Perthshire in bygone days

16 PEKTHSHIRE IN BYGONE DAYS.
ceived and nobly executed piece of hospitality on the part
of the Marquis of Breadalbane. The heather and the kilt
have become a fashion. The hardy step over moorland
and up glen has superseded to a great extent the dalliances
of Brighton and the effeminate loungings on the sunny
side of Piccadilly. Men go out into a new atmosphere. The
peat reek which was so obnoxious to the Englishman of
1820, has become an opiate for sleeping off the fatigues and
excitements of fashionable life. Bugged mountain gorges
and vast reaches of picturesque country, where a long
journey would have brought you to a mountain shieling,
and the highest fare you could obtain was a glass of whisky •
and a morsel of bread and cheese, have heard the footsteps
of Aladdin and hotels like eastern palaces have reared their
lofty heads, and instead of the mere whisky and condiments,
the traveller is astonished by the question, " Would you
wish to dine at the ordinary?" Every one must expect
to pay handsomely for this far away cheer, but the landlord
is equal to the occasion, tacitly alleging that a glass of beer
at a fashionable hotel in the highlands being so thoroughly
aerated and aristocratised, is intrinsically of more value than
the same quantity of port wine at the unrefined "Hummums"
or " Cider Cellar," and if all the circumstances are taken
into account perhaps so it is. Traveller take another glass !
Landlord make hay while the sun shines ! Sir Walter Scott's
vivid conceptions, and Lord Breadalbane's highland hospi-
talities will never arise again. Your grouse clad hills, your
picturesque mountains, your poets' songs, will all remain,
but will they remain a fashion ? Balmoral is a material
guarantee, pray for its perpetuity.
A short time after the Queen left Taymouth castle, a
remark was made by a visitor to Lord Breadalbane, which
brought from his own lips a succinct and truthful epitome
of his character as a business man. He was complimented
on the toil he had personally undertaken during the royal
visit, " Oh no !" he replied, " I am well accustomed to
activity. A life of affluence is not necessarily a life of
idleness ; my income is large, I save none of it. I can ride as
far into Argyleshire on my own estate as if I rode from hence
to Edinburgh, and if I were to sleep while all that is being
managed and spent it would not be well done. My establish-
ment is large and I have many cares. One of my tenants,
the last of a family who have possessed the same farm for
time immemorial, died lately, the stock was very large, and