d feet, leaps
and bounds over some smaller precipices, until, at length, far down in
Moffatdale, it entirely changes its character, and pursues a calm and
peaceful course through a fine pastoral country. Standing on the brow
of a mountain which overlooks the fall, the eye takes in at once the
whole of the course which we have described; and, to a poetical mind,
which recognises in mountain scenery the cradle of liberty and the
favourite dwelling-place of imagination, the character of the stream
seems a type of the human mind: stormy, bounding, and impetuous, when
wrapped up in the glorious feelings which belong to romantic countries;
peaceful, dull, and monotonous, amid the less interesting lowlands. Yet,
after indulging in such a fancy for a time, another reflection arises,
which, if it be less pleasing and poetical, is, perhaps, more
useful--that the impetuous course of the mountain torrent, though
gratifying to the lover of nature, is unaccompanied with any other
benefit to man, while the stream that pursues its unpretending path
through the plains, bestows fertility on a thousand fields. Such
thoughts as these, however, only arise in the mind when it has become
somewhat familiar with the surrounding scenes. The roar of the cataract,
the savage appearance of the dark rocks that border the falling waters,
and that painful feeling which the sweeping and inevitable course of the
stream produces, at first paralyze the mind, and, for some time after it
has recovered its tone, occupy it to the exclusion of every other
sentiment.

And now, gentle reader, let us walk toward the simple stone seat, which
some shepherd boy has erected under yon silvery-stemmed birch tree,
where the sound of the waterfall comes only in a pleasant monotone, and
where the most romantic part of old Scotland is spread beneath our feet.
There you see the eternal foam of the torrent, without being distracted
with its roar; and you can trace the course of the stream till it
terminates in yon clear and pellucid pool at the foot of the hill,
which seems too pure for aught but--

"A mirror and a bath for beauty's youngest daughters;"

yet, beautiful in its purity as it seems, it is indeed the scene of the
following true and terrible tale:--

Philips Grey was one of the most active young shepherds in the parish of
Traquair. For two or three years he had carried off the medal given at
the St. Ronan's border games to him who made the best high leap;