rest of them, to Edinburgh, left his lands and his own people, spending
his money where it brought him not any esteem, so that he was of no value
either at home or abroad. We mentioned Rob Roy, and the eyes of all
glistened; even the lady of the house, who was very diffident, and no
great talker, exclaimed, 'He was a good man, Rob Roy! he had been dead
only about eighty years, had lived in the next farm, which belonged to
him, and there his bones were laid.' {93} He was a famous swordsman.
Having an arm much longer than other men, he had a greater command with
his sword. As a proof of the length of his arm, they told us that he
could garter his tartan stockings below the knee without stooping, and
added a dozen different stories of single combats, which he had fought,
all in perfect good-humour, merely to prove his prowess. I daresay they
had stories of this kind which would hardly have been exhausted in the
long evenings of a whole December week, Rob Roy being as famous here as
ever Robin Hood was in the Forest of Sherwood; _he_ also robbed from the
rich, giving to the poor, and defending them from oppression. They tell
of his confining the factor of the Duke of Montrose in one of the islands
of Loch Ketterine, after having taken his money from him--the Duke's
rents--in open day, while they were sitting at table. He was a
formidable enemy of the Duke, but being a small laird against a greater,
was overcome at last, and forced to resign all his lands on the Braes of
Loch Lomond, including the caves which we visited, on account of the
money he had taken from the Duke and could not repay.
When breakfast was ended the mistress desired the person whom we took to
be her husband to 'return thanks.' He said a short grace, and in a few
minutes they all went off to their work. We saw them about the door
following one another like a flock of sheep, with the children after,
whatever job they were engaged in. Mrs. Macfarlane told me she would
show me the burying-place of the lairds of Glengyle, and took me to a
square enclosure like a pinfold, with a stone ball at every corner; we
had noticed it the evening before, and wondered what it could be. It was
in the middle of a 'planting,' as they call plantations, which was
enclosed for the preservation of the trees, therefore we had to climb
over a high wall: it was a dismal spot, containing four or five graves
overgrown with long grass, nettles, and brambles. Against the wall was a
marble monument to the memory of one of the lairds, of whom they spoke
with veneration: some English verses were inscribed upon the marble,
purporting that he had been the father of his clan, a brave and good man.
When we returned to the house she said she would show me what curious
feathers they had in their country, and brought out a bunch carefully
wrapped up in paper. On my asking her what bird they came from, 'Oh!'
she replied, 'it is a great beast.' We conjectured it was an eagle, and
from her description of its ways, and the manner of destroying it, we
knew it was so. She begged me to accept of some of the feathers, telling
me that some ladies wore them in their heads. I was much pleased with
the gift, which I shall preserve in memory of her kindness and simplicity
of manners, and the Highland solitude where she lived.
We took leave of the family with regret: they were handsome, healthy, and
happy-looking people. It was ten o'clock when we departed. We had
learned that there was a ferry-boat kept at three miles' distance, and if
the man was at home he would row us down the lake to the Trossachs. Our
walk was mostly through coppice-woods, along a horse-road, upon which
narrow carts might travel. Passed that white house which had looked at
us with such a friendly face when we were on the other side; it stood on
the slope of a hill, with green pastures below it, plots of corn and
coppice-wood, and behind, a rocky steep covered with wood. It was a very
pretty place, but the morning being cold and dull the opposite shore
appeared dreary. Near to the white house we passed by another of those
little pinfold squares, which we knew to be a burying-place; it was in a
sloping green field among woods, and within sound of the beating of the
water against the shore, if there were but a gentle breeze to stir it: I
thought if I lived in that house, and my ancestors and kindred were
buried there, I should sit many an hour under the walls of this plot of
earth, where all the household would be gathered together.
