MISCELLANY No 72
RECOLLECTIONS OF A TOUR MADE IN SCOTLAND: X
Saturday, September 3d.—When we have arrived at
an unknown place by moonlight, it is never a moment of indifference when I quit
it again with the morning light, especially if the objects have appeared
beautiful, or in any other way impressive or interesting. I have kept
back, unwilling to go to the window, that I might not lose the picture taken to
my pillow at night. So it was at Ballachulish: and instantly I felt that
the passing away of my own fancies was a loss. The place had appeared
exceedingly wild by moonlight; I had mistaken corn-fields for naked rocks, and
the lake had appeared narrower and the hills more steep and lofty than they
really were.
We rose at
six o’clock, and took a basin of milk before we set forward on our journey to
Glen Coe. It was a delightful morning, the road excellent, and we were in
good spirits, happy that we had no more ferries to cross, and pleased with the
thought that we were going among the grand mountains which we saw before us at
the head of the loch. We travelled close to the
water’s edge, and were rolling along a smooth road, when the horse suddenly
backed, frightened by the upright shafts of a roller rising from behind the
wall of a field adjoining the road. William pulled, whipped, and
struggled in vain; we both leapt upon the ground, and the horse dragged the car
after him, he going backwards down the bank of the loch, and it was turned
over, half in the water, the horse lying on his back, struggling in the
harness, a frightful sight! I gave up everything; thought that the horse
would be lamed, and the car broken to pieces. Luckily a man came up in
the same moment, and assisted William in extricating the horse, and, after an
hour’s delay, with the help of strings and pocket-handkerchiefs, we mended the
harness and set forward again, William leading the poor animal all the way, for
the regular beating of the waves frightened him, and any little gushing stream
that crossed the road would have sent him off. The village where the
blacksmith lived was before us—a few huts under the mountains, and, as it
seemed, at the head of the loch; but it runs further up to the left, being
narrowed by a hill above the village, near which, at the edge of the water, was
a slate quarry, and many large boats with masts, on the water below, high
mountains shutting in the prospect, which stood in single, distinguishable
shapes, yet clustered together—simple and bold in their forms, and their
surfaces of all characters and all colours—some that looked as if scarified by
fire, others green; and there was one that might have been blasted by an
eternal frost, its summit and sides for a considerable way down being as white
as hoar-frost at eight o’clock on a winter’s morning. No clouds were on
the hills; the sun shone bright, but the wind blew fresh and cold.
When we
reached the blacksmith’s shop, I left William to help to take care of the
horse, and went into the house. The mistress, with a child in her arms
and two or three running about, received me very kindly, making many apologies
for the dirty house, which she partly attributed to its being Saturday; but I
could plainly see that it was dirt of all days. I sate in the midst of it
with great delight, for the woman’s benevolent, happy countenance almost
converted her slovenly and lazy way of leaving all things to take care of
themselves into a comfort and a blessing.
It was not
a Highland hut, but a slated house built by the master of the quarry for the
accommodation of his blacksmith,—the shell of an English cottage, as if left
unfinished by the workmen, without plaster, and with floor of mud. Two
beds, with not over-clean bedclothes, were in the room. Luckily for me,
there was a good fire and a boiling kettle. The woman was very sorry she
had no butter; none was to be had in the village: she gave me oaten and barley
bread. We talked over the fire; I answered her hundred questions, and in
my turn put some to her. She asked me, as usual, if I was married, how
many brothers I had, etc. etc. I told her that William was married, and
had a fine boy; to which she replied, ‘And the man’s a decent man too.’
Her next-door neighbour came in with a baby on her arm, to request that I would
accept of some fish, which I broiled in the ashes. She joined in our
conversation, but with more shyness than her neighbour, being a very young
woman. She happened to say that she was a stranger in that place, and had
been bred and born a long way off. On my asking her where, she replied,
‘At Leadhills;’ and when I told her that I had been there,
a joy lighted up her countenance which I shall never forget, and when she heard
that it was only a fortnight before, her eyes filled with tears. I was
exceedingly affected with the simplicity of her manners; her tongue was now let
loose, and she would have talked for ever of Leadhills, of her mother, of the
quietness of the people in general, and the goodness of Mrs. Otto, who, she
told me, was a ‘varra discreet woman.’ She was sure we should be ‘well
put up’ at Mrs. Otto’s, and praised her house and furniture; indeed, it seemed
she thought all earthly comforts were gathered together under the bleak heights
that surround the villages of Wanlockhead and Leadhills: and afterwards, when I
said it was a wild country thereabouts, she even seemed surprised, and said it
was not half so wild as where she lived now. One circumstance which she
mentioned of Mrs. Otto I must record, both in proof of her ‘discretion,’ and
the sobriety of the people at Leadhills, namely, that no liquor was ever drunk
in her house after a certain hour of the night—I have forgotten what hour; but
it was an early one, I am sure not later than ten.
