University of Virginia Library

135. LETTER CXXXV.

The cottage-inn at the head of Loch Katrine, was
tenanted by a woman who might have been a horse-guardsman
in petticoats, and who kept her smiles for
other cattle than the Sassenach. We bought her
whiskey and milk, praised her butter, and were civil to
the little Highlandman at her breast; but neither
mother nor child were to be mollified. The rocks
were bare around, we were too tired for a pull in the
boat, and three mortal hours lay between us and the
nearest event in our history. I first penetrated, in the
absence of our Hecate, to the inner room of the
shieling. On the wall hung a broadsword, two guns,
a trophy or two of deers' horns, and a Sunday suit
of plaid, philibeg and short red coat, surmounted by
a gallant bonnet and feather. Four cribs, like the
births in a ship, occupied the farther side of the
chamber, each large enough to contain two persons;
a snow-white table stood between the windows; a sixpenny
glass, with an eagle's feather stuck in the frame,
hung at such a height that, “though tall of my
hands,” I could just see my nose; and just under the
ceiling on the left was a broad and capacious shelf, on
which reposed apparently the old clothes of a century
— a sort of place where the gude-wife would have
hidden Prince Charlie, or might rummage for her
grandmother's baby-linen.

The heavy steps of the dame came over the threshold,
and I began to doubt, from the look in her eyes,
whether I should get a blow of her hairy arm or a
“persuader” from the butt of a gun for my intrusion.
“What are ye wantin' here?” she speered at me,
with a Helen-M`Gregor-to-Baillie-Nicol-Jarvie-sort-of-an
expression.

“I was looking for a potato to roast, my good woman.”

“Is that a'? Ye'll find it ayont, then!” and, pointing
to a bag in the corner, she stood while I subtracted
the largest, and then followed me to the general
kitchen and receiving-room, where I buried my improvista
dinner in the remains of the peat fire, and
congratulated myself on my ready apology.

What to do while the potato was roasting! My
English friend had already cleaned his gun for amusement,
and I had looked on. We had stoned the pony
till he had got beyond us in the morass, (small thanks
to us, if the dame knew it!) We had tried to make
a chicken swim ashore from the boat, we had fired
away all my friend's percussion caps, and there was
nothing for it but to converse a rigueur. We lay on
our backs till the dame brought us the hot potato on a
shovel, with oat-cake and butter, and, with this Highland
dinner, the last hour came decently to its death.

An Englishman, with his wife and lady's maid,
came over the hills with a boat's crew; and a lassie
who was not very pretty, but who lived on the lake
and had found the means to get “Captain Rob” and
his men pretty well under her thumb. We were all
embarked, the lassie in the stern-sheets with the captain;
and ourselves, though we “paid the Scot,” of
no more consideration than our portmanteaus. I was
amused, for it was the first instance I had seen in any
country (my own not excepted), of thorough emancipation
from the distinction of superiors and inferiors.
Luckily the girl was bent on showing the captain to
advantage, and by ingenious prompting and catechism,
she induced him to do what probably was his custom
when he could not better amuse himself — point out
the localities as the boat sped on, and quote the Lady
of the Lake, with an accent which made it a piece of
good fortune to have “crammed” the poem beforehand.

The shores of the lake are flat and uninteresting at
the head, but, toward the scene of Scott's romance,
they rise into bold precipices, and gradually become
worthy of their celebrity. The Trosachs are a cluster
of small, green mountains, strewn, or rather piled,
with shrubs and mossy verdure, and from a distance
you would think only a bird, or Ranald of the Mist,
could penetrate their labyrinthine recesses. Captain
Rob showed us successively the Braes of Balquidder,
Rob Roy's birth and burial place, Benledi, and the
crag from which hung, by the well-woven skirts of
braidcloth, the worthy baillie of Glasgow; and, beneath
a precipice of remarkable wildness, the half-intoxicated
steersman raised his arm and began to repeat,
in the most unmitigated gutterals: —

I have underlined it according to the captain's judicious
emphasis, and in the last word have endeavored
to spell after his remarkable pronunciation.
Probably to a Frenchman, however, it would have
seemed all very fine — for Captain Rob (I must do him
justice, though he broke the strap of my portmanteau)
was as good-looking a ruffian as you would sketch on
a summer's tour.

