The attempt to root a Winchester on the Highland border did not for a time find much deepness of earth, but the school has since flourished under other masters. Its lordly building had the fate of being set on fire by an unworthy pupil, son of an ex-Minister, whose connections could not save him from being brought to justice. A more tragic scandal, now a generation old, was when the owner of the neighbouring mansion, the second legal dignitary of Scotland, having been convicted of parliamentary bribery on the previous step of his career, both cut his throat and threw himself into the Almond. This points the moral of an abuse that has flourished more rankly in Scotland than in England, whereby legal posts go as spoils of party victory, though indeed a better era seems inaugurated by a Conservative Government which recently honoured itself by giving the highest judicial office to a political opponent as the most worthy. But we should not get far, if we are to stop for all the stories of fire and blood that haunt the Highland line. Glenalmond now leads us fairly into the Highlands, and by the river we hold up through the Sma’ Glen, or as Wordsworth calls it, the Narrow Glen, whose lion is the legendary grave of Ossian, man or myth, that had a more congenial birthplace in the “tremendous wilds” of Glencoe declared by Dickens “fearful in their grandeur and amazing solitude.” In this still place, where murmurs on But one meek streamlet, only one, He sang of battles, and the breath Of stormy war, and violent death; And should, methinks, when all was past, Have rightfully been laid at last Where rocks were rudely heaped, and rent As by a spirit turbulent; Where sights were rough and sounds were wild, And every thing unreconciled, In some complaining, dim retreat For fear and melancholy meet; But this is calm; there cannot be A more entire tranquillity. Our half-day’s walk may be prolonged to a whole one by path up the Almond and across to Loch Tay; but if one seek pleasant quarters not so far off, at Newton [Illustration: IN GLENFINLAS, PERTHSHIRE] Bridge he may turn south by Foulford and Monzie to Crieff. This cheerful little border town ranks as favourite _sommerfrische_ of Scots folk, apart from those places that are more sought by tourists. Well situated, looking south from the lowest slope of the hills, almost in the centre of the country, it is unusually dry as well as airy and genial, not pent in like Callander, nor too bracing for cold-blooded folk like Braemar. So Crieff has now two railways and everything handsome about it. Its spacious market-place proclaims it an old borough, with tolbooth, cross, and iron “jougs” for the terror of offenders; and here once the “kind gallows of Crieff” gave Lowlanders’ answer to that high-flown boast--