. The land of heather . A Highland Cow XI A COUNTRY SCHOOL I HAD wandered into a high-land glen girdled about withwild heather-clad ridges. Inthe depths of the valley a littleriver looped its way along, help-ing to make fertile the borderingfarm lands, and the heart of theglen with its emerald meadowsand the silvery ghnt of the streamwas pleasant to look on ; but theregion, as a whole, was too tree-less to attract, while the brown,undulating hills were so sombre asto be almost forbidding. It is truethe district was not without a cer-tain rude kind of beauty, and thehills had about them a good
. The land of heather . A Highland Cow XI A COUNTRY SCHOOL I HAD wandered into a high-land glen girdled about withwild heather-clad ridges. Inthe depths of the valley a littleriver looped its way along, help-ing to make fertile the borderingfarm lands, and the heart of theglen with its emerald meadowsand the silvery ghnt of the streamwas pleasant to look on ; but theregion, as a whole, was too tree-less to attract, while the brown,undulating hills were so sombre asto be almost forbidding. It is truethe district was not without a cer-tain rude kind of beauty, and thehills had about them a good dealof elemental grandeur, yet to live the year through intheir big, barren presence I fancied must be soberingand oppressive, 2IO. A Birds-nest in theHedge A Country School 211 Probably those born among them did not sharethis feeling, for the glen did not lack were farmhouses and now and then the humbledwelling of a cotter or a laborer. One would expectin a region so lonely that the homes would gather inclusters for companionship; but it was not so here,and neighbors were half a mile or more apart. Eventhe schoolhouse, midway on the long valley highway,stood sohtary like the rest, and was almost as muchisolated from neighbors as it was from the great worldthat lay beyond the encompassing hills. I entered the glen wholly intent on pushing up thevalley and enjoying the unfolding of the landscapewhich took on a new aspect with every turn of theroad. But when I reached the schoolhouse I kind of a school would be kept here, I asked;what sort of a person would the teacher be, and whatthe nature of the scholars ? I turned into the school-yard. It was a long, narrow yard surrounded by a high
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