later years.

lent seizure of the salmon-fishings Poysoning, and Murthering of his of Thurso. The next Earl of brother Patrik Erll of Orknay." Caithness, though a cultivated The prisoner was acquitted, but man and much at Court in his what words can describe the toryouth, became a terrible savage in ments by means of which evidence

He was at heredi- had been produced against him. tary feud with the Earl of Orkney; Alison Barbour, the instrument so in 1608, some of Orkney's men supposed to have been employed by having been forced to land in Stewart in murdering his brother, Caithness by stress of weather- was kept for forty-eight hours “ The Earl of Catteynes maid them

under “vehement tortour of the drunk : then, in a mocking iest, he caschielawis,"2 but confessed nothcaused sheave the one syd of their ing. The devilish ingenuity of the beards and one syd of their heads; assize thereupon devised the addilast of all he constrayned them to tional stress of sympathetic tortak their weshell, and to go to sea in that stormie tempest. The poor

ment. Alison's husband, eightymen, feareing his farther crueltie,

one years of age, her eldest son, did choyse rather to committ them- and her daughter, against none of selves to the mercie of the senseless whom had anything been alleged, elements and rageing waves of the were submitted to torture beside sea, than abyd his furie. So they her. The old man was placed in entered the stormie Seas of Pentlay Firth (a fearfull and dangerous arme

the “lang Irnis” of fifty stone of the Sea between Catteynes and weight; the son received fifty-seven

; Orknay), whence they escaped the

blows in the “boots,” which refurie thereof, by the providence and duced his legs to a mass of bloody assistance of God, and landed saiflie pulp; the daughter--a child of

a in Orknay.” 1

years — was submitted to This earl brought ruin upon bis the "pinnywinkis,” whereby her house, owing to want of success in fingers were pinched to shapelesshis laudable design, pursued for

Under the stress of these many years, “to mak the Lord accumulated horrors, the miserable Forbes wearie of his lands in Alison, who had endured without Catteynes." He was denounced flinching all that could be inflicted rebel in 1621, and his own son, on her own body, was taken out of Lord Berriedale

, applied for and the cashielaws in a dead swoon, obtained a commission to pursue revived, and confessed all that the him,—all of which was no more prosecution desired, upon which than his due, were it only to

she was led forth and burnt as a punish him for the dastardly be- witch, not, however, before she trayal of his kinsman Lord Max- had revoked absolutely all that she well, who sought refuge with him had confessed. Thomas Palpla, after murdering the laird of another witness, was kept in the Johnstone.

cashielaws eleven days and nights, But among the records of these placed in the terrible “boots " dark times, perhaps all connected twice a day for fourteen days, “he with this district yield in horror beand naikit in the meane tyme,” before the proceedings in the trial and so savagely scourged with of John Stewart, Master of Orkney,

“that thay left nather on the charges of “Witchcraft, flesch nor hyde vpoun him.” All

1

seven

ness,

was

none

this, be it remembered, being part taking into account the windings and of a public prosecution, conducted turnings of the road-up hill, down by “Mr William Hairt, Aduocat hill, and along valleys—it is a good

deal more : say thirty-two miles from to our souerane Lord.” But then

Thurso to Morven top. our souerane Lord

“For the first eighteen miles I had other than gentle King Jamie, a road : the rest of the way was thorough master of the whole round { lochs, across burns, through matter of demonology and witch- mires and marshes, horrid bogs and craft. Oh, the good old days! hummocky heaths. .. When I had Happily there is a ghost of later

a marsh to wade, I had it level, but times that haunts us among the

when I had heather I had an awful

amount of jumping. ... My object in crags of Dirlot and on the upland ascending the hill was to gather of Strathmore—the gentle spirit plants. . . . I reached Morven top at of one who possessed this whole eleven o'clock 1. m., and left it at two county in a different, yet far more P.M. ... The night became windy and real, sense from these bloodthirsty stormy. Tremendous sheets of hailbarons and ferocious advocates.

stones and rain impeded my progress. Robert Dick-baker, botanist, and fire, I got home at three o'clock on

. . In spite of hail, rain, wind, and geologist of Thurso—was the first Wednesday morning, having walked, to bring Caithness into the realm with little halt, for about twenty-four of natural science, to make known hours. I went to bed, slept till its vast depth of flagstones and seven o'clock, then rose, and went to shales, crammed with the bitumin- my work as usual. Oh, those ous remains of myriads of fish, great plants, those weary plants !" and small, and to explain the unsus

