TWENTY HOURS AFTER
Euston, 8 P.M.
I'm sick of this sweltering weather.
Phew! ninety degrees in the shade!
I long for the hills and the heather,
I long for the kilt and the plaid;
I long to escape from this hot land
Where there isn't a mouthful of air,
And fly to the breezes of Scotland—
It's never too stuffy up there.
For weeks I have sat in pyjamas,
And found even these were de trop,
And envied the folk of Bahamas
Who dress in a feather or so;
But now there's an end to my grilling,
My Inferno's a thing of the past;
Hurrah! there's the whistle a-shrilling—
We are off to the Highlands at last!
Callander, 4 p.m.
The dull leaden skies are all clouded
In the gloom of a sad weeping day,
The desolate mountains are shrouded
In palls of funereal grey;
'Mid the skirl of the wild wintry weather
The torrents descend in a sheet
As we shiver all huddled together
In the reek of the smouldering peat.
A plague on the Highlands! to think of
The heat that but lately we banned;
Oh! what would we give for a blink of
The bright sunny side of the Strand!
To think there are folk that still revel
In Summer, and fling themselves down,
In the Park, or St. James? What the d——
Possessed us to hurry from town?
"Out of Tune and Harsh."—First Elder (at the Kirk "Skellin'"). "Did ye hear Dougal? More snorin' in the sermon?"
Second Elder, "Parefec'ly disgracefu'! He's waukened 's a'!"
