SHAKSPEARE'S WITCH SCENE. 337 



convert your books and the " Superstitions " (can you 

 forgive me a wish so unpoetical ?) inta a great loaf, and 

 the arch into one of my Cromarty caves, that I might 

 kindle a fire in it, and take up my lodgings for the night. 

 I wish you had but seen the locale of Shakespeare's 

 witch scene, as it frowned upon me in passing, with 

 the old Castle of Inshoch, half enveloped in cloud and 

 mist, standing sentry over it. The black dismal morass, 

 with its inky pool and its white cannach, that showed 

 like tears on a hatchment, appeared still more black and 

 dismal through the blue-grey tints of the storm, and 

 the heavily-laden clouds went rolling over it like waves 

 of the sea. And then how the firs waved to the wind, 

 and the few scattered trees swung their branches, and 

 groaned and creaked ; the thunder and the witches were 

 alone wanting. You see, my dear madam, that though 

 I might, and would certainly have been happier in your 

 snug sheltered parlour at Forres, than when exposed to 

 a storm of wind and rain on the Hard-moor, my situation 

 was not quite without its little balance of advantage. 

 Bad as the day was, I would not now exchange my 

 recollection of it for that of many better ones. 



f I reached Fort George dripping wet a little before 

 three o'clock, and found among the passengers who were 

 waiting the ferry-boat a woman of Cromarty ; a poor 

 disreputable thing, who by making a false step in early 

 life, lost caste and drifted in consequence almost beyond 

 the pale of society. We kept company all the rest of 

 the way, and had a good deal of talk ; and I found, what 

 indeed I had often found before, that human nature, even 

 when at its worst, has always something good in it. 

 People often read the Scriptures amiss on this point, and 

 think, despite of an often-repeated experience, that be- 

 cause our species is there represented as thoroughly 



VOL. i. 22 



