so
little.
"While the hostler was harnessing the horse we went to see the
waterfall. There was a path leading to it through the bushes. There was
a small foot bridge over the stream, just below the waterfall, where we
could stand and see the water tumbling down over the rocks.
"While we were there they called us to tell us that the machine was
ready. So we went back to the inn. There were two machines ready at the
door. One was for another party. There was a lady in that machine, and
it was just starting. Ours was just starting, too. They told us that
there was a steep hill at the beginning, and that it was customary for
the gentlemen to walk up.
"So we walked up. The road lay along the brink of a deep ravine, with
the brook that made the waterfall tumbling along over the rocks at the
bottom of it.
"When we got to the top of the hill the machine stopped, and we all got
in. Waldron rode on the front seat with the driver, and uncle George and
I rode behind.
"The country was very wild and dreary. There was nothing to be seen all
around but hills and mountains, all covered with brakes and ferns, and
moss and heather. There were no woods, no pastures, no fields, and no
farm houses. It was the dreariest-looking country I ever saw. In the
middle of the way we came to some old stone hovels, with thatched
roofs--very dismal-looking dwellings indeed. There was usually one door
and one little window by the side of it. The window was about as big as
you would make for a horse, in the side of a stable. I looked into one
of these hovels. There was no floor, only flat stones laid in the
ground, and scarcely any furniture. The Irish shanties, where they are
making railroads in America, are very pretty houses compared to them.
"The driver told us that the whole country belonged to a duke. He keeps
it to shoot grouse in, in the fall of the year. The grouse is a bird
like a partridge. They live on the heather. I saw some of them flying
about.
"The road was very good. The duke made it, the driver said. We could see
the road a great way before us, along the valley. By and by we saw some
people coming. They were a great way off, but we could see that they
were travellers, by the umbrellas, and shawls, and knapsacks they had in
their hands. Presently we could see a man coming up a hill just before
them with a wheelbarrow load of trunks that he was wheeling along. So we
knew that it was a party of travellers, coming across from
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