Buildings of different kinds caught and reflected the wintry sunbeams of a December morning, and the woods, though now leafless, gave relief and variety to the landscape.

Brown felt that lively and awakening interest which taste and sensibility always derive from the beauties of nature when opening suddenly to the eye after the dulness and gloom of a night voyage.
Perhaps--for who can presume to analyse that inexplicable feeling which binds the person born in a mountainous country to, his native hills--perhaps some early associations, retaining their effect long after the cause was forgotten, mingled in the feelings of pleasure with which he regarded the scene before him.
'And what,' said Brown to the boatman, 'is the name of that fine cape that stretches into the sea with its sloping banks and hillocks of wood, and forms the right side of the bay ?' 'Warroch Point,' answered the lad.
'And that old castle, my friend, with the modern house situated just beneath it?
It seems at this distance a very large building.' 'That's the Auld Place, sir; and that's the New Place below it.

We'll land you there if you like.' 'I should like it of all things.

I must visit that ruin before I continue my journey.' 'Ay, it's a queer auld bit,' said the fisherman; 'and that highest tower is a gude landmark as far as Ramsay in Man and the Point of Ayr; there was muckle fighting about the place lang syne.' Brown would have inquired into farther particulars, but a fisherman is seldom an antiquary.

His boatman's local knowledge was summed up in the information already given, 'that it was a grand landmark, and that there had been muckle fighting about the bit lang syne.' 'I shall learn more of it,' said Brown to himself, 'when I get ashore.' The boat continued its course close under the point upon which the castle was situated, which frowned from the summit of its rocky site upon the still agitated waves of the bay beneath.