een admitted. They put us into a little parlour, dirty, and
smelling of liquors, the table uncleaned, and not a chair in its place;
we were glad, however, of our sorry accommodations.

While tea was preparing we lolled at our ease, and though the room-window
overlooked the stable-yard, and at our entrance there appeared to be
nothing but gloom and unloveliness, yet while I lay stretched upon the
carriage cushions on three chairs, I discovered a little side peep which
was enough to set the mind at work. It was no more than a smoky vessel
lying at anchor, with its bare masts, a clay hut and the shelving bank of
the river, with a green pasture above. Perhaps you will think that there
is not much in this, as I describe it: it is true; but the effect
produced by these simple objects, as they happened to be combined,
together with the gloom of the evening, was exceedingly wild. Our room
was parted by a slender partition from a large dining-room, in which were
a number of officers and their wives, who, after the first hour, never
ceased singing, dancing, laughing, or loud talking. The ladies sang some
pretty songs, a great relief to us. We went early to bed; but poor
Coleridge could not sleep for the noise at the street door; he lay in the
parlour below stairs. It is no uncommon thing in the best inns of
Scotland to have shutting-up beds in the sitting-rooms.

* * * * *

_Wednesday_, _August_ 24_th_.--As soon as breakfast was over, William and
I walked towards the Castle, a short mile from the town. We overtook two
young men, who, on our asking the road, offered to conduct us, though it
might seem it was not easy to miss our way, for the rock rises singly by
itself from the plain on which the town stands. The rock of Dumbarton is
very grand when you are close to it, but at a little distance, under an
ordinary sky, and in open day, it is not grand, but curiously wild. The
castle and fortifications add little effect to the general view of the
rock, especially since the building of a modern house, which is
white-washed, and consequently jars, wherever it is seen, with the
natural character of the place. There is a path up to the house, but it
being low water we could walk round the rock, which we resolved to do.
On that side next the town green grass grows to a considerable height up
the rock, but wherever the river borders upon it, it is naked stone. I
never saw rock in nobler masses,