the physical world in which we live, and in which, indeed, the things we see become transparent, like a thin veil, and through them the things which are not seen stream in upon the soul.
One is sunrise, when there is first a grayness in the east, and then the clouds begin to redden, and afterwards a joyful brightness heralds the appearing of the sun as he drives in rout the reluctant rearguard of the night. The most impressive moment is when all the high lands are bathed in soft, fresh, hopeful sunshine, but the glens are still lying in the cold and dank shadow, so that one may suddenly descend from a place of brightness, where he has been in the eye of the sun, to a land of gloom, which the sun has not yet reached. Sunrise quickens the power that has been sleeping, and calls a man in high hope to the labor of the day, for if there be darkness lingering in the glen, there is light on the lofty table-lands, and soon it will be shining everywhere, when the sun has reached his meridian. And it puts heart into a man to come over the hill and down through the hollows when the sun is rising, for though the woods be dark and chill, the traveller is sure of the inevitable victory of the light.
Yet more imperious and irresistible is the impression of sunset as Dundee saw the closing pageant of the day on the last evening of his life. When first he looked the green plain was flooded with gentle light which turned into gold the brown, shaggy Highland cattle scattered among the grass, and made the river as it flashed out and in among the trees a chain of silver, and took the hardness from the jagged rocks that emerged from the sides of the hills. As the sun entered in between high banks of cloud, the light began to fade from the plain, and it touched the river no more; but above the clouds were glowing and reddening like a celestial army clad in scarlet and escorting home to his palace a victorious general. In a few minutes the sun has disappeared, and the red changes into violet and delicate, indescribable shades of green and blue, like the color of Nile water. Then there is a faint flicker, sudden and transient, from the city into which the sun has gone, and the day is over. As the monarch of the day withdraws, the queen of the night takes possession, and Claverhouse, leaning his chin upon his hand and gazing from the sadness of his eyes across the valley, saw the silver light, clear, beautiful, awful, flood the mountains and the level ground below, till the outstanding hills above, and the cattle which had lain down to rest in the meadow, were thrown out as in an etching, with exact and distinct outlines.
The day, with its morning promise, with its noontide heat, with its evening glory, was closed, completed and irrevocable. The night, in which no man can work, had come, and in the cold and merciless light thereof every man's work was revealed and judged. The weird influence of the hour was upon the imagination of an impressionable man, and before him he saw the history of his life. It seemed only a year or so since he was a gay-hearted lad upon the Sidlaw hills, and yesterday since he made his first adventure in arms, with the army of France. Again he is sitting by the camp-fire in the Low Country, and crossing swords for the first time with Hugh MacKay, with whom he is to settle his warfare to-morrow. He is again pledging his loyalty to King James at Whitehall, whom he has done his best to serve, and who has been but a sorry master to him. His thoughts turn once more to the pleasaunce of Paisley Castle, he hears again the jingling of the horses' bits as he pledges his troth to his bride. Across the moss-hags, where the horses plunge in the ooze and the mist encircles the troopers, he is hunting his Covenanting prey, and catches the fearless face of some peasant zealot as he falls pierced with bullets.
Jean weaves her arms round his neck, for once in her life a tender and fearful woman, pleading that he should withdraw from the fight and live quietly with her at home, and then, more like herself, she rages