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blowing steadily, there was no let or obstacle to our course. Such was the
power of man over the elements; a power long sought, and lately won; yet
foretold in by-gone time by the prince of poets, whose verses I quoted much
to the astonishment of my pilot, when I told him how many hundred years ago
they had been written:--
Oh! human wit, thou can'st invent much ill,
Thou searchest strange arts: who would think by skill,
An heavy man like a light bird should stray,
And through the empty heavens find a way?
I alighted at Perth; and, though much fatigued by a constant exposure to
the air for many hours, I would not rest, but merely altering my mode of
conveyance, I went by land instead of air, to Dunkeld. The sun was rising
as I entered the opening of the hills. After the revolution of ages Birnam
hill was again covered with a young forest, while more aged pines, planted
at the very commencement of the nineteenth century by the then Duke of
Athol, gave solemnity and beauty to the scene. The rising sun first tinged
the pine tops; and my mind, rendered through my mountain education deeply
susceptible of the graces of nature, and now on the eve of again beholding
my beloved and perhaps dying friend, was strangely influenced by the sight
of those distant beams: surely they were ominous, and as such I regarded
them, good omens for Adrian, on whose life my happiness depended.
Poor fellow! he lay stretched on a bed of sickness, his cheeks glowing with
the hues of fever, his eyes half closed, his breath irregular and
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