example. We have mentioned these facts merely to warn those who visit Loch Cathrine as to the accommodation they may expect; and thus far even we were in a measure fortunate, for at periods the house is literally crammed from parlour to garret. Why, it will be asked, is not additional accommodation provided at a spot where, during the summer, thousands and tens of thousands are known to congregate? The only answer we can give is that which has been given to us, and which we believe to be the fact-simply, that the whole property belongs to the Marquis of Breadalbane, and he is not desirous, for reasons best known to himself, and with which we have no right to interfere, that the locality should be overrun with strangers, who, in admiration of the splendid scenery within reach on all sides, would doubtless in hundreds make it their head-quarters, and many among them, not satisfied with sight-seeing, might be disposed to sport over the hills, which abound with game. On throwing open our bed-room window on the following morning, the first object we beheld was our hungry friend of the evening previous, looking, as Sidney Smith once quaintly observed, like a man who had been in hot water all his life, but had never come therefrom the cleaner. There he stood, fretting and fuming by the side of his hired vehicle, to which we gladly observed the horses were harnessed ready for starting; and the carpet-bags, cloaks, &c., being at length arranged to his satisfaction, the party took their seats, and away they went in the direction from which they had come. On inquiring of our landlady for what object such visitors made her house their resting-place, inasmuch as the route only led to Loch Cathrine, we were informed that the party in question had been up early, and had walked, previous to breakfasting, to a neighbouring height, from which having a good view of the lakes, they had remained five minutes, and then returned to breakfast, which had taken them a full hour. Thus, having passed moments in looking on so exquisite a scene, and hours in gastronomic indulgence, tourists like these make a rapid journey through the half of Europe, and while they gain little knowledge themselves they deceive their friends. But the morning now advances, and we had determined, during the long summer's day, to revel amid the beauties of nature which on all sides surround Loch Cathrine and the Trossachs, selecting for this, our third day's bivouac, that lovely little isle "Where Helen's hand had taught to twine The Idæan vine, The clematis, the favoured flower And every hardy plant could bear Loch Cathrine's keen and searching air." For this purpose breakfast being amply discussed in the room to which we had been first introduced, without the presence of strangers to interfere with our hilarity; and having made some little addition to our commissariat, which still held out tolerably, with the exception of fresh bread-which, by the by, must be a luxury unheard of at the Trossachs, excepting during the few butterfly months of the year, during which strangers from every part of Europe hasten to view scenes which in their peculiar nature of beauty and interest cannot be surpassed. When we first caught a glance of Loch Cathrine, we must admit the fulness of our astonishment and delight; a faint ray of sun was at the moment penetrating through the mist, for unfortunately the morning was anything but that we should have desired. We have, however, thank God, a hopeful mind, and whether it be the weather or our own fortunes which for the season lower, we invariably hope for the best, and were not unsatisfied by the effect of its brightness, which glancing through the fog, which still clung to the surrounding mountains and crags, tinged the thick woods which hung on their sides, gleaming over the beautiful islands on the lake. We had secured a boat, and having walked through the sequestered and wooded road leading to the eastern end of the lake; the whole scene in calmness and charm at once opened to view. This is probably the spot which, of all others, impresses on the mind the best effect in regard to Loch Cathrine, though unquestionably neither the best to view its splendour, nor the exciting interest of the scenery by which it is surrounded. There while we assisted in handing our fair companions to the boat, in which two powerful Highlanders had already seated themselves to row us to all the interesting parts of the lake; we could not resist dwelling for a few moments to gaze on the unusual placidity of the waters, which appeared like a sheet of glass, on which the several wooded little islands seemed fixed as sylvan toys. For hours thus we glided o'er the waters till the increased thickness of the atmosphere led us to fear that if we lingered too long on the bosom of the lake, we might lose many of the beauties to be seen from its mountains' sides. With this intent on Fair Helen's Isle we landed one of our companions whose delicate health was not exactly suited for a heated ramble; to his charge were also given what are justly denominated "the prog baskets," but which vulgar appellation Loch Cathrine's keen and searching air would very soon cause to be the cream of elegance. He was, moreover, requested to find a fitting place whereon to pitch our bivouac, of course as near as possible to that identical spot where James of Scotland had sought refuge. We then landed on the most beautiful sandy shore on the northern side of the lake we ever beheld; nothing could be finer and softer than that sand, more clear and calm than those waters Up the sides of these mountains we cheerfully wandered, though the day was dull and oppressive to a degree, by steps cut out in the crags to a high point hanging over the lake, from which we obtained a fine view of the whole surface, which lies nearly from west to east. The view from this favoured spot to the foot of the lake towards the east embraces the whole of the wooded islands, and is unquestionably beautiful; while that may be truly termed sublime where the lake, pouring into a river, rushes onward through the splendid wooded pass termed the Trossachs once more to join the waters of Loch-a-chravy. True was our disappointment that the still lowering mists should have prevented the entire development of Stuic-a-chroin or the Peak of Rutting, which, only partially revealed to us, formed the southern boundary or grand guard to the lake, beyond which imagination told us of Loch Chroin and Choir-a-chroin the valley of Rutting in the distance. Having lingered some time on this spot we once more descended to our boat, and visited the Den of the Ghost, we rowed under the solid rock, which rises two hundred feet perpendicularly above the level of the lake, as also to every spot most worthy of attention, then hastened on to the beautiful little island whereon it was our full intention to pass the remaining hours of daylight. During our absence a most beautiful and secluded spot had been selected for our bivouac, and all hands were once more employed in providing for the inward man those enjoyments which nature had provided for our eyes. Again the dry wood rattled and flamed beneath the potato cauldron, again the savoury stew sent forth its fumes-where fumes of cookery, perchance, had ne'er been raised-into the clear air; but the midges! Heavens! how ravenous they were, how they feasted on our faces and hands! Truly the midges of Helen's Isle beat all other midges in their greediness; moreover, when they swarm as they did then, the coming storm is not far in the distance-a fact which the denseness of the atmosphere and the hanging mists which now actually spread o'er the waters of the lake we stuck too truly depicted. Nevertheless, being fully alive to the fickleness of the weather in the western Highlands we had provided ourselves with abundant cloaks, as also umbrellas in case of need, the advantage of which was soon made evident, for scarcely had we seated ourselves round a rough yet bountifully supplied board beneath the clustering islet trees, than a small drizzling dreary rain, accompanied with an unmistakeably Scotch mist pronounced our out-door pleasures at an end. The ladies of the party, however, were none of the dissatisfied class, and not easily frightened by a little damping, and the males were perfectly satisfied to abide the consequences, so to our colours; and a strange picture would any one have beheld who chanced to drop from the clouds on Helen's Isle. Surrounded by thick copse wood on a small platform sat a joyous party of six, near at hand the dry pine wood fires still crackled, on one of which the potato saucepan boiled in order to keep the bursting fruit heated till the last moment; from the other a savoury steam arose, which one of the party was dealing out with a large spoon to those more seriously inclined; cold pies, tongues, and chickens, and other excellencies for pic-nic consumption were placed here and there on a clean damask table-cloth which covered the mossy turf. The ladies, as also one of the gentlemen, who was cutting up a well-seasoned veal pie, had umbrellas over their heads, while the brilliant-eyed little terrier sat on his hind legs watching for the many tit bits which may chance to fall to his lot. In good truth there was no want of plenty, or even luxury in this fair spot. But the evening was fated to be a damper-to prevent the ill effect of the drizzle and the mist, we mixed our remaining bottle of sherry with two of Scotch ale, as a last resource to keep out the mist, keep away the midges, and keep up our own spirits. The lowering mists hung so thickly o'er the lake that all was hidden in obscurity, and we were soon compelled to retreat to the little inn, where before a large pine wood and peat fire we soon forgot the miseries without. Thus hence we travelled from Perth to Loch Cathrine. Should these simple details be found sufficiently agreeable we may hope to find those who will accompany us further. TOM TIMKINS'S PIPE. A TALE OF THE TIMES. It would have done your heart good to have known Tom Timkins. If you had wanted to impress the inhabitants of another planet