We found the ferryman at work in the field above his hut, and he was at
liberty to go with us, but, being wet and hungry, we begged that he would
let us sit by his fire till we had refreshed ourselves. This was the
first genuine Highland hut we had been in. We entered by the cow-house,
the house-door being within, at right angles to the outer door. The
woman was distressed that she had a bad fire, but she heaped up some dry
peats and heather, and, blowing it with her breath, in a short time
raised a blaze that scorched us into comfortable feelings. A small part
of the smoke found its way out of the hole of the chimney, the rest
through the open window-places, one of which was within the recess of the
fireplace, and made a frame to a little picture of the restless lake and
the opposite shore, seen when the outer door was open. The woman of the
house was very kind: whenever we asked her for anything it seemed a fresh
pleasure to her that she had it for us; she always answered with a sort
of softening down of the Scotch exclamation, 'Hoot!' 'Ho! yes, ye'll get
that,' and hied to her cupboard in the spence. We were amused with the
phrase 'Ye'll get that' in the Highlands, which appeared to us as if it
came from a perpetual feeling of the difficulty with which most things
are procured. We got oatmeal, butter, bread and milk, made some
porridge, and then departed. It was rainy and cold, with a strong wind.
Coleridge was afraid of the cold in the boat, so he determined to walk
down the lake, pursuing the same road we had come along. There was
nothing very interesting for the first three or four miles on either side
of the water: to the right, uncultivated heath or poor coppice-wood, and
to the left, a scattering of meadow ground, patches of corn,
coppice-woods, and here and there a cottage. The wind fell, and it began
to rain heavily. On this William wrapped himself in the boatman's plaid,
and lay at the bottom of the boat till we came to a place where I could
not help rousing him.
We were rowing down that side of the lake which had hitherto been little
else than a moorish ridge. After turning a rocky point we came to a bay
closed in by rocks and steep woods, chiefly of full-grown birch. The
lake was elsewhere ruffled, but at the entrance of this bay the breezes
sunk, and it was calm: a small island was near, and the opposite shore,
covered with wood, looked soft through the misty rain. William, rubbing
his eyes, for he had been asleep, called out that he hoped I had not let
him pass by anything that was so beautiful as this; and I was glad to
tell him that it was but the beginning of a new land. After we had left
this bay we saw before us a long reach of woods and rocks and rocky
points, that promised other bays more beautiful than what we had passed.
The ferryman was a good-natured fellow, and rowed very industriously,
following the ins and outs of the shore; he was delighted with the
pleasure we expressed, continually repeating how pleasant it would have
been on a fine day. I believe he was attached to the lake by some
sentiment of pride, as his own domain--his being almost the only boat
upon it--which made him, seeing we were willing gazers, take far more
pains than an ordinary boatman; he would often say, after he had
compassed the turning of a point, 'This is a bonny part,' and he always
chose the bonniest, with greater skill than our prospect-hunters and
'picturesque travellers;' places screened from the winds--that was the
first point; the rest followed of course,--richer growing trees, rocks
and banks, and curves which the eye delights in.
The second bay we came to differed from the rest; the hills retired a
short space from the lake, leaving a few level fields between, on which
was a cottage embosomed in trees: the bay was defended by rocks at each
end, and the hills behind made a shelter for the cottage, the only
dwelling, I believe, except one, on this side of Loch Ketterine. We now
came to steeps that rose directly from the lake, and passed by a place
called in the Gaelic the Den of the Ghosts, {97} which reminded us of
Lodore; it is a rock, or mass of rock, with a stream of large black
stones like the naked or dried-up bed of a torrent down the side of it;
birch-trees start out of the rock in every direction, and cover the hill
above, further than we could see. The water of the lake below was very
deep, black, and calm. Our delight increased as we advanced, till we
came in view of the termination of the lake, seeing where the river
issues out of it through a narrow chasm between the hills.
Here I ought to rest, as we rested, and attempt to give utterance to our
pleasure: but indeed I can impart but little of what we felt. We were
still on the same side of the water, and, being immediately under the
hill, within a considerable bending of the shore, we were enclosed by
hills all round, as if we had been upon a smaller lake of which the whole
was visible. It was an entire solitude; and all that we beheld was the
perfection of loveliness and beauty.
