nary who has just taken the veil--a transparent veil of fine fleecy
clouds--yet, alas! is she frail as of old, when she descended on the top
of Latmos, to hold dalliance with Endymion. She has absolutely the
appearance of being in the family way--and not far from her time. Lo!
two of her children stealing from ether towards her feet. One on her
right hand, and another on her left--the fairest daughters that ever
charmed mother's heart--and in heaven called stars. What a celestial
trio the three form in the sky! The face of the moon keeps brightening
as the lesser two twinkle into darker lustre; and now, though day is
still lingering, we feel that it is Night. When the one comes and when
the other goes, what eye can note, what tongue can tell--but what heart
feels not in the dewy hush divine--as the power of the beauty of earth
decays over us, and a still dream descends upon us in the power of the
beauty of heaven!

But hark! the regular twang and dip of oars coming up the river--and lo!
indistinct in the distance, something moving through the moonshine--and
now taking the likeness of a boat--a barge--with bonneted heads leaning
back at every flashing stroke--and, Hamish, list! a choral song in thine
own dear native tongue! Sent hither by the Queen of the sea-fairies to
bear back in state Christopher North to the Tent? No. 'Tis the big coble
belonging to the tacksman of the Awe--and the crew are going to pull her
through the first few hours of the night--along with the flowing
tide--up to Kinloch-Etive, to try a cast with their long net at the
mouth of the river, now winding dim like a snake from King's House
beneath the Black Mount, and along the bays at the head of the Loch. A
rumour that we were on the river had reached them--and see an awning of
tartan over the stern, beneath which, as we sit, the sun may not smite
our head by day, nor the moon by night. We embark--and descending the
river like a dream, rapidly but stilly, and kept in the middle of the
current by cunning helmsman, without aid of idle oar, all six suspended,
we drop along through the sylvan scenery, gliding serenely away back
into the mountain-gloom, and enter into the wider moonshine trembling on
the wavy verdure of the foam-crested sea. May this be Loch-Etive?
Yea--verily; but so broad here is its bosom, and so far spreads the
billowy brightness, that we might almost believe that our bark was
bounding over the ocean, and marching merrily on the main.