A rough, wild glen it was, to which, far back in times unknown to
its annals, the family had given its name, taking in return no
small portion of its history, and a good deal of the character of
its individuals. It lay in the debatable land between highlands and
lowlands; most of its inhabitants spoke both Scotch and Gaelic; and
there was often to be found in them a notable mingling of the chief
characteristics of the widely differing Celt and Teuton. The
country produced more barley than wheat, more oats than barley,
more heather than oats, more boulders than trees, and more snow
than anything. It was a solitary, thinly peopled region, mostly of
bare hills, and partially cultivated glens, each with its small
stream, on the banks of which grew here and there a silver birch, a
mountain ash, or an alder tree, but with nothing capable of giving
much shade or shelter, save cliffy banks and big stones. From many
a spot you might look in all directions and not see a sign of human
or any other habitation. Even then however, you might, to be sure,
most likely smell the perfume--to some nostrils it is nothing less
than perfume--of a peat fire, although you might be long in finding
out whence it came; for the houses, if indeed the dwellings could
be called houses, were often so hard to be distinguished from the
ground on which they were built, that except the smoke of fresh
peats were coming pretty freely from the wide-mouthed chimney, it
required an experienced eye to discover the human nest. The valleys
that opened northward produced little; there the snow might some
years be seen lying on patches of oats yet green, destined now only
for fodder; but where the valley ran east and west, and any
tolerable ground looked to the south, there things put on a
different aspect. There the graceful oats would wave and rustle in
the ripening wind, and in the small gardens would lurk a few
cherished strawberries, while potatoes and peas would be tolerably