es in
a heap among the heather; and then he lifts up, unashamed and
remorseless, that head, which, with its long quiet hairs, a painter
might choose for the image of a saint about to become a martyr.

We leave old Donald asleep, and go with his son-in-law, Lewis of the
light-foot, and Maida the stag-hound, surnamed the Throttler,

"Where the hunter of deer and the warrior trod,
To his hills that encircle the sea."

We have been ascending mountain-range after mountain-range, before
sunrise; and lo! night is gone, and nature rejoices in the day through
all her solitudes. Still as death, yet as life cheerful--and unspeakable
grandeur in the sudden revelation. Where is the wild-deer herd?--where,
ask the keen eyes of Maida, is the forest of antlers!--Lewis of the
light-foot bounds before, with his long gun pointing towards the mists
now gathered up to the summits of Benevis.

Nightfall--and we are once more at the Hut of the Three Torrents. Small
Amy is grown familiar now, and, almost without being asked, sings us the
choicest of her Gaelic airs--a few too of Lowland melody: all merry, yet
all sad--if in smiles begun, ending in a shower--or at least a tender
mist of tears. Heardst thou ever such a syren as this Celtic child? Did
we not always tell you that fairies were indeed realities of the
twilight or moonlight world? And she is their Queen. Hark! what thunders
of applause! The waterfall at the head of the great Corrie thunders
_encore_ with a hundred echoes. But the songs are over, and the small
singer gone to her heather-bed. There is a Highland moon!--The shield of
an unfallen archangel. There are not many stars--but those two--ay, that
One, is sufficient to sustain the glory of the night. Be not alarmed at
that low, wide, solemn, and melancholy sound. Runlets, torrents, rivers,
lochs, and seas--reeds, heather, forests, caves, and cliffs, all are
sound, sounding together a choral anthem.

Gracious heavens! what mistakes people have fallen into when writing
about Solitude! A man leaves a town for a few months, and goes with his
wife and family, and a travelling library, into some solitary glen.
Friends are perpetually visiting him from afar, or the neighbouring
gentry leaving their cards, while his servant-boy rides daily to the
post-village for his letters and newspapers. And call you that solitude?
The whole world is with you, morning, noon, and night. But go by
yourself, without book or friend, and li