Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth

by William Wordsworth

  Was moved, and in this way express’d

  Their notion of its perfect rest.

  A convent, even a hermit’s cell

  Would break the silence of this Dell;

  It is not quiet, is not ease,

  But something deeper far than these;

  The separation that is here

  Is of the grave; and of austere

  And happy feelings of the dead:

  And therefore was it rightly said

  That Ossian, last of all his race,

  Lies buried in this lonely place.

  Having descended into a broad cultivated vale, we saw nothing remarkable. Observed a gentleman’s house, which stood pleasantly among trees. It was dark some time before we reached Crieff, a small town, though larger than Dunkeld.

  Saturday, September 10th. — Rose early, and departed without breakfast. We were to pass through one of the most celebrated vales of Scotland, Strath Erne. We found it a wide, long, and irregular vale, with many gentlemen’s seats under the hills, woods, copses, frequent cottages, plantations, and much cultivation, yet with an intermixture of barren ground; indeed, except at Killin and Dunkeld, there was always something which seemed to take from the composure and simplicity of the cultivated scenes. There is a struggle to overcome the natural barrenness, and the end not attained, an appearance of something doing or imperfectly done, a passing with labour from one state of society into another. When you look from an eminence on the fields of Grasmere Vale, the heart is satisfied with a simple undisturbed pleasure, and no less, on one of the green or heathy dells of Scotland, where there is no appearance of change to be, or having been, but such as the seasons make. Strath Erne is so extensive a vale that, had it been in England, there must have been much inequality, as in Wensley Dale; but at Wensley there is a unity, a softness, a melting together, which in the large vales of Scotland I never perceived. The difference at Strath Erne may come partly from the irregularity, the undefined outline, of the hills which enclose it; but it is caused still more by the broken surface, I mean broken as to colour and produce, the want of hedgerows, and also the great number of new fir plantations. After some miles it becomes much narrower as we approach nearer the mountains at the foot of the lake of the same name, Loch Erne.

  Breakfasted at a small public-house, a wretchedly dirty cottage, but the people were civil, and though we had nothing but barley cakes we made a good breakfast, for there were plenty of eggs. Walked up a high hill to view the seat of Mr. Dundas, now Lord Melville — a spot where, if he have gathered much wisdom from his late disgrace or his long intercourse with the world, he may spend his days as quietly as he need desire. It is a secluded valley, not rich, but with plenty of wood: there are many pretty paths through the woods, and moss huts in different parts. After leaving the cottage where we breakfasted the country was very pleasing, yet still with a want of richness; but this was less perceived, being huddled up in charcoal woods, and the vale narrow. Loch Erne opens out in a very pleasing manner, seen from a hill along which the road is carried through a wood of low trees; but it does not improve afterwards, lying directly from east to west without any perceivable bendings: and the shores are not much broken or varied, not populous, and the mountains not sufficiently commanding to make up for the deficiencies. Dined at the head of the lake. I scarcely know its length, but should think not less than four or five miles, and it is wide in proportion. The inn is in a small village — a decent house.

  Walked about half a mile along the road to Tyndrum, which is through a bare glen, and over a mountain pass. It rained when we pursued our journey again, and continued to rain for several hours. The road which we were to take was up another glen, down which came a stream that fell into the lake on the opposite side at the head of it, so, after having crossed the main vale, a little above the lake, we entered into the smaller glen. The road delightfully smooth and dry — one gentleman’s house very pleasant among large coppice woods. After going perhaps three miles up this valley, we turned to the left into another, which seemed to be much more beautiful. It was a level valley, not — like that which we had passed — a wide sloping cleft between the hills, but having a quiet, slow-paced stream, which flowed through level green grounds tufted with trees intermingled with cottages. The tops of the hills were hidden by mists, and the objects in the valley seen through misty rain, which made them look exceedingly soft, and indeed partly concealed them, and we always fill up what we are left to guess at with something as beautiful as what we see. This valley seemed to have less of the appearance of barrenness or imperfect cultivation than any of the same character we had passed through; indeed, we could not discern any traces of it. It is called Strath Eyer. ‘Strath’ is generally applied to a broad vale; but this, though open, is not broad.

