, cups, and the like. The situation
would be noble if the woods had been left standing; but they have been
cut down not long ago, and the hills above and below the house are quite
bare. About a mile and a half from Drumlanrigg is a turnpike gate at the
top of a hill. We left our car with the man, and turned aside into a
field where we looked down upon the Nith, which runs far below in a deep
and rocky channel; the banks woody; the view pleasant down the river
towards Thornhill, an open country--corn fields, pastures, and scattered
trees. Returned to the turnpike house, a cold spot upon a common, black
cattle feeding close to the door. Our road led us down the hill to the
side of the Nith, and we travelled along its banks for some miles. Here
were clay cottages perhaps every half or quarter of a mile. The bed of
the stream rough with rocks; banks irregular, now woody, now bare; here a
patch of broom, there of corn, then of pasturage; and hills green or
heathy above. We were to have given our horse meal and water at a
public-house in one of the hamlets we passed through, but missed the
house, for, as is common in Scotland, it was without a sign-board.
Travelled on, still beside the Nith, till we came to a turnpike house,
which stood rather high on the hill-side, and from the door we looked a
long way up and down the river. The air coldish, the wind strong.

We asked the turnpike man to let us have some meal and water. He had no
meal, but luckily we had part of a feed of corn brought from Keswick, and
he procured some hay at a neighbouring house. In the meantime I went
into the house, where was an old man with a grey plaid over his
shoulders, reading a newspaper. On the shelf lay a volume of the Scotch
Encyclopaedia, a History of England, and some other books. The old man
was a caller by the way. The man of the house came back, and we began to
talk. He was very intelligent; had travelled all over England, Scotland,
and Ireland as a gentleman's servant, and now lived alone in that
lonesome place. He said he was tired of his bargain, for he feared he
should lose by it. And he had indeed a troublesome office, for
coal-carts without number were passing by, and the drivers seemed to do
their utmost to cheat him. There is always something peculiar in the
house of a man living alone. This was but half-furnished, yet nothing
seemed wanting for his comfort, though a female who had travelled half as
far would have