It was the morning of a battle! Walter's first thought was of Lilian; his second of the prospects of victory. The dear image of Lilian made him rise superior to his fortune. Since they had so abruptly separated, he had never heard from her; and it was now many months. How long the time seemed! Amid his dreamy musings, the gentle expression of her face often came powerfully to his recollection, with, all the vigour of a deeply impressed vision; and recollection summoned the tones of her sweet voice to his heart like the memory of some old familiar air, and all the gushing tenderness of his soul was awakened. But with these remembrances too often came bitterness and despair, and he kissed with all a lover's fervour the scarf her hands had wrought him. Gleams of memory, and vivid visions of happiness, which he foresaw too surely could never be realized, made his heart swell alternately with tender recollections and joyous anticipations, that died away to leave him hopeless and despairing. Now they were on the brink of a battle which Walter welcomed with anxious joy, for it would be not less decisive as to the issue of his love, than for the fortune of James and the fate of the British people. It was a glorious morning in June; the purple summer heather, the long yellow broom, the wild briar and honeysuckle, that clambered among the basaltic cliffs, loaded the air with a rich perfume; while, through the savage and stupendous gorge of Killycrankie, the rising sun poured a flood of golden lustre, bringing forward in strong light the wooded acclivities of those sublime hills, that heave up to heaven their scaured and wooded sides, involving in dark shadow the deep rocky chasms, through which the foaming Garry rushes to mingle its waters with the rapid Tummel--chasms so profound, and hidden by the overhanging foliage, that the roar only of the unseen water was heard, awakening the echoes of the dewy woods and shining rocks. Nothing in nature can surpass the wild grandeur and imposing sublimity of this mountain gorge, the frowning terrors of which, in after years, so impressed a brigade of Hessians in the last of our Scottish wars, that they refused to penetrate what appeared to them to be the end of the habitable world. Save the mountain torrent foaming down from the lofty hills, appearing one moment to hurl its spray against the shining rocks, and urge masses of earth and stones along with it, and disappearing the next, as it plunged into the bosky woodlands,--all was still as death in that Highland solitude, when, in steadiness and order, Dundee drew up his little host at its northern verge, admirably posted on well-chosen ground, two miles from the mouth of the pass; the only road to his position being the ancient pathway that wound along the face of the precipitous cliffs, where the least false step threatened instant destruction even to the most wary passenger.