UP GLEN ROY. 57 



gallant band which followed the snow-white plume of the hero 

 of Ivry. The individuality of different rivers in Scotland is 

 strikingly brought out during a spate. In fine weather they 

 are simply broad or narrow, rocky or shingly, curved or direct. 

 But in times of flood the Tweed becomes awful, and, given the 

 chance, would signally falsify the bloodthirsty observation of its 

 tributary Till 



" Though ye rin wi' speed, 



And I rin slaw, 

 Yet where ye droun ae man 

 I droun twa ! " 



The Tay waxes stately, as befits the river that washes Scone 

 Palace, the North Inch, and other historical glories of St. 

 Johnston ; Spey is murderous, Findhorn treacherous, Ettrick 

 sullen, Spean magnificent, Garry brawls, Tummel rages, and 

 so on through half a hundred more, while Yarrow's murmurs 

 never pass into anger ; they rise, indeed, to mournful wails, 

 and intensify the sadness of its love-lorn, ballad-haunted banks ; 

 but its imaginative pensive beauty is only better brought out 

 when the silvery currents have fled for the nonce, and all the 

 horror of a blind thunderous torrent has seized upon it. In 

 the worst of weather its kelpies never lose their siren sweetness 

 of song. When trudging along, with knapsack on shoulders, 

 through the worst of these Scotch downpours, the pedestrian's 

 happy disposition enabled me to find numberless compensa- 

 tions of this kind for the lack of distant prospects, until I had 

 at length reasoned myself into the belief that under many 

 aspects Scotland never looked so well as on a rainy day. After 

 attaining this serene frame of mind, all discomforts caused by 

 wind or weather were transformed into factors which enhanced 

 the pleasures of freedom and exploration conferred by a rainy 

 walking tour. What a beneficent goddess is Adversity, if one 

 meekly bows before her scourge ! 



My companion had fondly imagined he could walk, though 



