Summer at the Lake of Monteith

From Stirling to Inchmahome. 115
mahome, as they loom before us in the huge and hoary
wreck that stands with skeleton form, the monument of the
zeal of our early fathers; or in the noble trees that shoot
their giant antlers high in the breeze. We spend the after-
noon among the sacred relics of the Priory and Queen's
Garden, and then return to spend the night at the inn.
We are astir early in the morning; we find the weather,
as it always is at the Lake of Monteith, clear and beau-
tiful; and as we look out of our bed-room window, we gaze
on a landscape of placid beauty, the fairest our eye has
ever beheld — a landscape famous in history, poetry, and
romance. Before us stand the grand old Highland hills,
their tops clear, but the grey mist crawling along their
boggy sides, here and there tinged with the golden rays of
the summer sun, and throwing a few dark shadows deep
into the waters. We see the lake in all its loveliness,
with the ruins of Inchmahome looking through the hoary-
branches that adorn the isle — the isle which kings and
queens delighted to honour with their presence — the isle,
once the birth-place of earls, the home of royalty, the
favourite resort of monarchs, the safe retreat of queens. A
shallop, with oars ready, lies beneath our window, and we
see the sea-fowl playing over the blue waters. The hill and
the lake are alike tempting, and we now begin to discuss
whether we shall storm the hill, or launch out on the lake and
enjoy the glorious sensation of hooking some greedy pike,
or inhale the mountain's balmy breeze. We soon decide.
To-day, the hill is clear and robed in sunshine; to-morrow,
that rampart of Nature maybe wrapped in its misty mantle, and
the golden tints of to-day be chased away by to-morrow's