“Eh, man! that’s a bonny wee soun’!
It’s jist like sma’ sheep-bells—fairy-sheep,
I reckon, Maggy, my doo.”
“Lat me hearken as weel,” said Janet.
Hugh obeyed. She laughed.
“It’s naething but a reestlin’.
I wad raither hear the sheep baain’, or the
kye routin’.”
“Eh, Mr. Sutherlan’! but, ye hae a gleg
ee an’ a sharp lug. Weel, the warld’s
fu’ o’ bonny sichts and souns, doon to
the verra sma’est. The Lord lats naething
gang. I wadna wonner noo but there micht be
thousands sic like, ower sma’ a’thegither
for human ears, jist as we ken there are creatures
as perfect in beowty as ony we see, but far ower sma’
for our een wintin’ the glass. But for
my pairt, I aye like to see a heap o’ things
at ance, an’ tak’ them a’ in thegither,
an’ see them playin’ into ane anither’s
han’ like. I was jist thinkin’,
as I came hame the nicht in the sinset, hoo it wad
hae been naewise sae complete, wi’ a’ its
red an’ gowd an’ green, gin it hadna been
for the cauld blue east ahint it, wi’ the twa-three
shiverin’ starnies leukin’ through’t.
An’ doubtless the warld to come ‘ill
be a’ the warmer to them ’at hadna ower
muckle happin here. But I’m jist haverin’,
clean haverin’, Mr. Sutherlan’,”
concluded David, with a smile of apologetic humour.
“I suppose you could easily believe with Plato,
David, that the planets make a grand choral music
as they roll about the heavens, only that as some
sounds are too small, so that is too loud for us to
hear.”
“I cud weel believe that,” was David’s
unhesitating answer. Margaret looked as if she
not only could believe it, but would be delighted
to know that it was true. Neither Janet nor Hugh
gave any indication of feeling on the matter.
Harvest.
So a small seed that in the earth lies hid
And dies, reviving bursts her cloddy side,
Adorned with yellow locks, of new is born,
And doth become a mother great with corn,
Of grains brings hundreds with it, which when old
Enrich the furrows with a sea of gold.
Sir William Drummond.—Hymn
of the Resurrection.
Hugh had watched the green corn grow, and ear, and
turn dim; then brighten to yellow, and ripen at last
under the declining autumn sun, and the low skirting
moon of the harvest, which seems too full and heavy
with mellow and bountiful light to rise high above
the fields which it comes to bless with perfection.
The long threads, on each of which hung an oat-grain—the
harvest here was mostly of oats—had got
dry and brittle; and the grains began to spread out
their chaff-wings, as if ready to fly, and rustled
with sweet sounds against each other, as the wind,
which used to billow the fields like the waves of
the sea, now swept gently and tenderly over it, helping
the sun and moon in the drying and ripening of the
joy to be laid up for the dreary winter. Most
