A July Evening--Postal
Service at Loch Earn Head--The Maid of the
Inn--Impressions of Glencoe--An
Adventure--Torrents swollen with
Rain--Dangerous Traveling--Incidents and
Accidents--Broken-down Bridge--A Fortunate
Resolve--Post-boy in Danger--The Rescue--Narrow
Escape--A Highland Inn and Inmates--English
Comfort at Dalmally--Dinner at Glasgow
proposed--Eagerness for Home.

FROM Loch Earn Head Dickens wrote on Monday, the 5th of July, having
reached it, "wet through," at four that afternoon: "Having had a great
deal to do in a crowded house on Saturday night at the theatre, we left
Edinburgh yesterday morning at half-past seven, and traveled, with
Fletcher for our guide, to a place called Stewart's Hotel, nine miles
further than Callender. We had neglected to order rooms, and were
obliged to make a sitting-room of our own bed-chamber; in which my
genius for stowing furniture away was of the very greatest service.
Fletcher slept in a kennel with three panes of glass in it, which formed
part and parcel of a window; the other three panes whereof belonged to a
man who slept on the other side of the partition. He told me this
morning that he had had a nightmare all night, and had screamed
horribly, he knew. The stranger, as you may suppose, hired a gig and
went off at full gallop with the first glimpse of daylight.[40] Being
very tired (for we had not had more than three hours' sleep on the
previous night) we lay till ten this morning, and at half-past eleven
went through the Trossachs to Loch Katrine, where I walked from the
hotel after tea last night. It is impossible to say what a glorious
scene it was. It rained as it never does rain anywhere but here. We
conveyed Kate up a rocky pass to go and see the island of the Lady of
the Lake, but she gave in after the first five minutes, and we left
her, very picturesque and uncomfortable, with Tom" (the servant they had
brought with them from Devonshire Terrace) "holding an umbrella over her
head, while we climbed on. When we came back, she had gone into the
carriage. We were wet through to the skin, and came on in that state
four-and-twenty miles. Fletcher is very good-natured, and of
extraordinary use in these outlandish parts. His habit of going into
kitchens and bars, disconcerting at Broadstairs, is here of great
service. Not expecting us till six, they hadn't lighted our fires when
we arrived here