Atrides overtops his head."

All around, as if topling, wave-like, over the outer edges of the
comparatively flat area of Palaeozoic rock which composes the middle
ground of the landscape, rose a multitude of primary hill-peaks, barely
discernible in the haze; while the long withdrawing Dingwall Frith,
stretching on towards the open sea for full twenty miles, and flanked on
either side by ridges of sandstone, but guarded at the opening by two
squat granitic columns, completed the prospect, by adding to its last
great feature. All was gloomy and chill; and as I turned me down the
descent, the thick wetting drizzle again came on; and the mist-wreaths,
after creeping upwards along the hill-side, began again to creep down.
When I had first visited the valley, more than a quarter of a century
before, it was on a hot breathless day of early summer, in which, though
the trees in fresh leaf seemed drooping in the sunshine, and the
succulent luxuriance of the fields lay aslant, half-prostrated by the
fierce heat, the rich blue of Ben-Wevis, far above, was thickly streaked
with snow, on which it was luxury even to look. It gave one iced
fancies, wherewithal to slake, amid the bright glow of summer, the
thirst in the mind. The recollection came strongly upon me, as the fog
from the hill-top closed dark behind, like that sung by the old blind
Englishman, which

"O'er the marish glides,
And gathers ground fast at the lab'rer's heel,
Homeward returning."

But the contrast had nothing sad in it; and it was pleasant to feel that
it had not. I had resigned many a baseless hope and many an idle desire
since I had spent a vacant day amid the sunshine, now gazing on the
broad placid features of the snow-streaked mountain; and now sauntering
under the tall ancient woods, or along the heath-covered slopes of the
valley; but in relation to never-tiring, inexhaustible nature, the heart
was no fresher at that time than it was now. I had grown no older in my
feelings or in my capacity of enjoyment; and what then was there to
regret?

I rode down the Strath in an omnibus which plies between the Spa and
Dingwall, and then walked on to the village of Evanton, which I reached
about an hour after nightfall, somewhat in the circumstances of the
"damp stranger," who gave Beau Brummel the cold. There were, however, no
Beau Brummels in the quiet village inn in which I passed the night, and
so the effects of the damp were wholly confined to m