'
And does your Chief regularly maintain all these men?' demanded
Waverley.
'All these!' replied Evan; 'aye, and many a fair head beside, that would
not ken where to lay itself, but for the mickle barn at Glennaquoich.'
With similar tales of the grandeur of the Chief in peace and war,
Evan Dhu beguiled the way till they approached more closely those huge
mountains which Edward had hitherto only seen at a distance. It was
towards evening as they entered one of the tremendous passes which
afford communication between the High and Low Country; the path, which
was extremely steep and rugged, winded up a chasm between two tremendous
rocks, following the passage which a foaming stream, that brawled far
below, appeared to have worn for itself in the course of ages. A few
slanting beams of the sun, which was now setting, reached the water in
its darksome bed, and showed it partially, chafed by a hundred rocks,
and broken by a hundred falls. The descent from the path to the stream
was a mere precipice, with here and there a projecting fragment of
granite, or a scathed tree, which had warped its twisted roots into the
fissures of the rock. On the right hand, the mountain rose above the
path with almost equal inaccessibility; but the hill on the opposite
side displayed a shroud of copsewood, with which some pines were
intermingled.
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