In the meanwhile these distinguished
personages bivouacked among the flowery heath, wrapped up in their
plaids, a mode of passing a summer's night which Waverley found by no
means unpleasant.
For many hours after sunrise the mountain ridges and passes retained
their ordinary appearance of silence and solitude, and the Chiefs, with
their followers, amused themselves with various pastimes, in which the
joys of the shell, as Ossian has it, were not forgotten. 'Others apart
sate on a hill retired,' probably as deeply engaged in the discussion of
politics and news as Milton's spirits in metaphysical disquisition. At
length signals of the approach of the game were descried and heard.
Distant shouts resounded from valley to valley, as the various parties of
Highlanders, climbing rocks, struggling through copses, wading brooks,
and traversing thickets, approached more and more near to each other, and
compelled the astonished deer, with the other wild animals that fled
before them, into a narrower circuit. Every now and then the report of
muskets was heard, repeated by a thousand echoes. The baying of the dogs
was soon added to the chorus, which grew ever louder and more loud.
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