s came in, and seated
themselves at our table; one of them was returning, after a long absence,
to Fort-William, his native home; he had come from Egypt, and, many years
ago, had been on a recruiting party at Penrith, and knew many people
there. He seemed to think his own country but a dismal land.

There being no bell in the parlour, I had occasion to go several times
and ask for what we wanted in the kitchen, and I would willingly have
given twenty pounds to have been able to take a lively picture of it.
About seven or eight travellers, probably drovers, with as many dogs,
were sitting in a complete circle round a large peat-fire in the middle
of the floor, each with a mess of porridge, in a wooden vessel, upon his
knee; a pot, suspended from one of the black beams, was boiling on the
fire; two or three women pursuing their household business on the outside
of the circle, children playing on the floor. There was nothing
uncomfortable in this confusion: happy, busy, or vacant faces, all looked
pleasant; and even the smoky air, being a sort of natural indoor
atmosphere of Scotland, served only to give a softening, I may say
harmony, to the whole.

We departed immediately after breakfast; our road leading us, as I have
said, near the lake-side and through the grove of firs, which extended
backward much further than we had imagined. After we had left it we came
again among bare moorish wastes, as before, under the mountains, so that
Inveroran still lives in our recollection as a favoured place, a flower
in the desert.

Descended upon the whole, I believe very considerably, in our way to
Tyndrum; but it was a road of long ups and downs, over hills and through
hollows of uncultivated ground; a chance farm perhaps once in three
miles, a glittering rivulet bordered with greener grass than grew on the
broad waste, or a broken fringe of alders or birches, partly concealing
and partly pointing out its course.

Arrived at Tyndrum at about two o'clock. It is a cold spot. Though, as
I should suppose, situated lower than Inveroran, and though we saw it in
the hottest time of the afternoon sun, it had a far colder aspect from
the want of trees. We were here informed that Coleridge, who, we
supposed, was gone to Edinburgh, had dined at this very house a few days
before, in his road to Fort-William. By the help of the cook, who was
called in, the landlady made out the very day: it was the day after we
parted from him; as she