VELVET CUSHIONS.
Clifford.—Well done, Bigla Cumin! If ever I marry, I am resolved to have a fearless wife who can gallop across a country. But hey!—(stretching himself as we arose to proceed)—I protest I am quite stiff. Confound your green velvety grass! commend me rather to your velvet cushion of Genoa. Your story was too long, Mr. Macpherson, and by far too interesting for a breezy hill-side and a dewy bank like this.
Dominie.—It will grieve me sore, Mr. Clifford, if you should in any way suffer from my prolixity.
Clifford.—Tut, man, I’d sit in a snow-wreath, or on a glacier, to listen to you. But, hark ye! what was that you muttered, before you began your story, about leaving us?
Dominie.—Really I cannot speak it without vurra great pain, Mr. Clifford; but my path disparts from your road a little way on here. I have to wend my way through the whole extent of these wild forests, which you see below us there, stretching across the intermediate country between us and the misty Cairngorums yonder. I am journeying to visit a brother of mine, who, as the elegant author of Douglas hath it,
“Feeds his flocks,
A frugal swain,”
on the slopes of the mountains beyond.
Clifford.—Nay, nay, we cannot part with you so. Had it been a lady, indeed, that you were going to visit, I should not have said a word. But for a brother merely.