No human frame could wrestle so pected floral wealth of its silent with the climate of this region hills and sounding shores.

without suffering for it. “ The Dick's story needs not to be re

rain is killing me,” Dick wrote in told here, but no traveller to this the last April of his life, yet still land should fail to read it in Dr he fought on. A few weeks later, Smiles's book, for none can under- when laid on what was to prove stand the pathos of the story till his death - bed, he wrote to his they have visited the scene of it. brother-in-law :In worldly matters Dick was an honest failure; he ruined his busi- “I have sent you a Thurso paper ness and himself by devotion to

full of holes-holes out of which I the pursuit of knowledge. Had

have cut words such as "Thurso,

'Caithness,' 'Dunnet,' &c., for my he been a better baker, he had

plants." been forgotten long ago, and Thurso graveyard would be with. His collecting days were done, but out its most imposing monument. he was still busy arranging his

The following extract from a herbarium. letter to his sister provides an

There must be many living example of the almost incredible (Dick died only in 1866) who reexertions to which Dick's ardour member the quaint, spare figure, was continually driving him :- the eager yet “douce” counten

ance, flitting swiftly over the roads “On Tuesday last” (the letter was

and dismal twilight moors.

None written on November 12) “I set out at two o'clock in the morning to go to

of his neighbours understood him, the top of Morven. Morven .

is still less had any of them symby measurement on the map twenty- pathy to spare for his darling eight miles as the crow flies. But pursuits. Some thought him un

:

canny or even crazed, but the sonify natural phenomena, affirmed chimney-pot hat and black tail- that the wind was “looking about coat, which he wore through storm for some place to blow from ” (it and shine, shielded him from the must always be blowing from someworst suspicion, and perhaps he where in this country). Presently himself felt less an outcast from it found it, and by half-past one a the world of culture, as long as he steady westerly breeze set in, with could go clothed in the raiment of heavy persistent rain. The drought a Fellow of the Royal Society. was broken; there would be a

welcome spate, but it was hardly The rain came to us when it likely that the charm would act was least expected. There was a immediately on the fish. Not hard north wind on the morning now with the huge flies, four of May 21, and never a cloud to inches long, which were necessary veil the burning sun.

But hope

to stir salmon out of the chilly dies hard; we went up to the depths of snow water in February, loch to try and delude one of its but with the smallest double-hooked many inmates to take

a fly. grilse - flies must the attempt be Changes are proverbially sudden made. Cruising along the sandy in British climate, but the ma- shore, and trailing the flies just chinery of change seldom can be where the water suddenly becomes seen so plainly as under the broad profound, there came to pass a sky of Caithness. The glass had mighty commotion : a great form given no warning, yet there came loomed out of the side of a wave, at mid-day the same sign that a broad tail swept round in the gladdened 'the eyes of Elijah's brown water, the line tightened servant-"a little cloud out of bravely, the good greenheart bent the sea.

At one o'clock “ the in sympathy, and away went the heaven was black with clouds and salmon, buzzing off thirty yards wind, and there was a great rain.” of line at a stretch. The charm At this moment appeared what, in of these loch-fish lies in the splendid the days of faith in augury or the fight they show for liberty. Many flight of birds, would have been a river-fish can be played under reckoned & portent. An Arctic the point of the rod, and landed skua came swinging freely athwart without running out more than the gale, now dipping in the rising half-a-dozen yards of line. But it waves, then soaring under the is far different when there is plenty clouds. Strangest of British birds of sea - room, with no banks or in this, that, without respect of shoals to cow the fish, and nothsex, it has two distinct schemes ing to bar his powerful rush of plumage-one of uniform sooty towards the deep water. It is brown, the other dark above with this, and the splendid display a white underparts. We had not loch-fish generally makes on the noticed this daring bird during rise, that compensates the fisherthe fine weather, but here was man for much weary, monotonous one of the white breasted variety flogging of the surface. The bold to herald the storm.

rise is very characteristic of lochSuddenly the north wind slack- salmon. In streams where it is ened ; in a few minutes it was expedient to fish the fly deep, a nearly a dead calm ; then puffs fish in seizing it most often never came from various quarters. My breaks the surface; but in a loch gillie, prone like all Celts to per- the flies cannot easily be kept in motion if sunk; they must be —for twelve hours after noon on drawn along near the top, and Friday. The first sea-fish were the salmon must dash to the sur- seen passing the lodge on Monday face to catch them, thereby im- morning following, but it was not parting a peculiar charm to this till Thursday that the first fish kind of sport.

