Skye, Island of (Scotland) -- Description and travel
The horrible idea that
we had lost our way, and were doomed to encamp on the heather, grew
upon us. On! on! We had walked six miles since our encounter with
the false Bare-legs. Suddenly we heard a dog bark; that was a sign
of humanity, and our spirits rose. Then we saw a troop of horses
galloping along the bottom of the glen. Better and better. "'Twas
an honest ghost, Horatio!" All at once we heard the sound of voices,
and Fellowes declared he saw something moving on the road. The next
moment M'Ian and a couple of shepherds started out of the gloom. At
sight of them our hearts burned within us, like a newly-poked fire.
Sincere was the greeting, immense the shaking of hands; and the story
of our adventures kept us merry till we reached the house.
Of our doughty deeds at supper I will not sing, nor state how the
toddy-jugs were drained. Rather let me tell of those who sat with us
at the board--the elder Mr M'Ian, and Father M'Crimmon, then living
in the house. Mr M'Ian, senior, was a man past eighty, but fresh and
hale for his years. His figure was slight and wiry, his face a fresh
pink, his hair like snow. Age, though it had bowed him somewhat, had
not been able to steal the fire from his eye, nor the vigour from his
limbs. He entered the army at an early age; carried colours in
Ireland before the century came in; was with Moore at Corunna;
followed Wellington through the Peninsular battles; was with the 42d
at Quatre Bras, and hurt there when the brazen cuirassiers came
charging through the tall rye-grass; and, finally, stood at Waterloo
in a square that crumbled before the artillery and cavalry charges of
Napoleon--crumbled, but never flinched! It was strange to think that
the old man across the table breathed the same air with
Marie-Antoinette; saw the black cloud of the French Revolution torn
to pieces with its own lightnings, the eagles of Napoleon flying from
Madrid to Moscow, Wellington's victorious career--all that wondrous
time which our fathers and grandfathers saw, which has become history
now, wearing the air of antiquity almost. We look upon the ground
out yonder from Brussels, that witnessed the struggle; but what the
insensate soil, the woods, the monument, to the living eye in which
was pictured the fierce strife? to the face that was grimed with the
veritable battle-smoke? to the voice that mingled in the last cheer,
when the whole English line moved forward at sunset? M'Ian was an
isle-man of the old school; penetrated through every drop of blood
with pride of birth, and with a sense of honour which was like a
second conscience. He had all the faults incidental to such a
character. He was stubborn as the gnarled trunk of the oak, full of
prejudices which our enlightenment laughs at, but which we need not
despise, for with our knowledge and our science, well will it be for
us if we go to our graves with as stainless a name. He was quick and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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