from the neighbourhood of Luss. We found nobody at home
at the inn, but the ferryman shouted, wishing to have a glass of whisky,
and a young woman came from the hay-field, dressed in a white bed-gown,
without hat or cap. There was no whisky in the house, so he begged a
little whey to drink with the fragments of our cold meat brought from
Callander. After a short rest in a cool parlour we set forward again,
having to cross the river and climb up a steep mountain on the opposite
side of the valley. I observed that the people were busy bringing in the
hay before it was dry into a sort of 'fauld' or yard, where they intended
to leave it, ready to be gathered into the house with the first
threatening of rain, and if not completely dry brought out again. Our
guide bore me in his arms over the stream, and we soon came to the foot
of the mountain. The most easy rising, for a short way at first, was
near a naked rivulet which made a fine cascade in one place. Afterwards,
the ascent was very laborious, being frequently almost perpendicular.

It is one of those moments which I shall not easily forget, when at that
point from which a step or two would have carried us out of sight of the
green fields of Glenfalloch, being at a great height on the mountain, we
sate down, and heard, as if from the heart of the earth, the sound of
torrents ascending out of the long hollow glen. To the eye all was
motionless, a perfect stillness. The noise of waters did not appear to
come this way or that, from any particular quarter: it was everywhere,
almost, one might say, as if 'exhaled' through the whole surface of the
green earth. Glenfalloch, Coleridge has since told me, signifies the
Hidden Vale; but William says, if we were to name it from our
recollections of that time, we should call it the Vale of Awful Sound.
We continued to climb higher and higher; but the hill was no longer
steep, and afterwards we pursued our way along the top of it with many
small ups and downs. The walk was very laborious after the climbing was
over, being often exceedingly stony, or through swampy moss, rushes, or
rough heather. As we proceeded, continuing our way at the top of the
mountain, encircled by higher mountains at a great distance, we were
passing, without notice, a heap of scattered stones round which was a
belt of green grass--green, and as it seemed rich, where all else was
either poor heather and coarse grass, or unprofitable rushes and spongy