1828.) Meditations on Mountains. 5 
sounds of both are distant and low. Upon the night air, however, there 
comes a sound, clear, sweet, and unbroken, without one shake of art, 
or trill of ornament, and with no accompaniment save the echo of mead 
or of rock, according as the pitch and volume of the note suits the rever- 
beration of the one or the other :— 
“ Up among yon cliffy rocks, 
Sweetly sings the rising echo, 
To the maid that tends the goats, 
ee o'er her native notes. 
Hark! she sings,—young Sandy’s kind ; 
An’ he’s promised ay to lo’e me.” 
The sound comes from the ewe-pen under the cliff; you have it just as 
nature makes it—unfit for manufactured ears, of course; but true to 
youth, innocence, and love ; and though he be so concealed as that he 
cannot be seen by Mr. Gilchrist, Sandy, the betrothed of the lively Jane, 
listens and loses his heart more and more to the lay. 
Hark again! Another voice from the other hand, more soft and 
mellow—it comes moaning, as though the true love of the singer lay 
expiring at her feet, and she were essaying to soften the flinty heart of 
the angel of death :— 
“ T’ve heard a lilting at our eve’s milking, 
Lasses a lilting before break o’ day ; = 
But now there is moaning in ilka green loaning : 
The flowers of the forest are wended away.” 
That is Morag Douglas, with the raven hair and the dark blue eye, 
who used to be the most lively lass in the whole district ; but her lover 
perished last winter in attempting to ford the river amid the flood and 
ice-brash of a thaw; and poor Morag has ever since been the true 
descendant of her clan, “ Douglas of the bleeding heart.” 
You have, however, seen the stock of the mountain grazier—at least 
the home portion of them; they are abundant and choice; and that 
messenger comes to announce supper. The cloth is laid in the best 
- yoom—a modern addition to the rear of the house, and far better than 
te front you would have expected ; the cloth is white as snow, 
d 
and the feast is plentiful. Trout, fresh from the river, and simply 
_broiled—its best dressing, stewed mutton, broiled chickens, and goat 
ham, with (though it has been kept waiting him for a week) the stranger’s 
loaf of wheaten bread. The smell of the viands is savoury, and your 
appetite is keen ; you, therefore, in spite of its solemnity, and your own 
politeness, inwardly grumble at the length of Angus Gilchrist’s grace, 
__ which contains certainly more varied matter, and nearly as many words 
as one of your fashionable sermons. 
The party consists of only four persons, though the house contains a 
little colony, who all mess together except upon great occasions, such as 
that produced by your presence. Mrs. Gilchrist, though plain and 
matron-like, has an air of superiority—a feeling of her own dignity about 
her, which, even though nobody should tell you, would lead you to sup- 
pose that she is the daughter of a proprietor or laird ; that, in spite of 
their pride, she would, and did, have Angus Gilchrist ; and that she 
blesses herself at the having, as also do her family, since they found out 
how very thriving a man he has become. You are seated on her right ; and 
