304 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



though long celebrated among their descendants, and 

 often sung at their rude hunting feasts and war banquets. 

 See how we are surrounded by vestiges of the fray ! 

 Observe yonder rectangular, altar-like tumulus the 

 scene, it is probable, of human sacrifice; mark how 

 thickly those grave-like mounds are scattered over the 

 moor, and how regularly they run in lines. And then 

 turn to the cairn behind, the monument of some fallen 

 chief. Give yourself up for a moment, my Lydia, to the 

 sway of imagination. The moor is busy with life, the 

 air rent with clamour. Do you not see waving arms 

 and threatening faces, the glittering of spears, the flash- 

 ing of swords, eyes flaring, wounds streaming, warriors 

 falling ? See, the combatants are now wedged into 

 dense masses, now broken into detached bands, now 

 they press onward, now they recede, now they open 

 their ranks, now they close in a death grapple. There 

 are the yells of pain, the roarings of rage, and the shouts 

 of exultation. Passion is busy, and so is death. But the 

 figures recede and the sounds die away, till we see only 

 a wide solitary moor, with its mounds and its tumuli, 

 and hear only the wind rustling through the heath/ 



' Cromarty, half-past six o'clock. 



' Here am I once more in my little room. Mother is 

 preparing tea for me ; and I have just given, as is my 

 wont after returning from a journey, halfpennies apiece 

 to the children and to Angus, the idiot boy, who has 

 been sadly annoyed at my absence. The degree of 

 fatigue incurred by walking nearly eighteen miles in a 

 warm day has in some slight degree blunted the edge of 

 my mind, but it has spared my affections, I can love 

 as warmly as ever. Dear me, here is Bell, I am to see 

 you and to get tea from you to boot/ 



