496 coauET SIDE. 



the head for tour miles to the first forester's hut. The animal died 

 at our feet, having been reduced to extreme debility by the bots, a 

 species of worm which infest them, and after quoting the speech of 

 the melancholy Jaques, and mourning over it after our own fashion, 

 we fairly set to and took off its " incarnate skin." We, therefore, 

 shall perform the same office for the eagle ; that we may thus have 

 two characteristic remembrancers of Cheviot and the Highlands. 

 Meantime, yonder are the hills of Yarrow and Ettrick ; and surely 

 that particular mountain where the sunbeams are sleeping is Bore- 

 hope, for near its foot dwells the dear old Ettrick Shepherd. Meet 

 and fit it is that his hills should glow with a proud consciousness of 

 the immortality which he has bestowed upon them. From the top- 

 most height of Cheviot, darling old bard ! we waft a blessing on tiiy 

 declining years, such a blessing as thou hast a thousand times be- 

 stowed upon thousands. Though poor in worldly goods, thou art 

 rich, and thou knowest it, in the kind wishes of grateful hearts ; and 

 thou knowest that for thy sake the little cottage that stands by the 

 Yarrow and the scenes around it will become the pilgrim-shrine of 

 many an unborn generation. Blessings be upon thee and thine, 

 " Bard of the wilderness, blythesome and cumberless !" 



After some difficult dissection about the muscles and tendons of 

 the eagle's thigh, and the upper vertebrae of his neck, and after 

 skinning the stoat, for such we find the slayer of the eagle to be, let 

 us give another look to the east, where stretches in a dim line the 

 German Ocean to the west, where the Atlantic gleams like a rich 

 lace border to the shores of Ayr, to the south, where broad Northum- 

 berland is spread out at our feet and to the north, where, far over the 

 plains and hills of Scotland, old Benlomond rises like a pillar, on 

 which the blue arch of heaven is erected ; and then, depositing our 

 natural curiosities in our creel, let us descend once more into the 

 valley of the Coquet. 



The hills and the glens here are such as no other part of the island 

 possesses ; from the higher mountains they look like verdant hillocks 

 regularly disposed in ranks, or like so many natural pyramids 

 covered with green sward ; but enter their recesses, and the endless 

 variety of the hollows and elevations, of brushwood, of mossy banks, 

 cliffs grown over with lichens and ivy, or standing bare like the 

 skeleton of the world partially uncovered, falls of water and broad 

 peaceful pools, is such as to seduce the rambler for hours from his 

 path, lest he should lose one beauty concealed in the windings of the 

 well-nigh endless labyrinth. The huts of the shepherds stand in 

 every glen, always upon the banks of a stream, and it is surprising 

 what stately, buxom, fine-looking women these sturdy herdsmen 

 have generally prevailed on to share their solitary lot. There is one 

 new-married girl in particular at the foot of Kidland Lee, who wants 

 nothing but the crown upon her lofty white brow to form the very beau 

 ideal of an eastern queen. Such a throat and arms we never beheld 

 before, either upon lowly maiden or lady of high degree. At the 

 same time let us advise no one under six feet, and who cannot lift a 

 hundred-weight in each hand, and strike them together three times 

 successively above his head, to behave in any other than the most 



