Clifford.—That, indeed, was all you could do for the poor man, Archy; and the manner in which you did that little, together with all the sentiments that you have uttered regarding him, are enough to convince any one that you would not have scrupled to peril your life, if you could have thereby saved that of a fellow-creature, still more that of a friend.
Serjeant.—Thank you, sir, for your good opinion of me; but, as I said before, these matters are in the hand of God: and, whilst he allows the strong to perish, he can, if he so wills it, preserve the weakest. I remember an extraordinary circumstance that happened about eighteen or twenty years ago, which I may mention to you as an example of the truth of this observe of mine. Four women, who had been in the south country at the harvest, were on their return home over these mountains, when they were caught in a storm. The snow came on so thickly upon them, and the wind raised so great a land-drift, that they became bewildered, lost their way, and, after much wandering, they at last got into the ruins of an old bothy, near the side of the river Gairden, which runs, as I may tell ye, beyond those farther hills there to the south. By this time their shoes were worn off. They were without food—without all means of making a fire—and the cold came on so intense during the night, that the poor things were all frozen to death. There they were found in the morning by a party of smugglers, who had been early a-stir after their trade. The whole of the four women were cold and stiff. But the most wonderful, as well as the most touching circumstance of all was, that a female child, of about sixteen months old, was found alive, vainly attempting to draw nourishment from its mother’s breast. The poor woman’s maternal anxiety had enabled her to use precautions to keep her babe warm and in life, which she had failed to exercise for her own preservation. The child was taken charge of by Donald Shaw of Lagganall, and brought up by him under the name of Kirstock; and she afterwards went to service in Glen Livat, where——But mark me now, gentlemen! Here we are at Caochan-Seirceag, of which you heard so much from me in my Legend of the Clan-Allan Stewarts.
Clifford.—I see there are no trees here now, as you say there were in the days of Sir Patrick Stewart of Clan-Allan.
Grant.—The cliffs are fine though, and the ravine itself romantic. How comes it that some of these rocks are so brilliantly white? They absolutely shine like alabaster amid the dazzling radiance of that setting sun.
Author.—If I answer your question, it will draw me into a disquisition which may bring an attack upon us from Clifford, for prosing about geology to one another.
Grant.—Never mind him; he may shut his ears, if he likes.
Author.—Those brilliant streaks of alabastrine white, are nothing more than incrustations of calcareous stalactites, formed on those rocks of gneiss, by the evaporation of these trickling rills, the water of which holds lime in solution, probably derived from the little aquatic marl snail in the moss above, from which they drain themselves.
Clifford.—I’d advise you to think less of your alabastrine incrustations of calcareous stalactites on gneiss, and more of your necks and limbs, during this steep and somewhat hazardous descent, else you may evaporate like some of those trickling rills you are speaking of. These fellows you told us of, Mr. Serjeant, must have had some little difficulty in carrying the Lady Catherine down and up here. But tell me, I pray you, what is the meaning of the name of Caochan-Seirceag? for I know that all your Gaelic names of places are highly poetical and descriptive.
Serjeant.—The meaning of Caochan-Seirceag, sir, so far as I can make it out, is the rivulet of the beloved maiden.
Clifford.—Poetical in the highest degree!—Why, what scope does it not afford to the poet’s mind to fancy the ardour of the passion of the lovers who must have made the romantic bed of this rivulet their trysting place, as well as the beauty of the maiden by whose beloved image the youth thus happily chose to distinguish it—to imagine all the obstacles which the pure stream of their love may have encountered in its course, and of which this vexed and tortured little brook may have formed but too lively a type, until at length it glided into a peaceful channel, as this does in its passage across the green meadow yonder below! What a glorious poetical romance might be suggested by these rocks and rills!—Confound them!—I had nearly tumbled headlong over this slippery stone!—What a fall I should have had!