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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