Ben Wyvis, with its massive bulk, is in evidence everywhere here. It is about the third highest mountain in this land of mountain and flood, and there seems no getting rid of the giant Ben. It does not look so high as it is because it is nowhere peaked or coned like Ben Ledi, for instance.
Away they moved early one lovely, hard frosty morning, with the Ben to the left, sometimes seen, sometimes hidden by the dense woods they penetrated, past the romantic Falls of Rogie, and westward and north away.
Antony was a little anxious, however, about the weather. The wind was down. Hardly a breath moved the twigs. But strange banks of rock-like clouds began slowly to arise in the west. Like ships becalmed at sea, they were waiting for the wind. Even a little breeze would have sufficed to have carried them upwards and over the sky, obliterating the blue and bringing night and darkness on a full hour before its time. But that breeze came not for the time being; and as they champed their bits and jingled their harness—sweetest music to a gipsy's ear—the very horses seemed glad of the respite. But the country soon became lonesome in the extreme, and its aspect one of threatening dreariness. Never a soul did they meet on the road except one Highland shepherd with his dog and a few half-wild sheep. Antony pulled up his cavalcade to question this wiry old fellow, whose plaid was right over his head.
'What think you of the weather, my friend?'
And here is Donald's reply: 'Oh loshins! my good people, if it's going far you are, whip up your fine horses and make the quick and proper haste. For sure enough the snow will soon be down on you even more also. Get into shelter soon.'
'Much of a fall, think you, Donald?'
'Och, it may not be so much of a fall, my dear laddie, but it's the wild wind that will be roaring. The blizzard, the blizzard; and if it's only bits of English bodies you are, it will snow you up and smother ye!'
And so Donald went on with his shivering sheep and his hardy dog. It was but poor heartening he had left behind him. But there would be no going back.
About two miles farther on Antony could not help gazing uneasily at the moorland around him. It was very far as yet from the inn where they hoped to get stabling and a good pitch, and here there was shelter of no kind. But, above all, a low wind began now to sweep moaning over the veldt, the clouds had come up, had met the sun and obscured it, and, worse still, snow had begun to fall. Moreover, Antony was a fairly good student of nature, and knew that the little pellets that were now coming down, although no bigger than grains of mustard-seed, would soon be succeeded by huge dry flakes that would cover the ground inches deep in an hour and entirely impede progress. But in far less than that time, so thick was the storm, it was impossible to see many yards ahead. A milestone had not been visible for hours, nor was there a finger-post, and the force of the wind kept increasing almost momentarily.
Antony, like the good caravan-captain he was, sent his scout forward to prospect for a good place on which to draw up and form a gipsy laager. He was not long in returning. He had found just the spot, well sheltered by rocks on two sides. So Antony ordered him ahead to act as guide.