第74章 LETTERS AND POEMS IN TESTIMONY(3)

rounded curves, and drops an almost sheer descent of black rock to the little glen below.In a wrinkle of the foothills Swanston farm and hamlet are snugly tucked away.The spirit that breathes about it in summer time is gently pastoral.It is sheltered from the rougher blasts; it is set about with trees and green hills.It was with this aspect of the place that Stevenson, coming hither on holiday, was best acquainted.The village green, whereon the windows of the neat white cottages turn a kindly gaze under low brows of thatch, is then a perfect place in which to rest, and, watching the smoke rising and listening to "the leaves ruffling in the breeze," to muse on men and things; especially on Sabbath mornings, when the ploughman or shepherd, "perplext wi' leisure,"

it is time to set forth on the three-mile walk along the hill-skirts to Colinton kirk.But Swanston in winter time must also HAVE BEEN FAMILIAR TO STEVENSON.

Snow-wreathed Pentlands, the ribbed and furrowed front of Caerketton, the low sun striking athwart the sloping fields of white, the shadows creeping out from the hills, and the frosty yellow fog drawing in from the Firth - must often have flashed back on the thoughts of the exile of Samoa.Against this wintry background the white farmhouse, old and crow-stepped, looks dingy enough; the garden is heaped with the fantastic treasures of the snow; and when you toil heavily up the waterside to the clump of pines and beeches you find yourself in a fairy forest.One need not search to-day for the pool where the lynx-eyed John Todd, "the oldest herd on the Pentlands," watched from behind the low scrag of wood the stranger collie come furtively to wash away the tell-tale stains of lamb's blood.The effacing hand of the snow has smothered it over.Higher you mount, mid leg-deep in drift, up the steep and slippery hill-face, to the summit.Edinburgh has been creeping nearer since Stevenson's musing fancy began to draw on the memories of the climbs up "steep Caerketton." But this light gives it a mystic distance; and it is all glitter and shadow.Arthur Seat is like some great sea monster stranded near a city of dreams;

from the fog-swathed Firth gleams the white walls of Inchkeith lighthouse, a mark never missed by Stevenson's father's son; above Fife rise the twin breasts of the Lomonds.Or turn round and look across the Esk valley to the Moorfoots; or more westerly, where the back range of the Pentlands - Caernethy, the Scald, and the knife-

edged Kips - draw a sharp silhouette of Arctic peaks against the sky.In the cloven hollow between is Glencarse Loch, an ancient chapel and burying ground hidden under its waters; on the slope above it, not a couple miles away, is Rullion Green, where, as Stevenson told in THE PENTLAND RISING (his first printed work)

THE WESTLAND WHIGS WERE SCATTERED

as chaff on the hills.Were "topmost Allermuir," that rises close beside you, removed from his place, we might see the gap in the range through which Tom Dalyell and his troopers spurred from Currie to the fray.The air on these heights is invigorating as wine; but it is also keen as a razor.Without delaying long yon plunge down to the "Windy Door Nick"; follow the "nameless trickle that springs from the green bosom of Allermuir," past the rock and pool, where, on summer evenings, the poet "loved to sit and make bad verses"; and cross Halkerside and the Shearers' Knowe, those "adjacent cantons on a single shoulder of a hill," sometimes floundering to the neck in the loose snow of a drain, sometimes scaring the sheep huddling in the wreaths, or putting up a covey of moorfowl that circle back without a cry to cover in the ling.In an hour you are at Colinton, whose dell has on one side the manse garden, where a bright-eyed boy, who was to become famous, spent so much of his time when he came thither on visits to his stern Presbyterian grandfather; on the other the old churchyard.The snow has drawn its cloak of ermine over the sleepers, it has run its fingers over the worn lettering; and records almost effaced start out from the stone.In vain these "voices of generations dead" summon their wandering child, though you might deem that his spirit would rest more quietly where the cold breeze from Pentland shakes the ghostly trees in Colinton Dell than "under the flailing fans and shadows of the palm."

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