ted castle or lonely
watch-tower unexplored, from Castle Stalker, on its island-rock, to
Kin-Loch-Aline, on the copsy bank of Loch Aline, "one of the most
picturesque of the Highland castles," so says the Guidebook, and one
which brought material reward to its builder too; for tradition tells us
that it was built by Dubh-Chal, an Amazon of the Clan McInnes, who paid
the architect with _its bulk in butter_. What a dairy-woman, as well as
warrior, must this Dubh-Chal have been in her day! And what a fortune
this architect would have realized, could he have lived in ours!

We are now entering the Sound of Mull; and on our left, at the
eastern-most point of the island, Duart Castle, which commands the
entrance to the Sound, looks down upon us from its rocky promontory. We
have just passed the Lady Rock, which, bare and black at ebb-tide, but
wave-washed at high-water, is the scene of a legend which has given a
wicked notoriety to one of the ancient lairds of this same Duart. It
gave rise to Campbell's poem of "Glenara," and forms the basis of Joanna
Baillie's tragedy of "The Family Legend." But we have neither at hand
to consult at this moment, even if the steamer would pause to indulge us
in literary pastime; so we must wait the leisure of some winter evening
for poem and tragedy, and content ourselves with the prose account given
by James Wilson, (the Professor's brother,) which is as much as we can
digest _en passant_.

From this it seems that "Lauchlan Catenach Maclean of Duart had married
a daughter of Archibald, second Earl of Argyll, with whom it may be
presumed he lived on bad terms, whatever may have been the cause,
although the character of the act alluded to depends in some measure on
that cause. No man has a right to expose his wife, in consequence of any
ordinary domestic disagreement, upon a wave-washed rock, with the
probability of her catching cold in the first place, and the certainty
of her being drowned in the second. But some accounts say that she had
twice attempted her husband's life, and so assuredly she deserved to be
most severely reprimanded. Be this as it may, Lauchlan carried the lady
to the rock in question, where he left her at low water, no doubt
desiring that at high water she would be seen no more. However, it so
chanced that her cries, 'piercing the night's dull ear,' were heard by
some passing fishermen, who, subduing their fear of water-witches, or
perhaps thinking that they had at last