FIRST WEEK
WILLIAM and I parted from
Mary on Sunday afternoon, August 14th 1803; and William, Coleridge, and
I left Keswick on Monday morning, the 15th, at twenty minutes after
eleven o'clock. The day was very hot; we walked up the hills, and along
all the rough road, which made our walking half the day's journey.
Travelled under the foot of Carrock, a mountain covered with stones on
the lower part; above, it is very rocky, but sheep pasture there; we saw
several where there seemed to be no grass to tempt them. Passed the foot
of Grisdale and Mosedale, both pastoral valleys, narrow, and soon
terminating in the mountains green, with scattered trees and houses, and
each a beautiful stream. At Grisdale our horse backed upon a steep bank
where the road was not fenced, just above a pretty mill at the foot of
the valley; and we had a second threatening of a disaster in crossing a
narrow bridge between the two dales; but this was not the fault of
either man or horse. Slept at Mr. Younghusband's public-house, Hesket
Newmarket. In the evening walked to Caldbeck Falls, a delicious spot in
which to breathe out a summer's day limestone rocks, hanging trees,
pools, and water-breaks caves and caldrons which have been honoured with
fairy names, and no doubt continue in the fancy of the neighbourhood to
resound with fairy revels.
Tuesday, August 16th.
Passed Rose Castle upon the Caldew, an ancient building of red stone
with sloping gardens, an ivied gateway, velvet lawns, old garden walls,
trim flower-borders with stately and luxuriant flowers. We walked up to
the house and stood some minutes watching the swallows that flew about
restlessly, and flung their shadows upon the sunbright walls of the old
building; the shadows glanced and twinkled, inter-changed and crossed
each other, expanded and shrunk up, appeared and disappeared every
instant; as I observed to William and Coleridge, seeming more like
living things than the birds themselves. Dined at Carlisle; the town in
a bustle with the assizes; so many strange faces known in former times
and recognised, that it half seemed as if I ought to know them all, and,
together with the noise, the fine ladies, etc., they put me into
confusion. This day Hatfield was condemned. I stood at the door of the
gaoler's house, where he was; William entered the house, and Coleridge
saw him; I fell into conversation with a debtor, who told me in a dry
way that he was "far over-learned," and another man observed to William
that we might learn from Hatfield's fate "not to meddle with pen and
ink." We gave a shilling to my companion, whom we found out to be a
friend of the family, a fellow-sailor with my brother John "in Captain
Wordsworth's ship." Walked upon the city walls, which are broken down in
places and crumbling away, and most disgusting from filth. The city and
neighbourhood of Carlisle disappointed me; the banks of the river quite
flat, and, though the holms are rich, there is not much beauty in the
vale from the want of trees at least to the eye of a person corning from
England, and, I scarcely know how, but to me the holms had not a natural
look; there was something townish in their appearance, a dulness in
their strong deep green. To Longtown not very interesting*, except from
the long views over the flat country; the road rough, chiefly newly
mended. Reached Longtown after sunset, a town of brick houses belonging
chiefly to the Graham family. Being in the form of a cross and not long,
it had been better called Crosstown. There are several shops, and it is
not a very small place; but I could not meet with a silver thimble, and
bought a half-penny brass one. Slept at the Graham's Arms, a large inn.
Here, as everywhere else, the people seemed utterly insensible of the
enormity of Hatfield 3s. offences; the ostler told William that he was
quite a gentleman, paid every one genteelly, etc. etc. He and Mary; had
walked together to Gretna Green; a heavy rain came on when they were
there; a returned chaise happened to pass, and the driver would have
taken them up; but "Mr. Hope's" carriage was to be sent for; he did not
choose to accept the chaise-driver's offer.
Wednesday, August. Left
Longtown after breakfast. About half a mile from the town a guide-post
and two roads, to Edinburgh and Glasgow; we took the left-hand road, to
Glasgow. Here saw a specimen of the luxuriance of the heath-plant, as it
grows in Scotland; it was in the enclosed plantations perhaps sheltered
by them. These plantations appeared to be not well grown for their age;
the trees were stunted. Afterwards the road, treeless, over a peat-moss
common the Solway Moss; here and there an earth-built but with its peat
stack, a scanty growing willow hedge round the kail-garth, perhaps the
cow pasturing near, a little lass watching it, the dreary waste cheered
by the endless singing of larks.
We enter Scotland by
crossing the river Sark; on the Scotch side of the bridge the ground is unenclosed pasturage; it was very green, and scattered over
with that yellow flowered plant which we call grunsel; the hills heave
and swell prettily enough; cattle feeding; a few corn fields near the
river. At the top of the hill opposite is Springfield, a village built
by Sir William Maxwell a dull uniformity in the houses, as is usual when
all built at one time, or belonging to one individual, each just big
enough for two people to live in, and in which a family, large or small
as it may happen, is crammed. There the marriages are performed. Further
on, though almost contiguous, is Getna Green, upon a hill and among
trees. This sounds well, but it is a dreary place; the stone houses
dirty and miserable, with broken windows. There is a pleasant view from
the churchyard over Solway Firth to the Cumberland mountains. Dined at
Annan. On our left as we travelled along appeared the Solway Firth and
the mountains beyond, but the near country dreary. Those houses by the
roadside which are built of stone are comfortless and dirty; but we
peeped into a clay "biggin" that was very "canny," and I daresay will be
as warm as a swallow's nest in winter. The town of Annan made me think
of France and Germany; many of the houses large and gloomy, the size of
them out-running the comforts. One thing which was like Germany pleased
me: the shopkeepers express their calling by some device or painting;
bread-bakers have biscuits, loaves, cakes, painted on their window-
shutters; blacksmiths horses & shoes, iron tools, etc. etc.; and so on
through all trades.
Reached Dumfries at about
nine o'clock market-day; met crowds of people on the road, and every one
had a smile for us and our car. . . . The inn was a large house, and
tolerably comfortable; Mr. Rogers and his sister, whom we had seen at
our own cottage at Grasmere a few days before, had arrived there that
same afternoon on their way to the Highlands; but we did not see them
till the next morning, and only for about a quarter of an hour.
Thursday, August 18th.
Went to the churchyard where Burns is buried. A bookseller accompanied
us. He showed us the outside of Burns's house, where he had lived the
last threeyears of his life, and where he died. It has a mean
appearance, and is in a bye situation, whitewashed; dirty about the
doors, as almost all Scotch houses are; flowering plants in the windows.
Went on to visit his
grave. He lies at a corner of the churchyard, and his second son,
Francis Wallace, beside him. There is no stone to mark the spot; but a
hundred guineas have been collected, to be expended on some sort of
monument. "There," said the book-seller, pointing to a pompous monument,
"there lies Mr. Such-a-one" I have forgotten his name, "a remarkably
clever man; he was an attorney, and hardly ever lost a cause he
undertook. Burns made many a lampoon upon him, and there they rest, as
you see." We looked at the grave with melancholy and painful
reflections, repeating to each other his own verses;
Is there a man whose
judgment clear
Can others teach the
course to steer,
Yet runs himself life's
mad career
Wild as the wave?
Here let him pause, and
through a tear
Survey this grave.
The poor Inhabitant below
Was quick to learn, and
wise to know
And keenly felt the
friendly glow
And softer flame;
But thoughtless follies
laid him low,
And stain'd his name.
The churchyard is full of
grave-stones and expensive monuments in all sorts of fantastic shapes
obelisk-wise, pillar-wise, etc. In speaking of Gretna Green, I forgot to
mention that we visited the churchyard. The church is like a huge house;
indeed, so are all the churches, with a steeple, not a square tower or
spire, a sort of thing more like a glass-house chimney than a Church of
England steeple; grave-stones in abundance, few verses, yet there were
some texts. Over the graves of married women the maiden name instead of
that of the husband, "spouse" instead of "wife," and the place of abode
preceded by "in" instead of "of." When our guide had left us, we turned
again to Burns's house. Mrs. Burns was gone to spend some time by the
sea-shore with her children. We spoke to the servant-maid at the door,
who invited us forward, and we sat down in the parlour. The walls were
coloured with a blue wash; on one side of the fire was a mahogany desk,
opposite to the window a clock, and over the desk a print from the
Cotters Saturday Night, which Burns mentions in one of his letters
having received as a present. The house was cleanly and neat in the
inside, the stairs of stone, scoured white, the kitchen on the right
side of the passage, the parlour on the left. In the room above the
parlour the poet died, and his son after him in the same room. The
servant told us she had lived five years with Mrs. Burns, who was now in
great sorrow for the death of "Wallace". She said that Mrs. Burns's
youngest son was at Christ's Hospital. We were glad to leave Dumfries,
which is no agreeable place to them who do not love the bustle of a town
that seems to be rising up to wealth. We could think of little else but
poor Burns, and his moving- about on that unpoetic ground. In our road
to Brownhill, the next stage, we passed Ellisland at a little distance
on our right, his farmhouse. We might there have had more pleasure in
looking round, if we had been nearer to the spot; but there is no
thought surviving in connexion with Burns's daily life that is not
heart-depressing.
Travelled through the
vale of Nith, here little like a vale, it is so broad, with irregular
hills rising up on each side, in outline resembling the old-fashioned
valances of a bed. There is a great deal of arable land; the corn ripe;
trees here and there plantations, clumps, coppices, and a newness in
everything. So much of the gorse and broom rooted out that you wonder
why it is not all gone, and yet there seems to be almost as much gorse
and broom as corn; and they grow one among another you know not how.
Crossed the Nith; the vale becomes narrow, and very pleasant; corn
fields, green hills, clay cottages; the river's bed rocky, with woody
banks. Left the Nith about a mile and a half, and reached Brownhill, a
lonely inn, where we slept. The view from the windows was pleasing,
though some travellers might have been disposed to quarrel with it for
its general nakedness; yet there was abundance of corn. It is an open
country open, yet all over hills. At a little distance were many
cottages among trees, that looked very pretty. Brownhill is about seven
or eight miles from Ellisland. I fancied to myself, while I was sitting
in the parlour, that Burns might have caroused there, for most likely
his rounds extended so far, and this thought gave a melancholy interest
to the smoky walls. It was as pretty a room as a thoroughly dirty one
could be a square parlour painted green, but so covered over with smoke
and dirt that it looked not unlike green seen through black gauze. There
were three windows, looking three ways, a buffet ornamented with tea-
cups, a superfine largeish looking-glass with gilt ornaments spreading
far and wide, the glass spotted with dirt, some ordinary alehouse
pictures, and above the chimney-piece a print in a much better style as
William guessed, taken from a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds of some
lady of quality, in the character of Euphrosyne. "Ay," said the
servant-girl, seeing that we looked at it, "there's many travellers
would give a deal for that, it's more admired than any in the house." We
could not but smile; for the rest were such as may be found in the
basket of any Italian image and picture hawker.
William and I walked out
after dinner; Coleridge was not well, and slept upon the carriage cushions. We made our way to the cottages among the little
hills and knots of wood, and then saw what a delightful country this part of Scotland
might be made by planting forest trees. The ground all over heaves and swells like a
sea; but for miles there are neither trees nor hedgerows, only "mound" fences and
tracts; or slips of corn, potatoes, clover with hay between, and barren land; but
near the cottages many hills and hillocks covered with wood. We passed some fine
trees, and paused under the shade of one close by an old mansion that seemed from
its neglected state to be inhabited by farmers. But I must say that many of the
"gentlemen's" houses which we have passed in Scotland have an air of neglect, and even
of desolation. It was a beech, in the full glory of complete and perfect
growth, very tall, with one thick stem mounting to a considerable height, which was
split into four "thighs" as Coleridge afterwards called them, each in size a fine
tree. Passed another mansion, now tenanted by a schoolmaster; many boys playing upon
the lawn. I cannot take leave of the country which we passed through to-day, without
mentioning that we saw the Cumberland mountains within half a mile of Ellisland,
Burns's house, the last view we had of them. Drayton has prettily described the
connexion which this neighbourhood has with ours when he makes Skiddaw say Scur fell
from the sky,
That Anadale doth crown,
with a most amorous eye,
Salutes me every day, or at my pride looks grim,
Oft threatening me with clouds, as I oft threat'ning him.
These lines recurred to
William's memory, and we talked of Burns, and of the prospect he must have had, perhaps from his own door, of Skiddaw and his
companions, indulging ourselves in the fancy that we might have been personally
known to each other, and he have looked upon those objects with more pleasure for our
sakes. We talked of Coleridge's children and family, then at the foot of Skiddaw,
and our own new-born John a few miles behind it; while the grave of Burns's son,
which we had just seen by the side of his father, and some stories heard at Dumfries
respecting the dangers his surviving children were exposed to, filled us with
melancholy concern, which had a kind of connexion with ourselves. In recollection
of this, William long afterwards wrote the following Address to the sons of the
ill-fated poet:
Ye now are panting up
life's hill,
'Tis twilight time of
good and ill,
And more than common
strength and skill
Must ye display,
If ye would give the
better will
Its lawful sway.
Strong-bodied if ye be to
bear
Intemperance with less
harm, beware,
But if your Father's wit
ye share,
Then, then indeed,
e Sons of Burns, for
watchful care
There will be need.
For honest men delight
will take
To shew you favour for
his sake,
Will flatter you, and
Fool and Rake
Your steps pursue,
And of your Father's name
will make
A snare for you.
Let no mean hope your
souls enslave,
Be independent, generous,
brave;
Your Father such example
gave,
And such revere,
But be admonished by his
grave,
And think and fear.
Friday, August 19th.
Open country for a considerable way. Passed through the village of Thornhill, built by the Duke of Queensberry; the
"brother-houses" so small that they might have been built to stamp a character of insolent
pride on his own huge mansion of Drumlanrigg, which is full in view on the opposite
side of the Nith. This mansion is indeed very large; but to us it appeared like a
gathering together of little things. The roof is broken into a hundred pieces,
cupolas, etc., in the shape of casters, conjuror's balls, cups, and the like. The
situation would be noble if the woods had been left standing; but they have been cut
down not long ago, and the hills above and below the house are quite bare. About a
mile and a half from Drumlanrigg is a turnpike gate at the top of a hill. We left our
car with the man, and turned aside into a field where we looked down upon the Nith,
which runs far below in a deep and rocky channel; the banks woody; the view
pleasant down the river towards Thomhill, an open country corn fields, pastures, and
scattered trees. Returned to the turnpike house, a cold spot upon a common, black cattle
feeding close to the door. Our road led us down the hill to the side of the Nith,
and we travelled along its banks for some miles. Here were clay cottages
perhaps every half or quarter of a mile. The bed of the stream rough with rocks; banks
irregular, now woody, now bare; here a patch of broom, there of corn, then of
pasturage; and hills green or heathy above. We were to have given our horse meal and water at
a public- house in one of the hamlets we passed through, but missed the house,
for, as is common in Scotland, it was without a sign-board. Travelled on, still
beside the Nith, till we came to a turnpike house, which stood rather high on the
hill-side, and from the door we looked a long way up and down the river. The air
coldish, the wind strong.
We asked the turnpike man
to let us have some meal and water. He had no meal, but luckily we had part of a feed of corn brought from Keswick, and he
procured some hay at a neighbouring house. In the meantime I went into the house, where
was an old man with a grey plaid over his shoulders, reading a newspaper. On the shelf
lay a volume of the Scotch Encyclopaedia, a History of England, and some other books.