  We next came to a lake, called Loch Lubnaig, a name which signifies ‘winding.’ In shape it somewhat resembles Ulswater, but is much narrower and shorter, being only four miles in length. The character of this lake is simple and grand. On the side opposite to where we were is a range of steep craggy mountains, one of which — like Place Fell — encroaching upon the bed of the lake, forces it to make a considerable bending. I have forgotten the name of this precipice: it is a very remarkable one, being almost perpendicular, and very rugged.

  We, on the other side, travelled under steep and rocky hills which were often covered with low woods to a considerable height; there were one or two farm-houses, and a few cottages. A neat white dwelling on the side of the hill over against the bold steep of which I have spoken, had been the residence of the famous traveller Bruce, who, all his travels ended, had arranged the history of them in that solitude — as deep as any Abyssinian one — among the mountains of his native country, where he passed several years. Whether he died there or not we did not learn; but the manner of his death was remarkable and affecting, — from a fall down-stairs in his own house, after so many dangers through which fortitude and courage had never failed to sustain him. The house stands sweetly, surrounded by coppice-woods and green fields. On the other side, I believe, were no houses till we came near to the outlet, where a few low huts looked very beautiful, with their dark brown roofs near a stream which hurried down the mountain, and after its turbulent course travelled a short way over a level green, and was lost in the lake.

  Within a few miles of Callander we come into a grand region; the mountains to a considerable height were covered with wood, enclosing us in a narrow passage; the stream on our right, generally concealed by wood, made a loud roaring; at one place, in particular, it fell down the rocks in a succession of cascades. The scene is much celebrated in Scotland, and is called the Pass of Leny. It was nearly dark when we reached Callander. We were wet and cold, and glad of a good fire. The inn was comfortable; we drank tea; and after tea the waiter presented us with a pamphlet descriptive of the neighbourhood of Callander, which we brought away with us, and I am very sorry I lost it.

  FIFTH WEEK.

  Sunday, September 11th. — Immediately after breakfast, the morning being fine, we set off with cheerful spirits towards the Trossachs, intending to take up our lodging at the house of our old friend the ferryman. A boy accompanied us to convey the horse and car back to Callander from the head of Loch Achray. The country near Callander is very pleasing; but, as almost everywhere else, imperfectly cultivated. We went up a broad vale, through which runs the stream from Loch Ketterine, and came to Loch Vennachar, a larger lake than Loch Achray, the small one which had given us such unexpected delight when we left the Pass of the Trossachs. Loch Vennachar is much larger, but greatly inferior in beauty to the image which we had conceived of its neighbour, and so the reality proved to us when we came up to that little lake, and saw it before us in its true shape in the cheerful sunshine. The Trossachs, overtopped by Benledi and other high mountains, enclose the lake at the head; and those houses which we had seen before, with their corn fields sloping towards the water, stood very prettily under low woods. The fields did not appear
so rich as when we had seen them through the veil of mist; but yet, as in framing our expectations we had allowed for a much greater difference, so we were even a second time surprised with pleasure at the same spot.

  Went as far as these houses of which I have spoken in the car, and then walked on, intending to pursue the road up the side of Loch Ketterine along which Coleridge had come; but we had resolved to spend some hours in the neighbourhood of the Trossachs, and accordingly coasted the head of Loch Achray, and pursued the brook between the two lakes as far as there was any track. Here we found, to our surprise — for we had expected nothing but heath and rocks like the rest of the neighbourhood of the Trossachs — a secluded farm, a plot of verdant ground with a single cottage and its company of out-houses. We turned back, and went to the very point from which we had first looked upon Loch Achray when we were here with Coleridge. It was no longer a visionary scene: the sun shone into every crevice of the hills, and the mountain-tops were clear. After some time we went into the pass from the Trossachs, and were delighted to behold the forms of objects fully revealed, and even surpassing in loveliness and variety what we had conceived. The mountains, I think, appeared not so high; but on the whole we had not the smallest disappointment; the heather was fading, though still beautiful.

