ding from the walls of the Garrison, made a merry noise through the
echoing hills. I asked myself, if she were to be carried again to the
deserted spot after her course of life, no doubt a troublesome one, would
the silence appear to her the silence of desolation or of peace?

After breakfast we took a final leave of our hostess, and, attended by
her husband, again set forward on foot. My limbs were a little stiff,
but the morning being uncommonly fine I did not fear to aim at the
accomplishment of a plan we had laid of returning to Callander by a
considerable circuit. We were to go over the mountains from Loch
Ketterine, a little below the ferry-house on the same side of the water,
descending to Loch Voil, a lake from which issues the stream that flows
through Strath Eyer into Loch Lubnaig. Our road, as is generally the
case in passing from one vale into another, was through a settling
between the hills, not far from a small stream. We had to climb
considerably, the mountain being much higher than it appears to be, owing
to its retreating in what looks like a gradual slope from the lake,
though we found it steep enough in the climbing. Our guide had been born
near Loch Voil, and he told us that at the head of the lake, if we would
look about for it, we should see the burying-place of a part of his
family, the MacGregors, a clan who had long possessed that district, a
circumstance which he related with no unworthy pride of ancestry. We
shook hands with him at parting, not without a hope of again entering his
hut in company with others whom we loved.

Continued to walk for some time along the top of the hill, having the
high mountains of Loch Voil before us, and Ben Lomond and the steeps of
Loch Ketterine behind. Came to several deserted mountain huts or shiels,
and rested for some time beside one of them, upon a hillock of its green
plot of monumental herbage. William here conceived the notion of writing
an ode upon the affecting subject of those relics of human society found
in that grand and solitary region. The spot of ground where we sate was
even beautiful, the grass being uncommonly verdant, and of a remarkably
soft and silky texture.

After this we rested no more till we came to the foot of the mountain,
where there was a cottage, at the door of which a woman invited me to
drink some whey: this I did, while William went to inquire respecting the
road at a new stone house a few steps further. He was to