God bless thee, without putting herself to the trouble of laying back her lugs, cocks her fud, and while you are yet ploutering among the rashes, the fleet fur is far away up the sheep-nibbled greensward; nay, by this time couched in her form among the fern above the line of the dwarf birk-tree groves. Partridges! we declare a breeding pair-bobbing their heads along the barley-braird on a patch of cultivation on the marshy moor. That black breast-almost of mountain-glooming among the green hills, is no doubt populous with moorfowl,-and we could think we hear the gorcock crowing-but 'tis a raven. The little lambs must beware of racing too far in the sunshine from their woolly mothers-yet he is fondest of carrion-and probably there is a dead horse in the cleugh. small sweet silent source of the silver Gala! welling springs, each with its emerald margin, which is the source acknowledged by the "braw braw lads on Gala Water?” The charm of a pastoral country is its calm. In all the streamy straths you see houses,-store-farms or othersand seedtime being somewhat late in our South this season, (in the West 'twas early), these silent-going plough-teams are cheery; but how still all the hills, and bare of human life! Yet there is nothing dark or dismal-a sweet serenity is over all—and the prevailing and permanent impression is that of peace. Surely that white sea-bird will never have the heart to leave that quiet meadow for the stormy main. It ought not to waver about by itself so, but to mix with those other snowy wheelers, and be for life a dove. Peter looks over his shoulder, and wonders to see us sitting Kit-cat in full view; for, some miles back, we had adroitly let down the head of the phaeton—and in our rich fur gown —a gift from the Emperor of all the Russias-we have the appearance of an opossum. Torsonce is an admirable inn; but the Tits are swinging along at eight knots; and sylvan Stow, with its knoll-climbing cottages, brown kirk, and peartree-blossoming manse, in which, after morning prayer, the worthy pastor is issuing for a stroll in his garden, is no sooner come than gone; and we cannot help forgetting it in this long line of woods. There are no leaves yet on the oaks or elms— and as for the ashes, 'twill be July at the soonest ere they are in full and fine feather; but the larches, and the birks, and the alders, are greening every sunny hour, and showing sweet symptoms of the sappy spirit that is stirring in all the old forest-trees, and will soon be crowning them with umbrage. What buds on that horse-chestnut! each as big as our fist, and just about bursting from its balmy cerement. And are not these sycamores promising striplings -every year's shoot a yard long-and thus thirty feet high-the lowest of themthough we remember seeing them planted—as if yesterday! No nest more comfortable than a crow's. We just see her neb. Many a one have we harried; for in our schoolboy days we were monkeys at speeling, and have invaded even the heron's domicile, as it swung to and fro on the elm-tree top, “when winds were piping loud," and urchins on the mossy greensward below were picking up the broken branches, in intervals of upward-gazing admiration; for as that dare-devil in Shakespeare-—we never remember precise words—says, we and danger were two lion whelps, littered in one day; but 66 we the elder and more terrible."-Hem-hem—hem ! We begin to feel an appetite for something; and scenery never looks so pleasant as under an appetite. Seen on a full stomach, nature, in some strange sympathy, seems labouring under a surfeit—too blowzy to be beautiful-with a flushed after-dinner face expressive of nothing better than an inclination to repose. Hence it is that poets so love the morning. In herself no doubt she is lovely, with or without her diamonds; but in your eyes she is a very angel, for no particle of divine air has left your spirit, and you see her in the pure light of imaginative love. So Milton felt when he breathed that immortal line "Under the opening eyelids of the Morn!" In Nature he saw, as it were, a seraph waking from sleep! Vegetation cannot have progressed much since the last milestone; nor earlier here than there can surely be the spring; yet all the earth is greener-and bluer is the sky; less sober is our cheer of heart—and we are happier because hungrier that is the secret. Our system is juvenilised by all matin rural influences; this is our wedding-day, and Nature is our bride. We could get out of the phaeton, and on that half-sunny half-shady spot lie down with her in our arms, and hug her to our heart. O Nature! how balmy is thy breath! How fresh thy soft-swelling bosom! How couldst thou-thou blessed creature-throw thyself away on Us, when all the world were dying for love of Thee, and crowding to kiss thy feet! Steady down hill, Peter-tighter on Priam, Peter-softly with Rufus, Peter;-there we spin-" and the keen axle kindles as we go." Let us see. In three hours and five minutes from Moray Place to Clovenford. Nothing like a long stride-only thorough-breds, Peter, can do the business in style, after all;-blood, bone, and bottom-nothing like the descendants of the Godolphin Arab. The wayside inns of staid Scotland will not bear comparison with those of merry England. There you see them smiling, with their trellised gables, low windows, and overhanging eaves all atwitter with swallows, a little way off the road, behind a fine tree palisaded in the front circle, "In winter, shelter, and in summer, shade." The porch is bloomy; and the privet hedge running along the low wall does not shut out a culinary garden, deficient neither in flowers nor in fruits, with a bower at the end of the main gravel-walk, where, at tea or toddy, in love or friendship, you may sit, "the world forgetting, by