Summer at the Lake of Monteith

n6 The Lake of Monteith.
sweeping blast. We discuss breakfast; fill our flasks with "the
real naked truth," as our kind hostess termed it, and which,
I dare say, might have the advantage of " never seeing a
gauger;" and soon we are marching up the hill. Before
us stands the place where Rob Roy, one hundred years
ago, dashed up the hill with his foaming steed, while being
pursued by a troop of English dragoons. We ascend the knoll
on which it is said he stopped to rest the noble animal, and
gaze back on his pursuers, as they swept round the lake like
a whirlwind, and came on like a rolling flood. We fancy
we see the outlawed chief making preparations for the final
effort. As the eagle, high on yon dizzy cliff, plants his
wings before making the final dart upon his victim, Macgre-
gor plants his knees and his rowels firm into his horse's
sides, and, with a few terrific plunges, each like the swoop
of the falcon, the hero chief vanishes over the summit. We
hurry on up the rugged slope of Glenny, where,
" With crown of heath and brow of stone,
Crockmelly rears her head alone ;
And watching o'er the inlet brake,
The guardian angel of the lake."
The hill is already fresh with the glories of summer, and
as we ascend its fern-covered sides, and climb its breck-
an braes, we breathe the heather gale, and inhale the
fresh mountain breeze, balmy as it ever floats around Mon-
teith, and see the creeping moss clinging to the jutting
rocks. By-and-by we reach the summit, and after taking
" a refresher," we gaze downwards and onwards. A scene
intensely interesting meets our view. We will not compare
it with the bold sweep, as seen from the towering top of