An Enchanted Day

“ HOT water, mem, and the ‘bus leaves at seven,” said a soft voice at the door.

“ Are you awake, Saint Katharine ? ” I called. Do you hear ? Must we leave Inverness to-day ? ”

“ Yes,” she answered, sleepily, to all three questions. “ We must. But do you suppose that when we get to heaven we can stay as long as we want to ? We have not been to the castle yet.”

“ Don’t bother your blessed head about that,” I said consolingly. “ The castle is frightfully modern, and it is only a prison, at the best. Nothing is worth looking at over here that is not older than the seventeenth century. Is your portmanteau packed ? ”

The omnibus was soon announced; hut early as it was, — and seven o’clock is very early in Scotland, — we found our genial host waiting to escort us to the steamer by which we were to go down the Caledonia Canal. Presently we were whirling away through the sunlit, silent streets and over the sparkling river, on our way to the dock of the pretty little Glengarry. As we crossed the bridge, we looked up for the last time, not so much to the castle as to its site on the storied hill. For there Macbeth and his proud queen had dwelt, and there, in some dark chamber of the old eleventh-century castle, there can be little doubt that gentle King Duncan was foully slain. Malcolm Caen-More, he of the “ Big Head,” razed it to the ground in his filial vengeance, and builded in its stead another and a finer one, where he and fair Margaret Atheling held court for many a day. This, in its turn, was blown up by the troops of Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1746, and number three, the present castle, is a court-house and a jail.

It was a glorious morning, clear and cool, with the bluest of skies, and sunshine that transfigured whatever it touched. There was a merry stir and bustle on hoard the small craft, but even before we were fairly off order had succeeded chaos, and the passengers, singly, in pairs, or in groups, but all, like John Gilpin, “ on pleasure bent,” had chosen their seats and established themselves for the day. The comfortable, large-windowed cabins accommodated many ; but most of us preferred the upper deck, from which we could watch the long, changeful panorama as it unrolled before us. For the Caledonia Canal, despite its prosaic name, is but a connecting link between a series of surpassingly lovely lochs, running through the Highlands, in almost a direct line, from Inverness to Oban.

For miles after leaving its dock, the little steamer wound its way between green banks, the canal following so closely every bend and curve of the river Ness, which was here scarcely wider than itself, as to seem its veritable shadow or double. The effect was very singular. They were so near each other, and there was so little that was artificial in the appearance of the latter, with its environment of reeds and rushes and the varied outline of its banks, that it was hard to say which was river and which was canal. Just below Inverness we passed the new cemetery, on a hillside sloping to the shore. Trees and flowers, green turf and golden sunshine, made God’s - acre beautiful that morning, and we caught glimpses of granite columns and of sculptured marbles. Over one small grave a white-winged angel poised lightly, hearing aloft a flaming torch. The sunlight, streaming down upon it, kindled it as with fire from heaven.

But not for life nor death did our pretty Glengarry pause; and on we swept through little Loch Dockfour into Loch Ness, the longest link in the chain of lakes, and averaging but one mile and a half in breadth. Long and narrow as it is, it has depth enough and to spare, and it never freezes. Little cared the merry passengers whether it did or no, as we stopped for a moment at Urquhart, and saw jutting out into the loch, on a bold peninsula, the ruins of Urquhart Castle. A truncated tower, ivy-mantled to its summit, and with many loopholes, in and out of which the wandering vines creep as they will, and some low crumbling walls, are all that is left of its ancient strength and splendor. A few miles farther down, and we landed at Foyers. There, it was said, omnibuses would be in waiting, to convey such of the passengers as did not care for so long a walk to the falls of Foyers. The boat would wait for us an hour. But the enterprising inhabitants must have made up their minds that the average tourist is a pedestrian. Just one nondescript vehicle waited at the little pier; and it was filled and whirling away down the road with the first comers long before the rest of us had left the boat. There was a rush for tickets, and then by twos, and threes, and half dozens, a boat-load of people hurried off in the direction, of the falls.

“ Go on, Saint Katharine,” I said, “ and see the show if you can. The attempt, even, is beyond my powers.”

I followed, very much at my leisure. To see the falls was a matter of small account. But just once in a lifetime to have a few blessed moments all to one’s self in those sweet, wild Highland solitudes, — would not that be worth the having? Fate granted me a full half hour. The crowd passed by me ; the footfalls, the gay voices, the peals of laughter, died away. At my left, a narrow path wound up the heights and through the woods to the falls. Before me, the level road stretched on and on. Sheer cliffs, not bare and desolate, but mantled by all manner of creeping growths, towered on one side. On the other, behind a screen of trees, brightened here and there by the scarlet berries of the rowan or mountain ash, the beautiful lake shone in the sun.

