Nevertheless, the allusions and references to the heath flower, in song, poetry, and conversation, are numerous. Scott speaks of the heath-bell “which supplied the bonnet and the plume,” and of the harebell,--of which our “shepherd’s purse” is not the contraction,--and again of other dew-begemmed blooms:-- “A foot more light, a step more true, Ne’er from the heath flower dashed the dew.” Between the world of heather and the Highlander’s costume, there is a close and subtle connection. Since in the evolution of Scottish dress the heath flowers--before the introduction of garden favorites, of exotic and modern flowering plants, or the more elaborate plaids of recent days--“supplied the bonnet and the plume,” it seems evident that art took her hints from nature. “A wide, billowing series of confluent hills, that for half a year mingled tints of brown, russet, and dun in a rich pattern,” is a description of the hilly landscape of the border region, out of which, for the most part, the development of the plaids, on a large scale of production, proceeded. These, blending with the best work and most cunning textiles of the Highlands and of the islands, have made the actual Highlander’s costume of which the modern reader thinks. It must always be remembered that the most striking difference in the daily dress of Lowlander and Highlander was in the cut, form, method of wearing, and general appearance, rather than in color or material. Roughly speaking, the abundant variety of tints and patterns is almost wholly modern. For centuries, until banned by law, the most striking external mark of difference between the northland Scot, or the mountaineer, and the Lowlander, the man of the plains, was in the male costume. Scotland, though in Roman times inhabited by Celtic tribes, shared with the northern or Teutonic nations in the good providence that enabled her people to work out their natural life, not under Latin forms, nor according to the genius of classic paganism, but under the Christian religion and civilization, into whose school they came as young, docile pupils. Christianity is Scotland’s _alma mater_. Hence her people rejoice to-day in an art which has remained free from Mediterranean infusion. It is certainly wonderful that such an æsthetic dress as the Scottish costume should have grown up as something almost unaided; to say nothing of other interesting forms of artistic industry and decoration, which are wholly indigenous.