The old man was a caller by the way. The man of the house came back, and we
began to talk. He was very intelligent; had travelled all over England, Scotland, and
Ireland as a gentleman's servant, and now lived alone in that lonesome place. He said
he was tired of his bargain, for he feared he should lose by it. And he had
indeed a troublesome office, for coal-carts without number were passing by, and
the drivers seemed to do their utmost to cheat him. There is always something
peculiar in the house of a man living alone. This was but half-furnished, yet nothing
seemed wanting for his comfort, though a female who had travelled half as far would
have needed fifty other things. He had no other meat or drink in the house but oat
bread and cheese the cheese was made with the addition of seeds and some skimmed
milk. He gave us of his bread and cheese, and milk, which proved to be sour. We had yet ten or eleven miles to travel, and no food with us. William
lay under the wind in a cornfield below the house, being not well enough, to partake
of the milk and bread. Coleridge gave our host a pamphlet, "The Crisis of the Sugar
Colonies"; he was well acquainted with Burns's poems. There was a politeness and a
manly freedom in this man's manners which pleased me very much. He told us
that he had served a gentleman, a captain in the army he did not know who he was,
for none of his relations had ever come to see him, but he used to receive many
letters that he had lived near Dumfries till they would let him stay no longer, he made
such havoc with the game; his whole delight from morning till night, and the long
year through, was in field sports; he would be on his feet the worst days in winter,
and wade through snow up to the middle after his game. If he had company he was
in tortures till they were gone; he would then throw off his coat and put on an old
jacket not worth half-a-crown. He drank his bottle of wine every day, and two if he
had better sport than usual. Ladies sometimes came to stay with his wife, and he
often carried them out in an Irish jaunting-car, and if they vexed him he would choose
the dirtiest roads possible, and spoil their clothes by jumping in and out
of the car, and treading upon them. "But for all that" and so he ended all he was a
good fellow, and a clever fellow, and he liked him well. He would have ten or a dozen
hares in the larder at once, he half maintained his family with game, and he
himself was very fond of eating of the spoil unusual with true heart-and-soul sportsmen.
The man gave us an
account of his farm where he had lived, which was so cheap and pleasant that we thought we should have liked to have had it ourselves.
Soon after leaving the turnpike house we turned up a hill to the right, the road
for a little way very steep, bare hills, with sheep.
After ascending a little
while we heard the murmur of a stream far below us, and saw it flowing downwards on our left, towards the Nith, and before us,
between steep green hills, coming along a winding valley. The simplicity of the
prospect impressed us very much. There was a single cottage by the brook side; the dell was
not heathy, but it was impossible not to think of Peter BelTs Highland Girl.
We now felt indeed that
we were in Scotland; there was a natural peculiarity in this place. In the scenes of the Nith It had not been the same as England,
but yet not simple, naked Scotland. The road led us down the hill, and now there was
no room in the vale but for the river and the road; we had sometimes the stream to
the right, sometimes to the left. The hills were pastoral, but we did not see many
sheep; green smooth turf on the left, no ferns. On the right the heath-plant grew in
abundance, of the most exquisite colour; it covered a whole hill-side, or it was in
streams and patches. We travelled along the vale without appearing to ascend for
some miles; all the reaches were beautiful, in exquisite proportion, the hills seeming
very high from being so near to us. It might have seemed a valley which nature had
kept to herself for pensive thoughts and tender feelings, but that we were
reminded at every turning of the road of something beyond by the coal-carts which were
travelling towards us. Though these carts broke in upon the tranquillity of the
glen, they added much to the picturesque effect of the different views, which
indeed wanted nothing, though perfectly bare, houseless, and treeless.
After some time our road
took us upwards towards the end of the valley. Now the steeps were heathy all around. Just as we began to climb the hill we saw
three boys who came down the cleft of a brow on our left; one carried a
fishing-rod, and the hats of all were braided with honeysuckles; they ran after one another
as wanton as the wind. I cannot express what a character of beauty those few
honeysuckles in the hats of the three boys gave to the place: what bower could they have
come from? We walked up the hill, met two well-dressed travellers, the woman barefoot.
Our little lads before they had gone far were joined by some half-dozen of their
companions, all without shoes and stockings. They told us they lived at Wanlockhead,
the village above, pointing to the top of the hill; they went to school and learned
Latin, Virgil, and some of them Greek, Homer, but when Coleridge began to
inquire further, off they ran, poor things 1 I suppose afraid of being examined.
When, after a steep
ascent, we had reached the top of the hill, we saw a village about half a mile before us on the side of another hill, which rose up
above the spot where we were, after a descent, a sort of valley or hollow. Nothing
grew upon this ground, or the hills above or below, but heather, yet round about
the village which consisted of a great number of huts, all alike, and all thatched,
with a few larger slated houses among them, and a single modern-built one of a
considerable size were a hundred patches of cultivated ground, potatoes, oats, hay,
and grass. We were struck with the sight of haycocks fastened down with aprons,
sheets, pieces of sacking as we supposed, to prevent the wind from blowing them away. We
afterwards found that this practice was very general in Scotland. Every cottage
seemed to have its little plot of ground, fenced by a ridge of earth; this plot
contained two or three different divisions, kail, potatoes, oats, hay; the houses all
standing in lines, or never far apart; the cultivated ground was all together also,
and made a very strange appearance with its many greens among the dark brown hills,
neither tree nor shrub growing; yet the grass and the potatoes looked greener
than elsewhere, owing to the bareness of the neighbouring hills; it was
indeed a wild and singular spot to use a woman's illustration, like a collection
of patchwork, made of pieces as they might have chanced to have been cut by
the manufucturer, only just smoothed to fit each other, the different sorts
of produce being in such a multitude of plots, and those so small and of such
irregular shapes. Add to the strangeness of the village itself, that we had been climbing
upwards, though gently, for many miles, and for the last mile and a half up a
steep ascent, and did not know of any village till we saw the boys who had come out to
play. The air was very cold, and one could not help thinking what it must be in
winter, when those hills, now "red brown," should have their three months covering of
snow.
The village, as we
guessed, is inhabited by miners; the mines belong to the Duke of Oueensberry. The road to the village, down which the lads scampered
away, was straight forward. I must mention that we met, just after we had parted
from them, another little fellow, about six years old, carrying a bundle over his
shoulder; he seemed poor and half starved, and was scratching his fingers, which were
covered with the itch. He was a miner's son, and lived at Wanlockhead; did not
go to school, but this was probably on account of his youth. I mention him because he
seemed to be a proof that there was poverty and wretchedness among these people,
though we saw no other symptom of it; and afterwards we met scores of the inhabitants of
this same village. Our road turned to the right, and we saw at the distance of
less than a mile, a tall upright building of grey stone, with several men standing
upon the roof, as if they were looking out over battlements. It stood beyond the
village, upon higher ground, as if presiding over it, a kind of enchanter's
castle, which it might have been, a place where Don Quixote would have gloried in. When
we drew nearer we saw, coming out of the side of the building, a large machine
or lever, in appearance like a great forge-hammer, as we supposed for raising water
out of the mines. It heaved upwards once In half a minute with a slow motion, and
seemed to rest to take breath at the bottom, its motion being accompanied with a
sound between a groan and unlike.
There would have been
something in this object very striking in any place, as it was impossible not to invest the machine with some faculty of intellect; it
seemed to have made the first step from brute matter to life and purpose, showing
its progress by great power. William made a remark to this effect, and Coleridge
observed that it was like a giant with one idea. At all events, the object produced a
striking effect in that place, where everything was in unison with it particularly the
building itself, which was turret -shaped, and with the figures upon it resembled
much one of the fortresses in the wooden cuts of Bunyan's Holy War.
After ascending a
considerable way we began to descend again; and now we met a team of horses dragging an immense tree to the lead mines, to repair or add
to the building, and presently after we came to a cart, with another large
tree, and one horse left in it, right in the middle of the highway. We were a little
out of humour, thinking we must wait till the team came back. There were men
and boys without number all staring at us; after a little consultation they set
their shoulders to the cart, and with a good heave all at once they moved it,
and we passed along. These people were decently dressed, and their manners
decent; there was no hooting or impudent laughter. Leadhills, another mining village,
was the place of our destination for the night; and soon after we had passed the
cart we came in sight of it. This village and the mines belong to Lord Hopetoun;
it has more stone houses than Wanlockhead, one large old mansion, and a considerable
number of old trees beeches, I believe. The trees told of the coldness of the
climate; they were more brown than green far browner than the ripe grass of the little
hay-garths. Here, as at Wanlockhead, were haycocks, hay-stacks, potato-beds, and
kail-garths in every possible variety of shape, but, I suppose from the irregularity of
the ground, it looked far less artificial indeed, I should think that a painter
might make several beautiful pictures in this village. It straggles down both sides
of a mountain glen. As I have said, there is a large mansion. There is also a
stone building that looks like a school, and the houses are single, or in
clusters, or rows as it may chance.
We passed a
decent-looking inn, the Hopetoun Arms; but the house of Mrs. Otto, a widow, had been recommended to us with high encomiums. We did not then
understand Scotch inns, and were not quite satisfied at first with our
accommodations, but all things were smoothed over by degrees; we had a fire lighted in our dirty
parlour, tea came after a reasonable waiting; and the fire with the gentle aid of
twilight, burnished up the room into cheerful comfort Coleridge was weary; but
William and I walked out after tea. We talked with one of the miners, who informed us
that the building which we had supposed to be a school was a library belonging to
the village. He said they had got a book into it a few weeks ago, which had
cost thirty pounds, and that they had all sorts of books. "What! have you
Shakespeare?" "Yes, we have that," and we found, on further inquiry, that they had a large
library, of long standing, that Lord Hopetoun had subscribed liberally to it, and that
gentlemen who came with him were in the habit of making larger or smaller donations.
Each man who had the benefit of it paid a small sum monthly I think about fourpence.
The man we talked with
spoke much of the comfort and quiet in which they lived one among another; he made use of a noticeable expression, saying that they
were "very peaceable people considering they lived so much under-ground"; wages
were about thirty pounds a year; they had land for potatoes, warm houses, plenty of
coals, and only six hours' work each day, so that they had leisure for reading if
they chose. He said the place was healthy, that the inhabitants lived to a great
age; and indeed we saw no appearance of ill-health in their countenances; but it is not
common for people working in lead mines to be healthy; and I have since heard that
it is not a healthy place. However this may be, they are unwilling to allow it; for
the landlady the next morning, when I said to her "You have a cold climate," replied,
"Ay, but it is varra halesome" We inquired of the man respecting the large mansion;
he told us that it was built, as we might see, in the form of an H, and belonged to
the Hopetouns, and they took their title from thence, and that part of it
was used as a chapel. We went close to it, and were a good deal amused with the
building itself, standing forth in bold contradiction of the story which I daresay every
man of Leadhills tells, and every man believes, that it is in the shape of an
H; it is but half an H, and one must be very accommodating to allow it even so much,
for the legs are far too short.
We visited the
burying-ground, a plot of land not very small, crowded with graves, and upright gravestones, over-looking the village and the dell. It was
now the closing in of evening. Women and children were gathering in the linen
for the night, which was bleaching by the burn-side; the graves overgrown with grass,
such as, by industrious culture, had been raised up about the houses; but there were
bunches of heather here and there, and with the blue-bells that grew among the
grass the small plot of ground had a beautiful and wild appearance.
William left me, and I
went to a shop to purchase some thread; the woman had none that suited me but she would send a "wee lad" to the other shop. In the
meantime I sat with the mother, and was much pleased with her manner and
conversation. She had an excellent fire, and her cottage, though very small, looked
comfortable and cleanly ; but remember I saw it only by firelight She confirmed what the
man had told us of the quiet manner in which they lived; and indeed her bouse
and fireside seemed to need nothing to make it a cheerful happy spot, but health and
good humour. There was a bookishness, a certain formality in this woman's language,
which was very remarkable. She had a dark complexion, dark eyes, and wore a very
white cap, much over her face, which gave her the look of a French woman, and
indeed afterwards the women on the roads frequently reminded us of French women, partly
from the extremely white caps of the elder women, and still more perhaps from a
certain gaiety and party-coloured appearance in their dress in general. White
bed-gowns are very common, and you rarely meet a young girl with either hat or cap;
they buckle up their hair often in a graceful manner.
I returned to the inn,
and went into the kitchen to speak with the landlady; she had made a hundred hesitations when I told her we wanted three beds. At last
she confessed she had three beds, and showed me into a parlour which looked
damp and cold, but she assured me in a tone that showed she was unwilling to be
questioned further, that all her beds were well aired. I sat a while by the kitchen
fire with the landlady, and began to talk to her; but, much as I had heard in her
praise for the shopkeeper had told me she was a varra discreet woman I cannot say
that her manners pleased me much. But her servant made amends, for she was as
pleasant and cheerful a lass as was ever seen; and when we asked her to do anything,
she answered, "Oh yes," with a merry smile, and almost ran to get us what we
wanted. She was about sixteen years old: wore shoes and stockings, and had her hair
tucked up with a comb. The servant at Brownhill was a coarse-looking wench,
barefoot and bare -legged. I examined the kitchen round about; it was crowded with
furniture, drawers, cupboards, dish-covers, pictures, pans, and pots, arranged without
order, except that the plates were on shelves, and the dish-covers hung in rows; these
were very clean, but floors, passages, staircase, everything else dirty. There
were two beds in recesses in the wall; above one of them I noticed a shelf with some
books: it made me think of Chaucer's Clerke of Oxenforde:
Liever had he at his
bed's head
Twenty books clothed in
black and red.
They were baking
oat-bread, which they cut into quarters, and half-baked over the fire, and half-toasted before it There was a suspiciousness about Mrs.
Otto, almost like ill-nature; she was very jealous of any inquiries that might appear
to be made with the faintest idea of a comparison between Leadhills and any other
place, except the advantage was evidently on the side of Leadhills, We had nice honey
to breakfast. When ready to depart, we learned that we might have seen the
library, which we had not thought of till it was too late, and we were very sorry
to go away without seeing it.
Saturday, August 20th.
Left Leadhills at nine o'clock, regretting much that we could not stay another day, that we might have made more minute inquiries
respecting the manner of living of the miners, and been able to form an estimate, from
our own observation, of the degree of knowledge, health, and comfort that there
was among them. The air was keen and cold; we might have supposed it to be three
months later in the season and two hours earlier in the day. The landlady had not
lighted us a fire; so I was obliged to get myself toasted in the kitchen, and when we
set off I put on both grey cloak and spencer.
Our road carried us down
the valley, and we soon lost sight of Leadhills, for the valley made a turn almost immediately, and we saw two miles, perhaps,
before us; the glen sloped somewhat rapidly heathy, bare, no hut or house. Passed by a
shepherd, who was sitting upon the ground, reading, with the book on his knee,
screened from the wind by his plaid, while a flock of sheep were feeding near him
among the rushes and coarse grass for, as we descended we came among lands where grass
grew with the heather. Travelled through several reaches of the glen, which somewhat
resembled the valley of Menock on the other side of Wanlockhead; but it was not near
so beautiful; the forms of the mountains did not melt so exquisitely into each other,
and there was a coldness, and, if I may so speak, a want of simplicity in the
surface of the earth; the heather was poor, not covering a whole hill-side; not in
luxuriant streams and beds interveined with rich verdure; but patchy and stunted,
with here and there coarse grass and rushes. But we soon came in sight of a spot
that impressed us very much. At the lower end of this new reach of the vale
was a decayed tree, beside a decayed cottage, the vale spreading out into a level area
which was one large field, without fence and without division, of a dull yellow
colour; the vale seemed to partake of the desolation of the cottage, and to
participate in its decay. And yet the spot was in its nature so dreary that one would
rather have wondered how it ever came to be tenanted by man, than lament that it was
left to waste and solitude. Yet the encircling hills were so exquisitely formed
that it was impossible to conceive anything more lovely than this place would have
been if the valley and hill-sides had been interspersed with trees, cottages, green
fields, and hedgerows. But all was desolate; the one large field which filled up the
area of the valley appeared, as I have said, in decay, and seemed to retain the
memory of its connexion with man in some way analogous to the ruined building; for it
was as much of a field as Mr. King's best pasture scattered over with his fattest
cattle.
We went on, looking
before us, the place losing nothing of its hold upon our minds, when we discovered a woman sitting right in the middle of the field,
alone, wrapped up in a grey cloak or plaid. She sat motionless all the time we looked
at her, which might be nearly half an hour. We could not conceive why she sat there,
for there were neither sheep nor cattle in the field; her appearance was very
melancholy. In the meantime our road carried us nearer to the cottage, though we were
crossing over the hill to the left, leaving the valley below us, and we perceived that
a part of the building was inhabited, and that what we had supposed to be one
blasted tree was eight trees, four of which were entirely blasted; the others partly so,
and round about the place was a little potato and cabbage garth, fenced with
earth. No doubt, that woman had been an inhabitant of the cottage. However this might be,
there was so much obscurity and uncertainty about her, and her figure agreed so
well with the desolation of the place, that we were indebted to the chance of her
being there for some of the most interesting feelings that we had ever had from natural
objects connected with man in dreary solitariness.
