Page:Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth (Macmillan, 1897) (IA cu31924104001478).pdf/272

 left this bay we saw before us a long reach of woods and rocks and rocky points, that promised other bays more beautiful than what we had passed. The ferryman was a good-natured fellow, and rowed very industriously, follow- ing the ins and outs of the shore ; he was delighted with the pleasure we expressed, continually repeating how pleasant it would have been on a fine day. I believe he was attached to the lake by some sentiment of pride, as his own domain—his being almost the only boat upon it ——which made him, seeing we were willing gazers, take far more pains than an ordinary boatman; he would often say, after he had compassed the turning of a point, “This is a bonny part,” and he always chose the bonniest, with greater skill than our prospect-hunters and “ pictur- esque travellers”; places screened from the winds—that was the first pomt; the rest followed of course,—tricher growing trees, rocks and banks, and curves which the eye delights in.

The second bay we came to differed from the rest ; the hills retired a short space from the lake, leaving a few level fields between, on which was a cottage em- bosomed in trees: the bay was defended by rocks at each end, and the hills behind made a shelter for the cottage, the only dwelling, I believe, except one, on this side of Loch Ketterine. We now came to steeps that rose directly from the lake, and passed by a place called in the Gaelic the Den of the Ghosts,! which reminded us of Lodore ; it is a rock, or mass of rock, with a stream of large black stones like the naked or dried-up bed of a torrent down the side of it; birch-trees start out of the rock in every direction, and cover the hill above, further than we could see. The water of the lake below was very deep, black, and calm. Our delight increased as we advanced, till we came in view of the termination of the lake, seeing where the river issues out of it through a narrow chasm between the hills.

! Goblins’ Cave.—]. ©. S.