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similar to each other in their architecture, except that some of the latter had stone instead of turf walls, and were thatched with bent grass from the sand hills instead of sods. Here and there appeared a gentleman's house, most of them single buildings of two or three stories, with a number of small windows, and thin gable ends, and greyslate roofs. Some of the proprietors still contented themselves with a few straggling additions to the rugged tower, or keep, into which their ancestors had climbed for security in troublesome times. A few inexplicable dry-stone dikes, and a dozen or two of gnarled ash trees, generally formed all the embellishments of these mansions of the aris tocracy.

Beyond this district, they began to rise gradually over a range of dreary moorlands, interspersed with peat bogs, swelling from the margin of the plain. As they proceeded, the landscape before them became monotonous in the extreme. Low, dull hills, of unvarying outline, and sombre hue, swept their long fatiguing lines in every direction, without offering a single object to interrupt their sameness of contour, except the smoke arising from miserable heaps of turf now and then

appearing, which Amherst, much to his surprise, learned were the houses of the inhabitants.

If this be a taste of the grandeur of Highland scenery, thought Amherst, I shall be soon satisfied with it. But, barren and dreary as it was, he felt that it was suited to the melancholy reflections into which, in defiance of the conversation of his companion, he was continually relapsing.

They rode on together for an hour or two, without any material change taking place upon the face of nature, until, coming to the brow of a hill, down which the path wound, Amherst's eyes were gladdened by one of the most beautiful scenes fancy can well imagine. They had now arrived at the edge of those hills, bounding a wide part of the valley, through which the river flowed. The vale was here more than half a mile across, and it continued to present nearly the same breadth, for about a mile downwards, to where it was closed in a precipitous pass, by the approach of the hills to each other. The plain in the bottom was partly cultivated, and partly diversified with groves, and gently swelling knolls, covered with oaks, from amongst which a little cot was seen peeping

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out here and there. The river entering the valley at an abrupt angle, a view was thus obtained up the long vista of the glen it came from, where its wide stream was seen in spots, glistening from the depths of its wooded banks, the declining sun pouring a flood of yellow light down this part of its course.

The hills on the opposite side of the river were covered by an extensive natural forest of oak, pine, and birch, and the sides of those the travellers looked from were also wooded, though more partially. At the upper end of the valley, the larger river was joined by another, issuing from a deep glen, whence it came sweeping round a high conical hill.

As their beasts were painfully picking their steps down the steep and slippery path winding into the valley, through groups of trees and brushwood, Macgillivray called to Hamish, his gilly, or running footman, who had uniformly kept about ten or twelve yards before them during the whole day, and having given him some orders in Gaelic, he darted off like a weasel through the intricacies of the brushwood.

"I have sent the fellow forward to provide for

our night's quarters, Mr Oakenwold," said he to Amherst, whose mind had been so occupied, partly with his distresses, and partly with admiration of the lovely scenery around him, that he had not once thought of the approaching night, now beginning to settle down upon them.

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THE sun was down before they had reached the brink of the precipitous and thickly wooded banks, overhanging the smaller river. Here they were met by the active Hamish, who, with an expression of countenance that told them his errand had sped, 'said something in Gaelic to his mas

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"All is right, I see," said Macgillivray; "then lead us to the ford."

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The gilly laid hold of his master's bridle, and led his horse forward along the edge of the bank, Amherst and his servant following, until

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they came to a little ravine, through which a small rill found its way to the river. Into this dark hollow the lad dived through the brushwood, die has 3-THRI where the boughs hung so low, as to force them to 73W 900132 953 M Ov

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