the Greek particles. For they are engaged, Minna and he, and he is coming back in the autumn to carry her off and transplant her, like some bright-petalled flower, in his dim old college city.

But there is the voice of our host greeting them from the porch below, and the Professor comes forward eagerly to shake hands with him. Young Rossdhu has driven down to say that some friends arrived at their house last night, and his mother will be glad if we can go up to tennis and luncheon there this morning. No other engagement will be broken by this, and a day on that velvet lawn among the pine-woods will be delightful; so the carriage has been ordered for eleven o’clock. The day promises to be very warm here by the sea, but more air will perhaps be moving up among the hills, and there will always be the shadow of the old beeches to rest under. When breakfast is over, then, it will just be time to get ready, though it is tempting to linger in the quiet cool little room, at the white-spread table with its freshness of flowers--the full-blowing Maréchal Niel and the languorous yellow tea-roses set there by dainty fingers.

Outside, the sunshine is very hot already, and the last dewdrop has long ago dried from the scarlet petals of the geraniums in the urns. The ponies at the door, too, are impatiently whisking their tails and twitching their ears to keep off the flies.

There could be no more enjoyable drive than that along this road of the far North, running a mile or two first within sight of the blue glistening sea, and then turning inland. The road itself, of that dazzling sandy whiteness peculiar to the district, is perfectly dry and smooth; and while from the deep grasses of the bank on each side, and from the warren beyond, come the hot passion-breath of the golden-flowered whin, and the soft amorous sigh of the milky-clouded thorn, there is ever in sight the broad country, rich in old forests, showing here and there the grey tower of some ancient castle, and stretching away to the mountains beyond, purple under the speckless sky. Then it turns off suddenly into the pine-woods of Rossdhu, and the wheels roll noiseless upon the soft bed of fir needles.

Forty years ago, when old Rossdhu found that, owing to the repeal of the Corn Laws, it would no longer be profitable to grow wheat, like many another proprietor in the North he planted his lands with trees. And so, while the country buys its bread with the riches of ore and fossil stored up æons ago in Nature’s grim treasure-caverns underground, the soil, at rest from plough and harrow, is growing young again amid the forests, under the brown depth of mouldering leaf and cone.

Deep quiet reigns among these warm pine-woods, a sort of enchanted stillness amid the yellow sunshine. In the bosky hollow where the brown butterfly is hovering, old Pan might be asleep among the fern. The feathery grasses everywhere are in flower, as high as a man’s shoulder; above them shimmers the great green dragon-fly, two inches long, with his gossamer wings; and from among their clouds at places little ladybird beetles, like pin-heads, spotted scarlet and black, fall into the carriage in their flight. The wild strawberry, with its tiny white blossom, is growing on the sunny banks of the road, and wild rasps spread their tangle in the undergrowth beyond.

In the narrow meadow amidst the woods a lonely mower is at work, and the air is sweet with the scent of new-mown hay. He lifts his cap respectfully as the carriage passes, for the manners of the district have not been corrupted yet by contact with rude railway navvies, nor by the shortcomings of Board schools; and the peasant still exchanges a recognition with his superior. Much more real kindliness might exist between the social classes if in our schools there were a Government grant for manners. All store nowadays seems to be set upon the three “Rs”--reading, writing, and arithmetic--as if the whole sum of human felicity lay in a knowledge of the “black art” of books.

The mower was singing to himself as we came up, a soft Gaelic song that kept time to the sweep of his scythe, and Minna blushes a little as she promises to translate it in the evening, for it is a song of confessed love. The man is happy, surely, singing as he sees the glistening, swathes fall by his side to ripen in the sun: and well he may be, for has he not, like the happy birds, a nest, too, somewhere in these woods, and a blue-eyed brood that will greet his home-coming at nightfall.

But the manor-house stands close by now, and there, on the smooth green lawn among the trees, the tennis nets are spread, and the courts marked with lines on the grass. A beautiful old place it is, its grey stone walls hot with the sunshine, and, among the thick-climbing jessamine and fuchsia, the open windows revealing tempting depths of shadow within. The sound of the wheels on the gravel brings out old Rossdhu himself, the soul of hospitality, with half a dozen of his dogs barking a welcome after their fashion, and wagging their tails. Shaggy-bearded as some of his own peasants, the old gentleman is the pink of Highland courtesy, and he assists “Miss Minna” to alight as if she were a princess. “Alec,” that is his son, he explains, “is busy inside,” and the frequent popping of corks heard there intimates his occupation.

The dark cool drawing-room is bright with the light dresses of young girls, and musical with the murmur of happy laughter, while the air that just stirs the creamy gossamer of the curtains brings in with it the fragrance of the dark velvety wallflower still flowering outside in the sunshine before the window. The lady of the house is an invalid, and Rossdhu begs that Minna will give her just one song before everybody goes out to the game. So Minna draws off her gloves, and the piano is opened. And it is very pleasant to sit in the deep shadow by the open casement, looking out upon the sunny lawn and woods, and listening to the melody of that sweet young voice. It is a Jacobite song she sings, “The Auld House”--some other such place as this, with low-roofed rooms, dark-panelled and oaken-raftered, where the hopes of gentle hearts blossomed and withered long ago with the fortunes of their fair, ill-fated Prince. The plaintive words linger with their air in the memory, how “the auld ladye”--