“Proudly our pibroch, has thrilled in Glen Fruin,
    And Banmachar’s groans to our slogan replied;
  Glen Luss and Ross Dhu, they are smoking in ruins,
    And the best of Loch Lomond lies dead on her side.”

To be sure the fires of iron founderies are much less picturesque than the old beacons, and the clink of hammers than the clash of claymores; but the most devout worshipper of the middle ages would hardly wish to change them.

Dimly, by the flickering light of these furnaces, we see the approach to the old city of Glasgow.  There, we are arrived!  Friends are waiting in the station house.  Earnest, eager, friendly faces, ever so many.  Warm greetings, kindly words.  A crowd parting in the middle, through which we were conducted into a carriage, and loud cheers of welcome, sent a throb, as the voice of living Scotland.

I looked out of the carriage, as we drove on, and saw, by the light of a lantern, Argyle Street.  It was past twelve o’clock when I found myself in a warm, cozy parlor, with friends, whom I have ever since been glad to remember.  In a little time we were all safely housed in our hospitable apartments, and sleep fell on me for the first time in Scotland.

LETTER IV.

DEAR AUNT E.:—­

The next morning I awoke worn and weary, and scarce could the charms of the social Scotch breakfast restore me.  I say Scotch, for we had many viands peculiarly national.  The smoking porridge, or parritch, of oatmeal, which is the great staple dish throughout Scotland.  Then there was the bannock, a thin, wafer-like cake of the same material.  My friend laughingly said when he passed it, “You are in the ‘land o’ cakes,’ remember.”  There was also some herring, as nice a Scottish fish as ever wore scales, besides dainties innumerable which were not national.

Our friend and host was Mr. Baillie Paton.  I believe that it is to his suggestion in a public meeting, that we owe the invitation which brought us to Scotland.

By the by, I should say that “baillie” seems to correspond to what we call a member of the city council.  Mr. Paton told us, that they had expected us earlier, and that the day before quite a party of friends met at his house to see us, among whom was good old Dr. Wardlaw.

After breakfast the calling began.  First, a friend of the family, with three beautiful children, the youngest of whom was the bearer of a handsomely bound album, containing a pressed collection of the sea mosses of the Scottish coast, very vivid and beautiful.

If the bloom of English children appeared to me wonderful, I seemed to find the same thing intensified, if possible, in Scotland.  The children are brilliant as pomegranate blossoms, and their vivid beauty called forth unceasing admiration.  Nor is it merely the children of the rich, or of the higher classes, that are thus gifted.  I have seen many a group of ragged urchins in the streets and closes with all the high coloring of Rubens, and all his fulness of outline.  Why is it that we admire ragged children on canvas so much more than the same in nature?