AND THE WILDERNESS BLOSSOMED 



tation among the snoods,' yet ' in his eld ' he will not 

 only look back upon this story ' pawkily,' but still realize 

 that he has been wandering ' on the wrong airt,' and 

 that 't would have been money in his purse had he 

 ' dighted his blade ' and ' swithered for a moment,' with 

 ' dour-set jaw,' and then burned or translated his manu- 

 script. Some day he will sound his own ' coranach ' 

 for this book, his tears will fall not in a ' smirr,' but in 

 'runnels' on his 'sark,' his locks will be 'towsy,' and 

 he '11 have ' the slouch of the grangel,' as he sits in his 

 ' byre ' and reflects. There are, to be sure, some 

 charming touches in the story, as where we read of the 

 ' braes and corries in Argyle that whisper silken to the 

 winds with juicy grasses,' ' among the bog-flower and 

 the connoch,' where a ' space-wife ' and ' ladies with 

 broidery and camisole and washen faces,' witness the 

 ' tinker's death in the sheuch,' while the ' winds blew 

 snell,' -and there was heard ' the snorting low of the 

 stirk.' The beauty of the scene is qualified by the fact 

 that ' only in its season the cannoch tuft, and that itself 

 but sparsely ; the sturdy gall itself finds no nourishment 

 here,' which will be a surprise to most of us, as it has 

 hitherto been supposed that ' sturdy gall ' found nourish- 

 ment in all Scotland. 



" This story may be ' snod,' but the ' dule of it ' all 

 is that it is ' tapsilteerie ' to a degree, and, at the best, 

 has no ' swither ' about it. Of course, in ' Lochow of 

 the bosky isles and holy,' where 'a scent of wet birk 

 was in the wind,' and ' the river glucked and chattered 

 and plopped most gaily,' one is not surprised to learn 

 that ' the fluff of the wing was heard ' as ' the londubh 

 parted his beak of gold,' the ' howlets mourned ' and the 

 crows called with ' roupy voices.' 



82 



