Page:A Companion and Useful Guide to the Beauties of Scotland.djvu/406

388 Penny three times, and the three times twirl in the glass of wine I drank, was performed with all due solemnity; but as neither disease existed, nor faith accompanied the operation, no effect was produced from it. A gentleman in company, though no enthusiast, and who was in the last stage of a consumption, like a drowning person catching at a reed, looked eagerly at his enchanted glass of water; and although his voice laughed at the fable, his heart silently though feebly hoped; I saw it by the turn of his eye as he swallowed the draught: but, alas! on him it had no effect.

During my visit to the amiable family at Carstairs house, I also saw Boniton and its beauties in perfection, both in fine weather and in a flood. The banks of the Clyde, from the cotton works to the Boniton falls, are beyond description sublime and beautiful. The mill at Corie Lin, the ruin of the old house of Corie on the tip of the rocks hanging over the Lin, Wallace's seat at the top of the Lin, the noble masses of projecting rock, the rich wood on every side, with the grand fall of the Lin in the centre, which rolls from a prodigious height, and dashes to a great breadth, altogether form a wonderful effect. The