A BEAUTIFUL LANDSCAPE
Quitting the house I took into the park, and to say that I was delighted with the scene is not in anywise doing justice to the feelings I experienced at the time. I can truly say that I have never seen anything so lovely since—the splendid walks, with their long avenues of wide-spreading and noble-looking trees; the bright gardens and sparkling fountains; the babbling burns, crossed here and there by pontoon bridges; and last, but by no means least, the panoramic bits of the distant landscape visible through the openings in the trees—all these went to make up a veritable Arcadia. Then, as I walked further into the park I saw numbers of wild deer, which looked up at me as I passed by as much as to say, “What business have you to intrude on our sacred rights?” Well, I walked and walked, until I thought I was not coming to the end of the park that day. But soon the path dropped, and disclosed a little valley, in which were located about a half-dozen thatched dwellings. Here, I found, lived the gamekeeper and a few farm labourers. At the house I called at the wee laddies and lassies wondered whatever I was; they had never before seen a “walking target.” The gamekeeper told me that if I was stationed at Greenlaw Barracks I had walked in a very curious direction, for I was thirteen miles, by the ordinary road, out of my course. I was exceedingly ill at ease to hear this pronouncement, and told him that it would be “hot” for me if I was not in before the “tattoo,” or the “last post.” The keeper, I found, was a true Scotchman, and of a very obliging nature. He proffered to take me through the wood to a place called Milton Bridge. We started, and were soon at the village mentioned, where, at the “Fishers’ Tryst,” we had a “drappie o’ whuskey” over the matter. Then we parted, and I got into barracks in time.