THE GREAT SCULPTOR 



IN the low country of a northern shire one of the 

 common stock of stories was concerned, in good- 

 natured derision, with a Highland woman who, 

 on a journey, came to a river and sat down to 

 wait till it ran past. I have been spending some 

 rainy days in the country where this lady came 

 from. Before me is a very steep and rocky hill. 

 It is about a mile long, of nearly uniform height, 

 irregularly notched in a score of places at the 

 sky-line. The upper half of it is very nearly 

 precipitous grey rock, and the lower half slopes 

 more freely to a flat glen bottom. After three 

 weeks of fair weather it looked nearly as dry 

 as a cinder -heap, and could not, one would say 

 from its appearance, ever become very wet. 



But after the drought one of those " depres- 

 sions " the weather prophets are always telling 

 us about comes creeping across the Atlantic, and 

 as soon as its edge is over us our scene is changed. 

 The barometer had stood at 30*5 ; it went down 

 to 29-4. With almost startling suddenness great 

 vapour masses begin to condense on the mountain- 

 tops, differing both in character and extent from; 

 the nightcap they are apt to assume of an evening 

 in the best of times. No nightcaps these, but 



