spirits delighting in beauty. The
sky was grey and heavy,--floating mists on the hill-sides, which softened
the objects, and where we lost sight of the lake it appeared so near to
the sky that they almost touched one another, giving a visionary beauty
to the prospect. While we overlooked this quiet scene we could hear the
stream rumbling among the rocks between the lakes, but the mists
concealed any glimpse of it which we might have had. This small lake is
called Loch Achray.

We returned, of course, by the same road. Our guide repeated over and
over again his lamentations that the day was so bad, though we had often
told him--not indeed with much hope that he would believe us--that we
were glad of it. As we walked along he pulled a leafy twig from a
birch-tree, and, after smelling it, gave it to me, saying, how 'sweet and
halesome' it was, and that it was pleasant and very halesome on a fine
summer's morning to sail under the banks where the birks are growing.
This reminded me of the old Scotch songs, in which you continually hear
of the 'pu'ing the birks.' Common as birches are in the north of
England, I believe their sweet smell is a thing unnoticed among the
peasants. We returned again to the huts to take a farewell look. We had
shared our food with the ferryman and a traveller whom we had met here,
who was going up the lake, and wished to lodge at the ferry-house, so we
offered him a place in the boat. Coleridge chose to walk. We took the
same side of the lake as before, and had much delight in visiting the
bays over again; but the evening began to darken, and it rained so
heavily before we had gone two miles that we were completely wet. It was
dark when we landed, and on entering the house I was sick with cold.

The good woman had provided, according to her promise, a better fire than
we had found in the morning; and indeed when I sate down in the
chimney-corner of her smoky biggin' I thought I had never been more
comfortable in my life. Coleridge had been there long enough to have a
pan of coffee boiling for us, and having put our clothes in the way of
drying, we all sate down, thankful for a shelter. We could not prevail
upon the man of the house to draw near the fire, though he was cold and
wet, or to suffer his wife to get him dry clothes till she had served us,
which she did, though most willingly, not very expeditiously. A
Cumberland man of the same rank would not have had such a notion of what