--a royal residence
shut up and hidden, while yet in its strength, by mean cottages; there
was no appearance of violence, but decay from desertion, and I should
think that it may remain many years without undergoing further visible
change. The woman and her daughter accompanied us to the ferry and
crossed the water with us; the woman said, but with not much appearance
of honest heart-feeling, that she could not be easy to let us go without
being there to know how we sped, so I invited the little girl to
accompany her, that she might have a ride in the car. The men were
cautious, and the horse got over with less alarm than we could have
expected. Our way was now up the vale, along the banks of the Tummel, an
impetuous river; the mountains higher than near the Tay, and the vale
more wild, and the different reaches more interesting.

When we approached near to Fascally, near the junction of the Garry with
the Tummel, the twilight was far advanced, and our horse not being
perfectly recovered, we were fearful of taking him on to
Blair-Athole--five miles further; besides, the Pass of Killicrankie was
within half a mile, and we were unwilling to go through a place so
celebrated in the dark; therefore, being joined by a traveller, we
inquired if there was any public-house near; he said there was; and that
though the accommodations were not good, we might do well enough for one
night, the host and his wife being very honest people. It proved to be
rather better than a common cottage of the country; we seated ourselves
by the fire, William called for a glass of whisky, and asked if they
could give us beds. The woman positively refused to lodge us, though we
had every reason to believe that she had at least one bed for me; we
entreated again and again in behalf of the poor horse, but all in vain;
she urged, though in an uncivil way, that she had been sitting up the
whole of one or two nights before on account of a fair, and that now she
wanted to go to bed and sleep; so we were obliged to remount our car in
the dark, and with a tired horse we moved on, and went through the Pass
of Killicrankie, hearing only the roaring of the river, and seeing a
black chasm with jagged-topped black hills towering above. Afterwards
the moon rose, and we should not have had an unpleasant ride if our horse
had been in better plight, and we had not been annoyed, as we were almost
at every twenty yards, by people coming from a fair held that day n