nimal, is not life better than the best colt ever mare foaled?"

"And that is true too, mine honest friend," sighed Dalgetty; "yet if
you knew but the value of Gustavus, and the things we two have done and
suffered together--See, he turns back to look at me!--Be kind to him,
my good breechless friend, and I will requite you well." So saying,
and withal sniffling a little to swallow his grief, he turned from the
heart-rending spectacle in order to follow his guide.

To follow his guide was no easy matter, and soon required more agility
than Captain Dalgetty could master. The very first plunge after he had
parted from his charger, carried him, with little assistance from a few
overhanging boughs, or projecting roots of trees, eight foot sheer down
into the course of a torrent, up which the Son of the Mist led the way.
Huge stones, over which they scrambled,--thickets of them and brambles,
through which they had to drag themselves,--rocks which were to be
climbed on the one side with much labour and pain, for the purpose of
an equally precarious descent upon the other; all these, and many
such interruptions, were surmounted by the light-footed and half-naked
mountaineer with an ease and velocity which excited the surprise and
envy of Captain Dalgetty, who, encumbered by his head-piece, corslet,
and other armour, not to mention his ponderous jack-boots, found himself
at length so much exhausted by fatigue, and the difficulties of the
road, that he sate down upon a stone in order to recover his breath,
while he explained to Ranald MacEagh the difference betwixt travelling
EXPEDITUS and IMPEDITUS, as these two military phrases were understood
at Mareschal-College, Aberdeen. The sole answer of the mountaineer
was to lay his hand on the soldier's arm, and point backward in the
direction of the wind. Dalgetty could spy nothing, for evening was
closing fast, and they were at the bottom of a dark ravine. But at
length he could distinctly hear at a distance the sullen toll of a large
bell.

"That," said he, "must be the alarm--the storm-clock, as the Germans
call it."

"It strikes the hour of your death," answered Ranald, "unless you can
accompany me a little farther. For every toll of that bell a brave man
has yielded up his soul."

"Truly, Ranald, my trusty friend," said Dalgetty, "I will not deny
that the case may be soon my own; for I am so forfoughen (being, as
I explained to you, IMPEDITUS, for had I been EXPEDITUS, I mi