came from the loch, so gentle, that it stretched itself out, and pawed, and allured some of the more adventurous to mount its back. Another and another mounted, and the animal still stretched itself out to receive its victims, till they were all in its power, when it suddenly plunged into the loch, which swallowed up the waterspirit and its riders."*

:

Flora was listening to this narrative, when her father for a moment left the room, and she clutched at the drawing. Flora was standing by a blazing turf fire; her size was small, and the drawing unwieldy in a moment it catched the flame; she flung it away, and, as Norman sprung forward to save if possible a single horn of the beast, Buchanan re-entered! For a moment he stood as if panic-struck by the magnitude of his misfortune; the child ran to hide herself in the garden, and Norman was left to suffer the full vengeance of the indignant author. Buchanan, naturally calm and serious, knew little of angry passions; but on this momentous occasion his rage was like a whirlwind, and the undeserved punishment of Norman was rather proportioned to his own angry emotions than the enormity of the offence.

Norman bore his punishment with the fortitude of a hero, till the little girl, loudly proclaiming herself the offender, rushed into the room, followed by the piper. Buchanan, shocked at his own injustice, and affected by the generosity of the boy and the tenderness of Flora, could not articulate a word, while Norman flung himself into the arms of Hugh, and first gave way to his feelings of insult. The little girl also clung to him weeping, as if for protection; and the piper, his eyes sparkling with rage, regarded her father with those keen looks which in the days of clanship may have preceded the stroke of the dirk. All his delicacy, self-command, and habitual respect for " a gentleman and a Christian," could not restrain the expression of his feelings. Buchanan then explained; Flora was forgiven at the entreaty of Norman; and a peace was restored which was never again interrupted. The piper alone was dissatisfied; and though he said no more, he thought he had never seen any one look so like a Saxon slounge, a mean-souled mongrel Lowlander, as Buchanan, when making his young friend suffer for a nonsensical picture. "I wish he were on the back of it himself in Lochdow," thought Hugh.

*This little tale of the water-horse was current, not long since, among the people of Balquhidder. A dark loch on the top of a mountain adjoining GlenOgle, that savage and gloomy valley through which the high road between Loch-Earn-head and Glen-Dochart is carried, was the abode of the kelpie. Some children were certainly drowned there; and Highland superstition allows none of its votaries to perish ingloriously.

CHAPTER X.

Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain,
The simple pleasures of the lowly train,
To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm than all the gloss of art.

*

These were thy charms, sweet village, sports like these
In sweet succession taught even toil to please;
These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed,
These were thy charms,—but all these charms are fled.
GOLDSMITH.

NORMAN, now entered on his fifteenth year, was gone to spend the Christmas holidays at Dunalbyn and Eleenalin, accompanied by Flora Buchanan. Norman had long regarded his fair companion with all a brother's protecting fondness, and never did sister return a brother's affection with greater tenderness. One roof sheltered their childhood; they had pursued the same studies, and shared the same sports; and even at holiday times; they lived together at Mary's shealing, or the Lady's cottage.

"The Christmas" is now the only stated holiday enjoyed by the Highland peasant. It is still spent in the manner most congenial to his ancient habits. Darkness alone terminates the animating sports of the field; and to these succeed the pleasures of the festive board, the delight of traditionary converse, the inspiring song, and the merry dance. This holiday is accordingly eagerly anticipated, and ardently enjoyed, by this warm-hearted race.

An absurd prejudice prevails among the people of the lowcountry, who cannot imagine a Highlander without the accompaniments of a whisky-bottle and a snuff-mull. Highlanders, on the contrary, are, in the ordinary routine of life, the most abstemious of all people. The occasional excesses witnessed at funerals are chiefly for the honour of the dead, that succeeding generations may triumphantly tell how much wine, and how many casks, were drank at the burial of an ancestor; how many riders attended, and how many miles they came to honour the obsequies of a namesake or kinsman. With supreme contempt for unmanly epicurism, and inordinate fondness of comforts, the Highlander has his own cherished pleasures, neither degrading, nor selfish, nor brutal, but social and joyous; valued only as they enliven society, pursued to brighten and exhilarate the man, not to gratify the brute. He has small delight in sharing the cup of him with whom his soul refuses to mingle; and shrinks from intercourse with those who cannot understand and participate in all his peculiar feelings. Even in the very focus of contagious brutality, in the ranks of an English regiment, shielded by his national habits, wrapped up in himself, grave, austere, and unsocial, he preserves his integrity, and returns to the land of his nativity, to the glen of his fathers, to the betrothed of his youth, high in fame, pure in honour, and enriched by generous self-denial, to lavish his fortune on those who possess his tenderness. Now, once within the magic circle of kindred and

affection, he surrenders himself to their influence, and is again frank, social, and humorous, and gaily pledges the cup with those who share his soul.

