The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

THE HEART OF MID-LOTHIAN. 561
"but I suppose I must make the best on't.-Are you sure the boat will not
sink? it leans terribly to one side, in my poor mind."
"Fear nothing," said Mr. Archibald, taking a most important pinch of
snuff; "this same ferry on Clyde knows us very well, or we know it, which
is all the same; no fear of any of our people meeting with any accident.
We should have crossed from the opposite shore, but for the disturbances at
Glasgow, which made it improper for his Grace's people to pass through the
city."
"Are you not afeard, Mrs. Deans," said the dairy-vestal, addressing
Jeanie, who sat, not in the most comfortable state of mind, by the side of
Archibald, who himself managed the helm;-" Are you not afeard of these
wild men with their naked knees, and of this nut-shell of a thing, that
seems bobbing up and down like a skimming-dish in a milk-pail?"
"No-no-madam," answered Jeanie, with some hesitation, " I am not
feared; for I hae seen Hielandmen before, though I never was sae near
them; and for the danger of the deep waters, I trust there is a Providence
by sea as well as by land."
" Well," said Mrs. Dutton, " it is a beautiful thing to have learned to
write and read, for one can always say such fine words whatever should
befall them."
Archibald, rejoicing in the impression which his vigorous measures had
made upon the intractable dairymaid, now applied himself, as a sensible
and good-natured man, to secure by fair means the ascendency which he
had obtained by some wholesome violence; and he succeeded so well in
representing to her the idle nature of her fears, and the impossibility of
leaving her upon the beach, enthroned in an empty carriage, that the good
understanding of the, party was completely revived ere they landed at Roseneath.
Did Fortune guide,
Or rather Destiny, our bark, to which
We could appoint no port, to this best place?
LETCHER.
THE islands in the Firth of Clyde, which the daily passage of so many
smoke-pennoned steamboats now renders so easily accessible, were, in our
fathers' times, secluded spots, frequented by no travellers, and few visitants
of any kind. They are of exquisite, yet varied beauty. Arran, a mountainous region, or Alpine island, abounds with the grandest and most
romantic scenery. Bute is of a softer and more woodland character. The
Cumrays, as if to exhibit a contrast to both, are green, level, and bare,
forming the links of a sort of natural bar, which is drawn along the mouth
of the firth, leaving large intervals, however, of ocean. Roseneath, a
smaller isle, lies much higher up the firth, and towards its western shore,
near the opening of the lake called the Gare-Loch, and not far from Loch
Long and Loch Seant, or the Holy-Loch, which wind from the mountains
of the Western Highlands to join the estuary of the Clyde.
In these isles the severe frost winds, which'tyrannize over the vegetable
cration during a Scottish spring, are comparatively little felt; nor, excepting the gigantic strength of Arran, are they much exposed to the Atlantic
storms, lying landlocked and protected to the westward by the shores of
VOL. III.-36