The improvement was, unfortunately, of very short duration. He continued his observations thus: "And yet, and yet: _Sunt lacrimae rerum_. What is this world but a succession of fleeting images chasing each other across a background of joy or pain! Now we quaff the sour cup of misery, by and by we drink the intoxicating vintage of hope. Heaven alone stands firm, gemmed with the pitiless stars. The day breaks, rises to its glory in the shimmering height of noon, and dies away in the west: so does the utmost pride of man's career fade away to nothing, a harvest for Time's scythe. On all this growth and decay the stars gaze with their unpitying and eternal eyes. I think I'll have a little more phospherine." CHAPTER VII. LEGENDS AND LITERARY NOTABILIA. Gairloch folk-lore: Prince Olaf and his bride--A laird who had seen a fairy--Tales from Loch Broom: The dance of death--The Kildonan midwife--The magic herring--Taisch--Antiquities of Dunvegan--Miscellaneous terrors--St. Kilda--Lady Grange--Pierless Tiree--Lochbuie in Mull--Inveraray Castle--The sacred isle--Appin--Macdonald's gratitude--Notes on the Trossachs--Lochfyneside: Macivors, Macvicars, and Macallisters--Red Hector--Macphail of Colonsay--Tales from Speyside: Tom Eunan!--Shaws and Grants--The wishing well--Ossian and Macpherson--At the foot o' Bennachie--Harlaw--Lochaber reivers--Reay and Twickenham--Rob Donn--Rev. Mr. Mill of Dunrossness. GAIRLOCH FOLK-LORE. I do not think anyone interested in local history and antiquities could find a greater treat than that furnished by Mr. Dixon's _Account of the Parish of Gairloch_. That romantic and lovely district is fortunate in having found a historian of unlimited enthusiasm and untiring industry. There is not a single dry page in his long and detailed narrative. Many of the legends he tells are known to me from other sources, but I am certain that no Scotch compiler (Mr. Dixon, let me say, is English) has written of them with such enjoyable sympathy and poetical ardour. I have been assured by local authorities that the facts adduced by Mr. Dixon are invariably reliable. That I can well believe; but what is still more rare, Mr. Dixon's facts are everywhere made to gleam and glitter in the radiance of romance. Let me narrate, in concentrated form, one of the legends which this clever writer has alluded to in more than one of his chapters. PRINCE OLAF AND HIS BRIDE.