The
blacksmith, who had come in to his breakfast, was impatient to finish our job,
that he might go out into the hay-field, for, it being a fine day, every plot
of hay-ground was scattered over with hay-makers. On my saying that I
guessed much of their hay must be spoiled, he told me no, for that they had
high winds, which dried it quickly,—the people understood the climate, ‘were
clever at the work, and got it in with a blink.’ He hastily swallowed his
breakfast, dry bread and a basin of weak tea without sugar, and held his baby
on his knee till he had done.
The women
and I were again left to the fireside, and there were no limits to their joy in
me, for they discovered another bond of connexion. I lived in the same
part of England from which Mr. Rose, the superintendent of the slate-quarries,
and his wife, had come. ‘Oh!’ said Mrs. Stuart—so her neighbour called
her, they not giving each other their Christian names, as is common in
Cumberland and Westmoreland,—‘Oh!’ said she, ‘what would not I give to see
anybody that came from within four or five miles of Leadhills?’ They both
exclaimed that I must see Mrs. Rose; she would make much of me—she would have
given me tea and bread and butter and a good breakfast. I learned from
the two women, Mrs. Stuart and Mrs. Duncan—so the other was called—that Stuart
had come from Leadhills for the sake of better wages, to take the place of
Duncan, who had resigned his office of blacksmith to the quarries, as far as I
could learn, in a pet, intending to go to America, that his wife was averse to
go, and that the scheme, for this cause and through other difficulties, had
been given u He appeared to be a good-tempered man, and made us a most
reasonable charge for mending the car. His wife told me that they must
give up the house in a short time to the other blacksmith; she did not know
whither they should go, but her husband, being a good workman, could find
employment anywhere. She hurried me out to introduce me to Mrs. Rose, who
was at work in the hay-field; she was exceedingly glad to see one of her
country-women, and entreated that I would go up to her house. It was a
substantial plain house, that would have held half-a-dozen of the common
huts. She conducted me into a sitting-room up-stairs, and set before me
red and white wine, with the remnant of a loaf of wheaten bread, which she took out of a cupboard in the sitting-room, and some
delicious butter. She was a healthy and cheerful-looking woman, dressed
like one of our country lasses, and had certainly had no better education than
Aggy Ashburner, but she was as a chief in this secluded place, a Madam of the
village, and seemed to be treated with the utmost respect.
In our way
to and from the house we met several people who interchanged friendly greetings
with her, but always as with one greatly superior. She attended me back
to the blacksmith’s, and would not leave me till she had seen us set forward
again on our journey. Mrs. Duncan and Mrs. Stuart shook me cordially,
nay, affectionately, by the hand. I tried to prevail upon the former, who
had been my hostess, to accept of some money, but in vain; she would not take a
farthing, and though I told her it was only to buy something for her little
daughter, even seemed grieved that I should think it possible. I forgot
to mention that while the blacksmith was repairing the car, we walked to the
slate-quarry, where we saw again some of the kind creatures who had helped us
in our difficulties the night before. The hovel under which they split
their slates stood upon an out-jutting rock, a part of the quarry rising
immediately out of the water, and commanded a fine prospect down the loch below
Ballachulish, and upwards towards the grand mountains, and the other horn of
the vale where the lake was concealed. The blacksmith drove our car about
a mile of the road; we then hired a man and horse to take me and the car to the
top of Glen Coe, being afraid that if the horse backed or took fright we might
be thrown down some precipice.
