But summer has gone from nature if not from our hearts. All in a week the change has come, and many-tinted autumn was ushered in with wild and stormy winds, with rain and floods and rattling thunder.
Not as a lamb has autumn entered, but as a lion roaring; as a king or a hero in a pantomime, with blue and red fire and grand effects of all kinds.
There is a strong breeze blowing, but it is an invigorating one, and now, at eight o’clock on this morning, the sun is shining brightly enough, whatever it may do later on.
What a grand day for the moors! It will quite make up for the loss of yesterday, when doubtless there were more drams than dead grouse about.
In Glasgow, days ago, I noticed that the poulterers’ windows were decorated with blooming heather in anticipation of the twelfth.
I saw yesterday afternoon some “lads in kilts”—Saxons, by the shape of their legs. But I do not hold with Professor Blackie, that if you see a gentleman in Highland garb “he must either be an Englishman or a fool.”
For I know that our merriest of professors, best of Greek scholars, and most enthusiastic of Scotchmen, would himself wear the kilt if there was the slightest possibility of keeping his stockings up!