CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



crowned forehead, Auld Scotland ! and sing aloud to 

 all the nations of the earth, with thy voice of cliffs, 

 and caves, and caverns, 



" Wha daur meddle 10? me?" 



What ! some small, puny, piteous windpipes are heard 

 cheeping against thee from the Cockneys like ragged 

 chickens agape in the pip. How the feeble and fearful 

 creatures would crawl on their hands and knees, faint 

 and giddy, and shrieking out for help to the heather 

 stalks, if forced to face one of thy cliffs, and foot its 

 flinty bosom! How would the depths of their long 

 ears, cotton-stuffed in vain, ache to the spray-thunder 

 of thy cataracts! Sick, sick would be their stomachs, 

 storm-swept in a six-oared cutter into the jaws of 

 Staffa! That sight is sufficient to set the most satur- 

 nine on the guffaw the Barry Cornwall himself, 

 crossing a chasm a hundred yards deep, 



"On the uncertain footing of a spar" 



on a tree felled where it stood, centuries ago, by steel 

 or storm, into a ledgeless bridge, oft sounding and 

 shaking to the hunter's feet in chase of the red -deer! 

 The Cockneys do not like us Scotchmen because of 

 our high cheekbones. They are sometimes very high 

 indeed, very coarse, and very ugly, and give a Scotch- 

 man a grim and gaunt look, assuredly not to be 

 sneezed at, with any hope of impunity, on a dark 

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