l melancholy; yet still, occupied as
my mind was with other things, I thought of the long windings through
which the waters of the sea had come to this inland retreat, visiting the
inner solitudes of the mountains, and I could have wished to have mused
out a summer's day on the shores of the lake. From the foot of these
mountains whither might not a little barque carry one away? Though so
far inland, it is but a slip of the great ocean: seamen, fishermen, and
shepherds here find a natural home. We did not travel far down the lake,
but, turning to the right through an opening of the mountains, entered a
glen called Glen Croe.

Our thoughts were full of Coleridge, and when we were enclosed in the
narrow dale, with a length of winding road before us, a road that seemed
to have insinuated itself into the very heart of the mountains--the
brook, the road, bare hills, floating mists, scattered stones, rocks, and
herds of black cattle being all that we could see,--I shivered at the
thought of his being sickly and alone, travelling from place to place.

The Cobbler, on our right, was pre-eminent above the other hills; the
singular rocks on its summit, seen so near, were like ruins--castles or
watch-towers. After we had passed one reach of the glen, another opened
out, long, narrow, deep, and houseless, with herds of cattle and large
stones; but the third reach was softer and more beautiful, as if the
mountains had there made a warmer shelter, and there were a more gentle
climate. The rocks by the riverside had dwindled away, the mountains
were smooth and green, and towards the end, where the glen sloped
upwards, it was a cradle-like hollow, and at that point where the slope
became a hill, at the very bottom of the curve of the cradle, stood one
cottage, with a few fields and beds of potatoes. There was also another
house near the roadside, which appeared to be a herdsman's hut. The
dwelling in the middle of the vale was a very pleasing object. I said
within myself, How quietly might a family live in this pensive solitude,
cultivating and loving their own fields! but the herdsman's hut, being
the only one in the vale, had a melancholy face; not being attached to
any particular plot of land, one could not help considering it as just
kept alive and above ground by some dreary connexion with the long barren
tract we had travelled through.

The afternoon had been exceedingly pleasant after we had left the vale of
Arrochar;