“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 is 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.
THE ISLAND OF STAFFA AND FINGAL’S CAVE.
BERIAH BOTFIELD.
[The islands adjoining the Scottish Highlands have much in them to interest the traveller, both in the character and habits of the people and the aspects of nature. As respects natural phenomena, the scenery of the island of Staffa and Fingal’s Cave is of especial interest, the development of columnar basalt rocks here being unequalled in extent and perfection. From Botfield’s “Journal of a Tour through the Highlands of Scotland during the Summer of 1829” we select the following description of Staffa and the adjacent coast and islands.]
The full moon shone in cloudless splendor upon the tranquil waters of the bay and the dark shore of Morven. Lights were occasionally seen to gleam from the motionless vessels, and, in the stillness of the night, the distant waterfalls were heard to pour amidst the woody recesses of Drumfin, the romantic residence of McLean, the laird of Coll, on the opposite side of the bay. Beyond the mouth of the harbor, across the Sound of Mull, appeared the rugged coast and wild hills of Morven, so celebrated in the heroic strains of Ossian, upon which, whatever may be the opinion of the spectator as to the authenticity of these celebrated poems, it is impossible to look, at such a time as this, without the deepest emotion. Indeed, the celebrated traveller, Dr. Clarke, who ever regarded them as an ingenious fiction, blended with a very scanty portion of traditional information, confessed that he could not, nevertheless, avoid feeling some degree of local enthusiasm as he passed the shores upon which so vast a superstructure of amazing but visionary fable had been erected....