Page:Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth (Macmillan, 1897) (IA cu31924104001478).pdf/223

 left along the bed of the stream, and soon we were closed in by rocks on each side. They were very lofty—of limestone, trees starting out of them, high and low, overhanging the stream or shooting up towards the sky. No place of the kind could be more beautiful if the stream had been clear, but it was of a muddy yellow colour; had it been a large river, one might have got the better of the unpleasantness of the muddy water in the grandeur of its roaring, the boiling up of the foam over the rocks, or the obscurity of its pools.

We had been told that the Cartland Crags were better worth going to see than the Falls of the Clyde. I did not think so; but I have seen rocky dells resembling this before, with clear water instead of that muddy stream, and never saw anything hke the Falls of the Clyde. It would be a delicious spot to have near one’s house; one would linger out many a day in the cool shade of the caverns, and the stream would soothe one by its murmur- ing; still, being an old friend, one would not love it the less for its homely face. Even we, as we passed along, could not help stopping for a long while to admire the beauty of the lazy foam, for ever in motion, and never moved away, in a still place of the water, covering the whole surface of it with streaks and lines and ever-vary- ing circles. Wild marjoram grew upon the rocks in great perfection and beauty ; our guide gave me a bunch, and said he should come hither to collect a store for tea for the winter, and that it was “varra halesome”: he drank none else. We walked perhaps half a mile along the bed of the river; but it might scewz to be much further than it was, owing to the difficulty of the path, and the sharp and many turnings of the glen. Passed two of Wallace’s Caves. There is scarce a noted glen in Scotland that has not a cave for Wallace or some other hero. Before we left the river the rocks became less lofty, turned into a wood through which was a convenient path upwards, met the owner of the house and the echo-ground, and thanked him for the pleasure