Ha! what has brought thee hither, thou wide-antlered king of the red-deer of Braemar, from the spacious desert of thy hills of storm? Ere now we have beheld thee, or one stately as thee, gazing abroad, from a rock over the heather, to all the points of heaven, and soon as our figure was seen far below, leading the van of the flight thou went'st haughtily away into the wilderness. But now thou glidest softly and slowly through the gloom—no watchfulness, no anxiety in thy large beaming eyes; and, kneeling among the hoary mosses, layest thyself down in unknown fellowship with one of those human creatures, a glance of whose eye, a murmur of whose voice, would send thee belling through the forest, terrified by the flash or sound that bespoke a hostile nature wont to pursue thy race unto death.—The hunter is upon thee—away—away! Sudden as a shooting-star up springs the red-deer, and in the gloom as suddenly is lost.
On—on—on! further into the Forest!—and now a noise as of "thunder heard remote." Waterfalls—hundreds of waterfalls sounding for ever—here—there—everywhere—among the remoter woods. Northwards one fierce torrent dashes through the centre—but no villages—only a few woodmen's shielings will appear on its banks; for it is a torrent of precipices, where the shrubs that hang midway from the cleft are out of the reach of the spray of its cataracts, even when the red Garroch is in flood.
Many hours have we been in the wilderness, and our heart yearns again for the cheerful dwellings of men. Sweet infant streamlet, that flows by our feet without a murmur, so shallow are yet thy waters—wilt thou—short as hitherto has been thy journeying—wilt thou be our guide out into the green valleys and the blue heaven, and the sight once more of the bright sunshine and the fair fleecy clouds? No other clue to the labyrinth do we seek but that small, thin, pure, transparent thread of silver, which neither bush nor brier will break, and which will wind without entanglement round the roots of the old trees, and the bases of the shaggy rocks. As if glad to escape from its savage birthplace, the small rivulet now gives utterance to a song; and sliding down shelving rocks, so low in their mossy verdure as hardly to deserve that name, glides along the almost level lawns, here and there disclosing a little hermit flower. No danger now of its being imbibed wholly by the thirsty earth; for it has a channel and banks of its own—and there is a waterfall! Thenceforwards the rivulet never loses its merry voice—and in an hour it is a torrent. What beautiful symptoms now of its approach to the edge of the Forest! Wandering lights and whispering airs are here visitants—and there the blue eye of a wild violet looking up from the ground! The glades are more frequent—more frequent open spaces cleared by the woodman's axe—and the antique Oak-Tree all alone by itself, itself a grove. The torrent may be called noble now; and that deep blue atmosphere—or say rather, that glimmer of purple air—lies over the Strath in which a great River rolls along to the Sea.
Nothing in all nature more beautiful than the boundary of a great Highland Forest. Masses of rocks thrown together in magnificent confusion, many of them lichened and weather-stained with colours gorgeous as the eyed plumage of the peacock, the lustre of the rainbow, or the barred and clouded glories of setting suns—some towering aloft with trees sown in the crevices by bird or breeze, and checkering the blue sky—others bare, black, abrupt, grim as volcanoes, and shattered as if by the lightning-stroke. Yet interspersed, places of perfect peace—circles among the tall heather, or taller lady-fern, smoothed into velvet, it is there easy to believe, by Fairies' feet—rocks where the undisturbed linnet hangs her nest among the blooming briers, all floating with dew-draperies of honeysuckle alive with bees—glades green as emerald, where lie the lambs in tempered sunshine, or haply a lovely doe reposes with her fawn; and further down, where the fields half belong to the mountain and half to the strath, the smoke of hidden huts—a log-bridge flung across the torrent—a hanging-garden, and a little broomy knoll, with a few laughing children at play, almost as wild-looking as the wanderers of the woods!
Turn your eyes, if you can, from that lovely wilderness, and behold down along a mile-broad Strath, fed by a thousand torrents, floweth the noblest of Scotia's rivers, the strong-sweeping Spey! Let Imagination launch her canoe, and be thou a solitary steersman—for need is none of oar or sail; keep the middle course while all the groves go by, and ere the sun has sunk behind yon golden mountains—nay, mountains they are not, but a transitory pomp of clouds—thou mayest list the roaring, and behold the foaming of the Sea.
Was there ever such a descriptive dream of a coloured engraving of the Cushat, Quest, or Ring-Dove, dreamt before? Poor worn-out and glimmering candle!—whose wick of light and life in a few more flickerings will be no more—what a contrast dost thou present with thyself of eight hours ago! Then, truly, wert thou a shining light, and high aloft in the room-gloaming burned thy clear crest like a star—during its midnight silence, a memento mori of which our spirit was not afraid. Now thou art dying—dying—dead! Our cell is in darkness. But methinks we see another—a purer—a clearer light—one more directly from Heaven. We touch but a spring in a wooden shutter—and lo! the full blaze of day. Oh! why should we mortal beings dread that night-prison—the Grave?