han-a-L[=u]rich. But you would
rather see a storm, and hear some Highland thunder? There is one at this
moment on Unimore, and Cruachl[=i]a growls to Meallanuir, till the
cataracts of Glashgour are dumb as the dry rocks of Craig-te[=o]nan.

In those regions we were, when a boy, initiated into the highest
mysteries of the Highlands. No guide dogged our steps--as well might a
red-deer have asked a cur to show him the Forest of Braemar, or
Beniglo--an eagle where best to build his eyrie have advised with the
Glasgow Gander. O heavens! how we were bewildered among the vast objects
that fed that delirium of our boyhood! We dimly recognised faces of
cliffs wearing dreadful frowns; blind though they looked, they seemed
sensible of our approach; and we heard one horrid monster mutter, "What
brings thee here, infatuated Pech?--begone!" At his impotent malice we
could not choose but smile, and shook our staff at the blockhead, as
since at many a greater blockhead even than he have we shook--and more
than shook our Crutch. But as through "pastures green and quiet waters
by," we pursued, from sunrise to sunset, our uncompanioned way, some
sweet spot, surrounded by heather, and shaded by fern, would woo us to
lie down on its bosom, and enjoy a visionary sleep! Then it was that the
mountains confidentially told us their names--and we got them all by
heart; for each name characterised its owner by some of his peculiar and
prominent qualities--as if they had been one and all christened by poets
baptising them from a font

"Translucent, pure,
With touch ethereal of heaven's fiery rod."

O! happy pastor of a peaceful flock! Thou hast long gone to thy reward!
One--two--three--four successors hast thou had in that manse--(now it
too has been taken down and the plough gone over it)--and they all did
their duty; yet still is thy memory fragrant in the glen; for deeds like
thine "smell sweet, and blossom in the dust!" Under heaven, we owed our
life to thy care of us in a brain fever. Sometimes thy face would grow
grave, never angry, at our sallies--follies--call them what you will,
but not sins. And methinks we hear the mild old man somewhat mournfully
saying, "Mad boy! out of gladness often cometh grief--out of mirth
misery; but our prayers, when thou leavest us, shall be, that never,
never may such be thy fate!" Were those prayers heard in heaven and
granted on earth? We ask our heart in awe, but its depths are silent,