people love me dearly at first sight. I can't love others so, my mind shrinks from strangers. Then how should they like me at once? I am sure our old friend must tire of the incursions of these nothing-doing people. I am vexed to see that Mary is fondly intimate with them. Say they are quite harmless, as I dare say they may be, they favour her own bent too much. Good night, I am very tired; but you know my. day, from five in the morning till midnight, admits of doing much to make me so. LETTER VI. TO MISS REID, GLASGOW. Oban, May 3, 1773. I WROTE letters of duty in the morning, walked out all the forenoon, except a short time I spent with the sweetest of children and her father; and now I shall account to you for the remaining hours. After dinner we left our two old gentlemen together, and set set out for S: the walk Sward is charming. It is a sweet place, sheltered by a small hill; a brook, fringed with willows and alder, runs by it; beautiful meadows lie below, and towering mountains rise opposite. I never saw a place of a more pastoral aspect. I love the good old people: there is something so artless, primitive, and benevolent about them. I think I could guess them, by their looks, to be what every one describes them. Do you know, the Highlanders resemble the French, in being poor. with a better grace than other people. If they want certain luxuries or conveniences, they do not look embarrassed, or disconcerted, and make you feel awkward by paltry apologies, which you don't know how to answer; they rather dismiss any sentiment of that kind by a kind of playful raillery, for which they seem to have a talent. Our visit, if not a pleasant, was at least a merry one. The moment tea was done, dancing began. Excellent dancers they are, and in music of various kinds they certainly excel. The floor is not yet laid, but that was no impediment impediment. People hereabouts when they have good ancestry, education, and manners, are so supported by the consciousness of those advantages, and the credit allowed for them, that they seem not the least disconcerted at the deficiency of the goods of fortune; and I give them great credit for their spirit and contentment, though it should provoke the appellation of poor and proud, which vulgar minds are so ready to apply to them. Is it not a blessed thing that there yet exists a place where poverty is respectable, and deprived of its sting? O this incurable disease of wandering! I will return to my description, which I broke off on the ebb shore. Behind the house, then, is an excellent, though as yet, infant, garden, for this is quite a new establishment; a range of offices stretch along the shore on each side; the king's wherry and other boats, and such vessels as may chance to arrive, lie a little westward, and animate the spot where the joint wisdom of the Duke and the Collector have projected a future village, the rudi VOL. 1. D ments ments of which already begin to appear*. From this chosen spot, where a large brook discharges itself into the sea, a peaceful, long, green valleyt opens from the shore, of which the Duke has given an advantageous lease to the Collector, who is a great favourite. The cottages lie in clusters on the sides of the sloping hills, or in sequestered nooks, below rocks interspersed with patches of earth, tufted with yellow broom, or mountain ash, which nod so wildly! And the people have so much the air of loving and helping each other! and their goats are such familiar, fanciful looking creatures! I am so fond of the kids, that dance and frisk with so much humour and meaning, and cry so like children, I would fain have one of them follow me tame, and am sadly distressed when I must needs eat them. I think if ever I run wild on the rocks, which at times one. This village is now become a very flourishing + Glenshealeach, or the Vale of Willows, is the name of this verdant and pastoral glen. I feel more. I feel much inclined to, I will not be a shepherdess, but a goatherdess. These creatures have more sense and spirit than heavy-headed sheep; they differ just as highlanders do from plodding lowlanders.—To return once On the other side of the house, and within a small distance of it, rises a hill quite detached from all others, and as like a sugarloaf, as if the resemblance had been designed by art. It is small, compared to the lofty heights that overlook it. The fine prospect seen from the house, is commanded to great advantage from this little eminence. I climb'd to the very summit, which we should call high, but it is nothing here. There I found a white scallop shell, a diminutive of those used at Fingal's feasts. I was quite glad, thinking it a most orthodox shell, left by the deluge; but was so laughed at-and very justly, when I think of it; for it would, in that case, have mouldered to lime a thousand years ago. Well, I hope this will be a lesson against being positive and conceited. Good night; I go to church to-morrow. Now I think of it, I will not go to sleep without D 2 |