And now the road begins to slope upwards, the hedgerow breaks and opens upon braes of close grass, marked here and there by bars and streaks of brown, like stationary shadows, and rich with little nests of low-growing heather and hillside flowers. An amphitheatre of low hills opens now from the summit of this one, which the road mounts. Bare unwooded slopes, falling away at their base into cultivated fields, and rising upward in stretches of close-cropped pasture land; soft luxurious grass, sweet with its thyme and heather, with small eyes of flowers piercing up from under its close-woven blades--soft as summer couch need be, and elastic as ever repelled the foot of passing herdsman; but looking somewhat bare in its piebald livery, as it breaks upon the bright spring sky above. And the road dives down--down into the hollows of the circle, where gleams a winding burn, and rises a village, its roofs of tile and thatch basking serenely in the sun. A little church, holding up a little open belfry against the hillside, as if entreating to be lifted higher, stands at the entrance of the village; and you can already see the little span-broad bridges that cross the burn, and the signboards which hang above the doors of the cottage shops in the main street. Here, too, keeping the road almost like an official of equal authority, the smithy glows with its fiery eye upon the kirk; for the kirk, you will perceive, is almost a new one, and has little pretensions to the hereditary reverence of its small dependency, standing there bare and alone, without a single grave to keep watch upon; whereas the smiddy’s antique roof is heavy with lichens; and ploughs and harrows, resplendent in primitive red and blue, obtrude themselves a little way beyond its door, with the satisfaction of conscious wealth. And here is a cottage turning its back upon the burn, and modestly setting down its white doorstep upon the rude causeway; the door is open, and some one sits at work by the fireside within; but in a corner stands a sack of meal, and a little humble counter interposes sideways between the fire and the threshold. Some humble goods lie on the window-shelves, and the counter itself has a small miscellany--dim glasses, full of “sweeties;” dimmer still with balls of cotton, blue and white, with stiffly-twisted sticks of sampler worsted, and red and yellow stalks of barley-sugar, scarcely to be distinguished from the thread. Altogether the counter, with its dangling scales, the half-filled shelves that break the light from the window, and the few drawers behind, fit out the village shop where Mrs Lithgow does a little daily business, enough to keep herself, alone and widowed, in daily bread.