It was about ten o’clock. The air was fresh, yet warm, and spicy with the breath of the sweet-ferns. At a little distance, a gate in a hedge-row led into a descending lane, fern - bordered and thickly shaded. It was very enticing, and I tried the latch. Alas, it was fastened! There is always a flaming sword before the gate of Paradise — or, if not a sword, its equivalent — to keep us out. Yet why seek for anything better than the best ? Paradise was all around me. Now and then a bird, forgetting that springtime and love were over, trilled softly. Butterflies, black and golden, fluttered in the sun, and held special rendezvous wherever the brown earth in the roadway still kept the moisture of the dews. Everything seemed strangely familiar : cranesbill and buttercups bloomed by the wayside, and in the tangled thickets brakes and ferns jostled each other precisely as in rocky Green Mountain pastures. I looked at my watch, and knew that just then the same sun that shone on me in that sweet sylvan solitude was rising over Killington and Pico, three thousand miles away, — kindling the mountain-tops with sudden glory, and filling all the fair valleys with radiant light. Nature was chanting the same Te Deum there as here, — “ All the earth doth worship thee, the Father everlasting.”

But my half hour was over. Tramp, tramp, came the returning feet; laugh answered to laugh, and an occasional shout awakened the echoes. Saint Katharine, finding me under a tree, congratulated me on my wisdom in lagging behind. The falls were pretty enough, yet hardly worth the climb to those of us who knew the grand New World, where Nature works on so large a scale. Embarking again, we had a good view of Mealfourvornie, an isolated peak rising on the opposite side of the loch, and then swept on our downward way to Fort Augustus, where, by a series of seven locks, we ascend to Aberchalder, at the north end of Loch Oich. The passage of these locks takes an hour or two. For a while we sat upon the deck, watching the slow procedure, as two dozen men tugged and pulled and pushed, turning a sort of turnstile round and round; and we wondered how long it would have been, in America, before some one of the two dozen would have discovered a way to apply horse or steam power to the work, which was evidently tedious.

Pictures to right of us, pictures to left of us. For our delight, no doubt, even though all unconsciously, a young woman in a brown gown, with a red kerchief knotted about her throat, and no covering on her bright brown hair, had seated herself on the very edge of the canal, and was devoting her strong, supple fingers and all her energies to the making of a great gray fish-net. No royal dame, no princess of the blood, could have glanced at the canaille with a more superb scorn than she at us. Her seat was her throne. What cared she for idle tourists ? With bagpipes under his arm, his green plaid over his shoulder, and his Scotch cap set jauntily, here comes Sandy, striding along as if in seven-league boots. Two younger laddies— for Sandy is but a lad himself — trot by his side, small copies of the big brother or cousin, bagpipes and all. Scarlet coats gleam here and there, as her majesty’s omnipresent soldiers mingle with the crowd, exchanging greetings and bandying jokes. Old women, in mobcaps with flapping borders, preside at little tables unsheltered from the sun, and dispense beer, ale, milk, and sundry other things to such of the passengers as are tempted to test their hospitality. But the old crones waste no time while waiting. Each has her knitting-work, and the long blue-gray stocking grows apace as the shining needles flash merrily. Children, quaintly dressed, and looking as if they had stepped out of a Kate Greenaway book, race up and down the pier. All is bustle and animation.

Not far off, the monastery of St. Benedict rose in the midst of extensive grounds. We had seen the ghosts of monasteries and abbeys without number, and most entrancing we had found them. Now here was our chance to see one that was alive, — a bit of mediæval existence dropped into the last quarter of the nineteenth century. So climbing the rather long ascent from the dock to the pretty lodge at the entrance of the grounds, we made the usual inquiries of the portress. Yes, we could go in. The fee was a shilling. But it was too late to go over the monastery. A party from the boat had gone up long before (conscientious sight-seers that they were, while we lazily dallied looking at pictures), and there was not time to escort two parties, etc. Overwhelmed with remorse for our shortcomings, we looked at each other in dismay, and were about to go back, when we heard first an unobtrusive call, then a loud shout. Some one at the entrance of the monastery, at a long distance down a graveled walk, was waving both hands, beckoning frantically, and shouting something that sounded amazingly like a Yankee “Hurry up ! ”

Hurry we did, to find that the whole party of early birds had been kept waiting all this while, for the possible addition of two or three late comers. Our gesticulating friend, who proved to be the janitor, a talkative, redhaired Irishman, was soon conducting us up stairs and down, from chapel to cloister, from kitchen to refectory, from recitation-room to dormitory. For the monastery of St. Benedict, which was once Fort Augustus, having exchanged the clash of arms for the tumult of cricket and tennis, is now a college, or large school for boys. It was vacation, and not a soul was to be seen, — not a single lad in cap and gown, not so much as the shadow of a black-robed friar in hall, chapter-house, or cloister.

