Page:A Companion and Useful Guide to the Beauties of Scotland.djvu/168

150 is in this place! do you hear that noise?"—All was echo; the whistle of a bird, the sound of the foot of an animal, the rustling of the wind amongst the trees, the gush of a torrent, or the fall of a pebble, resounded through the solemn pass, as through a ruined cloister. I listened:—it was a sonorous deep noise—dying away; and again regularly resuming the same key. I had no fears, and bid the men advance. But the road getting worse, and the pass narrowing, I got out of the carriage, thinking it more advisable to explore it on my own legs, than shut up in the chaise: I thus became the vanguard of my servants, as the fittest person to encounter the devils, should they have taken possession of the field of devotion.

When I caught the first glance of Loch Catheine, I was astonished, I was delighted!—a faint ray of sun was just then penetrating through the mist, still resting on the tops of the surrounding mountains and crags: tinging the wood on their sides, and gleaming on the beautiful islands in the lake. The devils too, greatly added to the beauty of the fore-ground. They were in a large boat, throwing from it, upon the shore, logs of wood, which they had brought from the head of