"Down amang the broom, the broom, Down among the broom, my dearie, The lassie lost her silken snood, That gart her greet till she was wearie." And in a verse of a curious old ballad that we took down some years ago from the recitation of a grey-headed Paisley weaver-- "And did ye say ye lo'ed me weel? Then, kind sir, ye maun marrie me; For that I maunna wear my snood Aft brings the saut tear to my ee." The reverend author of the above lines was probably born about the year 1700, or perhaps ten or twenty years earlier, for we find that he died a man well advanced in years in 1760. In the Scots Magazine of that year there is the following notice of Mr Macleod's death:--"Jan. 12th.--At Durinish, in the Isle of Skye, the Rev. Donald Macleod, minister of that parish, a gentleman, says our correspondent, who adorned his profession, not so much by a literary merit, of which he possessed a considerable share, as by a consistent practice of the most useful and excellent virtues. To do good was the ruling passion of his heart; in composing differences, in diffusing the spirit of peace and friendship, in relieving the distressed, in promoting the happiness of the widow and orphan, his zeal was almost unexampled, his activity unmeasured, his success remarkable. It is almost unnecessary to add that he lived with a most amiable character, and died universally regretted." A somewhat curious circumstance is the following:--One of the Rev. Mr. Macleod's daughters was married to Macleod of Berneray, she being that gentleman's third wife. Berneray was at the date of this third marriage seventy-five years of age, notwithstanding which he became by this lady the father of nine children. He lived a hale and hearty old man till he was upwards of ninety. He was reckoned in his day a splendid specimen of the stalwart, sterling, straight-forward, and chivalrous Highland gentleman, "all of the olden time." CHAPTER II. Autumnal Tints--Solomon and the Queen of Sheba--Sortes Sacræ--Sortes Virgilianæ--Charles the First and Lord Falkland--Virgilius the Magician--Thomas of Ercildoune.