“ Where are all the brethren ? ” asked an inquisitive American, with a broad sombrero and a long beard. “ Where do the monks hide themselves ? Can’t you show ’em up ? Come, now, I ’ll give you an extra shilling.”

I he janitor looked at him with halfclosed eyes, from beneath a pair of heavy eyebrows, for full half a minute. “ You won’t see them,” he said quietly. “ The brothers are not such fools as you may think. They ‘re not on exhibition, — the friars.”

It was interesting to see a monastery of our own time. But it lacked the atmosphere, the glamour, the mystery, of the past. It is a fine building, and doubtless a good school. Yet very poor and commonplace did it seem in the strong, clear light of to-day, and very prosaic and shadowless are its brandnew, spick-and-span cloisters, unhallowed by song or legend.

The warning - bell rang sharply, and as we hurried back to the boat we saw one or two tall figures, in black gowns and low, broad-brimmed hats, stealing towards St. Benedict, through the lanes and behind the hedges. Neither the friars nor the monastery were on exhibition now, and the brothers were hastening home.

As we left Fort Augustus we saw the prettiest picture of all. Do the folk about there live out-of-doors, I wonder, French fashion ? Soon after we were under way again, on the very shores of the lake, we passed a family group that looked as if posing for a photograph. In the foreground, seated in a low chair, with her knitting in her lap, was a lovely lady in black, whose only head-covering was a widow’s cap, so fresh and immaculate that one could but wonder how it was ever made and put on. A younger woman leaned on the back of her chair, and some pretty children, bare-headed, played at her feet, scarcely noticing the steamer as it passed so near them that it would have been easy to toss a ball into the midst of the group. At the right of the fair lady stood a gentleman in full Highland costume, with tartan kilt that left the knees uncovered, a belted jacket, and a bright plaid draped across the breast, and fastened on one shoulder with a cairngorm clasp, or brooch. His richly ornamented sporran, or pouch, reached below the kilt. By his side hung his dirk, and the handle of the sheathed knife with the unpronounceable name stuck from the top of the stocking, where it is worn. My laird would have been handsome in any costume. In this he was simply superb. For an instant, it seemed like a tableau gotten up for our especial benefit, and I, for one, felt an absurd desire to applaud as the pretty picture faded out of sight.

Soon after we entered Loch Oich it began to rain so violently that we were driven below, much to our chagrin. Yet the passing shower proved to be but a blessing in disguise, and by the time we had passed through two or three more lochs and as many locks to Banavie, the sun, “ clear shining after rain,” made the constantly changing panorama more beautiful than before. There we left the steamer, and found omnibuses in waiting to convey us a mile or two across a sort of peninsula to Corpach, where we again embarked.

The long summer afternoon was at its height when we caught our first glimpse of the mighty bulk of Ben Nevis towering above Fort William. A little farther northward stood the round towers of ruined Castle Inverlochy, once a royal fortress, but dismantled even so long ago as when the chiefs of Glengarry and Keppoch and Lochiel sent the fiery cross far and wide through all the mountains of Lochaber, summoning their vassals to do battle with Montrose against Argyle. Here Argyle had encamped, in the narrow valley “ where the Lochy joins Loch Eil,” and here Campbells and Camerons, the Knight of Ardenvohr and bold Ranald of the Mist, had met hand to hand in deadly combat. Every mountain pass, every narrow defile, every lonely glen, was peopled with the spirits of the past. And hark ! What is that ? The bagpipes are sounding. Surely it can be nothing less than the

