The whole of the muirlands—covered with short dry summer heather, the thickets of fir and the game preserves round the base of Ben Ora, from the mouth of the glen where we sat to the deep dark gorge of Garchoine, from the shore of the loch on the east to the hazel wood of Coilchro on the west, where the narrow path to St. Colme's chapel overhangs the foaming sea—a semicircle, as I have said, of sixteen miles—were sheeted in red and yellow flame. Above the mighty wreaths of smoke which rose from the blazing and falling plantations, and from the remains of old primeval forests, towered the huge mountain—the monarch of the western hills—like a dark and wonderous dome. At its base lay the loch gleaming in light, and seeming, in this nocturnal blaze, like a mighty mirror zoned by the smoke and fire, which gradually crept from the low districts upward to the summit of the craigs and hills, where it played in streaks of deep and fiery red, or flashed upward in forky and lambent flames before it died away in vapour.
In the deep and naked ravines, and those places over which the fire had passed, sweeping like a burning tide, the nests and lairs of the game, with every trace of animal and vegetable life, passed away, leaving only the bare black roots of the turf and heather, while vast columns of smoke hung motionless, like giants in mid-air as if the fires of the Day of Doom had sent them forth; and through these murky masses the broad round moon at times peered dimly and darkly out, like Fingal's shield, half hidden and half seen.
'Down, Mac Innon, down!' cried Callum, as a herd of terrified deer came rushing like a living torrent down a narrow ravine, which was threaded by a mountain stream, up the margin of which we were now ascending, as being the safest pathway through this land of fire: 'Hoigh! look at Mac Gilonie's dun cattle, how they come thundering down with the sparks at their heels!'
These words were barely uttered, when the frantic herd—three hundred and more—were upon us, with all their branching antlers lashing the air; but as we threw ourselves flat on our faces among the long bracken and dog-grass, this four-footed tempest swept lightly over us, and disappeared towards the seashore.
'There they go towards the Atlantic—dun deer and red foxes, fat hares and long-eared rabbits, fuimarts, otters, and everything! By the blood that is in us, Sir Horace, but it is mighty little shooting you or yours will have hereabout for these some years to come! The people have gone towards the sea, and your devilish game have followed them. But see,' added Callum; 'what is that—a man mounted on a deer?'
'No, no—a pony.'
'How he gallops! Dioul! my fine fellow, take care of your neck.'
'It is Snaggs!' said I.
'Snaggs—and he rides like fury—up hill too! now the pony falls—'
'He is down!'