We had been advised to go
along the new road, which would have carried us down the vale; but we met some travellers who recommended us to climb the hill,
and go by the village of Crawford John as being much nearer. We had a long hill, and
after having reached the top, steep and bad roads, so we continued to walk for a
considerable way. The air was cold and clear the sky blue. We walked cheerfully along
in the sunshine, each of us alone, only William had the charge of the horse and
car, so he sometimes took a ride, which did but poorly recompense him for the
trouble of driving. I never travelled with more cheerful spirits than this day. Our
road was along the side of a high moor. I can always walk over a moor with a
light foot; I seem to be drawn more closely to nature in such places than anywhere
else; or rather I feel more strongly the power of nature over me, and am better
satisfied with myself for being able to find enjoyment in what unfortunately to many
persons is either dismal or insipid. This moor, however, was more than commonly
interesting ; we could see a long way, and on every side of us were larger or smaller
tracts of cultivated land. Some were extensive forms, yet in so large a waste they
did but look small, with farm-houses, barns, etc., others like little cottages,
with enough to feed a cow, and supply the family with vegetables. In looking at
these farms we had always one feeling. Why did the plough stop there? Why might not
they as well have carried it twice as far? There were no hedgerows near the farms,
and very few trees. As we were passing along, we saw an old man, the first we had
seen in a Highland bonnet, walking with a staff at a very slow pace by the edge of
one of the moorland corn-fields; he wore a grey plaid, and a dog was by his side.
There was a scriptural solemnity in this man's figure, a sober simplicity which was
most impressive. Scotland is the country above all others that I have seen,
in which a man of imagination may carve out his own pleasures. There are so many
inhabited solitudes, and the employments of the people are so immediately
connected with the places where you find them, and their dresses so simple, so much alike,
yet, from their being folding garments, admitting of an endless variety, and
falling often so gracefully.
After some time we
descended towards a broad vale, passed one farm-house, sheltered by fir trees, with a burn close to it ; children playing, linen
bleaching. The vale was open pastures and corn-fields unfenced, the land poor. The village
of Crawfordjohn on the slope of a hill a long way before us to the left.
Asked about our road of a man who was driving a cart; he told us to go through the
village, then along some fields, and we should come to a "herd's house by the burn
side." The highway was right through the vale, unfenced on either side; the people
of the village, who were making hay, all stared at us and our carriage. We
inquired the road of a middle-aged man, dressed in a shabby black coat, at work in
one of the hay fields; he looked like the minister of the place, and when he spoke we
felt assured that he was so, for he was not sparing of hard words, which, however, he
used with great propriety, and he spoke like one who had been accustomed to
dictate. Our car wanted mending in the wheel, and we asked him if there was a blacksmith
in the village. "Yes," he replied, but when we showed him the wheel he told
William that he might mend it himself without a blacksmith, and he would put him in the
way; so he fetched hammer and nails and gave his directions, which William obeyed,
and repaired the damage entirely to his own satisfaction and the priest's, who did
not offer to lend any assistance himself; not as if he would not have been willing in
case of need; but as if it were more natural for him to dictate, and because he
thought it more fit that William should do it himself. He spoke much about the
propriety of every man's lending all the assistance in his power to travellers, and
with some ostentation of self-praise. Here I observed a honey-suckle and some
flowers growing in a garden, the first I had seen in Scotland. It is a pretty
cheerful-looking village, but must be very cold in winter; it stands on a hillside, and
the vale itself is very high ground, unsheltered by trees.
Left the village behind
us, and our road led through irable ground for a considerable way, on which were growing very good crops of corn and
potatoes. Our friend accompanied us to show us the way, and Coleridge and he had a
scientific conversation concerning the uses and properties of lime and other
manures. He seemed to be a well-informed man; somewhat pedantic in his manners ; but this
might be only the difference between Scotch and English.
Soon after he had parted
from us, we came upon a stony, rough road over a black moor; and presently to the "herd's house by the burn side." We could
hardly cross the burn dry-shod, over which was the only road to the cottage. In
England there would have been stepping-stones or a bridge; but the Scotch need not be
afraid of wetting their bare feet The hut had its little kail-garth fenced with
earth; there was no other enclosure but the common, heathy with coarse grass.
Travelled along the common for some miles, before we joined the great road from Longtown to
Glasgow saw on the bare hill-sides at a distance, sometimes a solitary farm, now and
then a plantation, and one very large wood, with an appearance of richer ground
above ; but it was so very high we could not think it possible. Having descended
considerably, the common was no longer of a peat-mossy brown heath colour, but grass
with rushes was its chief produce; there was sometimes a solitary hut, no enclosures
except the kail-garth, and sheep pasturing in flocks, with shepherd-boys tending
them. I remember one boy in particular; he had no hat on, and only had a grey
plaid wrapped about him. It is nothing to describe, but on a bare moor, alone with his
sheep, standing, as he did, in utter quietness and silence, there was something
uncommonly impressive in his appearance, a solemnity which recalled to our minds
the old man in the corn-field. We passed many people who were mowing, or raking the
grass of the common; it was little better than rushes; but they did not mow straight
forward, only here and there, where it was the best; in such a place hay-cocks
had an uncommon appearance to us.
After a long descent we
came to some plantations which were not far from Douglas Mill. The country for some time had been growing into cultivation, and
now it was a wide vale with large tracts of corn; trees in clumps, no hedgerows,
which always make a country look bare and unlovely. For my part, I was better pleased
with the desert places we had left behind, though no doubt the inhabitants of
this place think it "a varra bonny spot," for the Scotch are always pleased with
their own abode, be it what it may ; and afterwards at Edinburgh, when we were
talking with a bookseller of our travels, he observed that it was "a fine country near
Douglas Mill." Douglas Mill is a single house, a large inn, being one of the
regular stages between Longtown and Glasgow, and therefore a fair specimen of the best
of the country inns of Scotland. As soon as our car stopped at the door we felt
the difference. At an English inn of this size, a waiter, or the master or
mistress, would have been at the door immediately, but we remained some time
before anybody came; then a barefooted lass made her appearance, but she only looked at
us and went away. The mistress, a remarkably handsome woman, showed us into a large
parlour; we ordered mutton-chops, and I finished my letter to Mary; writing on the
same window- ledge on which William had written to me two years before.
After dinner, William and
I sat by a little mill-race in the garden. We had left Leadhills and Wanlockhead far above us, and now were come into a warmer
climate; but there was no richness in the face of the country. The shrubs looked cold
and poor, and yet there were some very fine trees within a little distance of
Douglas Mill, so that the reason, perhaps, why the few low shrubs and trees which were
growing in the gardens seemed to be so uniuxuriant, might be, that there being no
hedgerows, the general appearance of the country was naked, and I could not help seeing
the same coldness where, perhaps, it did not exist in itself to any great degree,
for the corn crops are abundant, and I should think the soil is not bad. While
we were sitting at the door, two of the landlady's children came out; the elder,
a boy about six years old, was running away from his little brother, in petticoats;
the ostler called out, "Sandy, tak' your wee brither wi' you"; another voice from
the window, "Sawny, dinna leave your wee brither"; the mother then came,
"Alexander, tak your wee brother by the hand"; Alexander obeyed, and the two went off in
peace together. We were charged eightpence for hay at this inn, another
symptom of our being in Scotland. Left Douglas Mill at about three o'clock; travelled
through an open corn country, the tracts of corn large and unenclosed. We often
passed women or children who were watching a single cow while it fed upon the slips of
grass between the corn. William asked a strong woman, about thirty years of age, who
looked like the mistress of a family I suppose moved by some sentiment of compassion
for her being so employed, if the cow would eat the corn if it were left to
itself: she smiled at his simplicity. It is indeed a melancholy thing to see a
full-grown woman thus waiting, as it were, body and soul devoted to the poor beast; yet
even this is better than working in a manufactory the day through.
We came to a moorish
tract; saw before us the hills of Loch Lomond, Ben Lomond and another, distinct each by itself. Not far from the roadside were some
benches placed in rows in the middle of a large field, with a sort of covered shed like
a sentry- box, but much more like those boxes which the Italian puppet-showmen in
London use. We guessed that it was a pulpit or tent for preaching, and were told
that a sect met there occasionally, who held that toleration was un scriptural, and
would have all religions but their own exterminated. I have forgotten what name the man
gave to this sect; we could not learn that it differed in any other respect from
the Church of Scotland. Travelled for some miles along the open country, which was
all without hedgerows, sometimes arable, sometimes moorish, and often whole tracts
covered with grunsel. There was one field, which one might have believed had been
sown with grunsel, it was so regularly covered with it a large square field upon a
slope, its boundary marked to our eyes only by the termination of the bright
yellow; contiguous to it were other fields of the same size and shape, one of clover, the
other of potatoes, all equally regular crops. The oddness of this appearance, the
grunsel being uncommonly luxuriant, and the field as yellow as gold, made
William laugh, Coleridge was melancholy upon it, observing that there was land enough
wasted to rear a healthy child.
We left behind us,
considerably to the right, a single high mountain; I have forgotten its name; we had had it long in view. Saw before us the river
Clyde, its course at right angles to our road, which now made a turn, running
parallel with the river; the town of Lanerk in sight long before we came to it. I was
somewhat disappointed with the first view of the Clyde: the banks, though
swelling and varied, had a poverty in their appearance, chiefly from the want of wood
and hedge- rows. Crossed the river and ascended towards Lanerk, which stands upon a
hill. When we were within about a mile of the town, William parted from Coleridge
and me, to go to the celebrated waterfalls. Coleridge did not attempt to drive the
horse; but led him all the way. We inquired for the best inn, and were told that the
New Inn was the best; but that they had very "genteel apartments" at the Black Bull,
and made less charges, and the Black Bull was at the entrance of the town, so we
thought we would stop there, as the horse was obstinate and weary. But when we came
to the Black Bull we had no wish to enter the apartments; for it seemed the
abode of dirt and poverty, yet it was a large building. The town showed a sort of
French face, and would have done much more, had it not been for the true British tinge of
coal-smoke; the doors and windows dirty, the shops dull, the women too seemed to be
very dirty in their dress. The town itself is not ugly; the houses are of grey
stone, the streets not very narrow, and the market-place decent. The New Inn is a
handsome old stone building, formerly a gentleman's house. We were conducted into a
parlour, where people had been drinking; the tables were unwiped, chairs in
disorder, the floor dirty, and the smell of liquors was most offensive. We were tired,
however, and rejoiced in our tea.
The evening sun was now
sending a glorious light through the street, which ran from west to east; the houses were of a fire red, and the faces of the people
as they walked westward were almost like a blacksmith when he is at work by
night. I longed to be out, and meet with William, that we might see the Falls before the
day was gone. Poor Coleridge was unwell, and could not go. I inquired my road,
and a little girl told me she would go with me to the porter's lodge, where I might
be admitted. I was grieved to hear that the Falls of the Clyde were shut up in a
gentleman's grounds, and to be viewed only by means of lock and key. Much, however,
as the pure feeling with which one would desire to visit such places is disturbed by
useless, impertinent, or even unnecessary interference with nature, yet when I
was there the next morning I seemed to feel it a less disagreeable thing than in
smaller and more delicate spots, if I may use the phrase. My guide, a sensible little
girl, answered my inquiries very prettily. She was eight years old, read in the
"Collection," a book which all the Scotch children whom I have questioned read In. I
found it was a collection of hymns; she could repeat several of Dr. Watts. We passed
through a great part of the town, then turned down a steep hill, and came in view
of a long range of cotton mills, 1 the largest and loftiest I had ever seen;
climbed upwards again, our road leading us along the top of the left bank of the river ;
both banks very steep and richly wooded. The girl left me at the porter's lodge.
Having asked after William, I was told that no person had been there, or could enter
but by the gate. The night was coming on, therefore I did not venture to go in, as
I had no hope of meeting William. I had a delicious walk alone through the wood;
the sound of the water was very solemn, and even the cotton mills in the fading light
of evening had somewhat of the majesty and stillness of the natural objects. It was
nearly dark when I reached the inn. I found Coleridge sitting by a good fire, which
always makes an inn room look comfortable. In a few minutes William arrived ; he had
heard of me at the gate, and followed as quickly as he could, shouting after me. He
was pale and exceedingly tired.
After he had left us he
had taken a wrong road, and while looking about to set himself right had met with a barefooted boy, who said he would go with
him. The little fellow carried him by a wild path to the upper of the Falls, the
Boniton Linn, and coming down unexpectedly upon it, he was exceedingly affected
by the solemn grandeur of the place. This fall is not much admired or spoken of
by travellers; you have never a full, breast view of it; it does not make a
complete self-satisfying place, an abode of its own, as a perfect waterfall seems
to me to do; but the river, down which you look through a long vista of steep and
ruin-like rocks, the roaring of the waterfall, and the solemn evening lights, must
have been most impressive. One of the rocks on the near bank, even in broad
daylight, as we saw it the next morning, is exactly like the fractured arch of an abbey.
With the lights and shadows of evening upon it, the resemblance must have been
much more striking.
William's guide was a
pretty boy, and he was exceedingly pleased with him. Just as they were quitting the waterfall, William's mind being full of the
majesty of the scene, the little fellow pointed to the top of a rock, "There's a fine
slae-bush there." "Ay," said William, "but there are no slaes upon it," which was
true enough; but I suppose the child remembered the slaes of another summer, though,
as he said, he was but "half seven years old," namely, six and a half. He conducted
William to the other fall, and as they were going along a narrow path, they came to
a small cavern, where William lost him, and looking about, saw his pretty figure
in a sort of natural niche fitted for a statue, from which the boy jumped out
laughing, delighted with the success of his trick. William told us a great deal
about him, while he sat by the fire, and of the pleasure of his walk, often
repeating, " I wish you had been with me."
Having no change, he gave
the boy sixpence, which was certainly, if he had formed any expectations at all, far beyond them ; but he received it with the
utmost indifference, without any remark of surprise or pleasure; most likely he
did not know how many halfpence he could get for it, and twopence would have
pleased him more. My little girl was delighted with the sixpence I gave her, and
said she would buy a book with it on Monday morning. What a difference between the
manner of living and education of boys and of girls among the lower classes of people in
towns! she had never seen the Falls of the Clyde, nor had ever been further than
the porter's lodge ; the boy, I daresay, knew every hiding-place in every accessible
rock, as well as the fine "slae bushes" and the nut trees.
SECOND WEEK
Sunday August 31st. The
morning was very hot, a morning to tempt us to linger by the water-side. I wished to have had the day before us, expecting so much
from what William had seen ; but when we went there, I did not desire to stay
longer than till the hour which we had prescribed to ourselves ; for it was a rule not to
be broken in upon, that the person who conducted us to the Falls was to remain by
our side till we chose to depart. We left our inn immediately after breakfast.
The lanes were full of people going to church; many of the middle-aged women wore long
scarlet cardinals, and were without hats: they brought to my mind the women of
Goslar as they used to go to church in their silver or gold caps, with their long
cloaks, black or coloured.
