we dreaded a repetition of the delays and toughnesses
we had just escaped from; how great therefore was our gratification when
we pulled up at the door of the Angel, and were shown into a splendid
room, thirty-five or forty feet long by twenty wide, secured bedrooms as
clean and comfortable as heart could desire, and had every thing we
asked for with the precision of clockwork and the rapidity of steam. The
Three Cocks began to descend from the lofty place they held in our
esteem, and we resolved for one day at least to rest contentedly in such
comfortable quarters, and look about us; so forth we sallied, and in the
course of our pilgrimage speedily arrived at Aberga'ny Castle. Talk of
picturesqueness! this was picturesque enough for poet or painter with a
vengeance--great thick walls all covered over with ivy, crowning a round
knoll at the upper part of the town, and looking over a finer view, we
will venture to say, than that we have just described as seen from
Ragland; and to complete the beauty of it--the comforts of modern
civilization uniting themselves to ancient magnificence--the main walls
have been fitted up by one of the late lords into a pretty
dwelling-house, which is at this moment occupied by one of the surgeons
of the town. This is the true use of an antique ruin--this is replacing
the coat of mail with a rain-proof mackintosh--the steel casque of Brian
de Boisguilbert with the Kilmarnock nightcap of Bailie Nicol Jarvie.
And in this instance the change has been effected with the greatest
skill; the coat of mail and steel casque are still there, but only for
show; the mackintosh and nightcap are the habitual dress: and few
dwellings in our poor eyes are comparable to the one, that outside has
the date of the crusaders, and inside, the conveniences of 1845. The
town has a noble body-guard of hills all round it; and perched high up
on almost inaccessible ledges, are little white-walled cottages, that
made us long for the wings of a bird to fly up and inspect them closer;
no other mode of conveyance would be either speedy or safe, for the
sides of the mountains are nearly perpendicular, and would have put
Douglas's horse to its mettle when he was on a visit to Owen Glendowr.
Dark, gloomy, Tartarean hills they appear, and no wonder; for their
whole interior is composed of iron, and day and night they are
glimmering and smoking with a hundred fires. They have a dreadful,
stern, metallic look about them, and are