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
Even 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. Sometimes the
ground was so completely unsafe, that it was necessary to spring from
one hillock to another, the space between being incapable of bearing
the human weight.
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