with an exalted notion of mundane humanity, Tom would have been the very man you would have been proud to have packed up in a small parcel and sent as a specimen. You could have desired no better pattern of a thoroughly good-natured mortal, and in the manufacture of such would gladly have made any allowance by taking a quantity. He was not one of your uncertain fellows, with a temper like an April day, that varied with every moment, and was only sunny when there was no cloud to be seen, not he-his fancy, like a porpoise, gambolled most in a storm, and the more dark and sombre it grew around him the brighter flashed his lightning sparks of good humour. "Ill luck to-day-better to-morrow," was Tom's treasured maxim; and if the logical deduction was not always correct, he did his best to make it so by having recourse to another axiom, which alleged with indisputable accuracy that when matters had come to the worst they were sure to mend. Tom, in fact, was an optimist of the first degree, and his happy enviable creed had been throughout his own life, and that of his father before him, the family belief" that whatever happens, happens for the best." Happy Tom! Now the great source and secret of Tom's happiness was his pipe, a quaint, old-fashioned meerschaum, that was his constant companion on all occasions, and with which he would not have parted for all that fabulous amount of coin supposed to be collectively comprised in the wealth of the Indies. The senior Timkins, who had in his early days made sundry wild voyages to various parts of the habitable globe, had brought it many years before from some unknown region in Germany; and when the senior Timkins departed on his final journey from earth, this family talisman had descended to Tom as his sole inheritance. Cocker himself would have been staggered at a computation of the many pounds of tobacco that had been successively consumed in its bowl, until its very surface had blushed into a sympathetic tawny red at the enormity it had committed; and as for the smoke that it had evolved in instalments of puffing, there would have been amply enough in the aggregate to have occasioned a total eclipse of the sun for the next century. Whenever Tom was in doubt, difficulty, or distress, he flew to his pipe for decision, extrication, and relief; and so great were its magical virtues that it naturally became a received opinion among his familiars that the old German meerschaum had something in it of supernatural origin, and that it must have been fabricated somewhat after the fashion of the bullets in Der Freyschutz. Tom generally smiled at the allusion when it was made in his presence, and struggled manfully to account for the solace he found as soon as sought by natural causes; but it was easy to perceive that these vague suspicions only made Tom fonder of his favourite than before, and that it was cherished afterwards more tenderly and tenaciously than ever. But if Tom was thus such an inveterate lover of the Nicotian weed, it was not that he cared much for the mere ordinary brute indulgence of smoking— his whiffs were those of a philosopher, and he smoked after the manner of Coleridge and Carlyle, psychologically. His pipe was to him the type of contentment, of sociality, of that interchange of good-fellowship which he had endeavoured through life so assiduously to cultivate. It was with him the medium through which he thought, and the vapourous wreaths that issued from the bowl became thus the shadowy embodiment of so many distinct ideas. Nay, he had attained by constant practice such a habit of mingling fumigation with meditation, that the amber mouth-piece became at last endowed with the attributes of an oracle, and he studied its responses with the interest of a Delphic devotee. Whilst those around him were tossed upon the billows of popular controversy, and were agitated by the questions that arose from the constantly-changing currents of events, Tom was as cool and placid as a frozen lake, and kept his principles as fixed as a rock embedded in its depths. He believed in Providence and smoked his pipe. Thus had Tom Timkins rattled merrily through thirty years of a life unchequered by any incident that made them vary from those of an ordinary mortal, when two events occurred that gave rise to much perplexity on the part of Tom, and created the necessity of this veracious chronicle being indited. To render these intelligible it will be necessary to enlighten the reader upon a few points connected with the early history of our hero, and this we shall strive to achieve with as much united levity and brevity as possible. We have already adverted incidentally to Tom's father, and as this was the only relation Tom ever knew, and consequently the only member of the family to be introduced, we may be allowed a few preparatory explanations concerning the parent of the Timkins proper. According to what Tom had heard him reveal at various periods, and from the reminiscences of his own early youth, the original Timkins had been in the days of his maturity a pilot, and