was laden with
cheese and bannocks, milk and brandy; and the worshipers kept lipping
down from the hill between two exercises, as couples visit the
supper-room between two dances of a modern ball. In the Forty-Five, some
foraging Highlanders from Prince Charlie's army fell upon Swanston in
the dawn. The great-grandfather of the late farmer was then a little
child; him they awakened by plucking the blankets from his bed, and he
remembered, when he was an old man, their truculent looks and uncouth
speech. The churn stood full of cream in the dairy, and with this they
made their brose in high delight. "It was braw brose," said one of them.
At last they made off, laden like camels with their booty; and Swanston
Farm has lain out of the way of history from that time forward. I do not
know what may be yet in store for it. On dark days, when the mist runs
low upon the hill, the house has a gloomy air as if suitable for private
tragedy. But in hot July, you can fancy nothing more perfect than the
garden, laid out in alleys and arbours and bright, old-fashioned
flower-plots, and ending in a miniature ravine, all trellis-work and
moss and tinkling waterfall, and housed from the sun under fathoms of
broad foliage.

The hamlet behind is one of the least considerable of hamlets, and
consists of a few cottages on a green beside a burn. Some of them (a
strange thing in Scotland) are models of internal neatness; the beds
adorned with patchwork, the shelves arrayed with willow-pattern plates,
the floors and tables bright with scrubbing or pipeclay, and the very
kettle polished like silver. It is the sign of a contented old age in
country places, where there is little matter for gossip and no street
sights. Housework becomes an art; and at evening, when the cottage
interior shines and twinkles in the glow of the fire, the housewife
folds her hands and contemplates her finished picture; the snow and the
wind may do their worst, she has made herself a pleasant corner in the
world. The city might be a thousand miles away: and yet it was close by
that Mr. Bough painted the distant view of Edinburgh which has been
engraved for this collection:[2] and you have only to look at the cut,
to see how near it is at hand. But hills and hill people are not easily
sophisticated; and if you walk out here on a summer Sunday, it is as
like as not the shepherd may set his dogs upon you. But keep an unmoved
countenance; they look formidable at the charge,