with the few houses at the entrance of the strath—a sea hamlet, without
trees, under a naked stony mountain, yet perfectly sheltered, standing in
the middle of a large bay which half the winds that travel over the lake
can never visit. The other, a little bowery spot, with its river,
bridge, and mill, might have been a hundred miles from the sea-side.
The moon was now shining, and though it reminded us how far the evening
was advanced, we stopped for many minutes before we could resolve to go
on; we saw nothing stirring, neither men, women, nor cattle; but the
linen was still bleaching by the stony rivulet, which ran near the houses
in water-breaks and tiny cataracts. For the first half mile after we had
left this scene there was no thing remarkable; and afterwards we could
only see the hills, the sky, the moon, and moonlight water. When we came
within, it might be, half a mile of Ballachulish, the place where we were
to lodge, the loch narrowed very much, the hills still continuing high.
I speak inaccurately, for it split into two divisions, the one along
which we went being called Loch Leven.
The road grew very bad, and we had an anxious journey till we saw a light
before us, which with great joy we assured ourselves was from the inn;
but what was our distress when, on going a few steps further, we came to
a bridge half broken down, with bushes laid across to prevent travellers
from going over. After some perplexity we determined that I should walk
on to the house before us—for we could see that the bridge was safe for
foot-passengers—and ask for assistance. By great good luck, at this very
moment four or five men came along the road towards us and offered to
help William in driving the car through the water, which was not very
deep at that time, though, only a few days before, the damage had been
done to the bridge by a flood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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