Page:Tales Round a Winter Hearth.djvu/19

 ROUND A WINTER HEARTH

A SCOTTISH TRADITION.

is yet standing in, one of the wildest and most sequestered parts of Argyleshire, in Scotland, the ruins of a castle which was habitable so late as the year 1790, though even at that period only one portion of it remained entire. At present it offers but some fragments of moss-grown towers, and of broken walls, between the gap of which the wild plum and the elder wave their neglected boughs.

The ruin stands in a melancholy glen, nearly enclosed by high healthy hills, which in summer look beautiful with their purple blossoms brightening in the sunshine; but in winter have a dark and desolate appearance, saddening to the spirits of those who live among them. Perhaps the melancholy and monotonous sound of the sea, gashing the coast, at no great distance, and heard through the openings of these hills, contributes to their depressing effect. Be this as it may, the effect if depressing, and the glen is rarely passed through, even by strangers, without exciting a disposition to sigh.