Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1894-02-01
LADY MAC TAYl7l'S WIG.
"ralos of Rem rraveiors" ssris..


Away in the north of Scotland, along
the ragged northern edge OF The shire OF
Inverness, lies tho romantic and majestic
valley or Strathglass.
II was the Strathglass, or "gray val
ley" of the ancient Gaels; nearly always
gray in the skies above ii; gray in its
valley-bed where the stubble-felds,
banks Of clay and dreamful winding
river blend; gray despite its splatches of
crimson laid by the witching pencils of
the early frost; gray in its masses of
BIRCH in its myriad lichened crags; and
almost gray in the very mists of its
boundless mournful waterfalls.
At the edge Of a great crag overhang-
ing the northern valley highway, where
the strath breaks away into the sunny
Glen Cannach to the southwest, and the
higher, Gloomier grander Glen Affrick
to the northwest, two persons were
standing in the warm sunlight of an
early September day.
One was the young artist, Hugh
Richie, a guest among score Of titled
folk at Lord Glebemoth's hunting-lodge,
Guesachan, at the edge of Glen Cam
mach. He had just finished his last
study for his great landscape of Strath-
glass, which now hangs in the National
Gallery at London.
The other was highland lassie, Joan
Saunders, who, " the scorn and envy
of some of the great folk at Guesachan,
had been his inseparable companion in
his summer sketchings which had all
been made from this overhanging cliff
above her own roadside cottage home
below.
The artist had just handed the girl
roll of sketches and was standing with
one arm around the trunk of dwarfed
fir, leaning forward with shaded eyes to
lastingly impress the scene with its
minutest detail of nature touch and tint
upon his memory.
Joan was waiting behind him, calmly
gazing as if from simple habit wherever
the artist might gaze, but with some
thing like a look of settled, hopeless
patience in her face; a fine, frank,
honest face, perhaps more beautiful for
a certain way in which she poised her
head, outward, betokening expectancy;
upward, as if her nature was strong
from storms that had been, to brave all
storms to come.
What glorious scenes were those tney
looked uponl For score of miles the
entire southern horizon of the strain
was a serrated edge of fir.crowned
mountain heights, above escarpments of
steel-gray stone; of lichened masses of
rock and of dead trees uprooted by
bowling tempests; OF alder, oak and
birch, like hanging banks of moss in
the distance; of hrs so darkly green that
they took on the guise of upright beds
of purple heather, here and there fur
rowed by foaming waterfalls; all these
giving place in the east to mountain
masses in gigantic swaths, or like
emerald headlands in endless succession
above some peaceful shore, advancing,
retreating, and with interstices Of
opaline hue, where the glens and
mighty chasms were; as il color in
nature throbbed and ebbed until it
faded in languorous death in blue, and
purple and ghostly mist.
To the west were strath and mountain
views more glorious still. From the
north wild torrent poured out of Glen
Cannach through gorge so deep and
vast that even the roaring of the waters
was muffled and still. Thousands of feet
above doomed grand Knocktin, its sum-
NIT girdled with castle-like walls of
stone. Beyond, uplands rose and rolled
in matches valley ascents to lone Glen
Atirick's wilds.
Far in the north Ben Wyvis, giant
monarch OF the region, thrust its grizzled
cone above stately mountain piles. Nam
Suil, "hill of the eye" stood guard in
the west; while the whole far horizon
beyond, pierced by hundreds of grim
old peaks wreathed in endless bands
and wings of mist, seemed like some
vast archipelago of massive crags end
lessly beaten by the spume of thunder
ing seas.
Glittering peak, blanched cliff end
threatening precipice burst through the
heather and see green copse. Away
among the heights the eagle wheeled
above the gorges, calling to the echoing
peaks for companionship in its solitudes.
Tumbling burns quivered and flashed
or showed cascades like hecks of lace
from within the shadows. And over ali
songs of rivulet, burn and river, owe,
covert, copse and glen, over islet, bog
and tarn, flooded the September sun.
shine, painting for the artist and the
lassie there, the whole transcendent
scene in unbound dyes.
Tho artist turned from the wondrous
panorama as if almost despairing OF
transferring its ever-changing seemings
and hues to canvas, and shaking his
head sadly, said gravely to the girl:
Joan, am afraid we never can dc
itp -
The word 1--WE" sent the blood into
her face grandly.
"Gin yam misdoubts theirsels-"
Don't say GIN Joan. Say if in
stead"
"Gif-"
There, there, Joan. Remember 'gif
is worse than gin
81 ken ma ither way, when I speyh
DOT my hearts thochts, Meester Richie.
she replied, bridling up a little. "Ablins
eef yam misdoubts theirser, they're
already half whippit. TIL Laird ha
glen ye MIGHTY geefts, Hugh. Dinns
tiyte i His face wi sic chirmins an
baelins. Pit stool heart tae a sty brae
! an tn wark's a. bit din ~
"True enough, Joan; true enough
Upon my honor, j believe you eoulC
paint Strathglass yourself. Icould, too
4 il could have you with me all th,
time"
"Ye can ha' me, an We wull!"
She said it as impassively as sh,
would have said it was about to rain
the river was low, or that she heard heI
old father, by adoption, singing Gaelic
song Of war down there in his half cot
tage, half store, by the roadside beneath
them.
"But what of my art, of London. oil
fame, JoanY" He said it fairly, like IN
honest man that he was, naming his own
strength and weakness without stint.
fe Gamma ha' a, Hugh Richie.
wull bide i Strathglass."
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