hey looked from the towers of
Stirling northward to the huge chain of mountains, which rises like a
dusky rampart to conceal in its recesses a people whose dress, manners,
and language differed still very much from those of their Lowland
countrymen. For my part, I come of a race not greatly subject to
apprehensions arising from imagination only. I had some Highland
relatives; know several of their families of distinction; and though
only having the company of my bower-maiden, Mrs. Alice Lambskin, I went
on my journey fearless.

But then I had a guide and cicerone, almost equal to Greatheart in
the Pilgrim's Progress, in no less a person than Donald MacLeish, the
postilion whom I hired at Stirling, with a pair of able-bodied horses,
as steady as Donald himself, to drag my carriage, my duenna, and myself,
wheresoever it was my pleasure to go.

Donald MacLeish was one of a race of post-boys whom, I suppose,
mail-coaches and steamboats have put out of fashion. They were to be
found chiefly at Perth, Stirling, or Glasgow, where they and their
horses were usually hired by travellers, or tourists, to accomplish such
journeys of business or pleasure as they might have to perform in the
land of the Gael. This class of persons approached to the character
of what is called abroad a CONDUCTEUR; or might be compared to the
sailing-master on board a British ship of war, who follows out after
his own manner the course which the captain commands him to observe. You
explained to your postilion the length of your tour, and the objects you
were desirous it should embrace; and you found him perfectly competent
to fix the places of rest or refreshment, with due attention that those
should be chosen with reference to your convenience, and to any points
of interest which you might desire to visit.

The qualifications of such a person were necessarily much superior to
those of the "first ready," who gallops thrice-a-day over the same
ten miles. Donald MacLeish, besides being quite alert at repairing all
ordinary accidents to his horses and carriage, and in making shift to
support them, where forage was scarce, with such substitutes as bannocks
and cakes, was likewise a man of intellectual resources. He had acquired
a general knowledge of the traditional stories of the country which he
had traversed so often; and if encouraged (for Donald was a man of the
most decorous reserve), he would willingly point out to you the site of
the principal c