But before
we departed we could not resist our inclination to climb up
the hill which I have mentioned as appearing to terminate the loch. The
mountains, though inferior to those of Glen Coe, on the other side are very
majestic; and the solitude in which we knew the unseen lake was bedded at their
feet was enough to excite our longings. We climbed steep after steep, far
higher than they appeared to us, and I was going to give up the accomplishment
of our aim, when a glorious sight on the mountain before us made me forget my
fatigue. A slight shower had come on, its skirts falling upon us, and
half the opposite side of the mountain was wrapped up in rainbow light, covered
as by a veil with one dilated rainbow: so it continued for some minutes; and
the shower and rainy clouds passed away as suddenly as they had come, and the
sun shone again upon the tops of all the hills. In the meantime we
reached the wished-for point, and saw to the head of the loch. Perhaps it
might not be so beautiful as we had imaged it in our thoughts, but it was
beautiful enough not to disappoint us,—a narrow deep valley, a perfect
solitude, without house or hut. One of the hills was thinly sprinkled
with Scotch firs, which appeared to be the survivors of a large forest: they
were the first natural wild Scotch firs we had seen. Though thinned of
their numbers, and left, comparatively, to a helpless struggle with the
elements, we were much struck with the gloom, and even grandeur, of the trees.
Hastened
back again to join the car, but were tempted to go a little out of our way to
look at a nice white house belonging to the laird of Glen Coe, which stood
sweetly in a green field under the hill near some tall trees and coppice
woods. At this house the horrible massacre of Glen Coe began, which we
did not know when we were there; but the house must have
been rebuilt since that time. We had a delightful walk through fields,
among copses, and by a river-side: we could have fancied ourselves in some part
of the north of England unseen before, it was so much like it, and yet so
different. I must not forget one place on the opposite side of the water,
where we longed to live—a snug white house on the mountain-side, surrounded by
its own green fields and woods, the high mountain above, the loch below, and
inaccessible but by means of boats. A beautiful spot indeed it was; but
in the retired parts of Scotland a comfortable white house is itself such a
pleasant sight, that I believe, without our knowing how or why, it makes us
look with a more loving eye on the fields and trees than for their own sakes
they deserve.
At about
one o’clock we set off, William on our own horse, and I with my Highland
driver. He was perfectly acquainted with the country, being a sort of
carrier or carrier-merchant or shopkeeper, going frequently to Glasgow with his
horse and cart to fetch and carry goods and merchandise. He knew the name
of every hill, almost every rock; and I made good use of his knowledge; but partly
from laziness, and still more because it was inconvenient, I took no notes, and
now I am little better for what he told me. He spoke English tolerably;
but seldom understood what was said to him without a ‘What’s your wull?’
We turned up to the right, and were at the foot of the glen—the laird’s house
cannot be said to be in the glen. The afternoon was
delightful,—the sun shone, the mountain-tops were clear, the lake glittered in
the great vale behind us, and the stream of Glen Coe flowed down to it glittering
among alder-trees. The meadows of the glen were of the freshest green;
one new-built stone house in the first reach, some huts,
hillocks covered with wood, alder-trees scattered all over. Looking
backward, we were reminded of Patterdale and the head of Ulswater, but forward
the greatness of the mountains overcame every other idea.
The
impression was, as we advanced up to the head of this first reach, as if the
glen were nothing, its loneliness and retirement—as if it made up no part of my
feeling: the mountains were all in all. That which fronted us—I have
forgotten its name—was exceedingly lofty, the surface stony, nay, the whole
mountain was one mass of stone, wrinkled and puckered up together. At the
second and last reach—for it is not a winding vale—it makes a quick turning
almost at right angles to the first; and now we are in the depths of the
mountains; no trees in the glen, only green pasturage for sheep, and here and
there a plot of hay-ground, and something that tells of former cultivation.
I observed this to the guide, who said that formerly the glen had had many
inhabitants, and that there, as elsewhere in the Highlands, there had been a
great deal of corn where now the lands were left waste, and nothing fed upon
them but cattle. I cannot attempt to describe the mountains. I can
only say that I thought those on our right—for the other side was only a
continued high ridge or craggy barrier, broken along the top into petty spiral
forms—were the grandest I had ever seen. It seldom happens that mountains
in a very clear air look exceedingly high, but these, though we could see the
whole of them to their very summits, appeared to me more majestic in their own
nakedness than our imaginations could have conceived them to be, had they been
half hidden by clouds, yet showing some of their highest pinnacles. They
were such forms as Milton might be supposed to have had in
his mind when he applied to Satan that sublime expression—
‘His stature reached the sky.’
