Corn-fields lie under the low green hills, here bending their golden load under the busy reaper’s hand, there shorn and naked, with the gathered sheaves in heaps where yesterday they grew. Pleasant sounds are in the clear rich autumn air—harvest voices, harvest mirth, purified by a little distance from all its coarseness; and through the open cottage doors you see the eldest child, matronly and important in one house, idling with a sense of guilt in the other, who has been left at home in charge, that all elder and abler people might get to the field. Pleasant excitement and haste touch you with a contagious cheer and activity as you pass. Here hath our bountiful mother been rendering riches out of her full breast once more; here, under those broad bright, smiling heavens, the rain and the sun, which God sends upon the just and the unjust, have day by day cherished the seed, and brought it forth in blade and ear; and now there is a thanksgiving in all the air, and quickened steps and cheerful labouring proclaim the unconscious sentiment which animates the whole. Bright, prosperous, wealthy autumn days, wherein the reaper has no less share than his master, and the whole world is enriched with the universal gain. And now the Firth comes flashing into sight, making the whole horizon a silver line, with one white sail, far off, floating on it like a cloud. Heavily, as if it overhung the water, that dark hill prints its bold outline on the mingled glory of sky and sea; and under its shadow lie quiet houses, musing on the beach, so still that you could fancy them only lingering, meditating there. But little meditation is under those humble roofs, for the fishers of Largo are out on the Firth, as yonder red sails tell you, straying forth at the wide mouth of the bay; and the women at home are weaving nets, and selling fish, and have time for anything but meditation. But now Largo Law is left behind, and there is a grand scene beyond. The skies are clear and distinct as skies are only in autumn; and yonder couches the lion, who watches our fair Edinburgh night and day; and there she stands herself, his Una, with her grey wimple over her head, and her feet on the sands of her vassal sea. Queenlike attendants these are: they are almost her sole glory now; for her crown is taken from her head, and her new life of genius has scarcely begun; but none can part the forlorn queen and her two faithful henchmen, the Firth and the hill.