We had been through many solitary places since we came into Scotland, but
this place differed as much from any we had seen before, as if there had
been nothing in common between them; no thought of dreariness or
desolation found entrance here; yet nothing was to be seen but water,
wood, rocks, and heather, and bare mountains above. We saw the mountains
by glimpses as the clouds passed by them, and were not disposed to
regret, with our boatman, that it was not a fine day, for the near
objects were not concealed from us, but softened by being seen through
the mists. The lake is not very wide here, but appeared to be much
narrower than it really is, owing to the many promontories, which are
pushed so far into it that they are much more like islands than
promontories. We had a longing desire to row to the outlet and look up
into the narrow passage through which the river went; but the point where
we were to land was on the other side, so we bent our course right
across, and just as we came in sight of two huts, which have been built
by Lady Perth as a shelter for those who visit the Trossachs, Coleridge
hailed us with a shout of triumph from the door of one of them, exulting
in the glory of Scotland. The huts stand at a small distance from each
other, on a high and perpendicular rock, that rises from the bed of the
lake. A road, which has a very wild appearance, has been cut through the
rock; yet even here, among these bold precipices, the feeling of
excessive beautifulness overcomes every other. While we were upon the
lake, on every side of us were bays within bays, often more like tiny
lakes or pools than bays, and these not in long succession only, but all
round, some almost on the broad breast of the water, the promontories
shot out so far.
After we had landed we walked along the road to the uppermost of the
huts, where Coleridge was standing. From the door of this hut we saw
Benvenue opposite to us--a high mountain, but clouds concealed its top;
its side, rising directly from the lake, is covered with birch-trees to a
great height, and seamed with innumerable channels of torrents; but now
there was no water in them, nothing to break in upon the stillness and
repose of the scene; nor do I recollect hearing the sound of water from
any side, the wind being fallen and the lake perfectly still; the place
was all eye, and completely satisfied the sense and the heart. Above and
below us, to the right and to the left, were rocks, knolls, and hills,
which, wherever anything could grow--and that was everywhere between the
rocks--were covered with trees and heather; the trees did not in any
place grow so thick as an ordinary wood; yet I think there was never a
bare space of twenty yards: it was more like a natural forest where the
trees grow in groups or singly, not hiding the surface of the ground,
which, instead of being green and mossy, was of the richest purple. The
heather was indeed the most luxuriant I ever saw; it was so tall that a
child of ten years old struggling through it would often have been buried
head and shoulders, and the exquisite beauty of the colour, near or at a
distance, seen under the trees, is not to be conceived. But if I were to
go on describing for evermore, I should give but a faint, and very often
a false, idea of the different objects and the various combinations of
them in this most intricate and delicious place; besides, I tired myself
out with describing at Loch Lomond, so I will hasten to the end of my
tale. This reminds me of a sentence in a little pamphlet written by the
minister of Callander, descriptive of the environs of that place. After
having taken up at least six closely-printed pages with the Trossachs, he
concludes thus, 'In a word, the Trossachs beggar all description,'
{100}--a conclusion in which everybody who has been there will agree with
him. I believe the word Trossachs signifies 'many hills:' it is a name
given to all the eminences at the foot of Loch Ketterine, and about half
a mile beyond.
We left the hut, retracing the few yards of road which we had climbed;
our boat lay at anchor under the rock in the last of all the compartments
of the lake, a small oblong pool, almost shut up within itself, as
several others had appeared to be, by jutting points of rock; the
termination of a long out-shooting of the water, pushed up between the
steps of the main shore where the huts stand, and a broad promontory
which, with its hillocks and points and lesser promontories, occupies the
centre of the foot of the lake. A person sailing through the lake up the
middle of it, would just as naturally suppose that the outlet was here as
on the other side; and so it might have been, with the most trifling
change in the disposition of the ground, for at the end of this slip of
water the lake is confined only by a gentle rising of a few yards towards
an opening between the hills, a narrow pass or valley through which the
river might have flowed. The road is carried through this valley, which
only differs from the lower part of the vale of the lake in being
excessively narrow, and without water; it is enclosed by mountains, rocky
mounds, hills and hillocks scattered over with birch-trees, and covered
with Dutch myrtle {101} and heather, even surpassing what we had seen
before. Our mother Eve had no fairer, though a more diversified garden,
to tend, than we found within this little close valley. It rained all
the time, but the mists and calm air made us ample amends for a wetting.
