Page:The Poems and Prose remains of Arthur Hugh Clough, volume 1 (1869).djvu/45

Rh night, we reached another on the side of the loch, about six miles from Dalwhinnie. It was one of the loveliest, most primitive places I ever saw even in the most out-of-the-way parts of the Highlands. We told Clough of it, and when his reading party was over, later in the autumn, he went on our track. He spent a night at the inn at the west end of Loch Rannoch, called Tighnalyne, where he met with some of the incidents which appeared in "The Bothie." He also visited the house by the side of Loch Ericht, a small heather-thatched hut, occupied by one of the foresters of the Ben Aulder forest. He found one of the children lying sick of a fever, the father I think from home, and the mother without any medicines or other aid for her child. He immediately set off and walked to Fort William, about two days' journey from the place, but the nearest place where medicines and other supplies were to be had. These he got at Fort William, and returned on his two days' journey, and left them with the mother. He had four days' walk, over a rough country, to bring medicines to this little child, and the people did not even know his name. On these occasions in Scotland, he told me that he used to tell the people he was a "Teacher," and they were at once at ease with him then. I doubt whether he ever mentioned this to anyone but myself, and to me it only came out casually.

'If I am not mistaken, it was from this place that he took the original name of what is now Tober-na-Vuolich. In this year he visited the West Highlands, and went through "Lochaber, anon in Locheil, in Knoydart, Moydart, Morrer, Ardgower, and Ardnamurchan." In the first edition this line was "Knoydart, Moydart, Croydart, Morrer, and Ardnamurchan." But he discovered afterwards that Croydart was only the way that the Gael pronounce what is spelt Knoydart. During this wander, he saw all the country about Ben Nevis, westward to the Atlantic—