We had
discussed fifty different topics, and were prepared to enter on fifty
more, when we reached the ancient burgh of Ayr, where our roads
separated.

"I have taken an immense liking to you, Mr. Lindsay," said my
companion, as he seated himself on the parapet of the old bridge,
"and have just bethought me of a scheme through which I may enjoy your
company for at least one night more. The Ayr is a lovely river, and you
tell me you have never explored it. We shall explore it together this
evening for about ten miles, when we shall find ourselves at the
farm-house of Lochlea. You may depend on a hearty welcome from my
father, whom, by the way, I wish much to introduce to you, as a man
worth your knowing; and, as I have set my heart on the scheme, you
are surely too good-natured to disappoint me." Little risk of that, I
thought; I had, in fact, become thoroughly enamoured of the warm-hearted
benevolence and fascinating conversation of my companion, and acquiesced
with the best good-will in the world.

We had threaded the course of the river for several miles. It runs
through a wild pastoral valley, roughened by thickets of copse-wood, and
bounded on either hand by a line of swelling, moory hills, with here and
there a few irregular patches of corn, and here and there some little
nest-like cottage peeping out from among the wood. The clouds, which
during the morning had obscured the entire face of the heavens, were
breaking up their array, and the sun was looking down, in twenty
different places, through the openings, checkering the landscape with a
fantastic, though lovely carpeting of light and shadow. Before us there
rose a thick wood, on a jutting promontory, that looked blue and dark in
the shade, as if it wore mourning; while the sunlit stream beyond shone
through the trunks and branches, like a river of fire. At length the
clouds seemed to have melted in the blue--for there was not a breath of
wind to speed them away--and the sun, now hastening to the west, shone
in unbroken effulgence over the wide extent of the dell, lighting up
stream and wood, and field and cottage, in one continuous blaze of
glory. We had walked on in silence for the last half hour; but I could
sometimes hear my companion muttering as he went; and when, in passing
through a thicket of hawthorn and honeysuckle, we started from its perch
a linnet that had been filling the air with its melody, I could hear him
exclaim, in a subdued tone of voice