7^ THE DOOCOT CAVE. 169 



have been happy and indifferent, and no, not sad. And 

 now I am again with my friend, draw then your chair 

 a iittle nearer, and I shall tell you of my toils and amuse- 

 ments. I have been quarrying at Navity shore stones 

 for a house which my cousin Robert Ross is going to 

 build, and with my uncles and cousins have brought 

 home several boat-loads of them. You remember 

 Navity, with its rough bold shore, steep precipices and 

 sloping braes, so I need not tell you that there are few 

 places where he who labours is so ready to forget that 

 labour is a curse. Nor need I tell you how pleasant I 

 found it to sweep on the calm wave in a fine frosty 

 morning, past the rude bays and steep promontories of 

 the Gallow-hill, or how grand and awful the wide 

 caverns, rugged precipices, and wooded brow of that 

 hill appeared when our boat crept round its shores, 

 heavy laden in a clear moonshine night/ His amuse- 

 ments are principally verse-making and solitary walks. 

 He proceeds to describe one of the latter. ' I left the 

 house about four o'clock in the evening, passed along the 

 shore, climbed the rock at the dropping cave, descended 

 again, and in half an hour from my setting out found 

 myself at the Doocot Cave. I have attempted a 

 description of this cave and the surrounding scenery in 

 my Tale of Youth. I next struck a light, kindled my 

 torch, and proceeded to explore the cavern. Its depth 

 is a hundred and fifty feet, its height varies from eighteen 

 to twenty. Its sides are encrusted by a beautiful white 

 stone, resembling marble, and formed by springs of a 

 petrifying quality which ooze through its roof, while its 

 floor is composed of a damp mouldy earth, strewn over 

 with fragments of rock. In a clear day, from the height 

 and straightness of the cavern, the light penetrates to 

 its inmost recess, but as yester evening was dull and 



