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 traveller's 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 unabated 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 it
was some very particular friend, Donald Bean Lean,32 the worthy person whom they
supposed to be possessed of the cattle, did not much approve of strangers
approaching his retreat. This seemed reasonable, and silenced a qualm