BOYHOOD IN GALLOWAY 31 



and dark, as the Dungeon lochs, but smiling 

 openly in the purer light of the upper air. While 

 above all, bare and rocky, like giant sentinels, 

 stand the everlasting hills, topped by the towering 

 peak of Merrick. There they stand, as they have 

 stood for thousands and thousands of years. We 

 see them as James V. saw them when he hunted 

 the wild boar and stag, in this the Royal Forest 

 of Buchan ; or as the stern old Covenanters saw 

 them when they took refuge amongst their fast- 

 nesses to escape the human fiends who, in the 

 name of Religion, followed to slay, — for they are 

 unchanged. Thank God ! there is still a spot here 

 and there in these Islands of ours that the im- 

 provements wrought by man cannot touch nor 

 spoil. 



Over all hangs a great, solemn stillness. It is 

 not a complete stillness, for there comes to the 

 ear, as in waves, a sound, like the sound heard 

 in a sea-shell when pressed to the ear. It becomes 

 louder, then dies away again to a mere thread. 

 It is the sound of the running of innumerable 

 rivulets, or the stirring of a breeze around some 

 distant crag ; and it impresses the mind more 

 greatly with the sense of vast expanse and the 



