ike so many in that district, had, however, in its
earlier life been sacrificed to trade, and was grimy with paper-making.
But this did not affect our pleasure in it so much as I have known it to
affect other streams. Perhaps our water was more rapid; perhaps less
clogged with dirt and refuse. Our side of the dell was charmingly
_accidente_, and clothed with fine trees, through which various paths
wound down to the river-side and to the village bridge which crossed the
stream. The village lay in the hollow, and climbed, with very prosaic
houses, the other side. Village architecture does not flourish in
Scotland. The blue slates and the gray stone are sworn foes to the
picturesque; and though I do not, for my own part, dislike the interior
of an old-fashioned hewed and galleried church, with its little family
settlements on all sides, the square box outside, with its bit of a spire
like a handle to lift it by, is not an improvement to the landscape.
Still a cluster of houses on differing elevations, with scraps of garden
coming in between, a hedgerow with clothes laid out to dry, the opening
of a street with its rural sociability, the women at their doors, the
slow wagon lumbering along, gives a centre to the landscape. It was
cheerful to look at, and convenient in a hundred ways. Within ourselves
we had walks in plenty, the glen being always beautiful in all its
phases, whether the woods were green in the spring or ruddy in the
autumn. In the park which surrounded the house were the ruins of the
former mansion of Brentwood,--a much smaller and less important house
than the solid Georgian edifice which we inhabited. The ruins were
picturesque, however, and gave importance to the place. Even we, who were
but temporary tenants, felt a vague pride in them, as if they somehow
reflected a certain consequence upon ourselves. The old building had the
remains of a tower,--an indistinguishable mass of mason-work,
over-grown with ivy; and the shells of walls attached to this were half
filled up with soil. I had never examined it closely, I am ashamed to
say. There was a large room, or what had been a large room, with the
lower part of the windows still existing, on the principal floor, and
underneath other windows, which were perfect, though half filled up with
fallen soil, and waving with a wild growth of brambles and chance growths
of all kinds. This was the oldest part of all. At a little distance were
some very commonplace and d