The banks of the Clyde
from Lanerk to the Falls rise immediately from the river; they are lofty and steep, and covered with wood. The road to the Falls
is along the top of one of the banks, and to the left you have a prospect of the open
country, corn fields and scattered houses. To the right, over the river, the
country spreads out, as it were, into a plain covered over with hills, no one hill much
higher than another, but hills all over; there were endless pastures overgrown with
broom, and scattered trees, without hedges or fences of any kind, and no distinct
footpaths. It was delightful to see the lasses in gay dresses running like cattle
among the broom, making their way straight forward towards the river, here and there as
it might chance. They waded across the stream, and, when they had reached the top
of the opposite bank, sat down by the road-side, about half a mile from the
town, to put on their shoes and cotton stockings, which they brought tied up in pocket-
handkerchiefs. The porter's lodge is about a mile from Lanerk, and the
lady's house for the whole belongs to a lady, whose name I have forgotten is upon a
hill at a little distance. We walked, after we had entered the private grounds,
perhaps two hundred yards along a gravel carriage-road, then came to a little side
gate, which opened upon a narrow gravel path under trees, and in a minute and a
half, or less, were directly opposite to the great waterfall. I was much affected by
the first view of it. The majesty and strength of the water, for I had never before
seen so large a cataract, struck me with astonishment, which died away, giving place to
more delightful feelings; though there were some buildings that I could have
wished had not been there, though at first unnoticed. The chief of them was a neat,
white, lady-like house, very near to the waterfall. William and Coleridge
however were in a better and perhaps wiser humour, and did not dislike the house; indeed,
it was a very nice-looking place, with a moderate-sized garden, leaving the green
fields free and open. This house is on the side of the river opposite to the grand
house and the pleasure-grounds. The waterfall Cora Linn is composed of two falls, with
a sloping space, which appears to be about twenty yards between, but is much more.
The basin which receives the fall is enclosed by noble rocks, with trees, chiefly
hazels, birch, and ash growing out of their sides whenever there is any hold for
them; and a magnificent resting-place it is for such a river; I think more grand
than the Falls themselves.
After having stayed some
time, we returned by the same footpath into the main carriage-road, and soon came upon what William calls an ell-wide gravel
walk, from which we had different views of the Linn. We sat upon a bench, placed
for the sake of one of these views, whence we looked down upon the waterfall, and
over the open country, and saw a ruined tower, called Wallace's Tower, which stands at
a very little distance from the fall, and is an interesting object. A lady and
gentleman, more expeditious tourists than ourselves, came to the spot; they left us
at the seat, and we found them again at another station above the Falls.
Coleridge, who is always good-natured enough to enter into conversation with anybody whom
he meets in his way, began to talk with the gentleman, who observed that it was a
majestic waterfall Coleridge was delighted with the accuracy of the epithet,
particularly as he had been settling in his own mind the precise meaning of the words
grand, majestic, sublime, etc., and had discussed the subject with William at
some length the day before. "Yes, sir," says Coleridge, "it's a majestic waterfall."
"Sublime and beautiful," replied his friend. Poor Coleridge could make no answer,
and, not very desirous to continue the conversation, came to us and related the
story, laughing heartily.
The distance from one
Linn to the other may be half a mile or more, along the same ell-wide walk. We came to a pleasure-house, of which the little girl had
the key; she said it was called the Fog-house, because it was lined with "fog,"
namely moss. On the outside it resembled some of the huts in the prints belonging to
Captain Cook's Voyages, and within was like a hay-stack scooped out. It was
circular, with a dome-like roof, a seat all round fixed to the wall, and a table in the
middle, seat, wall, roof, and table all covered with moss in the neatest manner
possible. It was as snug as a bird's nest ; I wish we had such a one at the top of our
orchard, only a great deal smaller. We afterwards found that huts of the same kind
were common in the pleasure-grounds of Scotland; but we never saw any that were so
beautifully wrought as this. It had, however, little else to recommend it, the
situation being chosen without judgment; there was no prospect from it, nor was it a
place of seclusion and retirement, for it stood close to the ell-wide gravel
walk. We wished we could have shoved it about a hundred yards further on, when we
arrived at a bench which was also close to the walk, for just below the bench, the walk
elbowing out into a circle, there was a beautiful spring of clear water, which we
could see rise up continually, at the bottom of a round stone basin full to the brim,
the water gushing out at a little outlet and passing away under the walk. A reason
was wanted for placing the hut where it is; what a good one would this little
spring have furnished for bringing it hither ! Along the whole of the path were
openings at intervals for views of the river, but, as almost always happens in
gentlemen's grounds, they were injudiciously managed; you were prepared for a dead
stand by a parapet, a painted seat, or some other device.
We stayed some time at
the Boniton Fall, which has one great advantage over the other falls, that it is at the termination of the pleasure-grounds, and
we see no traces of the boundary-line; yet, except under some accidental
circumstances, such as a sunset like that of the preceding evening, it is greatly inferior
to the Cora Linn. We returned to the inn to dinner. The landlord set the first dish
upon the table, as is common in England, and we were well waited upon. This first
dish was true Scottish a boiled sheep's head, with the hair singed off; Coleridge
and I ate heartily of it; we had barley broth, in which the sheep's head had been
boiled. A party of tourists whom we had met in the pleasure-grounds drove from the
door while we were waiting for dinner; I guess they were fresh from England, for
they had stuffed the pockets of their carriage with bundles of heather, roots and
all, just as if Scotland grew no heather but on the banks of the Clyde. They
passed away with their treasure towards Loch Lomond. A party of boys, dressed all alike
in blue, very neat, were standing at the chaise-door; we conjectured they were charity
scholars; but found on inquiry that they were apprentices to the cotton factory;
we were told that they were well instructed in reading and writing. We had seen in
the morning a flock of girls dressed in grey coming out of the factory, probably
apprentices also.
After dinner set off
towards Hamilton, but on foot, for we had to turn aside to the Cartland Rocks, and our car was to meet us on the road. A guide attended
us, who might almost in size, and certainly in activity, have been compared with
William's companion who hid himself in the niche of the cavern. His method of
walking and very quick step soon excited our attention. I could hardly keep up with him ;
he paddled by our side, just reaching to my shoulder, like a little dog, with his
long snout pushed before him for he had an enormous nose, and walked with his head
foremost. I said to him, "How quick you walk!" he replied, "That was not quick
walking," and when I asked him what he called so, he said "Five miles an hour," and
then related in how many hours he had lately walked from Lanerk to Edinburgh, done
some errands, and returned to Lanerk I have forgotten the particulars, but it was a
very short time and added that he had an old father who could walk at the rate of
four miles an hour, for twenty-four miles, any day, and had never had an hour's
sickness in his life. "Then," said I, "he has not drunk much strong liquor?" "Yes,
enough to drown him." From his eager manner of uttering this, I inferred that he himself
was a drinker; and the man who met us with the car told William that he gained
a great deal of money as an errand-goer, but spent it all in tippling. He had
been a shoe- maker, but could not bear the confinement on account of a weakness in
his chest.
The neighbourhood of
Lanerk is exceedingly pleasant; we came to a sort of district of glens or little valleys that cleave the hills, leaving a cheerful,
open country above them, with no superior hills, but an undulating surface. Our guide
pointed to the situation of the Cartland Crags. We were to cross a narrow valley,
and walk down on the other side, and then we should be at the spot; but the little
fellow made a sharp turn down a footpath to the left, saying, "We must have some
conversation here." He paddled on with his small pawing feet till we came right
opposite to a gentleman's house on the other side of the valley, when he halted,
repeating some words, I have forgotten what, which were taken up by the most distinct
echo I ever heard this is saying little: it was the most distinct echo that it is
possible to conceive. It shouted the names of our fireside friends in the very tone
in which William and Coleridge spoke; but it seemed to make a joke of me, and I
could not help laughing at my own voice, it was so shrill and pert, exactly as if
some one had been mimicking it very successfully, with an intention of making me
ridiculous. I wished Joanna had been there to laugh, for the echo is an excellent
laugher, and would have almost made her believe that it was a true story which
William has told of her and the mountains. We turned back, crossed the valley, went
through the orchard and plantations belonging to the gentleman's house. By the bye,
we observed to our guide that the echo must bring many troublesome visitors to
disturb the quiet of the owner of that house, "Oh no," said he, "he glories in much
company." He was a native of that neighbourhood, had made a moderate fortune abroad,
purchased an estate, built the house, and raised the plantations; and further, had
made a convenient walk through his woods to the Cartland Crags. The house was
modest and neat, and though not adorned in the best taste, and though the
plantations were of fir, we looked at it with great pleasure, there was such true liberality
and kind heartedness in leaving his orchard path open, and his walks unobstructed
by gates. I hope this goodness is not often abused by plunderers of the apple-trees,
which were hung with tempting apples close to the path.
At the termination of the
little valley, we descended through a wood along a very steep path to a muddy stream running over limestone rocks; turned up to
the left along the bed of the stream, and soon we were closed in by rocks on each
side. They were very lofty of limestone, trees starting out of them, high and low,
overhanging the stream or shooting up towards the sky. No place of the kind could be
more beautiful if the stream had been clear, but it was of a muddy yellow
colour; had it been a large river, one might have got the better of the unpleasantness
of the muddy water in the grandeur of its roaring, the boiling up of the foam over
the rocks, or the obscurity of its pools.
We had been told that the
Cartland Crags were better worth going to see than the Falls of the Clyde. I did not think so; but I have seen rocky dells
resembling this before, with clear water instead of that muddy stream, and never saw
anything like the Falls of the Clyde. It would be a delicious spot to have near one's
house; one would linger out many a day in the cool shade of the caverns, and the
stream would soothe one by its murmuring; still, being an old friend, one would not
love it the less for its homely face. Even we, as we passed along, could not help
stopping for a long while to admire the beauty of the lazy foam, for ever in motion,
and never moved away, in a still place of the water, covering the whole surface of
it with streaks and lines and ever-varying circles. Wild marjoram grew upon the
rocks in great perfection and beauty; our guide gave me a bunch, and said he
should come hither to collect a store for tea for the winter, and that it was "varra
halesome": he drank none else. We walked perhaps half a mile along the bed of the
river; but it might seem to be much further than it was, owing to the difficulty of
the path, and the sharp and many turnings of the glen. Passed two of Wallace's Caves.
There is scarce a noted glen in Scotland that has not a cave for Wallace or some
other hero. Before we left the river the rocks became less lofty, turned into a wood
through which was a convenient path upwards, met the owner of the house and the
echo-ground, and thanked him for the pleasure which he had provided for us and other
travellers by making such pretty pathways.
It was four o'clock when
we reached the place where the car was waiting. We were anxious to be off, as we had fifteen miles to go ; but just as we were
seating ourselves we found that the cushions were missing. William was forced to
go back to the town, a mile at least, and Coleridge and I waited with the car. It
rained, and we had some fear that the evening would be wet, but the rain soon
ceased, though the sky continued gloomy an unfortunate circumstance, for we had to travel
through a beautiful country, and of that sort which is most set off by sunshine
and pleasant weather.
Travelled through the
Vale or Trough of the Clyde, as it is called, for ten or eleven miles, having the river on our right. We had fine views both up
and down the river for the first three or four miles, our road being not close to it,
but above its banks, along the open country, which was here occasionally
intersected by hedgerows.
Left our car in the road,
and turned down a field to the Fall of Stonebyres, another of the falls of the Clyde, which I had not heard spoken of; therefore it
gave me the more pleasure. We saw it from the top of the bank of the river at a
little distance. It has not the imposing majesty of Cora Linn; but it has the advantage
of being left to itself, a grand solitude in the heart of a populous country. We had a
prospect above and below it, of cultivated grounds, with hay-stacks, houses,
hills; but the river's banks were lonesome, steep, and woody, with rocks near the fall.
A little further on, came
more into company with the river; sometimes we were close to it, sometimes above it, but always at no great distance; and now the
vale became more interesting and amusing. It is, very populous, with villages,
hamlets, single cottages, or farm-houses embosomed in orchards, and scattered over with
gentlemen's houses, some of them very ugly, tall and obtrusive, others neat and
comfortable. We seemed now to have got into a country where poverty and riches were
shaking hands together; pears and apples, of which the crop was abundant, hung over
the road, often growing in orchards unfenced; or there might be bunches of broom
along the road-side in an interrupted line, that looked like a hedge till we came
to it and saw the gaps. Bordering on these fruitful orchards perhaps would be a
patch, its chief produce being gorse or broom. There was nothing like a moor or
common anywhere; but small plots of uncultivated ground were left high and low,
among the potatoes, corn, cabbages, which grew intermingled, now among trees, now
bare. The Trough of the Clyde is, indeed, a singular and very interesting region;
it is somewhat like the upper pan of the vale of Nith, but above the Nith is
much less cultivated ground without hedgerows or orchards, or anything that looks
like a rich country. We met crowds of people coming from the kirk; the lasses were
gaily dressed, often in white gowns, coloured satin bonnets, and coloured silk
handkerchiefs, and generally with their shoes and stockings in a bundle
hung on their arm. Before we left the river the vale became much less
interesting, resembling a poor English country, the fields being large, and
unluxuriant hedges.
It had been dark long
before we reached Hamilton, and William had some difficulty in driving the tired horse through the town. At the inn they hesitated
about being able to give us beds, the house being brimfull lights at every window. We
were rather alarmed for our accommodations during the rest of the tour, supposing
the house to be filled with tourists; but they were in general only regular
travellers; for out of the main road from town to town we saw scarcely a carriage, and the
inns were empty. There was nothing remarkable in the treatment we met with at this
inn, except the lazy impertinence of the waiter. It was a townish place, with a
great larder set out; the house throughout dirty.
Monday, August 12,nd.
Immediately after breakfast walked to the Duke of Hamilton's house to view the picture-gallery, chiefly the famous picture of Daniel
in the Lions' Den, by Rubens. It is a large building, without grandeur, a
heavy, lumpish mass, after the fashion of the Hopetoun H, 1 only five times the size,
and with longer legs, which makes it gloomy. We entered the gate, passed the
porter's lodge, where we saw nobody, and stopped at the front door, as William had done
two years before with Sir William Rush's family. We were met by a little
mean-looking man, shabbily dressed, out of livery, who, we found, was the porter. After
scanning us over, he told us that we ought not to have come to that door. We said we
were sorry for the mistake, but as one of our party had been there two years
before, and was admitted by the same entrance, we had supposed it was the regular way.
After many hesitations, and having kept us five minutes waiting in the large hall,
while he went to consult with the housekeeper, he informed us that we could not
be admitted at that time, the housekeeper being unwell; but that we might return in
an hour: he then conducted us through long gloomy passages to an obscure door at the
corner of the house. We asked if we might be permitted to walk in the park in the
meantime; and he told us that this would not be agreeable to the Duke's family. We
returned to the inn discontented enough, but resolved not to waste an hour, if there
were anything else in the neighbourhood worth seeing. The waiter told us
there was a curious place called Baroncleugh, with gardens cut out in rocks, and we
determined to go thither. We had to walk through the town, which may be about as
large as Penrith, and perhaps a mile further, along a dusty turnpike road. The
morning was sunny, and windy, and we were half tired before we reached the place;
but were amply repaid for our trouble.
The general face of the
country near Hamilton is much in the ordinary English style; not very hilly, with hedgerows, corn fields, and stone houses. The Clyde
is here an open river with low banks, and the country spreads out so wide that
there is no appearance of a regular vale. Baroncleugh is in a beautiful deep glen
through which runs the river Avon, a stream that falls into the Clyde. The house
stands very sweetly in complete retirement; it has its gardens and terraces one
above another, with flights of steps between, box-trees and yew-trees cut in fantastic
shapes, flower-borders and summer-houses; and, still below, apples and pears
were hanging in abundance on the branches of large old trees, which grew intermingled
with the natural wood, elms, beeches, etc., even to the water's edge. The whole
place is in perfect harmony with the taste of our ancestors, and the yews and
hollies are shaven as nicely, and the gravel walks and flower-borders kept in as exact
order, as if the spirit of the first architect of the terraces still presided over them.
The opposite bank of the river is left in its natural wildness, and nothing was to be
seen higher up but the deep dell, its steep banks being covered with fine trees, a
beautiful relief or contrast to the garden, which is one of the most elaborate old
things ever seen, a little hanging garden of Babylon.
