st most men of his class, addicted to neither
drink nor quarrelling. He lived at the skirt of a mountain, which ran up
in long successive undulations, until it ended in a dark, abrupt peak,
very perpendicular on one side, and always, except on a bright day,
capped with clouds. Before his door lay a hard plain, covered only with
a kind of bent, and studded with round gray rocks, protruding somewhat
above its surface. Through this plain, over a craggy channel, ran a
mountain torrent, that issued to the right of M'Kenna's house, from a
rocky and precipitous valley which twisted itself round the base of
the mountain until it reached the perpendicular side, where the peak
actually overhung it. On looking either from the bottom of the valley or
the top of the peak, the depth appeared immense; and, on a summer's day,
when the black thorns and other hardy shrubs that in some placas clothed
its rocky sides were green, to view the river sparkling below you in the
sun, as it flung itself over two or three cataracts of great depth and
boldness, filled the mind with those undefinable sensations of pleasure
inseparable from a contemplation of the sublimities of nature. Nor did
it possess less interest when beheld in the winter storm. Well do we
remember, though then ignorant of our own motives, when we have, in the
turmoil of the elements, climbed its steep, shaggy sides, disappearing
like a speck, or something not of earth, among the dark clouds that
rolled over its summit, for no other purpose than to stand upon its
brow, and look down on the red torrent, dashing with impetuosity from
crag to crag, whilst the winds roared, and the clouds flew in dark
columns around us, giving to the natural wildness of the place an air
of wilder desolation.--Beyond this glen the mountains stretched away for
eight or ten miles in swelling masses, between which lay many extensive
sweeps, well sheltered and abundantly stocked with game, particularly
with hares and grouse. M'Kenna's house stood, as I said, at the foot
of this mountain, just where the yellow surface of the plain began to
darken into the deeper hues of the heath; to the left lay a considerable
tract of stony land in a state of cultivation; and beyond the river,
exactly opposite the house, rose a long line of hills, studded with
houses, and in summer diversified with pasture and corn fields, the
beauty of which was heightened by the columns of smoke that slanted
across the hills, as the bre