At the opening of the pass we climbed up a low eminence, and had an
unexpected prospect suddenly before us--another lake, small compared with
Loch Ketterine, though perhaps four miles long, but the misty air
concealed the end of it. The transition from the solitary wildness of
Loch Ketterine and the narrow valley or pass to this scene was very
delightful: it was a gentle place, with lovely open bays, one small
island, corn fields, woods, and a group of cottages. This vale seemed to
have been made to be tributary to the comforts of man, Loch Ketterine for
the lonely delight of Nature, and kind spirits delighting in beauty. The
sky was grey and heavy,--floating mists on the hill-sides, which softened
the objects, and where we lost sight of the lake it appeared so near to
the sky that they almost touched one another, giving a visionary beauty
to the prospect. While we overlooked this quiet scene we could hear the
stream rumbling among the rocks between the lakes, but the mists
concealed any glimpse of it which we might have had. This small lake is
called Loch Achray.
We returned, of course, by the same road. Our guide repeated over and
over again his lamentations that the day was so bad, though we had often
told him--not indeed with much hope that he would believe us--that we
were glad of it. As we walked along he pulled a leafy twig from a
birch-tree, and, after smelling it, gave it to me, saying, how 'sweet and
halesome' it was, and that it was pleasant and very halesome on a fine
summer's morning to sail under the banks where the birks are growing.
This reminded me of the old Scotch songs, in which you continually hear
of the 'pu'ing the birks.' Common as birches are in the north of
England, I believe their sweet smell is a thing unnoticed among the
peasants. We returned again to the huts to take a farewell look. We had
shared our food with the ferryman and a traveller whom we had met here,
who was going up the lake, and wished to lodge at the ferry-house, so we
offered him a place in the boat. Coleridge chose to walk. We took the
same side of the lake as before, and had much delight in visiting the
bays over again; but the evening began to darken, and it rained so
heavily before we had gone two miles that we were completely wet. It was
dark when we landed, and on entering the house I was sick with cold.
The good woman had provided, according to her promise, a better fire than
we had found in the morning; and indeed when I sate down in the
chimney-corner of her smoky biggin' I thought I had never been more
comfortable in my life. Coleridge had been there long enough to have a
pan of coffee boiling for us, and having put our clothes in the way of
drying, we all sate down, thankful for a shelter. We could not prevail
upon the man of the house to draw near the fire, though he was cold and
wet, or to suffer his wife to get him dry clothes till she had served us,
which she did, though most willingly, not very expeditiously. A
Cumberland man of the same rank would not have had such a notion of what
was fit and right in his own house, or if he had, one would have accused
him of servility; but in the Highlander it only seemed like politeness,
however erroneous and painful to us, naturally growing out of the
dependence of the inferiors of the clan upon their laird; he did not,
however, refuse to let his wife bring out the whisky-bottle at our
request: 'She keeps a dram,' as the phrase is; indeed, I believe there is
scarcely a lonely house by the wayside in Scotland where travellers may
not be accommodated with a dram. We asked for sugar, butter,
barley-bread, and milk, and with a smile and a stare more of kindness
than wonder, she replied, 'Ye'll get that,' bringing each article
separately.
We caroused our cups of coffee, laughing like children at the strange
atmosphere in which we were: the smoke came in gusts, and spread along
the walls and above our heads in the chimney, where the hens were
roosting like light clouds in the sky. We laughed and laughed again, in
spite of the smarting of our eyes, yet had a quieter pleasure in
observing the beauty of the beams and rafters gleaming between the clouds
of smoke. They had been crusted over and varnished by many winters,
till, where the firelight fell upon them, they were as glossy as black
rocks on a sunny day cased in ice. When we had eaten our supper we sate
about half an hour, and I think I had never felt so deeply the blessing
of a hospitable welcome and a warm fire. The man of the house repeated
from time to time that we should often tell of this night when we got to
our homes, and interposed praises of this, his own lake, which he had
more than once, when we were returning in the boat, ventured to say was
'bonnier than Loch Lomond.'
