NATURE'S REALM. 
NOL. 41. 
A HIGHLAND 
MARCH, 1891. 
No. 3. 
MANSE. 
By Rosert CAMPBELL AULD. 
There are days which occur at almost any season of the year, 
wherein Nature reaches its perfection ; where the heavens and 
the earth produce harmony as if that Nature would indulge her 
offspring. * * * We bask in the shining hours, os 
where everything that has life gives signs of satisfaction ; and 
the cattle that lie on the ground seem to have great and tran- 
quil thoughts. * * * The day, immeasurably long, sleeps 
over the broad hills and warm, wide fields. The solitary 
places do not seem so lonely. To have lived through all its 
solitary hours seems longevity itself.—/7rom Emerson's essay 
on ‘* Nature.” 
The Manse of Glencomie is cosily and pleas- 
antly situated on the brow of a hill that rises 
sheer from the Glen Burn. It is confined in its 
rear by some stretches of loamy fields. These, 
dignified by the name of “ parks,” were very 
irregularly shaped indeed, and, to the number 
_ of about half a dozen, constituted the ‘‘ Glebe.” 
Glebe lands are generally not the poorest in the 
parish. The Glencomie Manse lands were, as 
the country phrase went, ‘“ weel laid oot” and 
in ‘‘ guid he'’rt,” for ‘‘the Doctor, ye ken, was 
a gran’ fairmer.” The arrangement, too, of 
these parks was very peculiar, but this only 
added to the picturesque quaintness of the 
other surroundings. They swept here, curved 
there and disappeared everywhere. Each was 
enclosed by a rank, sedgy ditch, banked by a 
“sunk” mossy dyke, beyond which the view 
was skirted by a luxury of solemn fir, gaudy 
rowan, gray ash and gay birch. In front, 
down there along the foot of the lawn, which 
was the edge of the steep of the burn, was a 
line of noble sauch-willows of gver fifty years’ 
growth. These had been planted there the 
same year as the “placing o’ the present meen- 
ister.” They bent their great gaunt limbs and 
their gracefully topped forms to the southwest- 
ern breeze with curious ease. Deeper down 
still were a thick round-headed clump of alders. 
with their funny dependent plume-like inflores- 
cences. These thick heads hid and hedged in 
the burn. This was the limpid, liquid, run- 
ning, glistening and restless occupant of a 
lovely rocky channel; a rift in nature, making 
a lucky romantic dell for boyish and girlish 
pranks. Air and light penetrated this suffi- 
ciently from the other side and encouraged all 
sorts of fantastic growth to hold in its embrace 
the regardless little stream. Bare, sheer-faced 
surfaces, sharp jutting edges, steps of grassy 
ledges, dark-aooked recesses, carpets of green- 
hued softness, hemmed or stemmed the tide. 
And where the channel widened the dark water 
spread itself thinly, clearly, over a gravelly, 
shingly bed. Everywhere there was a rank 
growth. Such growth! Summer glory otf 
transparent delicate green, filmy, feathery 
fern, rush and reed; mossy, dripping, glassy- 
surfaced, pebbly mixture. Here a spark of 
floral red, there a bunch of blue or golden yel- 
low ; all enhancing the ethereal charm. 
Through all this maze and myth fled in care- 
less awe the ‘silvery streak,” or deep, dark 
burn, with its mysterious lullaby in this strange, 
early summer hour. Through all this it gaily 
purled and swirled, plunged and plashed, gur- 
gled and babbled, struggled and stumbled ; 
o'er .easy shingle, into deep, dark pot, o’er 
rocky bar or ambitious fall ; hiding in many a 
cranny, confined in narrowing bounds, or wan- 
dering o’er sudden widening shallow ; flowing, 
ever changing, never ending, the silver 
dashed with a frothy, bronzy bree. The water 