"The Christmas" at length arrived, and by the grey dawn, the maidens, the young men, and all who thought themselves young enough to share or enliven the sports of the day, were met on a flat of considerable extent at the head of the glen. It was the first of Norman's fields; and the triumph of the youthful champion of Dunalbyn might have been read in the looks of Mary and Flora Buchanan, or heard in the cheering shouts of Ronald. And as Norman bounded after the ball with the fleetness of a roe, the piper, who had entered into the national sport with all the fire and alacrity of youth, confessed that he was surpassed, "though in running, he had never before yielded to any man who spelled his name Macalbyn, far less anything else," However, Hugh shared by reflection the triumph of Norman, "for it was himself first put a shinny into the boy's hand."

When the sun had gone down on the victory of Norman's party, the conquerors and the vanquished withdrew together to the feast and the dance; and Ronald embraced Norman with tears in his eyes, and blessed the Lord "that one had arisen in Glenalbyn to maintain the honour of the clan, and to show the lads from the other side of the hill what real play was." Never was Norman so much endeared to the heart of Ronald as at this moment; and with an air of exultation, he kept spanning the wrist of the tall, blooming, and graceful boy, who, largely endowed with the enthusiastic feelings and glowing affections of his countrymen, warmly returned the fondness of his venerable friend.

"Sure enough the lad is but slender-shooting up, as one may say, like a willow twig, yet show me in Glenalbyn one of his years with such a bone," cried Ronald. "And now, my dear boy, you are very learned, as I am told, in all manner of Saxon learning, which may be all very good, for what I know, seeing I know nothing about it; but do remember what I am telling you-keep such things in their proper place: for, after all comes to all, the man who putts the stone, throws the hammer, and takes the heath, the hill, and the water, all alike as they cast up-with a warm heart, a fleet foot, and a strong arm-that's the man!" And to enforce his advice, Ronald, in the fulness of his triumph, added another cow to Norman's stock.

Moome had always had visions of future greatness for her favourite; but, from this distinguished day, they thickened round her. One night she dreamed of seeing him with the claymore of Macalbyn; the next, all Macalbyn's sons passed before her, and last came Norman, led by the Lady. When any very impressive vision had blest her slumbers, the boat was ordered for Eleenalin, and the Lady (who hearkened to all her revelations with the most gratifying attention) was made the confidant of her expectations. The Lady would sigh and smile; and gently checking the flights of Moome's fancy, lead her back to sad realities.

There is a custom of very remote antiquity still observed in the Hebrides and West Highlands, on the last night of the year. The

Lady had ever declined going to Dunalbyn on that occasion; but, as Moome and many of her neighbours would have been miserable, if the Lady did not eat of the cheese of the Coolin,* she usually had a large party of the clan at Eleenalin; and the usual ceremony was followed by a ball.

Eagerly was the day anticipated which brought to these devoted clansmen all that now remained of the festal hall of their chiefs. And this year the sage and erudite Buchanan, tired of being always wise and solemn, joined in the Coolin, and ran braying round the house with the promiscuous crowd, and repeated a rhyme for admission, like any other superstitious Highlander; only, indeed, that he was distinguished by his rhymes, which abounded in gods and goddesses, and classical allusions, which for the first time figured in Gaelic poetry. The rhymes of Hugh and Norman were of another character. They spoke of the fame of heroes, and of the scenes of their glory;-the glen of Albyn was their Elysium; Lochuan their Helicon; and their Olympus the Hill of the close fight.'