The first
division of the glen, as I have said, was scattered over with rocks, trees, and
woody hillocks, and cottages were to be seen here and there. The second
division is bare and stony, huge mountains on all sides, with a slender
pasturage in the bottom of the valley; and towards the head of it is a small
lake or tarn, and near the tarn a single inhabited dwelling, and some unfenced
hay-ground—a simple impressive scene! Our road frequently crossed large
streams of stones, left by the mountain-torrents, losing all appearance of a
road. After we had passed the tarn the glen became less interesting, or
rather the mountains, from the manner in which they are looked at; but again, a
little higher up, they resume their grandeur. The river is, for a short
space, hidden between steep rocks: we left the road, and, going to the top of
one of the rocks, saw it foaming over stones, or lodged in dark black dens;
birch-trees grew on the inaccessible banks, and a few old Scotch firs towered
above them. At the entrance of the glen the mountains had been all
without trees, but here the birches climb very far up the side of one of them
opposite to us, half concealing a rivulet, which came tumbling down as white as
snow from the very top of the mountain. Leaving the rock, we ascended a
hill which terminated the glen. We often stopped to look behind at the
majestic company of mountains we had left. Before us was no single
paramount eminence, but a mountain waste, mountain beyond mountain, and a
barren hollow or basin into which we were descending.
We parted
from our companion at the door of a whisky hovel, a
building which, when it came out of the workmen’s hands with its unglassed
windows, would, in that forlorn region, have been little better than a howling
place for the winds, and was now half unroofed. On seeing a smoke, I
exclaimed, ‘Is it possible any people can live there?’ when at least half a
dozen, men, women, and children, came to the door. They were about to
rebuild the hut, and I suppose that they, or some other poor creatures, would dwell
there through the winter, dealing out whisky to the starved travellers.
The sun was now setting, the air very cold, the sky clear; I could have fancied
that it was winter-time, with hard frost. Our guide pointed out King’s
House to us, our resting-place for the night. We could just distinguish
the house at the bottom of the moorish hollow or basin—I call it so, for it was
nearly as broad as long—lying before us, with three miles of naked road winding
through it, every foot of which we could see. The road was perfectly
white, making a dreary contrast with the ground, which was of a dull earthy
brown. Long as the line of road appeared before us, we could scarcely
believe it to be three miles—I suppose owing to its being unbroken by any one
object, and the moor naked as the road itself, but we found it the longest
three miles we had yet travelled, for the surface was so stony we had to walk
most of the way.
The house
looked respectable at a distance—a large square building, cased in blue slates
to defend it from storms,—but when we came close to it the outside forewarned
us of the poverty and misery within. Scarce a blade of grass could be
seen growing upon the open ground; the heath-plant itself found no nourishment
there, appearing as if it had but sprung up to be blighted. There was no
enclosure for a cow, no appropriated ground but a small
plot like a church yard, in which were a few starveling dwarfish potatoes,
which had, no doubt, been raised by means of the dung left by travellers’
horses: they had not come to blossoming, and whether they would either yield
fruit or blossom I know not. The first thing we saw on entering the door
was two sheep hung up, as if just killed from the barren moor, their bones
hardly sheathed in flesh. After we had waited a few minutes, looking
about for a guide to lead us into some corner of the house, a woman, seemingly
about forty years old, came to us in a great bustle, screaming in Erse, with
the most horrible guinea-hen or peacock voice I ever heard, first to one
person, then another. She could hardly spare time to show us up-stairs,
for crowds of men were in the house—drovers, carriers, horsemen, travellers,
all of whom she had to provide with supper, and she was, as she told us, the
only woman there.
Never did
I see such a miserable, such a wretched place,—long rooms with ranges of beds,
no other furniture except benches, or perhaps one or two crazy chairs, the
floors far dirtier than an ordinary house could be if it were never washed,—as
dirty as a house after a sale on a rainy day, and the rooms being large, and
the walls naked, they looked as if more than half the goods had been sold
out. We sate shivering in one of the large rooms for three quarters of an
hour before the woman could find time to speak to us again; she then promised a
fire in another room, after two travellers, who were going a stage further, had
finished their whisky, and said we should have supper as soon as
possible. She had no eggs, no milk, no potatoes, no loaf-bread, or we
should have preferred tea. With length of time the fire was kindled, and,
after another hour’s waiting, supper came,—a shoulder of
mutton so hard that it was impossible to chew the little flesh that might be
scraped off the bones, and some sorry soup made of barley and water, for it had
no other taste.
