Having Thus Duly Indoctrinated Sigurdr With The Sagas Of
The Family, As Soon As We Had Crossed The Lake I
Took
him up to the Castle, and acted cicerone to its pictures
and heirlooms, - the gleaming stands of muskets, whose
Fire wrought such fatal ruin at Culloden; - the portrait
of the beautiful Irish girl, twice a Duchess, whom the
cunning artist has painted with a sunflower that turns
FROM the sun to look at her; - Gillespie Grumach himself,
as grim and sinister-looking as in life. - the trumpets
to carry the voice from the hall door to Dunnaquaich; - the
fair beech avenues, planted by the old Marquis, now
looking with their smooth grey boles, and overhanging
branches, like the cloisters of an abbey the vale of
Esechasan, to which, on the evening before his execution,
the Earl wrote such touching verses; the quaint old
kitchen-garden; the ruins of the ancient Castle, where
worthy Major Dalgetty is said to have passed such uncom-
fortable moments; - the Celtic cross from lone Iona: - all
and everything I showed off with as much pride and
pleasure, I think, as if they had been my own possessions;
and the more so as the Icelander himself evidently
sympathised with such Scald-like gossip.
Having thoroughly overrun the woods and lawns of Inverary,
we had a game of chess, and went to bed pretty well tired.
The next morning, before breakfast, I went off in a boat
to Ardkinglass to see my little cousins; and then returning
about twelve, we got a post-chaise, and crossing the
boastful Loch Awe in a ferry-boat, reached Oban at
nightfall.
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