, even within
the waterfall, that holds its young--or with a cock of her tail she dips
and disappears. There is grace in the glancing sandpiper--nor, though
somewhat fantastical, is the water-wagtail inelegant--either belle or
beau--an outlandish bird that makes himself at home wherever he goes,
and, vain as he looks, is contented if but one admire him in a solitary
place--though it is true that we have seen them in half-dozens on the
midden in front of the cottage door. The blue slip of sky overhead has
been gradually widening, and the dell is done. Is that snow? A
bleachfield. Lasses can bleach their own linen on the green near the
pool, "atween twa flowery braes," as Allan has so sweetly sung, in his
truly Scottish pastoral "The Gentle Shepherd." But even they could not
well do without bleachfields on a larger scale, else dingy would be
their smocks and their wedding-sheets. Therefore there is beauty in a
bleachfield, and in none more than in Bell's-Meadows. But where is the
Burn? They have stolen him out of his bed, and, alas! nothing but
stones! Gather up your flies, and away down to yonder grove. There he is
like one risen from the dead; and how joyful his resurrection! All the
way from this down to the Brigg o' Humbie the angling is admirable, and
the burn has become a stream. You wade now through longer
grass--sometimes even up to the knees; and half-forgetting pastoral
life, you ejaculate "Speed the plough!" Whitewashed houses--but still
thatched--look down on you from among trees, that shelter them in
front; while behind is an encampment of stacks, and on each side a line
of offices, so that they are snug in every wind that blows. The Auld
Brigg is gone, which is a pity; for though the turn was perilous sharp,
time had so coloured it that in a sunny shower we have mistaken it for a
rainbow. That's Humbie House, God bless it! and though we cannot here
with our bodily sense see the Manse, with our spiritual eye we can see
it anywhere. Ay! there is the cock on the Kirk-spire! The wind we see
has shifted to the south; and ere we reach the Cart, we shall have to
stuff our pockets. The Cart!--ay, the river Cart--not that on which
pretty Paisley stands, but the Black Cart, beloved by us chiefly for
sake of Cath-Cart Castle, which, when a collegian at Glasgow, we visited
every Play-Friday, and deepened the ivy on its walls with our first
sombre dreams. The scenery of the Yearn becomes even sylvan now; and
though still