“ Wild waves the eagle plume blended with heather,” sang he who will live as long as the hills and lakes of his own bonny Scotland. We saw no eagle plumes that day, but there was not a Scotch man or woman on the boat who did not wear the heather fastened in cap or bonnet. Sometimes it was worn alone, as an all - sufficient ornament ; sometimes it was held in place by a great cairngorm, as lustrous and full of imprisoned sunshine as an Oriental topaz, and sometimes by Lochaber axes, dirks, or claymores fashioned from pebbles set in silver. As a fine contrast to these northern splendors, we had on board an Indian nobleman, Prince Hernam Singh, and his dusky princess, in whose brown ears gleamed long, barbaric pendants of emerald and pearl. All day long, their servant, a tall and stately figure in snowy turban and Oriental costume, stood on one of the stairways leading to the upper deck, silent, impassive, statuesque. He was a most imposing and impressive figure, with his folded arms, his compressed lips, and his dark, inscrutable eyes, that took in every unaccustomed feature of lake and sky and mountain. His master and mistress made few demands upon him ; but more than once I saw the latter approach him with a few low words in soft Hindostanee, or perhaps some dainty from the lunch - basket. When we stopped at Corpach, the little street gamins, to say nothing of their elders, crowded about him on the dock; touching his strange garments, peering up into his face, and making themselves generally disagreeable. He did not turn his head nor lift his hand, heeding them no more than if they had been insects buzzing about a marble statue.

Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Great Britain, is grand and imposing, less from its height, which is only 4406 feet, than from its breadth, if one may use the word. Its circumference at the base is, we were told, nearly twenty-five miles. To the average eye it seems higher than it is, at least when seen from the water. It is a world of precipices, and glens, and huge rents and fissures, and vast shadowy masses that are always taking on new outlines and new proportions. Often it appears in the similitude of some great, crouching monster brooding in sombre majesty over the pigmies at its feet.

At last, as day began to wane, we passed through Loch Aber and the Corran Narrows into Loch Linnhe. And here the mighty spirit of the lakes and mountains took possession of us all, and held that boat-load of merry people silent and spellbound. It was as if we were being borne onward, swiftly and noiselessly, into the inmost holy of holies. Even the captain and the very deckhands stood like men entranced, overwhelmed by the surpassing splendor. Anything so grand, so weird, so magical, can hardly be imagined, much less described. The rain of two hours before had left the air heavy with vapor, through which the sun now shone gloriously, producing the most marvelous effects. “ You might make this trip a hundred times, ladies,” said the captain, as he stood uncovered, “and not get the half of what you are getting to-day, — no, nor the tenth of it.”

I quote this, lest some of our dear wandering kinsfolk, who have been “ down the Caledonia Canal ” on some dull, gray day, when the Scotch mists hemmed them in on all sides, and they could scarcely see beyond the decks, should cry out, “ How that woman exaggerates ! ” But we have all seen transformation scenes on the stage, where the effect of light and color, of rapidly dissolving views, and of seemingly supernatural revelations filled us with wordless awe. Now make the stage one vast panorama of shining, sparkling water, as still as a sheet of silver. Dot the surface with islands, dark masses of verdure rising out of the depths, and often picturesquely beautiful with ivy-grown mouldering towers, broken arches, and here and there a stately monument. Let the nearer hills, sloping upwards from the shores, be cultivated and clothed with living green more than half-way up; make them gentle and homelike by building stately mansions on the broad terraces, and letting small gray cottages, like birds’-nests, perch on the sightly cliffs ; then, stretching far above these human habitations, let the purple of the wild heather, blending with the soft olives of ferns and mosses, climb to their very tops. Beyond them, tier on tier, not in regular ranges, but jutting out edgewise, and crosswise, and allwise, let the mightier hills stretch upwards and onwards, appearing and disappearing ; now looming up out of the vapor in cold, blue splendor, then suddenly vanishing like pallid ghosts; changing every moment; presenting constantly new vistas, new cloud marvels, and new openings into far, radiant reaches, through which you seem to see heaven itself. Throw over all this light veils of mist, that soften rather than obscure, — pale gray, dazzling silver, soft rose, translucent amber, purple amethyst, — veils that float, and lift, and waver with every breath and with every motion of the boat, and you will have some faint idea of what our eyes beheld that August evening as we crossed Loch Linnhe and passed into Loch Leven, pausing for a few moments at Ballachulish, and then, turning into Linnhe again, swept on our downward way towards Oban. But you must do still more. You must imagine all this magnificence of cloud and mountain and island so perfectly mirrored in the clear, still waters of the lake that even the changing splendor of color was duplicated, and heaven was below as well as above us.

It grew dark and chill at last. The overpowering glory died, and earth was earth once more, but the effect remained. Young men and maidens, old men and children, were content to sit in silence, or to speak in subdued whispers, as we watched for the first gleam of the semicircular cordon of lights that guard the bay of Oban.

Julia C. R. Dorr.