“REST AND BE THANKFUL.”
“He that has gained at length the wished for height,” still finds as Wordsworth many years later found “this brief, this simple wayside call,” Rest and be Thankful; but there is no longer a seat where his weary limbs may repose. Perhaps some day it will be restored with the old inscription and the following addition:—“James Wolfe, 1753. Samuel Johnson, 1773. William Wordsworth, 1831.” It is on a mile-stone, or on what looks like a mile-stone, that the inscription is now read. Beneath is carved.
Military Road Repd.
By 93d Regt. 1768.
Transferred To
Commrs For H. R. & B.[726]
In The Year 1814.
One of the earlier tablets, which were believed to have been put up by Wolfe’s men, was pulled down many years ago by a farmer at Ardvoirlich, and transformed into a hearth stone.[727] Glencroe is but little changed since Johnson looked upon it. It is still lonely and grand. The tourist’s carriage breaks the quiet from time to time, but it soon sinks back into “sublimity, silence and solitude.” When we passed through it there was no succession of cataracts and no roaring torrent such as Johnson described. The long drought had made a silence in the hills. We met only one tourist—a lad on his bicycle who had escaped that morning from the smoke of Glasgow, and full of eagerness and life, was pressing on to the inn where his long ride of fifty miles would find its pleasant termination in dinner and a bed. I called to mind how seven and thirty years before when I was just such another youngster, as I was crossing the top of the Glen, I had seen in the distance something white fluttering in the wind. It was a big Highlander returning, as he told us, from Glasgow. Overcome by the heat of the day, and incommoded by a garment to which he was not much accustomed, he had taken off his trousers and was carrying them on his shoulders. It was his shirt that had caught my eye.
MILESTONES ON THE TARBET ROAD.
A JUDGE ON CIRCUIT.
At Tarbet our travellers dined at the little inn on the bank of Loch Lomond. Here, a few years later, Saint-Fond and his party arrived very late on a rainy night in September. They were on their way from Glasgow to Inverary, and had meant to rest at Luss. Unfortunately for them it was the time of the autumn circuit. The inn looked like a fisherman’s hut. The landlady coming out made them a sign that they must not utter a sound. They were thrust into a stable, where she said:—“Le lord juge me fait l’honorable faveur dans sa tournée de loger chez moi; il est là; chacun doit respecter ce qu’il fait; il dort.” She added that she could take in neither them nor their horses. They remonstrated, “Point de bruit, ne troublez pas le sommeil du juge, respect à la loi; soyez heureux et partez.” They had no help for it, but drove on with their weary horses through the night and the heavy rain to Tarbet, where they arrived between three and four next morning. There they found all the beds occupied by jurymen, who were on their way to Inverary. The landlady did what she could to make them comfortable, and gave them some good tea in a set of China cups which had been given her by the Duchess of Argyle.[728]
ROSEDEW.