TALES AND ANECDOTES OF THE PASTORAL LIFE.
No II.
The wedding-day at length arrived; and as the bridegroom had charged us to be there at an early hour, we set out on horseback, immediately after breakfast, for the remote hamlet of Stridekirtin. We found no regular path, but our way lay through a country which it is impossible to view without soothing emotions. The streams are numerous, clear as crystal, and wind along the glens in many fantastic and irregular curves. The mountains are green to the tops, very high, and form many beautiful soft and shaded outlines. They are, besides, literally speckled with snowy flocks, which, as we passed, were feeding or resting with such appearance of undisturbed repose, that the heart naturally found itself an involuntary sharer in the pastoral tranquillity that pervaded all around.
My good friend, Mr Grumple, could give me no information regarding the names of the romantic glens and mountains that came within our view; he, however, knew who were the proprietors of the land, who the tenants, what rent and stipend each of them paid, and whose teinds were unexhausted; this seemed to be the sum and substance of his knowledge concerning the life, character, and manners, of his rural parishioners, save that he could sometimes adduce circumstantial evidence that such and such farmers had made money of their land, and that others had made very little or none.
This district, over which he presides in an ecclesiastical capacity, forms an extensive portion of the Arcadia of Britain. It was likewise, in some late ages, noted for its zeal in the duties of religion, as well as for a thirst after the acquirement of knowledge concerning its doctrines; but under the tuition of such a pastor as my relative appears to be, it is no wonder that practical religion should be losing ground from year to year, and scepticism, the natural consequence of laxity in religious duties, gaining ground in proportion.
It may be deemed, perhaps, rather indecorous, to indulge in such reflections respecting any individual who has the honour to be ranked as a member of a body so generally respectable as our Scottish Clergy, and who, at the same time, maintains a fair worldly character; but in a general discussion—in any thing that relates to the common weal of mankind, all such inferior considerations must be laid aside. And the more I consider the simplicity of the people of whom I am now writing—the scenes among which they have been bred—and their lonely and sequestered habits of life, where the workings and phenomena of nature alone appear to attract the eye or engage the attention,—the more I am convinced that the temperament of their minds would naturally dispose them to devotional feelings. If they were but taught to read their Bibles, and only saw uniformly in the ministers of religion that sanctity of character by which the profession ought ever to be distinguished, these people would naturally be such as every well-wisher to the human race would desire a scattered peasantry to be. But when the most decided variance between example and precept is forced on their observation, what should we, or what can we, expect? Men must see, hear, feel, and judge accordingly. And certainly in no other instance is a patron so responsible to his sovereign, his country, and his God, as in the choice he makes of spiritual pastors. These were some of the reflections that occupied my mind as I traversed this beautiful pastoral country with its morose teacher, and from these I was at length happily aroused by the appearance of the cottage, or shepherd's steading, to which we were bound. It was situated in a little valley in the bottom of a wild glen, or hope, as it is there called. It stood all alone; but besides the dwelling-house, there was a little byre that held the two cows and their young,—a good stack of hay, another of peats,—a sheep-house, and two homely gardens; and the place had altogether something of a snug, comfortable appearance. Though this is only an individual picture, I am told it may be viewed as a general one of almost every shepherd's dwelling in the south of Scotland; and it is only such pictures that, in the course of these tales, I mean to present to the public.
A number of the young shepherds and country-lasses had already arrived, impatient for the approaching wed-
