After the cavern, we went, in a different direction, to visit a lake said to occupy the spot where a mountain once stood, which suddenly disappeared at the time of an earthquake. The only beauty of the place was the reflection of the hills around in the deep smooth water, and one might almost fancy they saw the ghost of the vanished mountain haunting its old abode and looking up from the bottom of the lake.
The whole of the country round is strewed with old towers and castles, which have been erected at different periods; some to check the descent of the mountaineers, who used here, as well as in Scotland, to exact a kind of black mail from the inhabitants of the low lands; some to guard against the Moors, who, during their residence in Spain, used frequently to invade and ravage the country; and some are even attributed to the Romans, but I should think, from their appearance, with little foundation for the supposition.
However, like all mountaineers, the people are full of old legends; and ancient superstitions, driven from the more civilized globe, seem to have refuged themselves in the obscurity of these unfrequented hills.
They tell a droll story of the lord of one of the old castles of which I have just spoken, not at all unlike "Alonzo the Brave and the fair Imogine," but still more like the story of the noble Morringer.
THE DEVIL AND THE CRUSADER.
Ae day as the carle gaed up the lang glen,
Hey and the rue grows bonny wi' thyme,
He met wi' auld Nick, wha said, how do ye fen,
And the thyme it is wither'd and rue is in prime.
I've got a bad wife, sir, that's a' my complaint,