etor, his landlord, seemed to have been as little fortunate as
the tenant, for the island itself was in the market; and a report went
current at the time, that it was on the eve of being purchased by some
wealthy Englishman, who purposed converting it into a deer-forest. How
strange a cycle! Uninhabited originally save by wild animals, it became
at an early period a home of men, who, as the gray wall on the hill-side
testified, derived, in part at least, their sustenance from the chase.
They broke in from the waste the furrowed patches on the slopes of the
valleys,--they reared herds of cattle and flocks of sheep,--their number
increased to nearly five hundred souls,--they enjoyed the average
happiness of human creatures in the present imperfect state of
being,--they contributed their portion of hardy and vigorous manhood to
the armies of the country,--and a few of their more adventurous spirits,
impatient of the narrow bounds which confined them, and a course of
life little varied by incident, emigrated to America. Then came the
change of system so general in the Highlands; and the island lost all
its original inhabitants, on a wool and mutton speculation,--inhabitants,
the descendants of men who had chased the deer on its hills five hundred
years before, and who, though they recognized some wild island lord as
their superior, and did him service, had regarded the place as indisputably
their own. And now yet another change was on the eve of ensuing, and the
island was to return to its original state, as a home of wild animals,
where a few hunters from the mainland might enjoy the chase for a month or
two every twelvemonth, but which could form no permanent place of human
abode. Once more, a strange and surely most melancholy cycle!

There was light enough left, as we reached the upper part of Loch
Scresort, to show us a shoal of small silver-coated trout, leaping by
scores at the effluence of the little stream along which we had set out
in the morning on our expedition. There was a net stretched across where
the play was thickest; and we learned that the haul of the previous tide
had amounted to several hundreds. On reaching the Betsey, we found a
pail and basket laid against the companion-head,--the basket containing
about two dozen small trout,--the minister's unsolicited teind of the
morning draught; the pail filled with razor-fish of great size. The
people of my friend are far from wealthy; there is scarce any
circu