vanced up its mazes, crossing them now and then, on which occasions
Even Dhu uniformly offered the assistance of his attendants to carry
over Edward; but our hero, who had been always a tolerable pedestrian,
declined the accommodation, and obviously rose in his guide's opinion by
showing that he did not fear wetting his feet. Indeed he was anxious,
so far as he could without affectation, to remove the opinion which
Evan seemed to entertain of the effeminacy of the Lowlanders, and
particularly of the English.

Through the gorge of this glen they found access to a black bog, of
tremendous extent, full of large pit-holes, which they traversed
with great difficulty and some danger, by tracks which no one but a
Highlander could have followed. The path itself, or rather the portion
of more solid ground on which the travellers half walked, half waded,
was rough, broken, and in many places quaggy and unsound. Sometimes the
ground was so completely unsafe, that it was necessary to spring from
one hillock to another, the space between being incapable of bearing
the human weight. This was an easy matter to the Highlanders, who
wore thin-soled brogues fit for the purpose, and moved with a peculiar
springing step; but Edward began to find the exercise, to which he was
unaccustomed, more fatiguing than he expected. The lingering twilight
served to show them through this Serbonian bog, but deserted them almost
totally at the bottom of a steep and very stony hill, which it was
the travellers' next toilsome task to ascend. The night, however,
was pleasant, and not dark; and Waverley, calling up mental energy to
support personal fatigue, held on his march gallantly, though envying in
his heart his Highland attendants, who continued, without a symptom
of abated vigour, the rapid and swinging pace, or rather trot, which,
according to his computation, had already brought them fifteen miles
upon their journey.

After crossing this mountain, and descending on the other side towards a
thick wood, Evan Dhu held some conference with his Highland attendants,
in consequence of which Edward's baggage was shifted from the shoulders
of the gamekeeper to those of one of the gillies, and the former was
sent off with the other mountaineer in a direction different from
that of the three remaining travellers. On asking the meaning of this
separation, Waverley was told that the Lowlander must go to a hamlet
about three miles off for the night; for unless