Let's bother Mr North no more about it. With exception of the Bridge, 'tis not worth talking of—and we ought to be thankful it was not Night. Then what a delightful feeling of security now, sir, from all intrusion of vagrant visitors from the Dalmally side! By this time communication must be cut off with Edinburgh and Glasgow—via Inverary—so the Camp is virtually insulated. In ordinary weather, there is no calling the Camp our own. So far back as yesterday only, 8 English—4 German—3 French—29 Italian—1 Irish, all Male, many mustached—and from those and other countries, nearly an equal number of Female—some mustached too—"but that not much."
NORTH.
Impossible indeed it is to enjoy one hour's consciousness of secure solitude, in this most unsedentary age of the world.—Look there. Who the deuce are you, sir? Do you belong to Cloud-land—and have you made an involuntary descent in the deluge? Or are you of the earth earthy? Off, sir—off to the back premises. Enter the Pavilion at your peril, you Phenomenon. Turn him out, Talboys.
TALBOYS.
Then I must turn out myself. I stepped forth for a moment to the Front——
NORTH.
And have in that moment been transmogrified into the Man of the Moon. A false alarm. But methinks you might have been satisfied with the Bridge.
TALBOYS.
It is clearing up, sir—it is clearing up—pails and buckets, barrels and hogsheads, fountains and tanks, are no longer the order of the day. Jupiter Pluvius is descending on Juno with moderated impetuosity—is restricting himself to watering pans and garden engines—there is reason to suspect, from the look of the atmosphere, that the supplies are running short—that in a few hours the glass will be up to Stormy—and hurra, then, for a week of fine, sunshiny, shadowy, breezy, balmy, angling Weather! Why, it is almost fair now. I do trust that we shall have no more of those dry, dusty, sandy, gravelly days, so unlike Lochawe-side, and natural only in Modern Athens or the Great Desert. Hark! it is clearing up. That is always the way with thorough-bred rain—desperate spurt or rush at the end—a burst when blown—dead-beat——
SEWARD.