and other heads of illustrious houses, with their wives and daughters, a beautiful show, did not disdain them of low degree, but kept open table in the moor; and would you believe it, high-born youths and maidens ministered at the board to cottage lads and lasses, whose sunburnt faces hardly dared to smile, under awe of that courtesy —yet whenever they looked up there was happiness in their eyes. The young ladies were all arrayed in green; and after the feast, they took bows and arrows in their lily hands, and shot at a target in a style that would have gladdened the heart of Maid Marian-nay, of Robin himself; and one surpassing bright-the Star of Ayr— she held a hawk on her wrist-a tercel gentle-after the fashion of the olden time; and ever as she moved her arm you heard the chiming of silver bells. And her brother gay and gallant as Sir Tristrem-he blew his tasseled bugle-so sweet, so pure, so wild the music, that when he ceased to breathe, the far-off repeated echoes, faint and dim, you thought died away in heaven, like an angel's voice.

Was it not a Paragon of a Parish? But we have not told you one half of its charms. There was a charm in

master of the spell.

every nook-and Youth was the Small magicians were we in size, but we were great in might. We had but to open our eyes in the morning, and at one look all nature was beautiful. We have said nothing about the Burns. The chief was the Yearn -endearingly called the Humby, from a farm near the Manse, and belonging to the minister. Its chief source was, we believe, the Brother Loch. But it whimpled

with such an infantine voice from the lucid bay, which then knew nor sluice nor dam, that for a while it was scarcely even a rill, and you had to seek for it among the heather. In doing so, ten to one some brooding birdie fluttered off her nest-but not till your next step would have crushed them all-or perhaps—but he had no nest there—a snipe. There it is—betrayed by a line of livelier verdure. Erelong it sparkled within banks of its own and "braes of green bracken,” and as you footed along, shoals of minnows, and perhaps a small trout or two, brastled away to the other side of the shallow, and hid themselves in the shadows. 'Tis a pretty rill nownor any longer mute; and you hear it murmur. It has acquired confidence on its course, and has formed itself into its first pool—a waterfall, three feet high, with its own tiny rocks, and a single birk—-no, it is a rowan-too young yet to bear berries—else might a child pluck the highest cluster. Imperceptibly, insensibly, it grows just like life. The Burn is now in his boyhood; and a bold, bright boy he is-dancing and singing-nor heeding which way he goes along the wild, any more than that wee rosy-cheeked, flaxen-headed girl seems to heed, who drops you a curtsy, and on being asked by you, with your hand on her hair, where she is going, answers wi' a soft Scottish accent--ah! how sweet-"owre the hill to see my Mither." Is that a house? No-a fauld. For this is the Washing-Pool. Look around you, and you never saw such perfectly white sheep. They are Cheviots; for the black-faces are on the higher hills to the north of the moor. We see a few rigs of flax-and "lint is in the

bell"--the steeping whereof will sadly annoy the bit burnie, but poor people must spin-and as this is not the season, we will think of nothing that can pollute his limpid waters. Symptoms of husbandry! Potatoshaws luxuriating on lazy beds, and a small field with alternate rigs of oats and barley. Yes, that is a house -"an auld clay bigging"-in such Robin Burns was born-in such was rocked the cradle of Pollok. We think we hear two separate liquid voices--and we are right for from the flats beyond Floak, and away towards Kingswells, comes another yet wilder burnie, and they meet in one at the head of what you would probably call a meadow, but which we call a holm. There seems to be more arable land hereabouts than a stranger could have had any idea of; but it is a long time since the ploughshare traced those almost obliterated furrows on the hillside; and such cultivation is now wisely confined, you observe, to the lower lands. We fear the Yearn-for that is his name now-heretofore he was anonymous-is about to get flat. But we must not grudge him a slumber or a sleep among the saughs, lulled by the murmur of millions of humble bees—we speak within bounds-on their honied flowerage. We are confusing the seasons, for a few minutes ago we spoke of "lint being in the bell;" but in imagination's dream how sweetly do the seasons all slide into one another! After sleep comes play, and see and hear now how the merry Yearn goes tumbling over rocks, nor will rest in any one linn, but impatient of each beautiful prison in which one would think he might lie a willing

thrall, hurries on as if he were racing against time, nor casts a look at the human dwellings now more frequent near his sides. But he will be stopped by and by, whether he will or no; for there, if we be not much mistaken, there is a mill. But the wheel is at restthe sluice on the lade is down-with the lade he has nothing more to do than to fill it; and with undiminished volume he wends round the miller's garden-you see Dusty Jacket is a florist—and now is hidden in a dell; but a dell without any rocks. 'Tis but some hundred yards across from bank to brae-and as you angle along on either side, the sheep and lambs are bleating high overhead; for though the braes are steep, they are all intersected with sheep-walks, and ever and anon among the broom and the brackens are little platforms of close-nibbled greensward, yet not bare—and nowhere else is the pasturage more succulent-nor do the young creatures not care to taste the primroses, though were they to live entirely upon them, they could not keep down the profusion-so thickly studded in places are the constellations-among sprinklings of single stars. Here the hill-blackbird builds-and here you know why Scotland is called the lintie's land. What bird lilts like the lintwhite? The lark alone. But here there are no larks—a little further down and you will hear one ascending or descending over almost every field of grass or of the tender braird. Down the dell before you, flitting from stone to stone, on short flight seeks the water-pyet-seemingly a witless creature with its bonnie white breast-to wile you away from the cre

vice, even within the waterfall, that holds its young-or with a cock of her tail she dips and disappears. There

is grace in the glancing sandpiper-nor, though somewhat fantastical, is the water-wagtail inelegant—either belle or beau-an outlandish bird that makes himself at home wherever he goes, and, vain as he looks, is contented if but one admire him in a solitary place—though it is true that we have seen them in half dozens on the midden in front of the cottage door. The blue slip of sky overhead has been gradually widening, and the dell is done. Is that snow? A bleachfield. Lasses can bleach their own linen on the green near the pool, "atween twa flowery braes," as Allan has so sweetly sung, in his truly Scottish pastoral the Gentle Shepherd. But even they could not well do without bleachfields on a larger scale, else dingy would be their smocks and their wedding-sheets. Therefore there is beauty in a bleachfield, and in none more than in Bell's-Meadows. But where is the Burn? They have stolen him out of his bed, and, alas! nothing but stones! Gather up your flies, and away down to yonder grove. There he is like one risen from the dead; and how joyful his resurrection! All the way from this down to the Brigg o' Humbie the angling is admirable, and the burn has become a stream. You wade now through longer grass -sometimes even up to the knees; and half-forgetting pastoral life, you ejaculate "Speed the plough!" Whitewashed houses-but still thatched-look down on you from among trees, that shelter them in front; while behind is an encampment of stacks, and on each side a