Page:Footsteps of Dr. Johnson.djvu/324

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256
LORD JEFFREY AT TARBET.

"Point de bruit, ne troublez pas le sommeil du juge, respect à la loi; soyez heureux et partez." They had no help for it, but drove on with their weary horses through the night and the heavy rain to Tarbet, where they arrived between three and four next morning. There they found all the beds occupied by jurymen, who were on their way to Inverary. The landlady did what she could to make them comfortable, and gave them some good tea in a set of China cups which had been given her by the Duchess of Argyle.[1]

At Stuckgown, close to Tarbet, Lord Jeffrey for many years passed a few weeks of every summer, in a quietness and solitude which have for ever fled the place. Writing from Tarbet on August 5, 1818, he says: "Here we are in a little inn on the banks of Loch

ROSEDEW.
ROSEDEW.

ROSEDEW.

Lomond, in the midst of the mists of the mountains, the lakes, heaths, rocks, and cascades which have been my passion since I was a boy, and to which, like a boy, I have run away the instant I could get my hands clear of law, and review, and Edinburgh. They have no post-horses in the Highlands, and we sent away those that brought us here, with orders to come back for us to morrow, and so we are left without a servant, entirely at the mercy of the natives." He goes on to mention a steam-boat "which circumnavigates the whole lake every day in about ten hours. It was certainly very strange and striking to hear and see it hissing and roaring past the headlands of our little bay, foaming and spouting like an angry whale; but on the whole it rather vulgarises the scene too much, and I am glad that it is found not to answer, and

  1. Voyage en Angleterre, &c, i. 268.