ACHIEVEMENTS. 225 



one of the loveliest showers imaginable a glorious, 

 soul- stirring, nerve-renewing thunder-plump ! Never 

 was one resolve so thoroughly dissipated for another 

 by this unexpected discharge of the element. We had 

 been waiting at Fort- William the arrival of one of the 

 steamers plying betwixt Inverness and Glasgow, with 

 the intention of joining her on her voyage south, when 

 the first wild peal burst down from Nevis, gathering in 

 the responses of a thousand lesser hills, recognizant all 

 of their chieftain's terrific slogan. 



May. Quite poetical grown, Mr. Wandle-weir ; thou 

 hast stocked a note-book with rhymes and images, I 

 venture to infer. 



Wandle. Nay, my humour was not so inclined. 

 But to proceed. Allowing the smoky conveyance 

 (a glimpse of whose tall funnel, walking the great 

 canal into Loch Eil, we had been so anxious for two 

 long days to obtain, and which, just as the last 

 shower-drop reached the earth, glided triumphantly 

 into view), allowing, I say, the murky water-coach to 

 wheel onward, out we danced, Herl-broke and my- 

 self (our friend Smoulter-jaws having waved his 

 adieus some days previous), toward Lochy-side, where, 

 at the distance of a stone's-throw above the castle, 

 we lit upon some shoals of princely sea-trout, fresh 

 from the brine. Of these, we took no less than 

 thirteen out of a single pool the largest weighing 

 upwards of four pounds, and as fleet, wary, and 

 nimble a fish, as ever line thwarted. But our good 



