The road gets narrower now.
It cannot be more than nine feet at its widest. But the hills and the mountains are very beautiful; those nearest us are crimsoned over with blooming heather; afar off they are half hidden in the purple mist of distance.
All my old favourite flowers have disappeared. I cannot see even a Scottish bluebell, nor a red, nodding foxglove, only on mossy banks the pink and odorous wild thyme-blooms grow among the rocks, tiny lichens paint the boulders, and wherever the water, from some rill which has trickled down the mountain side, stops, and spreads out and forms a patch of green bog land, there grow the wild sweet-scented myrtle, and many sweetly pretty ferns. (The sweet gall, or candleberry myrtle.)
In some places the hills are so covered with huge boulders as to suggest the idea that Titans of old must have fought their battles here,—those rocks their weapons of warfare.
We must now be far over a thousand feet above the sea-level, and for the first time we catch sight of snow-posts, sometimes singly, sometimes in pairs.
The English tourist would in all probability imagine that these were dilapidated telegraph poles. They serve a far different purpose, for were it not for them in winter, when the ground is covered with snow, and the hollows, and even the ravines, are filled up,—were it not for these guiding posts, the traveller, whether on foot or horseback, might get off the path, and never be heard of or seen any more, until the summer’s sun melted the snow and revealed his corpse.
Toiling on and on through these mountain fastnesses, we cannot help wondering somewhat anxiously where we can rest to-night. Dalwhinnie, that sweetest spot in this highland wilderness, is still seventeen miles away. We cannot reach there to-night. A fall moon will rise and shine shortly after sunset—this is true, but to attempt so long a journey with tired horses, with so great a weight behind them, and in so rugged a country, would be to court an accident, if not destruction.
There is, about four miles ahead of us, a shooting lodge at Dalnacardoch. Yes, but they who live there may not consider hospitality and religion to be nearly akin. We’ll try.
“Pull up, Corn-flower.”
“Pull up, Pea-blossom.”