Glenfeochan House is beautifully situated at the foot of the glen. It lies low--perhaps a little too low--nestling among the hills, with glens and lochs on every hand. The drawing-room windows looked across the river to the sea; and when the curtains were drawn, and a fire was found not unpleasant in the cool autumn evenings, the emotional delight with which William Nelson welcomed the songs of Scotland, or some of his favourite hymns, was infectious. His taste in music was simple, but it yielded him intense pleasure, and not infrequently moved him to tears. But such evening relaxations were generally the close of a busy day; for Oban is a choice centre for the explorer. It afforded means of access to the fiords or sea-lochs of Argyleshire, and to the outlying Hebrides. There were Iona and Staffa, Glencoe and Mull, with the ruined keep of Duart Castle, the Lady Rock, and the legend of “Fair Ellen of Lorne,” which is perpetuated in Campbell’s ballad of “Glenara.” There was the vitrified fort of Dun MacUisneachan at Loch Etive to explore; and on the opposite side of the loch, Dunstaffnage, the home of the Dalriadic kings, where of old was held in safe keeping the _liah fhail_, or stone of destiny, now enshrined in the coronation chair in Westminster Abbey. The unique cairn or serpent-mound of Loch Nell, another object of special curiosity, was visited more than once, in the hope of arriving at some definite idea of its actual character. For the fact of a huge saurian mound, like some of those in the valley of the Ohio, lying there in a secluded nook between the hills of Lorne that form the steep escarpment of Glenfeochan, was a thing too exceptional for William Nelson to allow to pass without some attempt at a solution of its mysteries.