h, Friday evening, ninth
July, 1841, half-past nine, P.M.," and described what we had often
longed to see together, the Pass of Glencoe. . . . "I can't go to bed
without writing to you from here, though the post will not leave this
place until we have left it and arrived at another. On looking over the
route which Lord Murray made out for me, I found he had put down
Thursday next for Abbotsford and Dryburgh Abbey, and a journey of
seventy miles besides! Therefore, and as I was happily able to steal a
march upon myself at Loch Earn Head, and to finish in two days what I
thought would take me three, we shall leave here to-morrow morning; and,
by being a day earlier than we intended at all the places between this
and Melrose (which we propose to reach by Wednesday night), we shall
have a whole day for Scott's house and tomb, and still be at York on
Saturday evening, and home, God willing, on Sunday. . . . We left Loch Earn
Head last night, and went to a place called Killin, eight miles from it,
where we slept. I walked some six miles with Fletcher after we got
there, to see a waterfall; and truly it was a magnificent sight, foaming
and crashing down three great steeps of riven rock; leaping over the
first as far off as you could carry your eye, and rumbling and foaming
down into a dizzy pool below you, with a deafening roar. To-day we have
had a journey of between 50 and 60 miles, through the bleakest and most
desolate part of Scotland, where the hill-tops are still covered with
great patches of snow, and the road winds over steep mountain-passes,
and on the brink of deep brooks and precipices. The cold all day has
been _intense_, and the rain sometimes most violent. It has been
impossible to keep warm, by any means; even whiskey failed; the wind was
too piercing even for that. One stage of ten miles, over a place called
the Black Mount, took us two hours and a half to do; and when we came to
a lone public called the King's House, at the entrance to Glencoe,--this
was about three o'clock,--we were wellnigh frozen. We got a fire
directly, and in twenty minutes they served us up some famous kippered
salmon, broiled; a broiled fowl; hot mutton ham and poached eggs;
pancakes; oat-cake; wheaten bread; butter; bottled porter; hot water,
lump sugar, and whiskey; of which we made a very hearty meal. All the
way, the road had been among moors and mountains, with huge masses of
rock, which fell down God knows where, sprinkling the gro