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.
 

                              Chapter Forty-First

 Did Fortune guide,
 Or rather Destiny, our bark, to which
 We could appoint no port, to this best place?
                                                                       Fletcher.
 
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 Cumbrays, 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 tyrannise over the vegetable
creation 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 Ayrshire.
Accordingly,