Turning in the direction from whence they proceeded, we met Captain Clavering and his companion, the exquisite Mr. Snobleigh, who had just succeeded in overtaking us, breathless, and in great anxiety for Sir Horace.
'It was in that direction Sir Horace was carried by his pony,' said the captain, pointing westward down the rocks.
'Dioul! that is straight for the linn of Glen-dhu-uisc (the glen of the black water), and if so, God save him!' added Callum, touching his bonnet, 'for his bones—before we find them—will have been picked white as china by the gled and iolar. However, let us do what we can, Mac Innon,' he added, hastening onward, his natural kindness of heart penetrating the crust of prejudice and animosity with which he had resolved to protect it from any emotion of sympathy for the new possessor of our lands.
'The mountain sheltie went like lightning,' said Captain Clavering; 'its hoofs struck fire from the rocks at every bound.'
'Aw—yes,' added his companion, the great head of the dynasty of Snobleigh; 'I daresay the poor baronet thought himself astride one of Scott's demmed water kelpies.'
The roar of the cataract, formed by the Uisc Dhu forcing its way through a chasm, and rolling over a ledge of rocks into Loch Ora, now broke the solemn stillness of the midnight hills. We reached a plateau of rock, which overhung the fall, and we felt it trembling and vibrating in the concussion of the waters, which roared and rushed in one broad, ceaseless, and snow-white torrent, into a deep dark pool below. Its height was startling; its sides bristled with ghastly rocks, and these were fringed by tangled masses of green shrubbery and wild plants. Glittering in the moonlight like dew, or a continual shower of revolving diamonds, the transparent foam arose from the profundity into which the descending waters bellowed, and beyond which they swept away round the mountain in placid silence, forming Loch Ora, where the black ouzel and the wild swan floated in the radiance of the summer moon.
Captain Clavering appeared to be impressed by this majestic scene, but his companion, a restless Londoner, prattled and talked, and ever and anon shouted 'Sir Horace!' in the voice of a peacock proclaiming rain.
'Stay; I hear something,' said I; 'it comes from yonder rock.'
'No, no,' replied Callum, hastily; 'do not say so—that is Sien Sluai (the dwelling of a multitude). Often when my father was benighted, he has seen lights glitter there, and heard the sound of music, dancing feet, and merry little voices.'
A moment after, we heard a lamentable cry, that was quite different from the echoes.