FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111  
112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   >>   >|  
e in London attracted the notice of Lady Macleod. I will now go on with my account. The Highland girl made tea, and looked and talked not inelegantly; her father was by no means an ignorant or a weak man; there were books in the cottage, among which were some volumes of Prideaux's _Connection_: this man's conversation we were glad of while we stayed. He had been _out_, as they call it, in forty-five, and still retained his old opinions. He was going to America, because his rent was raised beyond what he thought himself able to pay. At night our beds were made, but we had some difficulty in persuading ourselves to lie down in them, though we had put on our own sheets; at last we ventured, and I slept very soundly in the vale of Glen Morrison, amidst the rocks and mountains. Next morning our landlord liked us so well, that he walked some miles with us for our company, through a country so wild and barren that the proprietor does not, with all his pressure upon his tenants, raise more than four hundred pounds a year for near one hundred square miles or sixty thousand acres. He let us know that he had forty head of black cattle, an hundred goats, and an hundred sheep, upon a farm that he remembered let at five pounds a year, but for which he now paid twenty. He told us some stories of their march into England. At last he left us, and we went forward, winding among mountains, sometimes green and sometimes naked, commonly so steep as not easily to be climbed by the greatest vigour and activity: our way was often crossed by little rivulets, and we were entertained with small streams trickling from the rocks, which after heavy rains must be tremendous torrents. About noon we came to a small glen, so they call a valley, which compared with other places appeared rich and fertile; here our guides desired us to stop, that the horses might graze, for the journey was very laborious, and no more grass would be found. We made no difficulty of compliance, and I sat down to take notes on a green bank, with a small stream running at my feet, in the midst of savage solitude, with mountains before me, and on either hand covered with heath. I looked around me, and wondered that I was not more affected, but the mind is not at all times equally ready to be put in motion; if my mistress and master and Queeny had been there we should have produced some reflections among us, either poetical or philosophical, for though _solitude be the nurs
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111  
112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
hundred
 

mountains

 

difficulty

 
pounds
 

looked

 

solitude

 
forward
 

winding

 

tremendous

 
torrents

activity

 

England

 

entertained

 
streams
 
climbed
 

rivulets

 

greatest

 

vigour

 
trickling
 

easily


commonly

 

crossed

 

laborious

 

affected

 

wondered

 

savage

 

covered

 

equally

 

reflections

 

produced


poetical

 

philosophical

 
motion
 

mistress

 

master

 
Queeny
 

running

 

desired

 

guides

 

horses


fertile

 

compared

 
places
 

appeared

 

journey

 
stream
 

compliance

 
stories
 
valley
 
barren