the world forgot;" or take an occasional peep at the various arrivals. Right opposite, on entering, you see the bar,-and that pretty bar-maid, she is the landlord's daughter. "The parlour on the left, sir, if you please," says a silver voice, with a sweet southern-that is, English accent-so captivating to every Scotchman's ear -and before you have had time to read the pastoral poem on the paper that gives the parlour walls their cheerful character, the same pretty creature comes trippingly in with her snooded hair comb-surmounted, and having placed you a chair, begins to wipe the table, already dustless as the mirror in which she takes a glance at her shadow, as you take a gaze on her substance; and having heard your sovereign will and pleasure expressed with all the respectful tenderness of a subject, retires with a curtsey-and leaves you stroking your chin, in a mood of undefinable satisfaction with her, with yourself, and with all the world. Clovenford is not exactly such a wayside inn, but the accommodation of all kinds is excellent-bed, board, and washing; and he who cannot make himself comfortable here, as we now are doing, cannot have a calm conscience. There is nothing particular to look at out-doors; some stabling—a cottage that seems a shop, where you may buy snuff and sweeties; fields with hedges and gates, over one of which a long-nosed mare, with a foal at her foot (an early produc tion) is now whinnying after Priam or Rufus; a good bit off, trees, among which the high-road disappears; and, at about mile's distance, hills, some of them wooded, under the line of which, you would know without being told it, from a dimblue sort of mysterious aerial haze, must be flowing a river; and what river can it be but the—TWEED? a Helen! do you know that you are a very bonny lass? a commonplace, perhaps inappropriate, but popular expression, and one that rarely if ever gives offence; though sometimes they may strive to look sulky, and answer you by silence. But, Helen is comely, and a most obliging creature. There is a mild modesty about Helen, that makes it pleasant to be waited on by her; and though she is never in a hurry, it is surprising what she puts through her hands. We have known her attending, by her single self, on three tables, each, of course, in a different parlour, one at each end, and one in the middle of the transe, and yet she never seemed missing from your elbow. Helen keeps her eyes (hazel) perpetually on the watch; and you never need to ask for an article. Pepper, mustard, or ketchup-bread, butter, or some more gravy— what you will-but wish for it, and she presents it to you with a smile-not right and rough over your shoulder, as is the use and wont of some nymphs in Arcadia, but standing near, not close, in an attitude at once affectionate and respectful-and more of the former-at least so it has sometimes seemed to us—the more elderly you are-if not absolutely old -and then she treats you with reverence. Not a word had we breathed about breakfast—yet here comes the daughter of Leda with the tray. We read in her eyes a vivid remembrance of this very same morning, of the very same month, last spring. All the intermediate year is by us too forgotten; and it would require much metaphysical subtlety to analyse our feelings compounded of the Past and Present, so as to form a new Tense. The Then and the Now are coexistent; and slightly tinged too with a colouring of the When. We are conscious of a was-is-and-to-be-ish emotion on looking at those four eggs, evidently new-laid, those four penny loaves in close cohesion with their auburn crusts-that plateful of wet, and that rack of dry toast-and above all, that pound of butter. Nor is jam nor jelly not causative, each in its own degree, of our composite spiritual state; nor that ham. The stroup of the teapot alone seems changed-it having met with an accident that serves to dissolve the doubtful identity of the Two-timesin-one, and to restore memory to her seat of office, which had thus been usurped by that strange faculty, Imagination. Whoo! Now let us take a look at our tackle-Mrs Phin's. Seldom have we seen finer gut. The Gut of Gibraltar is a joke to it; gossamer coarse in comparison. This bunch of lark-winged hair-lugs has a killing look-and so have these water-mouse bodies with wings of grey mallard. But here are the heckles that will harry the river-Professors1-red and black with brown mallard wings dressed fine on number four kirby-bend-sharp as clegs-yet almost minute as midges. The trout that licks in one of these " wee wicked deevils" with his tongue, will rue the day he was spawned on the banks of gravel. No loops on any casting-line of ours -all knots; the drop-flies-for we always use three-depending four and five inches; and the casting - line itself the length of the rod to a tittle. No multiplying reel for us—in all things we love simplicity—and should we even hook a FISH, with this small machine we shall prove his master. Shoot, spring, summersault, or wallop as he will, he is a dead salmon. But the landlord's pony's at the door, with a boy to bring him back, who is stroking the long forelock down smooth on his Roman nose, and picking out the straws till it looks quite tidy. It would not be easy to determine his colourbut, whatever it is, he is no chameleon, and keeps to it; his ears are none of the shortest, yet surely he cannot well be a mule either; and though his tail, on the contrary, be one of the shortest, yet he seems anxious to make the most of it, and has acquired a custom of switching it in a style that, if it were anything more than a mere stump, might prove awkward to his rider in miry weather. But let us not any longer 1 The fly-hook so called, with which Professor Wilson was wont to do much execution. |