I was sorry to hear that
the owner of this sweet place did not live there always. He had built a small thatched house to eke out the old one: it was a neat
dwelling, with no false ornaments. We were exceedingly sorry to quit this spot,
which is left to nature and past times, and should have liked to have pursued the glen
further up; we were told that there was a ruined castle; and the walk itself must be
very delightful; but we wished to reach Glasgow in good time, and had to go
again to Hamilton House. Returned to the town by a much shorter road, and were
very angry with the waiter for not having directed us to it; but he was too great a
man to speak three words more than he could help. We stopped at the proper door of the Duke's house, and seated ourselves
humbly upon a bench, waiting the pleasure of the porter, who, after a little time,
informed us that we could not be admitted, giving no reason whatever. When we got to
the inn, we could just gather from the waiter that it was not usual to refuse
admittance to strangers; but that was all: he could not, or would not, help us, so we
were obliged to give it up, which mortified us, for I had wished much to see the
picture. William vowed that he would write that very night to Lord Archibald Hamilton,
stating the whole matter, which he did from Glasgow.
I ought to have mentioned
the park, though, as we were not allowed to walk there, we saw but little of it. It looked pleasant, as all parks with fine trees
must be, but, as it seemed to be only a large, nearly level, plain, it could not be a
particularly beautiful park, though it borders upon the Clyde, and the Avon runs, I
believe, through it, after leaving the solitude of the glen of Baroncleugh.
Quitted Hamilton at about
eleven o'clock. There is nothing interesting between Hamilton and Glasgow till we came to Bothwell Castle, a few miles from
Hamilton. The country is cultivated, but not rich, the fields large, a perfect
contrast to the huddling together of hills and trees, corn and pasture grounds,
hay-stacks, cottages, orchards, broom and gorse, but chiefly broom, that had amused
us so much the evening before in passing through the Trough of the Clyde. A native
of Scotland would not probably be satisfied with the account I have given of the
Trough of the Clyde, for it is one of the most celebrated scenes in Scotland. We
certainly received less pleasure from it than we had expected; but it was plain
that this was chiefly owing to the unfavourable circumstances under which we saw it a
gloomy sky and a cold blighting wind. It is a very beautiful district, yet there,
as in all the other scenes of Scotland celebrated for their fertility, we found
something which gave us a notion of barrenness, of what was not altogether genial. The
new fir and larch plantations, here as in almost every other part of Scotland,
contributed not a little to this effect.
Crossed the Clyde not far
from Hamilton, and had the river for some miles at a distance from us, on our left; but after having gone, it might be, three
miles, we came to a porter's lodge on the left side of the road, where we were to
turn to Bothwell Castle, which is in Lord Douglas's grounds. The woman who keeps
the gate brought us a book, in which we wrote down our names. Went about half a
mile before we came to the pleasure-grounds. Came to a large range of stables, where
we were to leave the car; but there was no one to unyoke the horse, so William was
obliged to do it himself, a task which lie performed very awkwardly, being then new
to it. We saw the ruined castle embosomed in trees, passed the house, and soon
found ourselves on the edge of a steep brow immediately above and overlooking the course
of the river Clyde through a deep hollow between woods and green steeps. We had
approached at right angles from the main road to the place over a flat, and had
seen nothing before us but a nearly level country terminated by distant slopes, the
Clyde hiding himself in his deep bed. It was exceedingly delightful to come thus
unexpectedly upon such a beautiful region.
The Castle stands nobly,
overlooking the Clyde. When we came up to it I was hurt to see that flower-borders had taken place of the natural overgrowings of
the ruin, the scattered stones and wild plants. It is a large and grand pile, of red
freestone, harmonizing perfectly with the rocks of the river, from which, no doubt,
it has been hewn. When I was a little accustomed to the unnaturalness of a modern
garden, I could not help admiring the excessive beauty and luxuriance of some of
the plants, particularly the purple-flowered clematis, and a broad -leaved creeping
plant without flowers, which scrambled up the castle wall along with the ivy,
and spread its vine-like branches so lavishly that it seemed to be in its natural
situation, and one could not help thinking that, though not self-planted among the
ruins of this country, it must somewhere have its natural abode in such places.
If Bothwell Castle had not been close to the Douglas mansion we should have been
disgusted with the possessor's miserable conception of "adorning" such a venerable
ruin; but it is so very near to the house that of necessity the pleasure-grounds must
have extended beyond it, and perhaps the neatness of a shaven lawn and the complete
desolation natural to a ruin might have made an unpleasing contrast; and besides,
being within the precincts of the pleasure-grounds, and so very near to the modern
mansion of a noble family, it has forfeited in some degree its independent majesty,
and becomes a tributary to the mansion; its solitude being interrupted, it has no
longer the same command over the mind in sending it back into past times, or excluding
the ordinary feelings which we bear about us in daily life. We had then only to
regret that the castle and house were so near to each other; and it was impossible not
to regret it; for the ruin presides in state over the river, far from city or town, as
if it might have had a peculiar privilege to preserve its memorials of past ages and
maintain its own character and independence for centuries to come.
We sat upon a bench under
the high trees, and had beautiful views of the different reaches of the river above and below. On the opposite bank, which is
finely wooded with elms and other trees, are the remains of an ancient priory, built
upon a rock : and rock and ruin are so blended together tbat it is impossible to
separate the one from the other. Nothing can be more beautiful than the little remnants
of this holy place; elm trees for we were near enough to distinguish them by their
branches grow out of the walls, and overshadow a small but very elegant window. It can
scarcely be conceived what a grace the castle and priory impart to each other; and
the river Clyde flows on smooth and unruffled below, seeming to my thoughts more
in harmony with the sober and stately images of former times, than if it had roared
over a rocky channel, forcing its sound upon the ear. It blended gently with
the warbling of the smaller birds and chattering of the larger ones that had made
their nests in the ruins. In this fortress the chief of the English nobility were
confined after the battle of Bannockburn. If a man is to be a prisoner, he scarcely
could have a more pleasant place to solace his captivity; but I thought that for
close confinement I should prefer the banks of a lake or the sea-side. The
greatest charm of a brook or river is in the liberty to pursue it through its windings;
you can then take it in whatever mood you like; silent or noisy, sportive or
quiet. The beauties of a brook or river must be sought, and the pleasure is in
going in search of them; those of a lake or of the sea come to you of themselves. These
rude warriors cared little perhaps about either; and yet if one may judge
from the writings of Chaucer and from the old romances, more interesting passions
were connected with natural objects in the days of chivalry than now, though
going in search of scenery, as it is called, had not then been thought of. I had
heard nothing of Bothwell Castle, at least nothing that I remembered,
therefore, perhaps, my pleasure was greater, compared with what I received elsewhere, than
others might feel.
At our return to the
stables we found an inferior groom, who helped William to yoke the horse, and was very civil. We grew hungry before we had travelled
many miles, and seeing a large public-house it was in a walled court some yards from
the road Coleridge got off the car to inquire if we could dine there, and was
told we could have nothing but eggs. It was a miserable place, very like a French
house; indeed we observed, in almost every part of Scotland, except Edinburgh, that we
were reminded ten times of France and Germany for once of England.
Saw nothing remarkable
after leaving Bothwell, except the first view of Glasgow, at some miles distance, terminated by the mountains of Loch Lomond. The
suburbs of Glasgow extend very far, houses on each side of the highway, all ugly,
and the inhabitants dirty. The roads are very wide; and everything seems to tell
of the neighbourhood of a large town. We were annoyed by carts and dirt, and
the road was full of people, who aU noticed our car in one way or other; the children
often sent a hooting after us.
Wearied completely, we at
last reached the town, and were glad to walk, leading the car to the first decent inn, which was luckily not far from the end of
the town. William, who gained most of his road-knowledge from ostlers, had been
informed of this house by the ostler at Hamilton; it proved quiet and tolerably
cheap, a new building the Saracen's Head. I shall never forget how glad I was to be
landed in a little quiet back-parlour, for my head was beating with the noise of
carts which we had left, and the wearisomeness of the disagreeable objects near the
highway; but with my first pleasant sensations also came the feeling that we were not
in an English inn partly from its half-unfurnished appearance, which is common
in Scotland, for in general the deal wainscots and doors are unpainted, and
partly from the dirtiness of the floors. Having dined, William and I walked to the
post-office, and after much seeking found out a quiet timber-yard wherein to sit down
and read our letter. We then walked a considerable time in the streets, which are
perhaps as handsome as streets can be, which derive no particular effect from their
situation in connexion with natural advantages, such as rivers, sea, or hills. The
Trongate, an old street, is very picturesque high houses, with an intermixture of
gable fronts towards the street. The New Town is built of fine stone, in the best
style of the very best London streets at the west end of the town, but, not being of
brick, they are greatly superior. One thing must strike every stranger in his first
walk through Glasgow an appearance of business and bustle, but no coaches or
gentlemen's carriages; during all the time we walked in the streets I only saw three
carriages, and these were travelling chaises. I also could not but observe a want
of cleanliness in the appearance of the lower orders of the people, and a
dulness in the dress and outside of the whole mass, as they moved along. We
returned to the inn before it was dark. I had a bad headache, and was tired, and we all went
to bed soon.
Tuesday, August 23rd. A
cold morning. Walked to the bleaching-ground, a large field bordering on the Clyde, the banks of which are perfectly flat, and the
general face of the country is nearly so in the neighbourhood of Glasgow. This field,
the whole summer through, is covered with women of all ages, children, and young
girls spreading out their linen, and watching it while it bleaches. The scene
must be very cheerful on a fine day, but it rained when we were there^ and though
there was linen spread out in all parts, and great numbers of women and girls were at
work, yet there would have been many more on a fine day, and they would have
appeared happy, instead of stupid and cheerless. In the middle of the field is a
wash-house, whither the inhabitants of this large town, rich and poor, send or cariy their
linen to be washed. There are two very large rooms, with each a cistern in the
middle for hot water; and all round the rooms are benches for the women to set their
tubs upon. Both the rooms were crowded with washers; there might be a hundred, or
two, or even three; for it is not easy to form an accurate notion of so great a
number; however, the rooms were large, and they were both full. It was amusing to see so
many women, arms, head, and face all in motion, all busy in an ordinary household
employment, in which we are accustomed to see, at the most, only three or four women
employed in one place. The women were very civiL I learnt from them the regulations
of the house; but I have forgotten the particulars. The substance of them is,
that "so much" is to be paid for each tub of water, "so much" for a tub, and the
privilege of washing for a day, and, "so much" to the general overlookers of the
linen, when it is left to be bleached. An old man and woman have this office, who were
walking about, two melancholy figures.
The shops at Glasgow are
large, and like London shops, and we passed by the largest coffee-room I ever saw. You look across the piazza of the Exchange, and
see to the end of the coffee-room, where there is a circular window, the width of
the room. Perhaps there might be thirty gentlemen sitting on the circular bench of
the window, each reading a newspaper. They had the appearance of figures in a
fantoccine, or men seen at the extremity of the opera-house, diminished into puppets. I am sorry I did not see the High Church: both William and I were tired,
and it rained very hard after we had left the bleaching-ground; besides, I am
less eager to walk in a large town than anywhere else; so we put it off, and I have
since repented of my irresolution.
Dined, and left Glasgow
at about three o'clock, in a heavy rain. We were obliged to ride through the streets to keep our feet dry, and, in spite of the
rain, every person as we went along stayed his steps to look at us; indeed, we had
the pleasure of spreading smiles from one end of Glasgow to the other for we
travelled the whole length of the town. A set of schoolboys, perhaps there might be eight,
with satchels over their shoulders, and, except one or two, without shoes and
stockings, yet very well dressed in jackets and trousers, like gentlemen's children,
followed us in great delight, admiring the car and longing to jump up. At last, though
we were seated, they made several attempts to get on behind ; and they looked so
pretty and wild, and at the same time so modest, that we wished to give them a
ride, and there being a little hill near the end of the town, we got off, and four of
them who still remained, the rest having dropped into their homes by the way, took our
places ; and indeed I would have walked two miles willingly, to have had the pleasure
of seeing them so happy. When they were to ride no longer, they scampered away,
laughing and rejoicing. New houses are rising up in great numbers round Glasgow,
citizenlike houses, and new plantations, chiefly of fir; the fields are frequently
enclosed by hedgerows, but there is no richness, nor any particular beauty for some
miles.
The first object that
interested us was a gentleman's house upon a green plain or holm, almost close to the Clyde, sheltered by tall trees, a quiet modest
mansion, and, though white-washed, being an old building, and no other house near
it, or in connexion with it, and standing upon the level field, which belonged to
it, its own domain, the whole scene together brought to our minds an image of the
retiredness and sober elegance of a nunnery; but this might be owing to the greyness
of the afternoon, and our having come immediately from Glasgow, and through a
country which, till now, had either had a townish taint, or at best little of
rural beauty. While we were looking at the house we overtook a foot-traveller, who,
like many others, began to talk about our car. We alighted to walk up a hill, and,
continuing the conversation, the man told us, with something like a national pride,
that it belonged to a Scotch Lord, Lord Semple; he added, that a little further
on we should see a much finer prospect, as fine a one as ever we had seen in our
lives. Accordingly, when we came to the top of the hill, it opened upon us most
magnificently. We saw the Clyde, now a stately sea- river, winding away
mile after mile, spotted with boats and ships, each side of the river hilly, the
right populous with single houses and villages Dunglass Castle upon a promontory, the
whole view terminated by the rock of Dumbarton, at five or six miles' distance,
which stands by itself, without any hills near it, like a sea-rock.
We travelled for some
time near the river, passing through clusters of houses which seemed to owe their existence rather to the wealth of the river than the
land, for the banks were mostly bare, and the soil appeared poor, even near the
water. The left side of the river was generally uninhabited and moorish, yet there
are some beautiful spots : for instance, a nobleman's house, where the fields and
trees were rich, and, hi combination with the river, looked very lovely. As we went
along William and I were reminded of the views upon the Thames in Kent, which,
though greatly superior in richness and softness, are much inferior in
grandeur. Not far from Dumbarton, we passed under some rocky, copse-covered hills, which
were so like some of the hills near Grasmere that we could have half believed they
were the same. Arrived at Dumbarton before it was dark, having pushed on briskly that
we might have start of a traveller at the inn, who was following us as fast as he
could in a gig. Every front room was full, and we were afraid we should not have been
admitted. They put us into a little parlour, dirty, and smelling of liquors, the table
uncleaned, and not a chair in its place; we were glad, however, of our sorry
accommodations.
While tea was preparing
we lolled at our ease, and though the room -window overlooked the stable-yard, and at our entrance there appeared to be
nothing but gloom and unloveliness, yet while I lay stretched upon the carriage
cushions on three chairs, I discovered a little side peep which was enough to set
the mind at work. It was no more than a smoky vessel lying at anchor, with its bare
masts, a clay hut and the shelving bank of the river, with a green pasture above.
Perhaps you will think that there is not much in this, as I describe it: it is true;
but the effect produced by these simple objects, as they happened to be
combined, together with the gloom of the evening, was exceedingly wild. Our room was parted
by a slender partition from a large dining-room, in which were a number of
officers and their wives, who, after the first hour, never ceased singing, dancing,
laughing, or loud talking. The ladies sang some pretty songs, a great relief to us.
We went early to bed ; but poor Coleridge could not sleep for the noise at the street
door; he lay in the parlour below stairs. It is no uncommon thing in the best inns of
Scotland to have shutting-up beds in the sitting-rooms.
Wednesday, August 24th.
As soon as breakfast was over, William and I walked towards the Castle, a short mile from the town. We overtook two young men, who,
on our asking the road, offered to conduct us, though it might seem it was not
easy to miss our way, for the rock rises singly by itself from the plain on which the
town stands. The rock of Dumbarton is very grand when you are close to it,
but at a little -distance, under an ordinary sky, and in open day, it is not
grand, but curiously wild. The castle and fortifications add little effect to the
general view of the rock, especially since the building of a modern house, which is
white- washed, and consequently jars, wherever it is seen, with the natural
character of the place. There is a path up to the house, but it being low water we
could walk round the rock, which we resolved to do. On that side next the town
green grass grows to a considerable height up the rock, but wherever the river
borders upon it, it is naked stone. I never saw rock in nobler masses, or more deeply
stained by time and weather; nor is this to be wondered at, for it is in the very eye of
sea-storms and land-storms, of mountain winds and water winds.
