ong those rushes; I think the very deer that roamed in the streets of
Inneraora in the Novembers blast would have run far clear of so stricken
a territory. It must be horrible in snow, it must be lamentable in the
hottest days of summer, when the sun rides over the land, for what does
the most kindly season bring to this forsaken place except a scorching
for the fugitive wild-flower, if such there be?

These were not my thoughts as I walked on my way; they are what lie
in my mind of the feelings the Moor of Rannoch will rouse in every
stranger. What was in my mind most when I was not altogether in the
swound of wearied flesh was the spae-wife's story of the girl in
Inneraora, and a jealousy so strong that I wondered where, in all my
exhausted frame, the passion for it came from. I forgot my friends left
in Dalness, I forgot that my compact and prudence itself called for my
hurrying the quickest way I could to the Brig of Urchy; I walked in an
indifference until I saw a wan haze spread fast over the country in
the direction of the lower hills that edged the desert I looked with a
careless eye on it at first, not reflecting what it might mean or how
much it might lead to. It spread with exceeding quickness, a grey silver
smoke rolling out on every hand, as if puffed continually from some glen
in the hills. I looked behind me, and saw that the same was happening
all around. Unless I made speed out of this sorrowful place I was caught
in the mist Then I came to the full understanding that trouble was
to face. I tightened the thongs of my shoes, pinched up a hole in my
waist-belt, scrugged my bonnet, and set out at a deer-stalker's run
across the moor. I splashed in hags and stumbled among roots; I made
wild leaps across poisonous-looking holes stewing to the brim with
coloured water; I made long detours to find the most fordable part of a
stream that twisted back and forth, a very devil's cantrip, upon my
way. Then a smirr of rain came at my back and chilled me to the marrow,
though the sweat of travail a moment before had been on every part of
me, and even dripping in beads from my chin. At length I lifted my eyes
from the ground that I had to scan most carefully in my running, and
behold! I was swathed in a dense mist that cut off every view of the
world within ten yards of where I stood. This cruel experience dashed
me more than any other misadventure in all my wanderings, for it cut
me off, without any hope of speedy bet