FIRST-CLASS travellers are rare in the month of June on the western and wilder section of the Great West of Scotland Railway. The season of tourists is not yet; and sportsmen seldom begin to straggle northwards before the second week of August. Through three-fourths of the year the Company must rely for dividends or debenture interest on its goods traffic-carrying cattle and sheep, herring-barrels, and wire-fencing, with miscellaneous trifles of the kind. As for Auchnadarroch station, which is situated at the head of Strathoran, the station-master, metaphorically as well as physically, is one of the biggest men in the north country. Dressed in a deal of brief authority, he has the satisfaction of patronising the country-folks who travel by the trains; he is toadied in the summer by innocent Cockneys, helplessly eager for direction

VOL. CXXXVII. NO. DCCCXXXIV.

and advice; and he may simultaneously indulge his indolence and fussiness by managing to make an infinite ado about nothing. Save a lonely shooting-lodge or two, a couple of manses, and the residence of Glenconan, there is nothing in the shape of a gentleman's house within a radius of some score of miles; and although the "MacTavish Arms and Posting Establishment" stands within a short gunshot of the station, in those opening days of June it has barely taken down its shutters.

So it was all the stranger that, one bright afternoon in June, the station should be the scene of unwonted excitement. The platform, usually left to be cleansed by the rains and winds, was swept and garnished; the porter had taken his hands out of the pockets of his corduroys; the station-master was standing at attention, and in close

2 II

conversation with an elderly Highlander in homespuns; while the smoke of the train was visible in the middle-distance, as it came sobbing and puffing up the stiff incline. The cause of the excitement might be explained by a carriage that had pulled up on the shingle sweep before the pine-built porch of the little booking-office. It was a waggonette of teak, with a pair of smart chestnut cobs-one and the other strong, low, and serviceable; while the well-set-up driver had a certain style about him that savoured rather of the Parks and Piccadilly than of Ross-shire.

"And as I was saying to you, Mr Ferguson," drawled the Highlander in homespun, "this will be a great day for Glenconan."

an

"I do not doubt it, Mr RossI do not doubt it," replied the other, motioning away with affable wave of the arm the tender of the Highlander's snuff-mull. He was excited, and could not help showing it, though he prided himself on the serenity of his deport"We do what we can; but man's powers are limited, and we must have resident proprietors if we are to develop the local traffic."

ment.

Donald Ross rumpled up his shaggy eyebrows. He was a fine specimen of the elderly hillmanas tall as the station-master, and far more muscular. Hard-looking and weather-beaten, he seemed to have worked away, in a long life among the hills, all superabundant flesh from his bone and sinew. Though his Saxon was serviceable, like the cobs, he was not strong in it; he failed to catch the meaning of the station-master, and he struck back into his own line of thought.

"Ay, more resident gentlemen, as you were saying, will be a great thing; and it will be a great thing for Glenconan when we have one of the 'Glenconans' among us

again. I'm thinking he will be turning Corryvreckan and Glengoy into deer; and 'deed these shepherd - men are just one of the plagues of Egypt that the minister would be speaking about the former Sabbath-day."

Meanwhile the train was approaching, and at last it drew up at the platform. Three gentlemen got out of a first-class carriage. The station-master received them cap in hand, with an obsequiousness significant of the solemnity of the occasion. As for Donald, he slightly lifted his deer-stalker bonnet, and pulled shyly at a grizzled forelock; but his grey eyes gleamed

with such a soft satisfaction as you may see in a friendly collie gratified by the home-coming of his master.

The foremost of the three, who naturally took the lead, was a hale veteran of about sixty or somewhat more, cast very much in the manly mould of the keeper. His dress was almost as rough, though carefully put on; but there was no possibility of mistaking him for anything but a gentleman: and if his face was beaming with excitement and good-humour, he was nevertheless the sort of man you would have been sorry to quarrel with. There was energy of purpose in the features, that were high and even harsh, as in the flash of the keen grey eyes; with a touch of sarcastic resolution about the corners of the firm mouth. His companions, who kept themselves modestly in the background, were boys in comparison. One of them might have come of age a year or two before; the other was some halfdozen years his senior.

The elderly gentleman acknow ledged the salutation of the stationmaster with a nod, and a quick look that seemed to read the man

through and dispose of him. But his greeting to Donald was cor

diality itself as he held out the muscular hand, which the other evidently had expected.

"And so you're here, are you, Mr Ross, instead of upon Funachan; and this is the way you've been looking after the deer in my absence."

Donald grinned a width of welcome like the breaking of a blaze of sunshine after a thunderstorm over the waters of the neighbouring Lochconan.

"And 'deed it was very little of the deer that I was thinking of today, Glenconan,-though I might possibly have been speaking of them to the station-master here," he added, conscientiously. "And

it's a pity but there was your piper to give you your welcome; but Peter has been palsied since the Martinmas before last-and short in the wind, moreover. And how have you been keeping, sir; and how was Miss Grace?

As

"Exceedingly well, and all the better for the thought of coming home. I can answer for myself, and I can answer for her too. for Miss Grace, you will see her here in a few days, and then she can speak for herself, which she is very well able to do. And now, Donald, lend a hand with the luggage, will you? I long to be off, and up the glen."

As for the luggage, it was light enough. The heavy baggage had been forwarded a few days before. In the twinkling of an eye the waggonette was packed; the porter, exulting over a generous tip, was looking forward to a pleasant evening in the bar of the "MacTavish Arms"; and Donald sat perched beside the stylish coachman, watching the start of the impatient cobs.

There are few finer drives in the picturesque Western Highlands than that down the broad strath

of the Bran and up the romantic valley of the tributary Conan. The comparatively open character of the pastoral scenery in the former valley is a fitting approach to the more gloomy grandeur of the other. Dipping into Strathoran, after some of the more savage landscapes through which you have passed in the train, you might pronounce the country almost tame. The river meanders among gently sloping green hills, strewed here and there with stones, and crested with heather. From the level of the carriage-road you seldom catch a glimpse of the towering summits of any of the noble giants in the background; but at the "meeting of the waters," where the Conan joins the Bran, the scenery changes its character altogether. Entering the side-gorge, where the shadows gather even at noon, we leave softness and light for sternness and desolation. The swift black rush of the Conan, which has been pent for a space between beetling cliffs, pitches itself in the exuberance of sudden release over a brawling and foaming waterfall. The eddies of the deep dark pool below confound themselves with the reflected blackness of interlacing fir-boughs. As for the road, it has been roughly yet shrewdly engineered along the sloping ledges of the cliffs that hang between the hills and the river. It is a safe enough ascent, for the gradients are broad though steep, but a dangerous place to drive down under any circumstances; for it is only fenced on the river-side by an occasional upright stone in the Alpine fashion, and its gravel is apt to be washed and mined by the side-rills flowing across it from a succession of trickling cascades.

The elder of the two young men had never visited the glen before. In silent admiration, with a rapt