from the opening clouds above. The next moment they closed this
disparted seam in their drapery, and opened a side one upon the
still, grave faces of the surrounding mountains; and, for a few
minutes, the smile went round from one to the other, and the great
centurions of the hills looked happy and almost human in the gleam.
Then shade's turn came in the play, and it played its part as
perfectly as light. It put in the touch of the old Italian masters,
giving an everchanging background to all the sublime pictures of the
panorama.

I was not alone in the enjoyment of this scenery. For the first
time in this Walk I had a companion for a day. A clergyman from
near Edinburgh joined me at Kingussie, with whom I shared the luxury
of one of the most splendid views to be found in Scotland. Indeed,
few minds are so constituted as to prefer to see such natural
pictures alone. After a day's walk among these sceneries, we came
to the small village of Aviemore in the dusk of the evening. Here
we found that the only inn had been closed and turned into a private
residence, and that it was doubtful if a bed could be had for love
or money in the place. The railway through it to Inverness had just
been opened, and the navvies seemed still to constitute the largest
portion of the population. Neither of us had eaten any dinner, and
we were hungry as well as tired. Seeing a little, low cottage near
the railroad, with the sign of something for the public good over
the door, we went to it, and found that it had two rooms, one a kind
of rough, stone-floored shed, the other an apartment full ten feet
square, with two beds in it, which occupied half the entire space.
But, small as it was, the good man and woman made the most of it in
the way of entertainment, getting up a tea occasionally for persons
stopping over in the village at a meal-time, also selling small