or the angler who come to his door, with the sweat upon their
brow and the dust of the highway or the pollen of the heather on their
feet, meet with a hearty welcome; and though the room in which their
meals are served is but low in the roof, and the floor strewn with sand,
and the attic wherein they lie is garnished with two beds and a
shake-down, yet are the viands wholesome, the sheets clean, and the
tariff so undeniably moderate that even parsimony cannot complain. So up
in the morning early, so soon as the first beams of the sun slant into
the chamber--down to the loch or river, and with a headlong plunge
scrape acquaintance with the pebbles at the bottom; then rising with a
hearty gasp, strike out for the islet or the further bank, to the
astonishment of the otter, who, thief that he is, is skulking back to
his hole below the old saugh-tree, from a midnight foray up the burns.
Huzza! The mallard, dozing among the reeds, has taken fright, and
tucking up his legs under his round fat rump, flies quacking to a
remoter marsh.

"By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes,"

and lo! Dugald the keeper, on his way to the hill, is arrested by the
aquatic phenomenon, and half believes that he is witnessing the frolics
of an Urisk! Then make your toilet on the green-sward, swing your
knapsack over your shoulders, and cover ten good miles of road before
you halt before breakfast with more than the appetite of an ogre.

In this way I made the circuit of well-nigh the whole of the Scottish
Highlands, penetrating as far as Cape Wrath and the wild district of
Edderachylis, nor leaving unvisited the grand scenery of Loch Corruisk,
and the stormy peaks of Skye; and more than one delightful week did I
spend each summer, exploring Gameshope, or the Linns of Talla, where the
Covenanters of old held their gathering; or clambering up the steep
ascent by the Grey Mare's Tail to lonely and lovely Loch Skene, or
casting for trout in the silver waters of St. Mary's.

MASSIMO TAPARELLI D'AZEGLIO

(1798-1866)

Massimo Taparelli, Marquis d'Azeglio, like his greater colleague and
sometime rival in the Sardinian Ministry, Cavour, wielded a graceful and
forcible pen, and might have won no slight distinction in the peaceful
paths of literature and art as well, had he not been before everything
else a patriot. Of ancient and noble Piedmontese stock, he was born at
Turin in October, 1798. In his fifteent