Chapter 4

Through tops of the high trees she did descry
A little smoke, whose vapour, thin and light,
Reeking aloft, uprolled to the sky,
Which cheerful sign did send unto her sight,
That in the same did wonne some living wight.

SPENSER.

LUCY acted as her father's guide, for he was too much engrossed with his
political labours, or with society, to be perfectly acquainted with his
own extensive domains, and, moreover, was generally an inhabitant of
the city of Edinburgh; and she, on the other hand, had, with her mother,
resided the whole summer in Ravenswood, and, partly from taste, partly
from want of any other amusement, had, by her frequent rambles, learned
to know each lane, alley, dingle, or bushy dell,

And every bosky bourne from side to side.

We have said that the Lord Keeper was not indifferent to the beauties
of nature; and we add, in justice to him, that he felt them doubly when
pointed out by the beautiful, simple, and interesting girl who, hanging
on his arm with filial kindness, now called him to admire the size of
some ancient oak, and now the unexpected turn where the path, developing
its maze from glen or dingle, suddenly reached an eminence commanding
an extensive view of the plains beneath them, and then gradually glided
away from the prospect to lose itself among rocks and thickets, and
guide to scenes of deeper seclusion.

It was when pausing on one of those points of extensive and commanding
view that Lucy told her father they were close by the cottage of her
blind protegee; and on turning from the little hill, a path which led
around it, worn by the daily steps of the infirm inmate, brought them in
sight of the hut, which, embosomed in a deep and obscure dell, seemed
to have been so situated purposely to bear a correspondence with the
darkened state of its inhabitant.

The cottage was situated immediately under a tall rock, which in
some measure beetled over it, as if threatening to drop some detached
fragment from its brow on the frail tenement beneath. The hut itself was
constructed of turf and stones, and rudely roofed over with thatch, much
of which was in a dilapidated condition. The thin blue smoke rose from
it in a light column, and curled upward along the white face of the
incumbent rock, giving the scene a tint of exquisite softness. In a
small and rude garden, surrounded by straggling elder-bushes, which
formed a sort of imperfect hedge, sat near to the beehives, by the
produce of which she lived, that "woman old" whom Lucy had brought her
father hither to visit.

Whatever there had been which was disastrous in her fortune, whatever
there was miserable in her dwelling, it was easy to judge by the first
glance that neither years,