It is of all colours, but
a rusty yellow predominates. As we walked along, we could not but look up continually, and the mass above being on every side so
huge, it appeared more wonderful than when we saw the whole together.
We sat down on one of the
large stones which he scattered near the base of the rock, with sea-weed growing amongst them. Above our heads the rock was
perpendicular for a considerable height, nay, as it seemed, to the very top, and on the
brink of the precipice a few sheep, two of them rams with twisted horns, stood, as if
on the look-out over the wide country. At the same time we saw a sentinel in
his red coat, walking backwards and forwards between us and the sky, with his firelock
over his shoulder. The sheep, I suppose owing to our being accustomed to see them
in similar situations, appeared to retain their real size, while, on the contrary,
the soldier seemed to be diminished by the distance till he almost looked like a
puppet moved with wires for the pleasure of children, or an eight years 3 old drummer
in his stiff, manly dress beside a company of grenadiers. I had never before,
perhaps, thought of sheep and men in soldiers dresses at the same time, and here
they were brought together in a strange fantastic way. As will be easily
conceived, the fearlessness and stillness of those quiet creatures, on the brow of the
rock, pursuing their natural occupations, contrasted with the restless and
apparently unmeaning motions of the dwarf soldier, added not a little to the
general effect of this place, which is that of wild singularity, and the whole was aided
by a blustering wind and a gloomy sky. Coleridge joined us, and we went up to
the top of the rock.
The road to a
considerable height is through a narrow cleft, in which a flight of steps is hewn; the steps nearly fill the cleft, and on each side the
rocks form a high and irregular wall; it is almost like a long sloping caveni, only
that it is roofed by the sky. We came to the barracks; soldiers' wives were hanging
out linen upon the rails, while the wind beat about them furiously there was
nothing which it could set in motion but the garments of the women and the linen upon the
rails; the grass for we had now come to green grass was close and smooth, and not
one pile an inch above another, and neither tree nor shrub. The standard pole stood
erect without a flag. The rock has two summits, one much broader and higher
than the other. When we were near to the top of the lower eminence we had the
pleasure of finding a little garden of flowers and vegetables belonging to the
soldiers. There are three distinct and very noble prospects the first up the Clyde
towards Glasgow Dunglass Castle, seen on its pro- montory boats, sloops, hills, and many
buildings ; the second, down the river to the sea Greenock and Port-Glasgow, and the
distant mountains at the entrance of Loch Long ; and the third extensive and
distant view is up the Leven, which here falls into the Clyde, to the mountains of Loch
Lomond. The distant mountains in all these views were obscured by mists and dingy
clouds, but if the grand outline of any one of the views can be seen, it is sufficient
recompense for the trouble of climbing the rock of Dumbarton.
The soldier who was our
guide told us that an old ruin which we came to at the top of the higher eminence had been a wind-mill an inconvenient station,
though certainly a glorious place for wind ; perhaps if it really had been a
wind- mill it was only for the use of the garrison. We looked over cannons on the
battery-walls, and saw in an open field below the yeomanry cavalry exercising, while we
could hear from the town, which was full of soldiers, "Dumbarton's drums beat
bonny, Oh" Yet while we stood upon this eminence, rising up so far as it does inland,
and having the habitual old English feeling of our own security as islanders we
could not help looking upon the fortress, in spite of its cannon and soldiers, and the
rumours of invasion, as set up against the hostilities of wind and weather rather
than for any other warfare. On our return we were invited into the guard-room, about
half-way down the rock, where we were shown a large rusty sword, which they
called Wallace's Sword, and a trout boxed up in a well close by, where they said he had
been confined for upwards of thirty years. For the pleasure of the soldiers, who were
anxious that we should see him, we took some pains to spy him out in his black den,
and at last succeeded. It was pleasing to observe how much interest the poor
soldiers though themselves probably new to the place seemed to attach to this antiquated
inhabitant of their garrison.
When we had reached the
bottom of the rock along the same road by which we had ascended, we made our way over the rough stones left bare by the tide,
round the bottom of the rock, to the point where we had set off. This is a wild
and melancholy walk on a blustering cloudy day: the naked bed of the river, scattered
over with sea-weed; grey swampy fields on the other shore; sea- birds flying
overhead; the high rock perpendicular and bare. We came to two very large fragments,
which had fallen from the main rock; Coleridge thought that one of them was as
large as Bowder-Stone, William and I did not; but it is impossible to judge
accurately; we probably, without knowing it, compared them with the whole mass from
which they had fallen, which, from its situation, we consider as one rock or stone, and
there is no object of the kind for comparison with the Bowder-Stone. When we leave
the shore of the Clyde grass begins to show itself on the rock ; go a considerable
way still under the rock along a flat field, and pass immediately below the white
house, which wherever seen looks so ugly.
Left Dumbarton at about
eleven o'clock. The sky was cheerless and the air ungenial, which we regretted, as we were going to Loch Lomond, and wished to greet
the first of the Scottish lakes with our cheerfullest and best feelings. Crossed
the Leven at the end of Dumbarton, and, when we looked behind, had a pleasing view of
the town, bridge, and rock; but when we took in a reach of the river at the
distance of perhaps half a mile, the swamp ground, being so near a town, and not in
its natural wildness, but seemingly half cultivated, with houses here and there,
gave us an idea of extreme poverty of soil, or that the inhabitants were either indolent
or miserable. We had to travel four miles on the banks of the "Water of
Leven" before we should come to Loch Lomond. Having expected a grand river from so
grand a lake, we were disappointed; for it appeared to me not to be very much larger
than the Emont, and is not near so beautiful; but we must not forget that the day
was cold and gloomy. Near Dumbarton it is like a river in a flat country, or
under the influence of tides; but a little higher up it resembles one of our
rivers, flowing through a vale of no extreme beauty, though prettily wooded; the hills
on each side not very high, sloping backwards from the bed of the vale, which is
neither very narrow nor very wide ; the prospect terminated by Ben Lomond and other
mountains. The vale is populous, but looks as if it were not inhabited by
cultivators of the earth; the houses are chiefly of stone; often in rows by the river-side;
they stand pleasantly, but have a tradish look, as if they might have been off-sets
from Glasgow. We saw many bleach-yards, but no other symptom of a
manufactory, except something in the houses that was not rural, and a want of independent
comforts. Perhaps if the river had been glittering in the sun, and the smoke of
the cottages rising in distinct volumes towards the sky, as I have seen in the vale
or basin below Pillsden in Dorsetshire, when every cottage, hidden from the eye,
pointed out its lurking-place by an upright wreath of white smoke, the whole scene
might have excited ideas of perfect cheerfulness.
Here, as on the Nith, and
much more than in the Trough of the Clyde, a great portion of the ground was uncultivated, but the hills being less wild, the river
more stately, and the ground not heaved up so irregularly and tossed about,
the imperfect cultivation was the more to be lamented, particularly as there were so
many houses near the river. In a small enclosure by the wayside is a pillar erected
to the memory of Dr. Smollett, who was born in a village at a little distance,
which we could see at the same time, and where, I believe, some of the family
still reside. There is a long Latin inscription, which Coleridge translated for my
benefit. The Latin is miserably bad as Coleridge said, such as poor Smollett, who was
an excellent scholar, would have been ashamed of.
Before we came to Loch
Lomond the vale widened, and became less populous. We climbed over a wall into a large field to have a better front view of the lake
than from the road. This view is very much like that from Mr. Clarkson's windows: the
mountain in front resembles Hallan, indeed, is almost the same; but Ben Lomond is
not seen standing in such majestic company as Helvellyn, and the meadows are less
beautiful than Ulswaten The reach of the lake is very magnificent; you see it, as
Ulswater is seen beyond the promontory of Old Church, winding away behind a large
woody island that looks like a promontory. The outlet of the lake we had a distinct
view of it in the field is very insignificant The bulk of the river is frittered away
by small alder bushes, as I recollect; I do not remember that it was reedy, but
the ground had a swampy appearance; and here the vale spreads out wide and
shapeless, as if the river were born to no inheritance, had no sheltering cradle, no hills of
its own. As we have seen, this does not continue long; it flows through a distinct,
though not a magnificent vale. But, having lost the pastoral character which it had
in the youthful days of Smollett if the description in his ode to his native
stream be a faithful one it is less interesting than it was then.
The road carried us
sometimes close to the lake, sometimes at a considerable distance from it, over moorish grounds, or through half-cultivated
enclosures; we had the lake on our right, which is here so wide that the opposite
hills, not being high, are cast into insignificance, and we could not distinguish any
buildings near the water, if any there were. It is however always delightful to travel
by a lake of clear waters, if you see nothing else but a very ordinary country; but
we had some beautiful distant views, one in particular, down the high road, through
a vista of over-arching trees; and the near shore was frequently very pleasing,
with its gravel banks, bendings, and small bays. In one part it was bordered for a
considerable way by irregular groups of forest trees or single stragglers, which,
although not large, seemed old; their branches were stunted and knotty, as if they had been
striving with storms, and had half yielded to them. Under these trees we had a
variety of pleasing views across the lake, and the very rolling over the road and
looking at its smooth and beautiful surface was itself a pleasure. It was as smooth
as a gravel walk, and of the bluish colour of some of the roads among the lakes of
the north of England.
Passed no very remarkable
place till we came to Sir James Colquhoun's house, which stands upon a large, flat, woody peninsula, looking towards Ben Lomond.
There must be many beautiful walks among the copses of the peninsula, and delicious
views over the water; but the general surface of the country is poor, and looks as
if it ought to be rich and well peopled, for it is not mountainous; nor had we
passed any hills which a Cumbrian would dignify with the name of mountains. There was
many a little plain or gently-sloping hill covered with poor heath or broom without
trees, where one should have liked to see a cottage in a bower of wood, with its
patch of corn and potatoes, and a green field with a hedge to keep it warm. As we
advanced we perceived less of the coldness of poverty, the hills not having so large
a space between them and the lake. The surface of the hills being in its natural
state, is always beautiful; but where there is only a half cultivated and half
peopled soil near the banks of a lake or river, the idea is forced upon one that they
who do live there have not much of cheerful enjoyment.
But soon we came to just
such a place as we had wanted to see. The road was close to the water, and a hill, bare, rocky, or with scattered copses rose above
it. A deep shade hung over the road, where some little boys were at play; we
expected a dwelling-house of some sort; and when we came nearer, saw three or four
thatched huts under the trees, and at the same moment felt that it was a
paradise. We had before seen the lake only as one wide plain of water; but here the
portion of it which we saw was bounded by a high and steep, heathy and woody island
opposite, which did not appear like an island, but the main shore, and framed out
a little oblong lake apparently not so broad as Rydale-water, with one small
island covered with trees, resembling some of the most beautiful of the holms of
Windermere, and only a narrow river's breadth from the shore. This was a place where we
should have liked to have lived, and the only one we had seen near Loch Lomond. How
delightful to have a little shed concealed under the branches of the fairy island !
the cottages and the island might have been made for the pleasure of each
other. It was but like a natural garden, the distance was so small ; nay, one could
not have forgiven any one living there, not compelled to daily labour, if he did
not connect it with his dwelling by some feeling of domestic attachment, like what
he has for the orchard where his children play. I thought, what a place for William
he might row himself over with twenty strokes of the oars, escaping from the
business of the house, and as safe from intruders, with his boat anchored beside him, as
if he had locked himself up in the strong tower of a castle. We were unwilling to
leave this sweet spot; but it was so simple, and therefore so rememberable, that it
seemed almost as if we could have carried it away with us. It was nothing more
than a small lake enclosed by trees at the ends and by the wayside, and opposite by
the island, a steep bank on which the purple heath was seen under ow oak coppice-wood,
a group of houses over-shadowed by trees, and a bending road. There was one
remarkable tree, an old larch with hairy branches, which sent out its main stem horizontally
across the road, an object that seemed to have been singled out for injury where
everything else was lovely and thriving, tortured into that shape by storms, which
one might have thought could not have reached it in that sheltered place.
We were now entering-
into the Highlands. I believe Luss is the place where we were told that country begins; but at these cottages I would have gladly
believed that we were there, for it was like a new region. The huts were after the
Highland fashion, and the boys who were playing wore the Highland dress and philabeg. On
going into a new country I seem to myself to waken up, and afterwards it surprises me
to remember how much alive I have been to the distinctions of dress, household
arrangements, etc. etc., and what a spirit these little things give to wild, barren,
or ordinary places. The cottages are within about two miles of Luss. Came in view of
several islands; but the lake being so very wide, we could see little of their
peculiar beauties, and they, being large, hardly looked like islands.
Passed another
gentleman's house, which stands prettily in a bay, 1 and soon after reached Luss, where we intended to lodge. On seeing the outside of the
inn we were glad that we were to have such pleasant quarters.
It is a nice-looking-
white house, by the road-side; but there was not much promise of hospitality when we stopped at the door: no person came out till we
had shouted a considerable time. A barefooted lass showed me up-stairs and again my
hopes revived; the house was clean for a Scotch inn, and the view very pleasant to the
lake, over the top of the village a cluster of thatched houses among trees, with a
large chapel in the midst of them. Like most of the Scotch kirks which we had seen,
this building resembles a big house; but it is a much more pleasing building than they
generally are, and has one of our rustic belfries, not unlike that at Ambleside,
with two bells hanging in the open air. We chose one of the back rooms to sit in,
being more snug, and they looked upon a very sweet prospect a stream tumbling down
a cleft or glen on the hill-side, rocky coppice ground, a rural lane, such as we
have from house to house at Grasmere, and a few out-houses. We had a poor dinner,
and sour ale; but as long as the people were civil we were contented.
Coleridge was not well,
so he did not stir out, but William and I walked through the village to the shore of the lake. When I came close to the houses, I
could not but regret a- want of loveliness correspondent with the beauty of the
situation and the appearance of the village at a little distance ; not a single ornamented
garden. We saw potatoes and cabbages, but never a honeysuckle. Yet there were wild
gardens, as beautiful as any that ever man cultivated, overgrowing the roofs of some
of the cottages, flowers and creeping plants. How elegant were the wreaths of
the bramble that had "built its own bower" upon the riggins in several parts of the
village; therefore we had chiefly to regret the want of gardens, as they are
symptoms of leisure and comfort, or at least of no painful industry. Here we first
saw houses without windows, the smoke coming out of the open window-places; the
chimneys were like stools with four legs a hole being left in the roof for the smoke,
and over that a slate placed upon four sticks sometimes the whole leaned as if It
were going to fall. The fields close to Luss lie flat to the lake, and a river, as
large as our stream near the church at Grasmere, flows by the end of the village,
being the same which comes down the glen behind the inn; it is very much like our
stream beds of blue pebbles upon the shores.
We walked towards the
head of the lake, and from a large pasture field near Luss, a gentle eminence, had a very interesting view back upon the village and
the lake and islands beyond. We then perceived that Luss stood in the centre of a
spacious bay, and that close to it lay another small one, within the larger, where the
boats of the inhabitants were lying at anchor, a beautiful natural harbour. The
islands, as we look down the water, are seen in great beauty. Inch-ta-vanaach, the
same that framed out the little peaceful lake which we had passed in the morning,
towers above the rest. The lake is very wide here, and the opposite shores not being
lofty the chief part of the permanent beauty of this view is among the islands,
and on the near shore, including the low promontories of the bay of Luss, and the
village ; and we saw it under its dullest aspect the air cold, the sky gloomy, without
a glimpse of sunshine.
On a splendid evening,
with the light of the sun diffused over the whole islands, distant hills, and the broad expanse of the lake, with its creeks, bays,
and little slips of water among the islands, it must be a glorious sight.
Up the lake there are no
islands; Ben Lomond terminates the view, without any other large mountains; no clouds were upon it, therefore we saw the whole size
and form of the mountain, yet it did not appear to me so large as Skiddaw does from
Derwent- water. Continued our walk a considerable way towards the head of the
lake, and went up a high hill, but saw no other reach of the water. The hills on the
Luss side become much steeper, and the lake, having narrowed a little above Luss,
was no longer a very wide lake where we lost sight of it.
