connected with the place is perhaps more his misfortune than his fault; but I think he might at least have refrained from making a boast of his deficiencies. I got away as soon as I could, and have been writing in a small doublebedded room a trifle fresher than the Black Hole of Calcutta. But to-morrow we are to see Loch Katrine! How Mr. R- would laugh if he knew that my heart beats at the thought of it, like a green girl's. But, mind, I only whisper this in your ear. LETTER V. Ardchinchrocan Inn. LOCH KATRINE! What magic there is in the very sound of that name! Almost it brings back the freshness of one's youth. As I repeat it, I seem to see once more the lawns and woods of B-, my early haunts. I can in fancy sit once more, a happy child, in the great chair in my mother's dressing-room, with my legs tucked over the arm of it, and the Lady of the Lake on my knee-enchanted, fascinated, absorbed—devouring the story— enthralled by the poetry now trembling with suspended breath-now exulting-now desponding-all at the great enchanter's will. "And thou, that didst appear so fair "To fond imagination, "Dost rival in the light of day "Her delicate creation." Loch Katrine answers all I had ever dreamed of it; and how seldom, how very seldom is this the case with any thing! Sometimes, like Wordsworth before he visited Yarrow, we even fear to see the places of our fancy, and are ready to exclaim with him, "We have a vision of our own; "And why should we undo it?" But I had always a sort of instinctive notion that Loch Katrine could not disappoint me. When a good prosy man, years ago, was only giving me a matter-of-fact description of it, I could catch glimpses of its matchless beauty; and I well remember how I envied the fellow for his having seen it. Now my turn is come, and I have stored up an image in my mind, "To dwell with me, to heighten joy Imagine the pleasure that we have this day felt in tracing the scenery described in the Lady of the Lake! Our road at first lay through the rocks and woods of the Trosachs-that deep defile where the Knight of Snowdoun lost his gallant gray. We thought we could discern the very spot where, “Thundering as he came prepared, But after entering the pass, Fitz-James must have been supposed to have taken a different route from that we were now pursuing. The present level and excellent road (more good, it must be owned, than beseems the wildness of the spot) did not exist when Scott wrote his poem. The only communication betwen Loch Achray and Loch Katrine was at that time an obscure track, following the course of the stream, and leading, I should imagine, through the wildest recesses of the “bristly region." Now, what is gained in convenience is lost in beauty, and one must rather imagine than behold the Salvator-like boldness which must be inclosed in the heart of the glen, "Where twined the path in shadow hid "Shooting abruptly from the dell, "The thunder-splintered pinnacle." I should have liked to have gone exploring, but time forbade. Moreover it was a broiling hot day. How sadly is one's romance at the mercy of circumstances! At the end of the Gorge, a narrow arm of Loch Katrine, shut in by woods and rocks, flashes its twinkling waters on the eye. A boat-house, formed not untastefully of undressed fir-logs, stands upon the beach. We had brought a boatman with us from the inn, and here we embarked upon a little voyage of beauty, so exquisite, so dream-like, that I despair of conveying to you any idea of it in words. The whole of this end of Loch Katrine is composed of jetting promontories, embosomed bays, and narrow sinous creeks, amongst which you twine and wind, till you seem to be threading an endless labyrinth. Sometimes a huge rock starts before you, "like castle girdled with its moat." Sometimes you sound a wooded eminence, and enter into what appears a small and separate lake. All is variety; all is uncertainty: you never know where you are going to next; and then what a witchcraft of beauty there is in the ever-shifting combinations of rock, wood, and water. At length, emerging from these many chan nels, we opened upon a broader sweep of the Lake where 66 High on the south, huge Benvenue "Down on the lake in masses threw "Crags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurl'd, But, alas, the "wildering forest of birch which feathered the mountain's hoary sides" is gone! TheDuke of Montrose carted off the picturesque by the waggon-load, and all for the paltry sum of 2501. The city of Aberdeen offered 5001. for the ransom of the trees, but they had been sold by contract, and the purchaser would not give up his bargain; no wonder, for he made a thousand pounds by it. Had fences been immediately put up to protect the old stocks, nature would, in a few years, have repaired the damage; but nothing of the sort was done, and the sheep have now so thoroughly eaten down the shoots that they can never spring again. Our boatman, a good bluff sort of fellow, showed a very proper degree of indignation when he spoke of this sacrilege. Happily, there is much wood still left about the lower rocks and promontories. And now Ellen's Isle appeared before us, shadowed with all its graceful trees, in the glassy water; and now we shot into a little creek, and moored our boat "beneath the oak "That slanted from the islet rock." |