Evan, a
little disconcerted at having missed his mark, when he meant to have
displayed peculiar dexterity, covered his confusion by whistling part of
a pibroch as he reloaded his piece, and proceeded in silence up the pass.
It issued in a narrow glen, between two mountains, both very lofty and
covered with heath. The brook continued to be their companion, and they
advanced up its mazes, crossing them now and then, on which occasions
Evan Dhu uniformly offered the assistance of his attendants to carry over
Edward; but our hero, who had been always a tolerable pedestrian,
declined the accommodation, and obviously rose in his guide's opinion, by
showing that he did not fear wetting his feet. Indeed he was anxious, so
far as he could without affectation, to remove the opinion which Evan
seemed to entertain of the effeminacy of the Lowlanders, and particularly
of the English.
Through the gorge of this glen they found access to a black bog, of
tremendous extent, full of large pit-holes, which they traversed with
great difficulty and some danger, by tracks which no one but a Highlander
could have followed. The path itself, or rather the portion of more solid
ground on which the travellers half walked, half waded, was rough,
broken, and in many places quaggy and unsound.
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