r,
Evan Dhu beguiled the way till they approached more closely those huge
mountains which Edward had hitherto only seen at a distance. It was
towards evening as they entered one of the tremendous passes which
afford communication between the High and Low Country; the path, which
was extremely steep and rugged, winded up a chasm between two tremendous
rocks, following the passage which a foaming stream, that brawled far
below, appeared to have worn for itself in the course of ages. A few
slanting beams of the sun, which was now setting, reached the water in
its darksome bed, and showed it partially, chafed by a hundred rocks,
and broken by a hundred falls. The descent from the path to the stream
was a mere precipice, with here and there a projecting fragment of
granite, or a scathed tree, which had warped its twisted roots into the
fissures of the rock. On the right hand, the mountain rose above the
path with almost equal inaccessibility; but the hill on the opposite
side displayed a shroud of copsewood, with which some pines were
intermingled.

'This,' said Evan, 'is the pass of Bally-Brough, which was kept in
former times by ten of the clan Donnochie against a hundred of the Low
Country carles. The graves of the slain are still to be seen in that
little corri, or bottom, on the opposite side of the burn--if your eyes
are good, you may see the green specks among the heather.--See, there
is an earn, which you Southrons call an eagle--you have no such birds
as that in England--he is going to fetch his supper from the Laird of
Bradwardine's braes, but I'll send a slug after him.'

He fired his piece accordingly, but missed the superb monarch of the
feathered tribes, who, without noticing the attempt to annoy him,
continued his majestic flight to the southward. A thousand birds of
prey, hawks, kites, carrion-crows, and ravens, disturbed from the
lodgings which they had just taken up for the evening, rose at the
report of the gun, and mingled their hoarse and discordant notes with
the echoes which replied to it, and with the roar of the mountain
cataracts. Evan, a little disconcerted at having missed his mark, when
he meant to have displayed peculiar dexterity, covered his confusion by
whistling part of a pibroch as he reloaded his piece, and proceeded in
silence up the pass.

It issued in a narrow glen, between two mountains, both very lofty, and
covered with heath. The brook continued to be their companion, and they
ad