第68章

It frequently happens that the most beautiful points of Scottish scenery lie hidden in some sequestered dell, and that you may travel through the country in every direction without being aware of your vicinity to what is well worth seeing, unless intention or accident carry you to the very spot.This is particularly the case in the country around Fairport, which is, generally speaking, open, unenclosed, and bare.But here and there the progress of rills, or small rivers, has formed dells, glens, or as they are provincially termed, _dens,_ on whose high and rocky banks trees and shrubs of all kinds find a shelter, and grow with a luxuriant profusion, which is the more gratifying, as it forms an unexpected contrast with the general face of the country.This was eminently the case with the approach to the ruins of Saint Ruth, which was for some time merely a sheep-track, along the side of a steep and bare hill.By degrees, however, as this path descended, and winded round the hillside, trees began to appear, at first singly, stunted, and blighted, with locks of wool upon their trunks, and their roots hollowed out into recesses, in which the sheep love to repose themselves--a sight much more gratifying to the eye of an admirer of the picturesque than to that of a planter or forester.By and by the trees formed groups, fringed on the edges, and filled up in the middle, by thorns and hazel bushes; and at length these groups closed so much together, that although a broad glade opened here and there under their boughs, or a small patch of bog or heath occurred which had refused nourishment to the seed which they sprinkled round, and consequently remained open and waste, the scene might on the whole be termed decidedly woodland.The sides of the valley began to approach each other more closely; the rush of a brook was heard below, and between the intervals afforded by openings in the natural wood, its waters were seen hurling clear and rapid under their silvan canopy.

Oldbuck now took upon himself the full authority of cicerone, and anxiously directed the company not to go a foot-breadth off the track which he pointed out to them, if they wished to enjoy in full perfection what they came to see.``You are happy in me for a guide, Miss Wardour,'' exclaimed the veteran, waving his hand and head in cadence as he repeated with emphasis, I know each lane, and every alley green, Dingle, or bushy dell, of this wild wood, And every bosky bower from side to side.

* (Milton's _Comus._)

Ah! deuce take it!--that spray of a bramble has demolished all Caxon's labours, and nearly canted my wig into the stream --so much for recitations, _hors de propos._''

``Never mind, my dear sir,'' said Miss Wardour; ``you have your faithful attendant ready to repair such a disaster when it happens, and when you appear with it as restored to its original splendour, I will carry on the quotation:

So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore Flames on the forehead''--

* (_Lycidas._)

``O! enough, enough!'' answered Oldbuck; ``I ought to have known what it was to give you advantage over me--But here is what will stop your career of satire, for you are an admirer of nature, I know.'' In fact, when they had followed him through a breach in a low, ancient, and ruinous wall, they came suddenly upon a scene equally unexpected and interesting.