Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 014.djvu/192

Dear Sir Christy,

You will remember, that, when you and I parted last at Ambrose's, the following dialogue passed between us. Perhaps you may have forgot; but it was just at the head of the narrow entry, immediately under the door of that celebrated tavern, that it took place; and, at the time when it began, we were standing with our backs toward each other, in what I would have called, had I been writing poetry, a moveless attitude.

"Mr Hogg, what is the reason that you write to me so seldom?"

"Faith, man, it's because I hae naething to write about."

"Nothing to write about? For shame! how can you say so? Have you not the boundless phenomena of nature constantly before your eyes?"

"O, to be sure, I hae; but then—"

In the meantime I was thinking to myself, what the devil can this phenomena of nature be, when you interrupted me with, "None of your but then's, shepherd. A man who has such an eye as you have, for discerning the goings on of the mighty elements, can never want the choice of a thousand subjects whereon to exercise his pen. You have the night, with her unnumbered stars, that seem to rowl through spaces incomprehensible; the day dawn, and the sunshine; the dazzling splendours of noon, and the sombre hues that pervade the mountains, under the congregated masses of impending vapours."

"Gude sauf us, Christy's mair nor half seas ower!" thinks I; "but I maunna pretend no to understand him, for fear he get intil a rage.—Ay, ye're no far wrang, man," I says; "there are some gayen good things to be seen atween the heaven an' yirth sometimes. Weel, gude night, or rather gude morning, honest Sir Christy. I'll try to pick you up something o' yon sort."

"By all means, Hogg. I insist on it. Something of the phenomena of nature, I beseech you. You should look less at lambs and rams, and he-goats, Hogg, and more at the grand phenomena of nature. You should drink less out of the toddy-jug, shepherd, and more at the perennial spring. However, we'll say no more about that, as matters stand, to-night; only hand me something of the phenomena of nature."

I came home here, and looked about me soon and late with a watchful eye, and certainly saw many bright and beautiful appearances on the face of the sky, and in the ever-varying hues of the mountains; still I had witnessed all these before; so had every old shepherd in these glens; and I could not persuade myself that any of these was the particular thing, a description of which you wanted; because they were, in fact, no phenomenons, if I understand that French word properly, nor ever were viewed as such by any of our country people. But at length the curiosity of two young shepherds, neighbours of my own, furnished me with a subject that hit my fancy to a hair; and the moment that I first heard the relation, I said to myself, "This is the very thing for old Christy." But thereby hangs a tale, which is simply and literally as follows:—

On the top of a wild height, called Cowanscroft, where the lands of three proprietors meet all at one point, there has been, for long and many years, the grave of a suicide, marked out by a stone standing at the head, and another at the feet. Often have I stood musing over it myself, when a shepherd on one of the farms of which it formed the extreme boundary, and thinking what could induce a young man, who had scarcely reached the prime of life, to brave his Maker, and rush into his presence by an act of his own erring hand, and one so unnatural and preposterous; but it never once occurred to me as an object of curiosity, to dig up the mouldering bones of the culprit, which I considered as the most revolting of all objects. The thing was, however, done last a month, and a discovery made of one of the greatest natural phenomenons that I ever heard of in this country.

The little traditionary history that remains of this unfortunate youth, is altogether a singular one. He was not a native of the place, nor would he ever tell from what place he came, but he was remarkable for a deep, thought-