DEATH OF THE LAIRD OF WARLSWORM.
It happened on a fine harvest afternoon, that I found myself at the entrance of one of the wild and romantic glens or vales of Galloway; and as a Galwegian vale has a character of its own, it would mutilate my story to leave it undescribed. Imagine an expanse of brown moorland extending as far as sight can reach, threaded by innumerable burns or brooks, and only tenanted in appearance by flocks of sheep, or by coveys of red and black game. Here and there a shepherd was seen with his dogs, or a bare-headed maiden with her pails of milk, going homewards from the fold, and cheering her way with one of those old tender traditional ballads which some neglected spirit, like that of John Lowe, has scattered so largely among the pastoral glens of Galloway. A shepherd's house, or his summer sheal, rising like the "bonnie bower," of the two heroines of Scottish song, on a burn brae, and covered thick with rushes, while it threw its long wavering line of blue smoke into the clear sharp air, spoke of the presence of the sons and daughters of man, or said, in the quaint and homely language of the Galwegian proverb, "where four cloots go, man's twa feet maun follow."
But this heath, barren and wild as it seemed, had other attractions. At the distance of almost every little mile, numerous streams of smoke ascended from the brown moor; the sound and the hum of man, busied with the flail, the hatchet, or the hammer, was heard; the cry and the merriment of children abounded; and here and there a green tree-top or a chimney-head, a kirk-spire or a ruined tower, projecting above the horizon of blossomed heather, proclaimed to the traveller that Caledonia, amid her deserts, has her well-peopled glens and her fruitful places.
On a summer Sabbath morning the people of Galloway are to be beheld in their glory; then every little deep-green and populous vale pours forth its own sedate and pious and
