and then you tried to make Mrs. Walrus smoke a cigar; and then you played at going mad, and bit the eldest Master Walrus in the arm, and a hole in the sofa-cushion; and after that, you wanted to sit up and play two-handed whist with the shop-boy; and then Mr. Walrus interfered." "Yes," said Raffleton, "yes-Go on. I-I didn't insult Mr. W. by chance, did I?” "Not by no manner of means, sir. Quite the contrary. You kissed him." "The devil!" shouted Raffleton, jumping slap out of bed with horror at the very idea. "Kissed him! Good heavens! I owe him three weeks' rent." "Yes, you kissed him," persisted Thomas. "And then you said he was a love,—and he would be a hangel, if it wasn't for his whiskers. And after that you got quite helpless; and then we undressed you, and put you to bed. Oh dear!—uncommon pleasant you were, sir, really." Here Thomas went off again. "And were the other gentlemen pleasant, Thomas ?" inquired his master. "Very pleasant indeed, sir," said Thomas, recovering. "Was the Earl of May pleasant, Thomas ?" "Yes, sir." "And how was Lord Wynyard, Thomas? Was he pleasant too?" "Yes, sir-all pleasant-all very pleasant." "Then it doesn't so much matter," said Raffleton, brightening up suddenly. "If the Earl of May and Lord Wynyard were pleasant, it's all right. I shall get up. I never felt better in my life." "But the pleasantest gentleman of the lot by far, to my mind at least," continued Thomas, "was Mr. Burnaby Birch; and if he's only half as amusing at nine o'clock on Monday, when you gentlemen call on him, why he'll be enough to make a Quaker's coat collar shake itself out of its shirt with laughing-that's all." “The Reverend Burnaby Birch," said Raffleton, with the air of a man who has arrived at some important and incontrovertible conclusion, "the Reverend Burnaby Birch is a beast. That man is mymy evil genius-evil without the genius, perhaps I should say. There is no avoiding him. Give me my trowsers, and some soda-water, Thomas. I shall go to chapel, by way of a change, now I am up; and after breakfast I must go and see what has become of poor Pichantosh and Leif biwitz. Tell Willett I shan't want him to-day." With these words, our corpulent friend buttoned himself with some difficulty into a pair of cloth boots; and having playfully shot the corks of three soda water bottles into the face of his domestic, and their contents down his own throat, he proceeded to relieve the labours of the toilet by whistling and scolding Thomas alternately; which mode of amusement having at length grown wearisome, subsided, on the exit of the last-mentioned individual, into a most inarticulate enunciation of half an "Article," and a confused blending together of Deluges and Creations, Prophets and Evangelists, in one monotonous and protracted hum. INVITATION TO AN EVENING WALK. "There is hardly anything gives me a more sensible delight than the enjoyment of a cool still evening, after the uneasiness of a hot sultry day. COME up the hill, to meet the moon- Come up the hill, and hear the flowers Waking more to moonlight ray! Come up the hill, and list the breeze, Rising from the glens below, Faintly sweet, as up we go! Come up the hill, and smell the breath Of the purple mountain-heath, Sweeter than the painted flowers Rear'd in artificial bowers! Come up the hill, and joy with me, That below is sleeping calm, Come up the hill, and gaze with me Come up the hill,-'tis nearer to Come up the hill,-'twill give to thee Come up the hill-the waterfall 'Tis tranquil where it flows near Heaven- Spectator, No. 425. W. LEGENDS OF THE LOCHS AND GLENS. Communicated by the Author of "The Subaltern." NO. I.-THE LINN OF THE CALDRON. Would that this treason were not, or not I The detector. SHAKSPEARE. THERE is perhaps no quarter of Scotland which more abounds in the lore of national tradition than the beautiful glen which lends a local habitation and a name to the subject of this simple history. It lies on the outskirts of the largest and loveliest of the northern counties, just where the hills first rise above the fertile valley of the Forth; and where the small but beautiful straths that meander in every possible direction among the scarcely separated bases of the mountain range, still display, here and there, a sunny corn-field or an emerald meadow, which whispers faintly of the rich carse beyond. Strathone is one of the fairest valleys on the eastern side of the Grampians, and though smaller than the general extent of flat ground upon the Lowland side, and far less favourably situated for convenience of access or communication, few, if any, of the glens of Perthshire