rowed over speedily by the assistance of two youths, who went
backwards and forwards for their own amusement, helping at the oars, and
pulled as if they had strength and spirits to spare for a year to come.
We noticed that they had uncommonly fine teeth, and that they and the
boatman were very handsome people. Another merry crew took our place in
the boat.

We had three miles to walk to Tarbet. It rained, but not heavily; the
mountains were not concealed from us by the mists, but appeared larger
and more grand; twilight was coming on, and the obscurity under which we
saw the objects, with the sounding of the torrents, kept our minds alive
and wakeful; all was solitary and huge--sky, water, and mountains mingled
together. While we were walking forward, the road leading us over the
top of a brow, we stopped suddenly at the sound of a half articulate
Gaelic hooting from the field close to us. It came from a little boy,
whom we could see on the hill between us and the lake, wrapped up in a
grey plaid. He was probably calling home the cattle for the night. His
appearance was in the highest degree moving to the imagination: mists
were on the hillsides, darkness shutting in upon the huge avenue of
mountains, torrents roaring, no house in sight to which the child might
belong; his dress, cry, and appearance all different from anything we had
been accustomed to. It was a text, as William has since observed to me,
containing in itself the whole history of the Highlander's life--his
melancholy, his simplicity, his poverty, his superstition, and above all,
that visionariness which results from a communion with the unworldliness
of nature.

When we reached Tarbet the people of the house were anxious to know how
we had fared, particularly the girl who had waited upon us. Our praises
of Loch Ketterine made her exceedingly happy, and she ventured to say, of
which we had heard not a word before, that it was 'bonnier to _her_ fancy
than Loch Lomond.' {116} The landlord, who was not at home when we had
set off, told us that if he had known of our going he would have
recommended us to Mr. Macfarlane's or the other farm-house, adding that
they were hospitable people in that vale. Coleridge and I got tea, and
William and the drawing-master chose supper; they asked to have a broiled
fowl, a dish very common in Scotland, to which the mistress replied,
'Would not a "boiled" one do as well?' They consented, supposing that it
would be