Page:Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth (Macmillan, 1897) (IA cu31924104001478).pdf/212

 and trees which were growing in the gardens seemed to be so unluxuriant, might be, that there being no hedgerows, the general appearance of the country was naked, and I could not help seeing the same coldness where, perhaps, it did not exist in itself to any great degree, for the corn crops are abundant, and I should think the soil is not bad. While we were sitting at the door, two of the landlady’s children came out ; the elder, a boy about six years old, was running away from his little brother, in petticoats ; the ostler called out, “ Sandy, tak’ your wee brither wr you”; another voice from the window, “Sawny, dinna leave your wee brither”; the mother then came, ‘‘ Alexander, tak’ your wee brother by the hand”; Alexander obeyed, and the two went off in peace together. We were charged eightpence for hay at this inn, another symptom of our being im Scotland. Left Douglas Mill at about three o’clock; travelled through an open corn country, the tracts of corn large and unenclosed. We often passed women or children who were watching a single cow while it fed upon the slips of grass between the corn. William asked a strong woman, about thirty years of age, who looked lke the mistress of a family—-I suppose moved by some sentiment of compassion for her being so employed,—if the cow would eat the corn if it were left to itself: she smiled at his simplicity. It is indeed a melancholy thing to see a full-grown woman thus waiting, as it were, body and soul devoted to the poor beast; yet even this is better than working in a manufactory the day through.

We came to a moorish tract; saw before us the hills of Loch Lomond, Ben Lomond and another, distinct each by itself. Not far from the roadside were some benches placed in rows in the middle of a large field, with a sort of covered shed like a sentry-box, but much more like those boxes which the Italian puppet-showmen in London use. We guessed that it was a pulpit or tent for preaching, and were told that a sect met there occasion-