s, the
general appearance of the country was naked, and I could not help seeing
the same coldness where, perhaps, it did not exist in itself to any great
degree, for the corn crops are abundant, and I should think the soil is
not bad. While we were sitting at the door, two of the landlady's
children came out; the elder, a boy about six years old, was running away
from his little brother, in petticoats; the ostler called out, 'Sandy,
tak' your wee brither wi' you;' another voice from the window, 'Sawny,
dinna leave your wee brither;' the mother then came, 'Alexander, tak'
your wee brother by the hand;' Alexander obeyed, and the two went off in
peace together. We were charged eightpence for hay at this inn, another
symptom of our being in Scotland. Left Douglas Mill at about three
o'clock; travelled through an open corn country, the tracts of corn large
and unenclosed. We often passed women or children who were watching a
single cow while it fed upon the slips of grass between the corn.
William asked a strong woman, about thirty years of age, who looked like
the mistress of a family--I suppose moved by some sentiment of compassion
for her being so employed,--if the cow would eat the corn if it were left
to itself: she smiled at his simplicity. It is indeed a melancholy thing
to see a full-grown woman thus waiting, as it were, body and soul devoted
to the poor beast; yet even this is better than working in a manufactory
the day through.

We came to a moorish tract; saw before us the hills of Loch Lomond, Ben
Lomond and another, distinct each by itself. Not far from the roadside
were some benches placed in rows in the middle of a large field, with a
sort of covered shed like a sentry-box, but much more like those boxes
which the Italian puppet-showmen in London use. We guessed that it was a
pulpit or tent for preaching, and were told that a sect met there
occasionally, who held that toleration was unscriptural, and would have
all religions but their own exterminated. I have forgotten what name the
man gave to this sect; we could not learn that it differed in any other
respect from the Church of Scotland. Travelled for some miles along the
open country, which was all without hedgerows, sometimes arable,
sometimes moorish, and often whole tracts covered with grunsel. {30}
There was one field, which one might have believed had been sown with
grunsel, it was so regularly covered with it--a large square field upon a
slo