Came to a bark hut by the
shores, and sate for some time under the shelter of it. While we were here a poor woman with a little child by her side begged a
penny of me, and asked where she could "find quarters in the village." She was a
travelling beggar, a native of Scotland, had often "heard of that water," but was
never there before. This woman's appearance, while the wind was rustling about us,
and the waves breaking at our feet, was very melancholy: the waters looked wide, the
hills many, and dark, and far off no house but at Luss. I thought what a dreary
waste must this lake be to such poor creatures, struggling with fatigue and poverty and
unknown ways!
We ordered tea when we
reached the inn, and desired the girl to light us a fire; she replied, "I dinna ken whether she'll gie fire, meaning her mistress. We
told her we did not wish, her mistress to give fire, we only desired her to let her
make it and we would pay for it The girl brought in the tea-things, but no fire, and
when I asked if she was coming to light it, she said "her mistress was not
varra willing to gie fire." At last, however, on our insisting upon it, the fire was
lighted: we got tea by candlelight, and spent a comfortable evening. I had seen the
landlady before we went out, for, as had been usual in all the country inns, there was a
demur respecting beds, notwithstanding the house was empty, and there were at
least half- a-dozen spare beds. Her countenance corresponded with the unkindness of
denying us a fire on a cold night, for she was the most cruel and hateful-looking
woman I ever saw. She was overgrown with fat, and was sitting with her feet and legs
in a tub of water for the dropsy, probably brought on by whisky-drinking. The
sympathy which I felt and expressed for her, on seeing her in this wretched condition for
her legs were swollen as thick as mill-posts seemed to produce no effect; and I
was obliged, after five minutes' conversation, to leave the affair of the beds
undecided. Coleridge had some talk with her daughter, a smart lass in a cotton
gown, with a bandeau round her head, without shoes and stockings. She told Coleridge
with some pride that she had not spent all her time at Luss, but was then fresh
from Glasgow.
It came on a very stormy
night; the wind rattled every window in the house, and it rained heavily. William and Coleridge had bad beds, in a two-bedded room
in the garrets, though there were empty rooms on the first floor, and they were
disturbed by a drunken man, who had come to the inn when we were gone to sleep.
Thursday, August 25th. We
were glad when we awoke to see that it was a fine morning the sky was bright blue, with quick-moving clouds, the hills cheerful,
lights and shadows vivid and distinct. The village looked exceedingly beautiful
this morning from the garret windows the stream glittering near it, while it flowed
under trees through the level fields to the lake. After breakfast, William and I
went down to the waterside. The roads were as dry as if no drop of rain had fallen,
which added to the pure cheerfulness of the appearance of the village, and even of
the distant prospect, an effect which I always seem to perceive from clearly bright
roads, for they are always brightened by rain, after a storm ; but when we came
among the houses I regretted even more than last night, because the contrast was
greater, the slovenliness and dirt near the doors; and could not but remember, with
pain from the contrast, the cottages of Somersetshire, covered with roses and myrtle,
and their small gardens of herbs and flowers. Wliile lingering by the shore we
began to talk with a man who offered to row us to Inch-ta-vannach; but the sky began
to darken; and the wind being high, we doubted whether we should venture, therefore
made no engagement; he offered to sell me some thread, pointing to his cottage,
and added that many English ladies carried thread away from Luss.
Presently after Coleridge
joined us, and we determined to go to the island. I was sorry that the man who had been talking with us was not our boatman;
William by some chance had engaged another. We had two rowers and a strong boat; so I
felt myself bold, though there was a great chance of a high wind. The nearest point
of Inch-ta- vannach is not perhaps more than a mile and a quarter from Luss; we did
not land there, but rowed round the end, and landed on that side which looks
towards our favourite cottages, and their own island, which, wherever seen, is still
their own. It rained a little when we landed, and I took my cloak, which afterwards
served us to sit down upon in our road up the hill, when the day grew much finer,
with gleams of sunshine. This island belongs to Sir James Colquhoun, who has made a
convenient road, that winds gently to the top of it.
We had not climbed far
before we were stopped by a sudden burst of prospect, so singular and beautiful that it was like a flash of images from another
world. We stood with our backs to the hill of the island, which we were ascending,
and which shut out Ben Lomond entirely, and all the upper part of the lake, and we
looked towards the foot of the lake, scattered over with islands without
beginning and without end. The sun shone, and the distant hills were visible, some
through sunny mists, others in gloom with patches of sunshine; the lake was lost under
the low and distant hills, and the islands lost in the lake, which was all in motion
with travelling fields of light, or dark shadows under rainy clouds. There
are many hills, but no commanding eminence at a distance to confine the prospect,
so that the land seemed endless as the water.
What I had heard of Loch
Lomond, or any other place in Great Britain, had given me no idea of anything like what we beheld: it was an outlandish scene we
might have believed ourselves in North America. The islands were of every possible
variety of shape and surface hilly and level, large and small, bare, rocky,
pastoral, or covered with wood. Immediately under my eyes lay one large flat island,
bare and green, so flat and low that it scarcely appeared to rise above the
water, with straggling peat-stacks and a single hut upon one of its out-shooting
promontories for it was of a very irregular shape, though perfectly flat. Another,
its next neighbour, and still nearer to us, was covered over with heath and
coppice-wood, the surface undulating, with flat or sloping banks towards the water, and
hollow places, cradle-like valleys, behind. These two islands, with Inch-ta-vannach,
where we were standing, were intermingled with the water, I might say interbedded and
interveined with it, in a manner that was exquisitely pleasing. There were bays
innumerable, straits or passages like calm rivers, landlocked lakes, and, to the main
water, stormy promontories. The solitary hut on the flat green island seemed
unsheltered and desolate, and yet not wholly so, for it was but a broad river's
breadth from the covert of the wood of the other island. Near to these is a miniature, an
islet covered with trees, on which stands a small ruin that looks like the
remains of a religious house; it is overgrown with ivy, and were it not that the arch
of a window or gateway may be distinctly seen, it would be difficult to believe that
it was not a tuft of trees growing in the shape of a ruin, rather than a ruin
overshadowed by trees. When we had walked a little further we saw below us, on the
nearest large island, where some of the wood had been cut down, a hut, which we
conjectured to be a bark hut. It appeared to be on the shore of a little forest lake,
enclosed by Inch-ta-vannach, where we were, and the woody island on which the hut
stands.
Beyond we had the same
intricate view as before, and could discover Dumbarton rock with its double head. There being a mist over it, it had a ghost-like
appearance as I observed to William and Coleridge, something like the Tor of
Glastonbury from the Dorsetshire hills. Right before us, on the flat island mentioned before,
were several small single trees or shrubs, growing at different distances
from each other, close to the shore, but some optical delusion had detached them
from the land on which they stood, and they had the appearance of so many little
vessels sailing along the coast of it. I mention the circumstance, because, with the
ghostly image of Dumbarton Castle, and the ambiguous ruin on the small island, it was
much in the character of the scene, which was throughout magical and enchanting a
new world in its great permanent outline and composi- tion, and changing at every
moment in every part of it by the effect of sun and wind, and mist and shower and cloud,
and the blending lights and deep shades which took the place of each other,
traversing the lake in every direction. The whole was indeed a strange mixture of
soothing and restless images, of images inviting to rest, and others hurrying the
fancy away into an activity still more pleasing than repose. Yet, intricate and
homeless, that is, without lasting abiding-place for the mind, as the prospect was, there
was no perplexity; we had still a guide to lead us forward.
Wherever we looked, it
was a delightful feeling that there was something beyond. Meanwhile, the sense of quiet was never lost sight of; the little
peaceful lakes among the islands might make you forget that the great water, Loch
Lomond, was so near; and yet are more beautiful, because you know that it is so: they
have their own bays and creeks sheltered within a shelter. When we had ascended to
the top of the island we had a view up to Ben Lomond, over the long, broad water
without spot or rock; and, looking backwards, saw the islands below us as on a map.
This view, as may be supposed, was not nearly so interesting as those we had seen
before. We hunted out all the houses on the shore, which were very few: there was
the village of Luss, the two gentlemen's houses, our favourite cottages, and here
and there a hut; but I do not recollect any comfortable-looking farm-houses, and on
the opposite shore not a single dwelling. The whole scene was a combination of
natural wildness, loveliness, beauty, and barrenness, or rather bareness, yet not
comfortless or cold; but the whole was beautiful. We were too far off the more distant shore
to distinguish any particular spots which we might have regretted were not
better cultivated, and near Luss there was no want of houses.
After we had left the
island, having been so much taken with the beauty of the bark hut and the little lake by which it appeared to stand, we desired the
boatman to row us through it, and we landed at the hut. Walked upon the island for some
time, and found out sheltered places for cottages. There were several woodmen's
huts, which, with some scattered fir-trees, and others in irregular knots, that made
a delicious murmuring in the wind, added greatly to the romantic effect of the
scene. They were built in the form of a cone from the ground, like savages' huts, the
door being just large enough for a man to enter with stooping. Straw beds were raised on
logs of wood, tools lying about, and a forked bough of a tree was generally
suspended from the roof in the middle to hang a kettle upon. It was a place that might
have been just visited by new settlers. I thought of Ruth and her dreams of
romantic love:
And then he said how
sweet it were,
A fisher or a hunter
there,
A gardener in the shade,
Still wandering with an
easy mind,
To build a household
fire, and find
A home in every glacle.
We found the main lake
very stormy when we had left the shelter of the islands, and there was again a threatening of rain, but it did not come on. I wanted
much to go to the old ruin, but the boatmen were in a hurry to be at home. They
told us it had been a stronghold built by a man who lived there alone, and was used to
swim over and make depredations on the shore, that nobody could ever lay hands on
him, he was such a good swimmer, but at last they caught him in a net. The men
pointed out to us an island belonging to Sir James Colquhoun, on which were a great
quantity of deer.
Arrived at the inn at
about twelve o'clock, and prepared to depart immediately: we should have gone with great regret if the weather had been warmer and
the inn more comfortable. When we were leaving the door, a party with smart carriage
and servants drove up, and I observed that the people of the house were just as slow
in their attendance upon them as on us, with one single horse and outlandish
Hibernian vehicle.
When we had travelled
about two miles the lake became considerably narrower, the hills rocky, covered with copses, or bare, rising more immediately from
the bed of the water, and therefore we had not so often to regret the want of
inhabitants. Passed by, or saw at a distance, sometimes a single cottage, or two or
three together, but the whole space between Luss and Tarbet is a solitude to
the eye. We were reminded of Luss water, but missed the pleasant farms, and the
mountains were not so interesting: we had not seen them in companies or brotherhoods
rising one above another at a long distance. Ben Lomond stood alone, opposite to
us, majestically overlooking the lake; yet there was something in this
mountain which disappointed me, a want of massiveness and simplicity, perhaps from the
top being broken into three distinct stages. The road carried us over a bold
promontory by a steep and high ascent, and we had a long view of the lake pushing itself
up in a narrow line through an avenue of mountains, terminated by the mountains
at the head of the lake, of which Ben Lui, if I do not mistake, is the most
considerable. The afternoon was showery and misty, there- fore we did not see this
prospect so distinctly as we could have wished, but there was a grand obscurity over
it which might make the mountains appear more numerous.
I have said so much of
this lake that I am tired myself, and I fear I must have tired my friends. We had a pleasant journey to Tarbet; more than half of
it on foot, for the road was hilly, and after we had climbed one small hill we were
not desirous to get into the car again, seeing another before us, and our path was
always delightful, near the lake, and frequently through woods. When we were
within about half a mile of Tarbet, at a sudden turning looking to the left, we saw a
very craggy-topped mountain amongst other smooth ones; the rocks on the
summit distinct in shape as if they were buildings raised up by man, or uncouth images
of some strange creature. We called out with one voice, "That's what we wanted!"
alluding to the frame-like uniformity of the side-screens of the lake for the last
five or six miles. As we conjectured, this singular mountain was the famous Cobbler,
near Arrochar. Tarbet was before us in the recess of a deep, large bay, under
the shelter of a hill. When we came up to the village we had to inquire for the inn,
there being no signboard. It was a well-sized white house, the best in the place. We
were conducted up-stairs into a sitting-room that might make any
good-humoured travellers happy a square room, with windows on each side, looking, one way,
towards the mountains, and across the lake to Ben Lomond, the other.
There was a pretty stone
house before (i.e. towards the lake) some huts, scattered trees, two or three green iields with hedgerows, and a little brook
making its way towards the lake; the fields are almost fiat, and screened on that side
nearest the head of the lake by a hill, which, pushing itself out, forms the bay of
Tarbet, and, towards the foot, by a gentle slope and trees. The lake is narrow, and
Ben Lomoncl shuts up the prospect, rising directly from the water. We could have
believed ourselves to be by the side of Ulswater, at Glenridden, or in some other
of the inhabited retirements of that lake. We were in a sheltered place among
mountains ; it was not an open joyous bay, with a cheerful populous village, like
Luss; but a pastoral and retired spot, with a few single dwellings. The people of
the inn stared at us when we spoke, without giving us an answer immediately, which we
were at first disposed to attribute to coarseness of manners, but found afterwards
that they did not understand us at once, Erse being the language spoken in the family.
Nothing but salt meat and eggs for dinner no potatoes; the house smelt strongly of
herrings, which were hung to dry over the kitchen fire.
Walked in the evening
towards the head of the lake; the road was steep over the hill, and when we had reached the top of it we had long views up and
down the water. Passed a troop of women who were resting themselves by the roadside, as
if returning from their day's labour. Amongst them was a man, who had walked with us
a considerable way in the morning, and told us he was just come from
America, where he had been for some years, was going to his own home, and should return to
America. He spoke of emigration as a glorious thing for them who had money. Poor
fellow! I do not think that he had brought much back with him, for he had worked his
passage over: I much suspected that a bundle, which he carried upon a stick,
tied in a pocket-handkerchief, contained his all. He was almost blind, he said, as
were many of the crew. He intended crossing the lake at the ferry ; but it was
stormy, and he thought he should not be able to get over that day. I could not help
smiling when I saw him lying by the roadside with such a company about him, not like a
wayfaring man, but seeming as much at home and at his ease as if he had just
stepped out of his hut among them, and they had been neighbours all their lives. Passed
one pretty house, a large thatched dwelling with out-houses, but the prospect above
and below was solitary.
The sun had long been set
before we returned to the inn. As travellers, we were glad to see the moon over the top of one of the hills, but it was a cloudy
night, without any peculiar beauty or solemnity. After tea we made inquiries
respecting- the best way to go to Loch Ketterine; the landlord could give but little
information, and nobody seemed to know anything distinctly of the place, though it was
but ten miles off. We applied to the maid-servant who waited on us : she was a
fine-looking young woman, dressed in a white bed-gown, her hair fastened up by a comb, and
without shoes and stockings. When we asked her about the Trossachs she could
give us no information, but on our saying, "Do you know Loch Ketterine?" she
answered with a smile, "I should know that loch, for I was bred and born there." After
much difficulty we learned from her that the Trossachs were at the foot of
the lake, and that by the way we were to go we should come upon them at the head,
should have to travel ten miles to the foot of the water, and that there was no inn by
the way. The girl spoke English very distinctly; but she had few words, and found it
difficult to understand us. She did not much encourage us to go, because the roads
were bad, and it was a long way, "and there was no putting-up for the like of us." We
determined, however, to venture, and throw ourselves upon the hospitality of some
cottager or gentleman. We desired the landlady to roast us a couple of fowls to
carry with us. There are always plenty of fowls at the doors of a Scotch inn, and eggs
are as regularly brought to table at breakfast as bread and butter,
Friday, August 26th. We
did not set off till between ten and eleven o'clock, much too late for a long day's journey. Our boatman lived at the pretty white
house which we saw from the windows: we called at his door by the way, and, even
when we were near the house, the outside looked comfortable; but within I never saw
anything so miserable from dirt, and dirt alone: it reminded one of the house of a
decayed weaver in the suburbs of a large town, with a sickly wife and a large
family; but William says it was far worse, that it was quite Hottentotish.
