Illustrated Article.

THE LOVER'S LEAP.

A HIGHLAND LEGEND.
By Leitch Ritchie.

NEAR the village of Inverneith, in the north of Scotland, there is a lake which has only lately been subjected to the visits of the rhyming, story-telling travellers of the present day. The comparative obscurity in which it remained so long, was not owing to any deficiency in those attributes of beauty and sublimity which attract the real or pretended worshippers of Nature to her wildest shrines, but rather, I should imagine, to its remote and hidden situation. The unfrequent traveller, who was induced formerly to wander from the main road, to visit, from motives either of whim or business, the neighbourhood of Inverneith, returned, in most cases, without having become aware of the existence of the most remarkable object in its scenery; but occasionally a stranger, while wandering among the rugged and somewhat unsightly mountains of the 17-VOL. IV.

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neighbourhood, was startled into awe and admiration, by arriving suddenly at the borders of the unknown lake.

The spot, when seen at a little distance from any point of the compass, presents the appearance of a jungle of stunted fir, hazel, and mountain-ash; and the visitor, already tired with his clambering walk, is often glad to descend to the level of the earth, without encountering the additional obstacle; but when conducted, either by accident or love of adventure, through the skirt of trees, growing among masses of rock, that look like the ruins of some primeval edifice, he is surprised to find himself on the brink of a truly frightful gulf. A clear, cold, placid lake lies at the bottom, in an amphitheatre of rocks several hundred feet high. The descent is rugged and uneven, affording in one place, an avenue to the water not more inconvenient than a very steep stair-case; about the middle of which precipitous road, a leap of a few feet, to him who has a heart and head steady enough to perform the feat in such a situation, lands the adventurer upon a large level rock, from which he may view at his ease one

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of the most remarkable scenes he probably ever beheld.

The tabular rock we have just mentioned, juts out from this wall of nature in a very singular manner, resembling an artificial scaffold, but without support from beneath; and we believe there are few, even of the boldest visitors, who do not feel a thrill of terror as they look down from its edge into the smooth, black, dis tant waters below. While performing a feat, however, which custom has made indispensable, the timid or weak-headed tourist may grasp, with his left hand, à rugged point of the rock, which, rising gradually at one side from the wall, at tains near the outer edge the elevation of a man's breast. The name of the rock is the LOVER'S LEAP, and the point just mentioned is called the LADY'S GRIP. The former name is so common, that I at first despaired of arriving at any authentic legend appertaining to the spot; and the latter seemed to have been given merely with reference to the sex of the visitors most likely to make use of the support in looking over the precipice. Accident, however, threw me in the way of that

most valuable of village chroniclers-an old woman; and from her I learnt the following legend of the lake of the Lover's Leap, the circumstances of which I was surprised to find of comparatively recent date.

At the time I allude to, there lived near the village, in a house, the ruins of which are still standing, a family of the name of Gordon. The father of the then inhe ritor of the name had been a man of considerable importance in the neighbourhood. His lands were extensive, although consisting, in the greater part, of barren rocks and hills; and his moderate income arising chiefly from the precarious source of a sheep farm, was sufficient to place him at the head of the district in point of wealth. Moving along, however, I' hardly know by what steps, in the revo lution which seems to have swept this class of proprietors from the soil of Scotland, he gradually sunk from his eleva tion: the circle of his property became narrower every year; the sheep which had once whitened his native hills, spotted the heather like some lingering patches of show when the winter has departed; and,

at his death, the heir of the waning house found himself the possessor of little more than a few acres of heath and the barren title of Laird.

Having arrived at middle age, before his father's death, Mr. Gordon had witnessed the gradual decline of his family -which had been brought home to himself in particular, by many a token of pain and deprivation. The only male scion of the once stately tree, he had been fixed, as if by destiny, to the spot where he grew; seeing, no doubt, with a withering heart, the companions of his studies at the county town, launching one by one from the land upon some high and gallant course of adventure, and returning in later years to fertilise the hard soil of their country with the riches of the East and the South. Chained, like Prometheus, to his rock, with the vulture of pride gnawing his heart, a gloomy reserve was gradually superadded to the family hauteur which had been for many generations the characteristic of the Gordon brow. He shunned society, confined himself exclusively to the business of his farm, and the more arduous business of making the two ends of the year meet, by the most rigid economy; and contented himself with recognising the shadow, at least, of his former power in the traditionary respect of the peasants.

He was now a widower, with an only child growing up into a woman. It is said that when gazing on the lovely countenance of the young Marion, a glow of hope sometimes mingled with the father's pride; and he was observed to look around on the domain which had once been his own, with a certain inquietude of glance very different from the cold gravity of his usual manner.

Marion herself, as far as might be predicated from her early youth, was but little calculated to become the representative of a line of Highland chiefs. She was gentle, yet gay and inconsequent; careless of rank, kind and compassionate. She never wept but when her heart was stinted by her hand; and she never frowned at all. Of books she had few, of visitors none, her only business was the superintendance of a simple economy, and her only pleasure to give free play to the unquiet elasticity of fifteen, by bounding like a doe upon the hills, or flitting like a spirit among the rocks and precipices of the lakes. The latter favourite haunt, however, a few years before, had nearly solved the problem of the mortality of that dancing shape which was sometimes seen by the lowland traveller leaping from rock to rock, or skimming along the edge of precipices

which it made his head giddy and his heart sick but to measure at a distance with the eye.

While stooping to gather some wild strawberries which grew near the water's edge, her foot had slipped, and she fell with a sudden plunge into the lake. She had been alone as usual, and the hour was so early, that even the cattle which were accustomed to browse among the bushes on the distant summits of the precipice, had not yet repaired to their morning's meal. The waters closed over the solitary child, and it seemed as if she had been swept from the world without leaving so much as a vestige wherewith to trace her exit. It happened, however, that a boy, a few years older than herself, had already betaken him to his usual occupation of fishing, and at this moment lay upon a rock at a few yards distance, without motion or apparent consciousness. Startled by the plunge, the young fisher, with no higher feeling, it is to be presumed, than the instinct of a waterdog, jumped into the lake, dived, brought up the drowning girl, and placed her upon a ledge of the rock. He then wrung his hair, shook his tattered clothes, and springing to the place where he had left his fishing tackle, removed the ap paratus to another part of the lake without turning his head.

The hero of this exploit was the only child of a cotter in the neighbourhood, one of the few remaining dependants of the house of Gordon. The family were wretchedly poor, and owed a considerable part of their daily subsistence to the boy's fishing rod. Malcom was well qualified for the occupation to which he seemed to be destined. His temper was reserved and sullen, and his habits were so unsocial, that he had not a single companion in the village. He plied his solitary trade without either liking or disliking; lying whole days gazing upon the water, with no more apparent consciousness than if he had formed part of the rock. If his clothes were drenched with rain, the sun dried them again as it might; and if no sun appeared for the purpose, it did not much matter, for, on returning home in the evening, he threw the dripping rags before the fire, and crept naked into his bed of heath. With all the deprivations, notwithstanding, incidental to this mode of life, he had grown into a fine manly-looking boy; he was unusually tall and stout of his age; and although his complexion was a deep brown, his features were regular, and even handsome. A singular contrast, however, was observed in his dark eyes to the general air of sullenness, if not stupidity,