154 VERONICA. 



melody; and the river is alive with the leaping trout and the up-and- 

 dovra flies, — and it plays in its course with alternate streams and 

 stills, rapids and circling deep pools, — and the sun shines on all 

 things, living and dead, and we know not what to say hut that this 

 is beautiful and fine, and we say this to one another very often, and 

 never dream that we repeat a twice-told tale. Now a precipitous 

 rock, partly quarried, and clothed with flowering sloes, with a golden 

 whin or two, with hazel and budding hawthorn, with honeysuckle 

 clambering amidst the shrubs, and vdth ivy that festoons the dark 

 rock, and much varied herbage, draws us to remark with what suc- 

 cessful art nature has grouped and mingled all this heterogeneous 

 furniture, producing a very pleasing and picturesque efi^ect with mate- 

 rials, which, separately viewed, are of a mean and regardless charac- 

 ter. Turned by this rock, the river now runs in a rougher channel, 

 banked on one side by a green pasture slope, while the steeper bank, 

 along whose base we travel, is wooded with almost impenetrable 

 shrubbery and trees of minor rank, where the varied botany that 

 luxuriates in their shelter calls us to frequent admiration. The 

 primrose and violet banks, the trailing ground-ivy with its modest 

 flowers, the tall and graceful rush, the star-wort with its blossoms of 

 vestal purity,. — are all beautiful, and although often seen before, their 

 beauty comes fresh and new upon us. I do love these wild flowers 

 of the year's spring. And on we stroll — almost palled with sweets, 

 and almost weary with loitering, — so that it is felt to be a relief, when 

 a sylvan dean, that opens aside on our path, tempts us to trace its 

 unknown intricacies and retreats. It is a dean without a name, but 

 sunny and odorous, and silent. Here the brae glows with whin and 

 budding broom, — there copsed with grey willows and alders, and 

 every wild shrub and trailer; — here a gentle bank with its sward 

 pastured by a lamb or two and their dams that have strayed from 

 the field above, — while opposite, a rough quarry contrasts, yet not 

 disturbs, the solitude, for the prickly briars and weeds, that partially 

 conceal the defect, tell us that it has been some time unworked. 

 Now a sloe-brake gives shelter to every little bird which is seen flit- 

 ting out from its shelter stealthily, and stealthily returning ; and the 

 Lark sings and soars above ; and the Blackbird alarms the dean with 

 its hurried chuckle. And as we near the top, we find a grove of 

 elms, and poplars, and willows, which hang partly over a little 

 shallow linn formed by a rill that has fallen in a gentle stream over a 

 moss-grown shelf of rock ; and then the water steals, more than half- 

 hidden, down the grassy bed of the dean. The quietness of the 

 place begins to influence us all, — the conversation assumes a subdued 

 tone, and some are evidently meditative, when the current which the 

 thoughts of some young dreamer amongst us has taken, is marked 

 out visibly by the question that is asked, — " What is the Blewart of 

 Hogg?" — No one — nor old, nor young — has thought the question 

 abrupt or out of place, but we enter upon it as if the scene had suggested 

 it, and made our young friend its spokesman. — "What is the Blewart 

 in Hogg's beautiful pastoral?" — "Why the Blewart must be the 