  Sate for half-an-hour in Lady Perth’s shed, and scrambled over the rocks and through the thickets at the head of the lake. I went till I could make my way no further, and left William to go to the top of the hill, whence he had a distinct view, as on a map, of the intricacies of the lake and the course of the river. Returned to the huts, and, after having taken a second dinner of the food we had brought from Callander, set our faces towards the head of Loch Ketterine. I can add nothing to my former description of the Trossachs, except that we departed with our old delightful remembrances endeared, and many new ones. The path or road — for it was neither the one nor the other, but something between both — is the pleasantest I have ever travelled in my life for the same length of way, — now with marks of sledges or wheels, or none at all, bare or green, as it might happen; now a little descent, now a level; sometimes a shady lane, at others an open track through green pastures; then again it would lead us into thick coppice-woods, which often entirely shut out the lake, and again admitted it by glimpses. We have never had a more delightful walk than this evening. Ben Lomond and the three pointed-topped mountains of Loch Lomond, which we had seen from the Garrison, were very majestic under the clear sky, the lake perfectly calm, the air sweet and mild. I felt that it was much more interesting to visit a place where we have been before than it can possibly be the first time, except under peculiar circumstances. The sun had been set for some time, when, being within a quarter of a mile of the ferryman’s hut, our path having led us close to the shore of the calm lake, we met two neatly dressed women, without hats, who had probably been taking their Sunday evening’s walk. One of them said to us in a friendly, soft tone of voice, ‘What! you are stepping westward?’ I cannot describe how affecting this simple expression was in that remote place, with the western sky in front, yet glowing with the departed sun. William wrote the following poem long after, in remembrance of his feelings and mine: —

  ‘What! you are stepping westward?’ Yea,

  ‘Twould be a wildish destiny

  If we, who thus together roam

  In a strange land, and far from home,

  Were in this place the guests of chance:

  Yet who would stop, or fear to advance,

  Though home or shelter he had none,

  With such a sky to lead him on?

  The dewy ground was dark and cold,

  Behind all gloomy to behold,

  And stepping westward seem’d to be

  A kind of heavenly destiny;

  I liked the greeting, ‘twas a sound

  Of something without place or bound;

  And seem’d to give me spiritual right

  To travel through that region bright.

  The voice was soft; and she who spake

  Was walking by her native Lake;

  The salutation was to me

  The very sound of courtesy;

  Its power was felt, and while my eye

  Was fix’d upon the glowing sky,

  The echo of the voice enwrought

  A human sweetness with the thought

  Of travelling through the world that lay

  Before me in my endless way.

  We went up to the door of our boatman’s hut as to a home, and scarcely less confident of a cordial welcome than if we had been approaching our own cottage at Grasmere. It had been a very pleasing thought, while we were walking by the side of the beautiful lake, that, few hours as we had been there, there was a home for us in one of its quiet dwellings. Accordingly, so we found it; the good woman, who had been at a preaching by the lake-side, was in her holiday dress at the door, and seemed to be rejoiced at the sight of us. She led us into the hut in haste to supply our wants; we took once more a refreshing meal by her fireside, and, though not so merry as the last time, we were not less happy, bating our regrets that Coleridge was not in his old place. I slept in the same bed as before, and listened to the household stream, which now only made a very low murmuring.

