0 THE FORESTERS. BY THE AUTHOR OF LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF SCOTTISH LIFE; AND THE TRIALS OF MARGARET LYNDSAY. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, EDINBURGH: AND T. CADELL, STRAND, LONDON. MDCCCXXV. THE FORESTERS. CHAPTER I. Or the humble mansions that not many years ago were thickly interspersed through the romantic scenery of the Esk, between Roslin and Lasswade, there was not one more beautiful than that which bore the appropriate name of Dovenest. It was built on a gentle eminence that merely lifted it in safety above the highest water-mark of the river sweeping round the little sylvan peninsula; and the breath of smoke that rose from its hidden chimnies was even on the calmest day lost on the broad bosom of the overshadowing wood, before it could reach the naked cliff that rose like a pillar into the sky. Several glades, and even pasturefields, lay concealed at no great distance up and down the stream; and a few steps could in either direction lead into prospects of confined but richest cultivation, where the houses of the more opulent looked out cheerfully, each over its own quiet pleasure-ground, nor seemed, in their unostentatious retirement, at all out of uni A |