Thither love, yielding reluctantly at last to despair, has consented that the object on which all its wise solicitudes had for years been unavailably bestowed both night and day, should be rowed over, perhaps at midnight, and when asleep, and left there with beings like itself, all dimly conscious of their doom. To many such the change may often bring little or no heed--for outward things may have ceased to impress, and they may be living in their own rueful world, different from all that we hear or behold. To some it may seem that they have been spirited away to another state of existence--beautiful, indeed, and fair to see, with all those lovely trees and shadows of trees; but still a miserable, a most miserable place, without one face they ever saw before, and haunted by glaring eyes that shoot forth fear, suspicion, and hatred. Others, again, there are, who know well the misty head of Ben Lomond, which, with joyful pleasure-parties set free from the city, they had in other years exultingly scaled, and looked down, perhaps, in a solemn pause of their youthful ecstasy, on the far-off and melancholy Inch-Cruin! Thankful are they for such a haven at last--for they are remote from the disturbance of the incomprehensible life that bewildered them, and from the pity of familiar faces that was more than could be borne.
So let us float upon our oars behind the shadow of this rock, nor approach nearer the sacred retreat of misery. Let us not gaze too intently into the glades, for we might see some figure there who wished to be seen nevermore, and recognise in the hurrying shadow the living remains of a friend. How profound the hush! No sigh--no groan--no shriek--no voice--no tossing of arms--no restless chafing of feet! God in mercy has for a while calmed the congregation of the afflicted, and the Isle is overspread with a sweet Sabbath-silence. What medicine for them like the breath of heaven--the dew--the sunshine--and the murmur of the wave! Nature herself is their kind physician, and sometimes not unfrequently brings them by her holy skill back to the world of clear intelligence and serene affection. They listen calmly to the blessed sound of the oar that brings a visit of friends--to sojourn with them for a day--or to take them away to another retirement, where they, in restored reason, may sit around the board, nor fear to meditate during the midnight watches on the dream, which, although dispelled, may in all its ghastliness return. There was a glorious burst of sunshine! And of all the Lomond Isles, what one rises up in the sudden illumination so bright as Inch-Cruin?