with sea-lice on him was killed in Well, our fish made a grand the loch, five or six days after run, the gillie bent stoutly to his leaving the salt-water. Doubtless, oars and followed it, the anchor however, one would have come to was dropped in a few minutes, hand sooner had the weather on and the dispute soon ended in the intervening days not been of favour of the angler, who, peer- the worst possible description for ing at the index of the steel- angling. yard, complacently pronounced

, the verdict, “Eighteen pounds, Warm as my attachment is to neat!”

the barren north, and pardonably The flood came that night, but prone as all lovers are to prose it was small and dirty, and at about the objects of their reflecnoon next day the water was tions, it is time to release my falling fast. Fish were seen pass- reader's button - hole. I like to ing up over the shallows opposite close my eyes and imagine that the lodge, but these were not the roar of this city is the soughfresh from the sea, but had ing of the great wind sweeping been lying in the lower pools. A down from Dorery. But there short food such as this affords the are less frequent aspects of Caithbest opportunity for reckoning the ness which the advent of summer speed at which salmon travel up brings to mind—the leagues of from the sea. The rate is much brown moor, with gleams of lake faster in summer than when the and stream, stretching away to water is cold. From the sea to where the linked cusps

of Shurery the loch is some five-and-twenty and the Reay hills, with the great miles, following the river course; cone of Morven, spread a band of there was running water at the intense purple across the flaming river-mouth - enough water, that west. is, to bring in fish from the sea

HERBERT MAXWELL.

TIIE MUSICAL TEMPERAMENT AND ITS MANIFESTATIONS,

can

WHEN Schopenhauer claims for the first cause of his activity may music that it is the mightiest of be thought or idea, the efficient the fine arts, we at once think cause is none the less emotion : of its immediate effects as an that which he translates into emotional stimulant of intoxicat- sound is neither idea nor thought, ing strength, but with little ca- but the mood to which it has pacity for transmutation into any exalted him. If Wagner, with his other form of artistic energy, and limited power of improvisation, with an influence upon conduct was forced into championship of mainly negative and depressive, "reflective music” by an uneasy tending to relax rather than to sense of defective melodic faculty, brace the springs of self-control. he ungrudgingly admits that music So interpreted, the saying is easy is, “in its infinite involutions, of acceptance, for it is little more always and only feeling.” More than an equivalent of the proposi- significant still is an obiter dictum tion that, of all the arts, music is of the composer whose works are the most emotional and the least most informed by thought, in the intellectual. It is by emotion that only sense in which such works the creative instinct of the artist be informed by thought. in sound is awakened, it is to emo- Speaking to Bettina von Arnim tion, through sensation, that he about the influence upon his mind makes his appeal; and the work of Goethe's poems, Beethoven dewhich succeeds in kindling no glow clared that they powerfully imof feeling, however it be admired pressed him both by their rhythm for its "intellectuality" by critics and by their matter; "and," he eager to parade their smattering added, “I am moved to composition of musical science, is not music at by their language and by the lofty all, but a more or less skilful and spirit of harmony pervading them.” ingenious combination of notes, So that what stirred in him the having no relation with the final creative impulse, as he came under cause of the tonal art. It is true the spell of a great poet, was the that, as the whole gamut of hu- ecstasy born of the measured man feeling is responsive to the words and of their inner sensemagician's touch, so the impulse their æsthetic and spiritual rather to his productivity may flow from than their purely intellectual consources the most various. His tent. And it was in this concreations

may

be the reflection of nection that he affirmed music to his own joys and sorrows, they be “the medium between the may be wrung from him by his spiritual and the sensuous life" sense of the mystery and tragedy a luminous and pregnant word of life, they may be inspired by which sorts not ill with the view the contemplation of lofty char- here presented, and is, perhaps, acter or heroic deed, or by delight as near an approach to a definition in noble achievement in the sister of the undefinable as is likely to arts -- the poet's melodious and be compassed. rhythmic thought, the painter's The obvious inference from this radiant vision, the sculptor's dream conception of the art which is at eternalised in stone. But though once the highest and the lowest,