Chapter 10 - Page 2

pure from the elevation and
rustically scented by the upland plants; and even at the
toll, you may hear the curlew calling on its mate. At
certain seasons, when the gulls desert their surfy
forelands, the birds of sea and mountain hunt and scream
together in the same field by Fairmilehead. The winged,
wild things intermix their wheelings, the sea-birds skim
the tree-tops and fish among the furrows of the plough.
These little craft of air are at home in all the world,
so long as they cruise in their own element; and, like
sailors, ask but food and water from the shores they
coast.

Below, over a stream, the road passes Bow Bridge,
now a dairy-farm, but once a distillery of whisky. It
chanced, some time in the past century, that the
distiller was on terms of good-fellowship with the
visiting officer of excise. The latter was of an easy,
friendly disposition, and a master of convivial arts.
Now and again, he had to walk out of Edinburgh to measure
the distiller's stock; and although it was agreeable to
find his business lead him in a friend's direction, it
was unfortunate that the friend should be a loser by his
visits. Accordingly, when he got about the level of
Fairmilehead, the gauger would take his flute, without
which he never travelled, from his pocket, fit it
together, and set manfully to playing, as if for his own
delectation and inspired by the beauty of the scene. His
favourite air, it seems, was 'Over the hills and far
away.' At the first note, the distiller pricked his
ears. A flute at Fairmilehead? and playing 'Over the
hills and far away?' This must be his friendly enemy,
the gauger. Instantly horses were harnessed, and sundry
barrels of whisky were got upon a cart, driven at a
gallop round Hill End, and buried in the mossy glen
behind Kirk Yetton. In the same breath, you may be sure,
a fat fowl was put to the fire, and the whitest napery
prepared for the back parlour. A little after, the
gauger, having had his fill of music for the moment, came
strolling down with the most innocent air imaginable, and
found the good people at Bow Bridge taken entirely
unawares by his arrival, but none the less glad to see
him. The distiller's liquor and the gauger's flute would
combine to speed the moments of digestion; and when both
were somewhat mellow, they would wind up the evening with
'Over the hills and far away' to an accompaniment of
knowing glances. And at least, there is a smuggling
story, with original and half-idyllic features.

A little further, the road to the right passes an
upright stone in a field. The country people call it
General Kay's monument. According to them, an officer of
that name had perished there in battle at some