e was still
lying moored. When he reached the small projecting platform on which the
beacon had been established, he would have believed his further progress
by land impossible, only that it was scarce probable but what the
inhabitants of the cavern had some mode of issuing from it otherwise than
by the lake. Accordingly, he soon observed three or four shelving steps,
or ledges of rock, at the very extremity of the little platform; and,
making use of them as a staircase, he clambered by their means around the
projecting shoulder of the crag on which the cavern opened, and,
descending with some difficulty on the other side, he gained the wild and
precipitous shores of a Highland loch, about four miles in length and a
mile and a half across, surrounded by heathy and savage mountains, on the
crests of which the morning mist was still sleeping.

Looking back to the place from which he came, he could not help admiring
the address which had adopted a retreat of such seclusion and secrecy.
The rock, round the shoulder of which he had turned by a few
imperceptible notches, that barely afforded place for the foot, seemed,
in looking back upon it, a huge precipice, which barred all further
passage by the shores of the lake in that direction. There could be no
possibility, the breadth of the lake considered, of descrying the
entrance of the narrow and low-browed cave from the other side; so that,
unless the retreat had been sought for with boats, or disclosed by
treachery, it might be a safe and secret residence to its garrison as
long as they were supplied with provisions. Having satisfied his
curiosity in these particulars, Waverley looked around for Evan Dhu and
his attendants, who, he rightly judged, would be at no great distance,
whatever might have become of Donald Bean Lean and his party, whose mode
of life was, of course, liable to sudden migrations of abode.
Accordingly, at the distance of about half a mile, he beheld a Highlander
(Evan apparently) angling in the lake, with another attending him, whom,
from the weapon which he shouldered, he recognised for his friend with
the battle-axe.

Much nearer to the mouth of the cave he heard the notes of a lively
Gaelic song, guided by which, in a sunny recess, shaded by a glittering
birch-tree, and carpeted with a bank of firm white sand, he found the
damsel of the cavern, whose lay had already reached him, busy, to the
best of her power, in arranging to advantage a morning rep