Transcriber’s Note Italic text displayed as: _italic_ THE HIGHLAND GLEN. THE PROFITS WILL BE GIVEN FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE SUFFERING HIGHLANDERS. THE HIGHLAND GLEN; OR, PLENTY AND FAMINE. BY MATILDA WRENCH. LONDON: B. WERTHEIM, ALDINE CHAMBERS, PATERNOSTER-ROW. M DCCC XLVII. MACINTOSH, PRINTER, GREAT NEW-STREET LONDON. THE HIGHLAND GLEN. Reader, have you ever visited the western Highlands of Argyleshire? If you have, you will doubtless retain many a pleasant memory of the wild glens and the fair lakes, and the picturesque and magnificent mountains that make up the lovely scenery of these regions of the beautiful. If you have not, trust yourself for a few brief minutes to our guidance, while we strive to recal the impressions of one day, out of many happy days, passed in a Highland village there, not very long ago. The traveller who visits this spot, seldom leaves it without exploring the upper shores and the Serpent’s Fall, at the head of Loch ——, nor did I and my companion; and, as we were slowly rowed up it against the tide, we gazed in admiration at the pyramidal and craggy mountains that towered majestically above the deep blue waters of the lake, shelving into them, and jutting out in little promontories that almost met on either side, damming up the current so as to make it discharge itself with tenfold impetuosity as it escaped from the narrowed channel. One of our guides was a student of St. Andrew’s, the son of one of the smaller tenantry on the Lochiel estates, and, during the vacation, he was endeavouring, by rowing visitors about the lake, to raise a small sum of money for the purchase of books to enable him to pursue his studies on his return to college. He was a fine athletic-looking lad, with a countenance of remarkable intelligence, and was perfectly well versed in all the legends of the locality. Indeed, his older and more staid fellow-labourer at the oar now and then allowed a half incredulous smile to steal over his weather-beaten face, as Mr. —— related how the shepherd of the glen, in ages past, had, after many warnings, been changed into a mountain on the Inverness side (where, alas! he was wont to stray), and how his faithful wife, who had many a time strained her eyes in vain in watching for his return, was rewarded for her fidelity and devotion, by finding herself and the stone, on which she used to sit in the dim twilight, gradually growing into the shapely mountain that still bears her name,[1] so that, while the world lasts, she shall never again lose sight of her gude man. It was truly an idle tale, and yet not, perhaps, altogether vain, for it might suggest a thought of sin and sorrow, that pair inseparably united by a decree which none may break. But we must not linger thus, lest minutes turn to hours, and patience be tired before her time.