Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, Vol. 1 (of 2)

Wednesday, August 17th.--Left Longtown after breakfast. About half a mile from the town a guidepost and two roads, to Edinburgh and Glasgow; we took the left-hand road, to Glasgow. Here saw a specimen of the luxuriance of the heath-plant, as it grows in Scotland; it was in the enclosed plantations--perhaps sheltered by them. These plantations appeared to be not well grown for their age; the trees were stunted. Afterwards the road, treeless, over a peat-moss common--the Solway Moss; here and there an earth-built hut with its peat stack, a scanty growing willow hedge round the kail-garth, perhaps the cow pasturing near,--a little lass watching it,--the dreary waste cheered by the endless singing of larks.