66

When every one had eaten of the cake and cheese of the Coolin, and gone through all the ceremonies requisite to prevent the calamities of the expected year, the ball was opened by Norman and Flora Buchanan, and the violin of the piper gave an electric impulse to the spirits of old and young. The Lady, thus surrounded, looked on with calm and chastened joy; and Moome, seated by her side, snapping her fingers in time with the lively Strathspey, declared that she " was almost as happy as she could have been in the hall of her chief." Never, indeed, had the Lady beheld a gayer group assembled in the hall of her fathers; never had she heard its lofty roof echo to mirth more heartfelt than that which shook her lonely cottage, when the electrifying shout of the piper, from time to time, gave inspiration to the dancers.

As the springing, airy forms of Norman and Flora flitted before the eyes of Buchanan, it is probable that his mind reverted to the millennium, for, in the exultation of his heart, gesture and attitude appropriate, suiting the action to the word, he began to expatiate

There is an imperfect account of this singular custom in Dr. Johnson's Tour. On the last night of the year, the gentlemen and men-servants are turned out of the house, and the females secure the doors. One of the men is decorated with a dried cow's hide, and is provided with cakes of barley or oatmeal, and with cheese. He is called the Coolin, and is belaboured with staves, and chased round the house by his roaring companions. To represent noise and tumult seems the principal object in this stage of the ceremony. The door is next attacked, and stout resistance made from within; nor is admission granted till the assailant has shown that his savage nature is subdued by the influence of the humanizing muse. When he has repeated a few verses, the door flies open. Others rush in, but are repelled till all have proved their fitness for civilized life. When the whole company are admitted, a new ceremony begins. A piece of dried sheepskin, with the wool still on it, is singed in the fire, smelt to, and waved three times round the head. It is again and again singed and waved, till every individual has three times held it to the fire, three times smelt to it, and nine times waved it round his head. The bread and cheese of the Coolin are next divided and eaten; and thus are the calamities of the expected year provided against.

on its joys; and, not a little gratified by the polite attention of the Lady, he might have been betrayed, by the warmth of his feelings, into a discourse of most unconscionable length, had not one rushed in, "whose face was as a book where one might read strange matters." It was Allan, the husband of Mary.

"Ay, dance-dance your last!" he wildly exclaimed; "for you must leave Glenalbyn!" The music ceased the dancers stopped. "Leave Glenalbyn!" was echoed on every side, in that deep despairing voice which issues from the heart.

But it was even so. The lease of these conjunct farmers expired at the following Whitsuntide. On learning that their modern landlord was spending the Christmas holidays at the seat of a gentleman about twenty miles distant, they had sent Allan to solicit its renewal, and had empowered him to offer such an advance of rent as must have doomed them to still greater penury and toil: but it was luxury even to starve in Glenalbyn!

The lease of Glenalbyn had been for some months in the possession of a stranger, who was to cover with sheep that country where hundreds of human creatures had lived, and enjoyed life. The banishment of the last of the clan was now fixed and inevitable; and the tears and shrieks of the women, the deep and hopeless grief of the men, the wailings of feeble age and helpless infancy, the dignified sorrow of Lady Augusta, formed a spectacle of woe which might have touched even the cold heart of him whose selfish luxury had produced misery so wide-spreading and

extreme.

"O God!" thought Norman, "since no man can have the right, why, why should he have the power, to make hundreds miserable?" and he hid his face on the shoulder of Hugh, weeping over the fate of his countrymen.

Torn at once from home and country,-that delicate and mysterious union which connects the human mind with the scenes of its early joys, in a moment rudely dissolved! every cherished association which had imperceptibly twined round the heart, binding it to home and happiness, severed at once from that bleeding heart!— driven forth from the place where the ashes of their fathers reposed-that spot hallowed by every affection which is sacred in death, or endearing in life,-exiled to a new world, a land of strange speech, in whose vast territory the remnant of Macalbyn's clan would be swallowed up like a drop of water in the extended ocean! Pride, patriotism, regret, home, and a thousand painful feelings, combined to agonize the bosoms of the doomed emigrants.

When the first paroxysms of grief had abated, this insulated community began to think of their future destination and means of life. The Highland cottiers, with much less present comfort than the peasants of England or the Lowland Scots, have often more property. The custom of portioning daughters is common, and assisting in the establishment of sons. A sum is also hoarded for a splendid funeral; and as they are somewhat in the habit of looking before and after, they are seldom reduced by their own improvidence to that sudden dependence and beggary which sometimes overtakes their neighbours. Their stock of cattle, and the small funds