ack, and cold, the rain
was pouring into the awful holes whence generations had dug their fuel,
and into the natural chasms of the earth, soaking the soil, and sending
torrents, like the flaxen hair of a Titanic Naiad, rolling into the
bosom of the rising river-god below. The mist hung there, darkening
everything with its whiteness, ever sinking in slow fall upon the
slippery peat and the heather and the gray old stones. By and by the
pools would be filled, and the hidden caves; their sides would give
way; the waters would rush from the one into the other, and from all
down the hill-sides, and the earth-sponge would be drained off.

"Gin this hauds, we'll hae a spate," said Alec to himself, when he saw
how the waters met, flooding the _invers_, and beginning to invade the
trees upon the steep banks below. The scene was in harmony with his
feelings. The delight of the sweeping waters entered his soul, and
filled him with joy and strength. As he took his way back through the
stunted trees, each swathed in its own mist, and dripping as if it were
a separate rain-cloud; and through the bushes that wetted him like
pools; and through the streams that poured down the steep bank into the
Glamour; he thought how different it was when he walked there with
Kate, when the sun was bright, and the trees were covered with green,
and the heather was in patches of blossom, and the river went
clear-hearted and singing over its stony channel below. But he would
rather have it thus, now that Kate was gone.

The floods then were slower in rising, and rose to a much greater
height than now. In the present day, the numerous drains provide a
rapid and steady escape, so that there is no accumulation of waters,
and no bursting of the walls of natural or accidental reservoirs. And I
presume that from slow changes produced in the climate by cultivation,
there may be a less fall of water now than there used to be; for in
some parts of that country the rivers have, within the memory of
middle-aged men, considerably decreased in volume.

That evening, in the schoolmaster's lodgings. Truffey sat at the
tea-table triumphant. The master had been so pleased with an exercise
which he had written for him--written in verse too--that he had taken
the boy home to tea with him, dried him well at his fire, and given him
as much buttered toast as he could eat. Truffey had often had a like
privilege, but never for an ovation, as now. How he loved the master!