A HIGHLAND STUDENT.

Two previous poems described the lives and characters of two Students from the Highland district of Rannoch. The following poem closes the series :—

BLIT one more grave, and that completes the tale Of Student lads from Rannoch. Twenty years And more have vanished, since from yonder farm, The other side the valley, passed two youths, Clad in grey hodden, from their own sheep spun, To the ancient College by the Eastern sea. Reared amid mountain lonelinesses, where, Save the shy curlew's call, or wild glead's scream, No living voices come, they had beheld,

Winter by winter, o'er Schihallion climb The late cold morn, as they went forth to toil, Beside their father, in his swampy fields, About the base of Ben-a-choualach,— Broad Ben-a-choulalach, that stands to guard The north side of the vale over against

Schihallion, its great brother-sentinel.-

There, with all Nature's grandeurs round them shed, And blending with their daily thoughts and toil, Their boyhood grew ; yet from work out of doors Leisure of nights and stormy days was saved For learning; and the village teacher lent

His kindly aid, till, ere the elder saw

His eighteenth summer, they were fit to essay The Student life at College. Forth they fared, Those simple-hearted lads,—a slender stoek Of home provisions, a few well-worn books, A father's blessing and a mother's prayers, All their equipment, as they set their face Toward that new Student world. How hard it is To climb the hill of Learning, when young souls Have early felt the chill of poverty,' And stress of numbing toil, through all their powers !

The elder, Ian, was a climber strong, In body and mind, to breast the steep himself, And with a ready hand of help to spare For his less valiant brother. Many a time, When I had taught them lore of ancient Rome • Till past noon-tide, ere winter afternoons In darkness closed, Ian would come and be My teacher in the language of the Gael.

Strange, old-world names of mountains, conies, burns, On the smooth side of Loch Rannoch, or the rough, We conned their meaning o'er. And he would tell Of dim, old battles, where his outlawed clan, Along the dusky skirts of Rannoch Moor Had clashed 'gainst•wild Macdonalds of Glencoe, And gallant Stewarts from Appin. Or he told Of black bloodhounds let loose by Campbell foes, From corrie and cairn to hunt his clansmen down Through long Glen Lyon ; and the frantic leap Over the rock-pent chasm and foaming flood, And the bra coronach by his widow wailed O'er fern Macgregor of Rozo. None the less, But more for these brief Celtic interludes, He plied the midnight hours, till four full years Of strenuous study, by the longed-for hope, A good Degree, were crowned ; and by his aid The younger brother compassed the same goal.

A few more years of poor and patient toil, Within another seat of learning, gave To each the full rank of Physician: Then They took—the brothers took—their separate ways.

Early the younger on the world's high road Fainted,—the battle was too sore for him ; He sank ere noon of day, and found a grave Far from his own Schihallion. Strong of frame, Well proved in Netley wards, the elder sailed Physician to a regiment Eastward-bound.

There beneath Indian suns plying his art, Faithful and kindly, he from comrades won Liking and much regard, and good repute With those set over him. Step by step he climbed, Till he attained an office high ih trust, In old Benares. Then the first to feel The kind glow of his bettered fortunes were His parents, whom he summoned to lay down . Their toiling days for comfortable ease, And the cold Rannoch bmeside for the warm, Well-wooded Vale of Tay. A home therein.

He had provided them—a sheltered home—

With a green croft behind, and bright out-look O'er the clear river to the southern noon.

While there they passed the evening of their days.

In quiet, month by month he gladdened them By letters quaintly writ in Gaelic tongue.

English was but the instrument wherewith He trafficked with the world ; the Gaelic was The language of his heart, the only key That could unlock its secrets. When he met A Gael on Indian ground, he greeted him In the dear language ; if he answered well, That was at once a bond of brotherhood.

And when at length he made himself a home,.

To the young prattlers round his knee he told The mountain legends his own childhood ]oved; With Gaelic intermingled. Then he took And blew the big pipe, till the echoes rang, Through old Benares by the Ganges stream, • . With the wild pibrochs of the Highland hills.

While all things seemed with him to prosper most,.

Strangely and suddenly there fell on him

A deep, fond yearning for his native land,—

Longing intense to be at home once more.

Just then it chanced that, sore by sickness pressed,.

The old man, his father, to the Rannoch farm Had wandered back, and laid him down to die.

This hearing, homeward Ian set his face In haste, and reached his native roof in time Only to hear his father's blessing breathed

From lips already cold. A bleak grey noon

Of May 'twas when they bore the old man forth Across the vale, and laid him in his rest

Beneath Schihallion; among kindred dead.

There, while his son stood by the open grave, Bareheaded, the chill east wind through and through, Smote him, enfeebled by the Indian clime.

A few weeks more, and by the self-same road Him, too, the mourners bore across the vale, To lay him down close by his father's side, In that old kirk-yard on the hillock green, Where is the grave of Ewan Cameron.

Strange by what instinct led, they two alike, Father and son, sought the old home to die !

And so they rest, all that is mortal rests, Of those three Students, in their native vale ; Two on this side the Rannoch river, one Beyond it ; and above them evermore

Schihallion's shadow lying, and his peak

Kindling aloft in the first light of dawn.

J. C. SHILIRP...