After
supper, the woman, having first asked if we slept on blankets, brought in two
pair of sheets, which she begged that I would air by the fire, for they would
be dirtied below-stairs. I was very willing, but behold! the sheets were
so wet, that it would have been at least a two-hours’ job before a far better
fire than could be mustered at King’s House,—for, that nothing might be wanting
to make it a place of complete starvation, the peats were not dry, and if they had
not been helped out by decayed wood dug out of the earth along with them, we
should have had no fire at all. The woman was civil, in her fierce, wild
way. She and the house, upon that desolate and extensive Wild, and
everything we saw, made us think of one of those places of rendezvous which we
read of in novels—Ferdinand Count Fathom, or Gil Blas,—where there is one woman
to receive the booty, and prepare the supper at night. She told us that
she was only a servant, but that she had now lived there five years, and that,
when but a ‘young lassie,’ she had lived there also. We asked her if she
had always served the same master, ‘Nay, nay, many masters, for they were
always changing.’ I verily believe that the woman was attached to the place
like a cat to the empty house when the family who brought her up are gone to
live elsewhere. The sheets were so long in drying that it was very late
before we went to bed. We talked over our day’s adventures by the
fireside, and often looked out of the window towards a huge pyramidal mountain at the entrance of Glen
Coe. All between, the dreary waste was clear, almost, as sky, the moon
shining full upon it. A rivulet ran amongst stones near the house, and
sparkled with light: I could have fancied that there was nothing else, in that
extensive circuit over which we looked, that had the power of motion.
In
comparing the impressions we had received at Glen Coe, we found that though the
expectations of both had been far surpassed by the grandeur of the mountains,
we had upon the whole both been disappointed, and from the same cause: we had
been prepared for images of terror, had expected a deep, den-like valley with
overhanging rocks, such as William has described in these lines, speaking of
the Alps:—
Brook
and road
Were fellow-travellers in this gloomy Pass,
And with them did we journey several hours
At a slow ste The immeasurable height
Of woods decaying, never to be decayed!
The stationary blasts of waterfalls;
And everywhere along the hollow rent
Winds thwarting winds, bewilder’d and forlorn;
The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky,
The rocks that mutter’d close upon our ears,
Black drizzling crags that spake by the way-side
As if a voice were in them; the sick sight
And giddy prospect of the raving stream;
The unfetter’d clouds, and region of the heavens,
Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light,
Were all like workings of one mind, the features
Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree,
Characters of the great Apocalypse,
The Types and Symbols of Eternity,
Of first, and last, and midst, and without end.
The
place had nothing of this character, the glen being open to the eye of day, the
mountains retiring in independent majesty. Even in the upper part of it,
where the stream rushed through the rocky chasm, it was but a deep trench in
the vale, not the vale itself, and could only be seen when we were close to it.
FOURTH
WEEK.
Sunday, September 4th.—We had desired to be
called at six o’clock, and rose at the first summons. Our beds had proved
better than we expected, and we had not slept ill; but poor Coleridge had
passed a wretched night here four days before. This we did not know; but since,
when he told us of it, the notion of what he must have suffered, with the noise
of drunken people about his ears all night, himself sick and tired, has made
our discomfort cling to my memory, and given these recollections a twofold
interest. I asked if it was possible to have a couple of eggs boiled
before our departure: the woman hesitated; she thought I might, and sent a boy
into the out-houses to look about, who brought in one egg after long
searching. Early as we had risen it was not very early when we set off;
for everything at King’s House was in unison—equally uncomfortable. As
the woman had told us the night before, ‘They had no hay, and that was a
loss.’ There were neither stalls nor bedding in the stable, so that
William was obliged to watch the horse while it was feeding, for there were
several others in the stable, all standing like wild beasts, ready to devour
each other’s portion of corn: this, with the slowness of the servant and other
hindrances, took up much time, and we were completely starved, for the morning
was very cold, as I believe all the mornings in that desolate place are.
When we
had gone about a quarter of a mile I recollected that I had left the little cup
given me by the kind landlady at Taynuilt, which I had intended that John should
hereafter drink out of, in memory of our wanderings. I would have turned
back for it, but William pushed me on, unwilling that we should lose so much
time, though indeed he was as sorry to part with it as myself.
