chapel, in far Iona, which also was built by her; and so it was with many reverent thoughts of an exalted soul and a beneficent life that I saw the great dark tower of Dunfermline church vanish in the distance. At Stirling, the rain, which had long been lowering, came down in floods, and after that for many hours there was genuine Scotch weather and a copious abundance of it. This also is an experience, and, although that superb drive over the mountain from Aberfoyle to Loch Katrine was marred by the wet, I was well pleased to see the Trosach country in storm, which I had before seen in sunshine. It is a land of infinite variety, and lovely even in tempest. The majesty of the rocky heights; the bleak and barren loneliness of the treeless hills; the many thread-like waterfalls which, seen afar off, are like rivulets of silver frozen into stillness on the mountain-sides; the occasional apparition of precipitous peaks, over which presently are driven the white streamers of the mist,--all these are striking elements of a scene which blends into the perfection of grace the qualities of gentle beauty and wild romance. Ben Lomond in the west and Ben Venue and Ben Ledi in the north were indistinct, and so was Ben A'an in its nearer cloud; but a brisk wind had swept the mists from Loch Drunkie, and under a bleak sky the smooth surface of "lovely Loch Achray" shone like a liquid diamond. An occasional grouse rose from the ferns and swiftly winged its way to cover. A few cows, wet but indifferent, composed and contented, were now and then visible, grazing in that desert; while high upon the crags appeared many sure-footed sheep, the inevitable inhabitants of those solitudes. So onward, breathing the sweet air that here was perfumed by miles and miles of purple heather, I descended through the dense coppice of birch and pine that fringes Loch Katrine, and all in a moment came out upon the levels of the lake. It was a long sail down Loch Katrine, for a pilgrim drenched and chilled by the steady fall of a penetrating rain; but Ellen's isle and Fitz-James's silver strand brought pleasant memories of one of the sweetest of stories, and all the lonesome waters seemed haunted with a ghostly pageant of the radiant standards of Roderick Dhu. To-night the mists are on the mountains, and upon this little pine-clad promontory of Stronachlacher the darkness comes down early and seems to close it in from all the world. The waters of Loch Katrine are black and gloomy, and no sound is heard but the rush of the rain and the sigh of the pines. It is a night for memory and for thought, and to them let it be devoted. The night-wind that sobs in the trees-- Ah, would that my spirit could tell What an infinite meaning it breathes, What a sorrow and longing it wakes! [Illustration: _Northwest Corner of Dunfermline Abbey._] [Illustration: _The Nave--Looking West--Dunfermline Abbey._] CHAPTER XXIII IMPERIAL RUINS [Illustration: _Loch Lomond._]