was still fertilized with the blood of those who fell in that desperate struggle for the crown of Scotland.  Not far from this, the spot was shown us where Wallace was defeated at the battle of Falkirk.  This region is now the scene of another and an unbloody warfare; the warfare between the Free Church and the Government Church.  Close to the church of the establishment, at the foot of the rock of Stirling, the soldiers of the Free Church have erected their place of worship, and the sound of hammers from the unfinished interior could be heard almost up to the castle.

We took places the same day in the coach for Callander, in the Highlands.  In a short time we came into a country of hillocks and pastures brown and barren, half covered with ferns, the breckan of the Scotch, where the broom flowered gaudily by the road-side, and harebells now in bloom, in little companies, were swinging, heavy with the rain, on their slender stems.

Crossing the Teith we found ourselves in Doune, a Highland village, just before entering which we passed a throng of strapping lasses, who had just finished their daily task at a manufactory on the Teith, and were returning to their homes.  Between Doune and Callander we passed the woods of Cambus-More, full of broad beeches, which delight in the tenacious mountain soil of this district.  This was the seat of a friend of the Scott family, and here Sir Walter in his youth passed several summers, and became familiar with the scenes which he has so well described in his Lady of the Lake.  At Callander we halted for the night among a crowd of tourists, Scotch, English, American, and German, more numerous than the inn at which we stopped could hold.  I went out into the street to get a look at the place, but a genuine Scotch mist covering me with water soon compelled me to return.  I heard the people, a well-limbed brawny race of men, with red hair and beards, talking to each other in Gaelic, and saw through the fogs only a glimpse of the sides of the mountains and crags which surrounded the village.

The next morning was uncommonly bright and clear, and we set out early for the Trosachs.  We now saw that the village of Callander lay under a dark crag, on the banks of the Teith, winding pleasantly among its alders, and overlooked by the grand summit of Benledi, which rises to the height of three thousand feet.  A short time brought us to the stream

  “Which, daughter of three mighty lakes,
  From Vennachar in silver breaks,”

and we skirted the lake for nearly its whole length.  Loch Vennachar lies between hills of comparatively gentle declivity, pastured by flocks, and tufted with patches of the prickly gorse and coarse ferns.  On its north bank lies Lanrick Mead, a little grassy level where Scott makes the tribe of Clan Alpine assemble at the command of Roderick Dhu.  At a little distance from Vennachar lies Loch Achray, which we reached by a road winding among shrubs and low trees, birches,