Our road
was over a hill called the Black Mount. For the first mile, or perhaps
more, after we left King’s House, we ascended on foot; then came upon a new
road, one of the finest that was ever trod; and, as we went downwards almost
all the way afterwards, we travelled very quickly. The motion was
pleasant, the different reaches and windings of the road were amusing; the sun
shone, the mountain-tops were clear and cheerful, and we in good spirits, in a
bustle of enjoyment, though there never was a more desolate region: mountains
behind, before, and on every side; I do not remember to have seen either patch
of grass, flower, or flowering heather within three or four miles of King’s
House. The low ground was not rocky, but black, and full of white
frost-bleached stones, the prospect only varied by pools, seen everywhere both
near and at a distance, as far as the ground stretched out below us: these were
interesting spots, round which the mind assembled living objects, and they
shone as bright as mirrors in the forlorn waste. We passed neither tree
nor shrub for miles—I include the whole space from Glen Coe—yet we saw
perpetually traces of a long decayed forest, pieces of black mouldering wood.
Through
such a country as this we had travelled perhaps seven and a half miles this
morning, when, after descending a hill, we turned to the right, and saw an unexpected sight in the moorland hollow into which we were
entering, a small lake bounded on the opposite side by a grove of Scotch firs,
two or three cottages at the head of it, and a lot of cultivated ground with
scattered hay-cocks. The road along which we were going, after having
made a curve considerably above the tarn, was seen winding through the trees on
the other side, a beautiful object, and, luckily for us, a drove of cattle happened
to be passing there at the very time, a stream coursing the road, with
off-stragglers to the borders of the lake, and under the trees on the sloping
ground.
In conning
over our many wanderings I shall never forget the gentle pleasure with which we
greeted the lake of Inveroran and its few grey cottages: we suffered our horse
to slacken his pace, having now no need of the comfort of quick motion, though
we were glad to think that one of those cottages might be the public-house
where we were to breakfast. A forest—now, as it appeared, dwindled into
the small grove bordering the lake—had, not many years ago, spread to that side
of the vale where we were: large stumps of trees which had been cut down were
yet remaining undecayed, and there were some single trees left alive, as if by
their battered black boughs to tell us of the storms that visit the valley
which looked now so sober and peaceful. When we arrived at the huts, one
of them proved to be the inn, a thatched house without a sign-board. We were
kindly received, had a fire lighted in the parlour, and were in such good
humour that we seemed to have a thousand comforts about us; but we had need of
a little patience in addition to this good humour before breakfast was brought,
and at last it proved a disappointment: the butter not eatable, the
barley-cakes fusty, the oat-bread so hard I could not chew
it, and there were only four eggs in the house, which they had boiled as hard
as stones.
Before we
had finished breakfast two foot-travellers came in, and seated themselves at
our table; one of them was returning, after a long absence, to Fort-William,
his native home; he had come from Egypt, and, many years ago, had been on a
recruiting party at Penrith, and knew many people there. He seemed to
think his own country but a dismal land.
There
being no bell in the parlour, I had occasion to go several times and ask for
what we wanted in the kitchen, and I would willingly have given twenty pounds
to have been able to take a lively picture of it. About seven or eight
travellers, probably drovers, with as many dogs, were sitting in a complete
circle round a large peat-fire in the middle of the floor, each with a mess of
porridge, in a wooden vessel, upon his knee; a pot, suspended from one of the
black beams, was boiling on the fire; two or three women pursuing their
household business on the outside of the circle, children playing on the
floor. There was nothing uncomfortable in this confusion: happy, busy, or
vacant faces, all looked pleasant; and even the smoky air, being a sort of
natural indoor atmosphere of Scotland, served only to give a softening, I may
say harmony, to the whole.
We
departed immediately after breakfast; our road leading us, as I have said, near
the lake-side and through the grove of firs, which extended backward much
further than we had imagined. After we had left it we came again among
bare moorish wastes, as before, under the mountains, so that Inveroran still
lives in our recollection as a favoured place, a flower in the desert.
Descended
upon the whole, I believe very considerably, in our way to Tyndrum; but it was
a road of long ups and downs, over hills and through hollows of uncultivated
ground; a chance farm perhaps once in three miles, a glittering rivulet
bordered with greener grass than grew on the broad waste, or a broken fringe of
alders or birches, partly concealing and partly pointing out its course.