are comparable to it in natural beauty, climate, or situation. Loch Boyochd (strange! that so fair a thing should bide so rough a title) occupies about three Highland miles of extent, yet from the peculiarity of its bent, winding as it does round the giant promontory of Skian Var, there is but one-half of the water visible from the entrance of Strathone. The jutting mountains, indeed, close so completely in appearance over its lower half, that the traveller will scarcely guess there is a wider and larger portion of the vale yet unrevealed, and so lets his eye rest lovingly on the little cluster of cottars' houses, which seem the only occupants of the strath. But, in arriving at this conclusion, he will much deceive himself. Beauties as rare, glories not less magnificent than any which have yet delighted him, lie on the farther side of that skreen; and on some other occasion, though not now, due notice may be taken of them. We have alluded to Skian Var. It is a noble crag, which lifts its huge head far into the sky, and stretches its giant arm so boldly across the lake, that beneath its shelter the breezes rarely come, and the waters lie, for the most part, in waveless sullenness. Yet is there a portion of these same waters even more striking than the rest-so striking, that though he may be ignorant of the tales that attach to it, we defy the stranger to pass it by unnoticed. It is the pool with which our present tradition is connected-the Linn of the Caldron, as it is called; of which, by attending to the following marks, the curious may take cognizance :-Nearly opposite to Skian Var, where the uneven and preci itous banks of the loch approximate, there is a small bay, or hollow, in the shore, into which the waters seem to withdraw that they may avoid the rapid current of the narrow passage. In the centre of that bay is the Linn of the Caldron. It is a round pool, dark, deep, and entirely motionless; the pale, pure, spiritual flowers of the water-lily, which thrive everywhere upon, and stud the margin of, Loch Boyochd, grow in singular beauty on the edges of that linn, and throw a fair and melancholy radiance over the nook in which it shelters; but on the bosom of the pool itself not a leaf or flower was ever known to float. The circular basin of black still water, seems, in reality, spell-bound; for not one of the weeds which cover the entire surface of the waters near, ever makes its way within that enchanted circle. According to the legend of the Linn, the goblin of the loch, once a mortal man, sold his being to the Evil One for a pot of broad gold pieces, which lost their value in his eyes as soon as the change came over his human nature. Jealous of the happiness of the simple cottars of Strathone, the spirit resolved within his bitter heart that the base-born avarice that took his own soul captive should be from generation to generation a snare to those who were once his fellows. He sank the caldron of gold in a black pool of Loch Boyochd crossed two naked swords upon its mouth, and spread abroad the fame of his unholy deposit among the denizens of the glen. The accompanying prophecy was this :-If the treasure should be discovered by numbers, its wealth would turn to fairy gold; if by one alone, each sword would do its work of doom, yet the discoverer would die in wealth and honour. The date of the prophecy is long worn out, but its authenticity is a matter undisputed by the most enlightened among the natives of Strathone, and seeing that a thousand strange tales depend upon it, which, if they serve no other purpose, at least bear testimony to the romantic and imaginative character of the people, I am tempted to give as an illustration of the legend itself, one somewhat more probable in its details than the rest. it is : Here Half way between the extremities of Loch Boyochd, just where the headland of Skian Var almost cleaves the lake in two, stand the ruins of an old house, called by the natives in their rude dialect Imer Veolan, or, the "Mill Ledge." The name is not inappropriate to the object of it; for there dashes down the hills just at that point a torrent, near the mouth of which may still be seen the relics of some primitive production of art. Indeed the whole of the little area is a beautiful dove's nest, which clings to the only nook of ground in that quarter which could afford footing for a domicile as lowly even as the Mill Ledge. A tall group of black pines shelters it from behind, a swelling brae slopes down to the margin of the loch in front, while the hills rising bold and sheer on every side, render it the central point in