These legends came across the mind of the clergyman, and,
solitary as he was, a melancholy smile shaded his cheek, as he
thought of the inconsistency of human nature, and reflected how
many brave men, whom the yell of the pibroch would have sent
headlong against fixed bayonets, as the wild bull rushes on his
enemy, might have yet feared to encounter those visionary
terrors, which he himself, a man of peace, and in ordinary perils
no way remarkable for the firmness of his nerves, was now risking
without hesitation.
As he looked around the scene of desolation, he could not but
acknowledge, in his own mind, that it was not ill chosen for the
haunt of those spirits, which are said to delight in solitude and
desolation. The glen was so steep and narrow that there was but
just room for the meridian sun to dart a few scattered rays upon
the gloomy and precarious stream which stole through its
recesses, for the most part in silence, but occasionally
murmuring sullenly against the rocks and large stones which
seemed determined to bar its further progress. In winter, or in
the rainy season, this small stream was a foaming torrent of the
most formidable magnitude, and it was at such periods that it had
torn open and laid bare the broad-faced and huge fragments of
rock which, at the season of which we speak, hid its course from
the eye, and seemed disposed totally to interrupt its course.
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