Arrived at
Tyndrum at about two o’clock. It is a cold spot. Though, as I
should suppose, situated lower than Inveroran, and though we saw it in the
hottest time of the afternoon sun, it had a far colder aspect from the want of
trees. We were here informed that Coleridge, who, we supposed, was gone to
Edinburgh, had dined at this very house a few days before, in his road to
Fort-William. By the help of the cook, who was called in, the landlady
made out the very day: it was the day after we parted from him; as she
expressed it, the day after the ‘great speet,’ namely, the great rain. We
had a moorfowl and mutton-chops for dinner, well cooked, and a reasonable
charge. The house was clean for a Scotch inn, and the people about the
doors were well dressed. In one of the parlours we saw a company of nine
or ten, with the landlady, seated round a plentiful table,—a sight which made
us think of the fatted calf in the alehouse pictures of the Prodigal Son.
There seemed to be a whole harvest of meats and drinks, and there was something
of festivity and picture-like gaiety even in the fresh-coloured dresses of the
people and their Sunday faces. The white table-cloth, glasses, English
dishes, etc., were all in contrast with what we had seen at Inveroran: the
places were but about nine miles asunder, both among hills; the rank of the
people little different, and each house appeared to be a house of plenty.
We were I
think better pleased with our treatment at this inn than any of the lonely
houses on the road, except Taynuilt; but Coleridge had not fared so well, and
was dissatisfied, as he has since told us, and the two travellers who
breakfasted with us at Inveroran had given a bad account of the house.
Left
Tyndrum at about five o’clock; a gladsome afternoon; the road excellent, and we
bowled downwards through a pleasant vale, though not populous, or well
cultivated, or woody, but enlivened by a river that glittered as it
flowed. On the side of a sunny hill a knot of men and women were gathered
together at a preaching. We passed by many droves of cattle and Shetland
ponies, which accident stamped a character upon places, else unrememberable—not
an individual character, but the soul, the spirit, and solitary simplicity of
many a Highland region.
We had
about eleven miles to travel before we came to our lodging, and had gone five
or six, almost always descending, and still in the same vale, when we saw a
small lake before us after the vale had made a bending to the left; it was
about sunset when we came up to the lake; the afternoon breezes had died away,
and the water was in perfect stillness. One grove-like island, with a
ruin that stood upon it overshadowed by the trees, was reflected on the
water. This building, which, on that beautiful evening, seemed to be
wrapped up in religious quiet, we were informed had been raised for defence by
some Highland chieftain. All traces of strength, or war, or danger are
passed away, and in the mood in which we were we could only look upon it as a
place of retirement and peace. The lake is called Loch Dochart. We
passed by two others of inferior beauty, and continued to travel along the side
of the same river, the Dochart, through an irregular,
undetermined vale,—poor soil and much waste land.
At that
time of the evening when, by looking steadily, we could discover a few pale stars
in the sky, we saw upon an eminence, the bound of our horizon, though very near
to us, and facing the bright yellow clouds of the west, a group of figures that
made us feel how much we wanted in not being painters. Two herdsmen, with
a dog beside them, were sitting on the hill, overlooking a herd of cattle
scattered over a large meadow by the river-side. Their forms, looked at
through a fading light, and backed by the bright west, were exceedingly
distinct, a beautiful picture in the quiet of a Sabbath evening, exciting
thoughts and images of almost patriarchal simplicity and grace. We were
much pleased with the situation of our inn, where we arrived between eight and
nine o’clock. The river was at the distance of a broad field from the door;
we could see it from the upper windows and hear its murmuring; the moon shone,
enlivening the large corn fields with cheerful light. We had a bad
supper, and the next morning they made us an unreasonable charge; and the
servant was uncivil, because, forsooth! we had no wine.
Monday, September 5th.—After drinking a bason
of milk we set off again at a little after six o’clock—a fine morning—eight
miles to Killin—the river Dochart always on our left. The face of the
country not very interesting, though not unpleasing, reminding us of some of
the vales of the north of England, though meagre, nipped-up, or shrivelled compared with them. There were rocks, and
rocky knolls, as about Grasmere and Wytheburn, and copses, but of a starveling
growth; the cultivated ground poor. Within a mile or two of Killin the
land was better cultivated, and, looking down the vale, we had a view of Loch
Tay, into which the Dochart falls. Close to the town, the river took up a
roaring voice, beating its way over a rocky descent among large black stones:
islands in the middle turning the stream this way and that; the whole course of
the river very wide. We crossed it by means of three bridges, which make
one continued bridge of a great length. On an island below the bridge is
a gateway with tall pillars, leading to an old burying-ground belonging to some
noble family.