Our companion from the Trossachs, who it appeared was an Edinburgh
drawing-master going during the vacation on a pedestrian tour to John o'
Groat's House, was to sleep in the barn with William and Coleridge, where
the man said he had plenty of dry hay. I do not believe that the hay of
the Highlands is often very dry, but this year it had a better chance
than usual: wet or dry, however, the next morning they said they had
slept comfortably. When I went to bed, the mistress, desiring me to 'go
ben,' attended me with a candle, and assured me that the bed was dry,
though not 'sic as I had been used to.' It was of chaff; there were two
others in the room, a cupboard and two chests, on one of which stood the
milk in wooden vessels covered over; I should have thought that milk so
kept could not have been sweet, but the cheese and butter were good. The
walls of the whole house were of stone unplastered. It consisted of
three apartments,--the cow-house at one end, the kitchen or house in the
middle, and the spence at the other end. The rooms were divided, not up
to the rigging, but only to the beginning of the roof, so that there was
a free passage for light and smoke from one end of the house to the
other.
I went to bed some time before the family. The door was shut between us,
and they had a bright fire, which I could not see; but the light it sent
up among the varnished rafters and beams, which crossed each other in
almost as intricate and fantastic a manner as I have seen the
under-boughs of a large beech-tree withered by the depth of the shade
above, produced the most beautiful effect that can be conceived. It was
like what I should suppose an underground cave or temple to be, with a
dripping or moist roof, and the moonlight entering in upon it by some
means or other, and yet the colours were more like melted gems. I lay
looking up till the light of the fire faded away, and the man and his
wife and child had crept into their bed at the other end of the room. I
did not sleep much, but passed a comfortable night, for my bed, though
hard, was warm and clean: the unusualness of my situation prevented me
from sleeping. I could hear the waves beat against the shore of the
lake; a little 'syke' close to the door made a much louder noise; and
when I sate up in my bed I could see the lake through an open
window-place at the bed's head. Add to this, it rained all night. I was
less occupied by remembrance of the Trossachs, beautiful as they were,
than the vision of the Highland hut, which I could not get out of my
head. I thought of the Fairyland of Spenser, and what I had read in
romance at other times, and then, what a feast would it be for a London
pantomime-maker, could he but transplant it to Drury Lane, with all its
beautiful colours!
THIRD WEEK.
_Sunday_, _August_ 28_th_.--We were desirous to have crossed the
mountains above Glengyle to Glenfalloch, at the head of Loch Lomond, but
it rained so heavily that it was impossible, so the ferryman engaged to
row us to the point where Coleridge and I had rested, while William was
going on our doubtful adventure. The hostess provided us with tea and
sugar for our breakfast; the water was boiled in an iron pan, and dealt
out to us in a jug, a proof that she does not often drink tea, though she
said she had always tea and sugar in the house. She and the rest of the
family breakfasted on curds and whey, as taken out of the pot in which
she was making cheese; she insisted upon my taking some also; and her
husband joined in with the old story, that it was 'varra halesome.' I
thought it exceedingly good, and said to myself that they lived nicely
with their cow: she was meat, drink, and company. Before breakfast the
housewife was milking behind the chimney, and I thought I had seldom
heard a sweeter fire-side sound; in an evening, sitting over a sleepy,
low-burnt fire, it would lull one like the purring of a cat.
When we departed, the good woman shook me cordially by the hand, saying
she hoped that if ever we came into Scotland again, we would come and see
her. The lake was calm, but it rained so heavily that we could see
little. Landed at about ten o'clock, almost wet to the skin, and, with
no prospect but of streaming rains, faced the mountain-road to Loch
Lomond. We recognised the same objects passed before,--the tarn, the
potato-bed, and the cottages with their burnies, which were no longer, as
one might say, household streams, but made us only think of the mountains
and rocks they came from. Indeed, it is not easy to imagine how
different everything appeared; the mountains with mists and torrents
alive and always changing: but the low grounds where the inhabitants had
been at work the day before were melancholy, with here and there a few
haycocks and hay scattered about.
Wet as we were, William and I turned out of our path to the Garrison
house. A few rooms of it seemed to be inhabited by some wretchedly poor
families, and it had all the desolation of a large decayed mansion in the
suburbs of a town, abandoned of its proper inhabitants, and become the
abode of paupers. In spite of its outside bravery, it was but a poor
protection against 'the sword of winter, keen and cold.' We looked at
the building through the arch of a broken gateway of the courtyard, in
the middle of which it stands. Upon that stormy day it appeared more
than desolate; there was something about it even frightful.