Some of the loveliest water I have ever seen in my
life (and I am rather an amateur of that element — to
look at), lies deep down at the bases of these divine
Trosachs. The usual approaches from lake to mountain
(beach or sloping shore), are here dispensed with;
and, straight up from the deep water, rise the green

precipices and bold and ragged rocks, overshadowing
the glassy mirror below with teints like a cool corner
in a landscape of Ruysdael's. It is something — (indeed,
on a second thought, exceedingly) like — Lake
George; only that the islands in this extremity of
Loch Katrine lie closer together, and permit the sun
no entrance except by a ray almost perpendicular.
A painter will easily understand the effect of this —
the loss of all that makes a surface to the water, and
the consequent far depth to the eye, as if the boat in
which you shot over it, brought with it its own water
and sent its ripple through the transparent air. I
write currente calamo, and have no time to clear up
my meaning, but it will be evident to all lovers of
nature.

Captain Rob put up his helm for a little fairy green
island, lying like a lapfull of green moss on the water,
and, rounding a point, we ran suddenly into a cove
sheltered by a tree, and in a moment the boat grated
on the pebbles of a natural beach, perhaps ten feet in
length. A flight of winding steps, made roughly of
roots and stones, ascended from the water's edge.

“Gentlemen and ladies!” said the captain, with a
hiccup, “this is Ellen's Isle. This is the gnarled
oak,” (catching at a branch of the tree as the boat
swung astern), “and — you'll please to go up them
steps, and I'll tell ye the rest in Ellen's bower.”

The Highland lassie sprang on shore, and we followed
up the steep ascent, arriving breathless at last
at the door of a fanciful bower, built by Lord Willoughby
d'Eresby (the owner of the island), exactly
after the description in the Lady of the Lake. The
chairs were made of crooked branches of trees and
covered with deer-skins, the tables were laden with
armor and every variety of weapon, and the rough
beams of the building were hung with antlers and
other spoils of the chase.

“Here's where she lived!” said the captain, with
the gravity of a cicerone at the Forum, “and noo, if
ye'll come out, I'll show you the echo!”

We followed to the highest point of the island, and
the Highlandman gave a scream that showed considerable
practice, but I thought he would have burst his
throat in the effort. The awful echo went round, “as
mentioned in the bill of performance,” every separate
mountain screaming back the discord till you would
have thought the Trosachs a crew of mocking giants.
It was a wonderful echo, but, like most wonders, I
could have been content to have had less for my
money.

There was a “small silver beach” on the mainland
opposite, and above it a high mass of mountain.

“There,” said the captain, “gentlemen and ladies,
is where Fitz-James blow'd his bugle, and waited for
the `light shallop' of Ellen Douglas; and here,
where you landed and came up them steps, is where
she brought him to the bower, and the very tree's still
there (as you see'd me tak' hold of it), and over the
hill, yonder, is where the gallant gray giv out and
breathed his last, and (will you turn round, if you
please, them that like's) yonder's where Fitz-James
met Red Murdoch that killed Blanche of Devon, and
right across this water swum young Greme that disdained
the regular boat, and I `spose on that lower
step set the old harper and Ellen many a time a-watching
for Douglas; and now if you'd like to hear the
echo once more” —

“Heaven forbid” was the universal cry; and, in
fear of our ears, we put the bower between us and
Captain Rob's lungs, and followed the Highland girl
back to the boat.

From Ellen's Isle to the head of the small creek,
so beautifully described in the Lady of the Lake, the
scenery has the same air of lavish and graceful vegetation,
and the same features of mingled boldness and
beauty. It was a spot altogether that one is sure to
live much in with memory. I see it as clearly now as
then.

The whiskey had circulated pretty freely among
the crew, and all were more or less intoxicated. Captain
Rob's first feat on his legs was to drop my friend's
gun-case and break it to pieces, for which he instantly
got a cuff between the eyes from the boxing dandy,
that would have done the business for a softer head.
The Scot was a powerful fellow, and I anticipated a
row; but the tremendous power of the blow and the
skill with which it was planted, quite subdued him.
He rose from the grass as white as a sheet, but quietly
shouldered the portmanteau with which he had fallen,
and trudged on with sobered steps to the inn.

We took a post-chaise immediately for Callender,
and it was not till we were five miles from the foot of
the lake, that I lost my apprehensions of an apparition
of the Highlander from the darkening woods. We
arrived at Callender at nine, and the next morning at
sunrise were on our way to breakfast at Stirling.