of those with us this evening, a handsome young man of two or three and twenty, sang to us some Gaelic songs.  The first, a very wild and plaintive air, was the expostulation of a girl whose lover has deserted her and married another.  It seems he is ashamed, and will not even look at her when they meet upon the road.  She implores him, if he has not forgotten all that scene of bygone love, at least to lift up his eyes and give her one friendly glance.  The sad crooning burden of the stanzas in which she repeats this request was very touching.  When the boatman had finished, he hung his head and seemed ashamed of feeling the song too much; then, when we asked for another, he said he would sing another about a girl that was happy.  This one was in three parts.  First, a tuneful address from a maiden to her absent lover; second, his reply, assuring her of his fidelity and tenderness; third, a strain which expresses their joy when reunited.  I thought this boatman had sympathies which would prevent his tormenting any poor women, and perhaps make some one happy, and this was a pleasant thought, since probably in the Highlands, as elsewhere,

  “Maidens lend an ear too oft
    To the careless wooer;
  Maidens’ hearts are always soft;
    Would that men’s were truer!”

I don’t know that I quote the words correctly, but that is the sum and substance of a masculine report on these matters.

The first day at Rowardennan not being propitious for ascending the mountain, we went down the lake to sup, and got very tired in various ways, so that we rose very late next morning.  Their we found a day of ten thousand for our purpose; but unhappily a large party had come with the sun and engaged all the horses, so that, if we went, it must be on foot.  This was something of an enterprise for me, as the ascent is four miles, and toward the summit quite fatiguing; however, in the pride of newly gained health and strength, I was ready, and set forth with Mr. S. alone.  We took no guide,—­and the people of the house did not advise it, as they ought.  They told us afterward they thought the day was so clear that there was no probability of danger, and they were afraid of seeming mercenary about it.  It was, however, wrong, as they knew what we did not, that even the shepherds, if a mist comes on, can be lost in these hills; that a party of gentlemen were so a few weeks before, and only by accident found their way to a house on the other side; and that a child which had been lost was not found for five days, long after its death.  We, however, nothing doubting, set forth, ascending slowly, and often stopping to enjoy the points of view, which are many, for Ben Lomond consists of a congeries of hills, above which towers the true Ben, or highest peak, as the head of a many-limbed body.

On reaching the peak, the night was one of beauty and grandeur such as imagination never painted.  You see around you no plain ground, but on every side constellations or groups of hills exquisitely dressed in the soft purple of the heather, amid which gleam the lakes, like eyes that tell the secrets of the earth and drink in those of the heavens.  Peak beyond peak caught from the shifting light all the colors of the prism, and on the farthest, angel companies seemed hovering in their glorious white robes.