in that capacity had acquired some little emolument and more honours. From the dimensions of a rough pea coat, dotted with Brobdignag buttons, that had been preserved as a family relic, it was manifestly apparent that the progenitor of our hero had been of fair proportions, and this supposition was further confirmed by the brawny limbs and athletic frame that distinguished the son. With the aid of a small legacy and his own thrifty habits, he had contrived to spend the close of his days in a small, but pretty village on the Kentish coast, where his chief delight was in smoking the old meerschaum in his cosy ingle nook and narrating stories of the sea to his son, until at last he sank contentedly into his grave, and left Tom in undisputed possession of a snug cottage and the old meerschaum pipe previously referred to as the principal bequest. Tom, however, was not an idle consumer of the earth's produce without yielding to the earth something in return, and in all the pride of honest handicraft worked hard for his living. Not that he had any especial employment cut out for him, but being a kind of universal adept, willing and able to take anything that offered, he was rarely without the means of turning his industry and ingenuity to a remunerative account. If Tom had never fallen in love before it was neither for want of temptation nor opportunity, for the prettiest lasses in the village had plentifully provided him with both. Manifold were the insinuating glances thrown out to him as hints that his attention in various quarters would be far from proving disagreeable; but in a discussion of the matter over his pipe Tom invariably found such good and efficient reasons for not availing himself of these privileges that he had been popularly set down as a hopeless bachelor, when his heart was at once attacked and captured, at a time when he was least prepared to offer resistance. Jane Brown-we might give her a more euphonious and less ordinary appellation, but we prefer adhering to plain facts, even at the expense of romance-Jane Brown was a little laughing brunette, whose disposition was the very counterpart of Tom's, and whose blythe and generous heart was a mirror which reflected the best and kindliest emotions of humanity. There was a neat roadside inn near the summit of the hill, which led down to the village, and it was the landlord of this rustic hostel who had the honour of being the father of Jane Brown. As courtship, however interesting to the principal parties concerned, is after all a very trite story in description, we shall only say, that after many months of preparatory visits to the Roebuck, and much preliminary argument with his pipe, Tom Timkins ventured upon matrimony, and finally by the retirement of his father-in-law, succeeded to the position of host, together with the possession of all goods and appurtenances belonging to the Roebuck inn aforesaid. This was one of the events of Tom's life, and a very pleasant event it was for both parties, but it was speedily followed by a second, of hardly so agreeable a nature. For nearly a twelvemonth before there had been some rumours of a railway coming close upon the village, if even it did not actually run quite through it; and some had gone so far as to state that a station had been decided upon. This was deemed such an unlikely occurrence that the peace of the locality had been but little disturbed by the intelligence, and even when the county paper had made some remarks upon the nature of the act for its formation as it received Parliamentary sanction, and when a farmer on his way to the neighbouring market town had further encountered a surveyor and his assistants with the unknown instruments of level and theodolite, even then there was a general infidelity entertained upon the subject. But at last the whole matter was placed beyond the possibility of dispute, and preparations were made to set about the work in earnest. One morning the villagers got up and found navigators who had risen before them, and descended there, none knew how, busily employed plying pickaxe and spade, and making a tunnel directly under the very hill where the Roebuck suspended its sign to invite the wearied traveller to rest and refreshment. Huge mounds of earth began to rise along the meadows, and clumsy carts, laden with formidable pyramids of chalk and flint, were seen passing to and fro all day long, cutting deep ruts into the soft daisied sward, and piling up the sides of an embankment as far as the eye could reach. Navigators, too, commenced a series of bibulous invasions upon Tom's stock of fermented beverages, and the startled villagers would cluster curiously round the porch of a summer's evening to see the laying down of those continuous rails which seemed to link them, as with a chain of iron, to the great metropolis far away. From that time the peaceful seclusion of the village appeared gone for ever, and when the first train came rattling down, with its fiery steed in front, and its long vapourous trail of curling steam behind, whisking along the em |