After long waiting, and
many clumsy preparations, we got ourselves seated in the boat; but we had not floated five yards before we perceived that if any
of the party and there was a little Highland woman who was going over the water with
us, the boatman, his helper, and ourselves should stir but a few inches, leaning
to one side or the other, the boat would be full in an instant, and we at the
bottom; besides, it was very leaky, and the woman was employed to lade out the water
continually. It appeared that this crazy vessel was not the man's own, and that his was
lying in a bay at a little distance. He said he would take us to it as fast as
possible, but I was so much frightened I would gladly have given up the whole day's
journey; indeed not one of us would have attempted to cross the lake in that boat for a
thousand pounds. We reached the larger boat in safety after coasting a
considerable way near the shore, but just as we were landing, William dropped the bundle which
contained our food into the water. The fowls were no worse, but some sugar, ground
coffee, and pepper-cake seemed to be entirely spoiled. We gathered together as much
of the coffee and sugar as we could and tied it up, and again trusted ourselves
to the lake. The sun shone, and the air was calm luckily it had been so while
we were in the crazy boat we had rocks and woods on each side of us, or bare hills;
seldom a single cottage, and there was no rememberable place till we came
opposite to a waterfall of no inconsiderable size, that appeared to drop directly into
the lake: close to it was a hut, which we were told was the ferry-house. On the
other side of the lake was a pretty farm under the mountains, beside a river, the
cultivated grounds lying all together, and sloping towards the lake from the
mountain hollow down which the river came. It is not easy to conceive how beautiful
these spots appeared after moving on so long between the solitary steeps.
We went a considerable
way further, and landed at Rob Roy's Caves, which are in fact no caves, but some fine rocks on the brink of the lake, in the crevices
of which a man might hide himself cunningly enough; the water is very deep below
them, and the hills above steep and covered with wood. The little Highland woman, who
was in size about a match for our guide at Lanerk, accompanied us hither. There was
something very gracious in the manners of this woman; she could scarcely speak
five English words, yet she gave me, whenever I spoke to her, as many intelligible
smiles as I had needed English words to answer me, and helped me over the rocks in
the most obliging manner. She had left the boat out of good-will to us, or for
her own amusement. She had never seen these caves before; but no cloubt had
heard of them, the tales of Rob Roy's exploits being tolcl familiarly round the
"ingles" hereabouts, for this neighbourhood was his home. We landed at
Inversneyde, the ferry-house by the waterfall, and were not sorry to part with our
boatman, who was a coarse hard-featured man, and, speaking of the French, uttered the
basest and most cowardly sentiments. His helper, a youth fresh from the Isle of Skye,
was innocent of this fault, and though but a bad rower, was a far better companion;
he could not speak a word of English, and sang a plaintive Gaelic air in a low tone
while he plied his oar.
The ferry-house stood on
the bank a few yards above the landing-place where the boat lies. It is a small hut under a steep wood, and a few yards to the
right, looking towards the hut, is the waterfall. The fall is not very high, but the
stream is considerable, as we could see by the large black stones that were lying
bare, but the rains, if they had reached this place, had had little effect upon
the waterfall; its noise was not so great as to form a contrast with the stillness of
the bay into which it falls, where the boat, and house, and waterfall itself seemed
all sheltered and protected. The Highland woman was to go with us the two first miles
of our journey. She led us along a bye foot-path a shorter way up the hill from
the ferry- house. There is a considerable settling in the hills that border Loch
Lomond, at the passage by which we were to cross to Loch Ketterine; Ben Lomond,
terminating near the ferry-house, is on the same side of the water with it, and about
three miles above Tarbet.
We had to climb right up
the hill, which is very steep, and, when close under it, seemed to he high, but we soon reached the top, and when we were there
had lost sight of the lake; and now our road was over a moor, or rather through a
wide moorland hollow. Having gone a little way, we saw before us, at the
distance of about half a mile, a very large stone building, a singular structure,
with a high wall round it, naked hill above, and neither field nor tree near; but
the moor was not overgrown with heath merely, but grey grass, such as cattle
might pasture upon. We could not conjecture what this building was; it appeared as if
it had been built strong to defend it from storms; hut for what purpose? William
called out to us that we should observe that place well, for it was exactly like one
of the spittals of the Alps, built for the reception of travellers, and indeed
I had thought it must be so before he spoke. This building, from its singular
structure and appearance, made the place, which is itself in a country like
Scotland nowise remarkable, take a character of unusual wildness and desolation this
when we first came in view of it; and afterwards, when we had passed it and looked
back, three pyramidal mountains on the opposite side of Loch Lomond terminated the
view, which under certain accidents of weather must be very grand. Our Highland
companion had not English enough to give us any information concerning this strange
building; we could only get from her that it was a "large house," which was plain
enough.
We walked about a mile
and a half over the moor without seeing any other dwelling but one hut by the burn-side, with a peat-stack and a ten-yards-square
enclosure for potatoes; then we came to several clusters of houses, even hamlets they
might be called, but where there is any land belonging to the Highland huts there
are so many out-buildings near, which differ in no respect from the dwelling-houses
except that they send out no smoke, that one house looks like two or three. Near
these houses was a considerable quantity of cultivated ground, potatoes and corn, and
the people were busy making hay in the hollow places of the open vale, and all
along the sides of the becks. It was a pretty sight altogether men and women, dogs, the
little running streams, with linen bleaching near them, and cheerful sunny
hills and rocks on every side. We passed by one patch of potatoes that a florist might
have been roud of; no carnation-bed ever looked more gay than this square plot of
ground on the waste common. The flowers were in very large bunches, and of an
extraordinary size, and of every conceivable shade of colouring from snow-white to
deep purple. It was pleasing in that place, where perhaps was never yet a flower
cultivated by man for his own pleasure, to see these blossoms grow more gladly than
elsewhere, making a summer garden near the mountain dwellings.
At one of the clusters of
houses we parted with our companion, who had insisted on bearing my bundle while she stayed with us. I often tried to enter into
conversation with her, and seeing a small tarn before us was reminded of the pleasure
of fishing and the manner of living there, and asked her what sort of food was
eaten in that place, if they lived much upon fish, or had mutton from the hills; she
looked earnestly at me, and shaking her head, replied, "Oh yes ! eat fish no
papists, eat everything." The tarn had one small island covered with wood j the
stream that runs from it falls into Loch Ketterine, which, after we had gone a little
beyond the tarn, we saw at some distance before us.
Pursued the road, a
mountain horse-track, till we came to a comer of what seemed the head of the lake, and there sate down completely tired, and hopeless as
to the rest of our journey. The road ended at the shore, and no houses were to be
seen on the opposite side except a few widely parted huts, and on the near side was
a trackless heath. The land at the head of the lake was but a continuation of the
common we had come along, and was covered with heather, intersected by a few
straggling foot- paths.
Coleridge and I were
faint with hunger, and could go no further till we had refreshed ourselves, so we ate up one of our fowls, and drank of the
water of Loch Ketterine; but William could not be easy till he had examined the coast,
so he left us, and made his way along the moor across the head of the lake.
Coleridge and I, as we sate, had what seemed to us but a dreary prospect a waste of unknown
ground which we guessed we must travel over before it was possible for us to find a
shelter. We saw a long way down the lake; it was all rnoor on the near side; on the
other the hills were steep from the water, and there were large coppice- woods,
but no heerful green fields, and no road that we could see; we knew, however, that
there must be a road from house to house; but the whole lake appeared a solitude neither
boats, islands, nor houses, no grandeur in the hills, nor any loveliness in the
shores. When we first came in view of it we had said it was like a barren
Ulswater. Ulswater dismantled of its grandeur, and cropped of its lesser beauties. When I
had swallowed my dinner I hastened after William, and Coleridge followed me. Walked
through the heather with some labour for perhaps half a mile, and found William
sitting on the top of a small eminence, whence we saw the real head of the lake, which
was pushed up into the vale a considerable way beyond the promontory where we now
sate. The view up the lake was very pleasing, resembling Thirlemere below Armath.
There were rocky promontories and woody islands, and, what was most cheering to us,
a neat white house on the opposite shore; but we could see no boats, so, in
order to get to it we should be obliged to go round the head of the lake, a long and
weary way.
After Coleridge came up
to us, while we were debating whether we should turn back or go forward, we espied a man on horseback at a little distance, with a
boy following him on foot, no doubt a welcome sight, and we hailed him. We should have
been glad to have seen either man, woman, or child at this time, but there was
something uncommon and interesting in this man's appearance, which would have
fixed our attention wherever we had met him. He was a complete Highlander in
dress, figure, and face, and a very fine-looking man, hardy and vigorous, though past
his prime. While he stood waiting for us in his bonnet and plaid, which never look
more graceful than on horseback, I forgot our errand, and only felt glad that
we were in the Highlands. William accosted him with, a Sir, do you speak English?"
He replied, "A little." He spoke however, sufficiently well for our purpose, and
very distinctly, as all the Highlanders do who learn English as a foreign
language; but in a long conversation they want words; he informed us that he himself
was going beyond the Trossachs, to Callander, that no boats were kept to "let" but
there were two gentlemen's houses at this end of the lake, one of which we could
not yet see, it being hidden from us by a part of the hill on which we stood. The
other house was that which we saw opposite to us; both the gentlemen kept boats, and
probably might be able to spare one of their servants to go with us. After we had asked
many questions, which the Highlander answered with patience and courtesy, he
parted from us, going along a sort of horse-track, which a foot-passenger, if he
once get into it, need not lose if he be careful.
When he was gone we again
debated whether we should go back to Tarbet, or throw ourselves upon the mercy of one of the two gentlemen for a night's
lodging. What we had seen of the main body of the lake made us little desire to see more
of it; the Highlander upon the naked heath, in his Highland dress, upon his
careful-going horse, with the boy following him, was worth it all; but after a little
while we resolved to go on, ashamed to shrink from an adventure. Pursued the
horse-track, and soon came in sight of the other gentle-man's house, which stood on the
opposite side of the vale, a little above the lake. It was a white house; no trees
near it except a new plantation of firs; but the fields were green, sprinkled over with
hay-cocks, and the brook which comes down the valley and falls into the lake ran
through them. It was like a new-made farm in a mountain vale, and yet very pleasing
after the depressing prospect which had been before us.
Our road was rough, and
not easy to be kept. It was between five and six o'clock when we reached the brook side, where Coleridge and I stopped, and
William went up towards the house, which was in a field, where about half a dozen people
were at work. He addressed himself to one who appeared like the master, and all
drew near him, staring at William as nobody could have stared but out of sheer
rudeness, except in such a lonely place. He told his tale, and inquired about
boats; there were no boats, and no lodging nearer than Callander, ten miles beyond
the foot of the lake. A laugh was on every face when William said we were come to
see the Trossachs; no doubt they thought we had better have stayed at our own
homes. William endeavoured to make it appear not so very foolish, by informing them
that it was a place much celebrated in England, though perhaps little thought of by
them, and that we only differed from many of our countrymen in having come the wrong
way in consequence of an erroneous direction.
After a little time the
gentleman said we should be accommodated with such beds as they had, and should be welcome to rest in their house if we pleased.
William came back for Coleridge and me; the men all stood at the door to receive us,
and now their behaviour was perfectly courteous. We were conducted into the
house by the same man who had directed us hither on the other side of the lake, and
afterwards we learned that he was the father of our hostess. He showed us into a room
up-stairs, begged we would sit at our ease, walk out, or do just as we pleased. It
was a large square deal wainscoted room, the wainscot black with age, yet had never
been painted: it did not look like an English room, and yet I do not know in
what it differed, except that in England it is not common to see so large and
well-built a room so ill-furnished: there were two or three large tables, and a few
old chairs of different sorts, as if they had been picked up one did not know how, at
sales, or had belonged to different rooms of the house ever since it was built. We
sat perhaps three-quarters of an hour, and I was about to carry down our wet coffee
and sugar and ask leave to boil it, when the mistress of the house entered, a tall
fine - looking woman, neatly dressed in a dark-coloured gown, with a white
handkerchief tied round her head; she spoke to us in a very pleasing manner, begging
permission to make tea for us, an offer which we thankfully accepted. Encouraged by
the sweetness of her manners, I went downstairs to dry my feet by the
kitchen fire; she lent me a pair of stockings, and behaved to me with the utmost attention
and kindness. She carried the tea-things into the room herself, leaving me
to make tea, and set before us cheese and butter and barley cakes. These cakes are as
thin as our oat-bread, but, instead of being crisp, are soft and leathery, yet we,
being hungry, and the butter delicious, ate them with great pleasure, but when the
same bread was set before us afterwards we did not like it.
After tea William and I
walked out; we amused ourselves with watching the Highlanders at work: they went leisurely about everything, and whatever
was to be done, all followed, old men, and young, and little children. We were
driven into the house by a shower, which came on with the evening darkness, and the
people leaving their work paused at the same time. I was pleased to see them a while
after sitting round a blazing fire in the kitchen, father and son-in-law, master and
man, and the mother with her little child on her knee. When I had been there before
tea I had observed what a contrast there was between the mistress and her kitchen;
she did not differ in appearance from an English country lady; but her kitchen,
roof, walls, and floor of mud, was all black alike; yet now, with the light of a bright
fire upon so many happy countenances, the whole room made a pretty sight.
We heard the company
laughing and talking long after we were in bed; indeed I believe they never work till they are tired. 1 The children could not
speak a word of English: they were very shy at first; but after I had caressed the
eldest, and given her a red leather purse, with which she was delighted, she took
hold of my hand and hung about me, changing her side-long looks for pretty smiles.
Her mother lamented they were so far from school, they should be obliged to send
the children down into the Lowlands to be taught reading and English. Callander, the
nearest town, was twenty miles from them, and it was only a small place: they
had their groceries from Glasgow. She said that at Callander was their nearest
church, but sometimes "got a preaching at the Garrison." In explaining herself she
informed us that the large building which had puzzled us in the morning had been
built by Government, at the request of one of the Dukes of Montrose, for the
defence of his remains against the attacks of Rob Roy. I will not answer for the truth
of this; perhaps it might have been built for this purpose, and as a check on the
Highlands in general; certain it is, however, that it was a garrison; soldiers
used to be constantly stationed there, and have only been withdrawn within the last
thirteen or fourteen years. Mrs. Macfarlane attended me to my room; she said she
hoped I should be able to sleep upon blankets, and said they were "fresh from the fauld."
Saturday, Aiigust 27th.
Before I rose, Mrs. Macfarlane came into my room to see if I wanted anything, and told me she should send the servant up with a basin
of whey, saying, "We make very good whey in this country"; indeed, I thought it
the best I had ever tasted; but I cannot tell how this should be, for they only
make skimmed- milk cheeses. I asked her for a little bread and milk for our breakfast,
but she said it would be no trouble to make tea, as she must make it for the
family; so we all breakfasted together. The cheese was set out, as before, with plenty
of butter and barley-cakes, and fresh baked oaten cakes, which, no doubt, were
made for us: they had been kneaded with cream, and were excellent. All the party
pressed us to eat, and were very jocose about the necessity of helping out their
coarse bread with butter, and they themselves ate almost as much butter as bread. In
talking of the French and the present times, their language was what most people would
call Jacobinical. They spoke much of the oppressions endured by the
Highlanders further up, of the absolute impossibility of their living in any comfort, and of
the cruelty of laying so many restraints on emigration. Then they spoke with
animation of the attachment of the clans to their lairds: "The laird of this place,
Glengyle, where we live, could have commanded so many men who would have followed him to
the death; and now there are none left." It appeared that Mr. Macfarlane, and his
wife's brother, Mr. Macalpine, farmed the place, inclusive of the whole vale
upwards to the mountains, and the mountains themselves, under the lady of Glengyle, the
mother of the young laird, a minor. It was a sheep-farm.
Speaking of another
neighbouring laird, they said he had gone, like the 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." 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 rufHed,
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, 1 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," 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 he 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 en- closed by mountains, rocky mounds,
hills and hillocks scattered over with birch-trees, and covered with Dutch myrtle
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 sat 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 sat 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 sat 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 sat 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. |