'It was braw brose,' said one of them.
At last they made off, laden like camels with their booty; and Swanston Farm has lain out of the way of history from that time forward.

I do not know what may be yet in store for it.

On dark days, when the mist runs low upon the hill, the house has a gloomy air as if suitable for private tragedy.

But in hot July, you can fancy nothing more perfect than the garden, laid out in alleys and arbours and bright, old-fashioned flower-plots, and ending in a miniature ravine, all trellis-work and moss and tinkling waterfall, and housed from the sun under fathoms of broad foliage.
The hamlet behind is one of the least considerable of hamlets, and consists of a few cottages on a green beside a burn.

Some of them (a strange thing in Scotland) are models of internal neatness; the beds adorned with patchwork, the shelves arrayed with willow-pattern plates, the floors and tables bright with scrubbing or pipe-clay, and the very kettle polished like silver.