158 VISIONS OF AULD LANG SYNE. 



and his hopes began to rise. The gleam was brief and 

 delusive ; again arid again the huge volumes came breaking 

 on the hill tops, and all was more sullen than ever. As 

 for patient resignation, no deer-stalker knows what it 

 means ; he might possibly have read of such a thing, as 

 Magnus Troil had of the nightingale, but certainly can- 

 not put faith in its actual existence. Once taint him with 

 this sort of philosophy, and you ruin him for life ; he is a 

 lost man to all intents and purposes. An eager sportsman, 

 I can understand ; the phrase is apt ; but who ever heard 

 of a patient sportsman ? Such a fellow would take snuff 

 when he ought to take a snap shot; and you would see 

 him purgantem leniter ungues, when he should be sweeping 

 down a precipice like an eagle. But of such as these 

 discourse we no farther. 



Turn we now to Tortoise. Silent and abstracted he 

 sat on the grey stone, and, passing his hand across his 

 brows, began to brood over the scenes of his early days ; 

 again he roams over the rock-bound coast of Mull, and 

 along the desolate shores of lona ; again he chases the roe 

 amongst the slaty mountains and rude wildernesses of the 

 Isle of Mist ; once more he traverses the heathy Morven, 

 and winds his solitary way amidst the rocks and hoarse 

 cataracts of Glencoe. Here, in this birthplace of Ossian, 

 rise up before him, in his visionary mood, the heroes of 

 other days, the hunters of deer ; and thus again he muses 

 on that blood-stained pass : 



Was it thy form, Fingal, that on the cloud 

 Strode on as the autumnal gust blew loud, 

 Deep'ning amid these rocks and glens forlorn ? 

 Was it the echo of thy distant horn ? 



