November weather is not cheerful on the Holy Loch. The dazzling snow on the hills when there is sunshine, the sharp cold blue of the water, the withered¹ ferns and heather on the banks, give it, it is true, a new tone of colour unknown to its placid² summer beauty; but, when there is no sunshine, as is more usual, when the mountains are folded in dark mists, and the rain falls cold, and the trees rain down a still heavier and more melancholy³ shower of perpetually falling leaves, there is little in the landscape to cheer the spirits of the inhabitants, who, fortunately for themselves, take it very calmly, like most people accustomed to such a climate. The farmer’s wife of Ramore, however, was not of that equable mind. When she looked out from her homely⁴ parlour-window, it oppressed her heart to miss her mountains, and to see the heavy atmosphere closing in over her own little stretch of hill-side. She was busy, to be sure, and had not much time to think of it; but, when she paused for a moment in her many occupations, and looked wistfully for signs of “clearing,” the poetic⁵ soul in her homely bosom⁶ fell subdued⁷ into an unconscious harmony with the heavy sky. If the baby looked pale by chance, the mother took gloomy views of the matter on such days, and was subject to little momentary⁸{25} failures of hope and courage, which amazed, and at the same time amused, big Colin, who by this time knew all about it.

“You were blythe enough about us a’ yesterday, Jeanie,” he would say with a smile, “and nothing’s happened to change the prospect⁹ but the rain. It’s just as weel for the wean that the doctor’s a dozen miles off; for it’s your e’en that want physic, and a glint o’ sunshine would set a’ right.” He was

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