lan-battles, and recount the most remarkable legends by
which the road, and the objects which occurred in travelling it, had
been distinguished. There was some originality in the man's habits of
thinking and expressing himself, his turn for legendary lore strangely
contrasting with a portion of the knowing shrewdness belonging to
his actual occupation, which made his conversation amuse the way well
enough.

Add to this, Donald knew all his peculiar duties in the country which
he traversed so frequently. He could tell, to a day, when they would "be
killing" lamb at Tyndrum or Glenuilt; so that the stranger would have
some chance of being fed like a Christian; and knew to a mile the last
village where it was possible to procure a wheaten loaf for the guidance
of those who were little familiar with the Land of Cakes. He was
acquainted with the road every mile, and could tell to an inch which
side of a Highland bridge was passable, which decidedly dangerous. [This
is, or was at least, a necessary accomplishment. In one of the most
beautiful districts of the Highlands was, not many years since, a bridge
bearing this startling caution, "Keep to the right side, the left
being dangerous."] In short, Donald MacLeish was not only our faithful
attendant and steady servant, but our humble and obliging friend; and
though I have known the half-classical cicerone of Italy, the talkative
French valet-de-place, and even the muleteer of Spain, who piques
himself on being a maize-eater, and whose honour is not to be questioned
without danger, I do not think I have ever had so sensible and
intelligent a guide.

Our motions were of course under Donald's direction; and it frequently
happened, when the weather was serene, that we preferred halting to rest
his horses even where there was no established stage, and taking our
refreshment under a crag, from which leaped a waterfall, or beside
the verge of a fountain, enamelled with verdant turf and wild-flowers.
Donald had an eye for such spots, and though he had, I dare say, never
read Gil Blas or Don Quixote, yet he chose such halting-places as Le
Sage or Cervantes would have described. Very often, as he observed the
pleasure I took in conversing with the country people, he would manage
to fix our place of rest near a cottage, where there was some old Gael
whose broadsword had blazed at Falkirk or Preston, and who seemed the
frail yet faithful record of times which had passed away. Or he
woul