an arena of surpassing beauty. The last occupant of that picturesque domicile, of which nothing now remains but "breckan green and cold grey stone," was Donald Bane, the stout miller of the strath, a wight possessed of all the requisites and perquisites of his vocation, including the only child, that "miller's maid," which seems the prerogative of the craft. A sweet young thing was the miller's daughter, motherless and brotherless, and almost friendless; for though few in the lonely glen but would have nourished and cherished the gentle Annie as their own, yet there was about the pensive maiden of Imer Veolan a sort of fearful timidity— a silent, shrinking, retiring temperament, that cut off every avenue of familiar intercourse with the ruder spirits of the valley, and rendered her, with her small slight figure, pale cheeks, and starry eyes, an object rather of compassionate and somewhat reverential interest, than of intimate companionship. Annie was yet in her very girlhood when the arrival at his paternal mansion of Colonel Munro of Glenore, the lord of the manor, and chief of the clan, threatened seriously to influence her hitherto untroubled fate. Colonel Munro had spent his early manhood in the wars of other lands; and having carried thence a constitution shatter. ed by the chances of his profession, had come but for a passing visit to the home of his fathers, previous to his departure to a climate more congenial to his debilitated frame. Among the numerous train of strange and foreign attendants who accompanied him on that occasion, there was a soldier named Hugh, a native of the glen, who had followed him through many of the scenes of his warfare, and established a strong interest with his master by some important service rendered him in distant parts. The colonel was desirous of settling Hugh in comfort and independence, and offered him as the reward of all his wanderings, a farm in Strathone, which, with a pension, the reward of a trifling wound, rendered him a little prince in that lowly community. The natural consequence of a man's settling in life seems pretty generally, in all situations, to be, that he shall look out for a wife; accordingly, even before Hugh's master had left Glenore, or Hugh himself had been discharged from his old duties about his person, the latter cast his eyes about among the fair-haired maidens of the glen, and established his claim to a refined taste and an enlightened judgment by passing by every other, that he might fix his heart, and lay his new possessions at the feet of the gentle Annie. Donald Bane, simple and primitive as were his notions, knew too much of the value of this world's gear to overlook the pretensions of such a suitor, and Hugh found his hopes most unequivocally sanctioned, and his claims allowed by the stout miller of Imer Veolan. Bane saw his darling Annie already a lady in the land, and all the daintiness of her breeding confirmed and justified by the fate in prospect for her; so that Hugh grew in favour from day to day, and the mountain path that led of old from the mansion-house of Glenore to the mill of Imer Veolan was once more cleared of impediments. All this while Annie was left entirely out of the consultations that from time to time occurred between the miller and his new friend: no questions were put as to the probability of her heart falling in with her father's choice; and, in one point of view, this was a judicious proceeding. for Hugh was no favourite with the maiden of the mill; on the contrary, her feelings towards him fell very little short of aversion; and as this is a fact which requires to be accounted for, it is necessary that we should look a little further than we have hitherto done into the conditions of society as it existed in Strathone. Among the cottagers of the glen, very few would have deemed the miller's daughter, even with the dower which Donald might probably bequeath to her, a desirable or thrifty wife; but the Man of the Moon, whose province it is to link people's hearts together by invisible threads of gossamer, had flung an irresistible mesh around one which followed its destiny unresisting to the presence of the solitary maiden; and Eichen Dhu, the boldest, and handsomest, and poorest, and merriest of the youths of Strathone, the best runner, and wrestler, and rower, and climber far or near, became her willing captive. The bashful girl was too young and timid to have given Eichen much ground for hope in his warm affection, but it subsisted on very little. The acceptance, on her part, of a bunch of sweet violets, or a bonnet full of hazel-nuts, Donald |