When we stop for a few minutes, in order that I may gather wild flowers, the silence is very striking, only the distant treble of the bleating lamb far up the mountain side, and the answering cry of the dam.
Here we drive now, close under the shadow of a mountain cliff about two thousand feet high; and from the top cascades of white water are flowing.
My coachman marvels. Where on earth, he asks, do these streams come from? He knows not that still higher hills lie behind these.
Owing to our great height above the sea-level, the horses pant much in climbing. But the wind has got up, and blows keen and cold among these bleak mountains.
Shortly after leaving Dalnaspiddal, the road begins to ascend a mountain side, amidst a scene of such wild and desolate grandeur, as no pen or pencil could do justice to.
It was a fearful climb, with Bob running behind, for even his weight, 120 pounds, lightens the carriage appreciably; with the roller down behind an after wheel, and my valet and I pushing behind with all our might, the horses at long last managed to clamber to the highest point. I threw myself on a bank, pumped and almost dead. So were the horses, especially poor Corn-flower, who shook and trembled like an aspen leaf. On looking back it seemed marvellous how we had surmounted the steep ascent. To have failed would have meant ruin. The huge caravan would have effectually blocked the road, and only gangs of men—where in this dreary, houseless wilderness would they have come from?—could have taken us out of the difficulty.
Dalwhinnie Hotel is indeed an oasis in the wilderness. It is a hospice, and in railway snow-blocks has more than once saved valuable lives. Both master and mistress are kindness personified.
Here, near the hotel, is a broad but shallow river; there is a clump of trees near it too. Fact! I do not mean to say that an athlete could not vault over most of them, but they are trees nevertheless. The house lies in what might be called a wide moorland, 1,200 feet above the sea-level, with mountains on all sides, many of them covered with snow all the year round.
I started next day for Kingussie, six hundred feet below the level of Dalwhinnie, where we encamped for the night behind the chief hotel.
My dear cousin, Mrs McDonald, of Dalwhinnie, had come with me as far as this town, accompanied by some of her sweet wee children, and what a happy party we were, to be sure! We sang songs and told fairy tales, and made love—I and the children—all the way.