To some minds solitude is depressing, to others it is congenial. It was the _former_ to our friend John Robinson; yet he had a large share of it in his chequered life. John--more familiarly known as Jack--was as romantic as his name was the reverse. To look at him you would have supposed that he was the most ordinary of common-place men, but if you had known him, as we did, you would have discovered that there was a deep, silent, but ever-flowing river of enthusiasm, energy, fervour--in a word, romance--in his soul, which seldom or never manifested itself in words, and only now and then, on...

-Ay, sir, the Cluden rins jist ayont the turn o' the road there, - replied the man. -Ye'll hear the roar o' the fa' in a meenit or twa.- Even as he spoke the dull growl of a cataract was heard, and, a few minutes later, the party came upon the ford of the river. It was situated not many yards below the picturesque waterfall, which is now spanned by the Routen Bridge, but which, at that time, was unbridged-at all events, if a bridge had previously existed, it had fallen in or been carried away-and the wild gorge was impassable. The sound of the fall alone told of its vicinity, for a dense mass...