  Monday, September 12th. — Rejoiced in the morning to see the sun shining upon the hills when I first looked out through the open window-place at my bed’s head. We rose early, and after breakfast, our old companion, who was to be our guide for the day, rowed us over the water to the same point where Coleridge and I had sate down and eaten our dinner, while William had gone to survey the unknown coast. We intended to cross Loch Lomond, follow the lake to Glenfalloch, above the head of it, and then come over the mountains to Glengyle, and so down the glen, and passing Mr. Macfarlane’s house, back again to the ferry-house, where we should sleep. So, a third time we went through the mountain hollow, now familiar ground. The inhabitants had not yet got in all their hay, and were at work in the fields; our guide often stopped to talk with them, and no doubt was called upon to answer many inquiries respecting us two strangers.

  At the ferry-house of Inversneyde we had not the happy sight of the Highland girl and her companion, but the good woman received us cordially, gave me milk, and talked of Coleridge, who, the morning after we parted from him, had been at her house to fetch his watch, which he had forgotten two days before. He has since told me that he questioned her respecting the miserable condition of her hut, which, as you may remember, admitted the rain at the door, and retained it in the hollows of the mud floor: he told her how easy it would be to remove these inconveniences, and to contrive something, at least, to prevent the wind from entering at the window-places, if not a glass window for light and warmth by day. She replied that this was very true, but if they made any improvements the laird would conclude that they were growing rich, and would raise their rent.

  The ferryman happened to be just ready at the moment to go over the lake with a poor man, his wife and child. The little girl, about three years old, cried all the way, terrified by the water. When we parted from this family, they going down the lake, and we up it, I could not but think of the difference in our condition to that poor woman, who, with her husband, had been driven from her home by want of work, and was now going a long journey to seek it elsewhere: every step was painful toil, for she had either her child to bear or a heavy burthen. I walked as she did, but pleasure was my object, and if toil came along with it, even that was pleasure, — pleasure, at least, it would be in the remembrance.

  We were, I believe, nine miles from Glenfalloch when we left the boat. To us, with minds at ease, the walk was delightful; it could not be otherwise, for we passed by a continual succession of rocks, woods, and mountains; but the houses were few, and the ground cultivated only in small portions near the water, consequently there was not that sort of variety which leaves distinct separate remembrances, but one impression of solitude and greatness. While the Highlander and I were plodding on together side
by side, interspersing long silences with now and then a question or a remark, looking down to the lake he espied two small rocky islands, and pointing to them, said to me, ‘It will be gay and dangerous sailing there in stormy weather when the water is high.’ In giving my assent I could not help smiling, but I afterwards found that a like combination of words is not uncommon in Scotland, for, at Edinburgh, William being afraid of rain, asked the ostler what he thought, who, looking up to the sky, pronounced it to be ‘gay and dull,’ and therefore rain might be expected. The most remarkable object we saw was a huge single stone, I believe three or four times the size of Bowder Stone. The top of it, which on one side was sloping like the roof of a house, was covered with heather. William climbed up the rock, which would have been no easy task but to a mountaineer, and we constructed a rope of pocket-handkerchiefs, garters, plaids, coats, etc., and measured its height. It was so many times the length of William’s walking-stick, but, unfortunately, having lost the stick, we have lost the measure. The ferryman told us that a preaching was held there once in three months by a certain minister — I think of Arrochar — who engages, as a part of his office, to perform the service. The interesting feelings we had connected with the Highland Sabbath and Highland worship returned here with double force. The rock, though on one side a high perpendicular wall, in no place overhung so as to form a shelter, in no place could it be more than a screen from the elements. Why then had it been selected for such a purpose? Was it merely from being a central situation and a conspicuous object? Or did there belong to it some inheritance of superstition from old times? It is impossible to look at the stone without asking, How came it hither? Had then that obscurity and unaccountableness, that mystery of power which is about it, any influence over the first persons who resorted hither for worship? Or have they now on those who continue to frequent it? The lake is in front of the perpendicular wall, and behind, at some distance, and totally detached from it, is the continuation of the ridge of mountains which forms the vale of Loch Lomond — a magnificent temple, of which this spot is a noble Sanctum Sanctorum.