Those horrible cupboards, or berths, fixed against the wall, how I dreaded getting into one of them! A stout, red-cheeked lass, the daughter of the house, was fortunately at home, and posted up the hill for some distance, returning with a regular hay-cock on her back, which improved matters. But before I bestowed myself thereon, I took care to place under the coverlet a branch of Pors, which I had cut in the bog. It did for me what the aureus ramus did, if I remember rightly, for Æneas, gained me access to the realms of sleep. The fleas, it is true, mustered strong, and moved vigorously to the attack, but the scent of the shrub seemed to take away their appetite for blood, and I remained unmolested.
The stout lass brought me a slop-basin to wash in next morning, and instead of a towel, an article apparently not known in these parts, a clean chemise of her own. The house could not, by-the-bye, boast of any knives and forks. No sugar was to be had, and the milk, which was about three months old, was so sharp that it seemed to get into my head, certainly into my nose.
Next morning, after some miles walk through uninterrupted solitudes, I found myself on the shores of a placid lake, from which the mist was just lifting up its heavy white wings. As I stood for a moment to look, a large fly descended on the smooth water, and was immediately gobbled up by a trout. Over head, half hidden in the mist, were perpendicular white precipices, stained with streaks of black, which returned my halloo with prompt defiance. Between their base and the lake vast stone blocks were strewed around, and yet close by I now discovered a farm-house exposed to a similar fall.
On fair Loch Ranza shone the early day,
Soft wreaths of cottage smoke are upward curled
From the lone hamlet, which her inland bay
And circling mountains sever from the world.
That’s a very proper quotation, no doubt, but the smoke must be left out. The farm was deserted; not a soul at home, the family having gone up to the mountain pasture. We must, however, except a couple of sad and solitary magpies, which, as we drew near, uttered some violent interjections, and jumped down from the house-top, where they had been pruning themselves in the morning sun. They must be much in want of company, for they followed our steps for some distance, and then left us with a peculiar cry. Would that I had been an ancient augur to have known what that last observation of theirs was!
The path now wound up the noted Bykle Sti, or ladder of Bykle, which is partly blasted out of the rocks, and partly laid on galleries of fir logs. Formerly, this place was very dangerous to the traveller. Here the river, which has been flowing at no great distance from us all the way, comes out of a lake. From a considerable height I gaze down below, and see it gurgling and then circling with oily smoothness through a series of black pits scooped out in the foundation rocks of this fine defile. Opposite me is a huge precipice, whence the screams that are borne ever and anon upon my ear, proclaim the vicinity of an eagle’s eyrie. Below, the river widens again, and I see a number of logs slumbering heads and tails on its shores. We are now more than two thousand feet above the sea, but shall have to descend again to the lake, and cross it, as the road soon terminates entirely.
The ferry-boat was large and flat-bottomed, but all the efforts of my attendant and myself failed to launch it. At this moment a sort of Meg Merrilies, clad in grey frieze, with hair to match, streaming over her shoulders, made her appearance.