We afterwards walked out with him, to let him play at fishing again, and
discovered on the bank of the stream a wonderful oak, with as many as a
dozen holes springing either from close to the ground or within a foot or
two of it, and looking like twelve separate trees, at least, instead of
one.
INVERSNAID.
July 3d.--Last night seemed to close in clear, and even at midnight it
was still light enough to read; but this morning rose on us misty and
chill, with spattering showers of rain. Clouds momentarily settled and
shifted on the hill-tops, shutting us in even more completely than these
steep and rugged green walls would be sure to do, even in the clearest
weather. Often these clouds came down and enveloped us in a drizzle, or
rather a shower, of such minute drops that they had not weight enough to
fall. This, I suppose, was a genuine Scotch mist; and as such it is well
enough to have experienced it, though I would willingly never see it
again. Such being the state of the weather, my wife did not go out at
all, but I strolled about the premises, in the intervals of rain-drops,
gazing up at the hillsides, and recognizing that there is a vast variety
of shape, of light and shadow, and incidental circumstance, even in what
looks so monotonous at first as the green slope of a hill. The little
rills that come down from the summits were rather more distinguishable
than yesterday, having been refreshed by the night's rain; but still they
were very much out of proportion with the wide pathways of bare rock
adown which they ran.
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