It has a singular appearance, and the place is altogether uncommon and
romantic—a remnant of ancient grandeur: extreme natural wildness—the sound of
roaring water, and withal, the ordinary half-village, half-town bustle of an
every-day place.
The inn at
Killin is one of the largest on the Scotch road: it stands pleasantly, near the
chapel, at some distance from the river Dochart, and out of reach of its
tumultuous noise; and another broad, stately, and silent stream, which you
cannot look at without remembering its boisterous neighbour, flows close under
the windows of the inn, and beside the churchyard, in which are many
graves. That river falls into the lake at the distance of nearly a mile
from the mouth of the Dochart. It is bordered with tall trees and corn
fields, bearing plentiful crops, the richest we had seen in Scotland.
After
breakfast we walked onwards, expecting that the stream would lead us into some
considerable vale; but it soon became little better than a
common rivulet, and the glen appeared to be short; indeed, we wondered how the
river had grown so great all at once. Our horse had not been able to eat
his corn, and we waited a long time in the hope that he would be better.
At eleven o’clock, however, we determined to set off, and give him all the ease
possible by walking up the hills, and not pushing beyond a slow walk. We
had fourteen miles to travel to Kenmore, by the side of Loch Tay. Crossed
the same bridge again, and went down the south side of the lake. We had a
delightful view of the village of Killin, among rich green fields, corn and
wood, and up towards the two horns of the vale of Tay, the valley of the
Dochart, and the other valley with its full-grown river, the prospect
terminated by mountains. We travelled through lanes, woods, or open
fields, never close to the lake, but always near it, for many miles, the road
being carried along the side of a hill, which rose in an almost regularly receding
steep from the lake. The opposite shore did not much differ from that
down which we went, but it seemed more thinly inhabited, and not so well
cultivated. The sun shone, the cottages were pleasant, and the goings-on
of the harvest—for all the inhabitants were at work in the corn fields—made the
way cheerful. But there is an uniformity in the lake which, comparing it
with other lakes, made it appear tiresome. It has no windings: I should
even imagine, although it is so many miles long, that, from some points not
very high on the hills, it may be seen from one end to the other. There
are few bays, no lurking-places where the water hides itself in the land, no
outjutting points or promontories, no islands; and there are no commanding
mountains or precipices. I think that this lake would be the most
pleasing in spring-time, or in summer before the corn
begins to change colour, the long tracts of hills on each side of the vale
having at this season a kind of patchy appearance, for the corn fields in
general were very small, mere plots, and of every possible shade of bright
yellow. When we came in view of the foot of the lake we perceived that it
ended, as it had begun, in pride and loveliness. The village of Kenmore,
with its neat church and cleanly houses, stands on a gentle eminence at the end
of the water. The view, though not near so beautiful as that of Killin,
is exceedingly pleasing. Left our car, and turned out of the road at
about the distance of a mile from the town, and after having climbed perhaps a
quarter of a mile, we were conducted into a locked-up plantation, and guessed
by the sound that we were near the cascade, but could not see it. Our
guide opened a door, and we entered a dungeon-like passage, and, after walking
some yards in total darkness, found ourselves in a quaint apartment stuck over
with moss, hung about with stuffed foxes and other wild animals, and ornamented
with a library of wooden books covered with old leather backs, the mock
furniture of a hermit’s cell. At the end of the room, through a large
bow-window, we saw the waterfall, and at the same time, looking down to the
left, the village of Kenmore and a part of the lake—a very beautiful prospect.
To be continued
Were fellow-travellers in this gloomy Pass,
And with them did we journey several hours
At a slow ste The immeasurable height
Of woods decaying, never to be decayed!
The stationary blasts of waterfalls;
And everywhere along the hollow rent
Winds thwarting winds, bewilder’d and forlorn;
The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky,
The rocks that mutter’d close upon our ears,
Black drizzling crags that spake by the way-side
As if a voice were in them; the sick sight
And giddy prospect of the raving stream;
The unfetter’d clouds, and region of the heavens,
Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light,
Were all like workings of one mind, the features
Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree,
Characters of the great Apocalypse,
The Types and Symbols of Eternity,
Of first, and last, and midst, and without end.
